Chapter Four
“How was your day?” Jenna asked as Lacey slid into the passenger’s seat, dropping her backpack on the floorboard and slamming the door.
Lacey shot a look at Jenna that asked without words how stupid she was. Jenna pulled out of the pick up line, and joined the group headed for the street.
Jenna took a deep breath and let it out slowly, counting as she did.
She was tired of having this argument every day, or nearly.
Jenna knew how miserable middle school could be, especially if you weren’t in one of the ‘in’ crowds, and neither she nor Lacey was.
They had too much going on in their lives to fit the perfect perception that went with being popular.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to save her sister from the trauma that came with middle school for most kids, but if she let Lacey stay home, then when would Jenna work? And who would keep an eye on Lacey while she did?
Granted her sister was fourteen and no longer needed eyes on at all times, but Jenna remembered what she’d done at the same age, any time Mama was busy, and Jenna thought she could get away with it.
And she did most of the time. Mama only caught her sneaking out a couple of times, and she’d gone out nearly every weekend for all of seventh and eighth grades.
But Mama had been distracted with taking care of Lacey, and Jenna had taken advantage of that. Looking back at the stupid shit she’d done, Jenna was determined to keep her sister from the worst of it.
She also knew she couldn’t be too strict, or it would only push the teenager to act out and hide what she was up to from Jenna. She wanted to be the one her sister came to when she was in trouble, not the one she hid it from. It was a delicate balancing act, and Jenna struggled more often than not.
Still, she was determined to give her sister the best start in life she could and letting her take the easy route wasn’t the way to do that.
“What exactly made it suck?” Jenna asked, ignoring the plea to switch to home based learning as she pulled on the street and turned toward the single wide manufactured home they shared.
“Autumn was bitchy and taking it out on me.”
Jenna fought the urge to call her sister on her language. It was a small thing that didn’t matter, especially when it was just the two of them, and Lacey was old enough, and smart enough to know when it was acceptable and when it wasn’t. Here and now, Jenna could let it go.
“If she’s bullying you, I can go to the principal and lodge a complaint. For a school that claims zero tolerance for that kind of thing, it sure happens a lot.”
Jenna knew the schools would never be able to completely stop something like that.
But they could do a hell of a lot better than they did.
It seemed some kids never got punished or whatever they did was just ‘kids being kids’, and they were never held responsible for their actions.
Not by the school and not by the adults who were supposedly raising them.
It was a recipe for disaster, but what could she do?
From where Jenna sat, all she could do was make sure Lacey was raised right.
She pulled into the quick stop and parked before picking up her wallet.
“Here, can you grab us a couple of cokes?”
“Sure.” Lacey took the card and released the latch on her door but stopped before pushing it open. “You want diet?”
“Not really but I should. Go ahead and get me diet.”
“Want anything else while I’m there?”
Jenna shook her head, Lacey got out and headed inside, pushing the car door closed without slamming it for a change. Jenna took another deep breath and let her cheeks puff out as she exhaled.
She could do this. People had been raising teenagers for eons.
And a hundred years ago, hell, even fifty years ago, Jenna would have had kids of her own by now.
They wouldn’t be as old as her sister, and ideally, she would have had a husband to help, but there were a lot of circumstances where she would be where she was now or close enough, and jobs were a lot harder to come by for women then.
No, she didn’t have it too bad, just harder than she would like but then, who didn’t have it harder than they wanted? She scrubbed her hands over her face and pushed her feeling sorry for herself out of her mind when her sister came out of the store.
They still had homework to get done and she had to figure out something for dinner.
“Hey, Lacey-Lou,” Jenna said as Lacey got back into the car, carefully placing the foam cups in the cup holders between them. “Thanks for going in. Any thoughts on what you want to do for dinner?”
“Ice cream?”
“Nice try, little bit. You know the rules. We can only have one ‘cheat’ meal a week, and that’s not until Saturday.” Jenna put the car in gear and backed out of the parking space.
“But it’s only two days away,” Lacey whined.
“True, but it’s still two days away. That will give you more time to figure out exactly what you want. As for dinner, you know the rules. Protein and a veggie. We can have more, but we need at least those.”
Lacey was quiet most of the way home. Jenna didn’t know if she was brooding about her day at school or thinking about dinner, and at the moment didn’t matter much, she was going to enjoy the moment.
Less than a half mile from their complex, Lacey spoke up.
“How about peanut butter and jelly? Peanut butter is both a protein and a vegetable, and jelly is a fruit. See? Healthy all the way around.”
Jenna shot her sister a look to see if she believed the line she was shoveling, or if she was just trying to get away with it. The innocent look Lacey wore told Jenna that Lacey knew what she was doing.
She opened her mouth to tell her no, and to think of something else, but changed her mind. Not only was it a reasonable dinner, once in a while, but it was something Lacey could make for herself.
“First, Peanut butter has protein, yes, but it’s a less than ideal source because it’s so high in fat.
Second, peanuts are not vegetables. Third, have you got any idea how much sugar is in jelly?
But I’ll allow it. You can put yours on bread or crackers, whichever you want.
” She hoped they had saltines in the house.
If not then they would have to make do with bread, or maybe the flour tortillas she knew were in the fridge.
“Come on, let’s get that homework done so we can find something to watch.
” She grabbed her wallet and the keys and headed inside.