A Little Like Love (Robin and Tyler)

by Cheyanne Young

  You know how I feel about

  It’s all the words I get to see before she flips up her phone and types out a reply. Her fingers move rapidly across the tiny keyboard. I watch as her eyebrows deepen, either in concentration or frustration. She snaps the cover back over the front of her phone, lets out a sharp sigh and smiles at me. “Anyway, sorry about that. So Miranda doesn’t have a phone? Did it break or something?”

  I let out a little laugh. “It’s a long story. She had one, but her mom paid for it and when we moved, well, the phone magically quit working.”

  She nods. “That’s not very long of a story, now is it? Can you ask her for me?”

  “Sure—” I barely get the words out before her phone beeps yet again. She gives me a broken smile and turns the phone over and over in her hands. “I’m sorry, Robin. I know this is so rude of me.” She looks at her phone for a brief instant. Her eyes flick back and forth as she reads, and then with a very defiant press of her finger, she taps the screen. “So, anyway. Let me give you my phone number and you can have Miranda call me from your phone.”

  The pain in her eyes reaches out to me and pulls me in. As much as I want to hate her, I can’t. She’s hurting, and she’s too sweet to hurt. Plus, I want to know what Tyler is talking about that’s making her so upset. “Is anything wrong?” I ask, giving a knowing look at her phone.

  “Nope, not at all.” She shoves her phone in her back pocket and flashes me the perfect Salt Gap Diner Waitress Smile. “My friend is just—being annoying.”

  “Yeah, annoying friends suck.” Wow. I just managed to say the most idiotic statement in the history of the universe. All because I can’t get Tyler out of my mind and now I’m going insane about what he’s telling her. And the worst part is that it’s none of my business. I take out my own phone just to give me something to do. “I’m ready for your number,” I say, wondering if he’d still be texting her if I had agreed to go on a date with him instead of saying no.

  Miranda yanks the pony tail out of her hair with a fury that only working a twelve hour shift can bring out of you. “I asked everyone at work if they knew how the photos got in the counter,” she says, rocking her head back and forth and letting her hair fall down her shoulders. There’s an arc of bent hair from where it was in a ponytail all day.

  “And did anyone have any answers?” I ask. It’s half an hour past midnight, but I’m stirring macaroni and cheese on the stove and kolaches are in the oven. Comfort food. I’ve gotten accustomed to Miranda’s crazy work hours and try to have dinner ready for her when she gets home. Who knew I could be so domestic?

  She takes the wooden spoon out of my hand and eats a bite of macaroni straight from the pot. She loves leaving me in suspense. “Nope. No one knew anything.”

  “I’m starting to think there’s no reason that photo is there. Like maybe they hired an interior decorator who found random photos in a thrift shop and put them in the counter.” I wave my arm around the air in circles. “For ambiance, or some shit like that.”

  “Why would Great Grandpa throw out a photo? Especially one as great as that one,” Miranda says, taking another bite of macaroni. “Plus you know how he cherished every photo of his wife. There’s just no way.”

  She’s made a valid point. The buzzer goes off and I pull the kolaches out of the oven. The smell of freshly baked croissant bread makes my mouth water. Homemade kolaches are the best recipe my mother ever passed down to me. Miranda is crazy about them too and so it’s become a staple food at our house.

  Our house. I’m still getting used to the idea of that. I sit on a barstool at the kitchen island and wait for my food to cool enough to eat. “The sign on the door says the diner was established in 1935*. That’s about the exact time that Grandpa would have been the age he is in the photo. It was a new photo.”

  Miranda listens thoughtfully. “Do you think Great Grandpa lived here?”

  “No, he’s always lived in Houston. He made his real estate empire there.”

  She bites into a kolache and cheese drizzles down her chin. “Maybe he stopped by on a road trip when they were building the diner and he donated the picture so he could be immortal in the counter forever?”

  “Way to sound like a Lifetime movie,” I snort. She rolls her eyes and walks over to the cabinet to grab a glass. Then she makes a noise like she’s choking on her food. “You okay?” I ask over my shoulder.

  The sound of glass shattering on the floor makes me jump. I turn around to see Miranda squatting on the floor, arms on the countertop. Her fingers grip the edge of the granite. I rush over to her and put my hand on her back. “Are you okay?”

  “I—I don’t know. I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Go to the bathroom!” I bolt up, taking her elbow with me. If she’s going to hurl, she’s not doing it on the kitchen counter.

  Miranda cries out in pain when I pull her into a standing position. Her hand flies to her stomach. “Fuck my life, this hurts!” she yells. “Ugh, I’m gonna puke. I’m gonna puke.”

  The bathroom is way down the hall but the back door is only an arm’s length away. I make the split decision to shove Miranda out the back door and let her lean over the porch railing. The moment she’s hovered over the safety of the grass outside, she throws up all the food she ate just moments ago.

  I want to run into the other room and cover my ears with a pillow and pretend this isn’t happening. But I remind myself that I’m not the pregnant teenager here. She has no one else and she needs me. So I pull back her hair and rub her back and tell her it’s going to be okay. I do my best to ignore the blood-curdling chokes and hacking sounds that are coming out of Miranda’s throat, tempting to make my own dinner come back up as well.

  Chapter 9

  The smell of cheap cinnamon air freshener and sterile hospital junk floats through the tiny waiting room at the local ob-gyn office. My foot taps repeatedly against the potted plant next to me as I flip through pages of a worn parenting magazine, wondering if I have what it takes to be an awesome aunt to my future niece or nephew.

  Miranda had allowed me to join her in the examination room for about two seconds until the nurse told her to remove everything from the waist down. Then, with a balk and a freaked-out teenage squeal, she told me to leave and wait for her out here. I’m sure she’s fine but I can’t stop worrying about her.

  And that says a lot because as of a couple weeks ago, I didn’t worry about anyone but myself.

  The idea of having a baby in the house—a real living, breathing dependent child that counts on her and I to provide happiness and safety—is starting to become my sole reason for existing. I’m not exactly doing anything with my life right now and boredom has driven me all but completely insane lately. Maybe this kid will help fix a piece of my life that I didn’t know was broken.

  I tell her this when her appointment is over and we’re heading back to my car with bags of free coupons and formula and other baby crap the doctor gave her. She snorts and climbs into the passenger side of the car.

  “I love you Aunt Robin, but you’re dumb.”

  “How am I dumb?”

  She shrugs and flips through the contents of a white envelope she’s been holding since she found me in the waiting room. “My illegitimate bastard baby wasn’t placed in my womb to fix your life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re letting me live with you and that you want to help me with the baby, but you can’t keep ignoring your own life.”

  “Maybe this can be my life,” I say encouragingly. “You need to get your GED and go to college and figure out your future. I’m free to do anything for the next couple of years so I’m the perfect caretaker for your little bastard.” I say the last word lovingly and reach over and pat her stomach, pulling back in surprise. “Holy crap, your stomach is rock hard!”

  She rolls her eyes. “Well duh. There’s a baby in there. I’m not just a fatass.”

  “Wow,” I say under my breath. “I know absolutely nothing about babi
es.”

  “And you never will if you don’t step off your stubborn horse of stubbornness and get out there and find a man. I’m glad that you’re going to help me with the baby but you have to live your life too.” Her eyes narrow seductively and she adds, “And by ‘find a man’ I mean Tyler. You should date Tyler.”

  We’re stopped at a red light so I take the opportunity to cross my arms over my chest in pretend indignation. “I’m perfectly fine living on my stubborn horse of stubbornness, thank you very much. I have no interest in dating Tyler, or anyone else. Men are stupid.”

  “So much stubbornness,” she says under her breath as she pulls something from the envelope and holds it up for me to see. A long strip of paper with blurry ultrasound pictures folds out from under her fingers. “Say hello to your nephew.”

  Chapter 10

  “What about something short and cute like Max or Ian?”

  Miranda shakes her head. “I had a dog named Max when I was a kid. I can’t name my child after a dog.”

  We’re almost back to Salt Gap and we’ve been thinking of baby names ever since we left the doctor’s office. Well, I’ve been thinking of baby names…Miranda has been shaking her head or making gagging noises at every one of my suggestions. “You’re going to have to name that baby eventually,” I say.

  She looks at her little bulge of a stomach and pokes at it with her index finger. “It’s weird that we’re talking about this thing like it’s a real baby now. I mean, it’s one thing to talk about being knocked up, but I just got hit with the realization that I’m not just pregnant…there’s a kid inside of me.”

  I focus on the road ahead of me and imagine what it’ll be like to have a crying baby in the backseat of my car in a few months. To have someone completely dependent on us for his survival. It’s a surreal thought. I’m not even sure if I’ve ever imagined having kids of my own. Life is so much easier when you only have to worry about yourself.

  “Hey look, it’s a baby store,” Miranda says with a tap to her passenger window. A small shopping center is next to the last gas station before our exit for Salt Gap. Sure enough, next to the Cash for Gold and AT&T store is a storefront with zebra print decorations painted on the windows.

  “Boutique Baby.” I read the Comic Sans font of the store’s name aloud.

  Miranda blows a raspberry with her tongue. “Sounds expensive.”

  “Sounds fun,” I say as I turn into the parking lot.

  Miranda sits straighter and gives me a quizzical look. “I don’t have much money saved up. There’s no reason to stop.”

  I put the car in park and open my door, slinging my purse around my shoulder. “Feel free to stay here then,” I say with a cocky smile. “I have a nephew to shop for.”

  The door jingles with a dozen pink and blue bells hanging off the handle as I step inside of Boutique Baby with Miranda excitedly rushing in on my heels. A country station plays on the radio, loud enough for us to browse the store without feeling like we’re being watched. We aren’t really being watched though; the teenager behind the cash register hasn’t looked up from her cell phone since we arrived. Miranda and I browse racks of baby clothes, bypassing all the fluffy tulle skirts and rhinestone onesies for the less flashy boys’ section.

  Miranda frowns as she holds up a long-sleeved baby outfit that looks like a baseball jersey. “I’m supposed to have, like, a theme or something right?” She puts back the baseball outfit and grabs a construction worker one and then one with jungle animals on it. “I don’t know what my theme should be.”

  I recall a baby shower that Maggie threw for our cousin last year. The mother-to-be was obsessed with monkeys and had made sure that everything in the nursery had a freaking monkey on it. Maggie took the same desperate measures to ensure that the shower was monkey themed, complete with monkey games and cupcakes topped with marzipan monkey faces. It was all a bit too much in my opinion.

  “You don’t need a theme,” I tell her, pointing to an adorable pair of denim overalls. “Just get whatever.”

  She shakes her head. “But everyone has a theme. You’re supposed to have a thing, like a sport or a hobby…I’m not a man, Robin. I don’t know sports and I don’t know anything about construction or freaking zoo animals. He won’t have a dad to teach him that stuff either.” She places the outfits back on the rack. “My kid is going to grow up with no sense of direction.”

  I’m not sure if she’s being dramatic on purpose or if her pregnancy hormones are making her insane. I step forward and take one of each outfit in the smallest size. “Screw that. Your kid is going to be the best-rounded kid in Texas. I can promise you that.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?” Miranda grabs one of those snot sucker things and makes a face at it.

  “Because it’s on my to-do list.” I take the snot sucker from her hand and drop it in my basket. “Let’s get one of all of these things,” I say, grabbing baby nail clippers, baby combs, baby shampoo and everything else.

  “Your to-do list?” Miranda gives me yet another sideways look like she thinks I’ve gone insane.

  “Yeah. Taking care of my nephew is on the mental to-do list I’ve made for myself.”

  “What else is on it?”

  I count out the list on my fingers. “Get a job. Get some friends. Take care of my nephew of course. And find out more about Grandpa.”

  My explanation seems to hold Miranda over for a while and we continue shopping without any more interrogating questions thrown my way. When we head to the front counter to check out, the cashier sets down her phone and gives us a big Texas smile.

  “You should talk to some of the people at the diner,” Miranda says as the lady rings up our purchases. “Ask around and see if there are any Salt Gap historians or something. That’s a thing, right?”

  I blow a raspberry with my tongue. “Yeah right. Not in a town that small, unless some kind of epic Civil War battle went down there.”

  “What do you need to know about Salt Gap?” the girl behind the counter asks.

  I hand her my debit card without bothering to check how much this shopping trip is costing me. “There’s these photos sealed in acrylic at the Salt Gap Diner.” My story feels stupid as I say the words. “We found a photo of my grandfather and I just wanted to find out why it got there and where it came from.”

  “I might be able to help you,” she says, stepping out from behind the counter. “Hey Mom!” she yells toward the back of the store. A woman steps out from behind a back room and the cashier motions for her to join us. “They’re looking for someone who knows about the Salt Gap Diner, like the history of it. You think Grandma would know?”

  The woman’s face brightens as if she’d been waiting all day for someone to ask about the diner. She introduces herself as Gabriella Tanner and then launches into a friendly southern conversation about her mother as if we were all old friends and not strangers who’ve only just met.

  “Mama’s lived in Salt Gap her whole life,” Gabriella says. “And trust me, she loves talking about it. She knows every person who’s ever lived there.” Her daughter nods eagerly. “If you want information, you need to talk to her.”

  Gabriella writes down the directions to her mother’s house and assures me that her mother, whose name is Candy, will absolutely love the company. After we’ve left the store with a dozen bags of baby stuff, I’m still not sure if I want to go over to an old woman’s house and ask her about my grandfather. But Miranda won’t shut up about it as she gets ready for work.

  “You have to go see her!” she whines over and over again as she flat irons her hair. “We have to know about the photo in the counter and maybe she’ll have answers. Plus, it’s not like you have anything better to do.”

  “I could sit here and watch TV,” I say. I’m not trying to be an inconsiderate jerk, but it’s just such a weird situation. This would never happen where I’m from. In Houston, we keep our grandparent’s away from strangers out of fear of them getting robbed.


  “Just go,” Miranda says, shoving me out of her bedroom.

  “I’m scared!” I whine.

  “Go,” Miranda snaps, giving me her super serious look. “Go or I’ll tell Tyler you have a massive crush on him.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I say.

  She lowers the flat iron and puts her hands on her hips. “Tyler comes in for lunch every day at one. He orders a bacon cheeseburger with waffle fries and he always asks me how the apartment is doing. Go, or I’ll tell him.”

  I shake my head and grab my car keys. “I’m gonna make you pay for this,” I say.

  Miranda laughs. “I look forward to it!”

  Chapter 11

  Candy waves to me from the white porch swing under her gorgeous wrap-around Victorian style porch. The house and the woman look exactly as I pictured them; old, well taken-care of, and well, kind of cliché. I shove my car keys in my pocket as I walk up her gravel driveway and then scale the three steps up the porch. My voice turns into sweet old lady mode as if I were still back at work in Houston, dealing with elderly homeowners.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Candy. I’m Robin Carter…your daughter said you’d be expecting me?”

  She smiles and lowers her feet to the porch, stopping the swaying of the porch swing. She lets go of her knitting needles and pats the spot next to her. “Of course dear. Please sit down.”

  I do as I’m told. Candy is very beautiful, even in her old age. Her silver hair lies in front of her shoulders in long curls, binned back at the bangs with a rhinestone bobby pin. She wears winged eyeliner and red lipstick and half a dozen golden rings on her fingers. If we traveled back in time forty years, she’d look like a hot pinup girl.

  She picks up her knitting and focuses on the stitches. “So what things do you like to talk about, dear?”

  “Oh,” I say, a little hesitantly. Did I accidently drive to the wrong house and am talking to the wrong woman? “Your daughter didn’t tell you what I wanted to talk about?”