Playground

By Mercedes Lucero

Nicole

Nicole, a sixth grader, is swinging on the swings and thinking about the school play, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. She wants the part of Alice, because she is Alice, because she is the type of girl who gets told by the cashier at the grocery store that she is, "A very pretty girl."

She has spent many nights at home practicing in front of her bathroom mirror. She pretends that her mouthwash is the secret potion that shrinks her and after swishing, she falls and falls down against the tiles of the bathroom floor and says in a most innocent voice, "What a curious feeling!"

Only pretty girls get the most important parts in the school plays, and she is, a very pretty girl. Much prettier than other girls.

Someday, she will be famous. Of course she will. Her mother told her this morning that she was such a lovely girl. She was the only little girl in the sixth grade with bright green eyes. Her mother is plump and cooks and cleans and her father works down at the lumber yard when the season is good and when it is not, he drives to Arizona to sell fruit. They both tell her that she will go far, much farther than they ever could and she believes them.

She believes that she will get the part of Alice in the school play, stand up on the stage in a little blue dress. The crowd will cheer and cheer and her parents will be in the front row saying, "That's my daughter."

She will feel so proud. Mrs. Crosby already promised the part to her. She has been the lead in every school play since the fourth grade. She knows other parents are upset. Her mother tells her those parents are jealous.

"Don't let them keep you from going places," her mother tells her.

Nicole swings higher and higher and sees something coming toward her. As she comes down from the peak, she looks up to see a swing coming at her. Her hands go up to block it, to protect her face and she lets go.

The sharp metal chain hits her cheek at such an angle that the pointed edge strikes and ruptures the skin. She feels the hard metal slice into her soft and smooth skin. Her cheek opens slightly, the skin stretching away from itself, pulling apart like petals of a flower blooming.

She is not thinking, but half-gasping and when she lets go, the weight of her upper body carries her backward. Her legs fly up behind her, leaving the swing jerking through the air. Her dress, a white dress her own mother sewed for her, flies up around her and for a brief moment, it is all she can see. White fabric around her like a cloud. A sea of white.

She falls into the sand. It is hard and caked down from a day of rain and then a day of hot California heat, packing it in like cement.

There is a pop when her neck hits the ground. Her right hand reaches down behind her, an instinct to help soften her fall, but she instead lands on her fingers in a way that bends the middle one the wrong way.

She lies there, not really hearing anything. She just lies there. Then, she sees Delilah, the girl who was swinging next to her, stand over her. Other children are gathering around her now.

Something warm is filling up her body. Her eyes are filling up and her ears feel full. She chokes but cannot breathe. There is a sharp pain in her wrist, a tightening feeling in her hand. Her mother told her this morning that she was such a lovely girl. Now her body feels warm.

What will the cashier tell her now? How can she play the part of Alice now?

What a curious feeling.

Be a good girl. Sit straight. Smile. You are a beautiful girl, Nicole.

But now, she is crying and all of the children are gathered around her. Short, ugly noises come from her throat. Why isn't Angie,  the recess attendant coming for her? Angie will be here any moment now.

Nicole feels broken, embarrassed. She screams when she smells the blood coming from her cheek. Where is Angie?

There are no pretty actresses with scars across their faces. She was swinging and then, she was not swinging. Please hurry, Angie.

The pain swells up within Nicole, comes in like ocean waves, strong and pulsating.

"Let me help you stand up," Delilah tells her. Delilah grabs Nicole's arms and lifts her off the ground. For a moment, Nicole is upright, leaning on Delilah. When Delilah lets go of her, Nicole feels herself falling, like Alice, through the rabbit hole. Down she goes.

The world feels so real to her now.

Angie

Angie, the recess attendant, no more than twenty years old, watches the children during recess. There are so many of them and she stands against the end of the swing set, watching all of them. She wants to be anywhere but here.

All she ever wanted was to leave this town. Move north where things were prettier.

Up north, people live in big houses with complicated sprinkler systems. Up north, everything shimmers, has a certain shine to it. The cars, the people.

There is nothing here except fields of fruit trees.

She rents a little apartment and waits tables after supervising recess and lunch breaks at the elementary school. She takes the bus to the community college west of here. She's studying child care development. She only goes part-time and it will take her seven years. She calculated it. Seven years. But it is what she can afford. She is not the kind of girl who has ever had the world handed to her. She knows that.

Maybe she is one of the lucky ones. She was raised by a single mother who made her finish high school. Most people her age didn't. That was just the way things worked in this town.

Angie takes in a long breath. Sometimes, like now, she thinks that perhaps there is no point. She works so hard, getting up early for work, taking the long bus ride to the college and then staying up late to finish school work. For what? She wants someone to tell her that it will be worth it. She wants someone to guarantee her that she might make something of herself. Sometimes she feels as if she is running, as if she will never reach her destination.

Is she destined to live in this town forever, work dead-end jobs just to scrape by? The way her mother does? The way most everyone in this town does?

She looks up and sees Delilah, the little sixth grader throw a swing. Angie does not move or call. Instead, she watches, feels the quiet surround her. The swing flies toward Nicole. Such a beautiful girl. The kind of girl who is meant to go places. The kind of girl who is meant to leave this town and never look back.

Nicole falls through the air. It is a strange moment as she watches Delilah watch Nicole. The other children carry on as if none of it is happening. She looks at Delilah. Angie doesn't play favorites, though if she does have a favorite, it would be Delilah. The girl reminds her so much of herself. She watches quietly from the wall as Nicole falls. Such a beautiful girl. The kind of girl Angie never was.

Nicole hits the ground.

The children begin to gather around. They didn't notice at first but then, a kind of contagion spreads and spreads until all the children swarm around Nicole's body.

Angie does not move. Her breath quickens. She feels the weight of herself fall heavily over her as she leans into the poles of the swing set, her back pressed into it. She sees Nicole lying there on the hard sand underneath the swings, only a few feet away.

The children are looking at her. For help.

How long has she been standing there, just thinking?

She pushes off the pole. She reaches for the cell phone in her pocket.

Maybe, she thinks as she dials, Nicole has broken something. An arm. Maybe, she is in pain.

Nicole will be like the rest of the town. Broken. In some way, everyone in the town is broken, has had their aspirations destroyed when the realization set in. Angie was from the poor side of town. It was the kind of poor that determined your entire future. It was the kind of poor that made life hard.

Angie goes to hit the dial button on the phone. She sees the numbers "9-1-1" shining brightly on the screen.

She hesitates. It is a brief hesitation, but Angie stops. She puts the phone down. She does not move. She does not run. The children are looking frantic now. A few are running up to her screaming, "Blood! Miss Angie, she's bleeding!"

Angie sighs and closes the phone. For now, she tilts her head up at the sun, lets the rays of warmth slide over her and into her skin.

She will call for an ambulance in a few moments. For now she will leave Nicole there, lying on the sand.

For now, she will let the girl feel the pain. Everyone needs that, to feel pain every now and then.

—

About the writer Mercedes Lucero

Lucero is a writer whose prose and poetry has appeared in Curbside Splendor, Printers Row Journal, and Whitefish Review, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and recently launched Spectrum Extract, an art and literary magazine dedicated to those with autism and developmental disabilities. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University and her first chapbook of fiction, Six Possible Reasons Amy Becomes a Whore, is forthcoming from Medulla Press Publishing in August 2015. You can find her at mercedeslucero.com.

About the artist Kirkland Bray

Living in Los Angeles for nearly ten years and now Jersey City since 2005 I have seen cities literally grow on top of cities. This staggering, often misguided growth is reflected in my art. I am trying to convey the struggle between city, suburb and country side. Their co-existence and how I portray it in my work is what challenges and excites me. Find out more about Kirkland Bray here.