Kids are Chancey

by Kay Dew Shostak

  I growl. “But how are you getting home? Anna said for you to find a ride.”

  He slides on his flip-flops and looks toward the parking lot. “She’s here. She didn’t leave. She’s giving me a ride. Bye, you guys. See you later.”

  “If Anna says it’s all right,” I spit, and then regret it. Can I blame that on the heat, too?

  He shrugs at me, then lopes off toward the parking lot. I’m hotter than ever.

  Alex, Savannah, and Bryan are chewing and looking down at the table. Jackson is trying to get me to look at him. He says my name a couple times and even waves his hand. I will not look at him. I’m mad and I deserve to be mad. I’ve done everything possible to be nice to that girl, and she’s ruining everything. For crying out loud, she’s just having a baby!

  “This spicy turkey is really good,” Alex says. “Thanks again for inviting me.”

  I look at him and choke out. “Anytime.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bryan push an Oreo onto my paper plate. Turning my head towards him makes him snatch his empty hand back and look straight ahead with a silly, innocent look.

  “Cheering me up with a cookie?”

  He slides his eyes in my direction and says through a half-closed mouth, “Did it work?”

  Savannah giggles, and I join her. Alex and Jackson laugh out loud and just like that my bad mood is gone.

  I swear it used to be easier to hold onto a bad mood.

  When we are all stuffed with double-stuffed Oreos, Griffin and John come by to pester Bryan into the water. (When I was growing up, we couldn’t swim for thirty minutes, or was it an hour, after we ate. Now I realize that was so the parents could relax and didn’t have to worry about someone drowning. It had nothing to do with letting food digest. Stupid Google means kids today know better.)

  Jackson and I are sitting in our fold-out chairs watching the water and the swimmers when Peter comes up and sits at our picnic table. “Did you hear we’re getting a dollar store?” He’s not in picnic clothes. He’s wearing a gray dress shirt and dark gray slacks. “Can you believe it? A dollar store.” He leans back against the edge of the table and holds his hands up. “Just my luck.”

  “So, isn’t that a good thing?” I ask. “Oh, but your bistro? I didn’t think about that. But that shouldn’t really be competition.”

  Jackson asks, “Where they building it? Is that the funeral home building?”

  I pat his arm. “No, that’s the county doing something. It’s going in beside China Palace and Piggly Wiggly. But I don’t think it will bother your business. You wanted to do more specialty stuff, right?”

  He leans up, plants his elbows on his knees, and runs his hands through his hair. “Of course, but the special stuff won’t pay my rent. I was going to have things you need more regularly at good prices. But I can’t compete with a dollar store.” He clinches his fingers as they run through his hair this time, and pulls. His hair stands on end for a moment, then he shakes his head, and it falls back in place. “This sucks! Can’t I get a break?”

  Jackson and I look at each other. Peter is usually so calm. So laidback and pragmatic.

  “Hey guys,” Susan says as she flops down on the bench beside Peter. “How can something I don’t have to do anything for be so much work? Everyone brought their own food and drink. Shouldn’t that mean it would be easy? I haven’t sat down since I got here. Or eaten.”

  “Want an Oreo? Or you can make a sandwich,” I say pointing at our cooler.

  “I will take an Oreo.” She twists around and pulls the cookies out of the plastic grocery store bag. She pulls up the sticky opening, takes two, then holds them out to the rest of us. Jackson and I say no, but Peter takes two.

  Jackson asks, “What’s kept you so busy?”

  Susan sighs. “Well, first we ran out of toilet paper in one of the bathrooms, then Janie Shelton’s granddaughter got a bunch of ant bites, so back into the supply closet for first aid cream. And can you believe people just dropped their kids off here? Not teenagers, either. Elementary age.” She rolls her eyes. “The Herefords, so not exactly a surprise. But I had to corral them while I tried to get hold of Marie. Of course, she wasn’t answering her phone. She probably knew it was me. Or maybe there isn’t cell service at the Dew Drop.” She says all this around a full mouth of Oreo, finishing her cookie supper about the same time she finishes her rant. I’ve never seen her eat so fast. She, like, ate full bites and everything. No picking at it, little bit here, little bit there.

  She opens the cookie package again and takes another two out. When she offers one to Peter, he holds up the one still in his hand. She seals the bag, then jumps up. “Need to take a walk around, see if everything’s good.” She sighs again as she strides off, but she’s smiling.

  Peter opines, “I don’t think she’s unhappy. She seems to be kind of reveling in this, doesn’t she?”

  Jackson and I both nod in agreement, but then I say, “I guess, but their whole life turned over in a matter of a few weeks. I haven’t seen Griffin in I don’t know how long. He’s always working.”

  Peter turns to look back at the table Laney and Shaw and her mother share. “You’re right. Griffin used to wouldn’t have missed something like this.”

  “New home, new friends, new job,” Jackson lists. “Hmmm, sounds familiar.”

  And I turn to him and ask, “Who?”

  “Us! Just last summer.”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess so.”

  Peter laughs a bit and stands up. “Well, guess I better go figure out a way to deal with this dollar store thing. Wonder when it’s going to open?”

  “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s opening July Fourth weekend.”

  “Already?” His mouth hangs open, then he closes it and his shoulders slump. “This truly does suck. I can’t get a break.” He walks off toward the pavilion, and Jackson and I are alone.

  I reach over and hold onto his hand. “It has been an interesting year, hasn’t it?”

  “Yep,” he says, but he doesn’t look at me. “Do you see that?”

  I follow his eyes out to the lake. On the teenager dock, the one in the middle without a diving board or slide, Alex is seated and there’s a girl on his shoulders. Her long legs are laying on his chest and his hands are holding on above her knees. Savannah is in the group, but off to the side. She’s watching, but something about the way she’s sitting doesn’t look right. She is hunched over her knees.

  “She can’t be that crazy over him, can she?” her daddy asks. “She’s not one of those boy-crazy girls, right?”

  “She didn’t used to be.”

  He doesn’t say anything else, but his gaze never wavers.

  Mine does, and I look away from the center dock. Bryan and his crew are all around the high dive, egging each other on. Bryan starts up the long stairs, and I nudge Jackson. “Look, on the high dive.”

  Jackson sits up in his chair. “Has he gone off it before?”

  “Nope,” I say. “Think he’ll dive, or just jump?”

  “Don’t know. Wish Will was out there with him.”

  I agree. Bryan isn’t growing out of his awkwardness like both of his siblings did in middle school. He’s active but not coordinated. At the end of the board he stands. And then he stands some more. The longer he stands, the more people turn their attention his way.

  One of the teens on the next dock yells, “Jump!” and others join in his chant. Now everybody is watching.

  In my brain, I’m also screaming jump. He has to follow through now, right? And he’s a good swimmer, he’d be fine.

  Jackson says under his breath, “Come on, buddy. You can do it.”

  Then, he doesn’t. He turns around, walks the few steps back to the ladder, waits for those on the ladder to go back down, then he climbs down. He doesn’t make it to the side of the dock before someone has already dashed up the tall ladder. Poor Bryan. And then the person up on the board is waving. Someone in a skimpy royal blue bikini. Oh, it’s Brittani w
ith an I. Sensing she holds everyone’s attention, she takes three long steps and dives off the end of the board.

  People talk about wanting to go back to younger days. How the good ol’ days of high school were so good.

  I wouldn’t go back if you paid me.

  Chapter 12

  There’s that saying that a mom is only as happy as her unhappiest child. Have you heard it?

  Bryan didn’t spend the night with his friends after the Lake Park picnic Saturday. He came home and went straight to his bedroom. Wouldn’t talk. Didn’t want ice cream. Said he was sick Sunday morning, so he didn’t go to church with us. Spent the whole day in his room, except when he’d occasionally journey down to the basement to play video games.

  Will doesn’t have time to come talk to his brother because he and Anna are “fighting.” He yelled on the phone at me when I called him after church. He yelled that he and Anna are fighting. Anna and Missus are fighting. Missus and FM are fighting. And that if FM didn’t stop bugging him about how to make Anna happy, he and FM were going to get into it. Then he hung up. Yep. Hung up on his own mother.

  Savannah stayed out late with her friends, coming home right before curfew Saturday night. She slammed the front door, stomped up the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door. She came back down the stairs Sunday morning just in time to go to church with me and Jackson. Repeating the same actions with the stomping and the slamming, just in reverse order. Not one word came out of her mouth on the ride there. However, upon climbing out of the van in the church parking lot, she was all sweetness and light. Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth—until she realized Alex wasn’t there. She came home, did her stomping/slamming thing and barricaded herself in her room. Sunday night she came out long enough to take a load of dirty clothes to the basement, where she and Bryan got into a screaming match.

  So, having three unhappy kids, I should be miserable, right?

  Yeah, not so much.

  Saturday night Jackson and I sat on the deck and had margaritas. We never do real drinks at home. We just have wine or beer. We laughed and played our music, no kids complaining. (They weren’t talking, remember?)

  We watched the moon rise, and possibly even did a tequila shot or two. Maybe. And stayed up to make sure Savannah was in before curfew. Don’t worry, we had plenty of ways to make the time pass. (Imagine that winking emoji here.)

  We enjoyed hot coffee out on the deck before church while we read the paper. The drive down the hill was peaceful, since I’d quit trying to get Savannah to talk. And while sitting in the pew, I kept working on worrying about my kids, but the sermon kept getting my attention and holding it. How odd is that?

  Then after church, when Will yelled at me on the phone, I fully tried to be miserable about it. I honestly tried. But then Susan and Griffin called and asked if we wanted to go to brunch at the Laurel Cove clubhouse. It was lovely. Crystal and silver, hydrangea bouquets on the tables, adult conversation, and the best grits I’ve ever put in my mouth. See why staying miserable didn’t work?

  Then the afternoon was mild, with big, fluffy clouds and sunshine. Perfect day for reading on the back deck. The peace was interrupted by the fight in the basement, but by the time I got down there they “didn’t want to talk about it.” Savannah held back tears and retreated to her castle tower, and Bryan got back to his video game. I mean, I can’t force them to talk, right?

  Jackson and I had a relaxing Sunday night watching Animal House, which was on one of the movie channels. We laughed over the same things we’ve laughed at through the years. We went upstairs and chatted while he packed for the week. As I laid my head on my pillow, I again tried to concentrate on the kids and then, well, the sheets were clean. You know how hard it is to worry when you’re lying on clean sheets?

  Jackson’s been gone about fifteen minutes now, and I’m stretching in those clean sheets. He had to leave extra early, so we didn’t get up to have coffee together. But I can tell I’m too happy to go back to sleep. Of course, I’ll have to deal with the kids.

  That is kind of my job.

  However, as the light brightens outside the windows, I remember how many mornings I’ve laid right here and been so sad. Sad. Mad. Depressed. Angry. Lonely. I have plenty of time for all those emotions when the kids get up in a couple hours. Right?

  Besides, teenagers exist in a world centered on them. So, as far as mine know, I’ve been miserable all weekend right alongside them.

  See? It’s a win all around.

  Thought I wouldn’t fall back asleep, but I did. Despite the snooze button, it’s still early when I come downstairs. My summer gown is white cotton with little pleats along the front, lace around the ruffle at the bottom, and pretty little lavender violets with sweet green leaves on it. Makes me feel so fresh and pretty. Sweeping down the stairs is like being in an old-fashioned fairytale.

  Even the part where the mean ogre is waiting at the bottom. “Hi, Gertie.” She’s sitting on the couch with a coffee cup beside her.

  “Been waiting on you. I have things to do, you know.”

  I walk behind the couch and into the kitchen. “I didn’t know you were waiting on me.”

  “I didn’t make extra coffee.”

  “I see that.” Dumping the old grounds, I roll my eyes. When the wet grounds splash onto my new white gown, I curse under my breath.

  “I heard that,” the ogre says.

  Finally with a new pot brewing and the front tail of my gown wet from me washing it out in the sink, I come back into the living room. “You’re waiting on me?”

  “We need to talk about the bookstore. We’re going to do a grand opening next weekend in conjunction with the opening of the Dollar Store. You’ll need to have it all set up for that. It’ll be cleaned out of all of Andy’s junk by this evening so you can start on it tomorrow morning bright and early.”

  Words don’t come, so I turn around and manage to push out through gritted teeth as I re-enter the kitchen, “Coffee sounds ready.” Clutching my cup in my hands, I’m breathing deep through my nose and letting each breath out slowly. I pour my coffee and return to the living room. I set my cup down, fluff out the front of my still-damp gown, and sit down in the chair next to the couch that looks out the front window.

  Gertie holds up a hand. “Now don’t go getting your panties in a wad. I felt—”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Really?” Her brow sits heavy over her beady eyes, and her jaw hangs as she looks sideways at me.

  A little laugh escapes me. “Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are.” And I am shocked. So much of the time here in Chancey I’ve been on the defensive. Like things were being done against my will, my wishes. For some reason I can’t work those familiar feelings up. I feel… I feel excited. “I actually missed it. It broke my heart to see the books hidden under the junk. And… wait, what are you doing with all the junk?”

  She pushes up off the couch. “Come see for yourself. I have to get down there now. Just look for me when you get there. Don’t think you can miss Andy’s new place.” She pulls her pocketbook over her shoulder and starts to the front door.

  “Patty and Andy got off on their honeymoon all right yesterday?” I ask before she opens the screen door.

  “Yep. Got ’em all set up in one of the resorts in Jamaica where all you do is drink, eat, and make babies. I’m ready for a grandbaby.” She takes a deep breath. “Lord knows though, this area here might be even better than some exotic island for making a baby. Look at your son and that girl, and then Laney. Her eggs can’t be all that fresh. You aren’t pregnant, are you?” She points with her head at me as she asks.

  “No! Absolutely not.”

  “Okay. Just that flowy, flimsy thing you’re wearing makes you look big. See you downtown,” she says as she lumbers onto the porch.

  Ever notice how some people just keep working until they’ve ruined your good mood?

  Chapter 13

  Susan picked up Bryan a bit ago to go take
a golf class with Grant up at Laurel Cove. After the high-dive debacle, the Lake Park didn’t sound like a good idea. Plus, he’ll get to meet some of Grant’s new friends. It took a while straightening up the house and getting dressed, but I’m finally ready to go downtown.

  In my rearview mirror, I watch Savannah turn her car around and then drive across the railroad crossing and down the hill. The bistro is doing a “soft” opening this week, she informed me when she flounced downstairs earlier. “Flounced” is the appropriate word when your daughter looks like she’s dressed to work a street corner. Her short shorts couldn’t be any shorter, her hair couldn’t be any straighter, and her lips couldn’t be any redder. The vehemence with which she defended her styling choices says, loud and clear, that the battle for Alex is ongoing. The vehemence with which I attacked her styling choices says that I’m “old,” “hopelessly out-of-style,” and “hate my daughter.” Which may all be true, but I do not need it shouted at me in my own living room this early on a Monday morning.

  People say the way women feel about snakes is God’s punishment for what happened in the Garden of Eden. I don’t think so. He knew snakes were a breeze compared to raising teenage girls, the true divine punishment. After the show at our house this morning, I’m guessing he’s still laughing.

  As I pass Susan’s old house, I see Kimmy putting mail in their mailbox. Stopping, I roll down the window on that side. “Hey, things still going good? Getting settled?”

  Wouldn’t have surprised me if she just nodded, waved, and turned back to the house. However, she closes the mailbox door and turns to lean in the open window. “Good morning. Yep, it’s all coming together. Told the kids we’d come downtown today and get some of those muffins.”

  “I’m headed down to Ruby’s, too. Plus, I’m going to be taking back over at the bookstore, and it’s getting cleaned up. Hi, K.J.!” The little boy runs up and tries to see into the window.

  His sister, the name I can’t remember, also runs up, but luckily she’s short enough I can act like I don’t see her and don’t have to say her name. “I’ll see y’all at Ruby’s, okay?”