Chapter Two: Actually a Girl
I called out experimentally when I got home, but no one was there. Lissie, at six, had just begun full time school, Tara, seventeen, had cheerleading practice (she was the captain. Of course.) and Charlie, who was eight, spent a lot of time hanging out with his friends and being cool.
The only mystery was that Mom wasn't home. She was, generally, when the four of us got home.
I double-checked all the rooms, making sure she wasn't really there, before going to my own room. I'd dressed terribly that morning-the spring weather of Tree Hill could be unpredictable, and the jeans I was wearing were too heavy. With slight trepidation, I stripped down to a red camisole and a pair of fairly slim fitting sweatpants. I let my hair down, brushed it out and ran outside with a basketball.
I made a basket on the driveway court, caught the rebound and made another. My heart rate began to speed up as I ran around the court, making shot after shot.
It was odd, that I had this gene. My father and my grandfather had been pro players, as well as my great uncle. My great-grandfather would have been, had he not impregnated two women.
I turned around sharply when the ball didn't land on the pavement. Tara, Aidan (who was one of her best friends and our grandmother's best friend's son) Gavin (our first cousin) and Will Hunter, the captain of the varsity basketball team.
I grinned and threw myself first at Aidan, who opened his arms to me.
"Hey Aidan," I said fondly.
"Hey beautiful, how're you doing?" he asked.
"I'm good. Hey Gav, what's up?" I asked. We slapped hands. He was technically our cousin, but him and his parents, Tess and John, and his younger brother, Zachary, had spent a lot of their time traveling around. We hadn't exactly grown up together like we had with Aidan.
"Hey Tara," I said eventually. She nodded. I noticed she was still wearing her midriff bearing cheerleading uniform.
"Hey Jo," she said briefly. I forced myself to turn my attentions to Will, who was looking in surprise at what I was wearing.
"What?" I asked suspiciously.
"Nothing. I guess this just proves that you are in fact a girl," he said. I scowled at him.
"I guess now we just have to prove that you are in fact a male," I shot back, throwing the basketball at him. Surprised, he let it drop to the floor. The four of us laughed at his expense for a moment before he collected himself, grabbed the ball and made a perfect three pointer.
"Not bad, Hunter," I conceded.
"Fine, whatever. Let's go inside," said Tara impatiently, moving toward the house. Aidan paused for a second before waving them off and staying with me.
"Where are Lissie and Charlie?" he asked, once they'd disappeared into the house.
"I actually have no idea. Wait a sec," I said, reaching down to pull out my cell phone when it rang.
"Joey?" she said experimentally. I cringed. Only my family called me Jo, Joey or Danni. They thought it was adorable. I got Jordan from everyone else, or even occasionally JS.
"Hey Mom," I said, trying to keep the resignation out of my voice.
"I'm with Lissie and Charlie. We were just at Daddy's office. Is Tara home?" she asked.
"Yeah, she brought home Aidan, Gav and Hunter. They might be planning to stay for dinner," I said.
"Okay, thanks. And your Dad?" she asked.
"Uh, don't know where he is. Wait, he just got home," I said, as Daddy's car pulled up.
"Great, tell him I'll be home in a half hour. Bye sweetie," she said, hanging up hurriedly.
Aidan and I both looked as Daddy climbed out of his car. Because I knew he'd want me to, I tossed him the basketball and he made an easy basket.
"Hey guys. Where's Tara?" he asked suspiciously.
"Oh, in her bedroom with two huge, muscular basketball players," I said sweetly.
"She can hold her own, I guess. And your Mom?"
"In half an hour, with Lis and Lee. They went to grandpa's office to get checkups, I think," I explained.
"That's cool. Lissie needed her booster shot. So how was school?" he asked.
"Like it always is," I said, concentrating more on getting the ball through the hoop.
"Okay. Aidan, you staying for dinner?" asked Daddy, turning to him.
"If you don't mind," he said.
"Great. Let's go inside," suggested Daddy.
The three of us went inside the house, talking easily. Aidan, who'd been born about three months after Tara, was comfortable in our house as he was in his own.
"Heard from Kylie lately?" asked Daddy as he set a pot on the stove to boil, and looked into the fridge for inspiration.
"Not really. She emailed about a week ago. Mom's really worried about her," said Aidan. Daddy threw back his head and laughed.
"As far as I've heard, teenage Brooke Davis was she exactly. She'll be fine," said Daddy.
"So I've been told. You guys going to the Scottfest?" asked Aidan sarcastically. In a week we'd celebrate my grandmother's birthday and have a monumental reunion. Mom's parents, Peyton, Jake, Daddy's parents Nathan Haley. Mom's sister's Jenny and Lauren, Lauren's kid's, Michael (who was four years younger than me, eleven) Isabel (who was nine). Lucy, who was kind of my Aunt, Tess, who was really my Aunt, her other son Zachary, who was nine, like Isabel and Charlie. Karen who was my great-great Aunt, but really like my grandmother, her husband Keith, my great uncle Lucas, who'd once been a basketball player. They weren't all Scotts, but they were all related to Scotts.
"Of course. It'll be fun, Aidy," I pressed.
"I'm not even related," he said.
"Sure you are. Brooke was Aunt Peyton's best friend, back in the day. You're close enough," I assured him.
I glanced backwards as heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs, and Will Hunter appeared.
"Tara and Gavin are alone up there?" asked Daddy sharply.
"They're cousins, Daddy," I said. He glanced at me for a moment, and I instantly regretted it. Gavin and Tara weren't cousins, not officially. It was a rarely mentioned fact that Mom had been violated by a "friend" of hers, resulting in Tara.
Aidan squeezed my hand in comfort while we fell silent and I dropped my head.
Will arrived in the kitchen at the same time that Mom bounced through the door, accompanied by Charlie and Lissie.
"What, you didn't trust me to cook?" teased Daddy when she dropped four large pizzas on the counter.
"For three teenage boys? God no. Hey you," she said.
"Hey Squirt," he replied, wrapping his arms around her waist, still slim even after her four kids.
"Danni!" called Lissie joyfully, springing into my arms. I caught her with a hoarse grunt, amazed at how big she'd grown.
"Hey Liss. Good day?" I asked, as she clung sweetly to me.
"Yup. Very good day. The teacher started reading Charlotte's Web and we drew pictures," she replied.
"You too Charlie?" I asked. He shrugged.
"It was okay," he said, with an air of superiority.
Tara and Gavin arrived downstairs together as Lissie and I began to set the large dining room table.
The rest of them trooped in quickly. Mom and Dad sat at opposing heads of the table. I caught Lissie's hand, because the two of us usually sat beside each other but she gravitated toward Will Hunter, who she was smitten with, and sat by him instead. It bothered me, that she was a child and so naïve and couldn't detect what an asshole he was.
I ended up sitting across from Tara, beside Aidan and Charlie. Normally there were more girls than guys, but that night the three teenagers outweighed us.
I cleaned up with kitchen with Aidan, Gavin and Will while Tara perched on the counter and read a magazine, Charlie disappeared into the den and Lissie was carted off to bed.
We finished the job quickly, and I prepared to go upstairs.
"We're meeting tomorrow, right? Downtown?" asked Aidan. I nodded my assent.
"Wait, you guys have a date?" asked Will. I could feel the smirk in his voice before I whipped my face around to scowl at him, my golden brown hair flying.
"We're friends. Just like you and Tara," I said snidely. She looked up and laughed.
"Please. Like I'd ever go out with a guy with that small of a…"
"Small of a what, darling?" asked Mom, coming up behind her.
"Trust fund, right?" I supplied. She scowled at me, but saw no other escape.
"Right, of course. Goodnight Mom!" she said brightly. Mom rolled her eyes, laughed and went up the front stairs.
I said goodbye to them all and legged up the back stairs. I paused before I got to my room when I heard Daddy reading aloud to Lissie-
"His castle (castle Tom) was set
Conveniently on a hill;
And daily, when it wasn't wet,
He paced the battlements until
Some smaller knight who couldn't swim
Should reach the moat and challenge him."
I sunk to the floor outside her bedroom and drifted back to the days it had been me, lying in bed, listening to Daddy reading his arm around Mom, chiming in occasionally to finish a line. Back in the day at the beach house, when they'd had so much more time and two instead of four.
He continued:
"One day when good Sir Thomas Tom
Was resting in a handy ditch,
The noises he was hiding from,
Through very much the noises which
He'd always hidden from before,
Seemed somehow less… Or was it more?"
I mouthed the final words to the familiar ditty. Inside the room, I heard Lissie giggle. She'd been born after my ninth birthday, but we'd always had a bond. She went to me before Tara or even Mom sometimes when she fell and hurt herself, or had an upsetting day.
I ran down the rest of the hall to reach my own bedroom.
I turned on my computer and did my homework for an hour, until a knock sounded on the door.
"Come in!" I called.
Mom entered, closing the door behind her. She smiled before going to my bed and flopping onto it.
"You okay? Your Dad said you were quiet all evening," she said.
"I'm good. Um, the whole Tara parentage issue came up and it was kind of weird," I said, looking away from her.
"Joey, that was almost twenty years ago, it doesn't have to be a sensitive issue any more. Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. Mom swung her white blonde hair over her shoulder and I noticed again how young and beautiful she still looked.
"Did you ever see him again?"
"Not really. A couple times over the rest of the year, then he went away for school. He doesn't even know Tara exists, and I don't really consider him her father," said Mom.
"You shouldn't. You know it hate it when you call me those things," I said.
"My family did, and still do, call me Squirt. I think it's worse," she said.
"Maybe. Maybe. It's cute when Lissie calls me Danni, but…"
"Newsflash, it's because it's cute when Lissie says anything," interrupted Mom.
"True that. Nathan was quite surprised that I didn't sign up for cheerleading," I mused.
"That's my fault. Jenny, Lauren and I were all cheerleaders. It's kind of expected of you. Sorry," she said.
"Sure. I kind of want to start a girl's basketball team. See there's an all state league, like for the boys, Tree Hill has just never participated," I said.
"Yeah, sometimes we can be pretty backward. I'm sure you could do it if you wanted to. You know a lot of people," she said.
"Yeah. And if I can get Tara behind-a big if-a Scott sponsored operation would sell better," I said.
"Go for it. You could kick their asses and we could get two titles this year," she said.
"Yeah. Um, I'm going to bed," I announced.
"Oh, you want me to leave that badly?" she asked.
"Of course not. Good night Mommy," I said. She smiled and came over to kiss my cheek. She was significantly shorter than me.
I heard her greet Daddy in the hall, and then heard them progress toward their room.
Tara was in the bathroom, the door open, when I went there to brush my teeth. She looked sideways at me and almost smiled. The bathroom was ours and ours alone, but occupied it much more than I ever would.
"Hey," I said softly.
"Hey."
"You know Daddy was really worried about you and Gavin up there all alone," I teased, leaning against the doorway.
"Me and Gavin? Please. And he wasn't worried about you and Aidan?"
"Just friends. Come on, he's like your best friend too. He's far too much like a relative," I said, smiling.
"Can you believe that Mom and Daddy were married at our age?" she asked, rolling her eyes.
"No. And like, all our grandparents. But a lot of those happened due to pregnancies," I said.
"Yeah, some of them. But it's not likely to happen to you," she comforted.
"Because some of us are still virgins at fifteen," I said. the moment I spoke, I regretted it. She scoffed impatiently and stalked out, leaving the bathroom empty.
Oddly enough, I didn't feel terribly victorious.