Meant to Be Broken

by Brandy Woods Snow

  Daddy wakes me up at the butt-crack of dawn, chipper and smiling as if last night wasn’t some huge Mama-drama-fiasco. Of course, she isn’t standing right beside him either, so he’s no longer being coerced into “suspicious Daddy” behavior.

  You’d never guess from his weekend attire that for five of seven days Daddy wears a suit and tie and works in a corporate office. Weekends always mean seeing the true Daddy I know and love. Relaxed Daddy. Hang out and chill Daddy. Scruffy-faced, t-shirts-and-Adidas-track-pants Daddy. He gets me up early to go with him to change my tire and bring my car home, and I sneak out, leaving Jaycee still face-down sound asleep in her pillow.

  Daddy and I grab a to-go coffee on the way and chat about nothing in particular. I ask him about work and business trips. He asks me about my upcoming school schedule and if I’ve considered colleges. He even braves the waters to chat about the bonfire, but only in general terms like did you have a good time and what did you eat.

  He even asks if there was mudding because apparently that was a big thing during his teen years, too. He winks and talks about how he and Mama used to go all the time and how much she loved it. How the life had once danced in her eyes as they spun through the mud. How she screamed so loud when it’d splattered her shirt and face. Mama loved life before. Before what I don’t know. Before me?

  Daddy stops, gazes out the windshield, his mouth and eyes pinching together to create three little lines above his nose. Then he clams up.

  My car’s still on the roadside in a patch of tall grass. Daddy makes quick work of changing out my tire, and just before I slide into the driver seat, he hugs me, awkwardly holding out one black-stained hand so as not to smear dirt and grease all over.

  “You did the right thing last night… calling us and letting us know what happened. And please tell the Howards when you see them that I appreciate what they did.”

  It’s Daddy’s way of smoothing the wrinkles from last night. I smile and squeeze him tighter around the waist. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  He pulls back and swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Don’t thank me yet. When we get home, take your shower and get dressed for church. Last night when you were gone, your mama signed you up to sing a solo in service today.”

  “Awwwww, Daaaa-ddy,” I whine, stringing it out like Christmas lights.

  “Consider it a peace offering?” He grins in that please-just-do-this-for-me way.

  I sigh and nod before sliding into my seat. As the engine roars to life I have an unsettling theory roaming my brain. This is Mama’s ultimate lie detector test, like an exorcism where the possessed person can’t say Jesus’ name. If I’m hiding a guilty conscience from last night and then have the audacity to stand in the pulpit and sing today, surely my head will burst into flames or something, then she’d know the truth.

  A couple hours later, my head un-burnt and still firmly on my shoulders, Jaycee and I sneak up to my room after Sunday lunch. I sit on the bed, legs crossed with a clipboard on my lap, a black pen, and a stack of about 20 college applications Mama gave me at lunch with a firm deadline of completion by week’s end. Jaycee sits at my vanity, brushing her long blond hair into a bun, and when finished, arranges all of my lipsticks in a neat row across the marble top.

  She slicks on a hot pink hue and angles her head a variety of ways to get the full effect. “That was some solo. Thought you might fly right off the stage and through the roof. Did that purge all your sins from last night?” Frowning, she blots her lips with a square of toilet paper.

  “Shut up. You sound like Mama.” I flip through the first application. The first five pages are general questions like name and address, technical questions about my GPA and extracurricular activities, forward-looking stuff on majors and minors, and the dreaded essay. One form gives a snapshot of your first eighteen years of life for a school to decide if you’re worth their time.

  But I’m not thinking about college. I’m thinking about Preston. What if he had a form like this to determine whether I’m dateable or not? Name, age, and address?—no problem there. Past experience?—negligible. Future prospects?—undecided. I’m hardly a prime candidate. I throw the clipboard and papers on the bedspread.

  Jaycee looks back over her shoulder and smiles. “I’ve been waiting since last night. Exactly what kind of sinning did you do?”

  I didn’t have to ask her that question about Barrett. It’d taken nearly twenty minutes this morning with concealer and powder to cover the several reddish-purple blotches on her neck. I laugh and fill her in on our general conversation and kiss, remembering to tell her Preston noticed me because of the very prom date she’d nicknamed my “social suicide.”

  She sticks out her tongue, balloons her cheeks, and makes a fart sound. “Thad? You’re telling me going out with Mr. National-Merit-Scholar-I’m-smarter-than-you-pocket-protecting-nerd landed Preston?” She turns back to the mirror and swipes black liquid eyeliner across the rim of her eyelid. “Unreal.”

  “Maybe some guys are interested in more than boobs and ass. Maybe they like a mind.” Yeah, because Preston always liked a mind before.

  “At least that’s what they tell you until they get the boobs and ass,” Jaycee laughs. “You’re so naïve. It’s cute.”

  “You always think—”

  “Fine, let me guess. He took you off to be alone? He asked you dorky questions like your favorite color? Your sign? Did he kiss you hard then suddenly back up and ask if that was okay or if you liked it, then launched right back in and felt you up since you were just so agreeable by that point? At the end, did he make an actual date or just say something like ‘I’ll text you’?”

  The heat bubbles up in my cheeks and floods down my neck.

  “I—”

  “That—,” she points her finger at me in the mirror reflection, “Is game. All rehearsed, practiced, and polished game.”

  Her words drive the doubt back in, curling up like a snake in my head and poisoning all the positives from last night. Was Preston playing me? Why? Sure, everyone thinks it’s pretty far-fetched he actually likes me, but why torment me? It’s not like I’ve made myself a target. Still there’s another voice of reason chiming in through the fogginess reminding me of Preston’s gentleness, his eagerness to know more about me, the way he stepped in to save the day when the tire blew. A booty call wouldn’t do that.

  Jaycee’s looking at me in the mirror as if I’ve grown two heads. “Quit. I can see all the little wheels turning in your head. I didn’t say Preston doesn’t like you. I said he has game. But he’s dated—a lot—so you shouldn’t be surprised.” She flings my compact on the vanity and whirls sideways in the seat. “You’re my bestie. I’m keeping it real since you’re new at this. I can’t have you screwing it all up.” She sighs, smoothing away frizzies from her hairline. “We’ll know more when he calls.”

  I grab my pillow and wrench it over my face. “If… if he calls,” I mumble through the fluffy down. No sooner are the words out than my phone rings. I pull the pillow down across my nose and mouth, leaving my eyes free to follow Jaycee as she leans over and snatches the phone from the dresser.

  She looks up with a smile. “I’ll be damned. Speak of the devil.”

  “Give it here!” I squeal, dropping the pillow and wriggling my fingers.

  She holds up one finger in wait mode. “Hello?” Her accent’s suddenly thick and syrupy. “Hi Preston. Rayne’s right here. Hold on a minute.” She half-ass covers the mouthpiece so he can hear her. “Oh Ray-ayne. It’s Pres-ston.”

  I scramble across the top of the covers and wrench my phone from her hand. “Hello?” I consciously try steadying my own voice when I hear his. It’s him. It’s really him. It’s kinda unbelievable because I’d almost convinced myself last night was nowhere near what I had in my memory. You can do this, Rayne. I coach my brain to hunker down and come up with some good convo. Except I don’t get a chance because he’s inundating me with questions,
one after the other, before I can even answer the first.

  “Did you have fun last night?” he asks.

  “Sure, I thought it was—” I start before he interrupts.

  “Did you get your tire fixed?”

  “Yeah, actually Daddy took me this—”

  “Your parents—how did they react when you got home?”

  “It was okay, I guess, I mean I figured—”

  “You and Jaycee are hanging out again?”

  What I really want to tell him is that between Mama and Jaycee, I have enough third-degree questioners in my life. I don’t need another one.

  “Yeah, she spent the night, and—”

  “So what are y’all doing today?”

  “Shut up!” I slam my balled-up fist wrist-deep into the pillow. My jaw drops and Jaycee cuts her eyes at me from across the room, mouth gaped open as well. It’s radio silence on the other end.

  Until I hear laughter. And if I’m not mistaken, it sounds like Gage. “She told you to shut up,” he says in the background.

  Me and my big mouth, always screwing up. “Preston? You there?”

  “I’m here.” His voice is sullen, deep, and drawn out like grandma’s molasses. “My brother thinks it’s hilarious you just told me to shut up. Really rethinking this speakerphone thing…”

  “Sorry. I don’t really want you to shut up. I just want to talk about now, not fifty questions about before.” His tone mellows as he agrees and tells me about his day and plans for the upcoming week.

  It’s about five minutes later when he requests my permission to ask me one last question, not about last night but next weekend—a date next Saturday. In an actual restaurant where actual people will see us together, and afterwards a private swim at his house. I accept and by the time he hangs up, I know my little faux pas from earlier is already forgotten.

  Jaycee pounces on the bed beside me and grabs my arm, shaking it. “A go-out-in-public date?” She crooks her eyebrow and nods her head in my direction. “Everyone will be talking. If that’s not a ‘back the hell up’ to every girl around, I don’t know what is. Props, girl.”

  She’s right. Maybe my being seen with him will finally shut the town up, quiet all their doubts about me. There’s just one little problem. I have to tell Mama the rumors are true. “What about Mama?” I whisper, my hands cupped on either side of my mouth as if my room’s bugged. A low rumble interrupts us. I get up and flick my blinds apart with two fingers to see heavy purple-bottomed clouds building. “A storm’s brewing,” I say as another wave of thunder rattles the glass pane.

  Summertime storms remind me of being a little girl when Daddy scooped me up in his arms and told me thunder was nothing more than the sound of potatoes rolling down a hill. It always made me smile though I secretly wondered just how big those potatoes would have to be to make a sound like that. And from the rumbles outside, there’s about a thousand potatoes rolling right now.

  Immediately, Mama’s footsteps echo in the hallway. Mama hates thunderstorms. While Daddy sits on the back screened porch with coffee cup in hand, Mama paces the hardwood floors, opens up the hallway coat closet and insists I sit inside just in case, eyes wide and misty as she repeats the words I’ve heard her say a million times. “Hush! It’s dangerous. You never know what could happen in a storm.”

  The door squeaks open, and she pokes her head around the edge. “What are you two chatting about?”

  “Boys.” Jaycee smiles wickedly as the words leave her tongue. Bitch. She throws me right under the bus.

  “What boys?” Mama’s eyes narrow.

  “Not boys in general, Mrs. D. Really just one particular boy—Preston Howard.” Dear Lord, does she ever shut up? “He finally called Rayne. I think he’s a smitten kitten!” If my eyes were laser beams, Jaycee would burn hotter than a thousand Hells.

  “He called you?” Her tone’s more turbulent than the gusts outside.

  “He asked me for a date on Saturday, Mama. Nothing big, just dinner out in town.”

  “I don’t like this. I warned you about…” she starts, her chest rising harder, a faint wheezing mixing in with her words.

  “Just a date, Mama,” I interrupt, shaking my head. “Simple. Casual.”

  “I don’t like it.” Her eyebrows scrunch together as if she’s trying to think of some punishment to keep me in next weekend. The thunder rolls again, and Mama jumps. “Get downstairs before the worst gets here.”

  “Looks more like rain than anything.”

  “Hush! It’s dangerous. Never know what could happen in a storm.” There it is—million-and-one times. We line up and follow Mama downstairs. Maybe Daddy still has some coffee in the pot.

  Chapter 8

  Gage

  W

  hack!

  The first victim of our medium-sized “bucket of balls” sails past the 150-yd marker. Preston stands back, hand-visor over his eyes as he watches it fall on the green. He nods, lips pinched together before he turns to me. “My driving game is on point. Just goes to show you, practice makes perfect.”

  Surely, he’s not standing here on brothers’ morning out, clipping and throwing out verbatim lines of parental rhetoric. “Oh, hello Mom and Dad. Didn’t realize I came to the driving range with you. I thought I came with my brother. If you see him, please tell him I wanted to spend this morning with him. Not y’all. Sorry.”

  “Haha,” Preston says, brandishing his club like a sword and jabbing it into my thigh. “This morning is all about fun, but it doesn’t hurt to get a little practice time in, too.”

  Who the hell needs to practice the most boring sport known to man? The only thing I’m practicing is football—a real sport. The get-face-to-face-and-put-hands-on-them sport. “I don’t need practice time. I hate golf. I don’t play it.” I rifle through the bag and pull out a 5-iron. “I come to the driving range to hang out with you. That’s it.”

  He stalls, his lips wavering between a gentle smile and a downturned scowl like he’s deciding whether to let it go and have fun or take up the righteous cause. “But anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

  Righteous cause it is.

  “Keep talking like that and I’m gonna give you a colonoscopy with this 5-iron.” I point the club in his direction, giving it a few quick upward thrusts. “Believe me. I’ll do that one right.”

  He shakes his head, the same exasperated look I’ve seen from Mom one too many times. “You should really think about getting more into it, Gage. Dad says it’s a great way to network and meet new people. The company is even co-hosting that spring tourney next year.”

  I grab a ball from the bucket and place it on the tee. “They aren’t priming me for business networking and country clubs, Preston. That ain’t me and it’s never gonna be.” I step to the side, line up the club with the ball, pull back, and then wallop the hell out of it. It sails through the air, becoming a tiny white speck against the blue sky and lands farther out than Preston’s, though it’s off to the side, where a few other balls are lying.

  “If you’d straighten up your stance, you could take that power and aim it toward your target better.” Preston steps up behind me, putting his hands on my hips as he presses behind me, attempting to physically manipulate my posture. It’s all too romantic-movie-wannabe, so I jump forward out of his hold.

  “Personal space, dude,” I say, waving him back to his own tee. “I’ll give you better aim, if you don’t touch my butt again.” I glance at him, waggling my eyebrows. “Save that for your date.”

  He laughs, lines up a shot, and sends his next ball floating in a perfectly straight arc out to the 200-yd marker. With him, it looks effortless.

  Everything does.

  “Speaking of date, where are you taking her?” I pull another ball from the bucket and align it on the tee, stepping up, squatting in my hips a little the way Preston said.

  “The steakhouse. Then back home for a swim.”

  Wh
ack!

  My ball takes off on a fiery path until Blam! It connects with the metal cage around the golf cart that’s picking up all the balls off the green. The driver turns in his seat with a glare.

  Preston stands with club in hand, his mouth open.

  “Improved my aim,” I laugh. “And what the hell are you thinking—taking her to dinner there?” Obviously, he’s the one who needs to improve his aim.

  He frowns. “The steakhouse is the nicest place in town.”

  “That’s the problem. In town. Don’t you want to take her somewhere… else? Where you can hang out without everyone knowing you?”

  “That doesn’t bother me like it does you. Besides, it’s only for dinner and then we’ll be back at the pool.”

  “But have you prepared for this date?”

  “It’s a date. I’ve gone out on a hundred.” That’s not an exaggeration. It’s probably more of an understatement. And while I don’t have the experience, I do see something in Rayne that’s been lacking with all Preston’s previous girlfriends. I’m just not sure he totally gets it.

  “Yeah, but Rayne’s in AP classes, and she’s got a little fire in that personality, too. She’s gonna want to talk about actual stuff. Smart stuff.” Preston stares at me, unfazed, so I drive the point home again. “And she can string two sentences together, which is more than I can say for your last girlfriend.”

  His lips crinkle on the edges as the laughter breaks free. “You’re probably right about that one, but leave the details to me, little brother. I got this.” He winks, grabs another ball, tosses it in the air and catches it in his palm. “Now let’s finish up this bucket.”

  I glance at my watch. A little after 2 PM. Dad’s out of town on business, Mom’s at home, probably still reaming the maid for fading her blue blouse, and Preston’s hogging up the bathroom and primping for his date. Across the street from the gas station, a worker at Cups and Cones, a kitschy little hole-in-the-wall ice cream parlor in a converted fast food restaurant, is sliding plastic letters on the sign out front.