In high school I was too busy with academics and classwork to really have my priorities in order, like most of my peers. Yeah, that meant putting off sex, and well drivers education, too. I didn't think of myself as a geek or a nerd. I preferred to think of myself as "focused."
Finally at eighteen and just before packing it all off for college I got my coveted driver's license. If only catching up on the rest would be as easy as passing a few tests and reading some letters from a chart in a view screen.
Unfortunately along with the freedom of your first set of car keys come the inevitable layers of responsibility. So when my mother informed me of how I was to spend my Sunday afternoon, I was reluctantly resigned to my fate.
"We are taking the van today, mister. You are going to be doing some shopping and then we are going visiting."
My mother owned a van for a reason. She was forever driving around the countryside, stopping at "sales" and hauling things around for her friends. My duties today were sure to include, chauffer, shopping consultant, delivery man, and bored son. The later job consisted of mostly holding up a nice older woman's kitchen counter with my ass while my mother laughed and asked for a second cup of coffee. I can't truthfully say I was enthusiastic, but I wasn't moping or sour.
Six stops and three sheets of plywood, four bags of mulch, and an ugly concrete lawn statue later we neared our last stop with four grocery bags of baby clothes for the new baby grand daughter of family friends.
Walt was a giant of a man who was the spitting image of the guy from the Mister Clean bottle, tall, muscular and completely bald. His wife, Elaine, was completely opposite. She was half his height and nearly round. The only thing they had in common was that one or both of them was constantly laughing. We weren't there two minutes and the coffee pot was on. "Jesus, assume the position. Where do these old people put it all," I thought to myself.
I had already leaned back against the kitchen cabinetry lost in puzzled contemplation of my mother's bladder capacity, when I heard Elaine yelling from the other room. Yes, yelling. It's what passes for family communication in that home.
"Lana, get your butt down here we got company." I'll pass on the exclamation marks if you don't mind, but you get the idea. What God shorted Elaine in height, he made up for in lungs. Pardon the pun.
I hadn't seen Lana since I was eight years old. She was the complete tomboy and we spent our summers running through the woods along the lake hunting frogs, swimming and finding new uses for mud and sticks. When she came sulking through the door she was immediately recognizable. At eighteen she had grown into a stocky athletic girl with big shoulders and muscular calves. Her hair was thick and black and her eyes dark brown. She was dressed as if she had just gotten back from track practice, which her mother noticed and remarked on immediately.
"Lana, don't you have anything else to wear. Why don't you change after practice?"
Turning to me, Elaine quickly added, "Lana got a scholarship for track and field to State. She throws shot put and discus. The coach thinks she might compete for a spot on the varsity squad."
Being young it's automatic to look a little harder at a girl when you get an invitation like that. There was no doubt Lana was a strong, but beneath the loose t-shirt and thin baggy shorts the x-ray guy vision could plainly tell there was a girl there.
Lana rolled her eyes at her mother looked at me and simply said, "Hi. Wanna go?"
Lana didn't wait for an answer. She just grabbed my hand and yanked me out the nearest door, through the garage and down the street. I doubted my mother would miss us, and I'm sure we could be gone for hours before her bladder even noticed our absence.
We were nearly half a block away before any semblance of a conversation started. The topics breezed quickly through schools, sports, and family before her face eased and she began to laugh a little during the brief pauses. Lana was never very talkative and most of the burden fell to me. Still I could make her laugh. That was a good sign and a useful talent for a guy, at least I thought. Five blocks in to the walk and we veered to the left through a field and down a path into a tangled patch of woods behind the subdivision.
A voice behind us startled us both. "Hey who's your friend?"
We both turned to face a young, thin blonde waving a cigarette in my direction.
"It's just James, I've known him forever," Lana said with a shrug.
"Got another," she added motioning to the burning stub of a Marlboro in the blonde's hand.
"Yeah, here." As the cigarette passed hands, the blonde turned to me and raised her eyebrows.
