The Trouble With Before

by Portia Moore

  “Which one?”

  “David Kelly, the principal at Madison Elementary.”

  “That’s great,” I say, genuinely excited for her.

  Lisa hasn’t talked about her decision about her pregnancy, but her talking to her old boss at the school rather than at her last bar gig is a good sign that she’s leaning toward keeping it. Well, at least having it. I don’t know how seriously she’s considering raising it.

  “You must have the patience of a saint. I love kids, but being a full-time teacher, I’d probably shoot myself.” Grams chuckles.

  “Trust me, I’m far from a saint,” she mumbles.

  “Lisa’s always been good with kids. You should see her with Willa.”

  Lisa looks at me, a little surprised.

  “That cute little girl the Scotts adopted? She’s a beauty. I’m so glad they went ahead and bit the bullet. Gwen always wanted a little girl, and it’s perfect timing. She’ll grow up with the other grandkids.”

  Lisa and I look at each other, her eyes silently questioning me. I hope she can read that I’m kicking myself in the ass about bringing up Willa. I don’t know what Lisa thought the Scotts told anyone, and we haven’t talked about it, but as far as the town knows, Willa is a little girl they adopted to expand the family. I assume Lisa would prefer that to everyone knowing what the circumstances really were.

  “That’s another reason I wish Mr. Bachelor here would settle down, so I can get some grandkids who live in the state.”

  “I’m not a handful enough for you?”

  “You know what I mean. Some little ones that I can spoil to pieces, then I can send home when I want,” she adds, winking at Lisa, who looks about as comfortable as a deer in headlights. “What about you, Lisa? Do you want kids?”

  I swallow the hard lump in my throat. Lisa’s face is red, and she’s fiddling with the tips of her hair thrown over one side of her shoulder. Her eyes dart to mine as if saying, “Save me,” but I’ve got nothing. Grams will pick up a lie from me almost instantly.

  “I-I think I have enough on my plate already,” Lisa answers slowly and adds an almost quiet laugh at the end.

  I smile at her, and she lets out a relaxed breath. Lisa is a terrible liar, she always has been. I guess when you’re like us and say what you feel whenever you want, you don’t really develop a knack for lying.

  “Well, remember the clock’s ticking. It’s not going to turn backward for either of you,” Grams warns us playfully.

  “Poor ol’ grandma has been trying to kick me out the house since I was eighteen. Soon she’ll finally get the house to herself though,” I remind Grams, changing the subject, and she winks at me. “I’m going miss the old girl.”

  Lisa smiles at me. “I know you will.” She gives my shoulder a quick squeeze.

  “Maybe he’ll finally find a nice girl to settle down with like your friend Chris did.” Grams sits on the seat between Lisa and me.

  I let out a frustrated breath. I can’t help but notice whenever Chris’s name is mentioned, Lisa looks as if she’s stepping on broken glass.

  “Hey, don’t you get annoyed with me, boy. I’m not going to be around forever, and it’s going to take a special kind of woman to put up with your shit.”

  I stare at the ceiling. “Why couldn’t I have a grandma who stays home all the time, knits, bakes cookies, and thinks I’m the greatest thing in the world?”

  “Because you would have given her a heart attack a long time ago,” she retorts.

  Even though we bicker, I wouldn’t trade my grandma for the world. She’s tough as nails. She had to be, raising my dad and his three brothers after my grandpa passed away, and she was an ER nurse for over twenty years. Then she stepped up when my dad kind of went off the rails after his last tour. She’d wanted to swoop in and save me earlier, when we bounced from city to city, but my dad insisted on us staying together. He was the only one who felt that way.

  “And I do think you’re the greatest thing in the world,” she adds grumpily.

  I flash her what she used to call my prince charming smile.

  “Aww, look at you guys. I missed this,” Lisa says.

  “So what’s your story, Lisa? The real story.” Grams shifts her attention to Lisa, honing in on her like a lion does a gazelle.

  Even though I’m ecstatic to be out of the hot seat, Lisa hasn’t had a grilling by grams in years, and the woman is like a human lie detector. If Grams hadn’t been pulling so much overtime at the hospital during my senior year, she would have sniffed out Lisa’s Mr. Robinson romance before it even started and set her straight. Lisa’s eyes dart over to me, but if there’s one person I can’t save her from, it’s this one.

  “My sort-of boyfriend-slash-boss dumped-slash-fired me and kicked me out of his house,” Lisa answers, picking at a piece of toast.

  “That asshole. Do you want Aidan to go kick his ass?” Grams asks angrily, ready to send me to California.

  “I already asked, Grams.”

  “No, it-it actually was my fault,” Lisa answers quietly.

  Grams is quiet for a moment. “What’d you do?”

  Lisa looks at me before returning her attention to her toast. “I-I told him that I had slept with another guy.”

  My eyes nearly bulge out of my head. She didn’t tell me that.

  “It was a lie though,” she adds quickly.

  “Why would you do something stupid like that?” Grams asks in a way that only she could. It comes off as hilarious but concerned.

  “Because I’m an idiot sometimes.” Lisa laughs and looks down at her picked over toast, apparently embarrassed.

  Grams sighs, shaking her head. “What am I going to do with you two? So what are you going to do to get him back?” Grams asks in the no-nonsense tone only she could make loveable.

  Lisa chuckles. “I don’t think that’s happening.”

  “Hey, one thing I want you two to remember is that you never give up on love. I don’t care what it takes. True love, real love, is worth some groveling and embarrassment.” Grams’s expression becomes serious, and she points at both of us to drive home her point. “Real love can bounce back from anything.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “One day you’re going to find the girl that will make you crazy, that you’ll hate and love so much it’ll make your skin itch,”

  “Great, love’s like an STD.” I cringe.

  Lisa hides her chuckle.

  “Listen, if there’s one thing I wish for you, it’s that you find your other half who, no matter how bad things get, can make you smile every day, even if you want to crack their skull in sometimes. That’s the type of love that makes you feel complete,” she says with a reminiscent smile.

  I wonder if she’s reflecting on my granddad.

  “Shouldn’t you feel that way regardless of another person? You shouldn’t need anyone else to complete you,” Lisa says.

  I grin. Now there’s the controversial, opinionated girl I know.

  “No, you should never need anyone to make you feel good about who you are. You always have to love yourself, because if you don’t do that, when you meet that other person, it’s going to make their job a shitload harder. But when you have that love that makes your insides feel weak, when you have a person who will go to hell and back for you, it’s like putting a pretty little bow on an already beautifully wrapped gift box,” Grams says.

  “So it’s like when a girl is hot, then you find out she’s a gymnast?” I deduce.

  “You’re a pig,” Lisa scolds me playfully, and I make a snorting noise. “I didn’t know that you were into love stuff like this, Grams. You’re always so tough and kickass.”

  “Us hardasses need love too, and you never got to meet Aidan’s granddaddy. You’d have seen true love right in front of you,” Grams says sadly. “So you going to get this boy, back?”

  I snicker, and Lisa cuts her eyes at me.

  “What was that for?” she asks indignantly.

 
“You don’t love Brett,” I say before stealing a piece of bacon off her plate.

  “Oh, and you’d know because you’re so in love with Hillary?” she counters.

  “Who’s Hillary?” Grams asks, and I frown.

  “You know,” I say with a tense laugh.

  “No, I don’t know,” she reiterates.

  Lisa bursts into laughter. “So your grams doesn’t even know about your pretty-much girlfriend?”

  I haven’t mentioned her once? “I’ve been kind of seeing her the past year,” I tell Grams, rolling my eyes at Lisa’s smug grin.

  “Goddammit, when am I going to get to meet the girl?”

  Shit, Hillary meeting Grams? I don’t even want to imagine how that’d go, or the ideas it’d give Hillary about us.

  “I’ll think about it,” I grumble. Grams frowns, so I shine the spotlight back on Lisa. “What about you, Lisa? Going to run and fight for your true love?” I can’t even make it through the sentence without bursting into laughter.

  “Brett is a really great guy!” she spits back, even though he kicked her and his soon-to-be child out of the house.

  The thought makes my fist instinctively ball up.

  “The whole thing was my fault,” she adds defensively.

  “The guy’s a douche and has been since you dated him in high school.”

  “Aidan hates Brett because he’s everything he’s not: charming, sensitive, and a man instead of a little boy,” she says, then sticks her tongue out at me.

  “You two are still the same. As much as you fought when you were younger, I swore you’d grow up and marry each other.” Grams laughs as Lisa and I look at her as if she’s grown two heads.

  “That’d never happen, Grams. Aidan likes his women dumb and psychotic,” she teases.

  “And Leese likes her dudes with vaginas and issues out the ass,” I say.

  “Very funny,” she says with an eye roll.

  “Watch your mouth, Aidan,” Grams mutters with a grin.

  Me and Lisa? I hope the old girl isn’t getting dementia or something, but something can’t be right up there if she ever saw Lisa and me as anything but friends. I watch Lisa break off a piece of bacon. She and Grams continue to chat, and when Lisa’s eyes hit mine, they lock for a minute. I ignore how my heart jumps over something in my chest.

  It’s just heartburn.

  THIS IS THE second time today I’ve felt as if I was having a panic attack. The first was sitting at breakfast when I felt as though I was going to spew my guts. If I didn’t know Grams, I’d swear she was like some type of psychic sent from hell to extract all of my secrets by alluding to them, just waiting for me to spill all of my sins. I guess she’s been like that since we were kids, but then it didn’t matter. The only sins I had then were cheating off Chris’s homework and sneaking wine coolers at parties.

  Now my second panic attack is coming from walking through the halls of Madison Elementary. It’s eerie, almost as if I’m stepping back into my old life. It seemed fine at the time—well, before everything came crashing down. I was content with my life then, I’d worked here, then at the bar. I had both of my best friends in my life, it was my first real job out of college, my grandparents were still alive, and I didn’t really think about the future. I especially didn’t think about the past. The secrets that I had buried were buried deep.

  Now though, it’s as if the past and future are stacked on my chest, suffocating me, while the present sits neatly in my belly. I’ve decided to go through with the pregnancy. My conscience is already so weak that adding abortion to it would crack it completely.

  But it’s a trade-off. I’ve moved the weight from my conscience to my sanity. Everything is different now. I’m going to be the only one making decisions, there’s no one to help shoulder the burden. I thought about calling Brett this morning, before the whole true love debate. I haven’t attempted it since I got here. But after Grams talked about true love, I couldn’t bring myself to make the call. If love makes someone go to hell and back for a person, if it’s a feeling that makes you crazy, I don’t think Brett and I were ever in love. I’ve never exactly been crazy over him, and I can’t see Brett going to hell and back for me. I think my level of hell would be way too hot for him.

  I take another breath and remind myself that even though I’m not ecstatic about being back, I need this job; I’ve got to have health insurance. I try not to think about what everyone will say if I get this job or what they’ll think as my stomach grows. That’s something to think about another day. The only thing to think about today is making a good impression and getting steady employment.

  “Lisa Gregory! It’s so good to see you!”

  I give Claire the warmest smile I can. She’s David’s secretary, a plump woman in her late forties with hair a little lighter than a cherry, and she always smells as though she’s been baking something. That’s probably because she always does. She used to bring in cookies and brownies at least twice a week. I gained ten pounds when I used to work here.

  “Hi, Claire! How are you?” I tell her in my most chipper voice.

  Before I make it to her desk, she’s gotten up from behind it and pulls me into a big hug. “It’s so good to see you. How are things? How was California?”

  “It was great. Great.” I feel as if I’m nodding like a robot.

  “You look amazing. All grown-up.” She chuckles, and I smile tightly and give her a little shrug.

  I do look grown-up. I’m a freakin’ Stepford wife today.

  The last time I worked here, even though I had to take out my nose ring whenever I was working, I had red streaks through my white-blond hair, which was cut into a bob. I wore super bright colors and pushed the dress code in every way possible. Now my hair has grown out to a few inches past my bra strap, and it’s styled neatly in unoffending loose curls, no red streaks in sight. The piercing’s gone, I have clear polish on my nails, and I’m wearing a white blouse and navy skirt. The perfect picture of a model all-American school teacher.

  I wonder what happened to the girl who wanted to stand out and bend the rules. She was sort of badass, even though I don’t know if that’s who I was. I’m way too tired to figure it out now.

  “Thanks,” I tell her.

  She catches me up on office gossip, which is tame. Not much happens at our little school. A few people have changed grades, there are two new teachers, and the budget they were pushing for was approved by the school board. The one thing I actually take an interest in is that John Byers, the other second grade teacher I taught with, has gone on leave. Before I can inquire about that, David opens the door and calls me in.

  “It’s so good for you to be back,” Claire says before I head into David’s office and shut the door.

  He stands to greet me. “Lisa Gregory.”

  David Kelly is a big man, tall and wide enough that if you saw him outside of the office, you’d assume he used to play basketball or football. He’s at least six three and over two hundred pounds. He has a bright white smile that contrasts against his dark chocolate skin, and his personality is just as big.

  “David, I’m so glad see you!”

  I never made a lot of friends while working. Most of the teachers here were a lot older than me and waiting for their retirement. The only teachers my age were Tina and Mark, who taught fourth and fifth grade and were already married. David had started only a few months before I arrived, and both of us being newbies, we became instant work buddies. That is, until someone started the rumor that he and I were sleeping together and I was getting special treatment. I’m pretty sure it was Tina—that chick seriously needed to get a life. After that, David and I kept our distance. It was ridiculous that we had to—there wasn’t an ounce of truth to the rumor and David was furious about it—but it was for the best.

  “Lisa Gregory in the flesh. How are things?” he asks jovially.

  For the first time in a long time, I’m able to relax and breathe without it feeling caught in my throa
t. I tell him about California—the good parts, at least. I give a few details about having had a bad breakup and coming home to get away from it. I leave out the part about being knocked up and feel a stab of guilt, but unless I want to bunk with Aidan and Grams indefinitely, I’ve got to get my old job back. It didn’t make me a millionaire or anything, but the salary would be more than enough for me to get my own place, pay the bills, and give me a cushion for after I have the baby.

  “That’s great, Lisa. It’d be good to have you back,” he says so easily my eyes widen. “The only thing is, I don’t have any full-time positions available, with it being the middle of the school year already.”

  My stomach drops. Shit. What am I going to do now?

  “But John Dwyer is on leave for surgery. He plans to be out for the next month or two, and I could put you down as one of our permanent substitutes,” he offers sadly.

  I’m smiling like a Cheshire cat. A substitute position would be great! I wouldn’t have to work all the time, but I could make enough money to save up, and the schedule would be flexible, so I could go to appointments too. I could even sign up to sub at a few other schools. Why didn’t I think of this?

  “Thank you, David. That would be amazing actually!”

  He looks shocked but relieved that I took his bad news so well. “And we have two teachers set to retire next year, so I could get you back on no problem then.”

  My smile fades almost instantly. I don’t know where I’ll be next year, after I have this baby, but being here makes my stomach feel sick, like putting on a pair of underwear that haven’t been washed. But I force a smile. Things could be a lot worse. I tell myself to just be thankful for once and not worry about next year. I just need to get through today. I have a job now, and that’s a big accomplishment for today.

  When I arrive at Aidan’s, I park my car next to Grams’s black Trailblazer. Once I’m on the porch, I notice the cute red Corolla parked in front of Grams’s car.

  “Hi!” The door has swung open, and Hillary’s standing there with a wide grin.

  She’s baaack.

  Hillary is Aidan’s sort-of, supposed-to-be girlfriend. Yay!