Remembering Raquel Read online

  Ned and Paul would mock me something terrible. They'd point out that Raquel was about as big as all the other girls I'd asked, rolled into one.

  Which she wasn't. Not exactly.

  And that's how my friends would react.

  Still, I thought of how Raquel had come over every evening for two whole weeks. Made math fun. And understandable. The morning of the exam, she gave me a little white feather and told me that as long as I held on to it, I would ace the test; and that—in a pinch—I could also use the feather to make me fly.

  I'd actually walked into the test grinning. The only bad thing was Paul had asked me why. When I'd tried to explain, he'd gone "Huh?" So I'd had to spell it out: "You know, like Timothy Mouse giving Dumbo the feather for his self-confidence." And Paul had said, "Yeah? You've got the big ears for it, but which one of you really looks most like Dumbo?"

  But, feather or tutoring, I'd gotten an 89 and passed the test and graduated with all my friends.

  I still have that feather—somewhere.

  I thought of Erin rejecting me because I wouldn't look good enough in the photographs.

  "Maybe," I told Mom.

  That was last week. And I was, seriously, thinking of inviting Raquel to the spring formal.

  Raquel's Blog

  Welcome, traveler to Gylindrielle's World.

  Things I like:

  • Sword of Mawrth (Of course—Sword of Mawrth is part of my world as Gylindrielle. But Gylindrielle's World is kinder gentler greener; and happier than the Sword of Mawrth world. No running amuck with swords or barbed weapons, or even barbed tongues allowed. No denizens of Hades welcome. In Gylindrielle's World, all friends are true, and all food is nonfattening. Dragonflies are intelligent and friendly, birds don't poop, corners are not sharp, Christmas is never disappointing, and root beer is free.)

  Hmm, I'm having trouble thinking of anything else I like. I'll have to come back to this. Meanwhile, let's move on to:

  Things I hate:

  • mean people

  • homework

  • homework assigned by mean teachers

  • hospitals

  • hospital workers who are mean

  • snack food that tries to pretend it's not that bad for you by labeling for impossibly small servings—like: 3 potato chips. Yeah right.

  • weather that's too cold (meaning below 68 degrees)

  • weather that's too hot (meaning above 72 degrees)

  • hairdressers that don't listen to what you want—for example, Julie at the Hair Emporium: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

  • mosquitoes that whine in your ear at night. I mean, if you're going to suck my blood, go ahead and do it. When I'm in bed, I'm too tired to try to find you anyway. But must you gloat and keep me awake?

  • oh yeah—and did I mention MEAN PEOPLE?

  So, welcome to my world. Feel free to look at my drawings. (Each one is labeled as to medium, and if there's a story behind it.) Feel free to comment, but only if you have nice things to say. Am I telling you that I'm the kind of person who only wants to hear good things about herself? Well, duh! I'm guessing you are, too—but maybe you're just too shy to admit it.

  A special welcome to everyone from the Sword of Mawrth boards. I am ALWAYS ready to talk about the game.

  Meanwhile, if you've got no life of your own and you've got time to kill, go ahead and read my ramblings.

  POSTED 3 DAYS AGO:

  TUESDAY/08:03PMEDT

  Our school is having a big dance next week. I don't know why I got it into my head that it might be fun to go. I mean, it's not like I can dance, or like I want to spend even MORE time with my classmates than I am legally mandated to by New York State, or like I'm into the music the rest of the people my age listen to and talk about, or like I want to hear ANY music at a volume that has been scientifically verified to liquefy a human brain so that you can't carry on an intelligent conversation but are reduced to that horror-of-all-horrors: SMALL TALK.

  • "Lively music, huh?"

  • "Good snacks, huh?"

  • "I like what you did with your hair No, I said hair. HAIR. HAIR. Never mind."

  So why did I want to subject myself to that? Maybe I have a brain tumor that has skewed my ability to reason. But something got me thinking that it might be fun, and something got me thinking that maybe someone would ask me to go, and then something got me thinking that it's only a week off. Maybe—can it be possible?—maybe NO ONE will invite me after all, and if I'm to go, I'll have to go unescorted. Solo. By myself. Wallflower Dead meat. Women and small children, avert your eyes from the sight. But at least then I won't have to worry about the dreaded SMALLTALK. Because in all likelihood NO ONE will talk to me anyway I can keep those deep thoughts about the music and the food and anybody's hair to myself.

  I have come to a conclusion—and at the same time I have a newly formulated GOAL in LIFE. Next time Mrs. Bellanca assigns one of those essays she's so enamored of, I can submit this:

  ***

  WHAT I SEE FOR MY FUTURE

  by Raquel Falcone

  I will never have a boyfriend, so I will no longer obsess. Instead, I will take in stray cats for companionship. I will become the prototypical CAT LADY every neighborhood has (or should have). I will specialize in ugly or deformed cats, but—since they have had a hard enough life as it is—I will not have them neutered or spayed. (The little critters need to have some fun.) This, of course, will result in more cats, which is fine because my short-term goal is to make myself a nuisance to my neighbors with offending smells, noise, and clutter Eventually I will die, but since I have no friends to care about me, no one will notice, and my cats will feed upon my body. Which brings me to my long-term goal: contributing to what the Walt Disney Studios Philosophy Department has so eloquently termed The Circle of Life.

  THE END

  Feel free to comment.

  ©current mood: cranky, with dramatic overtones of self-pity

  Responses to this thread:

  TUESDAY/08:27 PMEDT

  COMET GIRL: Comment? Comment? Several fallacies there, Raquel, including that—if you will recall—I taught you how to dance when we were in 4th grade. Don't blame me if you can't remember how.

  Fallacy # 2 is that you have no friends to care about you. Excuse me? What is this friendship bracelet with your name on it that I have dangling from my wrist? Just because you've forgotten that I taught you to dance is no reason to deduce that I am no longer your friend.

  Fallacy # 3 is that your choices for this dance are:

  • get invited

  • go alone

  • don't go

  We are living in the 21st century. You can invite someone, you know.

  Fallacy # 4 is that cats will turn on a master who has died and eat her I have read on this matter It's all a matter of timing. Dogs will eat a dead master—usually several days after the demise, when they have reached the point of starvation, usually after tearing up the house, looking for any other food and/or a way out. Cats, on the other hand, do not wait for a master to die, but will try to eat anyone who has stopped moving. This is why you should never let a cat sleep with you on your bed. Unless you're a restless sleeper, the cat is likely to mistake you for dinner.

  TUESDAY/08:43 PMEDT

  GYLINDRIELLE: Heya, Hayley.

  I suppose it is a pretty crappy goal all around. Animal control would come in and destroy all the cats, cause nobody would want to adopt them for fear that they'd developed a taste for human flesh.

  P.S. No way am I going to invite a boy to a dance, regardless of the century.

  P.P.S. Your teaching me the chicken dance and the hokey pokey—while very thoughtful—does not qualify me to dance in public.

  TUESDAY/08:50 PMEDT

  COMET GIRL: Excuse me. The chicken dance and the hokey pokey are the building blocks upon which all other dances are built. Check out MTV to verify.

  As far as those cats with a taste for human flesh, maybe that girl from your sc
hool who's so big into causes could step in and rescue them after you kick the bucket—what's her name?

  TUESDAY/08:51 PMEDT

  GYLINDRIELLE: Mara Ravenell

  TUESDAY/08:53 PMEDT

  COMET GIRL: Yeah, her (Mara Ravenell—sounds like a Sword of Mawrth name!) She could develop a whole Save the Human-Flesh-Eating Cats Program.

  TUESDAY/07:55 PMCDT

  WARRIORGUY: Hey, Gylindrielle. If I lived three or four states closer to New York, *l'd* take you to that dance. You're just the kind of girl I've been looking for!

  TUESDAY/08:59 PMEDT

  GYLINDRIELLE: That's very sweet, Warriorguy.

  But don't forget that after the first time you propositioned me, I read the background information you have posted on the Sword of Mawrth boards, and I know that—besides living in Warrensburg, Missouri—you're twelve years old. I'm sure that you're very cute for a twelve-year-old stalker; but this just isn't going to work out.

  TUESDAY/08:04 PMCDT

  WARRIORGUY: C'mon, Gylindrielle! Being stalked by a 12-year-old stalker is better than being stalked by a 53-year-old stalker!

  TUESDAY/09:09 PMEDT

  GYLINDRIELLE: Be still my heart! Warriorguy, you need to bear in mind that I do not look like my Sword of Mawrth avatar.

  TUESDAY/09:11 PMEDT

  COMET GIRL: NOBODY looks like their Sword of Mawrth avatars. Manga art exaggerates everything. Even *Barbie's* boobs-to-waist ratio would improve in manga.

  TUESDAY/08:13 PMCDT

  WARRIORGUY: You could post a picture of yourself as Raquel.

  TUESDAY/09:14 PMEDT

  GYLINDRIELLE: Good night, Warriorguy. :)

  current mood: greatly improved—thanks

  TUESDAY/09:16 PMEDT

  GYLINDRIELLE: BTW, the second-run theater around the corner is playing that animated film festival—lost track and 9:30 is the last show. Join me, Hayley?

  TUESDAY/09:18 PMEDT

  COMET GIRL: Can't, cause *l* would need someone to drive me. And my parents are definitely not in a Good Mood. But enjoy!

  TUESDAY/08:19 PMCDT

  WARRIORGUY: Have a great time. And think of me.

  TUESDAY/09:20 PMEDT

  GYLINDRIELLE: GOOD NIGHT Warriorguy.

  Hayley Evenski, Best Friend (Part 2)

  I keep thinking: What would have happened if I'd gone with her?

  The thing is, I don't love those animation festivals the way Raquel does.

  Did.

  There are usually a couple of funny or moving features, a few Very Strange ones from Europe that I have no idea what they mean, and a whole bunch of really lame stuff that I'm pretty sure I get—but I'm left thinking: So what?

  Then again, was my avoiding ninety minutes of animation worth Raquel's life?

  Because in the end, I probably could have worn my parents down; I probably could have gotten one of them to drive me to the theater. They always liked Raquel, and they knew it was hard on us, being assigned first to different middle schools, then going to different high schools. So they might have driven me.

  And if they wouldn't have—but I had tried—then I wouldn't feel so much that it was my fault.

  Not that, if they'd said no, it would be their fault.

  But...

  I don't know. It's just too confusing.

  I want to blame someone.

  But I seem to be the only one around to blame.

  Could I have stopped whatever it was that happened from happening?

  Shouldn't a best friend be able to do that?

  The police say she stepped off the curb into the path of an oncoming car.

  At 11:10 on a Tuesday night on Poscover Road there isn't that much traffic, so there was some speculation—you could tell by the way the first reports were worded—that she may have done it intentionally: suicide by second-party driver.

  That really made me mad, because there's no way Raquel would have done that. She had too much respect for herself, and besides, she would never inflict that onto some poor driver, someone she didn't even know. It must have nearly killed Mr. Falcone to hear those insinuations. Finally, though, the police told him there was no reason to declare her death a suicide.

  My brother, Tyler, who loves a good conspiracy, pointed out that knowing Raquel the way we do—we know she wouldn't commit suicide. But since there wasn't much traffic, we had to assume either that Raquel had been darn unlucky to step off the curb just as a car was coming—or that someone had pushed her.

  Tyler was a good deal of the reason my parents were in a bad mood that night, so if I were inclined, I might say it was partially his fault I didn't go with Raquel to the movies.

  Except that's really, really stupid.

  Tyler's theory is really, really stupid, too. There were four witnesses there that night—a retired couple and a pair of college boys. None of them knew Raquel, and she wasn't the kind of girl you could take such an instant dislike to that a stranger would just push her into oncoming traffic. All four of them said the same thing, according to the police who interviewed them: They were laughing and talking about one of the animation shorts, and the next thing anybody knew, Raquel was off the curb....

  I don't want to think about that part of it.

  Actually, I don't want to think about any part of it, but my mind keeps going back to that moment over and over, like some kind of instant replay loop in my head.

  She could have fallen. Raquel was not the most graceful person around.

  She could have been distracted and not seen the car. Raquel could be a little spacey.

  If I had been there, I might have prevented whatever happened.

  If I had been there, at least I might know what happened.

  Albert Falcone, Father

  Did I tell her that night to stay safe?

  It was kind of a joke we had. Every morning as we did our getting-ready-for-the-day dance around each other in the kitchen—me on my way to work, her ready to run for the school bus—I would always say, "Have fun today. And stay safe."

  Sometimes, Raquel would come back with something like "Oh drat! Why did you have to say that? Today was the day I was planning on being reckless, and now I can't. And here I was toying with the idea of letting myself get kidnapped by crazed aliens with rectal probes."

  But now I'm wondering: Did I tell her that night to stay safe?

  I know my words have—had—no magic power to protect her, but still, the thought that I might not have wished her well haunts me.

  That I let her go out at night doesn't bother me, though I've heard the snide comments suggesting I am not a good father because my fourteen-year-old daughter was out at eleven o'clock at night. Raquel is—was—a couple weeks short of being fifteen. She was very responsible, and the theater is so close—down two well-lit blocks, around one corner, and across one street.

  Across one street.

  Across one damn street.

  Six minutes to walk there. I know because we've walked there together countless times. Raquel loves—loved—movies. Especially animation.

  It was almost 9:30 when she came running downstairs shouting, "The animation festival! It starts in eight minutes, and if I don't go now, there will never be another chance to see it!"

  "It's a school night," I reminded her.

  "I've done all my homework," she told me.

  Raquel always did her homework. Sometimes on the bus or between classes the day it was due, but she always got it done. She was a good student.

  "It'll be on DVD in another couple months," I said. I'd already taken my shower. I was in my pajamas and had settled down with a book and didn't want to get dressed again.

  "DVD's not the same as the big-screen experience," she wheedled. "You don't have to come with me. It's only ninety minutes. I'll be home and in bed asleep by eleven-thirty." She must have seen that I was considering, because she added, sounding like her uncle Theo, the lawyer, "Whereas if you don't let me go, then I'll be grumpy and thinking about what I missed, and
tossing and turning all night in my bed, and I'll end up getting less sleep than if you just let me go. Not to mention the strain on our father/daughter relationship." She glanced at her watch and was bouncing up and down. "They hardly show any trailers on week-nights. I'm going to miss the beginning. Please-please-please-please- please?"

  I must have told her to stay safe, because she was worried about being late. I would have pointed out that they always show coming attractions, and that she had plenty of time to get to the theater carefully.

  Her last words to me: "You're the best, Dad"—as she leaned over me in the armchair to kiss me good-bye on the forehead.

  My last words to her: "Yeah, yeah"—spoken in a disgruntled tone.

  My last words should have been: "Stay safe, baby girl."

  Carmella Lombardini, Driver

  It wasn't my fault.

  Everyone says so. They've said it all along. The nice police officer said it that night.

  None of it helps.

  There are so many "what-ifs" that could have changed everything. What if Sharon's bridal shower had been at our house instead of at the maid of honor's mother's house? What if my car had a bigger trunk, so that I didn't decide it would be easier to use my husband's SUV to bring all the presents back to our place? What if I had more confidence driving that big boat? What if I had insisted on helping Kaylee's mother clean up afterward? What if Sharon had come home with me rather than spending the night at Kaylee's? What if I had paid better attention while Sharon had driven us there, so that I would have learned the way as I went to the shower, while it was still sort of light out, and then I wouldn't have been constantly glancing at the handwritten directions as I drove home in the dark?