False Start (Love and Skate) (17 page)

She rolled her eyes, throwing her arms in the air, “That’s not even a sane question. Who doesn’t want cake and especially me? I hope the rest of the questions are better.”

I hoped so too.

“Ok, I got a cake for you today.” I went to the refrigerator and brought out the sheet cake, still in encased in the white cardboard box. She stood next to me, “What kind?”

“You tell me.” I waved her on, wanting her to discover what was inside.

She opened the box and then squinted her eyes in my direction. “I made this cake. They gave you the wrong one. This one is for a girl whose boyfriend is surprising her with a European culinary vacation. Hence the Eiffel Tower and the outline of Italy and all the little pictures I had to print out on sugar sheets.

“No. That’s the right cake alright. Almond with raspberry filling for the guy who wants to take his girl on a culinary vacation.”

“That’s not in the form of a question.”

I laughed. She wasn’t going to let me get away with easy. But that was fine with me, since even difficult didn’t feel like a strain with her.

“Hayes, will you go to Europe with me for three months—
it’s not like you have a job or anything.”

She jumped up and down with a squeal, “Vera is
gonna flip when I tell her. And my parents—I have to tell my parents!”

I reached for her, stopping what I hoped was her victory dance, “You’re answering my question about you with stuff about other people again.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you really think the answer was going to be no?”

I shrugged and looked to the floor, “I didn’t know. I hoped. I dreamed. I wished. But you’ve got me so dizzy I can’t even think straight.”

She kissed me then, a frenzied kiss of love and happiness. “Yes, of course I will go with you. I’d go with you anywhere.”

We found ourselves lost in another fit of passion until she pushed me back.

“I hid something in that cake,” she whispered and then her eyes bulged. I never knew so much fun could be had watching realization take over her face. “I hid something in that cake!”

I held her to me, it seemed like she might run over bunnies to get back to the cake. “What, Angel? What did you hide in the cake?”

She was practically hyperventilating, her eyes tearing up as she answered. “There’s a clear tube in the center. There’s a diamond ring inside.”

“And that’s my third and final question. That ring is yours. But it means you’ll have to put up with my antics. It means you’ll have to endure my broodiness. It also means I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Will you be my wife?”

She bumped her head against my chest nodding yes. While I was relieved, I needed to hear it.

“I can’t hear a nod.”

“Yes, Rex. Yes. If you promise to wear the suspenders on our wedding day.”

“Yeah,” I chuckled, “I promise.”

One Year Later

Rex

             
Halfway through Europe, we decided to elope, much to the anger and surprise of our families. She chose a small chapel in a tiny village in Northern Italy. We only had the witness of the preacher and two older couples who happened to be passing by. She wore jeans and a sweater and I wore jeans and a flannel t-shirt. And I made sure, the suspenders were firmly in place. I made her promise she wouldn’t hate me one day for not giving her the white dress and flowers. She swore she wouldn’t over dinner in an Italian bakery that night.

             
Maddox and Storey had a little girl who they named Sela after Mad’s mother.

             
Almost exactly nine months afterwards, we had a girl named Darby.

             
I understand so many things now. I understand the way the brothers always doted on their wives because I couldn’t stop myself from bringing Hayes flowers or making sure she had ever comfort she needed. I understood the constant baby talk because from the second I laid my eyes on Darby I was consumed with love and obsession for her. Love had become something I strived to do better day after day instead of running from it, hiding my want for it in the corner.

             
My love for Hayes, coupled with her happy disposition and refusal to let me settle for punishing myself, saved me. I tried to spend every day paying her back for it.

             
I was still in school, but only had one more semester. Hayes, with her investor husband and now brother in law, Falcon, had opened her own bakery. Sylvia’s restaurant and nearly twenty others in the city bought all of their bread from her bakery exclusively.

             
I was complete, all thanks to a girl who saw me for what could be and decided to pursue it.

Owen

15 years later

“I’m going to get my hair done and then Cybill and I are going shopping. Do you need anything,” Nellie, my Nellie, called to me from the living room.

“No, I don’t need anything.”

She bustled into the room and grabbed her purse from the dresser. She dug her keys out of the jacket she wore on the previous day and then stopped in her tracks.

“Owen, she gave you those tapes so we could listen to them, not just stare at the box all day.” She sat on my lap. Even at almost forty years old and with two teens in the house, she was still my firecracker. She’d taught me to love and to trust. She made me laugh every day. She was fierce about our family and anyone who messed with our children would pray for death before she was done with them.

“I need to do it by myself. I can’t tell you why, but I have to be alone.”

“I get it. I do. I’m gone and Cyrus won’t be back home for another two hours. Sounds like you’ll be alone for a while. Just try to listen. It might help you, Owen. You haven’t been the same since.”

“Ok,” I answered solemnly. I stared a hole in that box, wanting it to flee or fight me—something other than opening it and facing what was inside.

“Nellie, I love you,” I called to her as she opened the door.

“I love you double, Owen.”

I heard the deadbolt turn and it sealed me in place. That box and I were at a standoff.

“It’s just a box of USB drives. That’s it,” I convinced myself out loud.

My inner Hulk took over and I stalked over to it, throwing the top aside and pulling the first one out. She’d labeled them by dates. The one I picked up was dated four months before her first trip to the hospital. I walked into my study, that’s what Nellie called it. I called it an office. Work was done there. But Nellie said that’s where she sat and read while I worked
, and pretended not to study me.

I stuck the stick into the USB port and waited for everything to load. Suddenly her face popped up on the screen and her first words blew me away.

“Hi Owen. You just left the house. You gave me this idea. So, it’s essentially your fault. If you’re seeing this, it means I’m gone. It’s weird to think about, me making this for you to watch after I’m gone. But there’s things I wanted to tell you and your brothers. Things that are too hard to say in person. I have a list see?” She fluttered a pink piece of paper in front of the screen. “Falcon would be proud. Anyway, I’m starting at the beginning when Chase found me so long ago…”

I struck the pause button, already rivers flittered down my face as I knew they would. She looked frail even in the video. My mom had made it through six months of chemo successfully. She made it through radiation treatments too. Ten years later the nodules came back and she went through another four years of treatments. But her immune system had been compromised and what started as a tiny sneeze grew into a sinus infection, which transformed into bronchitis and pneumonia and when the liquid took over her lungs in the hospital, she breathed her last breath surrounded by us all. When we went to the funeral home to make the arrangements we found she had already arranged it all. Falcon didn’t speak to anyone for three days afterward. He was the closest with Mom. And that was his way. He shut down. And then at the lawyer’s office
, I was handed a box and was instructed to pass it along through each brother, including Nixon and Rex. She left a letter to her five sons and five daughters. She left another to her eight grandchildren. She left a video to my dad. We thought that was it. But then my Dad informed me that she’d been videoing herself whenever she felt up to it. It took me that long to open it up.

“I want you to know most of all that the things that stood during your childhood still stand now. You are the big brother. They will always look for your approval on everything, even if they joke about it. Nellie is your perfect match. She is easy going, patient and loving. I couldn’t have chosen a better fit for you myself. Falcon will always be the rock. He will always be the advisor, the one with the tempered head and wise opinion. Trust him, always. Mad will always be the naysayer. But the naysayer is also the Devil’s Advocate. His opinion counts too. Plus, Maddox is my clown. He was born to be our comedic relief.” She looked down and smiled, cue cards; that sounded like my mom. She probably had written out cue cards.

“Nixon is the family man. You ever have a concern about family or marriage, go to him. I’ve never seen a man cherish and revere his family as much as Nixon does. And Rex, dear, sweet Rex. Keep an eye on him for me. Because if anyone deserves happiness, he does, but he will also be the first to self-sabotage it. All of my girls have videos too, but don’t watch them. I’m certain to get weepy. Because I love you boys, I do. But I couldn’t have dreamed up better daughters.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and I did too. She said that was all for the time being and turned off the camera. As her face disappeared from the screen I reached out to touch it, trying to grab her, reach into the computer and pull her back into my life again.

She’d raised us to live without her. She’d given us the skills, the love and the strength of a family unit to see us through. I watched the first video over and over
until I heard the front door again.

“Hey Dad,” Cyrus walked into the office. He was now twenty years old. He had my build and his mother’s warm eyes. He’d struggled through school because of his severe Dyslexia, but he’d made it. Unsurprisingly, he’d decided not to go to college, opting instead for opening his own mechanic shop. He wasn’t good at reading and writing but he could pull a car apart and put it back together before you could blink.

“Hey Cy. I was just watching your grandmother’s videos.”

“I miss her. She was the best.”

I smiled at him, “She was. What’s up with you?” My son coming home gave me an out. I switched off the computer and focused my attention on him.

“I have a problem.”

“What’s going on? Sit down.”

He sat in Nellie’s chair and fidgeted with his jeans.

“Dad…I…”

He tended to stutter when he was flustered. He got picked on a lot between his stuttering and his Dyslexia.

“I met this girl. She’s beautiful and she’s sweet. And she’s totally smart and she’s a teacher.”

I smiled, “Well, ask her out.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’ll think I’m stupid. She’s an English teacher in high school.”

“So what?
Cyrus you have a learning disability.”

“I know but there’s another thing.”

I waited for the other thing. He buried his head in the heels of his hands and looked down as he spoke the next four words. After he spoke them I lost it, busted out laughing at my son’s expense. But I couldn’t help it. Life was a circle. It all came around. Karma was a real wench.

“Say it again, Cyrus. It’s just too much.”

He squinted his eyes and sterned his face, “I’m glad this amuses you.”

“It does. Just say it again, just one more time.”

He stood up to his full height, the same height as me, and walked to the office window and looked out. I stopped laughing, putting myself back in the shoes I hadn’t worn in years. I reveled in the reminiscence of feelings I’d once had about the same issue with Nellie.

“She’s a derby girl.”

Lila’s POV

I sit on Nellie’s couch in their home, Chase and Sylvia’s old home, having a cup of coffee with my friend.

“Is it
gonna be weird,” Nellie asked.

“What?”

“Writing Cyrus. I mean, you created him as a baby and now you’re gonna write him older and falling in love with some chick.”

“It was your idea.”

She scoffed, “It was not. It was Scout’s.”

I laughed, “Scout has been on my ass to write a book about her since Nixon’s
book.”

“So you write Cyrus and then Scout.”

“But what about the rest of the kids?”

“Write them too, a whole spin-off series.”

I waved my hands in the air, like a dancing hippie, making fun of her positivity, “Oh yeah, we’ll just write another damned series. I oughta kick you in your fluugen muugen.”

She broke out in a laugh that I hadn’t heard in a long time, “Oh my God, you sound like Betty White on the Golden Girls.”

“I’m serious. What would I even call it? Love and Skate, the rug rats go on a date?”

“
Dude, that rhymes. No, you’ll think of something. I believe in you, Lila.” She dragged out ‘believe in you’ like a Southern reverend in the middle of an Easter service.

“Be careful,
Smurfette. I could axe you at any time.”

“No you wouldn’t. I know what you went through when Sylvia died. I know it wasn’t easy. She was our mom, but you made her. I know that was like burying a child.”

“It was.”

No one knew the pain I went through with Sylvia. But the first time I wrote her into the story, I knew she wouldn’t be with them all the way through. I knew she was going to leave the family a long time before anyone wanted her to, but such is life. There is death and birth and love
and hope. But she’d done her job well. She prepared the family to live without her. She was the kind of mother everyone wishes they had.

“Do you think I did it,” I asked her tentatively.

She knew what I spoke of. You see, dear reader, Nellie spoke to me before Love and Skate, and it was about a lot more than roller derby. Nellie called to me, “Lila, do you see my blue hair, piercings and tattoos?” I looked her up and down. Of course I did, I made her that way in my own imagination.

“They are me, but they don’t
define
me. And that’s what you need to do. You need to convince them, if only one person. Convince them that no matter how people look on the outside, you don’t know them until you see their insides.” I rolled my eyes, “Not a tall order at all.”

“I think you did. But the kids’ stories need to be told.”

“Okay,” I agreed, downtrodden.

“Okay. I’m here if you need me.”

“I’ll always need you around, Nellie.”

Stay t
uned, the spin off series, it will be coming soon!