Chapter 5 Lorna Is Six
The summer she is six and kristen is ten, lorna’s parents decide to take them to Mustang Island for the week. They share their plans over hot dogs and fries one night, and Kristen does cartwheels around the kitchen until her mother shouts at her to stop.
Lorna has never been to the beach. She doesn’t know what a beach is. When they are at Nana’s the next weekend, Nana shows them pictures from Encyclopaedia Britannica : white sand, blue water, palm trees. “This is where all the fish live, and you can swim there,” she says.
“Sharks and whales swim there too,” Kristen says ominously.
Lorna has seen sharks and whales on the television. “I don’t want to swim there.”
“You’re a baby,” Kristen says. “We can make them our pets.”
“You won’t be swimming with sharks and whales, Lolo,” her grandmother assures her, although Lorna doesn’t believe her. “And, Kristen, you won’t be making any of them your pet.”
Kristen shrugs. “I bet I can.”
Nana takes them to buy pails and shovels for the beach.
“This is how you build sand forts and castles,” she explains.
“You dig the sand and put it in the pail and pack it down. It will make towers. Then pile up the towers until you have walls.” She finds pictures of sandcastles and shows them.
Lorna is entranced by all the pictures of things that can be made from sand—even mermaids and puppies.
The castles intrigue her the most. She imagines the one she wants to build—just like her princess castle that Papa erected in the backyard.
Later, Mommy brings home bathing suits for them. “Look what I found today!” she says happily, pulling them out of the plastic bag. “Aren’t they adorable?”
“Yes!” Lorna says. They are pink with little blue whales frolicking around and three blue ruffles on each hip.
“I hate it,” Kristen says.
“Kristen,” her mother says wearily. “You can’t hate it—you haven’t even seen it on.”
That afternoon, Kristen gets a pair of scissors and cuts off the ruffles, then cuts a hole in the belly of her suit to make it look like a two-piece. When Mommy sees what she’s done, she shouts at Kristen. “That cost fifteen dollars! You’re going to pay me back every cent.”
Kristen says she is sorry, but she isn’t really. She giggles when Mommy leaves the room and admires herself in the mirror in her butchered bathing suit.
They set off from Austin very early one morning, Lorna and Kristen in the back seat, their parents in the front.
Mommy is upset with Daddy because he doesn’t go the way she said he should and shouts at him that he never listens, that he always has all the answers.
From that moment on, Lorna believes that her father has all the answers.
Kristen makes Lorna play a game where she has to find all the letters of the alphabet on the license plates of cars on the highway, but the cars go by too fast, and Lorna can’t find letters.
She tires of the game that Kristen keeps winning, and when she refuses to play anymore, Kristen calls her a baby.
Lorna pouts. She hates being called a baby.
She gets out the bag of candy that is supposed to last for the week.
She eats too much of it and begins to feel sick.
“Mommy, something is wrong with Lorna,” Kristen says.
“What’s the matter, Lolo?” her mother asks without turning to look.
Lorna doesn’t answer. She’s scared if she opens her mouth, the candy will come back up.
Kristen leans over to look at her, her brows furrowed, then turns her gaze to all the candy wrappers on the seat between them.
She frowns at Lorna but takes all the candy wrappers and stuffs them in her socks so Mommy won’t see. “Mommy, Lorna is going to puke.”
Her mother whips around, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, her sunglasses covering most of her face. “Puke?”
Lorna folds her arms over her belly to contain the sudden and urgent need to vomit.
“Pull over!” her mother shouts.
“I’m not pulling over—we’re in the middle of a highway,” her father bellows.
Kristen sticks an empty potato chip bag under Lorna’s chin, and she promptly vomits into it. “Gross,” Kristen says, grimacing.
Lorna vomits again.
“For Pete’s sake!” her father bellows.
“Did you eat all that candy? Is that what you did, you little piggy?” her mother snaps, her gaze laser sharp.
Lorna doesn’t dare look at Kristen. She shakes her head.
“What the hell is the matter with her?” her father demands as he maneuvers to the right lane.
“Motion sickness,” her mother says, her gaze softening a tiny bit. “For goodness’ sake, Dave, pull over! Will you do anything I ask?”
“I do everything you ask,” he says curtly as he coasts onto the shoulder. “Because you won’t get off my back.” The car rolls to a halt. Lorna vomits again in rivers of pink, green, and blue.
It seems hours upon hours pass before they are at last close to the beach, but Lorna wants to go home. She is hot and sticky from being candy sick. The smell of it fills the car. Even with the windows down, they can’t get rid of it.
“It stinks so bad,” Kristen complains. “How much longer?”
“Pipe down back there,” her dad snaps.
It’s dark when they reach their rented beach condo. Lorna doesn’t remember much about their arrival, just that she was hustled into a bathroom where her face was cleaned roughly with a wash rag and she was made to brush her teeth.
An unfamiliar sound, something like wind, but not wind, wakes her up the next morning.
She rolls over to look at the other bed in the room and it’s empty.
She sees Kristen on the balcony, leaning over the railing, her blond hair streaming behind her like a kite.
Lorna gets up and goes out onto the balcony too.
The sound is coming from the ocean. It’s the waves rushing onto the beach and then rushing out again.
She and Kristen stand together in silence, watching the vast body of water move in and out.
“I’m hungry,” Kristen finally announces, and leaves the balcony. Lorna follows her because she always follows Kristen. Wherever Kristen goes is often exciting.
In the kitchen, Kristen finds a box of cereal. She opens all the cabinet doors until she locates bowls, takes two, and fills them to the brim with milk and Honey Nut Cheerios. They sit at the bar and watch Inspector Gadget on the TV while the ocean moves back and forth outside, calling them.
Lorna gradually becomes aware of raised voices on the other side of the living room wall. The voices belong to her parents, and she looks in that direction.
“Don’t listen to them,” Kristen says. “I’m sick of cartoons. Let’s go outside.”
They leave their cereal bowls on the bar and Lorna dutifully follows her big sister onto the balcony again.
The ocean smells like the fish market. She can taste salt in the air, and her hair feels tight.
Kristen laughs at her. “You look like Little Orphan Annie,” she crows, and laughs loud and long, pointing at Lorna’s bushy brown hair.
Their parents’ voices grow louder. Lorna cringes. She wants to hide. “I hate when they do that,” she says.
“Me too. Come on, let’s go swimming,” Kristen says, and runs through the open door, disappearing down the hall.
“Wait!” Lorna cries, running after her. “Did Mommy say we could?”
“Of course, stupid. That’s why we’re here, to swim in the ocean. Get your bathing suit and a towel, and I’ll pack a lunch.”
By the time Lorna has struggled into her one-piece—it’s hard without her mother’s arms to hang on to—Kristen is packing their lunch. On the other side of the living room wall, Lorna can hear her mother’s sobs and her dad shouting, “I’m sick of your bullshit, Mindy!”
“Lunch is packed,” Kristen announces. She is wearing her cut bathing suit, which is misshapen now, one side of it rising dangerously high on her chest. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Lorna says. “We forgot our pails.”
“And the towels. Go grab them. Hurry,” Kristen says. She’s already headed for the door, the lunch bag slung over her shoulder. Lorna is afraid to be left behind, so she races to get the buckets and towels and then to catch up to her sister.
Kristen leads the way around the house to the pool, then around the pool on decking so hot that Lorna’s bare feet feel like they are burning.
Then through a wooden gate and down a beach path that weaves through the dunes.
It is all sand, and it feels strange squishing in between Lorna’s toes.
Overhead, the seagulls are cawing at them.
The beach doesn’t look very big, and there is dead green stuff lying around. Joggers go past. Old people stroll along, occasionally stopping to bend over and examine something in the sand.
“Let’s sit here and wait for the water to go back,” Kristen says.
“It’s going to go back into the ocean?” Lorna asks.
“Yep. It’s the tide. There is high tide and low tide. Remember? Nana told us.”
Lorna doesn’t remember. They sit on the dunes with the lunch basket between them, watching the water.
Lorna likes being with Kristen, just the two of them.
A police buggy comes by and the officer yells at them to get off the dunes.
They pick up their things and trudge down to the beach. It’s getting bigger.
It’s hot, and sand is everywhere, gritty between Lorna’s toes and rubbing uncomfortably under her bathing suit. The wind is blowing, but she can feel the sun baking her skin. She suddenly gasps with alarm. “We forgot our hats! Mommy said to wear them. Can we go get them?”
“We’ll be fine,” Kristen says. She tugs down her uneven bathing suit. “Let’s have lunch.” She uses the bottom of her foot to even a place in the sand and sets down the insulated bag. She kneels and opens it with a broad smile, pleased with her efforts.
Lorna peers inside—there are Cheetos, a big jar of peanut butter, and four cans. Lorna pulls one of the cans out. It’s Daddy’s beer. “We’re not supposed to have these,” Lorna says disapprovingly.
“Stop being a baby,” Kristen admonishes. She takes one and opens it, and it spews everywhere. They laugh. When it stops foaming, Kristen tastes it. She screws up her face. “ Gross .”
“Let me try,” Lorna says, reaching for the can. Lorna drinks. She promptly spits it out. “It tastes like dirty feet,” she complains.
“How do you know what dirty feet taste like? Have you been licking your feet?” Kristen laughs at herself and takes the can from Lorna.
They munch on Cheetos and leave the peanut butter. Kristen drinks from the can. Lorna picks up her pail and shovel. “I’m going to build a castle.”
She walks down the beach a little way and settles on a spot where there isn’t any seaweed but lots of shells nearby.
Nana said she would need shells to decorate her castle.
She drops to her knees and uses her shovel to fill her pail, then turns the pail upside down for her first tower. It falls apart.
She tries again, creating two more mounds of sand. They look nothing like the pictures Nana showed her.
A man stops to watch. Lorna instinctively looks for Kristen, but her sister is nowhere in sight. The man smells like sweat. “You’re doing it wrong,” he says.
Lorna doesn’t speak.
He squats down beside her and takes her pail without asking. Lorna scooches back and away from him, afraid.
“You have to pack the sand,” he says. He fills the pail, mashing down the sand as he goes. He turns it over and taps the pail, and it comes away, leaving a tower. “You see?”
Lorna nods.
He sets the pail down and walks away.
Before long, she has ten castle towers in a circle.
She pauses to consider the empty middle of the circle.
It needs a bigger tower. Or maybe some shells.
She notices that her skin feels like fire.
So does the top of her head. What can she put in the middle?
She stands up to look for shells. That’s when she sees the boys.
There are three of them. They’re not grown-ups, but they’re bigger than Kristen. They’re laughing at Lorna’s castle. Her belly twists with fear. She wishes her mother were here. She looks for Kristen once more but doesn’t see her.
One of them, the biggest one, jogs closer to her castle. “What’s this supposed to be?”
“A castle,” Lorna says.
“That’s a stupid-looking castle,” the kid says. He studies it a moment, then draws his leg back and kicks one of the towers like he’s kicking a soccer ball.
Lorna gasps. “Stop!” she screams, and runs forward, pushing the boy as hard as she can.
He hardly moves. The other boys laugh hysterically.
The boy pushes Lorna, hard, and she flies backward, her head bouncing off the sand, the skin on her back feeling like it has ripped open.
She watches helplessly as he draws his leg back again, meaning to kick the next one.
“Get away from her!” Kristen suddenly flies into their midst, launching herself at the boy. She slams into his chest. “Get out of here!” She is swaying on her feet, flailing her arms. The boys are laughing at her now. “Are you drunk?” one of them cries, and they howl.
Kristen flies at that one, but he knocks her off him as if she were nothing more than a bothersome cat. The third boy is backing away. “Let’s get out of here,” he says. “Come on, guys.” The boys go, kicking sand as they walk, still laughing.
Lorna remains on her back, blinking away tears. She doesn’t know how much time has passed before Kristen gets up and comes over to where she is. She stands with her legs braced apart, scrutinizing Lorna. “You look okay. Come on, let’s go.”
“I’m not finished building my sandcastle.”
“You can build another one tomorrow. Let’s go.” The fight has gone out of Kristen. Her eyes look red and like glass.
They gather their things and trudge back to the beach house.
Kristen leads Lorna straight to the bathroom.
She takes out the enormous bottle of aloe vera Mommy brought and begins to slather thick globs of it on Lorna’s burned skin.
She has finished Lorna’s shoulders when Mommy comes to the bathroom door and stares at the two of them.
Her face turns dark. “What in the hell?” she demands.
“Kristen? You smell like a brewery. What have you been doing?”
“Nothing,” Kristen says defensively.
Mommy’s eyes go wide. She backs out of the bathroom. “Dave? Dave, come here. Kristen’s been drinking .”
Kristen sighs. She continues rubbing aloe gel on Lorna until her father thunders in. He catches Kristen by the arm and yanks her out of the bathroom, forcing her down the hall, yelling at her. Mommy follows them, shouting at Kristen.
Her parents don’t notice Lorna’s burned skin. Or how much pain she is in. Lorna slinks to her and Kristen’s bedroom and peels off the bathing suit, whimpering as she does. The fabric brushing against her skin is so painful.
She falls asleep to the fighting.