D/L Ch 13.
Still trying to work up to Lompoc. I mention a couple of movies that I think came out right before FATF did, but frankly, it's been a while and I'm just guesstimating.
It's been a while since I mentioned it but:
1) Don't own them; Don't sue!
2) Thanks for all the reviews, keep 'em coming and I'll keep the chapters coming. I know where I want to go with this- it's just taking a lot longer to get there than I had hoped. I'm verbose, what can I say?
It's hard to talk about the year I was 16 for a lot of reasons. In many ways it was the most perfect year of my life. Until recently it was also the worst, but the shit that's gone down recently proves that I was wrong about that. With any luck maybe the best is yet to come too. Somehow I doubt it. Today, when I close my eyes, I don't see two pairs of footprints side by side. I don't see one set strong and steady. When I close my eyes today my heart races and I want to cry because I don't see any footprints at all. I don't see anything.
The thing about 16 is that I didn't see it coming. I was blindsided by both the good and the bad. In the weeks leading up to my birthday Dom and I laid off the luvin. We knew full well that even combined, our will power was starting to wane. Dom was really sweet about it. We spent the next three Wednesdays at Barnes & Nobles of all places. We'd spend about an hour flipping thru the latest car mags and then another hour or so reading up on colleges, the S.A.T.s and all that. It sounds dorky, especially for grease monkeys like us, but somehow… it just clicked, you know?
On Valentines day, Mia and I made Dom pancakes. Mia got him a gift certificate for time at the track, and Tony got him a full set of Craftsman tools for the garage- both of which sent him over the moon. My gifts weren't as extravagant, but I put a lot of thought into them.
"I kind of wish I'd gone first now," I said, biting my lower lip as I pushed the small pile of simply wrapped gifts toward him as Tony and Mia watched.
Dom took the gifts with one hand and messed with my hair with the other in a brotherly fashion. "You let Mia do most of the cooking. That in and self was a precious gift."
"You only think I cooked. Actually Letty made the batter. All I did was pour and flip," Mia said mischievously.
"Really? These are actually pretty good Letty, I'm impressed," Tony said as he grabbed another stack of them.
"It's no big deal, but thanks," I say bashfully, watching Dom open his birthday card and find the subscription to his favorite magazine inside.
"Sweet, thanks Letty." Dom grinned as he moved on to the next package. "It's squishy," he said, scrunching it before he started to unwrap it. "Are these- no way. That's hilarious." Dom held up the set of surgical scrubs I got from the UCLA book store.
"Um, did I miss something?" Mia asked.
I saw Dominic hesitate and could tell he was reluctant to share the idea we'd been kicking around for the last few weeks. I squeezed his thigh under the table and jumped in to save him. "You know that song Scrub, by TLC? Who do you think they were talking about?" I tilt my head toward Dom and arch a brow.
"Keep that up and see if I teach you how to drive." Dom snorted, stealing the last pancake off the plate. "She doesn't have her license and I'm the scrub?! It's my birthday; you're supposed to be nice to me. "
"I can't help it, it's just so fucking easy," I tease sticking my tongue out at him. "Eouch! What was that for?" I ask Mia who had just slapped my hand with the spatula.
"No swearing at the table!" she scolded, shaking the spatula at me with disapproval.
"Stop it, both of you. Dom, lets see what else Letty got you," Tony said as he started to clear the table.
Dom started to rip the wrapping paper off the last item, which made me grab his hands and forcibly stop him. "Careful!" I yelped, wincing. "Just- careful, okay?"
Nodding, Dom gave me a meek and bashful smile. "Sorry. Got carried away." Gently undoing the tape, Dom pulled the present I had spent the most time and least money on. It was a charcoal portrait of the three of them hugging after Dom's graduation. Even though I hadn't had a camera that day, somehow the moment had been perfectly preserved in my mind's eye. The three of them had looked so… perfect, so happy. I'd felt privileged to be a part of their world. When I tried to reproduce that moment on paper, I'd struggled for hours to make sure I got everything right.
Dom stared down at the thick white paper, not making a sound. I watched as his eyes scanned the page over and again. He didn't move or respond in any way when first Mia, then Tony asked what I'd given him. Even the sound of their chairs scraping as they got up and walked behind him to see what it was that had captured his attention didn't break his concentration.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and began chewing on my left thumb nervously. An easy minute and a half had passed since Dom had first set eyes on the picture and he hadn't said a word yet. The tension was beginning to get to me. If he wasn't going to say anything then I would.
"What do you think?" I tried not to let my raw vulnerability parade itself in my voice, but I felt more naked and exposed than I have ever felt in Dom's presence.
"You did this?" Dom asked, his eyes not leaving the page.
"Yeah. If you don't like it I can-"
"No! I like it, I like it." Dom's head jerked up and he stared at me as if he was seeing me, I mean really, really seeing me, for the first time. "It's amazing. How- did you take a picture or something?"
I shook my head slowly. "I just tried to draw what I remembered. I had some free time at the store so I sketched it out till I knew exactly how I wanted it to look before I tried it in charcoal."
"Wait, you haven't worked at the store since November. You've been working on this since November?" Mia cocked her head and looked at me as she leaned over Dom's shoulder to get a better look.
"Uh, actually on and off since um, I don't know, maybe July? I didn't know that I was going to be for Dom at first. I thought maybe you'd like it Uncle Tony, but there's no way I could have finished by October. I didn't get it done till a couple of weeks ago. I took a month off too, when my dad… I like charcoal, but it can be a bitch to work with. I didn't have the patience." I fidgeted in my chair, uncomfortable with being the center of their collective attention.
"Hey," Dom said, reaching out and touching my hand. "I love it. It's amazing. Thank you." He put his hand under my chin and pulled me toward him. He leaned forward and gave me a kiss on my lips. It wasn't anything sexy, no tongue or anything, but it was a little too long and a little too sensual to be platonic.
When he broke the kiss I realized that my eyes had closed and that I was still leaning forward in my chair. Blushing, I leaned back and pulled my knees up again. "You're welcome," I said softly. "I'm glad you like it."
"It really is amazing Letty," Mia said as she cleared the dishes. "Don't you think so Daddy?"
"It's great. I'm really impressed Letty," Tony said as he helped Mia clear the dishes. "In fact, I think between you and Mia, the two of you have already outdone yourselves gift-wise. Why don't the three of you take the day off and go watch a movie together huh? My treat. I'll do the dishes."
"But I thought you needed us at the garage today?" I ask, surprised.
"It's nothing the boys and I can't handle." Tony dries his hands on a dish cloth before giving me a shoulder rub. "You kids work too hard. Take the day off, I mean it. You'll be out in the real world before you know it, and believe me, it's over rated. Besides, don't you three usually celebrate birthdays with a movie?"
"Ohh! We can see Love and Basketball!" Mia exclaims, grabbing the paper so she can check for show times and locations.
"Oh hell no! I want to see something that has cars exploding in it, or nuclear war heads. Something with a little testosterone. It's my birthday, I get to choose the movie!" Dom yelled over his shoulder at Mia as he carried he ran upstairs to put away some of his gifts.
Mia's and Dom's excitement was contagious. I can't help but grin at Tony and nod my head in time with the music on the radio. "Thanks T."
"No prob 'L'," Tony laughs, nudging my shoulder. "Course don't get used to all this special treatment. I don't want to hear that you took the day off from school on your birthday. It's one thing not to go into work on a Saturday, but school is another story all together."
"Don't worry, I know. Mama would tan me something good if I cut school. It's still surreal that of the three of us, I'm the one at private school," I tell him as I help clear the last of the dishes and put the syrup in the fridge.
"You know she's making all A's Pops?" Dom bragged, walking back into the kitchen and throwing away the used wrapping paper.
"I heard. Your grandmother was bragging about it at the store the other day," Tony said over his shoulder.
"Mmm, I can't take full credit for it. Jesse's been helping me with the science aspect of my integrated class and Mia helped me with my paper for that class too. Those other classes, they're just fun." I sit down next to Mia at the table and shrug. "It's no big deal."
"It is a big deal," Dom argues, sitting on my other side. "It's not easy to get straight A's. You should be proud of yourself."
"I'm not even getting straight A's this quarter," Mia interjected. "At this rate you're going to be the first one of us to go to college Letty."
Rolling my eyes, I broke a grape off of the bunch sitting in the middle of the table and threw it at Mia's head. "Quit playing Mi, you know you're the one who's going to go first. You better go since I had to ring groceries for a semester so you could run around in short shorts Ms. All-State."
"If you'd get your head out from under a car long enough to compete, you do realize you'd be All-State too." Mia caught the grape and threw it back at me. "Dom told me how far and fast you run each morning. He said you made it to the beach in an hour once last fall. That's almost 12 miles! You'd have to run under a 6 minute mile the whole way."
"It's just under 12 miles from my house and it took me over an hour. But it's nice to see that Dom has a big freaking mouth," I complain, grabbing another grape and beaming him with it.
"Don't shoot the messenger!" Dom yelps, throwing his hands in the air in 'fear.'
"Come to think about it, I haven't kicked your ass for the last time you opened your mouth when you weren't supposed to," I chide, shaking my finger at him.
"When?! What did I say?" Dom looks at me, genuinely confused.
"You told my mom about the scholarship after I specifically told you not to!" I cross my arms and drum my fingers on my left arm.
"Hold up, that worked out for the best. Weren't we just talking about how you turned into this over-achiever because of it?" Dom leans back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. He's relaxed now that he thinks I'm joking.
"Come on Let, that was like, three months ago," Mia argues in defense of Dom. "You gotta cut him some slack. The statute of limitations on that one might have expired already."
"Egh. Wrong. I told him he was going to get it later. He's just lucky I found out he cracked at my father's funeral. Couldn't go and kill him at a funeral, could I?" I launch two more grapes, one at each of them.
"She's right you know," Tony laughs. "Dom, I think you should let Letty choose the movie today since your big mouth made it so she couldn't choose what school she went to."
I could tell Dom was worried he'd end up seeing a chick flick today, because he tried to weasel out of Tony's pronouncement. "But Pop, it's not like I didn't suffer too when she got transferred! I'm the one who has to drive her punk ass to school and back every morning!"
"I'm not stupid boy. Everyone in this room knows you'd drive Letty to school in San Francisco and back every day if she asked you to," Tony said dryly, acknowledging, to some extent at least, what Dom and I had for the first time since he walked in on us almost 10 months ago.
Dom turned first white, then red, then purple and spent a good twenty seconds sputtering before Mia and I just looked at each other and cracked up laughing.
"You're so busted Dom!" Mia laughs.
"I just don't want her to miss this opportunity," Dom sniffed, choosing not to admit that he was whipped. He was so cute when he let that Torretto pride make him act all brisk when he was really just a softy.
"Well I'm not going to miss this opportunity to choose the movie," I tease, pulling the paper out of Mia's hand and searching the listings. "How about Blade?"
"That Steven Dorff is hot, I'm down for that one," Mia nodded her approval.
Taking another grape, this time to eat, I tease Mia. "You like them white boys, don't you?"
"Like Dom is so tan!" Mia teases right back.
When I start to turn red, it's Dom's turn to laugh at me. "Who's busted now shorty?"