Choices.......Part Seven

After hanging out at home on Sunday, Lilly was bored. She had called JoAnn to tell her she was grounded for a month. JoAnn was quite happy she got the cut slip out of her own mailbox. If Lilly had thought about it, she could have had JoAnn go to her house on Saturday and get the cut slip out of Lilly's mailbox. She was not that devious, yet.

Lilly watched some TV and did not talk to her parents. She was mad and wouldn't say a word, unless they asked a specific question. Lilly was almost excited that she had school the next day. Anything would be better than staying home. She took a shower and figured out what to wear to school. Finally, she fell asleep.

The next morning, Lilly hurried to meet JoAnn at the park. JoAnn told Lilly how bad she felt for her and wondered, out loud, what she was going to do without Lilly for a month. Lilly told her she was pretty sure her parents would give in and let her out of being grounded before a month.

Lilly went to all of her classes for the next three weeks. Her mother was calling the school to make sure she was there. Lilly didn't know it until after the first week, when her mother said she was happy she attended all her classes. Lilly was mortified, "YOU CALLED THE SCHOOL?" "Yes, and I will do it until you are off restriction," said her mother. Lilly immediately thought, Oh, shouldn't have told me that! Only until she was free!

Lilly's mother was a very good girl, while growing up. She was a great student, very smart, well liked and was involved in many school activities. She wanted to be a writer when she grew up and had picked out a pen name. Lilly's mother was the editor of the school newspaper as well. She was beautiful and had a few boyfriends, but was more into school.

After high school, Lilly's mother started college at a community college. She was very happy. She was close to her home and her friends and loved college. After her first semester, she realized she would need to go to work to help out with the family finances. Her brother married and moved out of state. Her only sister married right our of high school and lived nearby. She was pregnant with her second child. Lilly's mother was the only sibling still at home, where she planned to remain until she got married.

Lilly's mother got a job as a bank teller. It was rare for a woman to be a teller or even work at the bank, in those days. Lilly's mother worked part time while she finished her first year of college. Reality set in though, she would not be going back to college anytime soon.

Lilly's mother was still working full time at the bank three years later when she met Lilly's father. It was a blind date. He was a musician and was very handsome. It was love at first sight for both of them. Lilly's mother was still a virgin at twenty-three and stayed that way, until she married Lilly's father, three months later.

Lilly's father was a complete contrast to her mother. He only went to eighth grade. He loved to party, stay out late and play music. And he continued that lifestyle after they were married. She got up early to go to the bank and he slept in, after a late night of entertaining. He got up in the afternoon and would sometimes get asked to tune pianos in bars during the day. He primarily played guitar and sang, but could play almost anything. He never learned to read music and played by ear. He played in bars, and on albums with some famous, and soon to be famous country western singers.

When Lilly's father was three, he and his father played fiddles for the governor of Oklahoma, where he was raised. It was on the radio and Lilly's father fell asleep during the performance. Lilly's grandfather tapped him on the shoulder with his bow, and Lilly's father resumed playing, without skipping a beat.

Lilly's father had most of his siblings nearby. Lilly loved them all. They were an awesome family and always fun. Lilly's father had been married before and he had a son. His son lived in another state with his mother though. Lilly met him when she was five and had not seen him since. She had met him on one of their yearly summer trips to Oklahoma. She adored him. She was sad she could not see him more.

Lilly hated the two day drive to and from Oklahoma, but loved being on her father's cousin's ranch. They fished in one of the three ponds on the property, rode horses, collected frogs, and ate the best food. They had family reunions as well. Every year somewhere different. All the cousins would pile into the school bus, which had been converted into a huge camper. They drove to the reunions and camped and fished for a couple of days. All the relatives had fun. Never a dull moment.

On the trips to and from Oklahoma, Lilly and her two other brothers were usually pretty miserable. Their father would wake them at three am to "hit the road." They were afraid to tell their father if they had to use the bathroom, because it always made him mad to stop. Hopefully, he would stop before they had to ask. They would pull into a service station and get gas and a chocolate Yoo-hoo, or a Coke and put peanuts inside it. They learned that on one of the trips. The best part of the trips were when they stopped driving for the day, late afternoon, and they always stayed at a motel with a pool. The kids loved swimming. It was always sweltering and it was many years before they had air conditioning in their car or in the hotels. The pool was where they stayed until they had to go to bed.

Lilly decided she must be more like her father. She thought her mother was an easy mark if she was only going to call the school until she was no longer grounded. She still couldn't believe her mother told her. She couldn't wait to tell JoAnn. JoAnn would be happy, because she missed Lilly and was only allowed to call her. One more week! Lilly could do that.

Lilly told JoAnn the next morning that she only had another week and that her mother was only going to check on her attendance until then. JoAnn mentioned that Lilly originally thought her parents would relent before the month was over. Lilly said she was surprised that they stuck to their plan. She figured surely after a couple of weeks, they would forgive her and let her off the hook. But, they didn't.

Lilly asked how things were going with Bob. JoAnn admitted she was getting bored with Bob, that he was too old for her and there was this hunk at school that she liked. The boy was much more on her level. JoAnn found out from his friend that he liked her too. JoAnn wasn't sure how to tell Bob, but she wanted to break up with him.

Lilly asked if she had seen Jim and JoAnn had. Lilly wanted to know if he ever asked how she was. JoAnn told her the truth. "No, and he has an older girlfriend now," JoAnn said. Lilly felt like she had been hit in the stomach with a baseball bat. She didn't understand why though. She hated Jim. Why was she jealous?

One day during the last week of being grounded, Lilly wondered why she had not started her period. She had never really kept track of that kind of thing and put it out of her head. She would start, she was sure.

To be continued.........