"Reverse. Got it," I said, my cheeks burning. After that, it wasn't so terribly embarrassing. I drove out of the parking lot and followed Mrs. Dutton's directions, making turns smoothly and always coming to full and complete stops before proceeding through an intersection. I parked the car a couple times in an empty church parking lot before Mrs. Dutton said I should switch places with Ashley.
Ashley got into the driver's seat and I slid in back with Derek. "Nice driving," he said, holding out his hand. I gave him five, and he squeezed my hand briefly before letting it go.
Mrs. Dutton had Ashley go through the same drill, letting her drive for a while, but as she made her turns at Mrs. Dutton's direction, the landscape got uncomfortably familiar. When we pulled up outside Mrs. Dutton's house, I was downright freaking out. "Stop here," she told Ashley. "Shut off the car and give me the keys. I've got to run inside and grab some handouts that I'm supposed to give you."
Mrs. Dutton took the keys from Ashley's outstretched palm and climbed out of the passenger seat, hurrying up the concrete walk to her cottage.
"Oh my god," Ashley drawled, turning around in the driver's seat and looking at Derek. "Remind me never to become a driver's ed teacher. Look at her house. What a loser."
"Yeah," Derek said. "But check out the dump next door." He waved his arm out the window at my turquoise trailer with the busted awning and the broken porch steps.
Ashley's eyes lit up, and I couldn't stand to look at either one of them anymore, so I stared out the window at the vacant lot across the street. I couldn't block Ashley's voice though. "Oh my god, I know that house. My mom says there's like, an actual prostitute who lives there with, like, a dozen kids."
"Seriously?" Derek's voice sounded mildly interested. "There's prostitutes in this town?"
"That's what my mom says. Oh my god, I can't believe our rent-a-teacher lives next door. Shhh, here she comes."
Like she could have heard, the windows are rolled up.
But I was still glad they were shutting the hell up.
Mrs. Dutton got back in the car and I waited for her to tell Derek and Ashley to switch places, but she just sat there leafing through her paperwork. Finally she turned around and handed me a small sheaf of papers. I shook my head at her, trying to warn her somehow to please, please, not say anything. It didn't work.
"Barbie," she said, again stressing my first name too forcefully, "I'd give you a ride home, but I teach a defensive driving class at the community college later tonight and I doubt you want to hang around. Why don't you go ahead and hop out now while Ashley and Derek switch places?"
I looked away miserably and fumbled at the latch on the car door. I couldn't look at anyone, even Mrs. Dutton. But I wasn't mad at her. It wasn't her fault I lived with an alleged hooker.
"Don't forget your backpack," she said.
I swallowed hard and tried to grab it without looking at Derek, who remained stock-still in the backseat, but I couldn't find it. Finally, I stretched around and plucked my backpack off the floor at Derek's feet. My eyes traveled to the horrified look on his face. He looked like he was about to throw up. That made two of us.
I got out of the car and walked up my trash-strewn lawn, trying as hard as I could to keep my back as straight as a board. Thankfully, I managed to fight back my tears until the front door squealed shut behind me.
I leaned against the door and tipped my head back, closing my eyes and letting the tears roll silently down my face.
"Where'd you find the Halloween costume? Bet you felt like a real asshole at school today, didn't you? Crybaby."
I opened my eyes and glared through my tears at Monica. She’d been in hiding since she ruined my clothes, but of course, here she was now to revel in my misery. "Fuck you."
"Oh, ow!" Monica put her hand over her pear-shaped breasts, pretending to be injured. "Stop it, you're hurting me."
She was alone in the living room and I stormed past her to the kitchen, where my mom sat behind her desk tapping away on her keyboard. "Phoebe?" she said vaguely over the top of the half wall partition.
"No, it's me," I replied. I didn't know where to go. I didn't want to be in here with my mother, but I didn't want to walk past Monica again to go to my room. I just wanted to be alone, but that wasn't likely to happen in this house.
"Oh. Baby." Disapproval dripped from my mother's voice. "I found your little stunt in the dog pen today. Just because you can wear your fancy cheer outfits to school now, doesn't mean you get to discard your old clothes. Romeo nearly choked on a piece of your old shirt. I expect you to clean up your mess, and you're going to need to pay for those clothes."
"Are you kidding me?" I was in shock. "I don't have any money. Besides, it was Monica. She's the one who did it." Tears still burned in my eyes, but at this point, I couldn't tell if it was from anger or misery.
My mother stood up to look at me over the top of the half wall. "Don't go blaming your sister for this, cause I don't want to hear it. You've complained about those clothes for years. Do you think I'm stupid?" She slammed her hands against the top of the wall and glared at me. "You took the first chance you had to get rid of them, and I won't stand for it, do you hear me?"
I stumbled out of the kitchen, clutching my backpack like a shield, barely seeing the hall in front of me.
"I could have sold those jeans on eBay!" My mother hollered after me. "You owe me twenty bucks!"
Monica laughed and threw a handful of cheese crackers at me as I passed her in the living room. I brushed them off my skirt and, by habit, stopped at the door to my old room. I remembered that I'd changed rooms just as my hand touched the doorknob, and I remembered something else. Phoebe had a phone in her room. I'd call Kaia. She'd come and get me.
But when I dialed her number, it rang five times and went to voicemail. I hung up without leaving a message. My vision was blurry with tears, and I almost didn't notice when the little card of paper fell out of the front pocket of my backpack. But I did see it, and I picked it up. I took a deep, shuddering breath and dialed the number on the card. He picked up before the second ring.
"Grady? It's
…
Mary." I struggled to get the hitch out of my voice, but I couldn't help it. "Can
…
can you pick me up?"
I spent the next ten minutes listening intently for the sound of tires in the driveway, and as soon as I heard them, I sprinted for the door, my backpack slung over my shoulder.
This time Monica threw a fast food jumbo cup of soda at me, but she missed, and it hit the television.
"Don't you dare blame me for that," I screamed in the direction of the kitchen as I yanked open the door and ran down the steps. I flung open the door to Grady's Lexus and practically dove in, but not before I heard my mother start to shriek at Monica.
Grady looked at me with huge eyes. My mother's high-pitched screams seemed to freeze him in place.
"Please go, please get me out of here," I said, not bothering to hide the desperation in my voice.
A calm, controlled expression took over Grady's face and in one smooth movement he threw the car in reverse, wheeled around, and drove away. I looked back over my shoulder, as though I expected to see the house bursting into flames or something, but it was just the same old shitty trailer it had always been.
We'd gone about a mile before Grady said anything to me. When he did, it was simple. "What happened?"
"Oh Grady." I hiccupped and sniffed, trying to stop the tears that were still trailing down my face. "I don't even know where to start."
He pulled to the side of the road and put the car in park, but kept it running. The warm air from the heater felt nice on my bare legs, and I put my hands between my knees and squeezed, whether to get them warm or stop them from shaking, I wasn't sure. Either way, it helped me to calm down and get centered. "Actually, I do know where to start," I said haltingly. "And that's with my name. It's not Mary."
I turned in my seat to face Grady. If he was shocked, he hid it well. "Okay," he said. "So what is it?"
"I don't have one," I said, so quietly I was surprised that he actually heard me.
"You don't have one?" he repeated slowly.
I nodded. "My legal name is Baby Girl Anderson. I only found out the day before I met you, and I guess Kaia thought it would be funny to say my name was Mary, when we found out how religious you were. She wasn't trying to be a jerk, it just sort of happened."
"I'd kind of started to figure out that you weren't as into to God as I thought," he said, smiling slightly.
"Really? How come?"
"Well
…
it started with the squeamish look you got whenever you looked at the statue of Christ on the cross at youth group. Plus you tend to take the Lord's name in vain. A lot." Grady shrugged, but he was still smiling. "It pretty much blew your cover."
"Grady, I'm so sorry. I know you were looking for a nice Christian girl to hang out with, but I'm not it. But I really like you, and the more I got to know you the more I wanted to stay friends."
"Just friends?" Grady reached across and took my hand, turning it so that he could trace the lines in my palm.
Wow. That was unexpected.
"Well. I guess. Um. I don't know." I stared at his finger as it followed the patterns on my skin.
Grady stopped his tracing and squeezed my hand. "I know that Christians aren't perfect. But as long as you're trying to live a good life, that's what matters."
I clutched Grady's hand. "But Grady, you have to understand—and this is very important—I'm not trying to be a good Christian. I don't even believe in God."
I finally got the shocked look I'd been expecting from Grady all along, and he let go of my hand. "You don't believe in God?" he said.
"No."
"So you're an atheist?"
I shrugged. "I guess."
"But
…
but
…
" Grady was nearly speechless, and he stuttered a little as he tried to continue talking to me. "But you're so nice!"
I laughed a little, but not because anything was particularly funny. "I try." My mother and sister's faces flashed before my eyes, and I felt my mood darken. "Sometimes it's harder than others."
"I don't think I've ever met an atheist," Grady said quietly. "At least not anyone who admitted it. How do you do it?"
I raised my eyebrows. "Do what?"
"Act happy. Be productive. Any of it? Without God, how can you get up every day?"
He sounded truly mystified. "I just do," I said. The heater continued to pump warm air on my legs, and I realized that the car had gone from cozy to stuffy. I cracked my window. "I don't really overthink it. I try my best to be nice to people and hope I'll get the same in return. I try to do the right thing. It doesn't always work out."
Grady shook his head. "If you took God away, it would be like I had a huge, empty hole in my heart."
I crossed my legs at the ankles and laced my fingers together. "I'm so sorry Grady. I'm so sorry I lied to you and pretended to be somebody I'm not. You should probably take me home."
Grady put the car back in gear and began driving slowly down the road. "Do you really want to go back there?"
I shook my head. "Not particularly. But what else am I going to do?"
"I could take you to Kaia's."
"No, that won't work. Our families don't get along. Like, at all. The one time Kaia brought me into her house last summer, her mom looked like she was going to throw up when she saw me. She made Kaia come into her room on some bullshit excuse and I could hear her yelling at her all the way from the other end of the house."
Grady winced a little at the 'bullshit' but he didn't say anything about it. "Do you have any other friends?" he asked.
"Not really."
"No one? Seriously?"
"Thanks, you're making me feel like a total loser." I rested my elbow on the window frame and leaned my chin against my palm. "No. For a variety of reasons, Kaia's my only real friend."
"No she's not." Grady stopped at a red light, and he reached across the seat and put his hand on my wrist. "I'm your friend."
The light turned green and he removed his hand from my arm to put it back on the steering wheel. "I think that God has put you in my path for a reason," he said, staring ahead at the road. "I'm going to have to pray on this. I know Jesus would want me to help you. I think he'd want me to keep seeing you."
Wow. That was, like, the least romantic thing anyone had ever said to me.
But Grady's great. Any girl would jump at the chance to be with him.
I don't know how Grady interpreted my silence, but he picked up the conversation in a different spot, which I was grateful for. "What we need to figure out now is what to do with you." He drummed on the steering wheel with his hands. "You can't go to Kaia's. I can't take you to my house. Maybe if I was able to give my dad more notice, but I just can't spring something like this on him."
I smoothed my cheer skirt down over the tops of my thighs. "Really, I'll be fine at home. I just had to get out of there for a little while. My mom probably won't even notice when I come back in, and Monica will be in bed. She sleeps, like, fourteen hours a day. They're who I was really having the problem with."
Grady sighed and pulled into a convenience store parking lot, made a three point turn, and got back out onto the road, driving in the direction of my neighborhood. He was clearly unhappy about it. "Is there anyone else in your family you can turn to? What about your dad? Maybe you could go live with him?"
"My parents are still married, actually."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Grady said. "I just assumed. You never mention him."
"He's an okay guy when he's around, but he's hardly ever home. He works a lot."
"What does he do?"
"I don't know. Something at the casino. He's a security guard, or a cashier or something. He's there all the time. My guess is he hangs out after his shift and gambles. Not that I'd blame him."