Suzie’s House 228 : Just What He Thought of Her

Up until a minute ago, this whole MacDonald’s thing with Fran had been a total yawn. Gene thought maybe Mrs. H. would say something mean, cause they all knew Fran was only pretending to be his real mom in order to get at the guitar. Instead, they all – him and Fran and Mrs. H, and Tracy – got their food, said “Hi” then sat around eating. Talk about dullsville.

Then Mrs. H. went off to the bathroom, and Tracy did her thing.

“So,” she said, looking right at Fran. “What’s so important about the guitar? It’s the initials, right? I just know it. Whose initials are carved in it?” She grinned like an idiot, but Gene loved her.

Fran froze with her burger a couple of inches from her mouth, her eyes kind of buggy. Then she tries to act all calm like she hadn’t just done something so they knew Tracy was right. “Guitar? What guitar?” She took a bite so she couldn’t say anything else if she’d wanted to.

“Pft.” Gene couldn’t help making the sound. As if this woman could possibly not know what they were talking about when it was the guitar, or the facebook account devoted to the guitar, that made her contact him in the first place.

“Oh.” Fran swallowed hard. “You mean THAT guitar. Oh, well, I don’t know anything about it.”

Tracy kept on grinning. Who knew what kind of thoughts were racing around in that squirrelly brain of hers. “You play guitar, don’t you? Or something.”

“I sing,” Fran said, all offended.

“What bands have you been in. Maybe I have you on one of my albums. I’ve got all kinds of rock groups. I’ll bet I even have you on my MP3 player.” She pulled the MP3 out of her pocket and put it on the table right next to her fries. “I’ve got 4 meg of music on there. All kinds of stuff from Avenged Sevenfold to Pearl Jam. Is Fran your stage name?”

“Yes, but half the time they don’t even put me in the credits. I’m a backup singer. Do you have anything by Orange Night? Switch Track Alley? Screaming Trees?”

“Oh.” Tracy looked surprised. “I’ve never heard of them.”

Gene didn’t blame her. He hadn’t heard of any of these bands either. Fran lost all her happy.

“Oh, wait. I didn’t think Screaming Trees had any girls.”

“I was only on stage with them a couple of times, before they made big.” Fran looked a little shaken. “Do you think it’s easy making it big? Have you ever even sung before?”

“I play guitar,” Tracy snapped back.

Gene recognize the look on her face. She was about to go running off at the mouth. Once Tracy got started, it could get ugly fast. He said something just to stop her.

“It doesn’t matter, right? She’s never going to get to the guitar, or to me.”

“What?”

“I know you aren’t my real mother. So… this is the last time we’ll ever have anything to do with each other. I only came to tell you that anyway.”

“What do you mean, I’m not your real mother?” She got up on her feet. “How dare you say that.”

Something inside Gene broke. Fran thought she was menacing? She didn’t know what menacing was. Gene got to his own feet. He towered over her. Now instead of her leaning over him, he leaned over her.

“How dare I? How dare I?!” His voice went up all by itself. “How dare you! You b8tch! Do you have any idea what it’s like for me? All my life I’ve been waiting for my real mother to come back and rescue me. All my life! I’ve been looking in the face of every grown up woman around thinking, ‘is it her? If it is, will she recognize me?’ And it never was. Never! Then you come along, but you don’t even care, do you? All you want is to take something from me. Well forget it!”

Mrs. H. walked up. She stood right behind Fran. That’s when it hit Gene. He didn’t need Fran or anyone like her. He already had everything he’d been needing all along.

“This is my real mother right here.” He stepped around Fran and went up to Mrs. H. He put an arm across her shoulders. They were so little and bony, kind of bird-like. He didn’t care. She had the biggest heart he’d ever seen. “She says she wants to adopt me, and I think I’m going to let her.”

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To my knowledge, there’s no such band as Orange Night, and Switch Track Alley is long defunct. I took massive liberties with Screaming Trees. Don’t count on any of these to figure out who carved the initials.