Shoulder Stars

Fiction by M.C. Schmidt | Issue 2.13

Cover Art: L. Erickson

Analise didn’t mind the taste of dirt so much, but the tread of Becky’s shoe was pulling her hair, and it felt like the pressure might cave in the back of her head. A crowd of kids surrounded them, chanting and jeering at her, but she was adept at tuning them out. As far as she was concerned, it was just her and Becky, alone in this thing.

“Wriggle like a worm,” Becky told her.

An ant with a jagged leaf clipping in its pinchers climbed a blade of grass near Analise’s nose. It stilled, seeming to commiserate with her. Really? it asked. She wants this now? Analise had lain perfectly still from the moment Becky tripped her. She hadn’t cried out, only accepted that most days are like this—life knocking you to the ground, the small white Ked of destiny pressing onto your skull.

Probably, she could just stand up. For all the teasing that she was a runt, Becky wasn’t much taller—though it was true that she did gymnastics every summer at the day center while her mom was at work, so that was something to consider. It was nearly four, which meant Gammy would be settling in to watch The Rockford Files on the broadcast channel that made everything look smudgy and overly bright. Analise would like to be home in time to watch it with her. The ant said nothing when it realized she wasn’t going to fight, just turned away and left her to her fate.

She really couldn’t wiggle like a worm, because worms did a kind of vertical scrunch and stretch for the purposes of locomotion, and Becky was standing on her back, pinning her to the ground. Instead, she did a little pulsing shimmy, a fork-in-the-toaster thing, enough to make Becky adjust her weight to stay upright, but not enough to make her fall and hurt herself.

After a few minutes of this, Becky’s dad pulled into the parking lot in his fancy black car. She took a big step into the grass. The knot of children slackened, turning their bodies this way and that, ambling back a bit for the plausible deniability of those extra feet. “Get up, you four-eyed worm,” Becky said.

Analise rose, spat dirt, wiped her chin, brushed herself off.

“You’re pathetic,” Becky said as she marched toward her car.

“Bye,” Analise said, and she gave her a little wave.

—

“Becks, why were you standing on that little girl’s back? Was it a game of some kind?” He smelled like aftershave. To Becky, aftershave had the same smell as a-new-woman-in-Dad’s-life.

“Mm-hmm. Are we going out?”

“Yes, Becks. I am, not you. But that’s not what we’re talking about. What kind of game was it?”

“Just a game. Who’s watching me? Can I get Fry Buddy for dinner?”

“Possibly,” he said to the suggestion of food. “What game was it? What’s it called?”

“Please, Dad. I want sweet potato fries.”

“Honey, maybe. Which game?” He wasn’t mad, but he sounded like she’d pushed him as far as she should.

“Magic carpet.” Becky was crafty, a good man in a storm.

“Oh,” he said, and his voice sounded relieved, “well, that sounds fun. You take turns, though, right? Being the carpet?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And everyone volunteers?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“You don’t force anyone?”

“No, Dad.”

He nodded, satisfied.

“Where are you going tonight? Who’s watching me?”

“I’m just having dinner with a new friend. And I was thinking maybe you could stay home alone. What do you say?”

“By myself?”

“Sure. Why not? You’re a big kid now.”

“I’m eleven.”

“Right. A big, capable guy.”

Mom would never leave her home alone. Probably, he just forgot to get a sitter. Probably, he’d tell her not to say anything to Mom about this. Becky didn’t like to be in the middle of Mom and Dad’s drama. Probably, she should throw up in his car and force him to cancel.

“Big guys get a large order of sweet potato fries from Fry Buddy.”

Dang. “Okay,” she said, still unsure.

“Stupendous.” Dad smiled and did a quick, happy drum thing with his fingers on the steering wheel. After a moment, he seemed to remember something important he wanted to say to her. “Uh, Becks, we don’t need to tell Mom about this, right? Our little secret?”

—

Analise put on her comfy clothes and pushed her grass-stained shirt and shorts to the bottom of the hamper. Gammy passed her the snack plate as soon as she sat down on the couch—ham salad and torn cheese squares on saltines. “What’s old Jim Rockford up to?” she asked, shoving a cracker into her mouth. A sharp corner stabbed her gums. She committed, closing her jaw harder through the pain until the corner crumbled and the cracker went as soft as prey in the mouth of a bone-crushing predator.

“He’s on the case.” Gammy laughed to herself and took a cracker from the plate. She thought Jim Rockford was hilarious.

He wasn’t. Not to Analise. Still, she tried to watch the reruns every afternoon, acting like he was. Growing comfortable with boredom was a great virtue.

“Where are your glasses?” Gammy asked.

She’d left them on top of her dresser when she changed. “I’ve decided that I don’t believe in astigmatism. You don’t need glasses to fix something you don’t believe in.”

“That’s not how it works, baby.”

“Buddhist monks can raise their body temperature to melt snow. Why can’t I fix my eyes the same way?”

Gammy shrugged, kept her eyes on the TV. “Well, put them back on when you’re done, and don’t lose them in the meantime.”

Onscreen, Jim Rockford was doing something, but Analise couldn’t see what. She put another cracker in her mouth and chewed it slowly, willing her eyes to focus. No one knew this, but secretly Analise hated ham salad.

—

Dad kept the big house in the divorce because Mom had been, “a teenage trophy wife, dumb enough to sign a prenup” (Mom’s words). Mom lived in an apartment across town, which meant, most of the time, Becky did too.

The other kids said that Dad lived in a mansion, but it didn’t seem that big to her. Not normally. Tonight, though, when she was home alone for the first time, it was gargantuan.

After eating her Fry Buddy at the coffee table in front of the TV, she wadded her trash and began to carry it into the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway when she noticed how dark it had gotten outside the big kitchen window. Normally, the dark didn’t bother her. Normally, nothing did. She was a “cynical child” (Dad’s words), which was a grown-up way of saying that Becky had a knack for twisting life’s tits and making it her bitch. Tonight though, that window was a dark and angry thing. Also, there was a man standing outside it, looking at her. He smiled and tapped his finger on the glass.

Becky took a step backward. Loudly, she called, “Dad, get the bazooka! We’ve got a weirdo in the yard!” Then, she stepped around the corner and grabbed her phone from the coffee table to call Dad for real. He didn’t answer. Balls deep in his new friend, probably.

Mom would be the next best person to try, but Becky was reluctant to call her. She would come, of course, to save her daughter from being murdered. After that lady was through with him, the perp would never even know what hit him. But it would get Dad in trouble if she called—for scheduling a date on his night with her, for not switching with Mom, for leaving her home alone. She knew from experience that the anger either of her parents held toward the other tended to trickle down and make them crabby toward her. Calling the police would lead to similar problems. They would bust his ass, for sure. But it would get back to Mom, and then the pain would start for them all.

She peeked her head around the corner and saw that the man was no longer at the window. His silhouette was now at the back door. Becky heard a sawing sound, but not the cartoon snore of wood being cut. This was more of a tinkly thing, like metal on metal. The doorknob, probably, or the bolt lock. She padded back into the living room.

What she needed, she realized, was a decoy; someone he could kill in place of her. She swiped her phone screen and found Analise in her contacts. When she answered, Becky said, “Hey, worm. Want to come over?”

—

Riding her bike would be faster, but her eyes still hadn’t caught up to her denial of her so-called vision problems, so they persisted in blurring the route. Fearing that she might inadvertently run over a chipmunk or a cat’s tail or the pudgy fingers of some toddler sidewalk artist, Analise chose, instead, to walk. Becky’s house wasn’t too far away, just a few blocks, which meant that she and Gammy weren’t exactly poor. Still, heading toward the fabled mansion where Becky lived, she couldn’t help but feel like she was a pauper in some fairytale kingdom, summoned by her queen.

She arrived in fifteen minutes, having tripped only once (not counting the brief tumble she took into a cluster of hydrangea bushes). Becky was standing at the window beside the front door, flapping her blurry hand for her to hurry. The front door opened as soon as Analise stepped onto the mansion’s massive porch. “Where have you been?” she asked. Her whisper hid a scream.

“It was slow going. My eyes won’t get with the program.”

“What are you talking about? Where are your glasses? Why are you so weird?”

Analise wasn’t sure which of these questions to answer first, but she opened her mouth as if to speak, not wanting to be rude. Before she could say anything, though, Becky grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the foyer, closing the door behind them.

“Why did you call me over? More torture?” The echo in that massive room was intoxicating. She wanted very much to belt out a song, possibly the theme from The Rockford Files, which was still playing in her head, but that seemed like bad guest etiquette.

“Quiet! He’s almost in the house.”

“Who is?”

“Don’t worry about it. You just go stand in the kitchen by the back door and wait. I’ll be upstairs.”

“Hang on. Why? Where’s the kitchen? Couldn’t you just clean my clock, or something?”

Becky, who had only ever touched her to inflict pain, placed her hands lightly on Analise’s upper arms. “Worm,” she said, “do you know how people think you’re a loser and a runt, and everyone wonders what’s even the point of you being alive?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I figured it out for you, the point of your life. You’re going to stand by the back door. In a few minutes, a man will break in. Tell him you’re me. There’s no easy way of saying this, but he’s going to murder you.”

Analise considered the offer. “Because I said I was you? Why does someone want to kill you?”     

Becky sighed in a way that made her bangs flutter. “It could be any number of things. I’m a cynical child.”

Analize wasn’t thrilled at the idea of being murdered, whether it would mean doing Becky a solid or not, but she thought of the good karma she’d earned by not riding her bike here—unsquished chipmunks and cat tails and pudgy fingers. She would be happy to be reborn as any of those things. Probably, she would be reincarnated as a hydrangea bush, growing on some street corner where half-blind kids were always falling into her. That sounded fine too. What was the point of being big and bushy if not to keep kids from hurting themselves? “Okay,” she said.

“Seriously? God, you’re weird. But thank you. The kitchen is that way. Just follow the sound of sawing.” She gave her a shove in the right direction, then bolted up the stairs.

Analise took a deep, steadying breath and headed for the backdoor. Almost immediately, the gentle, rhythmic sound that reminded her of grinding teeth was replaced with the explosive boom of the door being kicked in. She startled but quickly regained her composure, standing tall opposite the man.

“Hey, little girl,” he said. “You live here?” He was doing a Big Bad Wolf voice.

“Yes, sir. I’m Becky, who lives here. I don’t have glasses, as you can see.”

“Your daddy’s out, right? That Lexus of his seems to be away.”

“I wasn’t made aware that there would be additional questions, so I’ll ask you to forgive me for not knowing the proper answer.”

The man cocked his head. Analise couldn’t make out the curious expression on his face, but she knew what it looked like. She’d seen it before. “You’re a strange kid, huh?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes and opened her arms wide. “You have my permission to murder me now. Please do me the honor of burning my remains on a pyre in the backyard before you go. It might be too much to ask, but if you wanted to say a prayer for my eternal soul, it would be appreciated.”

His voice was regular—high-pitched and kind of whiny—when he said, “Wait, what? No. I don’t want to murder you, kid. Jesus! What kind of monster do you think I am? I just want to take some of your Dad’s things. Teach him a lesson about banging other people’s girlfriends.”

“Oh,” Analise said, letting her arms fall to her sides. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!”

“Then I think we’ve had a miscommunication here. I’m sorry, sir, but can you excuse me for a moment? I need to run upstairs.”

—

Becky was in her closet, dressed all in black, the better to hide if the man didn’t fully get his kicks murdering one little girl and came looking around for another whom the house might have stashed away. She listened closely—not for the sound of Analise’s scream, because Analise never screamed, not at anything you did to her, but for the muted thump of her body hitting the floor. Instead, what she heard was movement on the stairs. Her heart felt like it might beat itself clean out of her chest. She pictured it flopping around on the floor, spitting blood everywhere, staining the eggshell carpet. She hoped he slipped on it, the perverted bastard.

The sounds grew closer. She imagined that her face was as white as a ghost’s, disembodied and glowing in the pure blackness where she had secreted herself. If the closet door opened, she would bite and kick. This response had been triggered by much less than her potential murder, and the gymnastics ladies at the Day Center were always complimenting her powerful trunk and thighs, so being on the receiving end of her kick was no joke, pal. She waited, priming her dominant leg. The sound was in her room now, just on the other side of the door. When it was thrust open, she squealed and curled into a ball.

“Becky?” It was Analise’s voice. “What are you doing? Do you mind if I join you?” She crawled into the closet without being invited, leaving the door ajar, letting light in and subterfuge out.

“Analise!” She said it louder than she should, being that there was a child murderer on the prowl—but seriously, this kid. “You’re supposed to be down there getting scapegoated! Go be my patsy, you coward!”

“About that,” Analise said, then stopped. “Hey! I can see you! You aren’t blurry! I mean, we are right next to each other, but still. It’s a good sign that my eyes are coming around, don’t you think? I can even see the flakes on your shoulders.”

Becky flicked her eyes to one shoulder and saw a preponderance of embarrassing dandruff. “I don’t have flakes, bozo. Anyway, even if I did, nobody’s perfect.”

At this, Analise gave her a look that was all wet puppy eyes. She looked like that volunteer mother with the dead kid who came to school once a year to lecture them about self-esteem and respecting other people’s differences. “Don’t ever say that, Becky. Everyone is perfect. They’re perfect just the way they are. Even you, so mean and nasty. Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I get them too. They’re just shoulder stars. See, look at the little constellations.”

Becky slapped her hand away. “God! What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m a Buddhist. It’s a world religion that I saw on an episode of The Rockford Files.

“The people that worship llamas?”

“No, I don’t think so, but I don’t know very much about it yet, only what I saw on Rockford. But, after they die, they come back as animals and bugs and things. And, when people do mean things to them, they say, ‘Thank you for helping me to learn patience and humility.’ I’ve been meaning to look more into it, but I spend most of my free time at the park getting stomped on by you. Thank you, by the way, for your lessons in patience and humility.”

“Go get murdered, Worm.” She shoved her out of the closet.

“Oh, yeah. About that. He doesn’t want to murder us. He just wants to steal some things to teach your dad a lesson about keeping his privates to himself.”

“Wait. Seriously? You talked to him?”

“Mm-hmm. He seemed confused. I think you both are.”

“Well, shit!” Becky said, rising and stepping out into her bedroom. “It’s just stuff. Let him have it.”

From downstairs there came a scream. Analise didn’t want to further emasculate the poor fellow after he’d already lost his girlfriend to a rich, older man, but his scream sounded like a woman’s.

“Mom!” Becky said, and she ran out of the room.

—

From the stairs, they saw Becky’s mom, standing in the grand foyer in a half-crouch, her keys projecting between each of her fingers. The poor, sad girlfriend-less intruder faced her from several feet away, holding a flaccid, empty pillowcase, his eyes wide and scared. Analise came to a stop on a random step, one above Becky.

Her mother spotted her and said, “Becky! Stay back! Where’s Dad? Who is this man?”

Under normal circumstances, Analise thought of Becky as the kind of person who had a knack for twisting life’s tits and making it her bitch, but now she stayed silent. “Becky?” she whispered.

When she turned to look back at her, Becky’s normally hard face had gone soft. Her eyes seemed blurry, and not from Analise’s supposed astigmatism.

Overcome with righteous empathy for her bully, she took it upon herself to say, “Becky’s dad is out. This man is a burglar. Don’t worry, though; he doesn’t intend to murder us.”

“What!” Becky’s mom screamed. “Your father is where?”

Analise never knew her parents, only Gammy, so she didn’t understand much about divorce. Judging from how it made Becky’s mom ignore the part about the intruder, though, it seemed to cause you to focus on the wrong things.

Becky turned back to look at her with angry eyes. She mouthed not to tell her mom about her dad, mouthed that she should shut it unless she wanted a fist in it.

It took her a moment, but Analise pieced together what she’d said wrong. She was a runt, but that didn’t mean she was stupid. Becky didn’t want her mom to know that her dad was away because the poor, sad intruder wouldn’t have broken in if an adult was home. Analise, quite without realizing, had really mucked things up. Thinking quickly, she started down the stairs, around and then past Becky. “I was just kidding. This is my dad. Becky’s dad went to pick up our dinner. We’re having a daddy-daughter double date. Aren’t we, Dad?” she skipped to the intruder and hugged him around his waist. The pillowcase was in her face. It smelled like a stranger’s head. The intruder’s or his trifling girlfriend, she wasn’t sure.

Becky’s mom’s body shifted, becoming taller and less rigid. “Oh. . . .”

“We were playing home invader,” Analise said. “It’s my favorite. I’m very strange. Right, Becky?”

Becky nodded.

Her mom, no longer needing to jump on this man and bite out his throat to protect her child, took a few steps toward her daughter on the staircase. “I’ve been texting you and Dad both, and neither of you answered. I was worried sick. I rushed right over.”

“I left my phone in the living room,” Becky said.

“Wait, are you crying?” Her mom asked this like it was a sight she’d never seen, and one which she imagined she never would.

“No! Don’t be lame! It’s called acting. Look it up, bro.”

For a moment, it appeared that her mom might scold her for her lip, but then she noticed the state of her daughter’s shirt and said, “Don’t wear black, honey. You know why.”

“I’m perfect the way I am, Mom! Anyway, it’s not even dandruff. It’s shoulder stars. Get a clue!”

Her mom nodded to herself, then turned to the intruder and said, “I change my mind. Go ahead and kill her.” She rolled her eyes at him like, Just kidding, but eleven-year-olds, am I right? With that, she told Becky she loved her, told the group of them to have fun, then she turned and left.

They each stayed frozen in place until her car backed out of the driveway and sped down the road. To the intruder, Analise said, “We’re both grateful that you didn’t murder us tonight, but do you mind going home now? I think Becky and I are over this.”

“Yup. No problem,” the intruder said. He pried her arms off his waist and ran out the front door, his pillowcase flapping at his side.

The house was strangely quiet. When the adults rushed off, they seemed to take with them anything the two girls had to say to one another. To Analise, it appeared that Becky was on the verge of tears, that she was in desperate need of a hug. She gave good hugs for a runt, but she didn’t offer one to Becky. That wasn’t the order of things. Instead, she took a few steps toward the foyer, its open door, then turned back and said, “I’ll be at the park again tomorrow if you want to teach me patience.”

Becky sniffled, frowned. “Whatever,” she said. “See you.”

Analise bowed like the Buddhist in that episode of The Rockford Files, said, “Amituofo,” just like he had when he departed from old Jim Rockford. The evening had gone purple and dusky, blurry for real, not just from her insubordinate eyes, and she stepped into it, hoping she’d pronounced that strange word correctly, reminding herself to look it up on the desktop when she got home to find out what it meant.

—

 M.C. Schmidt's recent short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Forge, Gulf Stream, Mud Season Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Pinch, The Saturday Evening Post, HAD, EVENT and elsewhere. He is the author of the short story collection, How to Steal a Train (Anxiety Press, 2025) and the novel, The Decadents (Library Tales Publishing, 2022). Find him at his website.