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Lucy

Friday, September 29th, 1989

One red sock, one orange sock. One red sock, one orange sock. One red sock, one orange sock. This is how she kept time that day walking the short distance to the bus stop. Lucy always had a song or a jingle in her head. It was her dad’s day to dress her, to make sure she ate her breakfast, to make sure she caught the bus, and that’s how she ended up wearing mismatched socks. Her mom would die, but Lucy liked it. It made her feel like Punky Brewster, which made her feel older than she actually was. One red sock, one orange sock. There were just a few more blocks to go, but there was a car driving up real slow behind her and she felt scared, so she put on her Walkman headphones and pushed play. The song was “We Built This City,” and she loved it. Loved the idea of a city built on rock and roll. She’d recorded it from MTV onto her cassette deck, and as she stepped over the cracks in the sidewalk, she wondered if she would ever get to see a city. Dallas maybe, which wasn’t all that far away. Her older sister, Leah, had been there once, with her best friend, Nicolette. They had gone to the Galleria Mall, and she told Lucy how awesome it was and brought her back a pair of fluorescent orange sweatpants. Leah had a lime green pair, and they sometimes wore them to match. Leah Lucy, Lucy Leah.

Lucy kept walking, then started walking faster, and the car zoomed past her—a tiny dark green convertible. She was almost running, not paying attention to the cracks anymore. The bus stop was just around the corner, but the car had turned around and was inching up beside her. One red sock, one orange sock. She now started saying “Christmas, Easter, Happy Times,” the chant Leah had taught her to say over and over again when she would wake up with a nightmare, or was afraid of the dark. “Christmas, Easter, Happy Times, Christmas, Easter, Happy Times—” But he was getting out of the car, the man with the moustache. He was getting out and coming closer and she couldn’t round the corner in time. She couldn’t find her voice to scream and it suddenly felt like she was trying to run through Jell-O.