Chapter 7

Vanessa waited fifteen minutes after her mother left for work just in case she came back. Sometimes she did that, came back because she had forgotten something or other. Once she felt enough time had passed she grabbed some Barbies, a jump rope and then headed outside. Vanessa didn't do this often. For one thing she was afraid that someone would tell on her, but mostly because her mother's schedule in the evenings was unpredictable and she might dash home for dinner and then run right back out or she might be extra long at the bar and not return until after 2 a.m.

It didn't take long for Vanessa's toys to draw the attention of the neighborhood kids, who played with her because she had the best toys ever. Playing with the toys soon led to games of tag and Mother May I. Vanessa and the other children laughed and ran through the parking lot, but never going further than that because even though Vanessa's mother wasn't present, she knew that the parking lot was her safe zone and beyond that bad things could happen.

The streetlights flickered on a short time later and the little girls ran off to their homes yelling goodbye. Vanessa smiled happily and then gathered up her toys and went back into her house. She ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and had a glass of milk for dinner. She turned on the stereo and played the Jackson 5 until she got tired of dancing and singing ABC and I Want You Back and her all time favorite; Ben. She didn't care if it was a song about a rat. One day she was going to marry a man named Ben and sing that song to him.

She was carrying her Barbies upstairs when she remembered that she hadn't brought her jump rope into the house.

Vanessa's eyes widened. If her mama saw the jump rope outside…She dropped the dolls to the floor and dashed down the stairs. She pulled back the drapes and squinted out the window to see if mama's car was making its way up the hill. Not many cars came up this way; generally just the people that lived up here. There weren't any stores or schools or anything else but townhomes in Garden Hilltop.

Vanessa took a deep breath and then unlocked the door and dashed out into the night. There were different levels of wrong. Yes it was wrong to go outside during the day when her mother wasn't home. But it was definitely wrong to go outside at night when there was absolutely no one around to help her if something 'bad' happened. Bad was a word that caused her to think of the dead little girl in the building down the hill ...

She quickly scanned the ground outside of her house, already nervous but not just because her mother might find out, but also because it was dark outside. Not seeing the rope on her stoop, she considered that one of those little heffas had stolen it. And then she saw a gleam of color in the grass at the edge of the parking lot. Now she remembered dropping the jump rope, with its yellow plastic handholds, there when they started playing tag. In relief she crossed the parking lot, and sure enough there was her jump rope, partially concealed by the weeds and grass.

But Vanessa didn't immediately pick it up. Her mouth parted as she took in the sight of the starlit sky above her and the twinkling artificial lights of the homes below her. She forgot to be scared as the beauty of the velvety night began to take the place of her fear. The moon sat like a huge light bulb above everything and the magnitude of her place in the universe struck her. She was just one little girl standing in one parking lot in one city of her country on one world among many planets and stars that made up the Milky Way which was just one galaxy in the entire universe ...

The idea if it was overwhelming. She stared into the sky as she tried to fathom the concept that she was…nothing. Insignificant. A speck.

Movement caught her attention and in alarm she saw the familiar bike rapidly approaching from the winding hill that led from Winton Terrace. She squealed in alarm and darted back across the parking lot and towards the safety of her house. She was half there when she remembered that she didn't have the jump rope. Vanessa stopped and indecisively did a dance that took her one step back to the rope and then a hop towards the safety of her home before she repeated it.

She had to get the rope! Someone would steal it or mama would see it and that would be it for her. She turned just as Scotty Tremont's bike entered her parking lot, alarmed at how quickly he had arrived but terrified when she realized that he was heading toward her!

Another squeak of fear escaped her lips as she dashed back to the edge of the lot, running faster than she had ever run before—even faster than she would run past that building. She snatched at the rope at the same time that her body changed position to make the sprint back in the opposite direction. She looked like she had just been passed the baton in an Olympic race. Now she could hear the smooth metallic sound of bike pedals and she risked a glance in that direction.

Scotty Tremont was staring right at her and instead of coasting the circumference of the parking lot like he normally did he was peddling faster, his legs pumping rapidly as he closed the distance between them.

She yelped in terror and then immediately tripped over the looped end of the rope and went skidding across the gravel parking lot. Face down, palms down, knees scraping she felt the sting of her skin being peeled back and a teeth-clattering moment later her mouth slammed to the ground and pain exploded at the exact moment that her two front teeth ran through her bottom lip.

For just one second the world was quiet and still around her. She didn't even hear the bike and rider approaching her; she didn't see the stars or the small rocks that were now buried in her palms and knees. She didn't taste the blood that filled her mouth nor the pain that would soon be nearly unbearable at her chipped and loosened teeth. The world was just an infinite place where nothing meant anything—not even a little girl lying on a parking lot in a city within a country on this world called earth, which was apart of the many other planets that made of the galaxy, which crowded the universe.

But the next second her cries of pain filled the night, the clatter of a bike dropping to the ground and the rapid footfalls of sneakered feet hitting the pavement was Vanessa's new universe … and of course pain.