RE: Trailer Trash 64 pt 1

/// Slightly longer section today, sorry. Just excited to be back writing this story again!

    “Well—how do you feel?!” Mrs. Macintire asked as the Acura pulled away from the parking lot and left Springton General Hospital behind. “Excited?”

    “Unbothered!” Tabitha answered with a sigh of contentment. “Moisturized. Happy. In my lane. Focused. Flourishing.”

    “Oh, all that, huh?” Mrs. Macintire said with a chuckle. “Sounds good, sounds good. And, your hand’s doin’ okay? You’re holding it all weird.”

    “It’s okay,” Tabitha reported. “Just need to get used to things again.”

    She glanced down at where she was cradling that arm tucked in up against herself. With her slightly thin and pale wrist held still just beneath her chin, it gave her the posture of someone who was taken aback—it looked like she was caught in a surprised gasp or clutching at their pearls. Although that wasn’t the case, Tabitha still felt weirdly protective of the hand now that it didn’t have the rigid shell of a cast protecting it from the cruel savagery of the late nineties world.

    “Hm, if you say so!” Sandra quirked her lip. “So. McDonald’s? As your treat for being so good through your hospital visits? It’s just gettin’ around to lunchtime at school, I’d bet, and that’s usually what we do. I remember Hannah just loved showing up with a Happy Meal box when she came back to school from a half-day. Make all the other little girls green with envy.”

    “Hah, no that’s okay, really,” Tabitha shook her head. “I’m not Hannah! I was never too into McDonalds, and I don’t really have lunch. I just—”

    “Ohhh, I see,” Mrs. Macintire gave her a knowing smile. “Yeah, that makes sense. That Bobby boy will still be at school this time, so obviously—”

    “—I just, well yes, actually, I do want to see him, but not even just him!” Tabitha groaned in exasperation. “I want to try to catch all of my friends before school’s out for the weekend. I think I’m hoping we can have a get-together Saturday or Sunday, and I don’t have everyone’s number.”

    “Ooh, go on,” Mrs. Macintire prompted.

    “Bobby wanted, well,” Tabitha laughed. “He wanted to watch that movie he gave me for my birthday with me. Buuuttt, I told him I’m not sure I’m ready to have uhhh, like one on one alone time with him just yet watching a movie or have it be like ‘a date.’ But, I am comfortable watching the movie together with a bunch of friends, and sitting next to him and holding hands maybe or whatever for that seems fine.”

    “OooOOOoooh!” Mrs. Macintire crooned in excitement. “Holdin’ hands?! My goodness!?!”

    “Har har, yes, it’s very funny,” Tabitha rolled her eyes in perfect teenage exasperation. “I mean, just. That’s where my comfort zone is, and I was clear with him on my boundaries with all of that. Need to be super clear with all of that, because, because. I’m weird I guess, I dunno, and I don’t want him to be—to be disappointed, or frustrated, or, well, okay I know he’s going to be frustrated, but at least this way I figure I’ll be giving him uhh. Ample warning? More of a heads up? That I’m not like a normal girl, and that I’m gonna need a bit of extra time with some things. To get used to some things.”

    “Okay?” Mrs. Macintire gave her a quizzical look, trying not to let her big smile falter. “Tabitha honey, that’s perfectly reasonable? I don’t know why you’d think that’s so weird or unusual?”

    “I just. I’m trying to map this out for myself?!” Tabitha gave the woman a mighty shrug. “Because. If I don’t um, don’t plan things through or actually make an effort to make sure things start to happen, then I know with one hundred percent certainty that nothing will ever, ever happen. And that I’ll grow old without ever making meaningful connections, just confused at where all the years even went, and baffled as to why all my dreams never just randomly came true out of the blue like they were supposed to from books and TV. I’ll wind up miserable and alone and full of regret.”

    “Oh, stop,” Mrs. Macintire scoffed. “So dramatic. That’s not what would happen! If you even think—”

    “It really is. I don’t think, I know,” Tabitha said with grim certainty. “So. I’m going to deal with it. Moderately, I mean—in moderation. I’m not going to be jumping into boy’s beds. Just, I figure. Holding hands and hugging’s okay at fourteen? First kiss is acceptable at sixteen. They don’t need to be like, wild make out kisses with all the crazy tongue stuff, that’s… that’s a bridge too far. For that age. Anything else, anything at all, eighteen will be the bare minimum for anything else to happen. Consenting adults, mature and more… I don’t know? Hopefully grown up enough that the thought of it won’t send me into th-this, this lunatic panic spiral of, of identity issues and anxiety and, and—”

    “Whoa whoa whoa, okay calm down a bit,” Mrs. Macintire said. “Do we need to have a talk? Tabitha? Seriously. You’re okay, everything’s fine and there’s nothing you would ever need to panic about! Alright? And, if there was, or if there is—then if there’s any kind of problem, I need you to talk to me about that, so that I can help you. Tabitha.”

    “I—I do appreciate that,” Tabitha groaned. “It’s just. I can’t talk about it. It’s all in my head right now, anyways. It doesn’t even make sense.”

    “At your age, everything’s supposed to feel like that,” Mrs. Macintire assured her. “Just—if anything’s happened or happening or if there’s any problems, I do need to know what’s going on as soon as possible! If, if anyone’s ever touched you inappropriately, or—”

    “No, no,” Tabitha shook her head. “Nothing has happened like that, I promise. It’s—it’s mostly body issues. I used to be fat, and all. Tubby Tabby. Insecurities! I have some other uh, mental hangups about dating or relationships that are partly to do with that, and partly to do with some other stuff that I’m not comfortable talking about. But it’s not like, anything bad being done, or someone’s abusing me or something. I promise. I swear.”

    “Okay,” Mrs. Macintire said. “And, again. You’re a teenage girl, so any kind of body issues, or worrying about your image, or having some anxiety over that is completely normal. If you ever want to talk about—”

    “I’m alright!” Tabitha assured her, blushing furiously. “No need, no need. No need. But uh, thank you? I think—I think I’m just gonna stick to my plan. Take it slow, do things in baby steps. Holding hands at fourteen and getting used to that. Kissing at sixteen, and that gives me a couple years getting used to, ah, to that level of intimacy without like. Freaking out. You know?”

    “If you say so,” Mrs. Macintire mused. “I just think you’re… well, you won’t be able to hear it even if I say it! You’re young. S’one of those things.”

    “What?” Tabitha asked.

    “I just think that you’re uh, awfully optimistic about things going to plan?” Mrs. Macintire said with a wry smile. “Shoot, how’s that saying go? Hubby used to say it. Uhh, it’s like, few plans survive contact with the enemy? Maybe even no plan survives contact with the enemy?”

    “I don’t think Bobby’s quite like that!” Tabitha leapt to the boy’s defense. “An enemy, or adversarial, or anything. He seems very… laid back? Casual with things? I don’t think he’ll be too pushy, or try to guilt me into going further with things, or—”

    “Kiddo, I didn’t mean him,” Sandra said, giving her side-eye. “You’re young. There’s hormones. I said all those same things, I planned to be prudent, was just so sure of it. It’s easy to decide those things when you’re not in the heat of the moment. But, then you’re actually there and you get to making out, and one thing seems to lead to another, or this to that, and suddenly you’re pushing him down, or he’s pushing you down—well. You get the idea. In the moment it’s going to feel right, your brain’s gonna be giving you go signals, and you’re just going to want to go with it.”

    Tabitha opened her mouth to argue that, but no words materialized, and with another surge of embarrassment she fidgeted with a hand over her mouth and looked the other way. The fourteen-year-old in her was at complete odds with what this woman was saying, because of course Tabitha would be special and different and surely an exception to all of that. The rest of Tabitha, whatever all that even was, instead was experiencing that familiar sinking feeling of dread.

    Because… she’s right, Tabitha grudgingly admitted to herself. She’s completely fucking right. It’s like I can prepare all the right things to say in my head, the arguments or whatever I have laid out to counter anything my dad or Aunt Lisa or whoever might say… but then IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT, some other side of me takes control, and then. Yeah, and then rationality and all of my best laid plans are chucked out the window.

    “It’s cute that you have it all worked out!” Mrs. Macintire was obviously struggling not to sound too patronizing, and failing. “Uhh, I don’t mean cute, I mean like—that’s good. That’s cool? Just, those kinda plans can kinda evaporate on you outta nowhere and not be anywhere to be found when you need them! It’s not even a youth thing. I don’t mean it just like that. Tons of adults make New Years resolutions to diet, or get back into exercise routines or all that, but how many of them last more than a few weeks? That’s just, you know. Being human.”

    “I am definitely very human, I’m realizing,” Tabitha said with a wistful sigh. “With all of the failings that implies. I just. Some part of me is hoping that by uh, by verbalizing my plan, by being super clear with Bobby, by making sure there’s other kids around to hold us accountable for what I’m saying—that all of that will help keep us on the rails. On the track. On the plan, I guess. Keep us on program.”

    “Serious talk—are you crushing on Bobby?” Mrs. Macintire softened her voice. “Not judging, or anything! Not gonna tease you if you say yes here, and you don’t have to immediately jump to denying it or refusing it or—”

    “I’m not sure what I feel!” Tabitha was honest. “I think I’m crushing a little bit, but it doesn’t feel like a certain thing. Or an overwhelming thing. Maybe I just have too much else going on. I’ve had a crush before, once, and that was—I don’t even know how to describe it. It felt more obsessive? But there was also more of a fantasy vibe to that, because I guess the rational part of my lizard brain just outright refused to entertain my being in an actual  relationship with him as any kind of realistic possibility. So. It felt like a crush, but more it was something it was safe to fantasize about without the danger of any of that ever actually happening.”

    “Okay,” Mrs. Macintire nodded. “And, different with Bobby?”

    “I… like Bobby?” Tabitha admitted. “I don’t know how much. I’m still fighting back against some of my mental hangups and reservations about, um, all of this, and while at the same time I think I’m also trying to firmly stamp out or control some other parts of… I don’t know how to explain. I’m in a weird mental place, right now. With everything. I like Bobby, because he’s cute and he makes me feel comfortable. Puts me at ease. That’s, uh, rare I guess? For me to feel. Absolutely in relation to boys, and something about that feeling is this strange kind of addictive?”

    “Okay, alright,” Mrs. Macintire perked up. “That’s something.”

    “Now, does he turn me on?” Tabitha laughed. “I have no idea. I feel like I’m still mentally repressing my sexuality too much for me to even tell. He’s cute? Attractive, I guess? Do I see a future or envision some life we could have together? Honestly, no. But that has to do with a lot of my me problem things, and probably not much to do with him personally? Do I get that overwhelming, obsessive sort of stalkerish feelings for him? Not really, no. With this other guy I once had a crush on—a long time ago, don’t even ask—I would like, go out of my way and sit in a certain place at lunch, because I knew I could see him from there. Which is. Yeah, super cringe.”

    “Okay,” Mrs. Macintire sounded thoughtful. “And, well—you don’t have to answer if you don’t wanna say, but the first crush guy, did you feel sexy things about him? Fantasize about having some storybook future with him, write his name in your notebook over and over or whatever, all that stuff?”

    “Hmm, maybe?” Tabitha thought back. “Slightly? Just, probably not completely. Did I think about him, uh, sexually? Then, yes. But, that was like a completely closed off private fantasy, and I had that um. Mentally cordoned off from reality or anything that would ever happen, if that makes sense.”

    “Alright,” Mrs. Macintire said. “Tell you what. I think I’d like you to see a therapist.”

    “It’s not that bad!” Tabitha let out an unsure laugh at Mrs. Macintire’s sudden serious tone. “Is it?! I, uh, I feel like the way I am is still pretty normal, all things considered and—”

    “No, Tabitha, Tabitha calm down,” Mrs. Macintire shushed her. “I don’t mean it like all that. I think therapy is a completely normal thing that a lot of, if not most girls should get into, if they’re able to. Someone to talk to about this kind of stuff who isn’t some kind of parent figure. Like, you and I, we can get into it and it’s not super weird, but I just don’t want there to be anything weird or awkward between us, and… yeah, honestly I do not need to know about your sex life or any of that.”

    “Right—yeah,” Tabitha babbled, ashamed and amused and horrified all at once. “I get it!”

    “It’s just, you say things like I’m mentally repressing my sexuality, and uhh, it’s hard not to immediately in my head jump to conclusions, or worry, or freak out a tiny bit?” Mrs. Macintire said. “Worrying about the hows and whys as to where that would even go about happening. I worry about you. A lot. I’ve had cause to worry, and that’s already no picnic.”

    “I am sorry for—”

    “Hut tut tut, don’t even apologize!” Mrs. Macintire waved her off. “It’s a mom thing. Trust me. So—therapist. Yes? No? I’d like you to think it over, at least. You’ve been through a lot, and I think having someone completely neutral on everything would make you feel like you’re a lot more free to speak your mind. About whatever you need to. Whereas I might hear that, for instance, cheerleaders are bugging you at school, and be like—does Springton High REALLY need a Cheer team? Between Karen and I, we could totally get it disbanded. Totally!”

    “Th-that’s not funny!” Tabitha sat up in alarm. “Please don’t even joke.”

    “I’m keeping my cool!” Sandra chuckled. “It’s honestly Karen you’ve got to worry about. She knows everyone when it comes to all the parents around town and everything. There was this one little league coach way back when, who flipped out on Matthew? Whoo-boy.”

    “I don’t want to hear!” Tabitha was now able to use both hands to cover her ears, and she once again marveled at being free from that cast.

    “Let’s just say Officer Williams found the guy a few days later,” Mrs. Macintire teased. “Apparently, the guy had fallen down an elevator shaft! Onto some bullets. Craziest accident they ever saw. If he had—”

    “I don’t believe a word!” Tabitha snorted. “Yeah, right! As if.”

    “Well okay, so we’re not gonna Nancy Kerrigan some snotty cheerleader types for you,” Mrs. Macintire laughed. “But, we can definitely put some pressure on them and get them to back off you a bit. Get parents on their case about it. Like I said, Karen knows everyone, and honestly? She can be pushy as hell. Believe me.”

    “Somehow I feel very confident that that kind of outside interference would only make everything worse for me,” Tabitha said. “If they were being physical or like pushing me off a curb—then by all means, yes. Stealing my binder, taking my towel? Okay, sure. Theft isn’t okay, either. But, as for the rest, everything else—I feel like this needs to be my own battle. For me to get anywhere with them.”

    “You and Elena, if the both of you are trying out for Cheer,” Mrs. Macintire pointed out. “I hope we’re seeing her this weekend for the movie? What movie was it? Theater again, or are you watching at home? I can make Hannah and myself scarce.”

    “Oh, um, Willow, on VHS,” Tabitha said. “Bobby did say that it might be too scary for Hannah. It’s some kind of… sword and sorcery movie, I think? I’m not too familiar. I think I caught bits and pieces of Conan the Barbarian with Arnold, but I’ve never seen the whole thing through so that I could ever make sense of what was going on.”

    “Willow?” Mrs. Macintire asked. “Like, Val Kilmer Willow? From like, the eighties? Late eighties?”

    “I… think so?” Tabitha tried to remember. “Probably?”

    “I’ve seen that!” Mrs. Macintire laughed. “Heck. We might have that on tape somewhere, already. I think Hubby might, tucked away with his not Hannah’s Disney movies stuff. In our room. And I mean not like porn, but just—you know. Guns, and violence, and macho stuff. Swearing. Stuff we don’t need a curious Hannah-banana popping into the VCR some random afternoon when we’re not paying attention.”

    “Hannah does know he has his own movies there,” Tabitha admitted. “She says they’re all really boring old people ones. She didn’t try to play them! Just, yeah she does snoop around everywhere. She’s seven.”

    “Good Lord,” Mrs. Macintire shook her head. “S’only gonna get worse at eight or nine. Probably time we get him a desk or cabinet or something that locks—and one for you, too. So you can store whatever you need to and have privacy. We have a little gun safe that she knows not to touch, and anything else we don’t want her into, we put way up high on the back closet shelf. But, next couple years? I doubt that just that will keep her out of whatever she wants to nose through.”

    “I poked around my parent’s closet once,” Tabitha sighed. “Big mistake. Haunted me for years!”

    “Nudie magazines?” Mrs. Macintire laughed. “Hah.”

    “Worse, sort of?” Tabitha said. “Though, there was this one time a nudie magazine got left in the bathroom by someone, and urggphll—!”

    Only by mimicking a throwing up noise could she express the reality of finding errant pornography left laying about by her parents. Thinking of them as complete human beings with their own sexuality was just abhorrent—their love needed to be completely platonic. Parents needed to be caregivers who kept any overt displays of affection out of public eye. Preferably behind closed doors, even, in Tabitha’s opinion.

    Seeing them start to kiss in this lifetime DID really freak me out… okay, maybe them not normally doing that kind of thing in front of me is why my sexuality was always kind of muted? Not seeing my parents ever be romantic with each other. ROMANCE was relegated to just TV and fiction in my formative years, and mentally it struggled to grow out of that box when I grew up?

    “Worse?! Oh noooo,” Sandra gasped—probably imagining Tabitha had stumbled across a dildo or something of that sort. “You poor thing!”

    “Well, not that kind of worse,” Tabitha shook her head. “My mother had this blue photo album. Modeling pictures. Not nude stuff, mind you. Thank God. But, uh, lots of photoshoot stuff from back way back when before she had me. She was thin and beautiful back when she was in high school, and was trying to go out to Hollywood to become an actress.”

    “Ah, right, right,” Mrs. Macintire said. “I remember her getting into that the other night. That’s not so bad. She knew Winona Ryder!” 

    “Well, at the time she had been keeping all of that secret,” Tabitha said. “So, it was a big shock to me. At the time. That she’d had this whole past where she was a completely different person… and then the way I had always known her, she was this very miserable, depressed, on-her-way-to-morbidly-obese shut in woman. Who can’t go outside because she has anxieties about people seeing her for how she is now. At the time, it made me think that—yeah, that having me must have just ruined her life.”

    “Aw, honey, I’m sure that—”

    “I know! I know,” Tabitha shrugged. “It was just the conclusion I jumped to. Had that thought in my head for… way too many years, and I think it might’ve started twisting me up a bit? Psychologically? We’ve talked about it since then. It’s something I need to work through some more. Probably. Once I’d in my head decided that was the reason, that’s hard to shake? Even knowing now that it doesn’t seem to have been the case at all.”

    “Tabitha?” Mrs. Macintire gave her a glance that was equal parts concerned and amused. “We’re getting you a therapist.”

    “...Yeah, we probably should, huh,” Tabitha sighed. “Sorry for uh. For dumping exposition on you? I guess.”

    “No—it’s not that, I love talking with you,” Mrs. Macintire said. “Hey. Seriously. This morning’s been great. I really, really hope I’ll be able to just shoot the breeze like this and have candid talks with Hannah, someday. But, with you, I. Well, I feel like there’s a lot you’re not comfortable telling me. And, that’s okay! Because of our positions and everything that’s awkward, sure.

    “I do need to make sure you have someone you can tell anything to, without worrying about any kind of—well,” Mrs. Macintire made a face. “Your high school friends are great, and I hope you do talk to them, too. Just, well. I’m no stranger to having girls from school you thought you could trust, turn and stab you in the back with things said in confidence. So. Therapist.”

    “Therapist,” Tabitha agreed.

    To Tabitha’s disappointment their talk had to end here, because already the car was pulling into the front loop of Springton High. She found herself really surprised by how much she enjoyed bonding with Mrs. Macintire—this whole morning had been really great. There was just something uniquely different about their relationship dynamic that made it so much easier to talk about some things with the woman, rather than the sort of discourse she held with her teenage friends.

    “Alright, kiddo,” Mrs. Macintire began to slow as she brought them on their final approach. “This is your stop.”

    The stretch of curb of the bus loop was empty of buses this early in the day, and all of the walkways visible from here were devoid of people, but the staff and student parking lots were both full. The familiar high school buildings and distant stretches of portables felt like it was simmering with anticipation for the lunch bell, rather than desolate and truly empty.

    I DO also love chatting with my high school friends, it’s just also—high school isn’t REAL, exactly, Tabitha thought with a wry smile. It’s real enough to high schoolers, but high school is also this SOCIAL BUBBLE that is going to pop. I need to hold that bitter truth, especially if I still have it in my head that I want to be POPULAR IN HIGH SCHOOL for once. It’s a beautiful, mesmerizing goal I just can’t seem to weed out of my heart, but yeah also always need to remember that high school ISN’T the real world. It’s a bizarro caricaturized microcosm of society, with different rules and ways about it.

    It was easy enough for her to view it as taking baby steps towards her real development as a person—if she could navigate her way through the trials of high school for what she wanted, she could do the same and progress through adult life like that. Rather than spend a lifetime avoiding everything and slinking alone with shoulders hunched along some path of least resistance until someday inevitably realizing that youth had fled her by without her ever getting a proper taste of any of it.

    “Have fun at school now hun, but not too much fun, alright?” Sandra teased. “You just got that thing fixed, so don’t go breakin’ it again right away!”

    “I—I’ll be careful!” Tabitha let out a groan of exasperation as she unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door. “So, it’s—is it cool if I invite people over for the weekend? This weekend?”

    “Of course!” Mrs. Macintire assured her. “Yeah, that’s totally cool. Probably won’t be able to help much with getting whoever needs a ride here and there around, though. So, keep that in mind!”

    “I will!” Tabitha beamed. “Thank you. For everything… Mom.”

    “You’re fixin’ to make me blush,” Mrs. Macintire drawled, donning her shades. “Go on girl, get!”

( 63, Cast off those preconceptions. | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 64 pt 2 )

/// Things are bleak and rife with conflict at Springton High, but Tabitha unexpectedly arrives middle of the day and in a great mood!