Perchance (8 page)

             
“What?” I laughed at the face she was still making.

             
“Oh my Lord, it’s sooooo sweet. It’s pure sugar!” She laughed.

             
“Yeah, this is how my Mom makes it, so I’m used to it.”

             
She sat back in the chair
and let her head fall against the top.  If it wasn’t serial killerish I would so pull out a camera and take a picture.

             
She popped her head up and said “So, how old are you?”

             
“I’m seventeen.  School starts in a couple of days, which sucks.”

             
“I’m seventeen too and yeah, I hate school.”

             
I laughed at her blatant hatred for school and we made more small talk for a few minutes and my stomach was shaking less and less as I listened to her talk. She was funny and sarcastic as all get out.

             
Her aunt came out of the front door and the screen door slammed behind her. 

             
“OK y ‘all, it’s lunchtime.  Cooper, do you want to join us?”

             
I jumped out of my chair.  “What time is it?”

             
She looked at her watch, “It’s eleven forty. So lunch, yes or no?”

             
“I’m sorry, thank you but Eric made me promise to be home by eleven forty five to go visit…someone.  I gotta go.  But thanks again.”

             
I ran down the stairs and then turned around and
went back up them and looked that beautiful girl straight in the eyes. Papa’s got his cajones back.

             
“Sorry Remi, it was nice talking to you. Bye.”

             
She giggled and I smiled all the way home knowing that I had made her giggle.  Mission accomplished.

             
I made it back right on time.  Eric was sitting on the turned down tailgate of his truck swinging his legs. He jumped down when he saw me and
we got into our seats simultaneously. 

             
He was chuckling as he pulled out of the driveway and took a right onto the street.

             
“You look pretty pleased with yourself.  What gives?”

             
“I decided to take a walk down the street and found Remi’s house by accident.”

             
“Ahhhh…well I hope you acted better than you did yesterday.  You were stiffer than a buck four days after the kill.”

             
“I did actually.”

             
He laughed as he turned into a pl
ace with a sign that read “Cedar
Acres Retirement Home.” 

             
I looked around and saw elderly people fishing in a small pond and some older ladies walking around in a group holding little dumbbells.  Call me crazy, but I think we’re going to visit somebody old.

             
We parked and went in through several hallways
before we got to a door that Eric knocked at. 

             
We waited for a few long moments and then an elderly woman answered the door and she kissed Eric on the cheek and then started crying when she looked at me.  She practically dragged us into the room and sat us down in the living room.  Eric sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders and looked at me.  I didn’t know what was going on, but was ready to find out

             
“Cooper this is my mother Edith, your grandmother.”

             
She was really crying now and I just sat there in shock.  Mom had never mentioned another grandmother and my mom’s mother was dead.  Eric reached over and handed her a tissue as he hugged her. 

             
“I don’t know what to say.  I didn’t know I had a grandmother.”

             
“Well,” she said, “now that you know
,
get over here and hug me.”

             
I got up and hugged her and she kissed me on the cheek.

             
“Sorry we didn’t come earlier but I needed some sleep and Cooper here was charming the local Southern girls.”

             
“Oh, and what’s her name?”

             
I did not want
to be having this conversation.

             
“Her name is Remi. She’s new around here too.”

             
Edith, or Grandma or whatever was smiling ear to ear and I was humiliated.  Talking to your new
grandma about girls was not my idea of a good time
.

             
“Remi, huh?” She said.  “Pretty name for a pretty girl.”

             
“How do you know she’s pretty?”

             
“Honey, with a name like that, she has to be pretty.”

             
How had so many opinions and resolves changed in my brain? What the hell did he do to me?

             
One conversation and I was ready jump into his arms and profess my affection. What a sappy girl I had turned out to be!  This would not happen again. I banged my fist on the table where Aunt Brenda and I were sharing lunch and she jumped out of her chair and clasped her chest. 

             
“What was that about?” She asked. 

             
“Nothing.” I replied and took a big bite out of my tuna salad to prevent myself from telling her.  She was so easy to talk to and I had never laughed as hard as earlier when she was telling me stories about my mom when she was a teenager. 

             
“His name is Cooper, not Nothing.” She joked.

             
I swallowed my monstrous bite and drank a swig of water. “Alright, alright, but he’s so sweet and he has manners
not to mention that he’s….you know…hot
and just wait, when school starts he’ll meet some beautiful blonde Southern queen and Remi will be a forgotten thing.”

             
She laughed at me. “I don’t know Rem.  If there had been anything close to a ring around, even a napkin ring, that boy would’ve been down on one knee.”

             
I threw a crouton at her and yelled “Stop it!”
while laughing and she was giggling right along with me.

             
She said she needed to go to the high school and get
her mail and check her schedule.  I cleaned up after lunch and then waited until she left and cleaned the rest of the house.  I looked out the back yard and saw that it was getting pretty high so I ventured out into her garage and spotted a self-propelled lawnmower.  I already had my work clothes on so I rolled it out to the backyard and got it done.

             
After I finished
,
I looked at the front yard and it needed to be mowed too.  I went inside for some water
and started mowing again. I finished and put the lawnmower back and ran to take a shower.  I was
going to make Aunt Brenda and me
some dinner to surprise her.

             
I made a simple dinner and when she got home she said she felt like a queen.  She said the only time she didn’t have to cook was when she went to a restaurant.  And she gushed over the
lawn being mowed and laughed because she had been paying someone to mow it and now she didn’t have to anymore. 

             
The next week was a repeat of
the same.  I tried to do as much as I could around the house and walked to several places in town and applied for a job.  I may or may not have purposely walked past Cooper’s place several times.  I think I wa
s bordering on stalker status.

             
That Sunday morning,
I was getting dressed for church.
Maybe I would see him at church? Maybe he would see me at school and flirt with me at my locker and save a seat for me at lunch.  And also maybe I would win the lottery and live off of my interest. 
Those things were all in the same scope of possibility. I rolled my eyes at myself in the mirror. 

             
“Get a grip Remi, you’re losing it.” I said to my reflection.

             
I got off the phone with my Mom and went to shower.
I helped Eric all week
.  He had taught me how to build some cool stuff, but Friday night it started to rain until Saturday afternoon and the flea market was cancelled.  I had hoped to see Remi at the flea market, but no such luck.

             
Last week I saw her mowing the grass after we left the retirement home where I had met my grandma.  She was really nice and I had gone by there several times during the week.  She told me lots of stories about my Dad when he was a kid and somehow she got me to tell her all about Remi.  She said that Remi seemed like one of the special ones that once they were convinced to love, they would love with their whole being. 
That confused me, but I didn’t let on.  Why would someone have to be convinced about love? Either you do or you don’t. It should be simple.

             
Troy and I hung out on Thursday night.  We rented some movies and got pizza and watched them at his house.  But honestly, I couldn’t tell you a thing about the movies. Troy had spent the entire t
ime making fun of the plot
and sometimes he would mute the movie and make up his own words.  My voice was hoarse the next day from laughing so hard at him. We also made plans to go to the haunted plantation, the Myrtles.  It cracked him up how fascinated I was by the whole place.

             
I checked myself in the mirror as I brushed my teeth and hoped that she would be at church.  I had this overwhelming need to see her.  It was like a slow boil in my chest.  Not too much that I couldn’t handle
it
but just enough to let me know it was there.  I was sure that just seeing her would still the boil
and soothe the burn
. 

             
I threw on a gray button d
own shirt and some black slacks and my black Chucks.  I walked outside and down the stairs and Eric was already in the truck waiting.

             
We drove to church in silence.  He had worked a little longer last night. He got in just in time to get dressed for church and head out. 

             
At the church we sat in the same pew, but now we were joined by Troy and his Dad.  As the hymn ended and the sermon began, Troy nudged me and tipped his chin towards the right of the church.  Little did he know that I had already seen her and had kept her firmly in my peripheral all this time.  I knew when she moved and I knew when she whispered something to her aunt and I especia
lly knew when she snuck
a look at me as she pretended to turn sideways to stretch her back. 

             
I nodded back to Troy, letting him know that I knew what he was talking about.   And then I tried not to stare her down the whole service.  It didn’t work.  And then during the ending prayer, I was probably going to hell for this, I watched her close her eyes and while the man was praying, she was whispering words of her own.  And when he ended the prayer and said “Amen” her eyes stayed closed a little longer than everyone else’s and the she said her own “Amen”. 

             
People were congregated outside the church for ‘dinner on the grounds’ which I was assuming was like a church picnic.  Eric wanted to go home since he was tired and Troy’s Dad offered to take me home so I could stay for lunch.  I was handed a paper plate and the second she got in line behind me every hair on my skin stood at full attention saluting her presence.