The People in the Park (15 page)

As we made our way through the collage of people, Maybelle led me into the kitchen. I gasped. He smiled when he looked up from his plate.

Seated at the counter eating a plate of spaghetti was Patrick from the restaurant. He quickly jumped to his feet and held my hand. “It’s great to see you again.”

I nodded in agreement. Relief spread over me. At least it was somebody I knew, or at least had met.

Maybelle eyed us in a funny way. “Do you two already know each other?”

“We have met,” I said.

“Splendid!” she roared with approval.

“Do you want anything to eat?” Patrick asked.

“I’ll just have a soft drink,” I said.

Patrick retrieved two cans of soda from the refrigerator and led me over to the small kitchen table near the window. Everyone around us pretended to be engrossed in their various conversations, but from the corner of my eye I could see them glancing over at us.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Patrick said. “I wasn’t up to meeting a complete stranger. My grandmother kept telling me that her friend had a girl she wanted me to meet. How do you know Maybelle and Rose?”

“From the park,” I said. I went on to explain that I walked in the park every morning before school. He seemed impressed.

He told me that he had wanted to call after meeting me at the restaurant with my friends. But he figured that a girl like me wouldn’t be interested in someone like him.

I asked what he meant by saying someone like him. He said he wasn’t from this area and wasn’t from a family that had everything. He was just from a working-class family.

“The grass always seems greener when you’re on the outside looking in,” I said. “This past year I would’ve given anything to be from a working-class family.”

He looked at me questioningly. I explained that my father had been caught up in a scandal. He immediately knew what I was talking about, having seen the news reports, but not associating us as father and daughter.

“So, if you don’t want to be bothered with me because of that, I understand.”

“I’m not dating your father,” he said. Then he realized what he had said. “I mean I don’t want to date your father. I want to date you.”

“You don’t have to go out with me because of Maybelle and Rose and your grandmother. I was just being nice by coming to meet you. You don’t have to feel obligated or anything.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “I want to go out with you. I never called, but I never forgot you. Whenever I came over here to check on my grandmother, I always stopped by that restaurant to see if you were inside.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Lauren, it’s true. I’ve been looking for you.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He had actually searched for me.

As we talked we discovered that we had lots of things in common. We liked the same books. He was contemplating his future and what he wanted to do with his life. He didn’t want to play basketball in college even though he was on his high school team. He wanted to be a scientist. His father wanted him to be a stockbroker so he could make lots of money.

Patrick walked me to my car. He said he still had my telephone number from the first time we met. He opened my car door for me. I watched as he got into his car. Both of us drove away together but split when we reached the traffic light at the top of the hill. I turned left towards my neighborhood. And he turned right and entered the lane to go onto the freeway.

It had turned out to be a good day after all.

31

I didn’t answer his text messages.

Jay sent texts to me all the time, wanting us to get together to talk. His texts were too painful to read. He had broken my heart. There’s no other way to describe it. I can admit to myself what I’d avoided. His family thought I wasn’t good enough for their son.

In novels, I’d read about the hero and heroine riding off into the sunset together, leaving behind family and friends who didn’t approve of their relationship. But that was fiction. Family was important to me. It had always been Mom and Dad and me. Recently I was getting to know Tiffany, Aunt Ira, and Uncle Bob again.

Even though we were a small family, Mom and Dad had always stressed that we were a family and that we had each other’s backs. If I ran off into the sunset with Jay, the family bond that I had established with Mom and Dad would be irretrievably broken.

Mom and Dad were my anchors. Just as I wouldn’t expect Jay to go against his family’s wishes and take up with me again, I also wouldn’t forsake my family.

Life is hard. I thought my teen years were supposed to be easy. Life shouldn’t become complicated until college at least. I had started reading the Bible every night, hoping I’d find answers there. I also read the booklets I’d been given at Tiffany’s church.
Prayer—Conversation With God. A Faith Filled Life. Making All Things New. A Diary of Private Prayer. The Presence Of God. A Well-Regulated Life. Don’t Despair—God Is With You. Forgiveness—A Gift. Journey Inward—Journey Outward.
It was a lot to digest. But I was beginning to understand what it means to trust God and live by faith.

As I pulled Mom’s car into our driveway, Jay drove up behind me. My heart sank. Why did he keep coming around?

Jay jumped out of his car and met me at my car door. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” he said.

I shrugged.

“Didn’t you get my text messages?”

“I got them,” I said, not wanting to get into why I didn’t answer.

“Lauren, I need to apologize to you,” he said, looking contrite as he leaned against my car.

“Apology accepted.”

Perplexed and apparently caught off guard, he said, “Just like that?”

“I accept your apology. I’m learning how to forgive.”

“Then you’ll go to the prom with me?” he asked.

“No, but I do accept your apology.”

“Then why won’t you go to the prom with me?”

“Because you broke my heart.”

“But I’m trying to make it right.”

“Too late.”

“It can’t be too late for us,” he said. “I think about you all the time and how much fun we used to have with our friends.”

“Key word—‘used’ to have.”

“Don’t be like that, Lauren.”

“How do you expect me to be? Happy that you finally came to your senses and want to take me to the prom?”

He looked down at the pavement as if looking for answers in a break in the cobblestones. When he looked up tears were forming in the corner of his eyes.

“Look, I shouldn’t have blamed you for the actions of your father.”

“My father didn’t do anything.”

“I know that now,” he said. “But I didn’t know then. My Dad says it looks like your father is innocent. It’s too bad his name had to be dragged through the media.”

“Yes, too bad,” I said.

We stood there, saying nothing. After a while he said, “You’re not going to forgive me, are you?”

“I told you, I’ve already forgiven you. I’m just not going to the prom with you. Our relationship was built on fantasy.”

“I understand that you’re hurt,” he said. “But I want you to understand that I’m not going to give up on us. I want you to go to the prom with me. And I’m going to keep asking until you say yes.”

He pulled me close and kissed me. Despite my words and because of lingering feelings, I kissed him back. The warmth of his lips clouded my thinking.

With satisfaction on his face, as if he had proven a point, he jumped into his car and rolled down the window. “Our relationship was real, not a fantasy. It took all this for me to realize it. I care about you Lauren and always will.”

He drove away.

His actions were supposed to impress me. Not this time. He didn’t get it. If he really cared about me, he should’ve still been around regardless of what happened with Dad. Since it seemed like Dad didn’t do anything wrong, his family told him it was all right to go out with me again.

And I was supposed to be grateful and go back to believing nothing had changed. But something had changed.

I had changed.

But I did enjoy the kiss. Too much perhaps.

****

I rushed off to my last interview. She was a substitute teacher in my World History class. One day last week she had mentioned that the face of homelessness had changed, and she was the poster child. She said we should appreciate living in Fairfield. Most students snickered, not believing her. But I wondered if she were telling the truth. After class, I told her about my story and she agreed to be interviewed for it.

We met in the Ice Cream Shoppe in the Square. I ordered a chocolate shake while Miss McCloud ordered a banana split. She was in her early twenties with short curly blonde hair. I couldn’t imagine her being homeless. Then again, I couldn’t imagine a lot of things that had happened this year.

Miss McCloud took a bite of her banana split.

“I haven’t had one of these in a long time,” she said, savoring the taste in her mouth. “You learn to appreciate the simple things.”

“How did you become homeless?”

“I was a teacher in the Kansas City, Missouri public schools for a year. They had a big reorganization and closed half the schools in the district. Since I was a new teacher with no seniority, I lost my job. I got another job right away at an advertising agency as a copywriter. I worked there a year and a half. The agency lost two big clients, and I got laid off.

“My savings kept me in my apartment for six months. Meanwhile I put in application after application and got nowhere. When my savings ran out, the manager at the apartment complex where I lived said I had to go.

“I didn’t know where to turn, so I slept in my car for a week. I parked at a Wal-Mart that stayed open 24 hours, a different one each night. I parked in the far corners of the lots so nobody would see me.

“Then it got too cold to sleep in my car. Finally I called 2-1-1. It’s a service that helps people like me who are new to needing assistance. They put me in a shelter out here. I didn’t know there were shelters in places like Fairfield. It’s very nice and warm. I also forget I’m in a shelter.

“It took several days to warm my bones. I needed warmth more than I craved food. When I was good and warm, then I could address other issues, like finding a job. I’ve been working steadily as a substitute teacher at Fairfield Oaks for the past month.”

“Why did you tell us you were homeless? We would never have known.”

“I shared my story because I want students to know what it feels like to work and want to be independent and yet this happens. I want them to not be ashamed when they have adversity in their lives. At one point, everyone is going to have to face some kind of trouble.

“At the shelter they gave us
Daily Bread
booklets to read. One I read said that in life we will all have troubles, but God will deliver us out of them all. It has become a promise that I stand on. It is from the book of Psalms.”

A lone tear ran down her cheek. “I never thought I’d be homeless.”

“What are you going to do?”

“After school is out, I’m going back to Iowa and live on the farm with Mom and Dad until I get back on my feet. Dad owns the farm free and clear. It’s funny how life works. Every day I worked on the farm when I was growing up, before and after school. I dreamed of the day when I could move to the big city and get a real job. Now I’m glad I have our farm to go back to.”

She settled into finishing her banana split.

32

I looked forward to his calls.

Every night after all activities for the day had been done and after all homework had been finished, Patrick called me to chat about his day and about my day. He always wanted to know how I was doing. He understood that it must have been difficult for me to function in the days after the scandal with Dad’s law firm. He wanted to make sure I was coping well with everything. He assured me that this would pass and one day I would look back and laugh about it.

Although I appreciated the sentiment, I couldn’t quite see myself laughing about this period in my life. Even though it looked like things were going to work out for Dad and that charges against him were going to be dropped, laughing about the past few months hadn’t crossed my mind. Maybe it was too soon. When I’m old and gray and sitting in my rocking chair telling my grandkids about this time in my life, maybe then the laughter will come. But not now.

Patrick had been accepted into a program for aspiring scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this summer. He was looking forward to being in the Boston area. He was also hoping to get accepted into college at M.I.T., and this summer program would enable him to know if the school was truly for him.

I was impressed with Patrick’s plans for his future. I should’ve been planning for college too. I should’ve taken my SATs at least once. Instead, my mind was preoccupied with other things. This summer and next fall I’d be playing catch up on planning for college. I didn’t know where I wanted to go, even though Dad had assured me that I had a college fund, and I could go anywhere I wanted. He just assumed that I could get into any school. I wondered if one’s ability to pay had anything to do with getting accepted into a college.

I needed to start thinking about my future. What did I want out of life? I needed to get it together and plan for my future. I admired Patrick. He didn’t try to put me down or make me feel like I’d wasted valuable time by not doing more in my college search, like visiting schools. He told me that I had plenty of time and that I would end up at a college that was perfect for me.

After we’d been talking nightly for a couple of weeks, Patrick asked me to his prom! I accepted immediately. I was still too shy to invite him to my prom. This invitation meant that he wanted to be with me because of me. He valued me for me, if that makes any sense.

I needed to value myself, to think of myself as a valuable person. I needed to believe that I was somebody that someone wanted to hang out with. My self-esteem had fallen because of the situation with Jay and his family.