Day 65: Clementine, chapter 2

Sitting in the back seat of her parents Suburu, Clementine stared out the window. They had been driving for days, and she'd never had so much to see before. It had surprised her, how the world looked different from state to state. They had passed from the familiar hardwoods of the east--where you couldn't see anything from the road because it was hidden by the trees, to the rolling green hills, and then corn fields, as far as the eye could see. She saw a man on a tractor, the only person in a vast expanse. He raised his hand and waved to her, but she didn't think to wave back. They had crossed huge rivers, and she had quietly tossed a nickel out her window, hoping that it would reach the water and sink down, down into the muddy depths. Proof that she had been here.

Now, they were getting closer. Her little sister huddled against the car door, playing handheld video games or watching movies on her dad's laptop. She had cried for three states, clutching a stuffed koala her BFF had given her. She was 9.

Now, on the last day of their trip, the road wound through the trees, slightly upward, for what seemed like forever. Occasionally Clementine saw handmade signs for pottery, or small cafes offering huckleberry jams and ice cream. Clementine had never tasted a huckleberry in her life, and could only think of Mark Twain and his Huckleberry Finn. Suddenly, ahead, they came into a broad valley, rimmed by mountains. Her mother turned toward the backseat and smiled encouragingly, "We're almost home."

Home, as it turned out to be, was a hunkering brick house with a nondescript yard. Chainlink fence. A black mailbox that said SWENSON. Her father pulled into the driveway, put the car into park, and turned the key. There was silence as they all opened their doors and slid out of their seats. Her mother stretched. Her dad cracked his knuckles. Clementine just stood behind her open door, and looked.

Day 57: Clementine

There was a teenage girl, named Clementine. There is no nickname for a name like that. No way to shorten it, strengthen it, or even make it your own. It is a name that wears the child.

Clementine's mother chose the name because she was born in December, and for the whole week before she was born, her mother had eaten nothing but clementines. Holding their perfect, orange weight in her hand, she would unwrap them with the peel almost intact. Separating the see-through crescents, she would line them up on her pregnant belly and and then savor slice after delicious slice. She was convinced that clementines were the most perfect, wonderful food on the planet. She could imagine nothing lovelier.

And so, she named her daughter Clementine--the squirming bundle in the pink blanket, in a plastic bassinet among a sea of Jennifers and Kimberlys. Maybe if Clementine had been a happy child, with neatly combed blonde hair and a ready smile, things would've been different. Maybe. But she had long, dark hair, and large, dark eyes. From her smallest days, her eyes followed everything, but she made very little noise. She was not bubbly and warm. She felt anything but lovely. So she wore her name like a coat that was the wrong size. Every time she introduced herself, she would watch for the tiny line in the person's forehead that showed their confusion. Most of them would ask her to say her name again, with a slight shake of the head.

In junior high, Clementine would practice her handwriting and fill whole sheets with the names she wished she had: Elizabeth, Kathryn, Caroline. Serious names. Names that fit. Names that everyone had heard, and no one asked twice about.

Practicing her handwriting was something she did a lot. Ever since second grade, when her teacher commented on how nice her penmanship was. Since then, she took a quiet pride in having the most beautiful, even handwriting in her class. Not that anyone but herself and her teachers ever saw it, but it was beautiful, just the same.

It was in the summer after ninth grade that they moved. She hadn't minded, since she felt that she was leaving very little behind. The only things she would miss was a pattern in the plaster on her bedroom ceiling that resembled a bench on a cliff overlooking the sea, and a certain cottonwood tree near the sidewalk on the way to the library. These two things, she could not take. But she left nothing else behind.