August 2006
I glance in the rearview mirror and take a look at Jonah as he snores away in his car seat. I’m glad that he’s finally settled down. Jonah is usually as sweet natured a child as you’ve ever wanted to be around, but for some reason, he has had hell in him for the last eight hours. Can’t say that I blame him. More than once today, I have been tempted to scream at the top of my lungs and have a good old fashioned tantrum myself.
Justin and I decided to drive to Tennessee. An eight hour drive in the summer with two ex lovers and a cranky four year old was clearly not the best recipe for a road trip, but given the circumstances we thought it was for the best. Neither of us wanted to deal with the circus that probably would have awaited us at the airport. Fending off reporters and photographers trying to catch a glimpse of Justin Timberlake, his side piece and illegitimate love child was not our idea of a good time.
So driving it was. The day got off to a bad start because we didn’t get on the road as early as I would have liked. Jonah and I were up, but rousing Justin is like trying to wake the dead. I literally had to pull him out of bed and push him into the shower. You would think all those years of having to get up at the crack of dawn and jump on an airplane would have made him easier to deal with. Wrong. Even after he got out of the shower and got dressed he was still dragging his feet and grouchy as hell.
And it’s not like things were any better once we got out on the road. I don’t know if it was the heat, the humidity or if we had just used up the last of our short supply of maturity, but Justin and I both started acting foolish. We argued about which car to take. We argued about whether to take the interstate or back roads. We even fussed about what radio station to listen to.
Eventually we both calmed down and started acting like we had a little bit of sense. But our petty bickering must have gotten on Jonah’s nerves, because he just started wilding out. He complained about the dvd that we tried to get him to watch. He complained about the place where we stopped to have lunch. He complained about everything until eventually he tired himself out and went to sleep.
At least one of us is finally getting some rest.
I glance out the window and look up into the night sky. It’s true what they say. The stars do shine brighter in the country. It’s quiet and dark out in a way that you’ll never find in the city. The car bounces along a road that becomes rockier with each mile that we go. It seems like we crossed the Memphis city limits hours ago, yet we’re still driving. It looks like civilization is getting farther and farther away.
"How far out into the boonies do you people live?"
"Complaining already, my little city mouse?"
"I’m not complaining, you big country rat. I’m just wondering if we’ve finally reached the point in our relationship where you’ve decided to take me out into the woods to kill me."
"It’s not that much further, okay?"
"Uh-huh."
Justin looks at me from the corner of his eye. "You don’t have anything to worry about."
"I’m not worried." Justin knows that I’m lying through my teeth, but he has enough sense to zip his lips and but both of his beady eyes back on the road.
Of course I’m worried. Why wouldn’t I be worried? Taking this trip seemed like a good idea at first, but now I’m starting to wonder.
Justin’s mom is cool and I’ve talked to his stepfather on the phone and he seems okay as well. What worries me are the grandparents. I hate to judge people based on stereotypes, but in my experience old white folks from the south usually aren’t all that excited about interracial relationships and biracial great grandchildren probably won’t send them jumping for joy. So I’m really not sure how this meet and greet with the family is going to go. But staying where we were wasn’t a much more attractive option.
It wasn’t long after Justin filed the petition to change Jonah’s name, that all hell broke loose. Copies of the court papers showed up on The Smoking Gun, they were talking about it on Entertainment Tonight and Barbara Walters started calling, practically salivating at the idea of getting Justin to sit down for another jive ass interview with her. Crazy broad wanted to talk to me too, to which of course I said hell no.
The tabloids wasted no time in digging up my identity. They had more than a little help from Cameron. She went on the Tonight Show and ‘let it slip’ that I was the woman in the pictures that were taken at the Maxwell concert. She was eager to paint herself as an innocent bystander that had no idea what was going on until very recently. To let her tell it, she was just as shocked as anyone.
Cameron went on at great length about how Justin had suddenly sprung it on her that he had a child and that he was dumping her for his baby’s mama. She managed to absolve herself of any involvement, make me seem like the homewrecker and paint Justin as the world’s biggest asshole all at the same time. I’d never thought much of her acting before, but that was an Oscar worthy performance.
Public opinion on me ranged the spectrum from sympathy to downright hatred. Depending on who you asked I was either a wronged woman (true), an idiot (very true) or an aspiring golddigger (not true).
I wasn’t exactly winning any popularity contests, but Justin took the brunt of the media abuse. He was being labeled as a liar (true), a deadbeat dad( not true), a cheater (very true) and a jungle fever having low life (I’m not touching that one).
But he took it all like a man. He didn’t try to deny anything or spin the situation to gain sympathy for himself. He issued a simple statement that only said that he wasn’t perfect, he’d made mistakes and he was trying to correct them. He closed by saying that Jonah was his child and that he loved him. He asked for respect for his privacy, but he knew he wasn’t going to get that. So we decided to get the hell out of town while the getting was good.
Of course Rachel and JC both felt the need to chime in with their two cents. Questioning the real motives behind Justin’s sudden attempt to do the right thing. I know that Rachel is only looking out for me, trying to make sure that I don’t let emotion cloud my common sense for the umpteenth time.
JC on the other hand, has more selfish intentions. As long as Justin was acting a fool, that left the door wide open for him. The possibility of Justin being for real would close up some of the spaces that JC used to be able to occupy.
JC must have called me about twenty times in the last week, trying to give me a detailed analysis of all the reasons why Justin was not to be trusted under any circumstances. But I took the coward’s way out by leaving town without responding to any of his voice mails. I can only deal with one dysfunctional relationship at a time.
I’m shaken out of my thoughts when Justin reaches across the seat and squeezes my hand. "My family is going to love you."
Sometimes it’s like he can read my mind. "How do you know that?"
"What’s not to love?" His words are followed by a sly little wink. Before I met Justin, I thought winking was something dirty old men did. Something lame and cheesy. But when Justin does it, it’s like he’s sharing a secret with you.
"You already know that Mama and Paul like you. My brothers will probably have crushes on you before the week is out. And my grandpa will tell you all of his best corny jokes."
I run through what he said in my mind and it occurs to me that there was a glaring omission on that list of all the familial love I’m supposed to be getting. "What about your grandmother?"
"Huh?" Justin gets that shifty look in his eyes and I know he’s stalling and dodging.
"Why is it that you turn deaf when I try to ask you about something important? You didn’t say anything about your grandmother."
"Grandma is a little bit harder to read. To be honest, she’s still keeping the dream alive for me and Britney to get back together."
"Did the marriage and baby pass her by?"
"She chooses to ignore things that don’t agree with her vision of a happy reunion. She might not be all that friendly at first. But I know that she’ll warm up to you. Eventually."
"You couldn’t have told me this before we left Atlanta?"
"What was I supposed to say? Come to Tennessee with me Kayla. My grandmother is probably going to hate you, but other than that, it’ll be great. If I’d said anything like that you would have refused to come."
"Exactly my point."
"I wouldn’t have brought you out here if I didn’t think it was going to go well. I wouldn’t do that to you."
"Whatever. I’m not even worried about your grandmother. I’m more concerned about being attacked by a roaming clan of hillbillies."
"Cut that out."
"I’m telling you up front if I see a toothless redneck picking a banjo, I’m grabbing my kid and making tracks. You’re on your own."
"Now you know that if you see a toothless redneck with a banjo, that’s just my cousin Jethro."
"You’re ridiculous."
"Everything will be okay. I swear." The corner of Justin’s mouth ticks up into a half smile. "Did you call me a country rat?"
"Just caught that? You must be getting slow in your old age."
"Do you really want to bring up age? You’re older than me."
"But I don’t look it. You on the other hand, are starting to look kind of run through."
The smile slips away from Justin’s face. "My grandfather says that ugly on the inside will eventually show itself on the outside. I guess my dirt is finally catching up with me."
"Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re still halfway, kind of cute."
Justin’s smile comes bounding back full force. "I knew you still wanted me."
I roll my eyes and turn my gaze back to the window. "Are you sure that your mom won’t mind us showing up so late? Maybe we should have stopped at a hotel and started fresh in the morning."
"Stop stalling. My mother has gotten used to me showing up all times of the day and night. Besides, she knows that we’re coming."
"Okay."
"We’ve still got a little way to go. Why don’t you take a nap?"
"I’m not sleepy."
"You can rest your head on my shoulder."
"Is that supposed to be some kind of treat? You need to get over yourself."
"I was just kidding."
"Sure you were." I lean my head back against the seat and let my eyes drift shut. I’m not sleeping. Just resting my eyes.
Eventually my eyes must have drifted shut and stayed shut, because the next thing I know the car has come to a stop and I can feel Justin gently shaking my arm to wake me up. And damned if I didn’t end up with my head on his bony shoulder.
We’re parked in front of a beautiful two story house. The door swings open and Lynn comes out to greet us, with Paul following closely behind her.
Lynn opens the backdoor and reaches in to take Jonah out of his car seat. "Is that my favorite little man?"
"Of course it’s me, mama."
Lynn glares at Justin. "Boy, you know good and well that I’m not talking to you."
All the commotion wakes Jonah up and he looks around, rubbing his eyes. "Grandma?"
"Hey sweetie." Jonah kisses Lynn’s cheek then promptly puts his head on her shoulder and goes right back to sleep. She comes over and gives me a one armed hug. "Do you mind if I tuck him in?"
"Of course not." I hand her Jonah’s bag and she carries him into the house.
"I’ve been upstaged by my own kid. Now who’s gonna kiss me goodnight and tuck me in?" Justin turns to his stepfather. "Paul? What do you say?"
"Not a chance, Justin." Paul and Justin hug each other and then Justin introduces me.
"It’s nice to finally meet you in person Kayla." I offer my hand to Paul, but he pulls me into a friendly hug instead. This certainly is a touchy feely bunch.
"It’s nice to meet you too, Mr. Harless."
"Please call me Paul."
"Thanks for letting us stay here for a little while."
"You don’t have to thank me for that. You and Jonah are family. You’re always welcome. I know you must be tired. Why don’t you come on in and get some rest? We can talk in the morning."
Paul takes my bag and leads me inside. The house is beautiful, of course. It’s huge, but still manages to seem cozy. It feels lived in the way that a real home should.
We get upstairs just in time to see Lynn easing her way out of one of the rooms. She puts her finger to her lips, indicating for us to be quiet. She speaks to us in a hushed tone. "Jonah went right to sleep, just like a little angel."
Justin lets out a sarcastic laugh. "He ought to be tired. He wore us out on the way here. Fussed the whole way."
"No offense, but I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a car with the two of you for eight hours either." Justin looks like he’s about to say something, but Lynn silences him with just a look.
"Kayla, you’ll be in here." She indicates the room next door to the one where Jonah is sleeping. "And Justin’s going to be in the room across the hall."
Justin and I start to go into our rooms, but Lynn clears her throat. "I just thought that you should know that Paul and I will be right down the hall."
"Okay."
"The floorboards in the hallway creak. Loudly."
"Alright." I’m still not completely sure of what she’s trying to say, but Justin rolls his eyes and fills in the blanks.
"What my mother is trying to tell you is that if either of us tries to get up in the middle of the night and creep into the other’s room, she’ll know."
"Oh no. There’s not going to be any of that going on. I will not be going into Justin’s room for anything."
"And if I try to go into Kayla’s room she’ll kill me. So you don’t have anything to worry about mama."
"If you say so. Y’all are grown and I’m not trying to get in your business, but in my opinion the two of you need to keep your hands to yourself."
"That’s what we’ve been doing.
"You’re on shaky ground as it is and I would hate to see you ruin any progress you’ve made for a few minutes of gratification."
"We get your point mama."
"Common sense goes right out the window when sex is involved. Especially if it’s good sex. Trust me because I’ve been there."
Justin turns ten different shades of red and all of a sudden he looks about twelve years old. "Ugh, mama. Please. Don’t say another word."
"Fine. I won’t say anything else." Paul clears his throat to get Lynn’s attention, but she doesn’t pay him any mind. "Kayla, your door has a lock on it. My suggestion is that you use it."
Finally, Paul grabs Lynn by the arm and starts trying to steer her down the hallway. "Say goodnight, Lynn."
"Goodnight." Paul and Lynn disappear into their bedroom and close the door behind them.
"Can you believe that? My own mother doesn’t trust me."
I give him a fake sympathetic look. "That’s only because she knows you."
"Ha." Justin throws his bag into his room and leans against the doorway. "I don’t know about you, but I think I’m too traumatized to sleep. Want to go downstairs and raid the fridge?"
"How can you eat so much? Where does it go?"
Justin grins at me and hitches up his baggy pants. "I think you know where it goes."
"Now that you mention it, I think you’re starting to develop a gut."
"That will never happen."
"How can you be so sure about that?"
"Good genes run in my family. My grandfather is in great shape. And he still has all his hair. You know what that means?"
"Please enlighten me."
"This package right here," Justin says as he thumps his own chest, "is guaranteed to stay exactly the way it is for at least the next fifty years."
"I think I’m going to cry."
"Why?"
"Just the thought of having to look at you for the next fifty years is bringing a tear to my eye."
"You’re on a roll tonight. Do you want to go to the kitchen or not?"
"Not. I just need to get some rest."
"I understand." Justin crosses the hallway. "Thanks for coming here with me." He approaches me with open arms, but I put my hands against his chest to halt him in his tracks.
"I would have come sooner if I’d ever been invited or if anyone in your family actually knew that I existed."
"I suppose it would be pointless for me to apologize again."
"Pretty much. But that’s okay."
"No, it’s not."
"Let’s not do this tonight, Justin. I’m really not interested in another one of your guilt filled apologies. I’m sure it makes you feel better, but it doesn’t do anything for me."
"I don’t apologize to make myself feel better. I apologize because I don’t know what else to do."
"I’m not looking for you to do anything other than be yourself. Just stop trying so hard. You do you and I’ll do me and hopefully that will be good enough for both of us."
Justin nods his head. "I guess I am trying too hard. Not being a jackass is a lot more work than I thought it would be."
"Oh, wait. This is what you’re like when you’re not being a jackass? I’m glad you said something or else I might not have known the difference."
Justin grins at me and shakes his head. "I’m not even going to respond to that."
"That’s probably for the best."
"Goodnight, Kayla."
"Goodnight." I watch Justin until he disappears around the corner, then I go into my room so that I can unpack and get ready for bed. I lay awake for a few hours, wondering about what the next day will bring. Worrying about how well I’ll be able to get along with the rest of Justin’s family. I toss and turn for a little while, but eventually fatigue catches up to me and I drift off to sleep.
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I’m pulled out of my slumber by the feeling of Jonah jumping up and down on my stomach. "Wake up, mama."
I crack my eyes open only to find Justin sitting on the foot of the bed. Lynn was right. I definitely should have used the lock on my door. "I might have known that you were behind this."
"I’m just an innocent bystander. He woke me up the same way."
"I’m sure."
"You got to get up, mama." Jonah grabs my arms and I let him pull me into a sitting position. "Grandma made breakfast."
"Alright. I’m coming." I shoo Justin and Jonah out of the room, so that I can get dressed. When I get downstairs, Jonah has already finished eating his oatmeal and he’s in the living room talking Paul’s ear off.
Justin and Lynn are in the kitchen waiting for me. When I sit down, Lynn puts a plate of pancakes in front of me and pours me a cup of coffee.
"Did you sleep well, Kayla?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Good, because we’ve got a full day. My parents are coming over and Randy and Lisa are bringing the boys."
"Are Jonathan and Steven spending the night?" Justin asks this question around a mouth full of bacon.
"Yeah. Your grandad is taking them fishing tomorrow and they need to get an early start. It’s just easier if they sleep over here."
"So that’s why I got bumped out of the basement."
I guess Lynn can tell by the confused look on my face that this entire conversation is going over my head. "Justin usually sleeps in the basement when he comes to visit, but when the boys are spending the night, Justin sleeps in one of the rooms upstairs."
"Do Justin’s brothers spend the night over here often?"
"Every now and then. It’s no big deal." Lynn sits down at the table to join us. "Justin when you get through eating I need you to go to the store with Paul and help him pick up some stuff for the cook out."
"Okay." Justin finishes off the food on his plate and then starts working on mine. "Kayla, do you want to ride into town with us?"
I open my mouth, but Lynn speaks up before I can answer. "Kayla can’t go with you. I need her to help me out around the house today."
"Help you out with what?"
"We’re having company and the place needs a little straightening up."
"She’s a guest, ma. Not the maid."
"Are you getting smart with me, Justin?"
"No. It’s just that the house looks fine to me. I don’t know what you need Kayla hanging around here for."
"Because I said so." Lynn stares at Justin. "Is that a good enough answer?"
"Good enough for me." Justin stuffs down the rest of his breakfast and hightails it out of the kitchen.
When I finish eating, I get up to start loading the dishwasher, but Lynn stops me. "I’ll get the dishes, Kayla."
"Okay. Is there something else that you wanted me to do?"
"You don’t need to do anything."
"I thought you wanted me to help you clean up."
"You’re a guest. I wouldn’t ask you to clean my house. I just said that for Justin’s benefit, so you’d have an excuse for not going to the store with him and Paul."
"Why?"
"You don’t need to stay stuck up under Justin. I know my son, the less of your time he has, the better. Give him an opportunity to miss you a little bit."
If Lynn hadn’t said anything I would have agreed to go the store with Justin and Paul without even thinking about it. I would have gone simply because Justin asked me to. But making myself too available to Justin has always been a big problem for me.
"I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to meddle. It’s just that I know what it’s like to have a hard time keeping your distance from someone you love. You know that you don’t need to be around them, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. Like I said, I’ve been there."
I’m beginning to think that Lynn and I have a lot more in common than I would have thought.
Jonah and I spent the rest of the morning hanging out with Lynn. She gave us a tour around the property and then she pulled out all of her photo albums. Jonah got a big kick out of seeing Justin’s baby pictures. He had a hard time believing that his father was ever that small. Justin got back just in time enough to stop his mother from telling me about his beauty pageant days, but she assures me that she’ll show me those pictures when Justin’s not around.
******************************************************************************
I’m doing my best to hide it, but I’m a nervous wreck. The rest of the family should be arriving any minute now and my stomach is doing back flips. Despite Justin’s assurances that we will be warmly received, I can only imagine what these people must be thinking about me, Jonah and this whole situation.
I’m seriously thinking about playing sick just so that I don’t have to meet these people. But I hear a car pulling up outside and I realize that it’s too late to get out of it now. Paul scoops up Jonah and carries him outside to greet the new arrivals. Lynn motions for me to follow her out into the yard, but it feels like my feet are stuck to the ground. I take a deep breath and try to shake off my apprehension, but my feelings must be easy to read because Justin appears at my side and takes my hand into his.
"I don’t need you to hold my hand, Justin."
"I’m sure that you don’t." Justin holds my gaze and there is more understanding in his eyes than I’ve ever seen there before. He doesn’t let me go and I don’t pull away. Instead, we walk outside, hand in hand.
The first people to arrive are Randy and Lisa. While Justin makes the introductions, I find myself looking for the resemblance between Justin, his father and his brothers, but there really isn’t one. Jonathan looks a lot like Randy and Steven looks exactly like his mother, Lisa. Both boys have brown eyes and straight dark blonde hair.
You can just look at Steven and tell that he’s a little handful. He’s like a ball of energy. Jonathan is almost the exact opposite. He seems quiet and more reserved. He’s also got that sullen teenager pose down pat, but both boys greet me politely when introduced.
While we’re all standing around outside making polite conversation, a blue pick up truck pulls up. This is what I’ve been dreading the most. Meeting the grandparents. I feel somewhat comforted though once they get out of the truck and start making their way across the yard. They look like the kind of sweet, white haired grandparents that you see on tv. The ones that always seem to have lollipops in their pockets. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
Justin introduces me to his grandfather first. "Kayla, this is my grandfather."
"Hello, Mr. Bomar. Nice to meet you."
He gives me an open friendly smile and the knot in my stomach starts to loosen. "It’s nice to meet you too, but please call me William. And this is my wife Sadie."
I extend my hand toward Justin’s grandmother and she gives me a rather limp handshake. Then she looks me up and down, like I’m something unpleasant that got dragged into the yard on the bottom of someone’s shoe. "Hmm. So, you’re Kayla."
"Yes, ma’am. Justin’s told me so much about you."
"I wish that I could say the same about you." It’s about seventy degrees around here, but I think I just caught a chill.
I do believe that the family love train just came to a screeching halt.
******************************************************************************
All the menfolk have gathered outside under the pretense of tending to the grill, but really it’s just an excuse to drink beer and talk sports. Seriously, how many of them could it possibly take to poke a piece of meat with a fork?
I would rather be out there, because I feel completely useless in the kitchen. Apparently my reputation as an awful cook has preceded me and the only contribution I’m allowed to make is shredding cabbage for the cole slaw. Boring, monotonous work and I’ve already damn near shredded my knuckles.
I’ve been stuck in here with Lynn, Lisa and Grandma Bomar for what seems like hours. Lynn and Lisa have been chattering on in a friendly manner, but Grandma hasn’t spoken a word to me since she none too politely informed me to address her as Mrs. Bomar. She won’t talk to me, but she keeps looking at me out the corner of her eye like she thinks I might try to steal some silverware.
Let me start by saying that I would never be rude to anyone’s grandmother, but if she keeps giving me that look, it’s gonna be on.
Lynn shoves a tray of rolls into the oven then announces that she and Lisa are going outside to see what their husbands are up to. I have to stop myself from begging to go with them. I’ve been getting a bad vibe from Mrs. Bomar all day and I don’t want to be left alone with her. But I don’t say anything. The screen door bangs shut behind Lynn and the room is filled with silence.
"Kayla," her voice startles me and I jump a little bit, "Would you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Of course not Mrs. Bomar."
"How exactly did you meet Justin?"
Her question catches me off guard. "Excuse me?"
"We’ve had to process a lot of information in a very short amount of time and the details I’ve gotten from Justin have been limited to say the least. I was just wondering how you two met."
I can tell that this is about to be some bullshit, but still I put on my sweetest smile and answer her. "We met in a club."
"I see." Never before have I heard so much disapproval in just two words. "So you met him in a nightclub." She says nightclub like it’s a dirty word. "Then what?"
I am not about to tell this woman that I went to Justin’s hotel room on the first night that I met him. She’s already looking at me like I’m the whore of Babylon. I know that Justin and I didn’t really do anything that night, but I can tell that she would not believe that. Hell, I wouldn’t believe it either.
"We talked for a little while and then he asked for my phone number."
She just gives me a look like she wants me to go on, so I do. "A few months after we met, he came to visit me in Atlanta and we started going out."
"And you didn’t know that he already had a girlfriend?"
"Of course not."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Excuse me?" I’m feigning ignorance in an attempt to keep the peace, but I think I know exactly where this conversation is headed.
"Justin and Britney were all over the place with each other. Everybody knew that they were together."
"Justin told me that he and Britney were just friends. I never would have started seeing him if I had known that he was in a serious relationship with someone else."
"A man will say anything if he thinks it will help him get what he wants. It’s up to the woman, especially if she’s older and more experienced, to have a little common sense and exercise some control over things."
"You already said yourself that there’s a lot that you don’t know about my relationship with Justin. He pursued me. Not the other way around."
She squints her eyes and stares at me like she’s looking through me. "All the pursuing in the world doesn’t mean anything if you don’t want to get caught."
This old woman is tripping. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Justin was just a boy when the two of you met. I find it hard to believe that he was the real aggressor in that situation."
Grandma Bomar is living in denial. Justin was not some innocent schoolboy when we met. He was a seasoned player with more lies than you could shake a stick at. I was the naive one, not him. But I know that it would be a waste of breath to tell her that.
"With all due respect, Mrs. Bomar, I’m not going to have this discussion with you. If you have any more questions, you need to address them to Justin."
I drop what I’m doing and leave the kitchen before she gets a chance to say anything else and before I go off on the old broad.
I can’t believe that she came at me like that. I squash my first instinct, which is to grab Jonah, pack our bags and get the hell on. But Jonah is having such a good time here. This is the first family gathering that he’s ever been to because I don’t have any family for him to be around. I don’t want to ruin this for him because of my hurt feelings. I’ll just have to do my best to avoid that cantankerous old woman for the rest of this trip.
I wander around the house for a little while before making my way out to the living room. I find Jonathan sitting on the floor in front of the tv with an xbox controller in his hand.
He briefly glances over at me when I sit down beside him. "Hey."
"Hey." He acknowledges my greeting before turning his eyes back to his game. He seems like a sweet kid, just kind of shy. I haven’t heard him say more than two words all afternoon.
"Mind if I play?"
He seems genuinely surprised. "You want to play Madden with me?"
I need something to take my mind off of things and help me calm down. "Sure. Why not?"
He shrugs his shoulders and passes me the other controller. "I don’t know. It’s just that Cameron never wanted to hang out when she came to visit. When she wasn’t stuck to Justin, she was on her Sidekick texting people. She barely even spoke to me and Steven."
"Well, I’m not Cameron. Prepare to get your butt whooped." Jonathan smiles at me and for the first time I can really see the resemblance between him and Justin. That dazzling smile must be a trademark among the men in this family.
My time with Jonathan passes quickly and the next thing I know, Lynn is coming in to let us know that dinner is ready.
There are picnic tables and benches in the backyard and that’s where we’re going to eat. Lynn stands at the head of the table telling people where to sit. She puts me in between Justin and Steven, but Jonathan makes Steven scoot over so that he can sit next to me. Justin leans toward me and whispers in my ear. "I think somebody likes you."
"Shut up." When I turn to look at Jonathan, I find him staring at me with the goofiest look on his face. Oh boy. The last thing I need is another Timberlake following me around. But still, it’s kind of sweet.
After dinner, Jonathan, Steven, and Jonah go into the house to watch tv, while the adults sit around the table talking and watching the sunset.
The one thing that amazes me is how well Lynn and Randy get along. They’re laughing and talking like old friends and I wonder if Justin and I will ever be able to do that. I wonder if we will ever be able to just be around each other with no tension and no underlying agendas. Just able to enjoy each other’s company for what it’s worth.
Everything seems so peaceful right now. Everyone is carrying on their own little conversations when Mrs. Bomar decides to start some more stuff.
"I was talking to Britney the other day." She says this and lets it hang in the air for a minute. "She asked about you, Justin."
"Really?" Justin tries not to let his disinterest show.
"Yeah. I feel for the poor girl, she’s been through so much lately. And then this whole situation with you has really thrown her for a loop."
"Mama, now is not the time." Lynn tries to quiet her mother down, but to no avail.
"I’m just saying that Britney has had a hard couple of months and I think that it would be nice if Justin gave her a call. Just to say hello and maybe explain himself a little bit."
Justin’s face is getting tighter with every word that comes out of his grandmother’s mouth. "Grandma, I don’t really see how I owe Britney an explanation about anything."
"I think that you do. Jonah is four years old. A little simple math makes it obvious that the child was conceived while you and Britney were still together. Don’t you think that you need to talk to her about that?"
Granny is bold as brass. Now I know where Justin gets it from. Dead silence settles in over the entire table because nobody knows what to say behind a statement like that.
After several uncomfortable seconds, William puts his hand on her shoulder. "Sadie, it’s getting late. I think we need to be getting home." He stands up and takes her by the hand.
She lets out a weary sigh. "I suppose you’re right, we should be getting on." She tosses me one more disdainful look before saying her goodnights to everybody else at the table and leaving.
The tranquil atmosphere that everyone was enjoying seems to have disappeared. Randy and Lisa decide to call it a night and I slip away from the table to go inside to get Jonah ready for bed.
After I get Jonah settled down for the night, I make my way outside and sit down on the porch swing. I need to get some air and try to clear my head. Mrs. Bomar was rude as hell, but she definitely gave me a lot to think about. As harsh as it was to hear, she only spoke the truth. It may have been her own heavily biased version of the truth, but still.
I may not have known about Britney in the beginning, but even after I found out that her and Justin were really together, I slept with him again anyway. It has finally dawned on me that I was just as wrong and trifling as Justin was in that situation.
I need time alone to think this through, but the solitude I’m seeking is interrupted. I’m not outside for more than five minutes before Justin appears from out of nowhere and sits down beside me.
"I suppose that it would be of absolutely no consolation to remind you that my grandmother didn’t like Cameron either."
"Cameron is certifiable. As far as I can tell, nobody in your family really liked her."
"She’ll come around."
"She’s made up her mind that I’m some witchy older woman that tricked her naive young grandson into bed and broke up his fairytale relationship. I don’t think she’ll come around from that."
"I really didn’t know that she would be that bad. I’ll talk to her tomorrow."
"You don’t have to do that. I don’t want to cause any trouble between you and your family."
"There won’t be any trouble. I’ll just try to explain things to her. You didn’t break up my relationship with Britney. Britney and I did a fine job of that all by ourselves. I’ll just have to make my grandmother understand that."
When I don’t respond to this, Justin slides down a little bit. Inching his way closer to me. "I hope my grandmother hasn’t ruined the whole trip for you."
"No, she hasn’t. Jonah loves it here. So if he’s happy, I’m happy. For the most part, you’ve got a really nice family. I like them."
"They like you too. Especially Jonathan. As soon as you went in the house to see about Jonah, he came outside and started bending my ear about you."
"He did not."
"Yes, he did. You should have heard him." Justin puts on a nearly perfect imitation of Jonathan’s voice. "Kayla’s so pretty, Kayla’s so funny. Kayla is the coolest girl ever."
"Are you making this up?"
"Absolutely not. He went on at great length about how much he liked you." Justin’s voice has dropped to a whisper and he’s sitting so close to me now that I could probably hear his heart beat if I listened closely enough.
"The entire time that Jonathan was sitting there talking about you, I just felt like the biggest idiot in the world."
"Why?"
"Because my fifteen year old brother figured out in one afternoon, what it took me six years to really see. You are pretty and funny and cool. You’re also smart and kind. And you have a capacity for love and forgiveness that I’ve never found in anyone else."
Experience tells me that this is just a line. Justin’s latest well put together speech. Specifically designed to tug on my heartstrings and worm himself back into my good graces. I stand up and step to the edge of the porch in order to create some distance between us.
"Justin, what do you hope to accomplish by telling me this?"
"Nothing. For once I’m honestly not trying anything. I just want you to know how I feel about you."
"There was a time when I would have loved to hear everything that you just said. It would have meant the world to me. But that time is long gone."
Justin stands and moves closer to me. He leans against the railing of the porch and the moonlight catches his eyes, giving them an almost silver color.
"I know that everything I’m saying and doing probably falls under the category of too little, too late. But I can’t fix our yesterdays, Kayla. All I can do is work on tomorrow."
Justin is looking at me and I can feel myself leaning towards him. It’s almost like one magnet pulling against another. Justin is doing that guy thing, letting his gaze move back and forth from my eyes to my mouth. Our lips are less than an inch apart, when my senses snap into place. I may be dumb, but I’m not crazy.
I straighten up and back away from Justin. I can’t believe how close I came to kissing him. To his credit, Justin looks just as surprised as I feel. He slides off of the porch railing and goes towards the front door.
"I think I should go to bed now. My grandfather talked me and Jonah into going fishing tomorrow. I need to get some sleep because we’re gonna get an early start. I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to get me out of bed in the morning."
"No, you don’t."
"So, yeah. I’m gonna go." Justin leans forward and gives me a chaste kiss on the forehead. "You coming in now?"
"No. I think I need to stay out here for a little while."
"Alright. Jonah and I will probably be gone by the time you wake up in the morning, so I guess I’ll see you, when I see you."
"Yeah. Goodnight, Justin."
"Goodnight."
Once Justin disappears into the house, I sit back down on the porch swing. My mind is going in about fifty different directions right now. Is it really impossible for me to be around Justin and not feel anything for him? I know that we can’t keep doing the same back and forth thing that we’ve been doing, but I don’t know what else to do. Justin and I don’t know how to behave normally around each other. We never have. We used to only have two speeds, stop and go. Now we’ve added idling and it’s not any better than the other two.
What I need is some insight. I need some advice.
And I think I know exactly who I need to talk to.
******************************************************************************
Justin was right, by the time I woke up this morning everyone was gone fishing except for Lynn. Now that I’ve got her alone, I figure this is as good a time as any to talk to her.
She’s sitting outside on the back porch, when I approach her. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
"Of course, honey." She pats the seat beside her, giving me an invitation to sit.
"I want to ask you something. If you think it’s too personal, just tell me that it’s none of my business."
"Well, what is it?"
"Yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice the way you are around Justin’s father. You two get along almost like brother and sister. You’re friends with his wife and his kids have sleep overs at your house. Justin had told me before that you and his father didn’t have a very good relationship when you were together."
"That’s true."
"How did you get back to a good place with him?"
"It wasn’t a matter of getting back to a good place. There wasn’t a good place to go back to. Randy lied to me and I believed him. He cheated on me and I took him back. Many, many times. He actually cheated on me before we got married and I was dumb enough to marry him anyway. I can’t say that we never had any good times together, because we did. But the bad heavily outweighed the good. So, it wasn’t about moving backwards. It’s all about going forward."
"How did you do that?"
"Well, first of all we had to make a clean break. A real clean break. We broke up and got back together more times than I could count. We were always pretending that we were done with each other, but if we were in the same room for more than ten minutes, we would just end up right back where we started."
That sounds painfully familiar.
"Eventually what I had to do was cut off all communication with Randy. I told him that if he wanted to see Justin he could make arrangements through my parents, but I wasn’t going to talk to him or meet him anywhere or listen to anymore of his apologies. I said that and I stuck to it. I didn’t lay eyes on him for almost a year."
"Wasn’t that hard to do?"
Lynn laughs a little bit and gently rests her hand against my arm. "Of course it was. It was without question, the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. But it did both of us a world of good. Randy resisted at first. He tried calling and showing up and writing letters, but I held firm. I didn’t open the door for him. I changed my phone number to something unlisted and letters were burned without being read. When he saw that I meant what I’d said, he stayed away."
Lynn stops talking and it looks like she might cry. But she takes a minute to collect herself and then she continues.
"Eventually I met Paul and he met Lisa, but even after that we still had some rough times. We just had to decide what was the most important thing. And that was Justin. After Jonathan and Steven were born they became a part of that equation. Making sure that Justin had a good relationship with his brothers was more important to us than anything else. That made it possible for us to put all of our petty issues with each other to the side. Once you decide what’s most important and focus on that, everything else just falls away."
"Is it really that easy?"
"Don’t get me wrong. I’m giving you the censored, condensed version. It’s not easy and it takes more patience than you probably think you have. But it does work. If you really want it to."
"Do you think that Justin and I can ever find a place like that?"
"You can, but it won’t be anytime soon."
"Why not?"
"The most important part of this plan is being able to let go and mean it. Neither one of you is there yet. Kayla, what you have to do now is decide what you really want. Do you want to give it another try or do you want to let it go once and for all and move on? If you can’t make a decision and stick to it, you’ll always be exactly where you are."
"I don’t really know where we are. But I do know that it’s not anywhere that I want to be."
"The next best thing to knowing what you want is knowing what you don’t want. Work backwards from there."
"I really appreciate you talking to me. I know that it can’t be easy for you to give me advice about my relationship with Justin. Especially unbiased advice."
"Justin is my child and I love him more than anything, but I’m not going to take sides on this one. I want what’s best for both of you. I also want what’s best for Jonah."
"Thank you."
"You don’t have to thank me. Anytime you want to talk, just let me know." Lynn pulls me into her arms and gives me a tight hug. For the first time in my life, I get a hint of what it must feel like to have a mother.
Just as Lynn lets me go, William’s truck pulls up into the yard.
Jonah jumps out and runs up to me. "Hey honey, did you have fun today?"
Jonah nods his head causing his curls to bounce all over the place. "Pop-pop taught me how to put a worm on the hook."
Pop-pop is Jonah’s nickname for Justin’s grandfather. I don’t know who decided he should call him that, but they both love it.
"I had to put worms on daddy’s hook too. I think daddy’s scared of worms." Jonah is whispering when he says this, but Justin is close enough to hear him anyway.
"Jojo, I can’t believe you’re over here ratting me out. I thought we were tight." Justin picks Jonah up and starts tickling him until Lynn comes over and takes Jonah out of his arms.
"Don’t blame Jonah. Everybody already knows that you’re scared of worms. And spiders." Lynn walks back up the steps and takes Jonah into the house. Justin follows her, protesting loudly that he’s not afraid of anything.
Lynn gave me a lot to think about. My conversation with her answered some of my questions, but it’s created so many more. I know that what she told me makes a lot of sense. Justin and I do need to make a clean break. Maybe that would be best for both of us. But am I really strong enough to do that? As annoying as he can be, the prospect of having absolutely no contact with Justin for an extended period of time frightens me.
My brain may be ready to let go, but I don’t know how to get the rest of me to let go too.
