I didn’t know what would happen to Grayson Lane. All I knew was that the school misfit was in my house, sitting at my kitchen table, and was touching my toes with his own.
“High school kids still mock like they’re on an elementary playground.” Dad shook his head. “What does Mr. Lane say about this?”
Carmen snorted. My father shot her a warning. She slid lumpy potatoes into her mouth and swallowed without a sound. Unfortunately, Mom’s potatoes don’t slide down too easily either, so Carmen started to cough and gulp down water.
“Most days my dad is too drunk to care. But it doesn’t matter,” Grayson insisted. He tucked hair behind his ear. Wow. That really is a shiner. “I know how to fight back.”
“With your fists?”
“Is there any other way?”
“With your mind.” Dad said. Frustrated, he put his fork and knife down and turned to Mom. “Babe, how long you cook this chicken for?”
“About an hour. Hour and a half,” Mom replied. “Why?”
“It’s too tough, baby.”
“Do you know where the oven is?” she asks innocently.
My father frowned. “What kind of question is that?”
Mom nodded. “Tomorrow you can use it if you don’t like my cooking.”
“Oh, Althea. No need for you to get touchy.”
“I’m not getting touchy. I’m getting fed. For the rest of the week. By you.” Folks always thought my mother was a pushover because she was petite and flighty and had a voice as delicate as Waterford Crystal. Folks were wrong.
My father tossed his napkin on his plate. “You know what you do?” Dad refocused his attention onto Grayson.
“Dad,” Carmen said. “He has a father.”
The comment hung in the air. Yes, Grayson had a father. The thing was, he wasn’t a very attentive one. Which is why when my dad happened to see Mr. Lane in the grocery store and asked him why he’d never attended a parent-teacher conference and got nothing but hemming and hawing in reply, my dad made the unorthodox request to let Grayson come over for dinner occasionally. Not so sure the school board would’ve approved, but both my parents had rebellious streaks. Mr. Lane didn’t much care where his son caught his supper.
“And you, Carmen Cole, have a mouth that runs too fast, too often,” he said. “Grayson, the best revenge isn’t with your fists, son. It’s with your mind. Make something of yourself and someday those boys might end up working for you. And the girls who made fun of you will want to marry you.”
“On that note,” Carmen said, obviously stifling wild laughter, “I’m going up to my room.”
“Be back in half an hour to clean the kitchen,” Mom said.
Carmen stopped. “It’s not my night, it’s Cal’s turn.”
“Callia didn’t insult our guest,” Mom sang. “You did. Back in half an hour. And I want the floors swept and mopped, too.”
Carmen gave me a good look at her middle finger that only I could see before stomping upstairs.
I didn’t care. Why should I? I was sitting next to a boy who got into a fight at school because some knucklehead tripped me while I was walking down the hallway. Grayson Lane had told my father a bold-faced lie—although it could have been true on any other occasion. He’d told my father the lie to protect me.
I was sitting next to my hero.
* * *
“Callia?” Mom calls out to me from the front of the house.
I’d been so preoccupied with my thoughts that I hadn’t even heard her come in the door. I toss out the rest of my food and go to meet her.
“Where’ve you been?” I ask.
“Old ladies are allowed to have a life too, you know,” she said, removing her pink wide-brimmed summer hat reminiscent of an Easter basket. She paired the hat with a long-sleeved shift in psychedelic colors and white patent leather boots. I shake my head and wonder exactly how and when will I broach the subject—I feel like I pretty much have to. One day she’s Scarlett O’Hara and the next she’s a 1960s go-go dancer. This is not normal behavior for a woman in her late sixties.
“I’m just wondering, since I had the car. I thought you’d be here when I got home.”
“How was work?” she asks as though she has a hearing problem. “I want to hear all about it.” She plops down on Dad’s favorite recliner and removes her boots.
“You know, it went like any first day on the job, I guess.”
“And how is that?”
“Let’s just say I know more about my job now than I did before I got there this morning.”
“I think it’s wonderful you’re going to be helping people. Your dad was so committed to education. I didn’t enjoy teaching art nearly as much as he enjoyed teaching math.”
“It’s not like I’m a professor or anything.”
“It doesn’t matter how big or small your role is. The point is that you’re helping people do something with their lives. Feel good about that.”
“You were out with Grayson, weren’t you?”
Mom reclines the chair and says, “Maybe.”
“He didn’t want to stop in and say hi?”
“Would you have liked that?” She has a sly grin on her face as though she knows I would have loved exactly that.
“No,” I stammer and fall onto the couch. “I mean, I’m glad he didn’t bother. Makes life easier on everyone.”
“I suppose he felt the same way. Although, the way I see it, there’s no harm in being friends. You never know when you might need somebody.”
Not entirely true.
“How were the apartments?” I ask between two huge yawns.
“It was okay. On the one hand, I think living in the senior community will be a good move for me, and on the other hand, this is home.”
“There’s no rush for you to leave here. The house is paid for and now you have your favorite daughter to keep you company.”
Mom shakes her head. “If you’re yawning like that, you must have had a very tiring first day.”
“You’re right. Maybe it was tougher than I thought. I’m gonna go take a nap.”
“It’s only six-thirty,” Mom says.
“I’ll be awake by eight and maybe we can watch a movie together. You want me to make you a quick bite to eat first?”
“No, thanks. Grayson took me to dinner while we were out.”
Of course he did, I think as I drag my tired body up the stairs. Grayson is everybody’s hero.
Chapter 9
My eyes spring open at the sound of my growling stomach. I didn’t eat a substantial dinner and now I’m starving. It’s ten and Mom’s probably already sleeping. Pancakes, I decide, are in order to make up for my horrible day. I put on my slippers and head downstairs.
“Cal?” Mom is reclined on the sofa watching a movie. “I figured you’d sleep through the night.”
“It would’ve been safer if I had. I woke up thinking about pancakes.”
“Oh, sweetie, you might have a problem.”
“I was thinking specifically about chocolate chip pancakes. How’s that sound?”
“Yuck!” Mom makes a face that makes me want to pinch her cheeks. She looks incredibly fragile lying there beneath the blanket, pink toenails sticking out the other end.
“You look nice with no makeup, Mom. You don’t need all that gunk on your face.”
“I know I don’t need it. I like to play dress-up. Now go make us something to eat. My movie is on.”
I look at the screen and see a priest throwing a temper tantrum because he can never get what he wants, or so he says.
“The Thorn Birds?”
“Best romance ever created,” she says.
My mother’s favorite romances have a familiar theme, I muse, as I gather ingredients. Forbidden love. The idea of two people being kept apart because of some force greater than themselves is the plot for half the books on her bookshelves and floors and tables…
An odd feeling creeps down my back as I work and I attribute
it to my dilemma. I’m going to have to tell her at some point about the job. I’d rather wait until I have another prospect lined up. There’s no need for both of us to worry.
A feeling washes over me again, like I’m being watched. I look out the window and see nothing but my own reflection looking back at me through the dark. I close the curtains over the kitchen sink anyway.
There is something strangely cathartic about being in the kitchen. As I mix the dry ingredients, slowly add a beaten egg, a little milk, and I see my creation spring to life, I feel my body ease, delight even, in the process. Ask most people what their favorite room in the house is and many might say anywhere with a TV. I say anywhere with an oven. The kitchen is the one place where my guard comes down, my imagination takes flight, and I feel like I belong. I start to hum some pop song I heard on the radio earlier and imagine how awesome it would be to bake in a professional kitchen. I’ve always dreamt I’d have one, but real life has failed to intersect with my dreams.
I take out two plates while the hotcakes are bubbling on the griddle.
Mom shuffles into the kitchen on slippered feet.
“Baby, the smell of them hotcakes pulled me away from my movie.”
“Sit down, Mom. They’ll be ready in a few. I didn’t put chips in yours.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because you said—” I catch myself when she gives me the eye—the eye that signals that my tone is getting too saucy for her liking. “Fine, there’s enough here with chips for both of us.”
The microwave beeps and I pull out a small bowl. Mom sits at the kitchen table and looks in it with the excitement of a fascinated child.
“What’s that?”
“I made syrup. Honey, cinnamon, butter.”
“Girl, I don’t know why you don’t open your own restaurant.”
“Because I like to bake, not cook. And I don’t think cookies can keep a roof over my head, unfortunately.”
I warm the plates and then place a couple of chocolate chip pancakes on them with a dollop of cinnamon sugar butter on top. Then I pour a touch of homemade syrup on the hotcakes.
Mom takes a tentative bite, unsure if she likes the idea of chocolate in her pancakes, then smiles. My heart sings like a mockingbird at the sight of her pleasure.
“Good?” I ask.
“Great. Just great.” She wipes her mouth and says, “By the way, Grayson’s stopping by any minute.”
I hold my fork midway to my mouth. “What?”
Mom gets up and pours us some decaf. I’d forgotten I’d brewed it.
“Apparently, my wallet dropped out of my purse. He found it in his car. He wants to return it to me as soon as possible.”
“He couldn’t wait until the morning? It’s ten at night.”
“I said as much, Callia, but he said he’ll have a busy day tomorrow and I might need it.”
“So, he’s coming by?” I repeat. “Tonight.”
“Look, I know you two still have the hots for one another. It’d make life a whole lot easier for the both of you if you just admitted it already. I was never one for playing the coquette.”
“Who’s playing the coquette? I’m not interested, Mom,” I put my fork down. “You have no idea how much he hurt me.”
“I have some idea. I was around to watch you mope after he’d left. It was a very confusing time for all of us.”
“It’s not just that, believe me. It’s a whole lot deeper,” I say defensively. The last thing I want is to lay my heartbreak on the table and have someone—Mom especially—sweep it from the floor as if it’s as inconsequential as a grain of salt. That pain was real and it was enduring.
We sit and eat quietly, although my nerves are beginning to vibrate. I remind myself that I don’t have to see him when he drops by. Yet, part of me wants to see him every chance I get, if only to remember how good it used to feel to be in his presence.
“Did you hear that?” Mom asks.
I turn my head toward the front door and Mom shakes her head and points in the opposite direction. I hear it now. A scraping sound coming from the bathroom.
“What is that?” she whispers. “Grayson wouldn’t come that way.”
“Probably a cat or something,” I reply, but I’m whispering, too.
I make a fist with my fork in hand, and carefully pad in bare feet down the hall. The noise grows louder, though intermittent. It’s definitely coming from the bathroom. I look at the window. There could be a reasonable explanation for persistent scraping against the window. A bird, cat, or squirrel clawing on the ledge. A tree branch hitting the window.
But I know—without doubt—what is happening behind the curtain that covers the window.
Someone is breaking in.
Chapter 10
Myths have a habit of taking on a life of their own. Repeat it enough times and people begin to think that they’re true. For example, ask anyone on the street who invented the light bulb and the likely name you’ll hear is Thomas Edison. It isn’t true, of course, since history has long proven that the greatest inventor of our time also happened to be one of the greatest self-promoters; one who wasn’t above improving the light bulb forty years after it was invented, then failing to correct those who gave him credit for the creation.
The same kind of myth is perpetuated about military personnel. People like to imagine that we possess unshakeable courage; that we walk forward into the winds of adversity with our heads high and our weapons raised. Or that we can fight with our enemies in hand-to-hand combat like the juiced-up actors in those action flicks. I am here to tell you that this stoicism is not a universal trait doled out like diplomas to the men and women in uniform. Instead, we relapse into that place that most humans do when confronted with a life-threatening situation that reminds us of our own mortality.
And so, as I stand in the dark hallway, listening to what I now know is metal scratching against metal, as the outer layer of the window creeps up, letting in a mild breeze, I have to consciously jolt myself out of fear and into action. So I do the first thing that comes to mind.
I scream.
At least, I think I scream.
I can’t hear anything come out of my mouth except a squeak so meager it could’ve belonged to a mouse.
The window is moving upward in a smooth motion and now I know I’m in trouble.
Finally, my legs move back into the kitchen. Mom is gone.
“Mom?” I whisper.
Maybe she’s gone out the front door. It’s a good idea that I think of too late. I can’t possibly escape out the front when Mom could be someplace inside, in a closet, down in the basement or upstairs. I turn around and look for my cell phone.
Gone.
Where did I put it?
Rubber squeaks on the tub.
I curse under my breath, swipe the pot of coffee from the hot plate.
Where to hide?
Mom has so many books in the house, I could probably hide behind a stack. I quickly move toward the stacks as voices start coming from the kitchen.
“Yo, yo, yo, man,” a deep male voice says. “Lookit what we got over here.”
Quiet.
“Dem shits is good,” another younger kid says through a full mouth.
Flattery eludes me. I slip between a small space between a coffee table and the wall. The table has a lamp that will help obscure what the novels on the table won’t.
These idiots had to have seen that the lights were on in the house, yet they broke in anyway. Did they target this house because they thought just an old lady and her nurse were inside or were they so stupid that it didn’t occur to them that occupants who were awake were also able to fight back and maybe even identify them to cops?
Or was their intent so malicious that they didn’t care?
“Books,” the one with the deeper voice says. “What the hell are we supposed to take from here, an encyclopedia?”
The voices were moving closer.
One was garbled.
“What?” Deep Voice says. “Man, we supposed to be making this look like a robbery, not sittin’ down to breakfast. Will you knock it off?”
“I said,” the kid enunciates each word carefully, “these pancakes is warm.”
“So the fuck what? Ain’t they supposed to be?”
A pause so long ballooned up in the room that at any second I expected an explosion. A gun, maybe, or a glass breaking.
My nerves were as frazzled as strobe lighting in a nightclub. The bass I hear is the sound of my heart. Thump, thump, thump.
Deep Voice: “Go knock some shit over and let’s get the fuck outta here.”
“Me?” The kid replies. “Why I gotta go in there? Why don’t you go in there?”
“Cause I put the deal together, that’s why.”
“Yeah, but I put you in contact with the guy who helped us put the deal together.”
In a strained whisper, Deep Voice responds, “Your friend is an idiot ’cause I’m pretty sure this is the wrong house, anyway. No one who keeps a stash of X in their crib is also making pancakes.”
One of the guys smacks his lips and steps into the family room. He knocks some stuff over, including the books on the side table that was providing me with cover. If the light is turned on, or if he takes half a second to look at what he’s doing, he’ll see me.
“Let’s go,” Deep Voice says.
I look down at my hands. They’re barely visible but they tremble so violently it’s a wonder the guys couldn’t hear the coffee sloshing.
A few seconds later, a squeaking sound comes from the bathroom. The shower curtain rustles. Relaxed in their mistaken assumption that the house was urgently abandoned, they make far more noise upon exiting than they did entering.
After a few minutes, I call out meekly for Mom. No answer. But in the distance, I hear the whirl of sirens. The same sound that used to give me chills as a young girl, for fear of some dreadful thing befalling my parents, gives me comfort as I put the pot on the table and rush toward safety.
Sweet Secrets Page 6