Three/Star in the sky

I pulled out a pen and paper. I had to get started on some homework, and my essay was the best place to start.

“My Family by Ushi Miller.

Strange? Possibly. Dysfunctional? Definitely.

You see, there are three people in my family. My grandfather, my mom and me. My grandmother and grandfather had my mother when they were eighteen. Then when my mom was fourteen she fell pregnant with me, and I was born two days after her fifteenth birthday. Neither of them had anymore more children before or since.

So now we are fifteen, thirty and forty-eight. I’m determined to not follow the cycle and pop out a baby. I think my mom and Pete (What my grandfather insists I call him) are holding thumbs. I sure they don’t want another mouth to feed. My grandfather is a pet store manager, and my mom works behind the Revlon counter at Wal-Mart. This means free samples, but still.

Another thing about my mother is that she is a seventeen year old trapped in a thirty year old body. She just never really grew up, so we are more like sisters than anything else.

My grandmother died fourteen years ago in a car accident. My mom was in the car with her, but my mom came out relatively unscathed. My gran, the driver was not as lucky. She died before they even got to the hospital.

We live in downtown New York, in a rather spacious three-bed roomed flat with two bathrooms and a nice ‘entertainment room’ where Pete bought a pool table and some really cute leather bean-bags and a bar fridge stocked with cola and the odd beer for himself on football nights.

One talent that my mom DOES have is painting. In every room of our house the walls are adorned with at least one beautiful painting of my moms. She could easily have become an artist.

If I hadn’t come along.

I’m thankful that she passed the talent on to me. Art is my absolute favorite subject, and I live for Friday’s when we have a double Art. Next Friday there is this totally cool art competition at school. I can’t wait.

What I could live without? My mom going on dates and Pete going to the pub on the same night, leaving me all alone to watch old cable re-runs or to try finish the crossword from the previous paper. I hate how my mom get’s stroppy with Pete when he tries to act like a father instead of a friend. I hate the way Pete mopes around about the things he can’t change, the mistakes of yesterday.

Things I love about my family? Our closeness. We more like a pair of three friends rather than three generations of three extremely different people. I love how on some Sundays Pete makes waffles and we sit on the rusted balcony, drinking concentrated orange juice and eating waffles, doing the crossword in the Sunday paper. I love how my mom looks when she finishes a painting, or when she cooks something she has never before. I love the way Pete looks when we win a football match, or when he wins a pool game. These are the small things in life that I love about my family.”

“That should be enough” I mutter to myself as I stash it away in my tattered file and go outside, hoping to play on the rusty swings in the flat courtyard.

****

“Ushi?” I hear my mom say just as I return to the empty flat.

I frown “Yeah?”

“Where were you?” I hear my mom’s voice has a trace of sadness in it.

“At the swings. Why are you at home instead of work, Mom?”

“I, uh, well they kinda fired me”

“MOM!” I shout “What did you do this time?”

“A lot of those samples…they uh, weren’t really samples”

“You STOLE them?” I heard my voice raising.

“You don’t have to put it so bluntly, Ush”

“Mom!” I shout and go into my room, slamming my door. I decide maybe now will be a good time to start on my maths.

When I come out, several hours later, I notice Pete is on the lounge couch with a pretty blond around my mom’s age or maybe even younger.

So I decide to go make us some Sunday lunch: egg on toast.

Dysfunctional? Definitely

~*~

So what do normal families do on Sunday nights? I’m not quite sure. But I normally hang around the pub. Don’t freak. It’s not a normal “pub”. It’s just a corner on this crumbly block of flats where teens hang out and listen to music and talk and stuff. Tonight is no exception, so I go into my messy room and turn on the lights. The walls are a dark navy color with white pinstripes- a decoration my mom helped me with sometime last year. I pull out a pair of faded jeans, slip them over my waist and decide on my favorite top: a dark blue wrap teamed with small wedges. I apply dark make-up and grab my bag.

“Bye, Pete” I say as I leave the door

“Bye, shweetie” He replies. He has obviously had one cheap beer too many.

I sigh and leave the dingy flat. Sometimes family really gets me down. I take long, easy strides as I go to the corner block where I can see around twenty people milling around, listening to music, some knocking back drinks, some just talking in small circles, gossiping about the latest scandal.

“Hey Ush!” Calls my best friend, Nelly. She’s a dark, curvy girl who has a similar appearance to that one girl from Destiny’s Child. Not Beyonce, another one.

“Nel!” I yell. We have a quick hug and pull apart.

“We bought it” she whispers

“What?” I ask.

“The spray paint,” she says with a sly grin “These flats are going to get some funky graffiti before the night is over”

“Cool” I try to conceal my enthusiasm. Spray painting is my favorite thing to do in the world, and tonight is no exception. I take a seat on the ledge next to some guy I have never seen before. He is drawing in a sketch pad, with his long, dark hair covering his face.

“That’s pretty good” I say, leaning over the black and white drawing of about hundred people in a large hall. One single girl is in color, looking sad and depressed.

He looks up. I notice he is rather tanned with an eyebrow ring and these dark eyes.

“Thanks” He replies.

“I’m Ushi” I hold out my hand. He looks at it strangely then pulls out his dark hands adorned with rings

“I’m Hunter,” and with a pause adds “Ushi? Does your mom like sushi? Let me guess. Your second name is Maki?”

I laugh “Ha! Not quite. We’re far too poor to be able to afford sushi, and my second name is Star.”

This time he laughs “Wow. Your mom must have been feeling very creative when she named you”

“Yeah creative….or drunk”

“Yeah well at least she didn’t name you Jane or anything”

I smile. “Well. It was cool to meet you, Hunter. I’ll be back just now. I’m just going to go speak to my friend, Nelly”

“Sure”

“Who was that?” Nelly questions as soon as I get to her.

“Oh…no one. Well, his name’s Hunter. New kid, I guess”

Just then the big guys are handing out the cans of spray paint.

“Let’s cause some damage” Yells Big Lou, the meanest guy on the block.

Between me and Nelly we have three colors: green, black and red. Then I see Hunter has yellow and blue so I yell “Hey, Hunter! Want to join us?”

He glances over “Sure” he says, and walks alongside us.

Between us three, we find a seriously nice spot over by the lobby, directly two stories above my bedroom window.

“So…,” Says Nelly “What’s the plan here? I’ve never done anything like this”

“Me neither. But let’s try” Says Hunter and pulls out the cans.

“Oi! Nelly!” Yell’s Duke. “Come over here. Want to go out to the party with me?” Duke is also an African-American but he’s seriously good-looking in that strong way.

Nelly looks at me nervously “Sure. Go ahead. Have fun” I say.

“Ah thanks so much, Ush!” She says, grabbing her bag and giving me a quick hug.

So Hunter and I get spray painting, with me doing the design (with major help from Hunter) and the majority of the painting, while Hunter tells me where to add more or change the pattern slightly.

~*~

I let Hunter and myself into the flat at around 12am. My mom’s not home, most likely out on a date. When I go to Pete’s room, I can hear his steady breathing. He’s obviously asleep.

“Welcome to our humble abode” I announce. We had taken longer than everybody else to finish our graffiti, so we decided to come up to my flat.

“It’s rather nice…for a downtown flat” He chuckles. Nobody wants to live in this suburb. It’s where gangs hail from, where hookers originate and where the sad, down and outers live when they can’t afford a proper, decent place of their home. Everybody goes to public school, and the workers either work in a diner or perhaps some type of fast food shop. The paint is peeling on the walls and the streets reek of dirt. But its home.

At least it is to me.

“But don’t feel bad,” he adds “I live here with my dad. My little brother lives with my mom. She remarried this businessman a few years ago, and they live in Westchester, you know. Just outside New York. It’s a town of posh snobs who have tinted Lexus’ and would rather die than set foot in this dump” He smiles. “I never want to be rich”

“You don’t?” I frown “I do. I want to own a big mansion with a swimming pool and marble tiles and huge en-suite bathrooms. I’ll never end up at a place like this. I don’t want my children to have to go through what I did. And I want my children to have a father.”

Hunter smiles “Do you have a sister?” He’s looking at the photo of us three on the wall in the kitchen.

“Nope. That’s my mom.”

“Wow! She’s hot”

I slug him in the arm “Watch it!” I playfully threaten.

“How old is she?” He asks.

“Thirty”

“THIRTY?”

“Yeah…so?”

“Well, that’s pretty young for a mom. Is that your dad?” He says, pointing to the guy next to her. Obviously Pete.

“Nope. That’s my grandfather”

“Don’t joke. He’s probably as old as my dad”

“Yeah. He’s forty eight”

Hunter shakes his head and mutters “And I thought my family was messed up”