Breaking Ties

by Tracie Puckett

  “Okay, so he fixed your recorder,” she said. “Is that all?”

  No. Not quite. He dropped me off at the bakery for my Wednesday night shift, but not before I offered him sincere thanks, and we exchanged a hug. And that hug sparked something intense, because somewhere between his breath on my face, his eyes locked on mine, and a soft brush of our skin, Gabe and I were very close to sharing what would’ve been our first kiss right there in his car. But moments before his lips ever found mine, Jones took an opportunity to put his drumming skills to work on Gabe’s car windows, interrupting our moment with a few loud bangs. A little less smoochy-smooch, a little more worky-work, m-k?

  I got out of the car, furious with Jones. I turned back, giving up a smile and a wave, and before Gabe drove away, he left me with one last thing—his note.

  “Oh,” I said, acting as though it had just occurred to me. “You’re right. There was more. He asked me on a date.”

  Georgia’s mouth fell open. There it was the truth—and she couldn’t believe that I’d held out on her.

  “Wait, what?” she asked, resting her hip against the desk. “Wait a minute. You waited two whole days to tell me that he asked you out?”

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind, George,” I explained. “You know, with my family, the article, and the interviews … it slipped my mind.”

  Lie. The fact that Gabe had asked me on a date hadn’t slipped my mind for even a second. It was all I could think about, all I was looking forward to. There wasn’t a thing in the world that could’ve caused that big of a gap in my memory.

  “Well, since we both know you’re lying,” she said, reading into my expression, “you can go ahead and tell me now what’s going on.”

  “Nothing.”

  “You should’ve told me by now,” she said. “You would’ve told me if you were excited. You’re not happy. Something’s killed your buzz.”

  “Let it go, okay? I need to concentrate.”

  “Have you changed your mind?” she asked. “You want to go, don’t you?”

  “Of course I want to go!”

  “Then why the doom and gloom? You haven’t even cracked a smile about it, so excuse me if I’m having a hard time figuring this out. Here you are, claiming you’re insanely crazy about the guy, but you don’t seem even the tiniest bit thrilled by the fact that he’s showing interest in you. It’s weird.”

  “It’s my dad, okay?” I blurted, looking back to her. “He and Bailey are fighting, and naturally that means it’s him against us … even though Bailey isn’t talking to me either.”

  “Oh,” she said. “So you’re afraid to ask him?”

  “I already did,” I said, looking back to the keyboard. “Okay, actually, I didn’t. I think that’s the problem. I kinda told him I was going, and even though I said it jokingly, it somehow got interpreted as me not respecting his authority.”

  “But … you’re you. He has to know you better than that.” She shook her head. “You’ve never stepped a foot over the line. He has to know you weren’t serious.”

  “I kinda was, though,” I said. “Even if I’d bothered asking for permission, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d said no. I’ve been waiting forever for my chance to spend time alone with Gabe.”

  “So you’re—”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “I’m going to go.”

  Georgia’s face turned a dark shade of red, and I could see that there was something she wanted to say that she wasn’t saying. She bit her tongue and turned away, so I pulled away from the keyboard and gave her my full attention. I watched her, giving her all the permission she needed to go on and say whatever it was that she wanted to say. Still, nothing.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said, filing through some old papers. She wouldn’t even look at me.

  “Just say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “What you’re dying to say,” I said. “What?”

  “I think … ” she turned back to me again and bit her lower lip, contemplating the repercussions of her honesty. “It’s been hard enough for you and Gabe already, you know? And your Dad has been one of the few people who’s seemed to be on your side the whole time.”

  “Your point?”

  “If you go behind his back now, he’s never going to trust you again.”

  “So you don’t think I should go?”

  “I do,” she said. “I think it’s very important that you get that one-on-one time with Gabe. It’ll be the first chance for you two to see each other outside the program, without the thrill of the chase or the sneaking around. You’re taking some of the excitement out of the mix by being open about it, and it’s a great chance for you to see if there’s really something there after all the secrecy’s gone.”

  “There is something there,” I said, pointing at her again. “And don’t forget it.”

  “Okay, sure. But I think you need to ask your dad again,” she said. “You guys were just starting to get along, and I think that you’re only going to make things worse if you go behind his back now. Make him understand how much it means to you. Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

  “We’re not talking about a college major or even getting a pet,” I reminded her. “We’re talking about one of his daughters wanting desperately to date the man of her dreams. That’s not exactly something Dad is ready and willing to jump on board with and change his mind about.”

  Except Dad had jumped on it when I first pitched the idea. It’s about damn time!

  “Ask him again?” I asked, wondering how that scenario might play out.

  “For real this time,” she said. “Ask him; don’t tell him. Make him understand what this means to you.”

  “But what if he says no again?”

  “Then Gabe will have to understand. There’ll be another time and place. You’ll have to be patient.”

  But I was so tired of being patient. I wasn’t good at being patient.

  I glared at her.

  “What?”

  “That was terrible advice.”

  “No, it wasn’t!”

  “A real friend would’ve offered better advice than that.”

  “Like what?” She pretended to be offended.

  “Like…make sure you don’t make any noise when you sneak out of the house tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh my God. You’re seriously going to go, aren’t you? With or without his permission?”

  “You betcha, sweetheart,” I said, nodding. “I am going on that date with Gabe.”

  Chapter Five

  I made it through the long day, school and even a shift at the bakery afterward, only to return home to see that they were at it again. Not Bailey and Dad—the other they.

  Jones and his three best friends—the college boy band foursome, Extra Bacon—were running their third rehearsal of the week. Preparing for their next big gig, they were gearing up to squeeze in all the time they could to rehearse, using our garage as their practice space (all thanks to my sister, who’d volunteered the space last week without taking a breath).

  I muffled a groan as I pulled the car into the driveway and killed the engine. Not that it mattered; I could’ve groaned as loudly as I wanted and no one would’ve heard me over the blaring instruments. I managed a small smile as I let myself out of the car and approached my sister.

  “It’s loud,” I said flatly, cornering a look at her. I expected a sarcastic remark or even an exaggerated eye roll, but much to my surprise, she returned my stare.

  “Are you kidding me?” she yelled over the music. And for the first time in days, she smiled as she looked back to her boyfriend and his friends. “They’re amazing.”

  I wasn’t disputing that. They were amazing. And I knew I shouldn’t complain. Jones and his friends were doing me a huge favor by playing the RI dance finale, so I could definitely suck it up and deal with the fact that they were making a little too much noise. I just didn’t want to. My irritability was getting the best of me.

>   While my sister was shockingly in a halfway decent mood—probably only because Jones was in her line of sight—I took advantage of the moment and turned to her again.

  “Remind me again why they’re doing this here,” I leaned into her as she stood at the edge of the open garage door, bobbing her head to the fast beat.

  “Why not?” She was talking to me as if nothing had changed between us … like she hadn’t broken down in tears, thrown her phone, or shattered a lamp against her bedroom door only twenty-four hours ago. She looked at me as though she wasn’t at all responsible for the fact that Dad was on a tear and stripping me of my well-deserved privileges. “They need the space; we have the space. Seemed like a no-brainer.”

  Right. I looked from my fickle sister and back to the band, remembering that Jones had told me once that they didn’t have many options for rehearsal space. Jones’s parents were the only ones of the group supportive of the four boys’ dreams of playing, so they were the only ones willing to provide the space. But since his parents lived out in Desden, it wasn’t practical for the group. Between unloading, setting up, and reloading all the equipment, the boys wasted a lot of time and energy. Henry, Zak, and Shawn—Jones’s bandmates and roommates—all grew up and lived in Sugar Creek, so it made sense. Jones moved out here for the band, anyway. They wanted to be together, and moving one was a lot easier than moving three. Their biggest struggle was finding places to practice. But Bailey took care of that one.

  They finished up their song, the number ending with a dramatic drum solo on Jones’s part.

  The tension in my head broke at the silence. Sweet, glorious silence.

  “How’s it sound?” Jones asked, standing. He twirled his sticks around his fingers, trying to impress his already impressed girlfriend.

  “Perfect,” Bailey bounced on her heels.

  I couldn’t quit staring at her. It was remarkable, and it amazed me how quickly her demeanor had changed. How could she go from being the ice queen one second to being the bubbliest person on the planet the next? She had some serious hormonal issues going on, and I prayed, if I was lucky, maybe Dad’s mood might’ve changed to my favor this evening, too.

  “You guys are gonna rock the house next week,” Bailey said.

  “You think?”

  “Of course,” I nodded because his gaze trailed to me for confirmation. “It’s a great set. You’re gonna blow ‘em away.”

  Jones smiled. The Sugar Creek dance finale was going to be their biggest gig yet. It’s probably why they were focusing so much on rehearsals. But they didn’t need the practice. These four guys knew what they were doing, and they did it very well.

  “All right guys,” Jones said, sinking back onto his stool behind the drum set. “Last number.”

  The guys repositioned, and with Jones counting them down with each click of his drumsticks, they eased into their final song. And I was certain everyone in the neighborhood would be thankful when they were done.

  “So…” I gave my sister a hard look. “What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A few hours ago you hated the world, and now you’re acting like nothing ever happened.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “I gave it some thought.”

  “You gave it some thought?” I asked. Simple as that? Whatever was bothering her was easily fixed with something as simple as a little thought? I wasn’t buying it.

  “I gave it some thought and decided I was over it.”

  “It being?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said again, reaching into her back pocket to retrieve her vibrating phone. She remained perfectly stoic as she checked the call, and I glimpsed down at the busted screen to see that she’d missed two calls and a text message, all from the same number—a 310 number—a Los Angeles number.

  “Mom?” I asked, certain that she would confirm what I already suspected.

  “Who else?”

  My stomach hollowed at her confirmation.

  So there it was.

  Bailey’s behavior suddenly made a world of sense. If Mom had tried contacting me, I probably would’ve gone off the deep end, too. I probably would’ve skipped the whole pouting, woe-is-me, throwing stuff scenario and headed straight for punching holes in walls. Mom had that effect. She had a way of bringing out the ugliest in people, especially the family she abandoned.

  But after all this time, after years of silence on her part, it didn’t make any sense that she’d start contacting one of us out of the blue. She hadn’t had time or a place for us in so long, so why now? Why was she trying to get in touch with my sister? Why hadn’t she tried contacting me?

  Because you hated her more than anyone when she abandoned the family, I reminded myself. I wouldn’t have given her the time of day. If she needed something, she could at least hope she had a chance of getting through to Bailey. Mom was smart enough to know that she had lost every shred of hope at getting close to me again, so she would’ve clung to the one person who’d fought hardest to keep our ties intact.

  I closed my eyes, working to steady my breath with a slow count to ten. Still, I could feel the temperature of my blood rising, only adding to the irritability that I wanted so badly to shake.

  I didn’t know why it bothered me so much that she hadn’t tried contacting me. I never thought that, if the situation presented itself, it would bother me, but it did. It’s not like I stayed in touch with our mother. It’s not like she’d ever tried staying in touch with us. After she decided to run off and live the rest of her life with Uncle Ronnie, I guess her old life was just that … old. She had bigger and better things on her mind, and that didn’t include her daughters. So why? Why after all of this time—four years to be exact—had she suddenly decided to come back into Bailey’s life?

  “What’s she want?” I asked, my words barely audible over the chorus. It was only then that I opened my eyes again, focusing on my sister.

  “To talk.” Bailey tucked the phone away after deleting the unread text. “I don’t even know how she got my number. She texted a few days ago and asked if we could talk. I ignored the message. She started calling, leaving voicemails. Once a day at first, but now I’m lucky if I can get through an hour without hearing from her.”

  “And you don’t know what she wants?”

  “Just that she wants to talk,” Bailey said, rolling her eyes again. Four years ago, my sister would’ve had a completely different reaction to our mother’s gesture. She would’ve thrown herself at her feet, doing anything she could for Mom’s acceptance and approval. But like with me, time changed things for Bailey. She’d come to see Mom for what she was—useless … or useless to us, anyway. We didn’t have time for the drama she caused. “Has she tried calling you?”

  “No.” My eyes met the concrete floor as I contemplated Mom’s reasoning for reaching out to Bailey. Had something happened? Was she sick? Dying? Why would she call my sister and not me? What was so important for them to talk about? “No. I haven’t heard a word.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” she said, reading into my hurt expression. As much as I hated my mother, hated everything she’d done to my father, and everything she’d put us through, I still couldn’t help but feel stung all over again. It was just like Mom to hurt me … even when she didn’t know she was doing it. “It’s not like I want her to call. What I really want is for her to leave me alone. I have nothing left to say to that woman.”

  “You’re not at least a little curious about what she wants?”

  “I know what she wants,” Bailey said. “She wants to talk.”

  “But about what?”

  “Then and now, the way things are, the wedding.” She said it quickly as if that would somehow make it easier to admit, but I could see the way it hurt my sister to say those words. She knew about Mom’s engagement, and she didn’t want to admit what she knew. She didn’t want to tell me. In that moment, all Bailey wanted was to protect me.


  “Bailey, I know she’s getting married.”

  “You know?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “How? I didn’t know until two nights ago. How did you—”

  “Dad.”

  “Oh,” she looked down. “Dad knows?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So then I guess you guys know about—”

  “Uncle Ronnie,” I nodded. “Yeah. We know that, too.”

  “How do you think he found out?”

  I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t admit that Dad had known all along about Mom and Ronnie. I was pretty certain that I knew a whole lot more than my sister ever would about what happened between my parents, but it was hard to say how much Mom had divulged in her calls and messages. Did Bailey know that Ronnie and Mom had an affair? Or did she think that Mom had suddenly decided to marry Dad’s best friend on a whim?

  “Something’s happened,” Bailey continued. “Best I can guess, she’s tying up loose ends. She’s after redemption. She wants to hear that we’re okay, that we forgive her … that she has our blessing to move on.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “Does she have to?” she asked, and I could tell by her guilt-ridden expression that she hadn’t given Mom the chance to explain herself. Bailey took what little she had and drew assumptions, and something told me that she wasn’t so far off. “She didn’t have to say it. She’s already said enough.”

  “But why’s it matter?” I asked. “Why now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to keep ignoring her calls?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are you going to say?”