Tru Love (5 page)

Chapter Six

              Serena shows up before her mother does. When Genny opens the door, her friend is standing on the threshold, the keys to Victor’s souped-up nineteen eighty-two Cobra dangling from her fingers. She’s wearing a Cheshire grin.

              “You stole Victor’s car?” Genny’s voice is a wide arc of horrified surprise. Victor loves his car. Maybe even more than he does his girlfriend.

              Serena pushes past Genny and pockets the keys.

              “What do you mean ‘steal’?” she says. “As soon as we’re married I own half, right?”

              “You’re seventeen,” Genny points out. “You’re not getting married until after college.”

              Serena’s plans are made. Victor is definitely the one for her, but so are college and a job her parents can brag about. A job
not
in the service of others. Both of Serena’s parents work in the food industry. Its long hours, little pay and no respect, according to Serena.

              “Victor needs to learn about sharing,” Serena says. “No way I’m marrying that boy until he knows all about what’s mine is yours.”

              Genny follows her into the living room. She can tell Serena is put out. She’s chewing her bottom lip and her voice is thin, her last words a whisper.

              “What happened?” Genny asks. “This afternoon you were in swooning mode. What did Victor do?”

              “He was raised with money,” Serena diagnoses and sits down on the couch. She shrugs out of her sweater and drops that and her purse on the floor. “Thai?” she asks, looking into the white cartons on the coffee table.

              “Help yourself,” Genny invites. “You’ve always known Victor has money. Why is it bothering you now?”

              “It’s always bothered me,” Serena confesses. “Sometimes more than others.” She picks up a fork and a carton of yellow curry chicken, but ignores it when she launches into Victor’s most recent wrong. “You know he’s home with the flu. Poor boy. I saw him this morning and he was
green.
I mean, I was holding his head up while he puked into a basin. I dumped that in the

toilet. I brought him a wet wash cloth so he could clean himself up. I was freakin’ Florence Nightingale.” She shoves a forkful of curry into her mouth and chews politely. After she swallows, she continues, “He calls me at school this afternoon, ‘Baby, can you pick me up some ginger ale?’ You know I don’t have a car. I
walk
over to
Cala Foods
, get a two liter bottle of the stuff and haul it over to his place, on the
bus
. And you know what he’s thinking? He’s thinking after all that, I’m going to
walk
home.”

              Genny hears the front door open and her mother hang her jacket in the closet, then continue through the house to the living room. When she looks up, her mom is standing with her hands clasped in front of her, a frown pulling her manicured eyebrows over her nose.

              “No, he didn’t,” her mom says, her voice tinged with outrage. She walks into the room. “I hope you set him straight, Serena. If you don’t correct him the first time, you’re going to relive this again and again.”

              Serena grins and pats her front pocket.

              “I drove off in his baby,” she says. “The boy told me to walk home. No, he wasn’t going to drive me. ‘I’m too sick, baby.’ No, he wasn’t about to let me borrow his car, even though

I passed my exam the first time—it took him four tries—and I’ve never gotten a ticket. He has
two
. No one drives his car except him and his daddy.”

              Serena shakes her head and trades the chicken for a carton of garlic veggies.

              “I saved some for you, too, mom,” Genny tells her. She pats the available space on the couch, between her and Serena. “Sit down. Eat. Grill and torture me.”

              Serena’s eyes flare. “I can’t believe you cut out of school like that,” she says. “And that Mr. Divine followed you.”

              Her mother’s eyebrow shoots up. “Mr. Divine?”

              Genny shrugs, hoping to convey a casualness she doesn’t feel. “New kid,” she explains.

              Serena scoots over to give Genny’s mom room, then leans into her space as she reveals, “Truman Lennox. He saved Genny’s life this morning.”

              “The kid who knocked you out of the way of that car?”

              “Tackled me is a better description.” And yet she doesn’t remember feeling the impact with the pavement, only the strength

of his arms around her and the hard wall of his chest under her. It wasn’t until later, when her palms and knees began to burn, that she knew she suffered an injury.

              “Genny,” her mother admonished, “I hope you were more graceful than that when you thanked him.”

              “She didn’t thank him,” Serena says, and laughter bubbles up her throat and into the air, like she’s spilling champagne.

              “I did, too,” Genny defends. “I thanked him later.”

She was too stunned to form the words right after the incident, and too annoyed when her brain started working again. But she’s honest enough with herself to admit that she wasn’t very grateful when she spoke the words. And it took her far too long to do it.

Her mother looks like she’s going to push the point further, but then changes her mind. “So what makes him so
divine
?”

Serena pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around her knees. “His hair. It’s this crazy shade of red-brown. And his eyes. Dreamy. Chocolate. And deep.
I
would like to get lost in them for a little while.”

She’s right about the eyes, Genny thinks. And the hair. But it’s more than that. It’s not even his shoulders, which go on forever, or his voice, which is smooth and warm and almost electric with his accent.

It’s his hands, really, Genny decides. The way he touches her, like he doesn’t want to hurt her. Not like she’s breakable, but like she’s valuable.

              “You-who?” Her mother waves a hand in front of Genny’s face. “Where did you go?”

              “Sorry,” Genny feels the heat rush to her face and tries to cover. “I guess the conversation bored me.”

              Serena snorts and taunts her, “The whole cafeteria watched him follow you. He left that group of girls like they were disposable. Just shrugged them off. And some of them were seniors.”

              “Impressive,” her mother murmurs. “But what about you and Hunter?”

              Genny feels the sadness at a cellular level, that’s how total it is. She lost a good friend today and she says as much to her mom.

              “It may not be permanent,” her mom tries to console her. “Look at me and your father. We’re friends.”

              Not really, Genny thinks. Her parents talk to each other, but only about Genny. They even make a point every year to sit down at the same table and eat a holiday dinner together, but again, Genny doesn’t think that would happen if she wasn’t there, too.

              “Hmmm,” Serena considers that. “I don’t know. If Victor and I broke up we couldn’t be friends. We were never friends to begin with.

              “Of course, he wouldn’t break up with me just because my mom wanted to meet his. My daddy wouldn’t let me out of the house our first date until Victor came to the door and asked if it was OK for him to take me to dinner. We didn’t have a second date until our parents talked on the phone.” She makes a face. “We’re pretty formal at my house.”

              “There’s nothing wrong with formal,” Genny’s mom says, and then she lets her eyes fall on Genny. “Hunter broke up with you because he doesn’t want me to meet his mother?”

              “Not really,” Genny says. “He broke up with me because it’s too soon for you to meet his mom. That was his excuse.”                            “That’s right. An excuse,” Serena agrees. “Remember that, Genny. If that boy really cared about you, like you were his one true
novia
, this parent thing would already be yesterday.”

              Genny’s mom nods, her blond hair falling from behind her ear and swinging in a perfect arc around her chin.

              “I have to agree with Serena. It shouldn’t upset Hunter so much. It’s not like his mom is Attila the Hun, right?” She spears Genny with her bright blue eyes.

              “She’s not like you,” Genny points out, gesturing with her hands toward her mom. “She’s not so put together.” Not as happy, either. “But there’s nothing wrong with her.”

              “Does she like you?”

              “I suppose so.”

              “It’s not Genny, Ms. Barnes. Hunter is lukewarm.” Serena places the veggies back on the table and abandons her fork. She raises her chin, purses her lips, and really digs into Genny, “Did he ever get your blood going? Make your heart beat so fast you were sure it was going to make a run for it?” Her words are more like accusations, full of the confidence of knowing, probably better than Genny, that passion wasn’t part of the equation for her and Hunter.

Genny doesn’t know how to confess the feeling of relief she has now that the romantic part of her relationship with Hunter is over. Kissing him was nice, but it never went beyond the surface. She never felt it deeper. And she spent a lot of time trying to convince herself that the fire Serena and a lot of girls at school spoke of was fairytale. 

              “I’ll miss him,” Genny says. She already does.

              “You’ll get over it,” Serena assures her.

              Her mom smoothes a hand over Genny’s hair and her eyes get all soft when they look into hers. “It’s true,” she says. “It may take a while, but it’ll get better every day.”  

              Genny nods.

              “And you’ve got Truman to help you.” Serena grins then reaches into her pocket for her cell phone. She scans the call list. “I had to turn it off,” she explains. “He was calling every minute and the ringing was distracting me from my driving.” She laughs, and Genny hears the devil in it. “Thirty-seven times.” The air whistles between her teeth. “Let’s listen to the last one. See if he’s come to his senses.”

              Genny’s mom laughs, but snags the carton of snapper in red chili sauce and stands up. “I’ll leave you two to your woes.”

She heads for the staircase but turns and smiles at Genny. “Come talk to me later,” she says, and Genny knows that she will, like she sometimes still does, curl up next to her mom in her big four-poster bed, watch an old movie with her, and talk if she feels like it.

              Genny sits back and listens to Victor’s voice, thin with remorse as he apologizes to Serena and asks after his car. At least he got the order right, girl first car second. She wonders if her mom is happy she and Hunter broke up. She won’t have to worry about Genny walking home after dark, and even though her mother doesn’t know enough to say it, Genny knows it’s true: A boyfriend would walk his girlfriend home.

              Opinions differ, but Genny thinks Sacramento Street is by far the best for free running. She’s not much of a daredevil and a span of more than eight or nine feet is too much for her to risk the fall. Here, apartment buildings are so close she doesn’t have to put full throttle into her leaps. So it’s more like a dance she thinks. Her parents wouldn’t agree, of course, and for a moment an image of their faces, creased with worry, appears in her mind. Genny quickly squashes it. Up here, it’s all about floating and nothing as heavy as a worry exists.

Up here, the world is too far away to touch her and her mind stops its tedious pecking at her emotions. No what ifs up here. No thoughts at all. It’s like the mist, so much thicker without the city walls to block it, wipes her clean and makes the next moment she breathes into something new and unblemished.

Genny needs that. Somehow, when she’s done and returns to “earth,” problems, which seem so sharp around the edges before her run, have lost their potential to damage. Up here, she gains perspective.

Hunter’s betrayal, the lunch time serenade, her awareness of Truman Lennox will lose their sting.

She clears the edge of the roof, suspended more than ninety feet above an alley on restaurant row where the back doors are open and light spills in rectangles across the pavement. Voices drift up to her, excited but the actual words too distant for comprehension. She lands evenly on her feet and slows her pace. This roof is smaller and the flat surface is covered with gravel. Easier to slip on. To lose her footing completely. And the building following it is a longer drop than she likes. Maybe nine or ten feet.

She toes the ledge, glancing down at the roof. She walks the perimeter of the building, then chooses the side with less risk, revs up and leaps.

              She miscalculated. Genny’s airborne longer than she planned and comes down hard on the sloped roof of the building. Her feet slip; her fingertips drag along the asphalt sheeting of the roof. Her heart lurches as she scrambles to get a grip, sliding, her ankles turning, the skin peeling off her fingers, and then she has it. A firm hold. She pauses, crouched and gasping for breath, her heart stampeding past her ears.