by J. Benson
I had been wrong before. My day could have easily gotten worse. And it just did. Despite my clever tactics to try to avoid him, Taylor Green had found me. And now he was sitting in the passenger seat of my car, grinning like a fool.
"Do you think you can drop me off on your way? My brother was supposed to pick me up, but I guess he forgot." He chuckled.
"No. I live on the opposite end of town. I'm not even going your way." I insisted.
Taylor didn't take the hint. He chuckled. "You don't even know where I live yet, I haven't told you. How do you know you aren't going my way? We could be neighbors!" He smirked.
I silently glared at him.
"Come on. I'll owe you one. Think of it as doing a solid for your English partner." He shrugged, his smile changing into to a warmer and softer smile from the cocky one he normally wore.
I rolled my eyes. "Alright, fine. You'll have to tell me where you live."
I couldn't believe this. I was actually going to give this obnoxious jerk a ride home.
"Thank you." He smiled genuinely and reached around himself in order to fasten his seatbelt. "I'll have to make it up to you."
"You can make it up to me by not making this a habit." I replied, shifting the car into reverse and backing from the parking space. I shifted the car into drive and my tires squealed on the wet pavement.
He took this as a joke, though I hadn’t meant it to be funny. He laughed. "Where do you live again?"
"Oakland Street." I replied casually.
"Perfect. I'm just around the corner on Seventy-Eighth Street." He smiled. "Looks like I jumped into the right car."
I rolled my eyes. "You'll have to direct me," I replied. "I don't really know the city that well."
"Right, you're new in town." He replied, leaning back casually in the seat. Taylor had been in my car all of five minutes, had already successfully pissed me off and was sitting in my car like he owned it. He squinted to see out the windshield. "Where did you come from again?"
I sighed. "Nowhere."
"You have to come from somewhere." He replied.
I sighed. Clearly there was no way to get rid of him, especially when he was sitting in my car for the next ten or fifteen minutes. "I'm from New York. Manhattan specifically." I replied quietly.
"Wow," He scoffed. "Why the hell would you come here? I mean, no offense, but compared to New York, this place is a hell hole."
"I didn't really have much choice." I muttered.
"Yeah? So your whole family moved out here?"
"No. I'm staying with my Gran..." I stopped myself in mid-sentence. He didn't need any of this information, and he was probably not event slightly interested. He was probably only making polite conversation to make the car ride less awkward. "Never mind, I don't want to talk about it." I said quickly.
"Okay..." He said slowly, drawing the word out into two long syllables.
The car fell into an uncomfortable silence, one that I was perfectly content with. Taylor on the other hand leaned forward and began to play with the dial on the radio. I had left it on a station that was nothing but white noise and static, desperate for something to fill the silence of the car but not be too distracting. The songs on the radio now seemed to be all about love and love lost, and I didn't even want to think about either. I had bigger problems.
"You really should get a CD player or an MP3 player in this thing." He muttered, fumbling with the dial. "I can't even get a station in."
I didn't bother to tell him that there was no antenna in the car, so getting a station that was more than a few feet away was next to impossible.
I relaxed in my seat and sat back in the uncomfortable silence that settled in the car. I squared my shoulders and relaxed my arms slightly to make it seem like I wasn't completely uncomfortable with his presence.
"So, do you have any brothers or sisters?" Taylor asked, nervously tapping his finger on the pant leg of his jeans.
"Does that matter?" I asked, gripping the wheel tightly. The knuckles on my hands turned white.
"I’m just making conversation." He shrugged, seemingly oblivious to my attempts to brush him off.
"Don't." I said quietly.
He continued on as if he didn't hear me. "I've got five younger siblings, and one older." He supplied as if I had asked. "My older brother, Ethan—he's twenty—was supposed to pick me up, but he forgets sometimes. He's kind of a dick that way. He knew my car was in the shop today, he's just an ass." Taylor shrugged.
I rolled my eyes, not particularly caring about his life story.
"The reason I ask is that we've got this project due for English on Friday, and we're going to need as much out of class time as we can get. We clearly can't work on it at my place, we'd never get a minute's peace to talk or work on anything... So maybe we can go to your place and work on our assignment there."
"Why don't we just go to the library?" I offered. "There's a public library around here somewhere, right?" I asked, barely pausing at a stop sign before turning a corner. I wanted this car ride to be as short as possible, and wasn't going to waste the full amount of a three second stop.
"It's about half an hour by car," Taylor admitted. "The closest one is downtown, Tulsa. It's almost two hours by bus."
"How can it be that far? We're in Tulsa now..." I frowned in confusion.
"Technically, we're in Jenks." He supplied smugly. "It's still part of the city, but it's more of a suburb. Tulsa is kind of a weirdly laid out city. It's got a lot of people, but it's really sprawled out over a lot of distance. It's not like New York where each city block contains a million people."
I felt my cheeks blush hotly. "How much further to your place?" I asked.
"It's just up here... the house with the big tree in front and the rocks..."
I followed his terrible directions and pulled my beat up Oldsmobile into a long driveway filled with cars. I squinted through the falling rain to see a large stone house looming at the end of the driveway. The high peaked roof made the house look like a fancy estate rather than a regular house that people lived in.
The front of the house was spotted with large windows, each one bordered on two sides with wooden shutters painted nearly the same gray as the stonework. A set of long tall stairs lead up to the front door, bordered on either side with cast iron railings and sprawling gardens that lined the front of the house.
The house looked like it belonged in the pages of a magazine, not in front of my car. In fact, the house looked like it belonged in the rolling hills of France and not in the back hills of Oklahoma.
This could only mean one thing. Not only was Taylor overwhelmingly annoying, but he was also clearly a spoiled rich kid. A man approached from the driver's side of some kind of shiny silver truck, just as Taylor was climbing out into the rain.
"I was just coming to get you!" the man shrugged. "I guess now I don't have to." The man was handsome and confident. But even though his hair and eyes were chestnut brown, he resembled Taylor. I had no doubt they were related. Based on the earlier awkward conversation in the car, I assumed this was Taylor's older brother.
"Yeah, thanks to Emma, I wasn't completely stranded!" Taylor teased. He leaned back into the car. "Thanks again Emma, I owe you one."
"You bet you do," I muttered.
"Do you know how to get out of here and get back home?" Taylor asked.
"Uhh..." I was sure I could probably figure it out. Compared to the streets of New York, I was sure I could navigate my way back to my Grandmother's house. "I think so." I replied.
Taylor smiled, hearing the doubt in my voice. "It's really easy. When you pull out of the driveway, go right. At the first stop sign, make a right turn. Drive two blocks and that stop sign will be Oakland Street."
I drew in a deep breath. "Thank you."
"No problem." He replied with a sly grin. "And thanks for the ride. I definitely owe you. I'll make it up to you somehow."
He winked at me as the door slammed closed.
I sat in a stunned silence for a moment. I couldn't believe the jerk had actually winked at me like I was some cheap cheerleader bimbo.
"New girl?" I heard Taylor's brother ask as he clapped Taylor on the back. "She's kind of hot..."
I didn't bother listening to Taylor's response. I didn't want to know. I ground my teeth in annoyance and shifted the car into reverse and peeled angrily out of the driveway.
I managed to find my way back to my grandmother's house by following Taylor's instructions. I was relieved that his directions were simple enough that I could find my way easily.
Chapter 6:
Grandma
I parked my car in the driveway, and hit the lock button on my way out. I lifted my messenger bag onto my shoulder and trudged up the front path toward the stoop. The rain was starting to let up; subsiding almost immediately after I pulled away from Taylor's house. It was still sprinkling a bit as I jogged up the walkway toward the house. I wondered if the rain was some sort of cosmic symbol for the misery I'd been feeling at school.
Grandma's house wasn't easy to miss. The house wasn't big or ostentatious, but it was beautiful in a classic way--much like my grandmother.
I stood outside the front door, drew in a deep breath and plastered on a fake smile. The least I could do was put on a pleasant face for the only person I had left in the world; my sweet grandmother. I hitched my messenger bag up onto my shoulder and reached for the doorknob.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside. The house was warm and smelled delicious. It smelled like wonderful things had been baking all day, casting a succulent aroma throughout the lower floor of the house. Just standing in the doorway long enough to remove my shoes made my mouth water. I had no idea what she was cooking, but judging by the smell it was going to be fantastic.
It made me think of my dad for a brief and fleeting moment. My mother never cooked, she was always too busy working or grading papers to find the time to cook. I didn't think she could make toast without burning it, even if she tried. My dad did most of the cooking in the house, and he was amazing at it. He worked hard and worked long hours, but he always found time to be home for dinner. Even if it meant going straight back to the office afterward. Being in a house that smelled of amazing things cooking made me miss my dad. I shook the thoughts away.
Unfortunately I took after my mother in the cooking department; I couldn't even make ice. I wished that the ability to cook had one of the traits I inherited from him. I would have much rather been able to cook a decent meal than have his ears or eyes.
Grandma had clearly not heard me come in, and I went looking for her. I dropped my bag onto one of the matching arm chairs in the living room and wandered into the kitchen. No doubt she would have a million questions to ask me about my first day in her beloved small city.
I stood in the kitchen, and my eyes went straight to the plate of veggies and dip that was sitting on the kitchen counter. I suddenly realized I was starving. It wasn't until I had a piece of celery stuck in my mouth that my grandmother appeared from the dining room.
"Emma! How was school?" She greeted me with a warm hug. Grandma looked like a character in an old movie. Her hair was always perfectly in place and she was dressed like she was expecting the Queen of England to drop by for tea. A pretty white apron was wrapped around her front, and even though she'd probably been cooking for at least an hour, she didn't have a spot on her. She looked perfect; and she was smiling at me like I could do no wrong.
Even though it had been years since I had seen her, her hugs and her warm smile never ceased to brighten even the darkest of days. We were so alike in so many ways, it astounded me to know. In another lifetime, we could have been sisters or best friends had I been born sixty years earlier, or she sixty years later.
I hugged her back tightly, chewing the remains of my celery. "It was okay. I'm ahead in most of my classes already. We're reading a book in my English class that I've read like ten times already." I announced.
"Good!" She replied, placing the kettle on the stove and switching on the burner. "You're a smart girl, and I know you'll do very well this year. Don't tell anyone I said this, but you get your brains from me." She pointed at me with a wooden spoon.
I felt my cheeks turn pink at this remark. Her confidence in me was something I would have never gotten at home, and it made me feel great. It was exactly what I needed in life.
"Thanks. What's for dinner?" I asked curiously, my stomach rumbling in protest.
"Lasagna. That's still your favorite, right?" She asked with a warm smile.
"Yeah." I smiled. She had remembered. Her lasagna was still my favorite, ever since I was a kid. In fact my dad told me once that I had put 'Grandma's lasagna' on a letter to Santa once when I was a kid; though I had no memory of this and I was sure my dad was kidding.
I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. Before I could even form a coherent thought, Grandma had placed the tray of vegetables in front of me on the table. I dug in and helped myself to a carrot. I chewed it slowly. I was starving, but I also needed to save room for the delicious main course.
"Did you meet anyone?" Grandma asked.
I choked on my raw carrot. When I finally caught my breath, I shook my head. "Not really." I replied.
"Really?" Grandma asked, wrinkling her nose. She opened the oven door and peered inside, checking on the lasagna inside. "No one? Did anyone talk to you? Did you talk to anyone?"
I finished my carrot and reached for a piece of green pepper. "Actually I had a horrible math teacher today. She made me stand up in front of the whole entire class and introduce myself. It was mortifying."
Grandma gasped. "Oh, I hate public speaking. I would have gotten up in front of the class and just froze!"
"It was terrible. Definitely the worst part of the day." I tucked my hair behind my ear.
"What did you say?" Grandma asked, leaning against the counter, she was hanging on my every word, like our conversation was the only thing going on in the world right now. Had I been talking to my mother, she would have been grading papers and browsing thesis statements instead of actually listening to what I had to say. And she probably wouldn't have been sober.
"I just said that my name was Emma, and that I had just moved here from New York. That was all I could think to say... but then the teacher asked me what my favorite subject was. Which was really awkward." I sighed.
Grandma smiled. "What did you say your favorite subject was?"
"English. I was kind of put on the spot. I didn't really know what to say, so I just said the first thing that came to mind. But I think English is my favorite subject." I shrugged.
"But other than that was your day okay?" Grandma asked hopefully.
I chose not to tell her about my obnoxious new English project partner. I didn't want her to worry, and I was still a little angry and frustrated with having to drive Taylor home today. I just wanted to relax and forget all about his cocky smirk.
"It was fine." I shrugged. "It was school. It's going to be a big change from the private school I went to in New York, though. I mean, just not wearing a uniform every day is kind of an adjustment... but the curriculum is different. I have to take gym. I hate gym." I wrinkled my nose. "But I think I can make it through this year... you know, if running laps in gym doesn't completely kill me."
"Good, that's great." Grandma beamed. "I'm so glad to hear that you had a good day."
I reached for the vegetables again and helped myself to a stalk of celery. This time I noticed the tiny bowl of dip nestled amongst the raw vegetables. I dipped my celery in it and tasted it. Ranch dressing, straight from the bottle. It was delicious--sometimes the simplest things made all the difference.
Grandma sighed heavily. "Okay, I have something to talk to you about." She pulled out a chair at the table and sat down across from me.
"What's wrong, Grandma?" I asked worriedly. I suddenly feared the worst. Was she going to send me back to New York?
Gran
dma drew in a deep breath. "You came here pretty suddenly; all you had with you were the clothes on your back, no proper shoes, or books, or music... You'll need more school supplies... You're going to need money for things like haircuts and personal hygiene. You'll need gas for your car and to deal with any little maintenance the car requires..."
I drew in a deep breath. Grandma was right. It wasn't fair for her to be paying for any of that stuff; and I didn't expect her to. Grandma had been so good to me already; putting me up in her house and giving me a car to use. "I'll get a job, I guess."
"You know that your mother knows you're here. I called her when you showed up on my doorstep. She's a mess right now, and she understands you need your space. She's going to give you whatever time you need, and I insisted that she wait to speak to you until you are ready to talk to her. But at the same time, she's also determined to help you in any way she can... She's set up a trust fund for you out of the money from your father's life insurance. She's going to give you a weekly allowance to do with what you choose."
I rolled my eyes. "I don't want that pity money."
"You know that your mother sympathizes with you, she understands that you need time away. This is her way of helping you out. These past few weeks have been really hard on all of us. And she's willing to do what she needs to do in order to help you through it."
"I'm still surprised that she noticed I was gone when she wasn't staring at the bottom of a bottle." I muttered.
My grandmother chose to ignore that. "She's just trying to make sure you have everything you need."
"You mean she's trying to keep tabs on me." I assumed bitterly.
"Maybe that's true. But this is her way of helping you out. If you don't want it, don't touch the money then. I have some money saved and I can help you get started.... Until you get a job."
I looked away from the conversation needing a chance to think. I could see through the window in the sun room that the rain had stopped and the birds were fluttering amongst the trees in Grandma's perfectly manicured back yard.