Leap of Faith

Day Thirty

“So, I’m gonna pick you up at seven thirty,” TJ announces from out of nowhere.

Everyone at the table stops whatever it is they’re doing and stares at TJ. He shrugs off their quizzical glances and continues to shovel even more fries into his mouth. Seriously, for an athlete, this boy eats a lot of unhealthy things. I gag as she chomps down on six fries in one bite and turn my face away from him.

“Is there a particular reason you’re picking me up at seven thirty tonight?” I ask. A sideways glance at TJ shows me his amused face and I instantly feel uneasy. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” he says defensively. He drops the next handful of fried onto his plate and smiles boyishly at me. “I’m gonna take you on a date.”

Again, everyone stops what they’re doing and stares. This time, when TJ stares them down, they don’t turn away. It would seem that our exchange is more riveting than a soap opera and they can’t get enough.

Even I turn to face TJ full on and shoot him a bemused smile. “A date?”

He nods. “Yep,” he pops the ‘p’. “So, will you be ready by seven thirty?”

“Sure,” I say with a shocked undertone to my voice. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there,” TJ winks at me. I must have looked a little panicked because TJ leans closer to me and takes my face between his greasy hands. I squirm and try to get out of his hold, but that just means that I’ve got even more grease over my face. I sigh and give up. “Firstly, you look disgusted and as if you want to kill me. Please don’t, at least not before our date. Secondly, don’t worry too much about tonight. It’ll be fun.”

Even though TJ told me not to worry, I did. I worried about the date for the rest of the afternoon, and on the drive home. Because it was TJ’s turn to take Noah to his weekly drum class, I drove myself to school this morning and it was weird being in the car on my own. I wasn’t so much of a driver, and I’d gotten used to being in the car with TJ, so the drive home was quiet and slightly unnerving.

I played a little punk for the journey home, and bobbed my head in time to Flogging Molly’s Drunken Lullabies album as I drove. No one could understand my love for Flogging Molly but what wasn’t to love about them? Punk music and Irish accents… two of my favorite things in the world.

I parked the car on the driveway and noticed that Mom’s car was home already. My mother was a bit of a work-a-holic and we rarely saw her before six pm, so whenever I came home and she was already here, I always panicked. Call me pessimistic, but it was little things like this that made me think of the worst.

I entered the house and threw the car keys into the bowl on the side dresser near the door. I had expected the house to be eerily quiet- I’d been working on the theory that someone had died- so when I walked further into the house and I heard loud voices, I had to wonder what was going on.

I walked through the kitchen into the family room and saw my mother, two sisters and TJ’s mom all sitting with their feet up as each woman flicked through bridal magazines and sharing ideas for the ceremony and reception. They were talking about floral displays and lost me as soon as they started throwing in names of flowers I didn’t recognize. Why couldn’t Libby just have roses like any other normal bride? What the hell were Tulbaghia and Gypsophilia and Lisianthus anyway?