It Had to Be You

Chapter 2 : Blue Mornings

Dee's POV

I woke up to a world of bright cornflower-blue September skies and the smell of burning rubber.

That should have probably concerned me, what with the little belches of exhaust I can see out of the back window of Ol' Suzy Q—the family pickup—but I was relieved. The exhaust was too mundane to be a dream and not impactful enough to signify that I'd fallen into another relived memory. Plus, my water bottle was dripping into my face, and—

“s**t!" I sprang up from where I'd fallen asleep in the passenger's seat, blinking away water, hoping like hell it hadn't smeared my eyeliner. The one time— “It burns!"

“Don't rub it in!" Mami kept her eyes forward, the little white enamel bows on her thumbnails bright against the shiny pink gloss and the worn gray of the steering wheel. She wiggled her bare shoulders, the butterfly on her right shoulder shimmering in the sunlight. “Ay! No! Your gunna look like a raccoon if you—Deidre stop fussing— Coño, I missed the exit—Mami! Ayúdame!"

“Yeah, yeah, keep your drawers on! Ay, mija, look this way please." Comfort came in the way of a dryer warm crochet handkerchief in withered hands. Coke-bottle glasses glared down at me, constantly sliding down a browned pug-nose until a crooked middle finger slid the horn-rim frames back up to their proper place.

Tita was in rare form today, hair out of her customary bun to curl around her shoulders in sterling ringlets. A candy cigarette dangled out of her bow-shaped lips stained with her customary shade of prune from a lipstick that had been discontinued almost thirty years before I was born.

“Look at you, Duckie! You wouldn't be in no pain if you stopped painting your eyes like you're trying to win the super bowl!"

My grandmother finished wiping my eye, sucking her teeth in disapproval, the sound made harsher thanks to the diabetes stick in her mouth. She tapped a nail to my cheek as she twisted my head this way and that to make sure the mascara hadn't run to other places it should. Can't be looking strange today of all days. I was representing after all.

Tita released me with a sigh. “You look like Rambo!"

“Or Alice Cooper!" Gramps laughed a dry hiss through false teeth that reminded me of that dog from Wacky Races. “Maybe a little—what was that feller's name? The one with the—“ And Gramps raised his skinny arms over his head like batwings.

“Herman Munster." Tita teased chewing on her candy cigarette.

“Dracula!" Mami slammed the flat of her palm on the steering wheel, the ticker droning as she tried to make an illegal U-turn across four lanes of traffic.

“Elvis," Gramps said sagely, removing his cap to place over his heart. “He had the voice of an angel. Second only to Jimmy and Little Richard, but I think that's a Richard-to-Richard thing. You had to be there."

There was a pause that had weight to it, the weight of three generations of Rayburn women about to laugh themselves into a coma as my grandpa did a silent remembrance for a guy I'd only seen caricatures of.

“'Richard-to-Richard?'"

“Papa no—"

“Richie why would she be Elvis!? He didn't wear eyeliner! Ignore him, he's talking nonsense on account of the Dramamine. It makes you sleepy and stupid."

“It does not!" Gramps' slight sway didn't help with his case, but he persisted. “Goldie, darling, you're telling me, that Elvis—Mr. Hound Dog himself—had eyes that electric and didn't use some type of cosmetic!?"

The passion from Gramps' conviction may have sent him into a coughing fit, but it did manage to pull a welcomed giggle from my lips as I rattled off the directions again for Mami when she missed what Siri had said. He spread his arms out in the back of the old Ford pickup, green eyes flashing. “Where do you think I learned the trick from?"

“Richard!" My grandma sounded horrified. “No!"

“You said that was the only reason you started talking to me!" Gramps huffed, mustache flipping up like the bristles on a walrus. His salt-and-pepper dreadlocks swayed as he spun around to hook a chin over the shoulder of my seat, and I had to twist a little more in the passenger seat to give the old Leo king the attention he always craved.

Gramps dropped his voice to a dramatic hush, and in his best James Earl Jones impersonation, he began, “The year was 1965 when my entire life changed forever! Caught in the cosmic undertow of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet! I was a grunt, stationed at Camp Salinas before they assigned me to the 1st Cavalry Division 7th Cavalry, Co. B, 5th Battalion in Nam! I'd been drafted—a year older than you, Duckie—and I'd never been more worried. I wasn't a fighter, I was a—"

“—massive bookworm! An absolute geek!" Tati laughed, reaching over to take his hands in hers. Gramps' face softened out from its theatrical sneer to the part of a love-smitten fool. Even after all these years. “But so handsome!"

“And you were so beautiful," Gramps crooned, lacing their fingers together. “Most beautiful woman in all of Salinas! No—the world!"

I smiled, leaning back to watch them, as Mami merged onto Strathlachlan Avenue from Exit 14. Mami flicked on the radio to some golden oldies which only seemed to enhance the story of my grandparents' meeting, and I relaxed into the familiar, as my nightmare of my father's arrest faded out of sight and mind.

At peace one more.

***

"We can turn right back around if you want, Duckie." Even though I'd towered over Tita, her small hand felt like the Rock's at that moment and I welcomed the strength that seemed to ooze out of her in spades. “You still got time to make a break for it!"

“Tempting," I breathed, intimidated by the lack of fellow freshies on the main campus and all the folks who'd already found their cliques.

It was third grade all over again.

I'd missed opening weekend thanks to a tractor emergency that had almost killed my grandparents' farm before harvest. I'd always been good with machines and building and took after my Tío Benny in that sense. But, between finding all the parts and replacing them all, and storing away enough to spare—I'd missed the first three weeks of college, only just sliding in for proper class registration.

“Maybe it won't be so bad?" Gramps was one of two optimists in the family, leaning on his cane as stared out of the window. “The fountain is nice! Look! It has a turtle at the top just like Lance! That's a good sign isn't it, Duckie?"

“Yeah…" I couldn't have sounded less convincing if I tried.

God, we must have visited the campus a million times before I'd even gotten my acceptance letter. See, I had my heart set on this place since the sixth grade when a couple of advisors and hand-picked lowerclassmen from the hard sciences had stopped by for a show-and-tell. Try to get more girls interested in STEM. They had me hooked the moment the Physics department showed me how rollercoasters worked.

After that mini expo, well, it was safe to say I wasn't a stranger to Brockport U.

But, I still hadn't anticipated how nerve-wracking moving in could be. It all seemed a lot less daunting in my head about four hours ago when I Janga'd myself between the dash, my overstuffed book bag, and my turtle Lancelot.

“We could be back before supper," Tati reasoned, nearly climbing over the center console and tipping poor Lance over. “I'll make your favorite—mofongo and grilled peppers!"

“Mami!" My mother slapped her hand on the dash. “Stop it! We did not just drive my daughter for four hours just to drive her back!"

It might have been the slap that sent her, or just the fact that Ol' Suzy Q wasn't used to all those miles, but gave one hell of a backfire and coughed up enough exhaust that some of my soon-to-be classmates turned around in concern.

Oh, great, way to f*****g go.

I sank in my seat, knees level with my shoulders as I pulled my hoodie up.

Way to make a first impression, Dee. God...kill me...

“Son of a—" Ma scrambled out of the car, cursing up a storm in Spanish as she popped the lid. “I knew Willy gave me bad plugs! Dee, baby, grab the kit! It's behind your book box!"

“Bad omen," Tati mumbled, falling back so she could cross her arms comfortably. “Just like in the leaves said this morning!"

"Goldie please," Gramps said softly, clutching his cane like a lifeline. “You're scaring the poor girl! She's already nervous enough!"

“She should be scared! The leaves never lie! Dangerous things are ahead!"

“You said that last week when you tried to see how my check-up with Dr. Beaumont was going to go," Gramps gave me a wink, flexing his tiny bicep. “And I'm right as rain! Don't take everything to heart, Dee, sometimes the leaves are wrong." I felt more than saw his wrinkled hand clamp over my shoulder. "But, you don't have to go if you don't want to. There's always next year."

“Thank you, Gramps." I patted his hand, wincing at how thin he was getting.

Gramps had insisted on coming despite being a person who got easily carsick, ignoring his comfort just to give me a proper send-off. Guiltily, I wondered if the green tinge would ever leave his cheeks or if the four hours we spent on the road had permanently altered him into a little wizened frog man. A wrinkled Kermit in checkered bowties and matching suspenders.

“Deidre Ramona Rayburn—“ Oh no, the full last name. “Child, if you don't get your buns over here right now!"

Well, if the school didn't know of me now, my mother was helping in that department.

***

"Will you two stop it?" Mami peered down her nose like one of those Downton Abbey women she liked so much in her dramas, pink tortoiseshell glasses glinting menacingly. Which gave Gramps enough of an edge to snatch back my little box of succulents to put it by the window near Lancelot. "We talked about this!"

The dorm was leagues bigger than my current room in Pensick. It was a suit-style room, with a small communal living space that could double as a study or living room which included an alcove for a kitchen and a bathroom on the same side as the entryway. Just two rooms connecting, fewer suitemates than the SUNY my best friend Gemma was attending. Not that I minded, I wasn't exactly Miss Life-of-the-party.

I sat down on my quilted comforter, bouncing on the quality mattress. None of my suitemates seemed to be in at the moment, and judging by how Boho chic my roommate's side of the room was, maybe they were the mellow type. Not partiers per se, but not quiet either.

Gemma floated in my mind's eye, looking like she belonged on the West Coast as opposed to Buffalo, New York. I smiled, hopeful for the first time since we started the job. Maybe they would be friendly, maybe things word turn out for the best.

“I just don't like Dee being by here by herself is all," Tati said, crossing her arms in her little corduroy vest that matched her paisley peasant shirt. “Especially when something terrible is going to happen!"

“Mami, please! Dee's going to college and that's final!" My mother didn't raise her voice often. “Dee's not like us, she's too smart to stay on a farm her whole life in some Podunk town nobody knows!"

“Ay—"

“—She's going to make something of herself," Mami pressed, “the first Rayburn to do so!"

“What about your brother Benjamin?"

“Benny is a chef, Mami. He makes good money where he's at in Texas, but he's no Gordon Ramsey. But, Dee…Dee could be somebody. My baby's going to be...a...ah...what was it again? Some type of scientist?"

"A civil engineer," I laughed. "Building bridges and skyscrapers and shit."

"Language!" Ma admonished softly yanking at the ends of one of my braids. I bit back the curse that threatened to spill from my lips. I don't know why Ma was pissed, I learned all the best ones from her! "You keep cussing like that and you'll be like Aunt Jillian, stealing people's weather vanes, and staying in Palatka with no internet!"

“Be nice to your little sister," Gramps said leaning against the wall and taking some pressure off his back. “Jill's just…"

“A nut?"

“Eccentric. But, Darla's right, Goldie. At some point, we're going to have to let Dee out of the nest. She not a kid anymore."

“Fine." Tita threw her hands up, springing out of the little wooden chair that came with the desk under my raised twin bed. “Don't listen. See what happens, even though I pray it doesn't!"

“Mami!"

“Nope, I don't want to hear it. I'm going to put some prayers around the room and a rosary, and hope for the best. Now, come here, Duckie. I want a hug before we go for lunch in this dump."

***

“Your father would be proud, Duckie."

“I thought you were supposed to be wiping away my tears, Mami."

“Yeah, I guess you're right." I hated the way my mother's eyes watered, how it looked like it was breaking for the second time. “Y-y-eah, if Daddy could be here, he would."

I could almost hear Daddy saying you did good, kiddo, Brooklyn accent making him sound rougher than he was. Mami was right, I was going to be somebody. I was going to be the person that would prove my father's innocence and get him out of Rikers.

I watched Ol' Suzy Q's taillights fade, the sun dipping into a spectacular sunset as I waved my family bye.

Well, I had my work cut out for me for the next four years. If I could find that kid that I spotted that night—curly black hair and cinnamon eyed—I could force him to be a witness for my father's parole hearing three years from now. Maybe even plead an early release, if I could find the kid sooner.

I should have known right then and there that it would all fall apart at that moment.

I'd been too hopeful.

“HEY, NOSEBLEED!"