Frannie and Tru (12 page)

Two drinks. I'd now had two drinks in my whole life—some of Tru's mystery Coke cocktail and now a Miller Lite, lukewarm
and bitter. It tasted like something gone bad, but I didn't care.

P.J. asked what I'd thought of the show. Clearing my throat, I told them they were amazing, in another league from everyone else. I meant every word.

“Thanks. It's awesome that you came,” P.J. said. “Especially since you're our namesake. Or no, that's not right. You're, like, our name giver. Or something. You know what I mean.”

“It's a good name,” Devon said, and put up his hand to high-five me.

Our palms touched, lightly, just for an instant.

Devon and P.J. started recapping and critiquing the other bands. P.J. jumped in with wild, nuanced imitations of each one, Devon and me dissolving into laughter as he screeched out awful notes and strummed an air guitar. I told myself to drink the beer slowly, but before I knew it I had gulped it down. A new buzz tickled around edges of my head. I felt a little airy, a little floaty. Like my head was stretched.

As P.J. crooned out a nasal ballad and pretended to bang on a tambourine, one of the girls came over to us. I remembered that her name was Tara—Tara with the big golden eyes and dark skin that matched Devon's. She stood in front of him and flipped her hair. It was long and shiny, pin-straight.

“It's new,” she told him. “What do you think?”

“
I
think it looks nice,” Devon said. “But do you know what my mother will say?'

“Oh, she's already seen it. Just this afternoon.” Tara put her hands on her hips and adopted a serious voice. “‘I liked it short
and kinky. Why do you need a weave? Would you like me to outline the many political ramifications of your hair?'”

“Damn,” he said. “That was pretty good. Watch out or you're going to turn into her.”

“Ha! Not likely.”

Her eyes shifted to me, then back to Devon. She smiled at him, and I felt embarrassed, though I wasn't sure exactly why. Maybe just because I always felt embarrassed.

Devon coughed, rocked a bit on his whale. “So what did you think of my singing?” he asked.

“Good,” Tara said with a shrug. “Not as good as mine.”

P.J. let out a long, low whistle. “That is cold, Tara. Ice-cold.”

So that was her talent. Singing. I could easily imagine her onstage, all confidence, pitch-perfect. She would be strutting around, flipping that gleaming sheet of hair that Devon's mother didn't like. Even clueless me knew what she was talking about, at least a little. I knew that there were endless complexities to being a black girl and keeping your hair natural, or not, and that it meant different things to different people. That changing it could be expensive or painful. I suddenly flashed back to my homeroom last year at St. Sebastian's. There had been an Indian girl named Anya, and two of the black girls, Danielle and Monet, liked to sit behind her and joke that they were going to bring scissors and steal her perfect shining locks. Indian hair cost the most, they said—she had a thousand-dollar head and didn't even know it. Anya always laughed. I laughed, too. Even the teacher did. But I wondered what would happen
next year, if I was sitting at the lunch table while a bunch of girls had a conversation like this. If I should laugh, and when, and how much. I couldn't decide if I was overthinking this, or if the real problem was that I'd spent most of my life never bothering to think about these kinds of things at all.

Tara and Devon were still bickering, and then she came over and started poking him in the stomach, telling him to pull the notes from his diaphragm. The two of them joked and slapped at each other, easy and familiar, until she said something about him showing off tonight, and he gave her an annoyed look.

“Fine,” she said. “Whatever.”

As she walked away, Devon glanced at me.

“Tara's my cousin. I just . . . didn't know if you knew.”

“Oh!” I said. “So she's Sparrow's cousin, too?”

“No, no,” he said. “Other side. My dad's side. I actually see her more than I see him. My parents are divorced, and he's a professional musician. He travels a lot.”

“Wow. That's cool. I mean, it's cool that he plays music for a living.”

I had no idea what else to say, too afraid of asking music questions that would make me sound like a moron. I was saved when someone called Devon's name and he hopped up, jogging off into the dark. I looked over at Tru to see if he still seemed to be watching us, but now he was deep in conversation with the girls, gesturing wildly, telling a story that was making them laugh.

Sparrow appeared then and took Devon's place, gracefully straddling the whale.

“So,” she said, “what's this about us all going to jump in some creepy reservoir? In the middle of the night?”

P.J. launched into an elaborate explanation of how Tru was planning a getaway to Prettyboy, at the end of the summer when the moon was full. “You're not allowed to swim there, but we can totally sneak in and do it. There's this perfect spot to jump,” P.J. said. “It's going to be badass.”

Sparrow was shaking her head and grinning.

“My god. Truman. Always with the schemes and the danger. Last year, after prom, you won't believe what he had us all do. . . .”

“Tru went to
prom
?” I asked.

Sparrow laughed. “I know, can you believe it? Talk about someone I thought was too cool for that. But this guy Andy was desperate for Tru to come with him. And Andy, well, he's a sweetheart. He and I had done this big art project together, so he enlisted me to convince Tru, and somehow I managed. It wasn't a real date, more just a group thing, but Andy could at least have the illusion he was actually at prom with a guy! And if he was cute, all the better.”

I tried to imagine this, struggling to picture the Tru I knew taking part in a night of punch bowls, posed photos, and terrible music. The whole idea sent a twist to my heart, made me think that he was a little more human than I thought. I wanted to ask Sparrow a million more questions—about Andy and Tru in a tux and whatever wild thing he'd planned for after the dance . . .

But then a question needled me. This was last year. Before Aunt Debbie and Uncle Richard knew. So had Truman told
people at school before he told his parents? Or did Andy just know because he was friends with Sparrow? I was pretty sure Tru would kill me if I asked her stuff like that—he never talked about school or home when I was around. I looked to see where he was and found him at the edge of the trees, smoking with Devon and talking quietly. I decided I should ask Sparrow more while I had the chance.

“So I guess he just went without telling his parents about the Andy part? And they didn't notice, since it was a group thing?”

Sparrow looked a little confused, but just as she opened her mouth to say more, there was a light. No, two lights. A pair of beams coming from somewhere down the path. With them came a crunch of shoes on gravel. And then a loud voice.

“Park's closed, guys. Who's there?”

I dropped my now-empty can.

“Cops!”
someone hissed.
“Cops, cops, cops!”

We were all running before I knew what was happening, trying to get back to the main path and tripping over tree roots and playground equipment and one another. I heard a terse “Where the fuck is Frannie?” and I called out, “Here,” in a terrified squeak. Seconds later Tru was next to me, and I looked to him, wide-eyed and frightened.

He was laughing.

“Hey there,” he said. “You ready?”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me in a different direction, whispering that it was safer to split off. Our legs were pumping like crazy, our strides matching each other. He had the flashlight
on, but it barely did any good, fast as were moving and weak as it was. We kicked our way through a patch of thick brush, barely able to see in front of us. He was a pace or two ahead of me when we came up against a short, white fence.

Tru ran right into it with a grunt, falling backward on his ass. I scaled it in two swift moves—a step to the center bar, a hop over.

“Holy shit,” he said from the ground. “You're a goddamn gazelle.”

A moment later he was over it, too, and we were flying together through the trees, changing course to head back in the direction of the car.

My short dress whipped around my legs. My lungs heaved. My toes gripped my flip-flops like they were clinging for life. Tru was right beside me, step for step. From deep inside my chest welled something like happiness, but madder, wilder.

I never wanted to stop.

I wanted to run forever.

Creeping out from the woods, we hustled into the car, and Tru said he would circle the park a couple of times to look for anybody who might still need a ride. The van swung in a slow loop, once, twice around the perimeter. We didn't see anyone, and then he got a call from Sparrow, who was with Devon, Winston, P.J., and Tara back at the house. Tara had heard from the other girls, who were in their car and headed for the safety of home. Everyone had gotten away.

Tru hung up and tapped the dashboard clock. “Guess we have to go home, too.”

It was eleven forty-five. The battle of the bands was scheduled to go until midnight, and Mom had ordered us to be home by twelve fifteen.

“We have a little extra time,” he said. “Want to cruise?”

I nodded, sinking down into my seat, still afraid of seeing flashing lights and hearing sirens. Tru flipped through the CDs, picking Bruce again, and we left the green, happy sprawl of almost suburbia behind, coasting back south. My forehead was pressed against the glass as we rolled past streetlamps and neon signs, their harsh light made beautiful purely by the motion of speeding by. The night was one big blur or fluorescence, a seemingly endless ripple of warmly glowing announcements for fast food, discount mattresses, oil changes. Neither of us spoke.

The clock had crept past midnight when we drove by Loyola, the college where he took Latin. Looking up at the high-rise dorms, I saw only a few windows glowing—lonely summer boarders.

“Your dad went here?” I asked. “Where did he meet Aunt Deb, exactly?”

For a few seconds Tru said nothing. Then he sighed.

“Let's skip the romantic tales. I'm not really in the mood.”

This was definitely one of those times when Tru wanted me to just shut up, but right at that moment we were passing a strip mall anchored by a familiar restaurant. I couldn't help pointing out the little brick pub as we drove by.

“See that? O'Malley's? It's where Grandpa John was a cook and a bartender. I mean, that's a different name than it used to have. . . .”

Tru stopped abruptly, and I jerked forward against my seat belt. He did a three-point turn in the empty street and drove back to the restaurant, pulling the car into a space right in front.

“I knew it was around here, but I didn't know that was it,” he said.

He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me as he peered at the skinny windows, the shut front door of the restaurant. It was impossible to see inside.

“Do you remember them?” I asked. “Our grandparents?”

They'd married when they were much older, had their two girls very late. Miracle babies, they used to say. Then they'd both died young. In their sixties. I was named for my grandmother, Frances, but I didn't have one memory of her. Grandpa John either. I thought Tru might, but he didn't seem to be listening. He tapped his fingers on the wheel, kept staring at O'Malley's, the door closed up tight as a coffin. No one coming or going.

“I know I just requested no romantic tales, but since you asked,
that
is where my parents met.”

I felt a shift in the atmosphere. Something wasn't right.

“Every Thursday, when John worked the bar, our moms used to go have a burger. When they were in high school. They'd sit and eat and talk to their dad. And guess who used to go in there to have a beer?”

I waited a second, not sure if he actually wanted me to answer.

“Your dad?” I said finally.

“Bingo.”

I looked out, considering the restaurant anew. This place was
a part of his history. We'd made an accidental pilgrimage to his very beginning, and I could tell he wasn't happy about it. Tru's tone was starting to feel a little dangerous, but I didn't want him to stop talking. My family was so buttoned-up. Tru was my only chance to know anything.

“So Debbie met Richard there? And they started going out?”

“Well, sort of.” He snorted and looked at me. “At first it wasn't my mom and my dad. It was
your mom
and my dad. Did you know that?”

The silence seemed to crackle between us, as I took a second to absorb and understand what he was saying.

No, I hadn't known my mom had dated Richard first. I hadn't known at all, but he was well aware of that. It was clear from that satisfied look on his face. He was enjoying this opportunity to unnerve me. I tried to will myself not to care, not to be affected by what he was telling me, but it was too late.

I was already getting upset.

For weeks now I'd been trying not to feel so silly and childish and clueless around him, and now here he was again—knowing things that I didn't. Things about
my own mother.

Tru was tapping his fingers on the wheel, still seeming to enjoy gauging my reaction.

“News to you?” he asked.

I didn't want to give him the big reaction he was obviously looking for, so I shrugged. Tried to speak casually.

“How long did they date? My mom and Richard?”

“Well, I don't have all the exact details. Not a particularly long
time. But they were certainly, you know,
a thing
of sorts, before it all ended.”

He stopped talking, and silence descended between us, leaving me to wonder what else there might be to the story. I could tell he was waiting for me to ask more, but I didn't want to play this stupid game with him. I told myself to just sit and wait.