Chapter 36 Heaven
Heaven
I’m almost done working on our little write-up of our interview with Ms. Lara.
I’ve added the selfie we took with her in one corner and a picture I took of the shop in the other.
We talked for a long time, but I’ve typed up the most relevant parts.
Saylor and I both followed the shop on Instagram, and she followed us back.
A recent follower that actually makes me happy and not nervous.
Saylor thinks if she doesn’t mention it to her mom, we will have maybe one whole day before her mom realizes we got a bingo. It’s been four hours since I dropped Saylor off, and she hasn’t texted me in a panic yet. We must still be in the clear.
I push back from my desk and look around my room.
Saylor, my poor sweetie-boo, I wonder how long I could hide her up here, safe from her mom.
As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I know it doesn’t sound right because it isn’t.
Mrs. Ford isn’t a bad person, I don’t think, but that doesn’t change the fact that Saylor is miserable, and I don’t know what to do about it.
The sight of her crying is burned into my brain; the pain in her voice, that hurt me a lot.
And I have no idea how long we’re gonna be able to go on like this, not telling at least our friends.
Something tells me that going for some personal record for keeping your relationship a secret is not a good idea.
I’m up and out of my desk chair before I can stop myself and head right to my parents down in the kitchen. I hear my mom giggling and almost rethink things.
“Um, is everyone decent down there?” I call down the stairs.
“Yes, honey.” Mom laughs louder.
“No, we’re eating all the cookies,” Dad adds. When I walk into the kitchen, I see he was only half joking about that. They’ve cut pieces out of four of the cookies and seem to be having a little tasting party of their own.
“Don’t worry. There’s like eight pounds of cookie left for you.”
“Thanks.” I shimmy up on a stool and join them at the island.
“What’s cooking, Princess Heaven?” Dad asks.
“I have a problem. Things have gotten weird,” I say, nodding to Mom.
“A ‘Weird SOS’ twice inside a week is a lot coming from you. Would I be right to assume the Fords have something to do with it?” Mom asks.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Okay, let’s hear it, and I’ll see if this is a situation where I need to ask Cristine if she can fight.”
I take a deep breath. I know Saylor wants to keep this a secret, but this doesn’t feel like a good, fun secret. It’s starting to feel like it’s eating at me, and this is a discomfort I don’t want to get used to, even for someone I’m starting to love.
“Saylor’s my girlfriend.”
“Okay,” Mom says, her voice going up at the end. I catch the way Dad glances her way and then looks back at me, and I can’t help but notice that he says absolutely nothing.
“You knew?” I ask.
“I mean, you two have been making out on the couch for the better part of a month, and then one night when she was sleeping over, your dad went up to check on you guys and he said you two were knocked out in your bed and Saylor was wrapped around you like an octopus.”
“Dad!”
“What are you dadding me for?!” he says with a shrug. “I just wanted to make sure you two were still in the house and that you weren’t up there doing witchcraft or whippets.”
“What are whippets?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“We knew something was going on, honey,” Mom goes on. “But we figured you’d tell us what the deal was when you were ready. Is everything okay? I’m loving the new girlfriend situation and I love Saylor. She’s a great kid, but how’d we land on the weird part of the equation?”
I take another deep breath and reach for a piece of one of the s’mores cookies.
Ms. Lara is truly a culinary genius. I take a bite, and then I explain everything.
I mean, I leave out all the kissing we’ve actually done on the couch and in my room and in my car, but I start from the beginning with that fateful day in Whole Foods and how Saylor walked over here in the heat.
“That Pride video was not good. It was a lot,” Mom says.
“What Pride video?” Dad asks. Mom grabs her phone off its charger on the opposite counter. She does some swiping and then hands her phone over to Dad.
“Look at the caption,” Mom tells him.
“It’s ten minutes. About two in, she starts crying,” I add.
“Yeah, that’s a lot. Yikes.” Dad sets the phone down.
“The real problem is in the comments section.”
“Have her followers been harassing you?” Mom says, her eyes going a little dark, and I’m worried she might actually fight Mrs. Ford.
“I mean, I’ve gotten a few negative comments since she tagged me, but I just deleted them or left professionally snarky replies.”
“Hmm, okay.”
“So what’s going on?” Dad asks, frowning even as he takes another bite of cookie.
“Saylor and I have always been okay, but I didn’t really want to hang out with her on purpose, and I wanted to do the bingo alone.
So, Saylor promised she’d help me with my assignment for Miss Kelly if I let her do the bingo with me.
Actually, she basically offered to do it for me if I would let her do the bingo with me. And I said yes.”
Mom frowns, and Dad makes this face where his eyebrows shoot up. I can’t tell if he’s disappointed or really impressed with me outsourcing the assignment.
“Her mom was making content of her in the hospital before her cast was even on. She thought she was gonna get the whole summer off, but with her arm all messed up, it was like her mom was working double time to get her back on the content schedule.”
“Okay, yeah I can see why a little bribery came into the equation,” Dad says.
“And now?” Mom asks. She is pissed in that way where she’s trying to act like she’s not pissed but definitely is. I’ve never been grounded or in any real trouble, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. “Why didn’t you tell us you needed help with your accounts?”
“Because you and Miss Kelly kept telling me how I need to grow up and be more confident so she would eventually agree to take me on as an apprentice. Pretty much the only thing I want in the world,” I remind them.
“Okay, okay. We did say that. We deserved that,” Dad says.
“I mean, you weren’t all wrong. I did need to get out there and get my confidence up. Working that party helped a lot and I did have fun. Interviewing Ms. Lara was great. Just, at the time, I was scared, and Saylor isn’t afraid of anything.”
“But now?” Mom says, a little less pissed but definitely not pleased.
“Now, I really care about Saylor, and she doesn’t want to tell anyone about us because she’s afraid Mrs. Ford is going to make a Pride video part two and feature us both this time. And Saylor knows I barely like having my picture taken, so she’s afraid I’m going to dump her because of her mom.”
Dad blinks and lets out a sigh of his own before scrubbing his beard. Mom looks down at the counter for a few long moments. So long that Dad even turns to look at her to see why she’s so quiet. Finally, she looks up at me.
“Alright. Well, I guess I have to talk to Cristine,” she says, and Dad nods like he thinks she made the right call.
“And say what?” I ask.
“At this moment, I’m not sure. But I’m gonna say something, because it’s a beautiful summer night, we have fancy cookies, and my teenage daughter is sitting here almost in tears when she should be upstairs having a cutesy FaceTime call with her new girlfriend.
Neither you nor Saylor should be afraid of what Cristine Ford is gonna post next. That’s no way to live.”
“Amen, sister,” Dad says. My parents do this no-look high five thing they told me they perfected when they started dating.
“What if Saylor dumps me for this?”
“Oh, honey,” Mom says. She comes around the island and gives me the tight hug I realize I’ve been needing all night.
“I don’t think she will. I’m almost certain of it, but if she does, she isn’t the girl for you.
” I let her words sink in as she leans back and cups my cheeks.
“Because you are pretty great, and if you need our help, then we’re gonna help you. ”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I grab one more piece of cookie and sit and talk some more with Mom and Dad.
Dad can’t decide if he should try to reverse engineer Ms. Lara’s cookie recipe back in the lab or if he should just go over to the shop to ask how she got the sugar-to-salt ratio so perfect.
I’m sure Ms. Lara would be happy to talk about food science with him.
It’s foolproof, after all, following the right recipe.
If only first relationships were that easy.