Chapter 10 #2
Bruce and I screwed that up way too long ago for anything like this happy little family life to have been a possibility.
When they return, I’ve got sandwiches arranged on plates around the table and every wall I can construct up and fortified.
Cooper, in his glorious obliviousness, asks, “Coach B, you said you and Mom are old friends?”
My eyes meet Bruce’s across the table, and I’m damn near scorched by the heat I see there.
It’s not orange flames of fresh fire but rather black coal embers that have been burning below the surface for so long. A single poke is all it’d take to bring them back to a flashpoint, though.
I answer, wanting to set my own narrative for Cooper. “Yes, honey. Bruce and I went to high school together. We were good friends back then.”
Bruce’s teeth grit for a second as he swallows whatever it is he wants to say, and then he takes a big bite of sandwich.
With his mouth still full, he tells Cooper, “Yeah, we were best friends, used to hang out all the time. Your mom ever tell you about the time she went muddin’ in Mr. Sampson’s back field and almost got arrested? ”
He grins around the food, taking evil delight in throwing me under the bus.
“Mom, you did not!” Cooper yells, indignant that I might have been a bit of a rebellious hellion in my younger days.
Little does he know, I was mostly a good girl until I met the man across the table.
With him, I was bad—sneaking out, going to parties, having beer, and later, having sex.
All the things a wayward teen isn’t supposed to experience, but I’m thankful for those experiences because otherwise, my high school days would’ve been stuck in the boring rut of schoolwork and cheer practice, the same routine on repeat that life was before Bruce.
I glare at Bruce, wishing he hadn’t chosen that particular story to tell my kid.
“Bruce might be exaggerating a little bit, but I did go mudding. And there might’ve been a very friendly conversation with one of Great Falls’ finest officers.
But there was no ‘almost arrest’. He just told us to leave. ”
Cooper looks skeptical as his eyes jump from Bruce to me, trying to decide which version of events to believe. “Just one question. What’s mudding?”
Bruce drops his sandwich to his plate. “What the hell are you teaching this kid, Al?” His voice booms, and I jump but laugh at my overreaction, feeling silly.
I see Bruce catalogue the response before explaining to Cooper, “First off, it’s muddin’, not mudd-ing.
Second, muddin’ is when you take a big truck with special tires and drive through mud.
It’s messy, slippery, crazy fun.” He makes a few growling sounds that mimic an engine working its way through the mud, and the shock of his joking around with Cooper surprises me.
Cooper’s eyes are as big as saucers. “I wanna do that! Mom, can we do that?”
“Probably not, honey. We don’t know anyone with a mudding truck, and it’s not exactly the safest thing to do.” I’m trying to let him down easy, but his face falls anyway.
Bruce clears his throat, and I glance over to see him silently asking permission to take Cooper.
I look over my shoulder toward the front windows but can’t see his truck in the driveway.
I wonder if it’s still the big green monster of a diesel truck he drove in high school.
Good Lord, the things we did in that truck.
I correct myself. “Well, I take that back, I guess. Looks like Bruce might be willing to take you out. As long as you don’t go in Mr. Sampson’s field.”
“I’ll take you both,” Bruce declares.
I look at him, and something electric passes between us, sending an unwelcome jolt through my body.
“Oh yeah, going muddin’, that’s right!” Cooper’s oblivious to anything between Bruce and me, instead doing some crazy version of a celebration dance with his knees knocking together as he twirls an invisible rally towel over his head.
I notice that he’s changed his pronunciation to match Bruce’s twangier version too.
Cooper’s wild joyfulness is the break for Bruce and me, anger dissipating and heat cooling. It’s not a truce, more like a momentary lull in a war that we agree to with a searching look in each other’s wary eyes.
Bruce high-fives Cooper and throws a smile my way that makes my belly flutter.
It’s so similar to what he used to look like, happy and fun, but in a masculine, grown-up way that his younger self promised to be.
My breath catches in my throat at the cruelness of the world.
This is who he was meant to be, but somehow, it all went wrong.
For both of us.
I want to disappear to when things were simpler, easier, and surer.
“Are you so surprised that I might’ve actually been cool once upon a time, Cooper?
” I pinch at his cheek, grinning when he pulls away and scrubs at his cheek as if he can wipe away the affection.
“I’ll have you know that your mother” —I tick off on my fingers— “went mudding, was the top of the pyramid, which means I had to jump down like nine feet, went swimming in the no-swimming-allowed river, won a teddy bear as big as I am at the fair by throwing softballs at a milk can, and did all sorts of crazy things.”
I want to add more to the list, but I can’t exactly tell my son about skipping school to go to the movies, or the pasture parties with big bonfires, or any other things I did that might just give him ideas for his own teen years.
I’m willing to spill a little in the interest of being cool to my kid, but I don’t want to give him ammunition to throw in my face later.
Bruce has no such reservations.
“Listen to your mom, Cooper. She was the coolest person I knew in high school. Did she tell you about the time she made an actual one hundred on a huge science test on the same day she led the pep rally for the whole school?” Cooper listens raptly, eyes glued to Bruce.
Honestly, I’m listening just as closely, not remembering the day he’s talking about but somehow not surprised that he does.
“And then after we won the game, she led what had to be almost the entire school in a rousing rendition of the school song. Everyone was singing along.” He sways a bit in his chair, humming under his breath, and I remember.
What he’s leaving out is that all that happened at one of those back-pasture bonfires and that we were all a little tipsy, some on beer we shouldn’t have had, but mostly on the excitement of the win and the buzz of possibilities.
He’s leaving out that he picked me up by my waist and helped me stand on the roof of someone’s truck, keeping his big, rough hands circled around my bare thighs so I wouldn’t fall as I conducted everyone’s off-key singing like a choir director.
He’s leaving out that after we all sang our fool hearts out, he’d helped me back down and my whole body had run the length of his as my feet met the grass.
He’s leaving out that we’d made out in the bed of his truck that night, going further than we ever had before.
I don’t recall the test or the pep rally, but I remember the feeling of his hands on my breasts through my sweater that night and the way he’d moaned the school song against my neck while the bonfire burned out. I remember that part like it was yesterday.
One look at Bruce, though, puts a damper on those memories. He’s smiling lightly, like none of that has even occurred to him. It’s just a silly story to tell to a kid about some high school fun.
I take a breath, forcing my mind into the past with an open heart. I can do this too.
“What Bruce is forgetting to tell you is that he won the game for us that night,” I say brightly, smirking at Bruce, who shakes his head at me in warning.
Oh, two can play this game. “He might not’ve scored any touchdowns, but he literally stopped the other team from gaining a single yard all night. ”
Cooper’s excitement bubbles up. “Tell me everything,” he says dreamily, hands tucked below his chin and elbows resting on the table.
We do.
Somehow, Bruce and I manage to talk for over an hour, telling Cooper stories or at least the child-safe versions of them.
Homecoming dance. School carnival. Parties. Movie dates. Stargazing. Sandwich picnics. Walking the fields at Tannen farm. Dancing in the church parking lot after fast-food dinners in town because we were broke. Football games.
As soon as I let one memory out, they all rush back at once, overwhelming me.
But it’s in a good way. The happier times remind me of who I was, maybe of who I can be again.
Not fully, but maybe just a little drop of that innocent girl could grow again inside me?
Like a seed or sapling? Or hell, more like a weed that refuses to let the ugly concrete keep it down and searches out any crack to grow through until it finds its own sunlight. That’s me . . . Dandelion Allyson.
Bruce seems to be feeling it too. His gruff grunts and monosyllabic answers toward me have turned into drawn-out stories, amped up for dramatic effect, much to Cooper’s delight.
Best of all, we don’t feel like enemies. Not like friends exactly, either, but the progress feels important.
Too soon, he says he has to go.
“Oh, man, just one more story?” Cooper begs, and Bruce looks at his watch.
“Sorry, kid. Gotta get the rest of my deliveries out and get home for dinner.” But he says no with kindness and a smile Cooper soaks up happily.
I intervene, hoping for a redirection of Cooper’s attention. “Are you telling me that your bedroom and bathroom are clean? Are they worthy of a visit from the queen?” I eye him speculatively.
Cooper’s grin is so wide it shows off the gap on the back side where a baby tooth has come out but the permanent one hasn’t made it all the way down yet. “Why, yes, Milady. ’Tis spotless, I proclaim.”
“Even the ring of soap residue under your bubble bath?” He always misses that, sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally.
“Mom! Don’t tell Coach B I use bubble bath!” he whines in a hushed whisper.
Bruce chuckles. “Ain’t nothing wrong with bubble bath, buddy. Hell, I’ve been known to take a bubble bath myself on occasion. It’s relaxing and fun to blow the bubbles around.”
I know for damn sure that this man has not taken a bubble bath since he was a kid. For one, the only tub he can use is a swimming pool. And two, it doesn’t seem like it’d be his thing. I imagine he’s a shower in five minutes kinda guy.
But he scoops up some imaginary bubbles and blows them toward Cooper, easing the embarrassment I didn’t mean to cause.
“Clean, mister,” I order, and Cooper scoots out after pounding Bruce’s fist once. “Thanks. Didn’t realize bubble bath was a cardinal slight to his manhood.”
Bruce’s lip tilts upward, but it’s nothing like the smile he flashed Cooper. Without that buffer, we’re falling back into uncertain territory.
“Thanks for lunch, Al. I had fun, hadn’t thought about those days in a long time.” His voice washes over me, perking up goosebumps over every inch of my skin. I know he can see them, considering the little amount of clothing I’m wearing, but he doesn’t mention it.
“Me either.” I should say something about last night, apologize again, maybe, but the words don’t come.
He turns to go, his long strides getting him to the front door quickly. “See ya at practice.”
And he’s gone. The door stands open where he left it, but I watch silently as he gets in his truck, not the green one from high school I remember but a newer, black, jacked-up Ford with a dent along the side of the bed.
I like it. It’s a little like him . . . functional, but a little banged up. He pulls out of the driveway, and it growls loudly down the street as he accelerates just a bit too fast. Yep, just like him.
“What the fuck just happened?” I wonder aloud, but as I’m alone, no one answers.
I certainly have no idea.