Ain't Doin' It

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “I overanalyze everything. A text message? Where most people would reply to a text instantly without thought, I take extra time analyzing what they were really trying to convey. It may take me two hours to respond, if I even respond at all.”

  He blinked. “Hmmm. What else?”

  Continuing, I went about telling him my other problems.

  “So, you take naps because they keep you sane and less bitchy. You draw people comics instead of talking to them when you’re pissed. And, you don’t make friends or even trust easily?” he summarized. “Oh, and when you get into one of those depressive moods, it only lasts for a couple of hours.”

  I nodded. “Essentially.”

  I mean, there were other things that I had symptom-wise, but really, I didn’t want to scare him away by telling him that I’d briefly contemplated suicide before.

  That was always a downer.

  “Honey,” Coke said gently. “I’m going to tell you something, and I don’t want you to get offended.”

  I raised a brow at him and waited for him to enlighten me on what he thought would be offensive to me.

  He didn’t disappoint me.

  “You just described every single woman in the world. Sure, you may express yourself differently, but every woman is moody. I raised a teenager, remember?” He winked at my smile. “And I hate to tell you this, but I’d take what you just described to me any day, and nine times on Sunday, over having to deal with my ex-wife’s shit. Trust me when I say, your crazy pales in comparison to her crazy.”

  I giggled.

  “My daughter was trying to decide what to text a guy. I overheard her having this conversation over the phone, so don’t think I’m weird.” He gave me a look that clearly said I might think he was weird anyway despite him telling me not to think so. “She was going on and on about what she should say. The guy said ‘hey.’ They were trying to figure out whether to say ‘hello, how are you’ or if that was too formal. They went on and on about it for like twenty minutes before I’d had enough of it and just told her to text him ‘hey’ back. Then I had to explain to her that guys were simple creatures. He was just reaching out to talk and that was his opener. If she replied with the hey, he’d carry the conversation in the direction that he wanted it to go.”

  I snickered. “It’s easier to call, honestly. Anyone besides my mom or dad texts me, that’s what’s going to happen. Even my brother…I have to call him. And it’s hard for me to come off as sincere sometimes because they overthink what I say, too. Wondering what kind of mood I’m really in.”

  He groaned. “That sounds like a mess,” he admitted. “But your family sounds like they’re very open and willing to help. That’s more than I can say for some people.” He paused. “Had Frankie had this? My ex-wife would’ve lost her fuckin’ mind.”

  I knew that. Most people couldn’t handle my mood swings, either.

  I was lucky.

  “The way my therapist explained it is that sometimes it comes on—and this is an educated guess on her part since there is no hard evidence of causes—is that I likely have it due to something that happened to me when I was a child. Long story short, my mother hid me from my father, and when my father found out about me, he fought for custody. My mother was a shitty person, and she left me in a car in the freezing cold for hours and hours…they think that might’ve been what caused me to have this problem. From what I understand, you didn’t do anything to your daughter, so likely she would’ve never had it, and your ex-wife wouldn’t have had to deal with it.”

  Something went electric in the cab of his truck, and I looked over at him to see him frowning.

  “What?”

  He cleared his throat and started to speak what sounded like very carefully.

  “I fucking hate that for you,” he growled. “I hate that someone would do that…but more, I hate it for your father. I hate that someone kept you from him. To think about missing any of my time with Frankie…that makes my blood boil. Hell, I had to fight to keep Frankie because my ex-wife didn’t want to even have her. If it wasn’t for her father, who refused to allow her to have the abortion unless she wanted to be disinherited, then she might have been.”

  That sucked.

  “Sounds like you owe your father-in-law a lot,” I admitted. “You should probably buy him a card on Father’s Day.”

  He snorted. “I do. He’s a good father…makes me miss mine.”

  “Your father is dead?”

  He nodded. “Died in a plane crash during Desert Storm.”

  I deflated on the seat next to him.

  “That’s awful,” I whispered, wishing I hadn’t brought the subject up. It had to be a painful one.

  Coke made an agreeing sound in the back of his throat. “Yes, it is awful. But…he died doing what he loved—protecting his boys and his country. He would’ve rather gone that way than any other.”

  I could see that being true. If I had to go, I’d rather go doing something that I absolutely loved.

  Though…the only thing I loved at this point that was even sort of dangerous was drawing—and it was only dangerous when I was drawing with a pencil that was sharpened on both ends.

  “If you died doing what you loved, what would it be?” I questioned suddenly.

  He was silent for a few long moments, and then he shrugged. “I can’t say that I have a single thing that I love doing that I’d be willing to die for. Now…if my daughter was in harm’s way? I’d march into hell doused in gasoline if it meant she’d be safe.”

  Chapter 9

  My biggest fear is that I’m married and my spouse says ‘let’s cut carbs from our diet’ and then we’ll have to divorce because carbs make me happy.

  -Cora to Coke

  Coke

  Cora, despite claiming not even an hour before that she wasn’t good with people, sure knew how to talk her way into the dorm. She also knew how to sweet talk the front office when we hadn’t found Frankie in her room.

  Cora explained what was going on, and in a matter of moments, she’d had a list of Frankie’s classes in her hand, and we were striding across the forecourt of the quad on the way to the building where Frankie’s math class was being held for the second hour of the day.

  “Do you want to go in there and observe, or do you want me to go get her out?” Cora questioned, her hand on the handle to open the door to the math building.

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “It says that she’s in there for another half hour before she’s set to take a break, correct?” I asked.

  Cora nodded.

  “Then just check on her. I want to know that she’s actually in there. Once we know whether she is there or not, we’ll either let her stay if she’s in there or go look for her if she isn’t.”

  Cora nodded once and then disappeared inside.

  Around five minutes later, she reappeared, hands wrapped around herself tightly.

  I frowned. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I forgot how much I hated school. She’s in there, and she’s sitting alone at the very front of the room.”

  I nodded, relieved to know where she was.

  I probably should’ve waited to come up here until the end of the day but, telling my rational brain that when my dad brain just plain wanted to make sure his kid was okay was impossible.

  I sighed and pointed to a fountain that had a thick ledge around it to sit on. “Want to wait there?”

  She nodded, and we walked in silence.

  I hopped up first and then watched with amusement as she tried to hop up. Eventually she got it, but she had to scramble for purchase with her feet and wiggle to do it.

  “I’m not sure this is meant to sit on,” she muttered darkly.

  I snorted, taking a look around at the fifteen other students currently sitting on it. “I think that you’re allowed, otherwise all of these other kids wouldn’t be doing it.”

  She hu
ffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  My lips twitched. “So, tell me about your school experience.”

  Why did you hate it so much?

  “I’ve already given you a little bit of my background. Honestly, it’s probably not anywhere near as bad as my teenage brain made it out to be. I took about sixty college credit hours in high school by the age of seventeen. Seventy-five percent of them I had to actually take at the local community college after school. I pretty much took them from the age of fourteen to sixteen. College boys aren’t really nice to girls that young, and the girls weren’t very nice either. All I wanted to do was be there to learn and to get the credits. The community college I attended, and the times that I attended, were all at times where the classes were mostly full of a younger college crowd—eighteen and nineteen-year-olds. They were all still quite immature, rude and just impossible. Pretty much, it was like I was still in high school.”

  I grunted. “I loved high school. Loved college, well, some online classes anyway. Loved the military. It’s hard for me to imagine how one could hate it.”

  “Why did you leave the military then?” she asked.

  I touched my throat.

  “I was a drill sergeant. Was for a while—quite a few years. I yelled—a lot—during my time as a drill sergeant, and I’d gone through a lot, put my body through so much. But…my voice just couldn’t handle it anymore. One day I was yelling at this fresh-faced kid…making him roll in the sand after we forced him to put sunscreen on when his mother had sent him some contraband...”

  “Sunscreen?” she interrupted.

  I nodded. “Sunscreen. They’d put the sunscreen on—or anything sticky really—then we’d make them roll in the sand. We’d call it a sugar cookie. Then we’d make them do PT with it caked on their bodies. Anyway, I’d been yelling at this kid, and all of a sudden blood started spewing from my mouth as I yelled. It hurt. Bad. But I kept going, worked through it. I went to sleep that night, woke up the next morning, and straight up, I couldn’t talk. Turns out, I’d damaged my vocal cords so badly that it was permanent. What you hear is the end result of that injury. I still can’t yell or raise my voice. That level of my voice is gone—just not there.”

  “Wow,” she breathed. “What happens when you try to yell?”

  I snorted. “Nothing. I can talk like this, but when I try to raise my voice, nothing but air comes out.”

  “Huh,” she muttered. “And you can’t be a drill sergeant without yelling.”

  “Correct,” I confirmed. “But I left the military in good hands.”

  “How?” She turned on the concrete barrier and reached over to touch the water with one finger.

  “My brothers. All of them followed in my footsteps. Three of them are still in, and one of them retired just last year.”

  She opened her mouth to continue with that line of questioning, but the doors across the way burst open, and the students started pouring out.

  Both of us watched as one by one, the students left the building.

  Finally, Frankie exited, and her face was crestfallen.

  I was halfway across the forecourt that separated us before I’d even realized I’d gotten off my ass.

  “Frankie!” I called, thankful that my voice seemed to carry over the crowd.

  Frankie’s head shot up, and the look of pure, unaltered happiness that lit it up made my heart full.

  She started running to me, and before I knew it, Frankie hit me.

  She wrapped her arms around me tight, and she started to cry.

  I felt Cora’s presence, which had been right at my side, fade into the background.

  And once it was just the two of us, I felt the loss of Cora’s presence like part of me had been ripped away.

  But I decided to ignore it and investigate the why of that particular problem later.

  Right now, my little girl needed me.

  ***

  “Cora,” Frankie said. “You bought the property that dad wanted to buy. He was convinced that someone was going to buy it, and then build something noisy on it and wake him up all day and night.”

  Cora’s eyes went wide. “Well…if anyone is waking anyone up, it’s him doing that to me. The first night I met your dad, he kept me up for more than three hours by starting his truck over and over again.”

  “I remember those days.” Frankie sighed as she dipped one of her fries into her ketchup. “I never notice it anymore, really. He’s done that for as long as I can remember.”

  Cora grinned. “He doesn’t do it anymore past eleven at night. And when he does do it, I’m at the opposite end of the house and can barely hear him.”

  Frankie snickered, the smile on her face making me doubly happy that I’d brought Cora and come when I had.

  “Well, that’s good to know.” Frankie said. “I would hate for him to have a vindictive neighbor when I’m not there to keep him in line.”

  I snorted. “Like you could control me.”

  Frankie and Cora both laughed.

  I waved my hand at the waitress when she passed. “Check, please.”

  Moments after paying, Cora stood and Frankie and I both followed suit.

  When we arrived outside, Frankie shifted from foot to foot.

  “I’m sorry I made you come all the way out here,” my girl apologized.

  I wrapped her up in a hug, reveling in the way she still felt so small in my arms despite being almost fully grown. “You’re my little girl, Frank. I’d fly to the moon for you if that’s where you were, and you needed me.”

  My eyes caught Cora’s over the top of Frankie’s head, and she gestured that she was going to go sit on the bench.

  But before she could completely walk away, Frankie said something that made her pause.

  “I’m fucked up, Dad,” Frankie sighed. “This college thing is a whole different ballgame. They don’t care if you come to class, yet they’ll still test you as if you did. They grade harder. They don’t give any homework to help even out the tests. People aren’t nice. My roommate blows…”

  I looked at my girl, letting her see my love for her, and said the only thing I could think of at that moment. “Well unfuck yourself already. Go get your roommate changed, and if they won’t change your roommate, then I’ll pay for an apartment.”

  She started to laugh.

  “I thought you said I didn’t need an apartment at seventeen?”

  I shrugged. “I’d rather pay for you to live alone than to have you living with some twat that bothers you.”

  Frankie snickered. “I’m already on the list to meet with the advisor. I called her today after your phone call last night. She told me that there was an empty dorm room that nobody was in and that it was mine if I wanted it.”

  I didn’t hide the relief on my face. “In that case, let’s go get you moved.”

  Chapter 10

  The best thing about having a penis is sharing it with people who don’t.

  -Coke to Cora

  Coke

  The next week was better than the previous week.

  My daughter, after the visit from me and Cora, was starting to enjoy school a little more. She wasn’t pledging a sorority or anything, but it wasn’t as bad as it was before we saw her.

  Cora and Frankie were texting each other back and forth in a group chat that for some reason they included me in, and I had to ask June how to turn off the notifications because they were constantly going off and driving me insane—to the point where I couldn’t concentrate.

  Not that I was upset that they hit it off and were talking or even that they included me in the conversation. Mostly it was just problematic because I couldn’t have my phone on silent, and they seemed to send each other about eight million texts an hour.

  Sometimes I’d scroll to where I’d last responded and reply. Other times I’d read the last five or so to try to get the gist of what they were talking about.

  Which was
what I happened to be doing at the moment.

  Cora (11:30 AM): Do you think it’s possible that an egg could explode? The chicken sites I’m checking say that sometimes, in an incubator, a bad egg can explode.

  Frankie (11:30 AM): I read that same post just a minute ago. They say it’s more prevalent toward the end of incubation. That you should candle all the eggs right before lockdown and make sure they’re all viable.

  My daughter and Cora had bonded over chickens of all things, and from that point forward, the majority of their texts were about chickens.

  Sometimes they strayed toward school or a funny meme that one or the other saw, but mostly their conversations were all about chickens.

  Pictures of coops. Pictures of different breeds of chickens. Pictures of incubating eggs that looked like goddamn eggs—no matter what stage of incubation they were in.

  Literally, it was all that they talked about.

  And though I liked it—to an extent—there was only so much I could handle, and I had reached my fill of chicken trivia.

  Which was why after I read the messages, I didn’t respond anymore.

  And, maybe if I hadn’t been ignoring the messages, I’d have noticed that they stopped talking about chickens and had started talking about things that weren’t chickens—like boys.

  While paying some bills, I realized I’d need my calculator, and I reached for my phone. My eyes snagged on their latest message on the screen, and one word stuck out. Sex.

  I frowned and opened up the text messages, going back to the last text that I’d read, and followed their texts until I arrived at the one that mentioned sex.

  Cora (11:49 am): Sex is the devil.

  Frankie (11:49 am): WRONG MESSAGE CORA!

  That was it. There were no more messages.

  I frowned, and it took me all of two point five seconds to think it through before I had Cora’s name queued up on my phone and calling her.

  “Hello?” Cora asked, sounding pleasantly amused.

  “What was that message about?” I asked, sounding much calmer than I felt.

  “Oh,” she paused. “You don’t respond to any of our messages, but you respond to that one?”