Sing to Me

True Images Series

Sing To Me

By
Michelle Pennington

.

My mom had come up with some really awful jobs, but
as I stared down
at a collection of
crispy bug
s
,
I decided that this
was by far the grossest. If I
had
n’t want
ed
to go to prom so bad, there’
s no way I would
be doing this
.
How did so many bugs die in a light fixture anyway?
Gross!

But Bria
n Gibbons
was
totally worth it.
He was
one of the hottest guys at school with his
wavy blond hair, gleaming blue eyes, and the best sense of fashion to ever hit Haskins High.
I’
d
been crushing on him for months, so it was a little surreal that he’d actually asked me to prom. It had taken a lot of hardcore strategy to catch his interest,
but I’d done it. A
s it turned out
though
, getti
ng my dream date was easier than
getting my dream dress.

It really wasn’t fair. All my friends
’
moms just took them shopping and
swiped their
credit
card
s
. Did my mom?
No. I had to
earn
the money for my dress
.
And if I wanted shoes, jewelry, a manicure
? You guessed it -
I had to earn the money for that too. Unfortunately, with all of my extracurricular activities, I didn’
t have time for a job so I was at
my mother’s mercy.
But it was my senior prom so I was willing to deal with it – no matter how awful the job.
Unfortunately, m
ost of them involved insects in some way or another
.

Today I was cleaning out all the light fixtures in the house. Yesterday I’d washed windows and wiped out the window sills – which I’d
de
cided
were pretty much just
graveyards
for flies
. Last week, I’d cleaned out all the closets and found way too many crumpled up remains of spiders on their dusty webs.
At least they were dead though
.
The spider I’d found cleaning out the pantry had not been. My parents were seriously being ripped off by their pest control company.

I dumped all the dried up moth and fly carcasses out of the globe from the kitchen light into the trash and took it over to the sink to wash. I was still wrist deep in hot, sudsy water when my mom got home. She came in to the kitchen from the garage and smiled at me as she hung up her keys and tossed her purse on the counter. Her cheerfulness
made me even grumpier.

“Hey there, s
weetie! Did you have a nice day?
”

“It wasn’t too bad until I had to come home and work on this.  Oh, and that guy that’s been bu
gging
me in choir
- you know, Colby? Well, he
was at it again today
. He thinks
he’s
so
fu
nny, always warning me not to “B
utcher” my solo. I wish
he
had a last name that could be twisted around like that. There’s not much you can do with Adams though.
”

“
Adams, huh?
That’s funny. I was just about to tell you about a conversation I had with
M
arcy Adams at
wo
rk today – you know, the new loan officer they hired a few months ago? You
met
her when you came to see me at the bank last week.
”

“You mean the pretty one who was
spazzing
because someone left their coffee on her desk?
”

“Uh, yeah.
That’s the one.
And she wasn’t
spazzing
. She was just upset because it left a coffee ring on some of her loan applications.
”

“
Yeah, well, she looked like she was going to bust a blood vessel over it.
So, what were you and Miss Anal-Retentive talking about?”

“
S
he wants you to babysit her little girl.”

That came out of nowhere. “What? Why?”

“
She and her husband want to start havi
ng date nights now that Abby’s two
, but she’s really picky about trusting people. She thought you seemed really mature, and she feels she can trust you because she knows me, so um….I told her you would
.”

“You told her what?”

“Tonight.”

My eyes bugged out.
“What if I have plans?”

Mom looked at my sweatpants and the dish scrubber I was waving around for emphasis.
“
I told her you hardly ever go out, so it wouldn’t be a problem. She wants you ever
y
Friday night
,
but she’ll be flexible if you have
a choir concert or something.”

“Great. Now somebody I barely know thinks I’m a social loser.”

“No she doesn’
t,
Rylie
. So,
will you do it?
She pays better than I do,” my mom said, using her most persuasive tone of voice.

“But
what if I do something wrong and she goes all crazy over it?
”

“You’ll be fine. I
doubt the two year old will give you any problems
, and a
fter watching your nieces and nephews, this should be a breeze.”

I still hesitated.

“Prom is only a few weeks away,” she reminded me.

I thought about my current job
and decided
I’d take a two year old over bugs any day.
“
Fine.
I’ll do it.”

An hour later, I
was ringing the doorbell at Marcy’s house
. The
y lived on a cul-de-sac
of newly built brick homes on the edge of town. They were big and expensive but looked like they’d all been built from the same blueprint
. My dad would have called them cookie cutter houses.
The only way I could tell t
he Adam’s house
apart from the others was
by the numbers over the garage and a giant sign with their surname over the doorbell
I’d just rung.

I stared down at the monogrammed door mat under my feet and wondered how my mom had talked me into this. I didn’t even know these people - o
r so I thought
.

Until
Colby Adams opened the door.

He looked as surprised as I was. “
Rylie
?
You’re
the girl they got to babysit Abby?”

“Yeah. My mom works with Marcy.” My eyebrows drew together as I tried to figure thi
ng
s out.
Maybe the last name should have clued me in, but how would it have? F
rom what I
remembered of Marcy, she was
way too young to be Colby’s mom.

Colby narrowed his eyes at me. “
Don’t sprain something trying to figure it out. Marcy’s my stepmom.”

“Oh
.
Ok. That makes
sense.
”

“
Yeah, if your dad marrying someone almost twenty years younger than he is makes sense.
Well, are you going to come
in
?
”

“I’m kind of scared to
.
I mean, do I really want to meet the rest of the
Adams family
? Do I need to watch out for creepy butlers or trap doors to your basement dungeons?
”

“Funny,” he said, scowling as he stepped back from the doorway.

“Besides, you never invited me
in
.”

Colby dipped into a low bow
and
said, “Would you please come in?”

“Since
you asked so sweetly, yes
.”

I
stepped past him into the
house
and looked around the
small, tiled foyer
. T
o my left,
a staircase rose and wound around a corner
, inviting further exploration.
My eyes followed it curiously
, but not being able to see much, I turned to the living room on my right. My first impression was that I’d stepped into a photo shoot for a home décor magazine.
I just couldn’t believe that the perfection in front of me was
real – that people could actually maintain it in real life.

But then again, it made sense that Marcy would have fresh flowers, spotless white sofas,
and
perfectly placed accent pillows
. I just didn’t know how she managed it with
a two year old in the
house. W
here were the toys and the
sippy
cups and the random shoes?

The only evidence that a child lived here was a grouping of framed photos on the wall.
They were all of a little blond girl in various stages since her birth. They were professional, artisti
c, and perfectly in keeping with the style of the rest of the room.

When my searching eyes finally found the little girl h
erself
, however, I couldn’t help noticing that she
looked out of place
in all this grown-up perfection.

She
was sitting
on the floor in front of the
enormous flat screen
television
,
watching a cartoon. I could only see the back of her head, but I was immediately impressed by the blond spiral curls that covered it. I would kill to have even
a
hint of curl to my hair.
My hair was as blond as hers, maybe even lighter, but it was hopelessly straight.

I stood awkwardly near the couch
, afraid to touch anything, while
Colby went over to Abby and crouched down next to her. “Abby, someone is her
e to meet you.”
As
he picked her up, she was smiling and excited, but
when her big blue eyes saw me, she put a strangle hold on his neck.

Great. She was shy.

“Come on. Don’t be afraid of
Rylie
. She’s really nice.”

He thought I was nice?
Since when?
At school he seemed to tolerate being around me only slightly better
than the big sweaty guy in the bass section who never wore d
eodorant. Of course, he was only
saying I was nice for
Abby’s benefit, but I kind of resented it.
It wasn’t her fault that her brother annoyed the heck out of me though, so I stepped closer to them.

“Hello, Abby. You sure are a pretty girl,” I said, hoping I sounded friendly.

Abby wasn’t impressed
. She dug
her face into Colby’s chest
and stayed there.
He rubbed her back and tri
ed to reassure her.
“It’s ok, Abby. Don’t be shy.”

It was
weird
hearing
such a tender tone in
his voice
because it was so different from the way he always talked to me.
I never w
ould have suspected he had a soft
er
side if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes. Of course, an adorable baby sister was
one thing. I was just s
ome girl he knew –
a
girl he clearly
thought was a loser. Otherwise, why would he always give me such a hard time?
I mean
, I’d
barely
ever
even talked to him.