Читать книгу Not Quite A Mom - Kirsten Sawyer - Страница 9

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A few hours earlier, fifteen-year-old Tiffany Dearbourne had been pedaling her old purple bicycle as fast as it would go toward home. She’d been at her friend Laci’s house and hadn’t realized the time…her mother would be home any minute. Normally it wasn’t a big deal for Tiffany to get home after her mom, but right now she was grounded and shouldn’t have been out at all. After spending most of the weekend cooped up inside the stuffy house, Tiffany decided that if her mother couldn’t bother to stay in town and uphold the punishment that she didn’t need to obey it.

It really was a stupid punishment anyway. Tiffany had returned home twenty-seven minutes past curfew the weekend before. Her mother, Charla, had gone down the warpath and had grounded Tiffany for the next three weeks. Obviously an overzealous punishment, but since her mother had gotten pregnant her senior year of high school, she was convinced Tiffany’s fate would be the same.

The ridiculous thing was that while Tiffany had been with a boy—her boyfriend of four months, Red Richley—she was not going to make the same mistakes her mother had. Instead, she was determined to follow in the footsteps of her Aunt Lizzie and get the hell out of Victory. Lizzie wasn’t actually Tiffany’s aunt, but rather her mother’s best friend in the whole world. Tiffany hadn’t seen Lizzie since she was a little baby because Lizzie had hit the road and attended college in Los Angeles, where she was now a successful career woman.

Sure, Tiffany had been at the lake (dried-up lake bed) with Red in his father’s green Chevy, but she never had and never would let him move below her waistband. Unfortunately, Charla didn’t believe Tiffany’s pleas of innocence. Tiffany didn’t let the punishment get her too far down, though. She just kept counting the days until her high school graduation, when she could make her own exit from Victory. Until Sunday afternoon, that is, when the boredom had gotten to her and she’d ridden her bike the three and a half blocks to Laci’s house.

The girls had just watched MTV and drunk Cokes—in actuality, all things Tiffany could have done from her own house. It was just more fun to do them with Laci. As her legs shook from the power required to move the old bike at the speed Tiffany needed to get home, hopefully unscathed, she seriously doubted how worth it the afternoon with Laci had been.

As she rounded the final corner and was only a few houses from her own, Tiffany sighed with relief that her stepfather’s pickup wasn’t in the driveway. The relief lasted only a few seconds before she realized that a black-and-white police car was there instead. She was done for now…her own mother had called the police because she’d broken a punishment that was stupid to begin with?!?

With each pump of her legs on the rickety old pedals, Tiffany prayed that the cops were there for some other purpose and that she would get away with her outing. As she curved into the driveway, one of them called out to her.

“You Charla Tatham’s kid?”

He was a stereotypical Victory cop, bursting out of his uniform because of too many hours spent eating Dunkin’ Donuts and not enough chasing criminals. In fairness, there weren’t a whole lot of criminals to chase in their town. He looked older, probably close to retirement, with graying hair and wrinkled eyes. He mopped at his sweaty brow with a dingy handkerchief. The other cop looked like he was probably a rookie. His uniform was starched to perfection and he kept looking to the other for approval.

“Uh, yes, sir,” Tiffany replied, in her best ass-kissing voice, which was quite shaky at the moment. In her head she was saying, “Oh crap.”

The older officer looked at his partner and nodded, then back at Tiffany, who was leaning the rusted bike against the side of the house.

“We’ve got to talk to you. Can we go inside?” the young officer asked.

Tiffany’s fear had morphed into outrage that her mother would treat her like this. She felt so stupid and childlike…and the fact that the policemen were being so nice to her only reinforced her belief that they felt sorry for her that her mother was such a lunatic as to call the police over because her grounded teenage daughter had ventured out from under their roof.

“Sure,” Tiffany replied, red-faced from both the heart-pumping ride home and embarrassment.

Tiffany untied her key from the drawstring waist of the pajama pants she hadn’t bothered to change out of to go to Laci’s and stuck it in the front door. She quickly opened it and walked in, followed by the officers.

“Look, I know what this is,” Tiffany said, staring at them defiantly.

Again the officers looked at each other. The fat one pulled uncomfortably at his shirt collar—the house was stuffy.

“This is about your mother,” the young officer said.

“Just let me have it,” Tiffany said, deciding to roll over and take what she had coming…she had broken her punishment, even if it had been stupid to begin with.

“We’re sorry to have to tell you that your mother and stepfather were involved in an automobile accident this afternoon. They were both killed.”

The words hit Tiffany so hard she actually had to look down to be certain that the officer hadn’t drawn his weapon and shot her in the stomach. How could this be true? Thirty seconds earlier, she had been cursing her mother’s insanity, hoping that the police were at her house for some other reason than to bust her, and now all she wanted was to hear Charla screaming at her for sneaking out.

“I snuck out—I’m grounded,” she said to the officers. She’d meant to speak it, but it came out in a whisper that made her throat ache as her eyes filled with tears.

“That’s all right, dear,” the fat officer said and came toward her with his arm out.

She knew this was a kind gesture, but his fat white arm, shiny with sweat, and the smell of his body odor made her turn away. He didn’t seem to take it as a personal offense, and simply patted her back instead.

“We’re going to need to take you with us,” the young officer informed her. This was the first time he’d had to deliver bad news in the line of duty, and he was finding it more difficult than he had expected.

“Where?” Tiffany asked, desperately wanting to stay in the house she’d been itching to escape from earlier that day.

“Your mother had a will drawn up by Larry S. Platner. He has your guardian information.”

Normally, Tiffany was a feisty teenager. This weekend wasn’t the first time she had been grounded, and the offenses ranged from her messy room to her “smart” mouth. Normally, she would have put up a fight that included four-letter words and door slamming. Right now, she didn’t have it in her. She just nodded her head and followed the two strangers out of her home. She then climbed into the backseat of their cruiser, where criminals sat, and stared out the window as they backed out of her driveway. As they drove down her street, Edison Way, she saw neighbors coming to their front windows to look out. It was uncommon to see a police car in their neighborhood, but she was sure that more than one of them wasn’t surprised to see her in the back of it. If only they knew…

Not Quite A Mom

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