The Life And Times Of Rachel Grape

Dr. Wilson Was Right

     Dr. Wilson was a doctor who went to the church Rachel went to.   Her always asked Rachel how she was doing.   That small church in Motley cared more about them than that church in Endora.   

    "Are you looking forward to college?"  He asked Rachel one morning in the basement at church.    It was an old, moldy basement.   

"I am scared.   I hear it's supposed to be really hard."

"It's just like high school, but the professors aren't on you like they are in high school."   She smiled.   "You will do fine.  You're smart and disciplined."  

"Thank you."

    Her classes were easy and after each class, she went home and did her homework.   Her roommate did not.   She got her nails done, she was at the Gee Bee house where she knew she was a "shoo in".   Rachel tried to be nice to her, asking if she missed her parents.  "Do I miss those drunk, vain self absorbed people?   You must be joking."   She wasn't.   She missed her parents.    They loved her.   They took care of her.   Westin didn't miss his mom.   "She's on the pills, you know."   He talked about how she was crazy, was mean to women of the congregation.   My mom is mentally ill," he said.  It made her appreciate her mom.   Her mom was stable.   She had a good dad.   Her mom had a rocky twenties, but her mom told her that her sorority sisters kept setting her up with ugly men and weird men and she felt she had to prove herself as a woman.   That was why she did it.   

     "I am going to rush a sorority," Arianna told Rachel, "And then you can have this whole place to yourself."

"Okay," she told her. 

"Think I was going to stick around these gross dorms, you are a special kind of stupid."   

Rachel just looks at her.   I guess she had been trashing her at the Gee Bee house saying she was "a hick" and "stupid".  Sisters were noticing and she would be pledged, because Ellie pleaded with them to take there, but her staying was never part of the plan.  

    It was a Sunday.   Arnie was a little "talky" in church, but they got through the service.   Pastor McKenna had a knack for that.   They always sat in the back in case Gilbert had to take Arnie "outside".   Gilbert did take him out but they came back in.    As they were leaving, Dr. Wilson asked how school was for Rachel.

     "How is she doing at school?"

"I guess very well,   Began her classes this week and loves them."

"Good.   She's making us all proud."

    She was doing well.   She had a boyfriend and they went to church, which was weird on campus, but it felt nice.  They walked around campus and held hands, and what was all she really wanted.   He would tell her how pretty she was and that he could not wait to take her home to his family.   Rachel will look vaguely familiar to his mother.   Her mother would know off the bat and would give Westin the benefit of the doubt.  They were falling in love and right now, he was the only reason she was staying at school.   She was tired of her roomate calling her "the hick".   

     When they were forming in their mothers' uteruses, Michelle was promised a bill of goods.   For six years she had it, on the backs of old people of Endora.   Endora.   Endora made her husband steal.   When he got arrested, she wished Endora never existed.    She stayed because she was thirty five and it was cheaper to keep her...