Freckles

by Thalia

Chapter One

Ten years ago, she was the skinny little girl next door who occasionally wore her hair in pigtails. I called her Freckles to irritate her and pulled her hair, and always had to be careful, because if I pulled too hard, she was liable to burst into tears. Just another silly little girl whose mother was friends with mine. At age ten-and-a-half, I was far more interested in Mrs. Oakley's homemade orange creamsicles than Mrs. Oakley's shy, gawky eight-year-old daughter.

Perhaps it was karma or something. The Oakleys moved out of our town when I was twelve, and my mom lost touch with them after a few months. Life went on in lazy little Middleton with the sort of comforting predictability that characterized the place, and I spent middle school pranking the girls and high school flirting with them. I got into the state university with respectable grades and an athletic scholarship, and the first two years of school passed without incident: the most excitement usually coming from such events as my roommate taking into his head to drunk-dial the RA at two in the morning after the Sigma Chi Freaky Friday open-house party.

I was running late for my Chem lecture on the second week of Junior year when I crashed headlong into someone tall, reddish-brown-haired, and female. Books and papers scattered on the floor, and even as she swore and I apologized, I picked up a three-ring binder bearing the name of "L. Oakley". The girl snatched it from my grasp, and I gazed into rather familiar green eyes. Harder than I remembered, definitely not brimming with tears.

"Watch where you're going next time, buddy." The voice was clipped and hostile.

"Freckles?" Probably not the best thing to say, but I had never called her anything else unless both our mothers had been around. She stood up, five feet nine inches of grit and irritation, and gave me a sneer that was far too cynical for the lisping, pigtailed girl of my memory.

"Call me that again and you can go to football practice with a broken kneecap, Nick Steller."

"Oh, you remember me!" I felt an unaccountable sense of excitement, which she decidedly did not seem to share. "So, how have you been? You've changed a lot since... well, since you were a kid."

"Why, shocked that you can't pick on me any more or something?"

"Well... you do seem a bit more... belligerent than before." THAT slipped out before I could stop myself. Freckles the little girl was usually smiling in between the hair-pulling incidents. Lita Oakley the college student had yet to show any sort of facial expression aside from a glare.

"Maybe I grew up and grew a backbone, hmm?" she raised her eyebrows. "I know. Outlandish concept. Now move out of my way, I'm going to be late for Bio."

She disappeared down the hall and around the corner, and dimly, I heard the bell ring.

~*~

I didn't think of Lita Oakley's presence here or her changed behaviour too much in the next few days. After the little run-in in the corridor of Science Hall, I didn't see her again for another two weeks.

It was outside Beverley Hall on a Saturday afternoon. I was on my way to visit my friend James, who worked at the front desk, and saw her standing outside the door, her arms crossed and a forced patience on her face. In front of her was a severe-looking woman in a pearl and sweater set and black hair so smooth it looked sculpted.

"You're keeping up with your grades, aren't you, Lita?" the woman's voice was flat and slightly tinged with dubiousness. "Your father and I are a little anxious, since you never call home."

"Sorry, Theresa, but I didn't want to wear out the phone card. My grades are fine."

I blinked in surprise and quite a little bit of consternation. Could her parents possibly have divorced? This Theresa was certainly a far cry from smiling, red-headed Mrs. Oakley of my mother's book club and the orange creamsicles.

"You know, you CAN call me 'mother'," Theresa said a bit disapprovingly. "At least in public. I know it is a little difficult for you, but we DO give you all the best. It's only respectful."

"I'm grateful for what you and Michael have done for me," Lita said quietly, and for a moment, a sort of sadness entered her expression that almost made her look childlike again. But only for a moment. "But I can't call you two mother and father."

Theresa's pinched lips thinned even more. "Hmph. Well. I just came to check on you on my way to the Murrays'. Ella needed someone to help her with her daughter's ballet costume. And I do wish that you'd agree to meet up with Kenneth Murray sometime, he's a very nice boy from a respectable family."

"Theresa, he's also a prig and believes that any girl he dates should coo over him and agree to everything he says. Besides, I'm taller than him in shoes with heels." At Theresa's horrified look, Lita gave a bleak sort of smile. "But... you need not mention that I said that. Tell Mrs. Murray that I said hi, and give Steph a hug for me."

"I'll tell Stephanie that you wish her well for her ballet performance," Theresa replied. "Do call us sometime about your college progress."

And then she was gone, making her prim way towards a shiny, spotlessly gray Buick that could in no way be a car owned by the Oakleys. And Lita's shoulders slumped a bit as she watched the car drive off. She went back inside the dorm building without a word. Neither she nor Theresa had noticed me the whole time.

~*~

James was on his lunch break when I walked in, working his way through a pile of nachos at his desk. "You look weird. Drink too much last night?"

"I didn't drink at all, idiot," I told him. "If you will recall, I was the DD. It was Kevin who got wasted and made out with that blonde chick."

"Oh, right," James nodded slowly. "So, if you're not hung-over, what's with the look? Save that for your mom, by the way."

"Oh, just..." I really wasn't sure how to explain to James my curiosity about the girl formerly known as Freckles. I decided to try a different tack. "So, what's your opinion of this year's incoming ladies?"

"Oh, dude, there's this really hot brunette with perfect tits and hair down to her ass..." James' voice lowered to a hiss, and I tuned out most of his rapturous description. "...She's kind of bitchy-seeming, sadly. Though her and her roommate probably get along FINE in that respect. Man, I saw that girl at the gym the other day, beating the hell out of a punching bag. Got some serious anger management issues, that one... though I can't say I blame her. It says on records that her parents died a few years ago and she'd lived in foster care since she was twelve. Kind of rough, you know?"

Her parents died a few years ago and she'd lived in foster care since she was twelve... I suddenly felt as though I'd been hit by an electric shock. In absolutely as casual a voice as I could, I asked James the name of the girl.

"Something that begins with an L..." he scrunched up his face in thought for a moment. "Liz? No... Lita. Yeah. That's it. Lita Oakley. Why?"

I felt a little sick to the stomach, and in my head there was a mental picture of Freckles, not the cold college student, but a little girl in pigtails, who still cried when people picked on her, looking at a cop and a social services lady with confusion in her big green eyes. My mom had lost touch with Mrs. Oakley long before then...

"Earth to Nick! You okay, man?"

"I'll... talk to you later," my voice sounded oddly strangled to my own ears. "Have a nice lunch."

"What's the matter?" James' mystified voice followed my retreating back. "Did you used to date her or something?"