Perfect

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Part 1<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

    Thump. Thump. CRACK! Thump. CRACK! Thump. Thump. CRACK! Thump. CRACK! I can still hear the beating. The bass from the speakers pouring over my body. Thump. Thump. CRACK! Thump. CRACK! It has been almost a year since that night last summer, but I can still hear the words of Chris Brown. I can still hear the beating from the four-foot speakers. I can still see everything that happened, but I can only see it though mascara-stained tears.

    Bass. Tap . . . Tap. Crack. A new song is playing now. Jordan Witzigreuter is loving like woe. Bass. Tap . . . Tap. Crack . . . I’m safe in my own world right now. Safe to focus on nothing. Safe to breath. Safe to press pause, fast forward, and rewind. Safe to not think about Chris Brown, four-foot speakers, mascara-stained tears, and that night last summer. Safe to not be perfect.



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    “Bridget . . .BRIDGET!”

    Just ignore her and maybe she will go away. I thought hopefully

    “HELLO? BRIDGET! YOU STILL ALIVE?”

    Oh well, so much for hoping. “What do you want?” I said. I lifted my head off of my black and blue comforter, rested myself on my elbows, and glared at my sister.

    “Head phones OFF please.” She snapped

    “Oh, aren’t we snippy today,” I retorted while wrapping my earphones around my shoulders.  “Okay . . .” I wrapped my straight brown hair in to a high bun, waiting from the reason I was torn from my world.

    “Chill li’l sis, Mom just wanted me to ask if you had picked-”

    “Yes,” I stated for the FITH TIME. I tried to put my earphones back but she grabbed them before I had a chance.

    “You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!”

    “You were going to ask if I had picked out my competition costume yet.” I looked at her with a knowing glare, “Tell mom that I’ve had it picked out since November.”

    She looked at me for a minute through her crystal blue eyes that we not unlike mine. She didn’t glare. She just looked. “I just don’t get you anymore. We used to be friends . . . what happened, what changed?”

    I simply stated, “Life,” and that was all I would say. I let my long brown hair fall out of its bun and into my face as I lay back down, hoping she would understand that I didn’t want to talk. 

    She gave up on me and walked out of the room.

    Finally!

    I replaced my earphones in their rightful position and shut my eyes. Why does Mom think it’s necessary to ask me every five minutes if I have my costume picked out? I pictured my mother. She had the tendency to over think every detail of every situation she may ever possibly be in. And why does Andie suddenly have an interest in our old friendship? But really! I thought, as my mind jumped back to my mother. Young Professionals Dance Inc. is the biggest competition of my entire year! Does she really think I would leave my costume choice until the last minute?

    She is just being cautious. The sympathetic side of me thought.  She just wants everything to be . . .perfect.

I practically gagged at the word. Perfect. Free from any flaw; faultless. Having all the required elements, qualities, or characteristics. Perfect. That is the dictionary’s definition of perfect, but if you asked my mother she would say they were wrong. My mother’s definition of perfect is Bridget Chandler Lindy. Me.

    Bridget Chandler Lindy. Lindy Hop as some like to call me. People call me this because I live dance and my name just happens to be a style of dance. I don’t know how but I think my parents planned that. People thought it was funny. I thought it was ironic. The dance they call me is one of the only styles that I didn’t do! The name suited me though. I was constantly moving. Dancing to the music in my head . . . Mom says that’s why I could never be still as a child, because I heard the music and had to move to it. She says that was why she signed me up for dance when I was three. That’s a lie, but I never told her that. She signed me up because she wanted to be a dancer but fractured her pelvis and never fully recovered. She signed me up so that I could live the life that she had to give up. She signed me up for a life of competitions, hairspray, Pointe shoes and perfection. She danced with the devil so that she, and I, could live the life that she had to give up. Not to say that I don’t love dance! I do! But I wonder if that mattered to her. I wonder if my passions would have stopped her.

I walked down the spiral staircase of our three-story house until I reached the marble floor underneath the last step. I walked through the living room and the open door to the office. I walked through the game room and into the kitchen. Ken was standing over a pot of some boiling liquid, stirring it with a wooden spoon. Ken was our financial advisor. He was also my mother’s boyfriend – husband. I forgot they married three months earlier.

    Ken was a nice enough guy, I guess, but that didn’t mean I had to like him. He was just like every other Ken-doll in the world, plastic. He was muscular, tan with sandy blond hair and clear green eyes. He could be something different every day, a doctor, a surfer, a lawyer, a jackass. Okay, that was harsh but I DIDN’T like this guy. He was just to PERFECT! He and my mother had this perfectly phony life together, Barbie and Ken. My mother’s name isn’t Barbie but you should get the point. There was only one problem: Barbie had two kids, and neither were his. Looking back, we could have been Mattel’s first soap opera. After seeing “daddy” I saw Andie sitting in one of the red barstools, flipping through the TV above the sink. Ken and Andie were there but where was mom?

    I’m assuming that Ken saw me looking around because when I looked at him he said, “She’s in her room.”

    “Is she eating?”

    “Yeah, kiddo. She should be down in a second. She had to take care of something.” He said with a plastered smile.

    “Okay . . .” I sighed, practically cringing when he called me ‘kiddo’. What does he think I’m five or something! I took a seat in the stool next to my sister.

    “ So!” Andie said in her usual chipper tone, “What are you making anyway?”

    “Seared scallops with a white wine sauce, shitake mushroom risotto, a tossed salad, and a surprise for dessert!”

    “Yum! If it tastes as half as good as it smell it is going to be delicious!”

Andie and Ken laughed. I smiled while watching trying to block their conversation from my mind. They continued to talk. I continued to smile and nod. It was only when my mother walked into the room that I broke out of my daze and joined in dinner.

      “Sorry that took longer than expected. I was on the phone for business.”

    “That’s okay.” Ken sighed as he kissed my mother, “the girls and I were just finishing up dinner.

    “Well that was sweet. So what are we having?”



    With that we sat down to dinner like the big happy family we all pretend to be.