Oddly, it’s Gracie that brought Tripp back into my life. He was there when I sat down and tried to quit volleyball, bringing me back to life and reassuring me that my dreams weren’t dead, just postponed. And he’s still here, just out of my reach, but here to grab onto if I really need him. Even as I think it, Lovely Lauren glides over to his table and puts her arms around his neck from behind. I watch as his hands instinctively go to her arms and then I rip my eyes away from them and give my attention back to my math homework.
Four
I’m walking to my car after practice when my phone buzzes with a text from Katie.
Katie: 7pm Saturday night. Dinner with Richie and Doug at The Dream on campus
Me: Pizza?
Katie: u said u wanted normal.
Me: thx Katie
Katie: don’t 4get to ask G to babysit sat night
Me: bossy
Katie: damn straight. Richies HOT
Me: like dougie fresh hot, or normal, healthy boy hot?
Me: jk
Katie: no wonder he doesn’t like u. b nice sat
Me: yea yea
I unlock my Explorer just as my phone buzzes with a text again, this time from Tripp.
Tripp: u still here?
Me: parking lot about to leave
Tripp: hold up, I need a ride.
Me: k
If Tripp needs a ride, it can only mean one thing: Betty is acting up again. Betty is Tripp’s classic Ford truck and she’s always breaking. His dad owns a garage downtown and Tripp and all of his brothers are car lovers, all owning classics that they bought and restored themselves with Mr. Jones. When Betty’s working, she’s beautiful, just like Tanner’s original Shelby GTO and Griff’s Bronco. But when she breaks, Tripp is carless until he has time to figure out what happened to her. The downside of a classic is it requires more time and attention than most eighteen-year-olds have, hence the reason Tripp needs a ride every other day.
Since Tripp is slower than a group of cheerleaders when it comes to showering off the basketball sweat and getting outside after practice, I settle down in the front seat and text G, or Grandma Reynolds, my dad’s mom who watches Gracie during the week, to let her know I’ll be a few minutes later than normal. A minute later my phone signals a message and I laugh at the picture of Gracie eating macaroni. There’s definitely more of the orange cheese on her face than in her mouth, as is standard for her these days. I smile as I look at the picture, noting Gracie’s blonde hair pulled back from her face with a sparkly clip, another present from G no doubt.
Where I fail at being a girl, G is constantly dressed as though she’s going to a dance club (an interesting look when you’re in your late seventies, and one that can ultimately be terrifying). She’s constantly adorning Gracie in sparkles and tutus, which paired with the converse and t- shirts I put her in makes her look a little like Avril Lavign in the early days. I study the picture a little longer, taking in Gracie’s blonde hair and sea-green eyes, her pixie nose and already full pink lips. She’s as fair as I am dark, the only resemblance we share in the shape and color of our eyes. My skin is olive, thanks to my mother’s Italian heritage and my father’s Cherokee ancestors, my hair dark and thick. My eyes are a hazel that transform from green to gray depending on the day. Gracie’s eyes are my eyes—heavy lidded, long lashed. But Gracie’s face is not mine, nor is her fair skin or blonde ringlets.
When I first realized that she was going to be a clone of Marcus, I cried and asked my mom what I was going to tell her when she asked why she didn’t look more like me. My mother, for all of her scientific knowledge and background, looked at me and said “You tell her the truth: the sun shined so brightly the day she was born that everything about her is light.”
It was an answer I could live with.
I close my phone and drop it in my lap, looking over as a car pulls into the spot a few down from mine in the almost deserted parking lot. I want to say I’m surprised to see Marcus hop out of the driver’s side and walk oh-so-casually over to the pick-up truck waiting, a small parcel in his hand, but I’m not. I slouch further down in my seat and watch as he makes a quick exchange before pocketing something and slipping back from the truck as it peels out. Turning, he walks back to his own car, looking up in time to see me watching. He pauses to register that it’s me, then he smiles, a slow menacing look spilling across his hollowed out face. The same face that even now sits on my phone, covered in sweet potato mush. Then he ducks into his car and drives away.
~
I found out I was pregnant with Gracie in the spring of my sophomore year. Traveling season for volleyball was in full swing, so when I found out I opted to do the mature thing and ignore it. No one knew (other than Tripp, and he never said anything) because it was no one’s business, and besides, I hadn’t decided what I was going to do.
There’s an advantage to being a tall girl when you find yourself the recipient of an unwanted pregnancy: I was six months before I started showing. My appetite has always been large, and I was so sick the first twelve weeks that I actually lost nine pounds. But when school started again after summer and double days for the high school team stretched out, I realized that I’d made my decision and I wasn’t giving the baby up, in any form. It was September when I broke down in Coach’s office and told him I had to quit volleyball for personal reasons but I hoped to be welcomed back on the team next year.
He stared at me, his mouth working like a guppy as he tried to say something. Finally, when he croaked out “Why?” I couldn’t take the pressure.
Whether it was due to raging hormones or fear and self-loathing or all of the above, I laid my head on his desk and started sobbing as I told him I was six months pregnant and I couldn’t give up the baby. His first reaction was not what I expected, but then, no one’s was.
“But, how…? Isn’t Katie the one with the boyfriends?”
Stacy had a similar reaction, if more volatile.
“How?” she finally asked after what seemed like an hour of her sitting on the sofa staring at me as if I’d grown three heads.
“How what?” I asked her.
She gestured to me with her hands, encompassing my whole being as if dumbfounded that my plumbing worked the same way as everyone else’s, and shock of all shocks, it had actually worked better than hers, the girl who had been trying to get pregnant since the day she got married.
“How this? How did you get pregnant? You don’t date, you don’t sleep around like Katie.” She gestured to Katie, whom I’d brought so I could kill two birds with one stone—and so she would be there to help me clean up the devastation that would be Stacy at the end of my confession. I knew my sister well enough to know that this conversation was going to be about her by the end. “You hate germs, for Jesus’ sake. I mean, you barely share water with me and I’m your sister. How in the hell did you go from being a virgin nobody to pregnant?” The last word came out as a shriek. She stood, her body trembling as she looked at me as if something would finally come to her and explain the reasons behind this cruel twist of fate.
“You had sex,” Katie said on a gasp and looked at me. The fact is, it did probably just dawn on her that my pregnancy was due to sex. In all likelihood, she had taken my announcement at face value and was wondering what toilet seat I had sat on and thanking God it hadn’t been her. Things were always a little slower to add up for Katie, which was why she was more interested in who I had slept with than the fact that I was pregnant.
“Oh my God, when did you have sex and with who? You don’t even like to kiss boys, how did you get pregnant? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“The normal way,” I said, insulted. It wasn’t that I didn’t like kissing boys, it’s more to the point that I couldn’t really see myself kissing the boys at our school (unless it was Tripp and really, that was more like self-defeat than fantasy). Most of them were a good three or four inches shorter than me minimum—they lined up with my chest and said inappropriate things hoping I�
�d be so flattered that they spoke to me that I’d fall at their feet. Not exactly a turn on, if you’re me. Katie, on the other hand, had gotten most of her homecoming dates in just that scenario.
And then Katie, never as clueless as you need her to be, figured it out. “Marcus Ka-”
Before she could finish, I slapped my hand over her mouth. I didn’t want Stacy to know who Marcus was, to see him, to check in with him, to talk to him. It wasn’t because I was afraid that Marcus would find out I was pregnant and want to be a part of it. It was because I was already devastated enough that I had to tell her I was pregnant, that I had to show my sister who was ten times more perfect than me that I was a high school girl who had thrown her dreams away on a one night stand. I didn’t want her to know it was to the resident drug dealer whose only potential lay in the fact that when he finally went to rehab, his enabling parents would have a job waiting for him in the family business.
~
Tripp steps up to the passenger side and watches Marcus’s Beemer speed out of the parking lot. Then he looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Why was he here? He graduated last year.”
Tripp has an unreasonable hatred for Marcus. I don’t know if it was there before that night at the party, but I know it’s been there since and each time he sees him, he goes all protective. It would be cute if I needed protecting. Or if he was my boyfriend.
“Oh, you know, wanted to check in with the family, see how his offspring is, if he can do anything to help raise her, the usual.” I roll my eyes as Tripp’s brow creases and his eyes darken. “Jesus, Mom, relax. He was making a deal. We barely made eye contact.”
He nods and gets into the car, throwing his bag into the backseat. “Has he asked about Gracie?”
“Nope.”
“Do you want him to?”
I slide a glance at him while I’m waiting at the stop sign which leads out of the parking lot. “Why would I? He made it clear the day he told me to keep my mouth shut that he didn’t want to be attached to her, and it’s not like I was into him before that.”
I see him visibly relax from the corner of my eye and resist the urge to roll them again. Tripp’s big brother, over protectiveness went into overdrive the minute Gracie was born. As thankful as I am, it’s also as annoying as it is sweet. I mean, my big brother he is not, otherwise, the day he had his tongue down my throat would be scarring for more reasons than the ones already there.
The day that Marcus cornered me in the girl’s bathroom to make sure I understood in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want people spreading rumors that the kid was his anymore, I had to enlist both Tanner and Griff to keep Tripp from tracking him down and beating the shit out of him. There is no rationality when Tripp sees Marcus, it’s all male ego and emotion and as understanding as I try to be about it, at times it grates on me that he’s protective of me from Marcus, yet he can’t see that he’s the only person to ever make me feel like less. The only person to ever break me.
“Just stay away from him and let me know if he bothers you. He’s into some deep shit with some bad people.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
His lips twitch. “I’m being serious, smartass. Griff said he was closing out the other night and saw Marcus in the alley off the bar, packing some things into his car with some guy. He’s getting into bigger things now that he’s in college, Rachel, and you need to be careful.”
Yeaaa, careful went out the window the day I decided that I needed to get under him to get over Tripp. Because I’m thinking he won’t like this response (and won’t Ms. Flynn be impressed by my self-control), I leave it be and nod my head.
When we arrive at G’s house, Tripp goes to hop out and I rest a hand on his arm. “Uh, I should probably warn you. G’s got a boyfriend these days, and she’s super vocal about him and, uh, their…dates.”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“Exactly, so just be forewarned that when she mentions Walter, you should tune her out because it’s gonna get ugly.”
He makes a face as we walk up the drive and into the house. G is my dad’s mom, but unlike my dad, she’s been a part of my life since I was born, stating that she had a “good for nothing son and wanted to try again.” She and my mom are close, bonded by their intense disapproval over everything my father does, so G picked up a lot of the slack with us while my mom was working. Now she watches Gracie five days a week for free, no matter how much I insist on paying her.
“She keeps me young,” she always says and waves my money away. I’m as grateful as I am guilty. I mean, she’s almost eighty and she’s hanging with my one-year-old every day, but then I remember her social calendar and the way she hops from man to man, bingo nights to the ELKS dance nights and so forth and realize it really does keep her young. And involved. I don’t know if it’s awesome or pathetic that my grandmother has a hotter social life than I do.
I can hear her talking when we step inside, and her voice is immediately followed by a high squeal and then a giggle. We follow the sound down the hall to the kitchen and are both brought up short at the sight of my grandmother in pink and black hot-pants (which are basically spandex) with a matching tank top slicked over her torso. She has pink kitten heals on her feet and is currently swiveling her non-existent hips in what is surely meant to be a salsa like dance. I’m struck with twin urges to scream and laugh. One look at Tripp’s pale face and bulging eyes does the trick. My laughter bursts out, then so does Tripp’s and I’m not entirely sure there isn’t a horrified sob or two mingled in with it.
I recover first.
“Hey, G, hot date tonight?”
Gracie squeals again as she sees us and I go immediately to her tray as G saunters across the kitchen to turn down the music that’s blaring out of the television.
“Rae Rae and Tripp. Oh my goodness, how’s my handsome man?”
I smile again as G throws herself into Tripp’s arms and he has no other choice than to catch her and hold on. The way she’s pressed up against him is less than appropriate, but her appreciation for men doesn’t see age or rules—it only sees beauty. (Especially beauty that comes in the form of broad shoulders and a tall frame.)
Tripp has been the recipient of many affectionate hugs from G, and still, his face turns pink and he throws me a look of absolute terror as she starts to wiggle against him, prodding at him to move his feet and dance with her.
Although I find the picture amusing, as there’s always going to be a part of me that enjoys seeing Tripp suffer even just a tiny bit, I take pity on him and bring Gracie over, where she promptly reaches for him, her almost-words babbling out and over, making no sense except to convey her joy at seeing him.
Throwing herself at him, just like her mama. Only he gladly takes Gracie into his arms and begins tickling her. The part of me that always wishes she was his aches at the sight of them, and then I remember that it’s okay that she’s mine alone because Tripp has a future he needs to get to.
“So, I assume the outfit is because you’re going out with Walter?” I ask G as I start to pick up toys that are strewn over every surface possible.
She waggles her eyebrows. “He said he likes my curves so I thought I’d surprise him. What do you think?”
She wiggles those nonexistent hips again and does a shimmy that has other parts moving like a pendulum. I hear Tripp suck in a breath before turning his back and letting Gracie pull him in the other direction to show off her treasures. My own sense of decency is warring with my love for her. Note to self: when boobs start hanging down to places south of the belly button, wear loose fitting clothing and a compression bra at all times so as to not scare away grandchildren and unsuspecting best friends.
“Bright,” is all I can come up with and continue picking up toys.
She cackles out a laugh and bends down to help me. I’m secretly glad I’m turned away from her so I don’t have to see the lycra stretch over those unwanted areas.
“Hey, G, can you watch Gracie Satu
rday night?” I ask as I pack Gracie’s blanket and Lovey into her bag.
Tripp enters the room again, his eyes fixed firmly on Gracie and I smirk. Coward.
“Hot date?” G asks and I grin.
“A date, at least.” If Richie is anything like Doug, hot isn’t the adjective I would use to describe him. Homely, unmotivated, wannabe gangster. Christ, maybe I should have G ask Walter if he has a friend.
She cackles again and I turn to look at Tripp so I don’t have to see the dance move I’m sure is about to follow. There’s only so much a girl can handle in one visit. He’s studying me with a furrowed brow.
“What?”
“Who are you going out with?”
I’d rather eat worms than admit Katie set me up, so I shrug instead. “A guy. You don’t know him. He’s older.” And most likely a douche with a frat boy haircut and a motorcycle he barely knows how to drive.
“Where did you meet him?”
I haven’t, I’m just pathetic enough to accept blind dates that are ninety percent guaranteed to suck. “Around. What’s with the third degree?”
He shrugs as he hoists Gracie up and takes her bag from me, reminding me just how much he’s always helped me. I grind my teeth together. That’s because he’s a friend. My best friend. Nothing more.
“You don’t usually go out.”
I shrug. “Things change.”
His eyes stay on mine for a second before he inclines his head. “Guess so.” And then he turns and says goodbye to G.
Five
Life Interrupted Page 3