White Houses
Copyright© 2007 by AD KK
Chapter 1
Four weeks ago, our Soldotna town paper printed a story about some local girl who set a record for the one hundred meter sprint. Three weeks ago, it was a woman who made doll houses from tin cans. Two weeks ago, a boy who, at fifteen, managed to navigate a ten mile stretch of the Kenai river in a traditional birch bark canoe.
Last week, I had had enough of all this, skipped the front page article completely, and looked in the ad section for a way out of this town.
Small town life is easy. You wake up, go to school, go home. When you get home, you finish your homework, maybe spend some time outdoors. If a friend calls, you can go to Sal's, because it's the only place that's open past ten at night (except for the strip club, but I have breasts of my own, thank you, and I'm guessing it's different for me because I know someone who works there, which is kind of sad... for both of us). And other than that, it's stare at the mountains and wonder why you feel so... stuck.
Anchorage. That's where I wanted to be this summer. Just thirty miles as the crow flies, but a two-hour drive through a mountain pass just to get into the outskirts. Jenny brags that she can make it in one hour and forty-four minutes, but I don't think I have the stomach to be in her car while she makes that kind of a trip. Truth be told, I almost don't think I have the stomach to move to such a big city. When I told Jenny about it, she was excited. But it wasn't the 'I'm so happy for you!' kind of excited. It was more like the 'I'm in too!' kind of excited. And having her there might make things a little less scary.
My boyfriend wasn't nearly as keen on the idea. Mark and I were seeing each other all through our senior year at Skyview. He's a lifer here, and I guess I can't blame him. In a town like this, you don't even really have to try.
He came over to my place while my parents were gone one afternoon, and that's when I told him. We were laying on my bed, he was kissing me, and I feel this rush of guilt, like I shouldn't lead him on any more. So I told him. And that's when he sort of pushed himself off of me and wondered if it wasn't some kind of joke.
"No, Mark, I'm serious."
He goes into his usual speech about how dangerous city life is, and how the Anchorage paper said that some girl had gotten raped there a month ago, and how prices are so much higher in a big city than in Soldotna. He talks about the crime and the corruption as if we were back in the moonshine era.
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