Chapter 11: Chapter Eleven
Thursday, November 4th
“Carson, how did I do?” Gabby whispers as we drive through a perfect fall night.
“You were great,” I tell her, unsure why she needs me to tell her things she already knows. As always, she wears a baggy sports T-shirt, this time the Tigers, while I’m dressed up, for me, with a button-down oxford. Liking someone makes you like yourself.
She sits close to me. It feels right. “No, I missed some spikes, blew some serves.”
“Gabby, you won the tournament,” I remind her.
She laughs. “I know, but it’s sad, though. My last high-school volleyball game—ever.”
“Well, if you serve up a kiss, I’d be happy to return it.”
“Maybe, or maybe I’ll spike your skinny ass!” she jokes.
“Ouch! Rejected!” I feign injury.
“No, timeout,” she says, then kisses me. It’s the first time we’ve been alone since the party. She’s busy serving and spiking balls across the net. I’m busy still surfing the Net for Caitlin. At school, Gabby’s ignored me like she said she would, but online she’s responded. She didn’t explain those actions and I didn’t ask. What matters isn’t the past but her presence next to me. In person, I’m responding as only a seventeen-year-old guy who’s so horny he can barely see. “Pull over.”
I can’t tell her that while I’m used to driving and punning with Tim, trying to keep it funny, keeping my hand on her shoulder and one hand on the wheel is making me very nervous. I’m a good driver, but it’s mainly because I’m a terrified driver. “Anyplace special?” I ask.
“Did you and Thien have someplace special?” she says, sounding angry.
“Wow, foul, foul, foul,” I say, then whistle.
“Okay, that was reaching in.” She puts my arm back around her shoulders. “Anyplace but the school parking lot or All Star Towing off Owen Road is fine.”
“Wow, how sad, that towing place sounds soooooooooo romantic!”
She laughs. “Well, actually, my dad owns it.”
“Really?”
“He owns, operates and seems to work there twenty-four hours a day.”
“That’s so cool,” I say. “He works for himself, not some big company like my dad did.”
“Dad always says you can’t live the American dream sleeping in somebody else’s bed.”
“He sounds like a great guy. I can’t wait to—”
“Pull over, please, Carson. We need to talk about that.”
“Okay.” I pull Mom’s Malibu into the parking lot of a Mobil gas station. Since I’ve yet to betray them, I don’t think my folks check the mileage on the car, a trick they used with Caitlin. She countered by crashing Mom’s car, then using increasingly older and scarier-looking guys like Dwayne as chauffeurs. “How’s this? It looks like they have their own tow trucks.”
Gabby nods in agreement. I respond by moving my face closer. She smells fresh from the shower. No makeup or jewelry, Gabby’s all natural, even her hair.
“Wait, just a second,” she says. “A couple of rules if this is going to work.”
“This?” I ask, arching an eyebrow.
“This,” she responds, and we share our longest, best kiss of the evening and ever.
“Nobody can know, especially my dad,” she reminds me. “And we can’t go to school dances, hold hands in the hall or any of that stupid high-school couples stuff.”
“Are you ashamed of me?” I ask, half joking, half terrified.
“No, not at all,” she says. “And I know what you’re thinking.”
I just smile because she has no idea what I’m thinking. If she could read my mind, we’d be in the back seat engaged in activities with our mouths other than talking.
“It’s not because you’re white and I’m black,” she says firmly. “That’s not it at all.”
“Really?” I doubt her only because everything in the Flint area is still about white and black.
She kisses me again. “It’s just complicated. Just trust me, okay?”
“Okay.” I realize that at this point I’d say anything to be with Gabby, somebody that I barely knew existed a few weeks ago.
“I have to be able to trust you.” As she repeats that word ‘trust’ again, she doesn’t sound like a three sport all-star. She sounds like she could break with just a push. “Promise you will never lie to me or break that trust.”
“Promise it,” I say, sealing the deal with another kiss as my hands start to explore her.
“You wanna play on my court, you gotta follow my rules,” she says, moving my hand away. I nod in agreement, then she says, “I’d better get home. We can chat later tonight.”
“Um, that might be a problem,” I explain. “I’m trying not to be online so much.”
Just moments after promising she can trust me, I have to lie to her. I sometimes wish that Caitlin had lied more to my parents to protect them from the truth. I keep fibbing to myself that I’ll stay offline because the temptation is too great, and Caitlin is no closer. “I’m just busy with school, college stuff, the paper and writing, I don’t have time to chat, but for you, I will—”
“Do nothing differently. You’ve made a decision. I know how hard it is to make a tough decision, and it’s harder to stick to it.” She runs her hands over my arms, which are nowhere as muscular as hers are. “I think it will be a lot more interesting to see you in person.”
“Interesting?” I say, then arch an eyebrow, but she’s in a very serious place, I can tell.
I move to kiss her again, but she turns away. “Carson, just hold me. That’s all I need.”
“That’s not too complicated, but can I ask you one thing?”
She nods.
“How have you kept your other boyfriends secret, including from everybody at school?”
“I haven’t had any other boyfriends at Fenton,” she answers.
“Ah, saving the best for last!”
“Carson, I’ve been really lonely most of my time at Fenton. I mean, sports fill my time and my friends fill my life, but you know, it’s not the same.”
I think about Tim, my few other friends, my writing, and pull her a little closer.
“Most of the male athletes, I think, are a little scared of me. I’m sorry if this sounds so conceited, but I’m better at my sports than most of them are at theirs,” she says. “And other guys don’t find girl athletes interesting or attractive, so I’ve poured all my energy into excelling.” I don’t point out that most other guys are idiots, but I suspect she knows.
“Me too. I put all my energy into writing, but why bother with Lord Josh on the scene?”
Gabby laughs. “Just because you strive to be the best, Carson, doesn’t mean you always will be. I don’t make every shot, win every game, but I always work hard. I don’t quit.”
“It just seems—” I start, but stop my whining. “You’re right, Gabby. I mean, Great Gabby.”
“And, Carson, you’re something else,” Gabby says as I push the car into Drive. As she leans in against me, I know she’s wrong. I’m not something else, I’m part of something else. Something secret. Something complicated. Something good.
* * * *
When I get home, Mom’s in bed, but Dad’s still up. He’s watching the Red Wings but wearing a blue and silver Lions T-shirt. He sips the one beer he allows himself each evening. I’m sure his sponsor wouldn’t approve, but the addictive gene fits tight in the Banks family.
“How was the game?” he yells over the TV. Dad never mutes the TV. He got so used to raising his voice with Caitlin that he’s just used to shouting as normal volume.
“We won,” I say, then try to start upstairs. “I need to write it up for the paper.”
“Why the sudden interest in girls’ sports?”
For the second time in about twenty minutes, I lie to protect myself and my dad from the truth. It’s not only that Dad wouldn’t approve of Gabby, but he can never meet her, especially if he reverts to his heavy drinking daze. When Dad was TUI—talking under the influence—he’d rave on and stories about how ‘they’ ruined Flint would fall like bombs from a drone. “I was bored with boys’ sports. I needed a change.”
“Okay,” he says, sounding not skeptical at all. Since he doesn’t expect me to lie to him, especially about something so trivial, he lets it pass.
“I gotta go,” I say, then once again start toward the stairs.
“Watch some hockey with your old man.” He waves me over, and I comply out of guilt.
As we’re watching the game, we fall back into easy patter about the action on the ice. Even as we’re talking, however, I think how Caitlin resented the time Dad and I spent together. She’d scream that I was Dad’s favorite while Carol was Mom’s. All the screaming and acting out became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Just as it was Caitlin’s time with Carol off to college, Grandma got sick, causing Mom to spend time with her rather than Caitlin. Mom put up with Caitlin’s complaining until her senior year, when they tried getting tough. Since Caitlin wouldn’t work—wouldn’t even look except for modeling jobs, which were sorely lacking in Fenton—they made her take care of our sick grandma.
At first Caitlin resisted, but everybody was surprised by how much Caitlin seemed to enjoy helping out since none of us had ever known her to do anything that wasn’t about her. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving that I learned why Caitlin spent so much time with Grandma. For a while, I was the only one that knew. It was something secret. Something complicated. Something unforgivable—and something worth writing about in the next chapter of Autumn’s story.