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October 10, 8:30 p.m.
Dear Journal,
I love Tyler so much! He ended up telling me he would stop pressuring me about sex. He said if I was sure I wanted to wait until marriage to have intercourse, he’d be satisfied with “outercourse.” I am so relieved!
I couldn’t stand to lose him over the sex thing, and I couldn’t stand to go back on my word—the whole thing was making me crazy.
My grams didn’t call Amber’s house, so Amber didn’t have to lie. I haven’t seen the red Honda around for two days. And I’m all caught up with the Jane Eyre reading assignments and Mr. Snyder gave my Angela’s Ashes back to me. He even said he read it over the weekend and approved of my outside reading. Everything’s so cool right now. — Love, Me.
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I look back over my journal entry, dig out my list of words from Jane Eyre, then work on my writing vocabulary.
Dear Journal,
My love for Tyler is indomitable. He told me he agreed that we should wait to have sexual relations until we’re married. All of my worries now are alleviated. I couldn’t bear to have him forsake me over the issue of sexual congress. How dreary my world would be without him, yet how I would have abhorred going back on my word—the whole thing was driving me to despair. But now, I am in a rapture of happiness.
All is well with my grandmother. Amber didn’t have to tell a falsehood for my sake. The red Honda is gone and my reading goals are accomplished. Happiness and wellbeing prevail. — Fondest regards, Me.
Better. Much better. I’m going to keep doing that until I have a vocabulary the size of Webster’s dictionary. After all, that’s what a writer needs—words. Charlotte Bronte sure had a lot of words when she wrote Jane Eyre.
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“Lauren?”
Grams is standing at my door, a bunch of pamphlets in her hand. Even though it’s my grams’ own house, she never comes into my room unless I invite her. Tyler is right, I have the coolest gramma in the world.
“Come on in, Grams,” I say, closing my journal.
She leans against the wall, by my desk, and hands me the pamphlets. I glance at what she’s given me—information from Planned Parenthood about protection from pregnancy and disease—even a pamphlet about abortion.
“I know I’m old, but I’m not blind,” she says. “I know you and Tyler are . . . close.”
I leaf through one of the booklets.
“We got all this stuff in health ed,” I tell her, not making eye contact.
“It’s good for you to have reference material,” Grams says.
There’s a diagram of the proper way to put on a condom. I quick close the pamphlet. My hands are all sweaty. I don’t know why. I glance up at Grams. I bet her hands are all sweaty, too.
“Look, Lauren, this isn’t easy for me. When I was growing up, no adult ever told me about anything. The only words of wisdom related to sex that I got from my mother came the day I married your grampa. Just as she was straightening my wedding veil she got all teary-eyed and told me, ‘I only hope he doesn’t hurt you too much.’”
“Really?” I say.
She nods. “I’m sure she meant well. And I meant well with your mother and Claudia. I was much more informative than my mother had been, but it was difficult for me to be entirely forthright. It seemed almost unnatural to be talking with my daughters about such personal things.”
I flip through another of the pamphlets, this time coming to a diagram of the female reproductive system. Grams looks over my shoulder.
“I was nearly forty before I knew the names of all those parts,” she says, pointing to the picture.
“We learn that in school,” I tell her, turning the page, wishing we could change the subject.
“Well, I want you to be informed,” she tells me. “And I want you to know you can come to me with any question . . .”
She pauses, then laughs. “I suppose you know more than I do, anyway,” she says.
I laugh, too, but can think of nothing to say.
After a while Grams says, “I don’t want to pry into your private life, but I see how important you and Tyler are to each other, and it’s only natural to want to express your love sexually, but if you were to get pregnant . . .”
“Grams! I decided a long time ago not to have sex until I’m married. Remember?”
“I remember. But I know a lot can change between fourteen and seventeen . . .”
Grams gets the look on her face that tells me she’s thinking of Marcia.
“I’m not my mother!” I shout.
Grams takes a step back, away from my desk where the pamphlets are spread out.
“Of course you’re not,” she says, in that calm way she has.
“Just because my mother messed up doesn’t mean I’m going to!”
I don’t mean to shout, but I know my words are coming out really loud.
“Lauren, please . . .”
Like a fool, I start crying. “I hate how everyone thinks I’ll end up like my mother . . .”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Grams says, coming to me and putting her arms around me.
I sob into her sweatshirt while she holds me close.
“Lauren, try, oh please, try to see things as they are. Even now you’ve gone farther in school than your mother ever did. She was already addicted by the time she was your age. That’s not you.”
I look up into my grandmother’s tender face.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I say, catching my breath, trying to stop crying.
Grams sits on the bed. “I didn’t mean to insult you by bringing this information to you. I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“I know,” I say.
“I’m sure this is an old-fashioned view, but in my experience, sex can be a beautiful thing between people who love each other. If there’s not love, or mutual respect, it can be ugly as death. I trust you not to get involved in something ugly. And I also expect that you and Tyler are doing more than holding hands.”
“Grams . . .”
“Yes, Sweetheart?”
I look away from her. “I’m sorry I lied to you about staying at Amber’s when I was really staying at Tyler’s.”
“You’re not a very good liar,” Grams says.
“You knew?”
“Let’s just say I had a feeling.”
“Did you check with Amber’s mom or something?”
“You know me better than that. Any worries I have with you are with you, not Amber’s mom.”
I nod my head, feeling small that my grams is so straight on with me, and that I lied to her.
“Are you mad at me?”
Grams sighs. “I want us always to be honest with each other, Lauren, that’s all.”
“I won’t lie to you again, Grams. I promise.”
Grams nods, turns to leave, then changes her mind.
“Lauren?”
I look up at her.
“I’ve been thinking about the talk we had about your anger, and now, tonight, the business about you thinking that you could turn out like your mother . . . Betty was telling me about a psychologist who was very helpful to her grandson and . . .”
“You think I’m a nut case, don’t you?”
“No. But I think life can seem overwhelming at times, and it’s good to get help.”
“Did you ever get help?” I say, all sarcastic.
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
She gives me a long look, like she’s not sure whether or not she wants to say more, then she continues.
“Shortly after your grampa died, I was so lonely. Claudia had already moved east, and your mother was lost to drugs. I sat in the house with the blinds closed. For days at a time I wouldn’t bother to get out of my bathrobe.”
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing from my grams, who’s up at six every morning, bouncing around with energy and enthusiasm.
“Finally Millie sat me down for a long talk, about how there was more to life than feeling sorry for myself, and what would Ray think if he could see me. So I called my doctor, who recommended a psychologist.”
“And you went?”
“I went once a week, for about six months.”
“What did he do?”
“She. The psychologist was a woman. She helped me figure out why I was so depressed. I thought I was depressed because Ray died so suddenly and I missed him so much. But there was more to it than that.”
“Did she do tests on you, or hypnotize you, or what?”
Grams fluffs the pillow on my bed and smooths the spread back over it. She picks at pieces of lint until I wonder if she’s going to answer my questions or not. Finally, after what seems like a long time, she continues.
“Dr. Pratt and I just talked, but she knew the right questions to ask—questions I’d avoided asking myself.”
“Like what?”
“Like how I felt about your mother, and Claudia, and Ray. She helped me see that depression is a kind of anger turned inward.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I didn’t get it at first, either. But once I did, I wasn’t burdened with grief or depression any more.”
“But . . . ?”
“Unconsciously, I was very angry with your mother, for one thing. We’d been the best parents we knew how to be. What went wrong? I’ll never understand it. Why would she even experiment with drugs? She knew better. She threw her life away for what? A quick thrill? . . . I blamed her for Ray’s sudden death. He worried so much about her. She’d been his baby and the thought of her on the streets . . . it was too much for him.”
The rage within me boils up! She killed my grandfather! I could have known my grandfather if Marcia hadn’t been such a total loser!
“And I was angry with Ray, too, for dying and leaving me alone. If he had loved me enough, he wouldn’t have left me.”
“But he had a heart attack. Right?”
“Yes. I’m not saying any of this made sense, but it’s what I was feeling. Dr. Pratt helped me realize that my task had to do with recognizing anger and practicing forgiveness. It sounds easy, but it wasn’t.”
“But that’s all you did with the doctor? Just talk?”
“Talk. And then think about it. And think about it and think about it,” Grams says, smiling.
She fluffs the pillow again and again smooths the bedspread over it, as if it needed it. She walks over to where I’m still sitting at my desk and puts her arms around me.
“That’s enough of my life story for one sitting. The rest, as they say, is history. I started working at the library, and I slowly started building a new life. A few years later, I found you. You gave me a purpose. That was a great gift . . .Thank you for that.” Grams kisses me on the forehead, tells me good-night, and leaves. I go back to my journal.
October 10, 10 p.m.
Dear Journal, Part II,
Sometimes I get so confused, and I have these horrible feelings—like everyone thinks I’ll end up like Marcia, when almost no one even knows about Marcia. And I feel awful about lying to Grams, and then I get all angry at her which is totally unfair, or I fall apart crying, which I don’t understand. And I don’t get the thing about how anger is so destructive. It’s made me the star player on the volleyball team. Grams is probably right that I need a shrink but what if the shrink finds out I’m in a bigger mess than 1 think I am? That wouldn’t help, would it?
Love, Me
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Tuesday morning I’m sitting on the old, splintery bench, waiting for Tyler. I’m in such a good mood, first of all that everything’s so good with him, and then that I’m totally caught up with my homework, even in math. And I haven’t seen the red car for days. It’s strange, how upset I was last night, and now everything seems so great. It’s probably just hormones or something. I don’t think I need a shrink after all.
“Hey!” Tyler yells from way down by the parking lot.
I get up from the bench and walk toward him.
“Missed you last night,” he says, giving me a quick kiss on the lips.
“Missed you, too.”
“I got used to having you around, night and day, on the weekend.”
“Maybe your parents will go to Las Vegas again soon,” I say.
“Ummm, Mom lost all her gambling money so they say they’re staying home for a while.”
We walk through half-deserted hallways to creative writing. The Harp isn’t there yet so we wait outside with Megan and Zack. Shawna comes up in her usual heavy flannel shirt and oversized jeans.
“Tyler,” she says. Not “Hi,” or “What’s up,” or anything like that, just “Tyler.”
“Shawna,” he says with a grin.
She smiles back at him, this big happy smile, like something I’ve never seen on her face before. Her eyes are blue-gray. I don’t think I’ll tell Blake, though. I didn’t think so at the time we made the bet, but now, it seems kind of sneaky to be betting on the color of another person’s eyes.
The Harp comes sleepwalking down the hall, balancing books, papers and his grungy thermos. We follow him into the classroom where he pours himself a cup of coffee and snoozes in a standing position until the bell rings. Then he snaps awake. The miracle of daily resurrection, Blake calls Harper’s morning routine.
After we do our fifteen minute quick-write, Mr. Harper talks a bit about newspaper writing, then tells us about our next assignment.
“You’re off to a great start with your autobiographies. I’ll get them back with comments the beginning of next week. In the meantime, start thinking about your feature article assignment. This is a writing project that you can work on in groups of two or three. It will require interviews and other means of research and it must deal with a timely topic.”
It ends up that Shawna, Tyler and I will work together.
“First off, we need a topic,” Tyler says.
Shawna fishes around in her notebook and pulls out the list from peer communications.
“These are all timely,” she says.
We go down the list, talking about possibilities.
“How about doing something on AIDS?” Tyler says.
“Too depressing,” I say. “How about this right to die stuff?”
“Talk about depressing!” Tyler says. “How about religious cults?”
“Stupid,” Shawna mutters.
“How about parents who do drugs?” Tyler says.
“I’m sick of hearing about drug stuff. I don’t even want to think about it,” I say.
“You don’t have to get all mad about it!” Shawna says, not looking up.
“I’m not mad, I’d just like to think about something else now and then,” I say, realizing I sound mad. “Why don’t we ever think about the good stuff?”
“Well . . .” Tyler runs his finger the rest of the way down the list, then points to the next to last topic.
“How about this? How about Habitat for Humanity?”
“What’s that?” Shawna asks.
“You know. Where a bunch of people get together and build a house for a family that needs one.”
“I’ve heard of them,” I say. “That’s cool.”
When The Harp stops at our desks, we tell him we’ll do a feature on Habitat for Humanity.
“Good topic,” he says. “Where will you start?”
All three of us sit speechless.
Harper walks to the front of the classroom.
“Anybody know anything about Habitat for Humanity?”
“I think some people at our church may be working on a house,” Megan says.
“Well, see if you can get a phone number for this group, will you?”
Megan nods.
“That’s the same church where Amber and her mom go,” I tell Tyler. “I’ll bet I can get information from her . . .There’s probably stuff on the internet, too.”
“What good’ll that do?” Shawna says, acting like I’ve just said something too stupid for words.
“It’s a good place to get information,” I tell her.
“I suppose you’ve got a big computer at home, with e-mail and internet and all?”
What’s with her, I wonder?
“I don’t have any of that stuff at home, but there’s always the library. Heard of it?” I ask.
Shawna ducks her head back down and hides her face behind her hair. What just happened? I was in such a great mood less than an hour ago. How did I suddenly become so angry?
“I can tell this is going to be a fun project,” I say to Tyler as we walk toward our first period classes.
“It’s a good topic,” Tyler says.
“Why did she have to be in our group, anyway?” I ask.
“I feel sorry for her,” Tyler says. “I mean, look at her. What would it be like to be Shawna?”
“She’s just so weird.”
“She has her reasons,” Tyler says.
“Maybe. Anyway, I didn’t mean to get mad at her. But she acts like she’s never even heard of the internet!”
Tyler looks at me thoughtfully. I wonder if he ever gets tired of my quick mood changes? I’m afraid to ask.
Tyler gives my hand three quick squeezes just as the bell rings.
I squeeze my “love you, too” answer back.
“Later,” he says.
I watch, loving him, as he sprints down the hallway and disappears into the sea of students. We’ve only a few weeks to go before our one-year anniversary. I’ve been saving my money and I want to get him something special, something that will last.
––––––––
Everything goes well for the rest of the day. But then, after we’re leaving the gym, after volleyball practice, I get a glimpse of the red Honda.
“Look!”
“What?” Amber says.
“That Honda. I keep seeing it, like maybe someone’s watching me.”
“That’s Ms. Woods’ car,” Amber laughs.
“No! Not the white one! The red one that just drove out the driveway!”
“Oh. I didn’t see it,” Amber says, leaving me to wonder if I really saw it or not.
My imagination? But Tyler saw it the other day. He knows the red Honda is real.
“I’ll walk home with you if you’re scared,” Amber offers.
“Oh, that’s okay,” I say, not able to admit that I’m scared.
I put my hands in my jeans pockets to keep them from trembling, and, once we reach the sidewalk, Amber and I go our separate directions.