by Bruce Ingram
Chapter Fourteen: Elly
I think lately I’ve finally started to get my life together. The last four Saturday mornings, I’ve volunteered to tutor at risk kids at a help center. Ms. Whitney, my guidance counselor at school, set up the whole thing when I went to her and asked if she could find me a volunteer job that has to do with teaching, and it’s been great. The kids are between five and eight, and there are other teenage girls there like me helping out. The center’s administrator asked me what skill I was best at, whether it was reading, math, arts and crafts… those sorts of things, and I said reading. So I read stories to the really little kids, and then helped the older kids with their pronouncing and vocabulary skills when we read aloud. In the three hours I’m there, I work with six different groups for about 30 minutes at a time.
The first time I was there, the kids were really shy toward me, and I had trouble learning their names and their skill levels. But by the second time, they were more relaxed around me and seemed really glad to see me. And I sort of fell into this groove of how to approach the day’s story lesson. On Friday nights, I really enjoy reading the stories the administrator has selected for me and planning out how to approach each group. The whole experience has made me feel wonderful, that I’m doing something meaningful with my life, instead of obsessing over the things that I usually obsess over. More and more, I can see myself teaching maybe third or fourth grade or maybe any elementary grade and really, really enjoying it. The volunteer job will only last about a month, but it will help introduce me to what teaching is like.
The past month, I’ve also been going to work out with Mom at our club three or four mornings a week before school. I went to Mom and said I wanted to lose some weight, and she said she probably needed to lose a pound or two, and why didn’t we start going to the club together before school and work out—that our membership paid for this sort of thing anyway and why not use it. At first, I was dreading the thought of getting up that early, but then I thought about those four pounds I put on over the summer and that made me decide to make the effort.
I’ve also decided to stop snacking all the time, especially at night when I’m doing my homework or reading. Already, I’ve lost six pounds, and if I could lose another 18 over the next three or four months, well, that would be awesome. My jeans and skirts are starting to feel looser, and I feel like I look better.
When I was thinking about making all these changes, I also decided to talk to Paige, Mary, and Mia one day at lunch about whether or not I should grow my hair longer. Usually, they disagree when I bring up some sort of question like that, but this time the verdict was unanimous—grow it longer. I started worrying out loud about how frizzy my hair often is and Mary sang out, “Embrace the frizz,” and everybody laughed and agreed that my naturally curly hair would look super longer. So far, my hair is maybe just an inch or two longer, but I’m already starting to like my new look.
I don’t miss going out with Paul at all, and I definitely don’t mind, at least for right now, about not having a boyfriend. A few times, it’s been a little awkward passing Paul in the hall, but we don’t have any classes together with my being a sophomore and him being a senior. Besides, I’ve seen him “talking” with a junior in the cafeteria, and Mary said she thinks they’re about to become a couple. Good for him. I hope she enjoys sitting on cold bleachers on Friday nights and her heart races to the thrills of watching college football and playing video games on Saturday nights.
Oh, lately, I’ve had this junior guy, Jonathan, showing me some interest. I only have him in one class, Spanish II, but he’s been making a point to come by my table at lunch and ask questions about Spanish verbs or something like that, and he told me he was struggling in Spanish a little and could he text me at night about the homework we had for the next day. The first few texts were just about Spanish, but more and more, they’ve been about other things, like what do I enjoy doing and what’s going on with my life. Boys don’t seem to know how to communicate well; they are just so awkward when it comes to that.
Jonathan is on the football team, but he is something called a receiver, which apparently means that he doesn’t have “to bulk up” all the time like Paul said he was always having to do—so there’s that in Jonathan’s favor. That makes sense, because Jonathan does not have a big gut like Paul has. So we’ll see how things go with him.
And one more thing. Every time Mom and I go to the club, she’s letting me drive. In the beginning, I was a little worried about driving in the dark, and I had to take it really slow; the first time I was driving, like, about 10mph under the speed limit, 25 in a 35 mph zone. I know some of the people behind us must have been giving me some dirty looks, but Mom said not to worry about it. She said I had done a nice job with driving when we practiced after school and on weekends, and it was time for me to take the next step.
Then she told me a secret. That Dad had said he thought I could have her car when it was time for me to get my license, that hers was four years old now, and it was time for her to “probably get a new one.” She said this whole car situation could be a win-win for the both of us. Yes, indeed, it could-things are looking up for me.
Chapter Fifteen: Marcus
It felt so good to be back playing football after my two-game suspension ended. The team lost both games while I was out, and we lost my first game back (Caleb and me just couldn’t seem to get on the same page all night) but we won last Friday night…so I think we’re (the team and Caleb and me) going to start clicking from now on. I caught two touchdown passes from Caleb, and the offensive line protected him well all night, which gave me plenty of time to get open. The play that changed the game was a 57-yard catch and run where I caught about a 15-yard pass after creating separation from the corner, then juked the safety, and the next thing that happened was I was slamming the ball in the end zone. It felt amazing, and the home crowd just went absolutely wild. I looked up in the stands where Kylee usually sits and she was cheering like crazy—that was really good to see, too.
Monday morning before first period English 10 Honors, Kylee came up to me and said I “played an awesome game Friday night.” I had been thinking about asking her out, but wasn’t quite ready to do it, but she’s so hot and Homecoming is soon… somebody is bound to hit on her if I waited much longer. So I decided right then on the spur of the moment to ask if she would like to go do something on Saturday night. And she said yes!
I had rather not double date with Joshua and Jordan, but, on the other hand, I can’t see Dad or Mom riding in the front seat with me because I can only drive with a licensed adult. Meanwhile, I’m trying to carry on a conversation with Kylee in the backseat. How uncool is that. It would be just as embarrassing for Kylee and me sitting in the backseat and one of our parents taking us somewhere. I won’t have my driver’s license until February, and I’m tired of waiting for it, but there’s nothing I can do about that… it’s so frustrating.
Then I thought that since I’m trying to do things differently this year, since everything I did last year seemed to blow up in my face when I made decisions on my own, especially about girls, I decided to go visit Kylee during lunchtime and asked her where would she like to go Saturday night and given the fact that neither one of us has licenses, how were we going to get wherever we went? In the past, I’ve always made all those decisions without asking my dates.
Kylee said she had rather not double date with my brother and Jordan, and I quickly agreed about that because I know Jordan can’t stand me. Then Kylee said that since last year, we were always going somewhere with somebody from my family driving, she would ask her mom if she would take us to the mall, and we could eat somewhere kind of simple and just walk around and visit stores and shop and talk. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about going shopping with Kylee (I mean, what guy would be supercharged about that), but then I thought there are worst things in life than watching a sexy girl try on short skirts and asking for my opinion on how she looks. I can deal with that. I’
ve got one last chance with her; I had better not screw things up this time. So I said I liked her whole plan.
Saturday night, Kylee’s mom picked me up around 6:00, and I asked Kylee what she thought about eating at Olive Garden. She said that would be awesome, so that’s where we went. We talked about school stuff for a while, and I was really trying to make sure that I didn’t control the conversation and tried to ask her what she thought about things. Last year she complained about that toward the end of our relationship. She asked me if I was still planning on playing both pro football and basketball, and I told her no, that I now realized it would be impossible to play both… that I would just have to wait and see which pro sport I picked deciding on how I played in college.
Then she said something that made me mad.
“What happens,” she said, “if the pro sports thing doesn’t work out at all, what are you going to do then… or suppose if you get injured in high school or college and that’s the end of sports?”
I told her that I would likely want to go into broadcasting and be on ESPN or one of the other networks and she replied that those jobs were as hard to get as pro sports jobs and what would I do if that didn’t work out. “Would you be willing,” she said, “to start at some local TV sports show to build up a resume?”
I started to tell her I wasn’t interested in working for some Podunk station out in the middle of nowhere, but I didn’t want to get into a fight with her because things had been going so well. Then I started to think that she was probably right about me having to start somewhere small, so I told her that, and she replied that I needed to begin to take some business classes at school in order how to learn how to market myself.
Again, I got mad and tried not to show it, so I told her she was probably right. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized she was right and later I told her she was which made her smile. She also made me smile when she kissed me goodnight when her mom dropped me off at my house. I had been all twisted up in knots on whether she would want me to kiss her or whether I should try to kiss her, since it had been so long since we had. Then I said, “See you next Saturday night?” and she grinned and said yes, and I kissed her again.
Chapter Sixteen: Mia
When I got to school about 30 minutes before first period, as usual I went to Ms. Hawk’s class to make sure I was organized for the day and to talk with Luke about our jobs for the week. As I was walking into the room, I saw that Luke was asleep with his head on top of an open geometry book. There weren’t any other students around and Ms. Hawk motioned me up to her desk.
“When I got to school this morning around 7:15,” she said, “I saw Luke sitting outside my room and working on his geometry. The first thing I noticed is that there’s a big red welt on his face. Luke’s not a fighter, do you know how that mark got there?”
I got scared when I heard that because I feared that the only way something like that had happened was because Luke’s dad had hit him. Then I started to think would it be good or bad for Luke if Ms. Hawk knew that his dad had probably struck him. Would she report that to social services and would somebody come to Luke’s house and investigate if child abuse had happened? What would happen if that happened? Would Luke’s dad get really angry and really light into him then? Would my talking to Ms. Hawk make things worse for him?
A minute or so must have gone by, and I still hadn’t answered Ms. Hawk, and all I could think to say was “I haven’t seen Luke since Saturday when we went canoeing for our date,” which wasn’t answering her question at all.
“Sweetie,” she said. “I figured you two were dating by now. I saw that coming last year. You haven’t answered my question.”
“Luke’s mom is dying, his dad is drinking hard, and Luke is scared of his father,” I blurted out. Then I teared up. I tried not to, but it happened anyway. I don’t like to lose control of my emotions. I was so glad that nobody else was in the room.
“Luke is so sweet to me,” I said and then the tears started to rain down, and all these thoughts rushed into my mind. We’ve had four dates now and they’ve all been awesome. On our second one, we went hiking into the mountains and Luke showed me how to fly fish for wild trout, and I caught my first fish. I never squeal, but I shrieked when I got that trout (Luke called it a brookie) up on the bank. It was flopping all over the place. Luke caught three, and he showed me how to clean them. From cooking with Mama, I know how to clean fish, but he was so patient and passionate about how to tell me how to get them ready to cook that I didn’t want to interrupt him. Earlier, I had asked him what would we eat if we couldn’t catch any fish. He just gave me this confident smile and said, “Don’t you worry about that. We’ll catch ‘em.”
He made a fire right next to the creek, and he cooked the trout for lunch along with some mushrooms and sweet onions he had asked me to bring from home. He was so confident and he was so like a man the whole time he was talking and explaining things to me and preparing the trout. The fish were so good to eat. Earlier, I had made some churros, and I brought them for our dessert, and he really liked them and praised my cooking skills. I felt so special.
On our third date, we went biking out into the country and had a picnic lunch. Since he had been in charge of the entrée the Saturday before, it was my turn to bring the main course. I brought cilantro corn cakes, and Luke ate so many that I wished I had brought more from home. This past Saturday, we went canoeing down the river that flows through town. Luke and I bartered with the canoe livery’s owner, telling him that Luke would mow his lawn at home and at the livery and I would give the office a really good cleaning in exchange for the man letting us rent a canoe.
We ate lunch on an island where we stopped to make a fire. This time, I knew not to worry about him catching fish. He caught four really big what he called smallmouth bass, but he said we weren’t going to eat them because they were such a special fish. It was important to let them go so that they could grow even bigger.
Later, we beached the canoe on an island and went wading into the river. Luke showed me how to cast by standing behind me and sort of guiding my arms in the correct casting motion. I never would have thought fishing could be romantic, but it was… with him. I felt so close to him while he was touching my arms that I turned around and kissed him. He teased me and said I needed to be a good student and to stop fooling around with the teacher.
Next, Luke tied to the line what he called a crankbait (it’s like this hard plastic minnow looking creature that sort of wiggles through the water) and said I was going to catch five or six sunfish with the lure thingy and we would have them for lunch. I didn’t believe him, but I did catch those fish, I really did. Can you believe that, I caught our whole lunch!
Ms. Hawk started patting me on the shoulder which snapped me back into reality, and I finally stopped crying and I at last told her what I had been fearing, that Luke’s dad might hit him worse if somebody from social services came to the house and investigated what was going on. Ms. Hawk got this worried look on her face when I told her that and she stuttered something. I couldn’t hear what it was.
About that time, other students started coming into the room, and I went to wake Luke up and try to help him a little bit with his geometry homework before English class started. As I had feared, he only had done three of his equations for homework, and, of course, with Luke’s horrible math skills, they were all wrong. How could anybody have so much potential in English and biology and be so bad in math? I guess I find something like that hard to understand because school has always been so easy for me.
In third period Ecology, the secretary called over the intercom for Luke to go to guidance. I figured something terrible must have happened because Luke didn’t come back to class and wasn’t in Yearbook seventh period. He called me that night to tell me that his mom had died that morning.
Homecoming
Chapter Seventeen: Luke
It’s been hard since Mom died last month. I miss her. After she die
d, Dad took a week off work and stayed drunk almost the entire time. If Mia hadn’t been bringing me something to eat every school morning and if I wasn’t able to keep going to Granddaddy’s house every weekend, I don’t think I could have stood it with Dad screaming and cursing at me all the time. I was so hungry all the time, too.
But all that’s behind me now. Two weeks ago, Dad and I got into a really big argument when I got home from school one afternoon. He had sobered up enough to be working on one of his cars before he went to work at the plant, and he yelled at me to come over. “What’s this I hear about you and some Mexican girl,” he said. (He didn’t use the words Mexican or girl, but I’m not going to repeat what he said.) “My boss,” Dad went on, “said he hired the two of you to mow his lawn and work in his garden, and you two were awful ‘friendly’ with each other.”
I was terrified when he said that, and I didn’t know what to say back. If I denied that Mia and I were dating, he probably would hit me, and if I admitted that she was my girlfriend, he would hit me. If I told him, it was none of his business, he would definitely hit me for being smart with him. I hesitated for what seemed like forever and before I could say something, he walked over and slapped me harder than he ever has and yelled, “Answer me, boy!”
I confessed that Mia was my girlfriend and that we ran a lawn and gardening business together and that’s what I was doing after school and on weekends. He then ordered me to break up with that girl (again, I’m not going to repeat what he really said).
Dad said that this weekend, a friend of his was going to drop us off at a car lot, and he and I both were going to drive cars back home for me to clean up. I told him that I only had a learners permit, and it would be illegal for me to drive by myself yet, and he cursed at me and said, “Do as you’re told.” I quickly said “Yes, sir.” I didn’t want to get hit again. I’m not going to break up with Mia. I’m not going to drive a car by myself without having my license. If the police stopped me on the way home, I’d get a criminal record and I’m not even 16.
