Something Had to Give

by Trish D.

  I was able to leave campus early since my last class of the day was canceled. Both Mommy and Daddy were home when I got there. Mommy was cleaning parts of the house that already looked spotless and Daddy was at his desk working from home. The idleness was driving me crazy as I waited for Shanna, Craig, and Jason to arrive. I found myself either pacing back and forth in the living room or standing by the window staring down our street. My thoughts and fears of what was going on in their car had consumed me so much that I didn’t notice Daddy had been watching me. He challenged me to a game of Scrabble to get my mind off things and though embarrassed that I was caught, I agreed. We were halfway through our game when we heard a car pulling up into the driveway. I felt a wave of panic instead of the relief I was sure I would feel. It was a huge moment for me. It was the first guy I had brought home for my parents to meet since Derrick. Breathe Cheryl. Breathe.

  When I heard the car pulling up I wanted to jump up and make a beeline for the door but I also wanted to play it cool in front of Daddy. So instead I impatiently waited for Shanna to use her key and come in on her own. She walked in smiling and looking pretty normal. I immediately noticed that she was about 10-15 pounds lighter and had slightly dark rings around her eyes. Neither of our parents seemed to notice or chose not to comment. Maybe I had it in my mind that she was going to look bad so she did. She did at that moment look sober at least. I forced myself to just say hello to Craig. I was over what had happened over the summer, but I still wasn’t feeling him and did not like the person my sister had become since dating him. He seemed surprised by my greeting or lack of one, but went on to give Mommy a hug. Jason came in last looking tired, but still seemed pretty happy to see me.

  “Daddy, this is Jason.”

  “Jason, nice to meet you, call me David.” I was nervous about intruding them, but Daddy was friendly to him much to my relief.

  I felt much more at ease introducing him to Mommy whose mellow spirit allowed her to be tolerant and welcoming of pretty much everyone. “And this is my mom.”

  “Hi, I’m Lisa. It’s nice to meet you Jason. Come on in and make yourself at home.”

  With introductions out the way, I felt like I could relax some. We all hung out in the living room talking while mommy finished up dinner. It was obvious that Jason was nervous around my family while Craig cracked jokes and talked non-stop like he had grown up with us. Daddy obviously picked up on his nervousness and did his best to include him in the conversations. It didn’t really seem like there was a connection between Jason and Craig, but I was glad Daddy was there to help him feel more at ease. Shanna seemed aloof for the most part, but was always right on cue to laugh and agree with whatever stupid comment Craig made. I found them to be so annoying to be around. By the time we sat for dinner it seemed as though Jason had loosened up. Daddy didn’t have to put in a lot of effort to include him in conversations anymore. He joined in by himself. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits and to be getting along really well. I just hoped that we could all keep it up for the next few days.

  God heard my prayers that night at dinner. The rest of the trip went by with no problems. The food was delicious on Thanksgiving Day and Aunt Michelle and my cousins joined us. It was the usual routine after we ate of the guys watching football games while the girls did our own thing. That night we all piled up in three different cars and went out for Black Friday shopping. The guys were pretty annoyed after just the first store, so we didn’t do as much damage as usual. The following two days seemed to fly by and before we all knew it we were packing our stuff up to get ready for our long drives back. Out of nowhere Craig decided it would be better to leave late Saturday afternoon to beat the Sunday rush. I wanted to protest, but that would have meant that I had to actually carry on a conversation with him so I decided against it. As usual, it was difficult to say goodbye to Jason, but I held it together not wanting to act like Shanna.

  To keep my mind off things after they left, I went out and got dessert with Kristen. To my relief and surprise she hardly talked about the guy she had been dating for some time now. I didn’t bring up my dating life either and we seemed to have a much better time than last time. I got home late that night and as I crawled into bed, there was a note on the nightstand, which I expected to read that Jason had called to let me know he had made it back. However, when I read it, it simply said, “Eric called.” It was really unbelievable to me that he knew to call right when Jason left. Why was he calling anyway if he knew I was seeing someone else? The whole situation was baffling to me; he had his chance. Annoyed, I crumbled up the note and threw it across the room. I wanted to stay awake and wait for Jason to call, but with no TV in my room I knew it would be near to impossible. So I relocated to the living room where I could watch a movie. My choice for the night, The Goonies.

  ∞∞∞

  Back at school for the weeks to come, it was once again in the back of my mind that Eric was going to pop up at some point to annoy me. I had no desire to see him or talk to him. His drinking on top of the calls was enough to make me feel like I didn’t want anything to do with him. I didn’t want to spend time thinking about him when I had other things going on. I was still doing my internship at the hospital when I wasn’t in class and it was also nearing the end of the semester, which meant it was time to start preparing for exams. I was doing well in all my classes and I was determined to keep it up so that I would have a good chance of being accepted into the nursing program. Jason, of course, was still a priority as well and I didn’t want to mess up what we had going on for a drunk. Despite both of our busy schedules we still made the effort to communicate as much as possible. Since he was off Thanksgiving, he had to stay in Tennessee for Christmas so we would not be able to see each other. As much as I wanted to go there for the holiday to be with him, I knew it would be pointless since he had to work. I was dreading going home for the three week break. Shanna would only be there for a few days before going to visit Craig’s family and I had no intentions of going back to work for Tim. Therefore, I already knew it was going to be a long boring break.

  The day of my last exams, I dragged out leaving campus as long as I could. The last of my roommates left as I was cleaning my room for the third time. Everyone was in such a hurry to get home while I was dreading sitting on the couch for three weeks. I had even tried getting on as a volunteer at one of the hospitals, but they only had them throughout the summer and it was for high school students. Even if I wanted a job somewhere, I felt like no one would hire me for just a few weeks. It definitely felt like going to work for Tim was my only option, but nothing in me wanted to make ice cream cones and work a cash register. I went over numerous options mentally until I gave myself a headache and hesitantly decided to lock up the apartment and head to the dining hall. With majority of the campus gone or either leaving I knew they wouldn’t be serving anything worthwhile, but it was better than fast food and it would further delay my dreaded drive.

  It was surprisingly crowded in the dining hall, but as I suspected, the options were very slim. After walking back and forth between the stations several times, I gave up and decided on a PB&J sandwich and bowl of Lucky Charms. Despite the crowd, I was able to easily find a table to sit. My view was out a window to another set of apartments on campus. I was so caught up watching the hustle and bustle of people trying to get to and from exams and off campus, that it startled me when I noticed someone had set their tray down beside me. My first thought was that it was someone there alone and couldn’t find a seat anywhere else. It wasn’t until I smelled the scent of familiar cologne that I realized that it was Eric who had sat beside me.

  “Hey stranger, it’s good to see that you are still alive.” He looked sober and talked to me like I hadn’t been dodging his phone calls all semester.

  “Yeah, well you know how that goes. I’ve just been busy with classes and stuff.” I avoided eye contact staring down at my now empty bowl of cereal.

  “Stuff, huh? Does that stuff include thi
s out of town joker you’re dating?” He said this with a smile and it was still a wonder to me how he knew I was with someone else.

  “Stuff means things other than classes.” Of course stuff included Jason, but I didn’t see where that was any of his business.

  “So, I’m not good enough for a straight answer about this guy?” I knew how persistent he could be and that he would not let it go. “I know I was acting like an ass over the summer, but man, you wasted no time moving on to someone else.”

  I didn’t even know how to respond to him. He felt like he deserved answers, but I didn’t. It just seemed really weird discussing my current relationship with an old boyfriend. “I don’t even know why you are asking. You wanted out so I let you go. I wasn’t out looking for someone new. It just happened.”

  “After like a week though? I mean was he in the picture all along?”

  “No he was not in the picture all along.” I was beginning to get annoyed. How dare he accuse me of cheating? “Like I said, meeting him just kind of happened. It was unexpected.” He looked sad after my explanation and I started to feel bad, but what did he expect?

  “Well I guess it’s what I deserved. I was being a jerk and I don’t even know why. I was just feeling lonely and mad that you were gone. It’s my fault.” His apology had come a little too late, but at least he owned up to what he had done.

  “How do you know about him anyway? Did you have spies in Tennessee?”

  “You don’t know? Your sister told me. I thought you put her up to it.”

  “My sister? No I didn’t put her up to anything. When did this happen?”

  “I called back to talk to you and she answered sounding trashed. I thought you were there drinking with her. She said I shouldn’t call back anymore because you had met someone and was barely there anymore anyway.”

  Bitch! I called her this over and over in my mind but the expression must have been all over my face.

  “I’m sorry,” He continued. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I thought you knew about it.”

  “No I didn’t know, but it’s OK. It’s not your fault.” To say I was livid was an understatement. I had to stop myself several times from running all the way back to my apartment just to call her and blast her. I knew I had to calm down though. Calling her upset was not going to help anything especially since we would have to be in the same house over the holiday. It definitely was not something I planned to let go though.

  Eric and I sat talking for some time that evening. He had a pretty rough summer as he told it. Come to find out he had taken my advice and found a job waiting tables, but lost it when his car broke down. The friend he was staying with went back on their agreement and told him he had to leave after a few weeks so that his girlfriend felt comfortable staying there. At that time, he had no job, a broken down car, and nowhere to stay. This was on top of feeling like his girlfriend abandoned him. Things slowly looked up when a guy he had worked with let him stay on his couch and he was able to find a job in walking distance of the apartment. It was after he broke up with me that he started drinking and as he described it, “it just sort of became a habit.” He didn’t feel like he had a problem, but after what I saw at Hammerjax a couple of months ago, I felt differently. For me it was scary to think about what he could become and how alcohol could change his life. Before I knew it, it was 7:30pm and the dining hall had cleared out for closing. It wasn’t my intention to get on the road quite so late, but I had to get going. I felt good about the place Eric and I left things at. We weren’t quite friends, but I didn’t feel like I had to avoid him any longer. If only he had stayed the guy I talked to that evening, we would have been perfect.

  It was well after midnight before I made it home to Charlotte. Daddy wasn’t so thrilled that I had been on the road so late but didn’t give me much grief. I certainly was not in a rush to get home and the long drive gave me plenty of time to think about things that I had talked about with Eric. There was no way I would allow myself to blame myself for his drinking and bad summer, but I did sympathize with what he had gone through. After what he told me I was glad I didn’t stay. I wished that he would’ve looked past his anger and talked to me about what was going on. The fact that Shanna had told Eric about Jason was still upsetting. Drunk or not, it wasn’t her place. I didn’t even know how to bring it up, but I did know for sure it wasn’t going to be pretty. We needed to talk about everything including the drinking and drug use. I just hoped the conversation wouldn’t ruin our relationship permanently.

  Boredom got the best of me by day three. Kristen wouldn’t be home for another few days, Daddy was out of town and I was literally climbing the walls trying to find stuff to do. I had even resorted to help Mommy clean the house that was already spotless. It was obvious that I was not going to make it until the New Year following Mommy around the house. I needed to find a job. But where, though? I was so over the crazy crowds in the mall food court and the mall in general, but with the limited time I would be available, it seemed like the only option. That night as I talked on the phone with Jason, he came up with the idea of helping me get on at the H&M in Charlotte. He knew the manager well and offered to talk to her about giving me some hours while I was home. It was still a retail position, but I wouldn’t have to go through a lot of training and it would keep me busy.

  The very next day, Trish, who was the manager for the store in Charlotte called and asked me to come in either that afternoon or the next morning. When she called I was on the couch watching a horrible string of morning talk shows so the opportunity to get out the house sounded great to me. I was so excited about getting out the house that I didn’t even think to ask if I was working a shift or coming in to meet with her. To be on the safe side, I wore a casual but comfortable outfit with flats. When I arrived at the store right at 2pm, it was a mad house. The busiest day at the Chattanooga store had nothing on the crowd that was currently in the store. I quickly figured out who Trish was by the way a customer was loudly complaining about the lousy service she had received. The way she handled the customer reminded me a lot of Felicity and I was glad at that moment that it seemed as though she would be a cool manager. I approached her when she was done with the customer and maybe it was my imagination but it seemed to me that once I told her who I was that her whole demeanor changed. She gave me a very weak handshake, as she looked me up and down several times before she told me to follow her to the back. My first instinct was to turn and make a beeline for the door, but I had to remind myself that it would be a bad reflection on Jason. Trish showed me a place to put my stuff down in the back and as she pretended to look through random papers on the table, she told me over my shoulder that she needed me to stay until closing, helping out on the floor. Her attitude towards me made me wonder what Jason had told her about me and what she had been expecting. I felt pretty stuck though and the feeling sucked.

  The Charlotte store was a lot larger than the one in Tennessee and I definitely worked harder during that shift than I did probably the whole summer. It was non-stop folding, straightening and hanging. My 30-minute lunch break felt more like 5 minutes after waiting in line for food and I felt like I was constantly under the microscope. Every time I looked up Trish was right there telling me to smile more or to make sure I was interacting with customers. By the end of the shift I refused to even acknowledge that she was talking to me. I didn’t know what her problem was with me or why she bothered to hire me if she hated me at first meeting. I was tired and over it. The only good thing about the shift was that I was able to leave right when the store closed. I went to the back to get my purse and there was a paper with my schedule up until Christmas day. Not only was I scheduled to work every day, but also it was a closing shift every day except one. I was pretty sure at this point that she had only hired me to carry out some sort of vendetta against Jason or me. Determined not to feed into her antics, I stuffed the paper in purse and walked out with the assistant manager without saying a word.

>   Going in for each shift was truly a struggle. Though I had talked to Jason every night, I didn’t mention how Trish acted towards me. I knew he would probably say something to her and I just didn’t see anything good coming from it. So instead, I did my best to ignore her and brush off her comments. There were even times when I would walk off while she was mid-sentence. I knew she wouldn’t fire me because then she wouldn’t be able to harass me. Mid way through my third shift I noticed that two hours had gone by and Trish had not come by to annoy me or “check-up” on me. As it neared the end of my shift I felt a relaxation that I hadn’t felt since I had started there. It was nice to not have to be worried when she was going to pop up behind me. Still, I was not willing to get too excited since I believed that she would find some other way to make the working experience miserable. I was off the following day, which was Christmas Eve. The other thing that kept my excitement to a minimum was that Shanna was coming home and there was still that situation to deal with.

  When I pulled up to the house, Shanna and Craig were already there. The sight of Craig’s truck in the drive way made me want to put the car in reverse and drive far way. If I wouldn’t have been so tired, I would have at least driven around until I thought everyone in the house was asleep. As I walked up to the door, I could smell dinner cooking and hear laughter from the living room. I could only imagine what long exaggerated story Craig was telling with Shanna encouraging it and Daddy throwing in his own corny jokes. I wasn’t in the mood for any of it. When I walked in everyone said hello and as Shanna stood up to hug me I literally found myself gasping in shock at how thin she was. I was amazed that our parents didn’t notice this and say something to her. She looked awful! Either they didn’t want to face the facts that something was truly wrong with her situation or I was imagining how bad she looked. Not wanting to seem antisocial, I joined them in the living room and grimaced through the stories being told. Craig was going out of the way, it seemed, to include me in the conversations, but I still didn’t like him. I chose to only force a smile or give one-word answers. By the time dinner was ready, I knew I couldn’t handle sitting through a meal with them. Just the thought was nauseating. In lieu of dinner, I went up to my room to shower and call Jason. When we hung up, I could still hear everyone downstairs having a good time. I hated to be a sour puss, but nothing seemed enticing about joining them.