Out of Her League |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 2

Sitting in the car on the way home, not a word was spoken. None from me and Dad. He was still raving mad, snapping at the passing cars and stepping on the gears.

We drove past a Russian restaurant, where tables and people spilled out the doors onto the sidewalk. There were boisterous noises from the laughing patrons as they plunked down plates of pasta, silver dishes piles with pelmeni and vareniki, on the tables with red-checked cloths.

The light turned yellow, and I was amazed that Dad didn't curse as he slowed down at the crossing. A long stream of pedestrians strolled across the road. Next to the crossing was Matryoshka Restaurant.

There was a chunky man in a chef hat and clothes standing outside the Matryoshka. He was jabbering with two other men. One was a beefy Mafia-looking man with a sleek ponytail and the other was immaculately dressed like a male soprano. I knew they were Russians because I could hear them speaking in a mixture of English and Russian to each other from there.

These three were using a little kid's plastic baseball bat to demonstrate a move. They pretended to wrestle for possession, laughing and giving each other heaps. The little kid who owned the bat was sitting on a chair giggling at them with his mother.

I smiled as I watched these grown-up men fool around. I'd been feeling so useless and now here I was with a big dopey grin on my face. I turned to check if Dad was watching too. He wasn't.

Then he jerked the car forward and started to drive on. I could see his jaw clench. I felt my smile fade away and slid off my face like slime.

When we got home, the first thing Mom always did was hugging me. She always came home from work and started her cleaning ritual and cooking. She would turn on really loud music and dance around while she cooked. She would stir and chop in time with the beats and skate from the stove to the sink on her slippery pantyhosed feet.

"Welcome home, big boy and girl!" she said. "How was the..."

Mom saw the looks on our faces and stopped short. She sighed like all the energy had been drained out of her.

"What's wrong?" she asked, knowing Dad and I must've had another fight.

I couldn't handle listening to them argue about me, so I headed up the hall to my room. Behind me, I heard Dad say to Mom, "I called her bluff at the tryout today. I'm not going to play stupid games with her anymore."

I slammed my bedroom door so hard that the wall shuddered and the chandelier in the living room jiggled.

"Look at that attitude!" Dad bellowed from downstairs.

"Honey, calm down," Mom tried to console him. But Dad began to list down all the bad things about me to her, and when she tried to defend me, he turned on her as well.

A little while later, after they'd finished arguing, Mom knocked on my door and asked to come in.

She sat on the floor where I was with my knees hunched up, and we didn't say anything for a long moment. She used to sit in that exact spot on my floor sometimes and we'd talk about stuff.

"Got any brilliant ideas about how to handle this?" she said at last.

"That's my line," I said. "You're the mother."

"Yeah," she chuckled and nodded, but shaky like she forgot who she was. "You know your father's got a lot on his plate right now. Problems with work and..."

"Under a lot of pressure," I mumbled sarcastically. "Isn't everyone?"

"Yes, well, you might be sick of hearing it but he is. It's pretty hard for him because..." Mom stopped herself suddenly, trying not to say more than she was supposed to. "You're going to have to put up with him a bit more."