Unusual Florida: Chapter One

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Hope Fern was stiff. And bored. She fidgeted to the left, and immediately received a sharp reprimand from her sister.

“Don’t move!” Sherri shrieked. “You’re messing me up!”

Hope felt as frustrated as Sherri sounded, and she was tired of being yelled at. “I’ve been sitting here for hours,” she said, desperately wanting to reach up and twirl a strand of her light red hair around a finger. It was a nervous habit, one that she hated but couldn’t seem to break. She had sharply reminded herself not to do it several times during the past hour, resulting in her hand popping up and down like a nervous tic. This happened now as she forced her creeping hand back down into her lap, and was rewarded with yet another glare from Sherri.

“You have not,” her sister replied. “It’s only been an hour and a half, and I think I’m done now, anyway.”

“Thank God,” said Hope, instantly leaping up and stretching. “Let me see.” She crossed the room and peered closely at the canvas, momentarily lost for words.

“What do you think?” asked Sherri.

Hope found her voice. “What is it?”

“It’s you!” said Sherri. “What else would it be?”

“Why is my hair purple?”

Sherri scrutinized the painting. “Maybe I overdid it on the highlights,” she admitted. “I’m not real good with those yet.”

“What is that thing behind me?”

“The ocean.”

“Sherri, we’re in the middle of Colorado,” said Hope irritably. “There’s no ocean.”

“What was I supposed to paint as the background?” said Sherri. “The living room wallpaper? It’s a romantic setting.”

“What do you know about romance?” argued Hope. “You’re eleven years old.”

Sherri sniffed. “Fine,” she said. “You hate it. I’ll bet Mom will love it, though. You just have no eye for art.”

“Don’t bring Mom into this.” Hope was seriously doubting whether Sherri had an eye for art, either.

Two weeks in a painting class and she thinks she’s Michelangelo, she thought. Then, looking at the painting again, she amended that. Maybe Picasso would be a better comparison.

“Why not?” said Sherri. “Mom says you’re mean all the time because you just want to show off by going against people.”

“I don’t care what Mom says.”

“She told Daddy you were a problem child. I heard her.”

“Oh, shove it, you eavesdropping little creep,” Hope seethed, her hand finally winning its battle to get to her hair. She twirled a strand, trying hard to calm down. So what if she and her mom didn’t get along? Just because she didn’t subscribe to her mother’s exact way of thinking didn’t mean she was a “problem child.” Despite her best efforts irritation bubbled up within her, caused mostly by embarrassment that her little sister had overheard her parents having such a conversation.

And it was just like her to gloat about it, instead of showing any sort of sympathy or support for Hope. Now she would probably find some way to get Hope in trouble.

“I’m telling Mom!” Sherri wailed, right on cue. Hope knew the tears were fake. Sherri was quite the little actress, which meant she got her way more often than not. Before Hope could come up with something particularly nasty to call her sister (if, after all, she was going to get in trouble anyway, she might as well do it right), her older brother stormed into the house.

Charlie Fern was tall and skinny, with darker red hair than his sisters but the same blue eyes. He was also more heavily freckled, though many of the spots had faded over the winter. He wore wire-rim glasses, which were now sliding down his nose.

He looked sweaty, and very angry.

He kicked off his boots and sent them flying across the room, almost landing on the mat where the family stored its shoes. A clump of mud stuck to the bottom of one boot dropped off onto the beige carpet. Charlie ignored it and flopped onto the couch.

“What’s your problem?” asked Hope, attempting to stifle the annoyance in her voice. Charlie was the one family member she actually liked, as well as the only one who did not fit the old adage that redheads had hot tempers. She was much closer to him than to Sherri, despite her having to share a bedroom with the little brat for the last eleven years. Charlie hardly ever got angry, which meant that now something was genuinely wrong.

He muttered something, his head hidden in his hands.

“What?” asked Sherri. She, too, had abandoned the argument with her sister for this more interesting development of events.

“Dad,” said Charlie, looking up.

“What about him?” asked Hope, though she thought she knew.

“Needed help with the car,” said Charlie. “Volunteered me. Messed it all up, naturally.”

Hope knew her brother well enough to put together that her father had wanted help fixing the car, but Charlie had made so many mistakes that he’d been banished back into the house. Charlie tended to drop the subjects of his sentences when he got upset, making it difficult for some people to understand him. He also happened to be painfully clumsy, and was apt to choke under pressure. The car incident had happened before, along with the tractor incident, and the VCR incident, and the toaster incident . . .

Sherri smirked. “You mess up all the time,” she said. “So why’s it bothering you now?”

Charlie glared.

“Is that all?” asked Hope, trying to steer the conversation away from Sherri’s rudeness.

“No,” said Charlie, calming somewhat. “Told him what I really thought of our summer trip. He got mad.”

“What?” Hope scowled. “To that stupid resort in Florida?”

“Yeah,” said Charlie. “Needless to say, I don’t really want to go. Do you?”

Hope shrugged. “As far as Florida goes, we could do worse. I suppose it’s better than sitting around here all summer.”

It had only been a couple of months ago that Hope’s parents had revealed their plans for a big summer vacation, six weeks at a resort in northern Florida. Hope’s father had once been a coworker of the resort owner, and the family had been personally invited to stay at a significant rate discount. The family was puzzled that a man only one of them barely knew was so eager to get them to come to the resort, but it was not an opportunity they wanted to turn down.

Except for Charlie. Sherri was excited, Hope approached the whole thing with a timid optimism, but Charlie had been set against the idea from the beginning.

“It’s our last summer in this house!” he’d argued. “I’ve been here my whole life, and now you’re saying I won’t even be able to spend our last few months here in the house?”

Hope understood somewhat. Charlie was not fond of change, and moving from their cozy home in Constance, Colorado, to a small apartment in Trenton, New Jersey was really not a situation anyone would have chosen to be in. But Hope’s dad promised that it was temporary, that the family would move out of the city as soon as they had the time to find a nice house in a suburb somewhere. It was difficult to find a decent place right away, he’d said, when one’s office suddenly decided to relocate its workers to the other side of the country on such short notice. Hope believed him, and she wasn’t nearly as sentimental about leaving the house as Charlie was. Born and raised in Colorado, it was true, but Hope had never liked Constance. She felt her high school alone could qualify as having the most idiots per capita in the country, not to mention the rest of the town. New Jersey was a new start. Hope was a fan of new starts. It had been her experience that most new beginnings led to bad middles and ends, but she figured that if she had enough new starts she would eventually find one that was permanent.

But Hope had a feeling Charlie wasn’t reacting so strongly against the trip just because he was nostalgic for the home he’d grown up in. There was something else going on, and Hope thought she knew what it was. But not in a million years would she mention anything about that in front of Sherri.

“Stupid resort, stupid Florida, stupid trip,” Charlie continued muttering. “Not even allowed to spend my last summer here . . .”

“I’m excited,” stated Sherri. “I’ve never been to Florida.”

“We all know how you feel,” said Hope. “And just because . . .”

Fortunately, before Hope could say anything she might come to regret, Charlie spotted the painting Sherri had just finished.

“What in God’s name is that?” he asked, eyes wide.

“It’s Hope!” cried Sherri. “Any idiot can see that!”

“Why is her hair purple?”

“Argh!” Sherri shrieked. She whirled around, grabbed her painting, and stormed out of the room, no doubt, Hope figured, to show it to their mother, who would most likely praise it and soothe Sherri’s feelings by telling how she was the better daughter, not like Hope, the Disappointment.

“You’re all so predictable,” Hope muttered.

“What’s that?”

She’d almost forgotten Charlie was still in the room. “Nothing,” she said, turning to face him. “So tell me, is it because of Veronica?”

He froze. “What are you talking about?”

She knew it. “I was right. You think you still have a chance with her, and that’s why you don’t want to go on this trip.”

“I don’t . . . I’m not . . .” he sputtered.

Hope smiled, just a little. “Promise me you’ll never play poker,” she teased. “You wouldn’t last five minutes.”

#

Dinner that night was the typical quiet affair it had been for as long as Hope could remember. Her mother forbade all but the most banal comments at the dinner table, because in Hope’s family, conversation led almost inevitably to disagreement, then to argument, then to one or more of the siblings being sent to their room while their mother fumed and popped antacid tablets like they were candy.

“I just can’t take controversy while eating,” Hope’s mother had said once. “It gives me all kinds of indigestion.”

That night, however, was rare in that Hope’s father was actually home to eat with his family. He sat at the head of the table, not speaking. He had not exchanged looks with his wife once since coming home, which Hope figured was a good thing because when her parents exchanged looks, it meant one or more of the kids had done something wrong. Hope knew it wasn’t exactly healthy that the only thing that kept her parents talking to each other was mutual disappointment in one of their offspring, but staying under her mother’s radar was a more immediate concern.

But there were no glances tonight. So far, so good. Grace was said before the meal, a tradition that Hope’s mother insisted on, and the usual pleasantries exchanged before everyone became focused on their food. Hope, with false regret in her voice, told her mother that, no, school report cards hadn’t come yet, and no, she didn’t know when they would. Sherri prattled on about her painting to her father, who nodded occasionally and didn’t listen to a word she said. Charlie kept shifting around in his seat, obviously wanting to bring something up but not daring to. Dinner was almost over before he finally succumbed.

“I was thinking, I could stay over at Matt’s this summer. I’m sure his parents wouldn’t mind, and then the rest of you could all go to Florida while . . .”

Hope’s father put down his fork and looked at Charlie, the first sign of interest he’d had in any member of his family all night. “Charles. We’ve been through this.”

“But it isn’t fair. I’m sixteen and I don’t need to spend all my time with the family. I have friends here, and this summer is the last opportunity I’ll have to see them. I can spend as much time as I want with you guys, but in a few months I probably won’t ever have a chance to see any of them ever again.”

“Charles.” Hope’s mother had also put down her fork. She exchanged a glance with her husband, and Hope wasn’t sure whether to cringe or be thankful that she wasn’t their target this time. “The dinner table is not the appropriate place for this discussion.”

“Nowhere is the place for this discussion, Brenda,” said Hope’s father. “He and I have already talked about this. The answer was and still is ‘no.’ The whole family is going to Florida, and that’s final.”

Charlie opened his mouth again, but closed it. Looking defeated, he resumed eating, and the dinner table regained its air of quiet discomfort. Charlie quickly finished his food, asked to be excused, and practically fled from the room when his mother nodded her consent.

“So,” said Hope’s father, “how’s summer vacation been for you girls so far?”

“Better than school,” muttered Hope. Her mother frowned at her.

“We’ve only been out for two days, daddy,” Sherri giggled. “Tomorrow Katie and I are going to the pool.”

“I see,” said Hope’s father, smiling widely. “And you, Hope? Are you going with them?”

“Why on Earth would I do that?”

“Hope,” said her mother warningly.

“I don’t swim,” Hope amended quickly. “I think I was ten the last time I got a new bathing suit.”

“I was only asking,” her father said.

Hope looked at her food, ashamed. She didn’t want to alienate her father. He was still occasionally on her side, when he was home and not worried about work.

“When are we going to Florida?” she asked quickly. “Couple of weeks, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said her father, brightening again. “Are you looking forward to it?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Hope. “I’ve never been to Florida.”

#

Two weeks passed quickly, and it wasn’t long before Hope and her siblings were prodded to begin packing for their trip. Sherri finished her packing a full three days before they were due to leave. Charlie hemmed and hawed, complained, and tried to find some way to convince his parents to let him stay with a friend, but in the end he, too, was finished with his packing by the time his mother came around to inspect their luggage.

Hope had not packed a thing.

She wasn’t trying to disobey her mother this time, but somehow the hours got away from her. It was summer vacation and she wasn’t really doing anything. She wasn’t in any community activities, she was too young for a job, and her friends . . . well, that didn’t really bear thinking about. Her friends were unavailable, anyway. But she read a lot, and took long bike rides out into the country, and played games on the family computer after curfew and before bedtime.

She was changing the batteries in her portable CD player when her mother appeared at the door and demanded to see her luggage.

“My luggage?” Hope asked, taken by surprise.

“Yes, your luggage. I told you to pack three days ago.”

“Oh, that,” said Hope. “I’ll get it done. I’ve just got to throw some clothes in the suitcase, and I’ll be all ready to go.”

“You haven’t started?”

The question was deceptively quiet, but Hope knew her mother. She turned and looked at her, noticing for the first time that her mother looked livid. Her gray eyes were full of anger, her lips pinched so tight they were hardly visible. Hope took an involuntary step back. “I’ll do it now,” she said quickly. “I’m doing it right now, see?” She opened one of her dresser drawers.

“But I told you to do it three days ago,” said her mother. “Sherri got it done. Charlie got it done. Why haven’t you?”

“I’m doing it now,” Hope insisted. She threw a couple shirts onto her bed and made a move for her closet, where her suitcase was stored.

“No,” snapped her mother. “I’ll do it, since you obviously can’t do it for yourself.”

“No!” said Hope. “I’m doing it now! Look, I’ll do it, please, Mom, please, let me do it!” Tears welled up in her eyes as her mother stormed around her room, opening drawers and muttering.

“You’re fifteen years old, Hope,” she lectured loudly. “And I still have to pack for you. I don’t know what you’re going to do when you move out. You obviously wouldn’t stand a chance at taking care of yourself.”

“Mom!” wailed Hope. “Please!”

“All you’ve done since you got out of school is laze around the house and expect me to do everything for you. You don’t ever give a thought to other people, you’re ungrateful . . .”

“I’m not, Mom, I’m not!” said Hope. “I’ll do it! Please, just . . . don’t do this!”

Her mother stopped rooting around in Hope’s closet and looked at her. “You’ll do it? When? It’s nearly midnight, young lady, and we have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Why? We can leave any time.”

“The bus leaves at eight.”

Hope froze. “Bus?”

“Yes.”

“I thought we were driving?” Hope hadn’t particularly looked forward to being in the car from Colorado to Florida, but her parents didn’t want to spend the money on airfare. She’d resigned herself to sharing the backseat of the family station wagon for two whole days with Sherri, though. A bus was . . . this was bad. She couldn’t stand buses. They made her sick.

“Your father is taking the car,” her mother sniffed.

“What are you talking about? He’s not driving by himself!”

Her mother slammed Hope’s suitcase on the bed. Her words came clipped and fast. “Your father isn’t coming with us. He says he has to go to New Jersey.”

“What?” cried Hope.

“Don’t ask me,” said her mother. “Months of planning and now he wants to bail and leave me all alone with the three of you. I won’t spend the money to rent a car, and I won’t drive all the way to Florida with the three of you.”

“But Charlie just got his license . . .”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “I will not ride in a car Charlie is driving. He doesn’t have the experience or the responsibility to undertake a cross-country road trip.” Her voice softened a little as she finally seemed to see the tears in Hope’s eyes. “I know you don’t like buses, Hope, but I don’t know what else to do. It won’t be that terrible.”

“Why does Dad need to go now? Can’t he talk to the people at his company? Ask them to postpone for a couple weeks at least?”

“I don’t know,” said her mother. “Maybe because he’s not taking the trip for his company.”

“What does that mean?”

Her mother turned to her suddenly, seeming startled. “Nothing,” she said quickly, the hard edge coming back into her voice. “Finish packing. We’ve got to go up to Colorado Springs in the morning to catch the bus, and I want you all ready to go by seven. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” said Hope. She watched her mother leave and sat down on her bed, fingering an old pair of shorts that had been strewn across it. Her father’s timing couldn’t have been worse. They had been planning this for months, so how could he let his boss get away with sending him all the way across the country now? Unless her father had planned it this way, to get out of the trip . . .

No. He had been too adamant about the whole family going and spending time together. The idea that he had been lying the whole time was ridiculous. Hope lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling, her thoughts whirling.

She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until she heard the pounding on her bedroom door. At first she couldn’t distinguish it from her dream, in which several of her classmates from the previous year of school were taunting her because her parents were getting divorced, her family was falling apart. One, a particularly nasty, snobby girl named Lily, started to laugh so hard that she fell and was pounding the ground with her fists, each bang becoming louder as she shrieked with pleasure and amusement at Hope’s humiliation.

“Hope!” shouted a voice from outside her dream.

She sat up suddenly, startled, and was horrified to see that it was daylight. She was still dressed from the night before, and her clothes were still scattered across her room. She fumbled for her watch, which was usually on her bedside table, but her hands ran across nothing.

“Hope!” came the voice again. It was Charlie. And, almost like he’d read her mind, he yelled, “It’s nearly seven! Sherri’s crying, Dad’s ticked, and Mom’s furious with everyone! Get your stuff down here!”

He wasn’t giving her much incentive to move from her bed. She looked around, panicking, and started throwing the rest of her clothes into the suitcase. What else did she need? Hairbrush and hair ties. Toothbrush. Lots and lots of reading material. CD player and headphones. She threw item after item into her suitcase, not caring that it was completely disorganized. She grabbed her old school bookbag and started shoveling CDs and books into it. She grabbed her small makeup case even though she rarely wore makeup, and tossed it in with all the rest. Charlie had stopped pounding on her door.

She hastily pulled her hair into a ponytail, not bothering to brush it. There was time to do that during the ride to Colorado Springs. She pulled her sandals on and, five minutes after being awakened by her brother, opened her bedroom door and strode down the stairs into the living room, lugging her bulging suitcase.

Charlie was waiting at the foot of the stairs. His eyes popped at the suitcase. “What have you got in there?”

“It’s not as much as it looks,” said Hope. “It’s just . . . not very organized. Where’s Mom?”

“About to leave without us,” said Charlie. “She was so mad earlier. Be thankful you missed breakfast.”

“It won’t matter,” said Hope, following Charlie out to the garage, where her mother, upon seeing them, reached over Hope’s father in the driver’s seat and blasted the horn. “She’s going to chew me out, anyway. You know better than to think . . . would she stop doing that? We know we’re supposed to get in the car!”

#

The drive was silent, except for Hope’s mother’s occasional rantings against her wayward elder daughter. Hope sat in the backseat on the driver’s side, so that her mother could periodically turn around and yell at her some more. She didn’t listen to what was being said. She’d heard it a million times before, and she didn’t care anymore. Let her mother rant and rave. Nothing new there.

They reached the bus station only a few minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave, and Hope’s mother practically threw them all out of the car, snapping at them the entire way. Even Sherri was not immune from her mother’s temper this morning.

Hope’s father leaned out the car window. “You guys take care,” he said in a falsely cheerful tone. “Remember, I’ll be down to join you in a couple weeks or so. Have fun.”

Hope waved at her father to show him that not everyone in the family hated him. In her mind’s ramblings the night before she had decided that accompanying her father on a business trip to New Jersey, which would no doubt be boring, would nonetheless be preferable to sitting in a public bus for the next twenty-six hours surrounded by complete strangers. And her mother. She had almost asked him if she could go with him, but hadn’t because she knew what his answer would be, and asking would draw even more of her mother’s wrath. Hope knew her parents hadn’t gotten along in several months, pretty much since her father had announced his company was forcing him to transfer all the way across the country. She worried at night sometimes if her parents would get a divorce. But that was a silly thought, wasn’t it? Her parents didn’t constantly fight, just once in awhile. And as soon as they moved, everything would be back to normal. Hope told herself she was sure of it.

Hope’s mother hustled her children onto the waiting bus. It was, Hope noted thankfully, not very full. She took a seat in the back, near the tiny restroom in case she had to get in there fast. Charlie sat next to her, and Sherri and her mother sat in the seat directly across the aisle.

“You want the window seat?” Hope asked her brother. “I think I’m just going to close my eyes and listen to some music. Looking out the window makes me sick.”

“Sure,” said Charlie, and they switched. Across the aisle Sherri was fidgeting as her mother tried to wipe something off her face. A couple more people got on the bus, but Hope ignored them. She fumbled around in her bookbag, selected a CD, and put on her headphones. Leaning back and closing her eyes as the music came on, she felt the shift in the rumbling of the bus that meant the driver had put it into gear, and the small jolt as it started to move. She took a deep breath, and promised herself she would not get sick.

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