Tommy’s skateboard!! The competition!
I whip around and head back toward the house. It was supposed to start at nine this morning with the first elimination round.
Knowing I’m late, I do the unthinkable. Something I swore only seconds ago I’d never do again. I break into a jog.
I’m out of breath and my lower body hurts when I slide my key into the door, but I have to admit, just knowing that I can jog that far makes me want to try again.
Someday.
I shower, dress, and make a beeline for my minivan. Against all that is right and proper, I apply makeup on the go and narrowly miss sideswiping a VW. The teenage driver flips me the bird. I can’t believe how intolerant people are. I head downtown to The Board, find a parking spot with difficulty, and end up having to walk a block. Skateboarding kids are taking over the world. The streets are filled with black-clad, makeup-wearing, I-know-you’re-hiding-an-Uzi, scary teenagers. My heart starts to pound as three such boys walk toward me, side by side. Then I realize, hey, Tommy would look just like them if I’d let him.
“Hey, Ms. Everett.” The kids halt in front of me. The one who spoke is grinning like I’m one of his peeps or something. I square my shoulders and reach into my bag like I have a gun, just in case these kids aren’t as sweet and harmless as my kid. I totally don’t, of course, but I do have breath spray, and I’ll squirt it right in their eyes if I have to.
The grinning talker looks sorta familiar. I squint, trying to remember if I’ve actually seen him before or if they all just look alike. The young man has a scraggly tuft of hair growing (or possibly taped) to his chin, equally scraggly dirty-blond hair, a nose ring, and a lip ring. No one I know has such an appearance, so I surmise this person has been rifling through my garbage seeking a victim for identity theft.
This chick will not be said victim.
I screw up my courage and give him the deepest, darkest frown known to womankind. The kind of look that says, “Don’t mess with me, I know karate.”
I see something flicker in his eyes. “Everything okay, Ms. Everett?”
Okay, I’m getting really creeped out now. “Look, bud.”
“Lance Avery.” He laughs. “You don’t recognize me.”
The older brother of Tommy’s best friend since first grade.
“Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen you in ages. I’m so sorry, Lance.”
“It’s okay. I get that a lot. Just never from my old Sunday school teachers.”
I feel a blush spread across my face. “So, how have you been?”
He swings his head forward and back. You couldn’t really call it a nod, because the neck follows the head. “All right” (which comes out sounding like “Aw-ight”), he says.
I can tell the natives to the left and right of Lance are getting restless. They’re fidgety and coughing a lot.
“Have you seen Tommy around, Lance?”
“Tank?”
Whatever.
“Yeah, he’s about to skate.”
“Oh! I don’t want to miss him. It was great seeing you again, Lance. And hey, come to church and bring your friends. We miss you.”
His expression softens a little. “I’ll think about it.”
Lance may look like something out of a vampire movie, but he’s someone’s kid. He has parents who adore him, who took him to church every Sunday and Wednesday. He’s a good kid. Or he has goodness in him.
I sort of glance over my shoulder just as he lights up a cigarette. My heart sinks a little. Poor Lance. I hope he finds himself soon.
I squeeze into the crowded concrete building. Kids are all over the place. Laughing, pushing. I elbow my way forward. Heat rises up my spine and I can feel the redness on my neck. Dread creeps through me. I know this feeling as the beginning of a panic attack. I stop a minute, close my eyes, and take some deep breaths as my heart speeds up.
Slow, even breaths. Come on, Claire, don’t freak out. You’re here for Tommy.
I lean against the wall and fight to regain my composure. Slowly, my heart resumes its normal rhythm, and relief floods me. I’ve warded off this one.
I open my eyes and take in the wall I’ve been leaning against. This one, as well as the others, is painted to look like graffiti. I guess they want this group to feel welcome. Thankfully, there’s nothing obscene. It takes me a few scans of the crowd before I spot Tommy. He’s sitting on his skateboard, watching the current contestant.
The fluorescent lighting bathes his face just right, and I see the concentration tensing his jawline. He’s gearing himself up for his coming task. Nervously, he pulls at his lip. He… wait. What exactly is he pulling on?
I don’t want to be a big fat false accuser, so I look closer, hoping I didn’t see what I’m almost sure I saw. In a moment of utter shock I suck all the oxygen from the room. That little twerp. He has a lip ring.
He must have gotten it done this weekend, which means Rick is solely responsible. Consolation, yes. But not enough to offset the mother’s rage I feel coming on. I send him a glare to beat all glares, fully expecting the force of my wrath will capture his attention. Instead, I hear his name announced over the speakers. Okay, time to set aside my anger and concentrate on prayers for his safety. Any pain he feels today will come from me.
Applause follows him as he takes his place. I hold my breath. He skates doooown then up. Twist around. Kickflip (I know that one). Oh, my word. The boy has got some moves! The crowd is going crazy now. On their feet.
My son is flying, his body crouched above his airborne board. That looks dangerous. I don’t think he should be doing it. What if he breaks a bone?
He lands perfectly. I clap as loudly as anyone and whistle my two-fingered whistle.
“Claire?”
I turn. It can’t be! “What are you doing here, Greg?”
“Shane’s competing in the older division.”
“Shane?”
“Vale.”
“Our new youth pastor is a skateboarder?”
“Yep. He’s making a difference down here. The kids love him. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we don’t end up with half these kids in our youth group before school’s out next spring.”
Joan Devine’s going to love that. Of course, what can she do about it?
I wonder if having a positive role model with common interests has anything to do with Tommy’s change. Before the lip-ring incident, that is. I glance toward my son and see him head off with a group of friends out a side exit door.
“I gotta go, Greg.” Suddenly I feel a wave of heat and my heart picks up as I look into the throng standing between my son and me. I take deep gulps of air. The room is spinning. Not again! I have to get out of here before I’m in a full-blown panic.
“You okay?” Greg whispers close to my ear. Now I’m not sure if the heat I feel is panic or a natural response to the nearness of a gorgeous guy who always seems to come to my rescue.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
“But I want Tommy to know I was here and saw how great he is. And that I’m gonna kill him for getting a lip ring.”
Greg smiles. Sort of a sexy smile that tells me he’s probably interested. Either that, or he likes my hair. Who knows with guys? “We’ll find him. But you need some air. Trust me. I am the current expert on taking care of panicky women.”
I’d like to offer a quip, but my heart is thundering in my ears and my tongue feels too big for my mouth—which, according to Rick, is as big as the Grand Canyon. But who cares what he thinks?
“Have you seen a doctor about these attacks?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. This is only the second one. I’m just under a lot of stress right now. I’m going to talk to him, though, if they don’t stop.”
We open the red-metal door and slip outside. The sidewalk is littered with tossed paper cups, napkins, nacho containers. Most disturbing are the teenagers smoking along the side of the building, and boys and girls, some of whom look no older than Tommy, making out li
ke they’re oblivious to their audience. I’m repulsed, really. But also a little jealous. I haven’t had a good make-out session in a long time.
I cast a sideways glance up at Greg to see if he notices. His eyes are straight ahead. Face like a rock. Unreadable.
“Where are we going?” I manage to ask, trying to look away from his full lips that are just asking to be asked for a kiss.
“Tommy went out the side door, so we’re going that way.”
Oh, duh!
“How are you feeling?”
“Better, but still heavy in the chest.”
We round a corner, and for one brief instant I realize that I do not know my son. There’s a boy standing there in my son’s body, but that is not my son! Tommy hasn’t seen me yet—the impostor, that is. He takes a drag from a lit cigarette and I see red. I mean big, bold red.
“Thomas Richard Frank, I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life.” The panic is gone now and I’m running on sheer adrenaline. My son looks around the three other boys he thought were blocking his path; horror widens his eyes and I can see he’d like to bolt. But fear has him frozen to the ground. The smoldering ground where he just dropped his cigarette.
“Mom!”
“Don’t Mom me, young man. March it to the van. Now!”
“Calm down, Claire.”
No longer feeling the love, I whip around and pin Greg with an icy glare. “Don’t tell me to calm down, choirboy. My son is smoking!Cigarettes. Cancer-causing, smoke-expelling—” I give Tommy a pointed look over my shoulder. “—illegal, foul-smelling garbage.”
“All right. Yell then, but kids are coming around the corner. I think they’re looking for a fistfight. Are you planning to give them a good show? Or how about taking this home?”
I can just see the headlines: “Local, sort-of-celebrity, Christian romance author Claire Everett showed some not-so-Christian behavior by starting a brawl at The Board on Saturday.”
I whip around like I’m Neo and Tommy is Agent Smith from The Matrix. “What the heck are you still doing standing there with those bad influences?” Oh, brother. Poor choice of words. I recognize this to be the case when one of those bad influences turns his scraggly face away and snickers like a seven-year-old.
Incensed and in no mood to be made fun of by tacky boys, I take a couple of steps toward my son and jam my hands on my hips, only vaguely noticing they don’t sink in as far as they used to. “What are you laughing at? Does your mother know you’re giving thirteen-year-old boys cigarettes?”
His pierced eyebrows go up in surprise as though he’s just been asked to take a bath. “Tank gave me a smoke, lady. Not the other way around.”
I feel a hand grip my arm. “Claire, come on. Let’s go.” Greg’s voice is stern, commanding. I kind of like that. Since I’m done here anyway.
I hurl the thugs one last ticked-off-mama glare and stomp after my son, who is Toast with a capital T.
19
If a teenager doesn’t want to talk, there’s not a thing a parent can do, short of telepathy, to wring out his thoughts. I face this unfortunate truth right now as my sullen boy sits as far as he can from me, pressed against the passenger-side door.
“Tommy, don’t lean, you’re going to fall out.”
“Good,” he snarls.
“Well, you might not have a problem with it, but I don’t need the cops thinking I pushed you out for mouthing off, so get away from the door like I said.”
He seems surprised by the force of my God-given right to order my children to do what is best for them. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I had all this grit in me. Could have been leftover adrenaline from the mild panic attack I experienced at The Board. Actually, I’m still feeling as though the panic attack isn’t quite over. My face is tingling a bit. And my heart is still racing.
Still, a great sense of satisfaction shoots through me as I watch him shift closer to center and slouch down in the seat. Okay, I know he wouldn’t fall out. First of all, I’m pretty sure modern vehicles are reasonably safe. Second, he’s wearing his seat belt. But I can’t get my mom’s voice out of my head from the days before “Click it or ticket” laws. “Stop leaning on that door, Claire Everett. What if it flies open while we’re driving down the road? Do you want to fall out?”
Of course, at the moment, I have a much deeper issue to deal with. My son has been smoking. My son! The boy whose dad is a doctor, for crying out loud. “Am I going to have to get your dad to bring over the lung cancer videos again?”
“No,” he snarls.
“Watch the tone!” Man, I am really on a roll.
He shrugs, and I admire his restraint. A week ago he would have said, “Whatever.” Of course, that grounding is going to look like a ditch of punishment next to the Grand Canyon I’m about to inflict on his life. He’s going to be lucky to see the light of day for the next six months.
But since this is a health-related issue, I have decided to contact Rick and ask his opinion about what we should do to this one. Our efforts didn’t work so well with Poem Boy. But we’re going to be extra tough with this one.
I turn the van toward Rick and Darcy’s house.
“Where are we going?” Tommy asks.
“Your dad’s.”
“I want to go home.”
Yeah, I bet you do. Rick’s going to go ballistic when he hears about Tommy lighting up.
“Too bad. You belong to Dad on the weekends.”
“Don’t you think I’m old enough to decide if I want that whole visitation thing?”
“Not really.”
His throat emits a growl.
“Take the lip ring out, by the way. I don’t know why you thought you could get that pierced after I said no.”
“It’s not even real.”
“What isn’t real?”
He slips off the lip ring. Other than a red spot where it was pinching his lip, there is nothing permanent. No holes.
I laugh in spite of myself. “They have clip-ons?” I picture my aunts with their clip-on button earrings from the sixties.
“It’s not funny, Mom. I have to wear it or everyone will think I’m a baby. ‘My mommy won’t let me get my lip pierced.’”
“That’s right. Because it’s stupid.”
“No more stupid than those legwarmers you used to wear when you were my age. It’s just a style.”
“Okay, I understand what you’re saying about the difference in generational ideas of what is or isn’t a dumb style. But let’s get something straight. Legwarmers didn’t leave holes in my legs. And my parents didn’t object to my wearing them. Believe me, there were things in the eighties my parents would have freaked out about just as much as I freaked out when I thought you really had a lip ring.”
“Like what?”
“Mohawks, purple hair. The punked-out look. Madonna CDs.”
“Madonna writes kid’s books.”
Yes, things have certainly changed in twenty years. I feel so old.
We pull into Rick’s long driveway. I stare at the home he’s given Darcy. A beautiful white colonial with pillars and everything. Like he’s a plantation owner and she’s the belle of the ball. I put up with him for eleven years, so how come she gets the good house while I’m still living in the one we bought five years into our marriage? Jealousy is an ugly thing.
I slam the gearshift into park and kill the motor. Tommy’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re coming in with me?”
“Yep.” His surprise is understandable. I have never stepped foot inside Tara, but this is one time when the situation warrants the humbling of my principles.
On the porch, I ring the bell and Tommy looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “I live here, too, Mom. I don’t have to ring the bell.”
My head is beginning to feel fuzzy. My heart is picking up and I feel heat crawling up my spine and around to my neck and face. Sweat is already beginning to bead on my forehead. Should have known I couldn’t get off that easily. “Well, I don’t live here
so I do.”
He shrugs, opens the door, walks inside, and closes it in my face.
Indignation shoots through my veins like a shot of red-hot chili peppers. That kid isn’t exactly in the position to be a smarty. And I plan to tell him so just as soon as someone comes to the door. I ring the bell again.
A flustered Darcy appears seconds later. “Claire, I’m so sorry. Come in, please. Tommy should have let you in.”
Tommy’s standing beyond her. “Hey, you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” he says, shrugging and turning like he’s heading up the steps.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rick’s voice is stern, and I recognize the underlying anger. Has he somehow heard about the cigarettes? His next words leave me speechless. “You get your behind over here and apologize to your mother.”
“What for?”
“First you leave her standing on the doorstep, second you use extremely disrespectful wording to justify your behavior. I want to hear some apologizing beginning right now.”
Boy-o-boy. Where’d this guy come from?
I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth—which, by the way, is beginning to go numb. “Look, deal with this later, Rick. I need to talk to you about something more important. Toms,” I say, turning my attention to where my oh-so-in-trouble kid is standing on the third step. “Go on upstairs so I can talk to your dad about what happened today.”
He gives me a scowl. The kid is totally ungrateful that I’ve diverted his dad’s attention. I mean, sure, he’s in big trouble, and I’m going to have to decide on a punishment for smoking and disrespect, if not out-and-out rebellion, but not now. I’m feeling so weird.
He turns and stomps up the steps.
“I can’t believe you just undermined me in my own home.” Rick’s face is red with anger. “And I was defending you!”
Something about the way he said “my own home” and “defending you” translates to “Even though you weren’t a decent enough wife to keep my attention and thus deserve a gorgeous home like this one, I am still showing off to my beautiful, sexy current wife by showing her how I will always take up for her when we have children of our own.”
Leave It to Claire Page 17