The Prayers in Rossford

“So it’s split up with you and Will,” her uncle said.

“That would seem to be the way of it,” Layla said, nodding her head.

“Well, the good part,” Todd her, “is that you were the one to split it up.”

“I don’t know if I was right though,” Layla confessed. “I have this huge temper.”

Her uncle nodded from behind his cup of coffee.

“I don’t know if it was too much. I don’t know if I expected too much. Or…”she shrugged.

“Layla,” Fenn said, “you do have a terrible temper.”

“Thank you, Fenn.”

“But,” her uncle held up his finger, “I have never known it to be a misguided one, or one that was unjustified. You always see what’s going on.”

“Will said, and maybe I made too much of it, that what was most important was school. I know that’s important. I’m not stupid. But he said that us, me and him, had to go on the backburner.”

“Will thinks the most important thing to do is be successful,” Todd summed it up, folding his arms across his chest. “And then when he’s secure he can concentrate on love.”

“Yes,” Layla said, gratefully. “That’s just it. And, I…”

“You think love is everything.”

Layla nodded. She said, “Yes. I didn’t know I did, but that’s it. I can’t have someone who doesn’t believe that. And when Will said that, well then I knew that’s what he believed.”

Dena had been quiet this whole time.

“I liked Will,” she said. Then she added, “But there’s no end to the men knocking down Layla’s door.”

“I was single for sixteen years,” Layla said. “I don’t know that I have to not be single again so soon. That part was always strange. I always hated people that had to have somebody.

“I just don’t want to be compromised,” she discovered. “I just… don’t want to be with someone and know it’s not what I want. Maybe I’m thinking this through too much for a seventeen year old.”

“You’ll be eighteen in a month,” Fenn pointed out. “And it’s never too early to start thinking about stuff.”

“You know, Layla, your uncle’s the first boyfriend I ever had.”

“I am not!”

“I said the first boyfriend, not the first…”

“There are children in the room,” Fenn said.

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“At any rate, I was far too old to be anyone’s boyfriend by the time you met me,” Fenn said.

“At any rate,” Todd said, “the point is I never wanted to pick someone who I knew wasn’t the right person. I think people just cheat themselves jumping on any old person. So you’re doing the right thing, Layla.”

Suddenly Dena said, “I saw Dad this weekend.”

Todd looked at his niece, sharply.

“He came to town. Mom told me. I went to visit him.”She added. “He’s gone now, Todd.”

Todd was still looking at her carefully.

“How did the visit go?”

“From the look on her face, not that hot,” Fenn surmised.

Dena shook her head. “No, not that hot.”

When Todd’s look changed, Dena said, “I’ll talk about it later.”

“You might as well talk about it now,” Layla told her.

Dena seemed to consider this, and then said, “He was distracted the first time I came. And then second time…. I don’t think he came for me at all. Or for a conference. What kind of conferences do you have in Rossford?”

“I would say a used car one,” Fenn said. “But Kirk Hanley’s shit has been shut down.”

“When I came to the hotel,” Dena continued, “I found Dad having sex.”

Layla made a noise, but Todd looked uncomfortable and embarrassed.

Dena had been looking down at the table, perplexed. Now she looked up, fiercely, and said, “With Keith McDonald!”

“Hey Big Brother, what’s up?” Claire looked up from her lunch.

Paul threw his tray down in front of his sister and said, “I think me and Kirk are going away.”

“What?” It came out of Radha and Julian’s mouths first.

“Well the car business is shutting down, right? And Kirk hates cars anyway. He wants to go to California.”

“Everybody wants to go to California,” Radha dismissed this. “And you’ve already been. Tell him it’s not all that.”

“Well, he wants to move out west.”

“Do you?” Claire and Radha said at the same time, and then looked at each other.

Claire repeated: “Do you?”

“I wanna be wherever Kirk is,” Paul said simply.

“But what about school?” Chad demanded.

“I’m going to finish up this year. Besides, I don’t even know if school is for me. I haven’t been able to get into it like I hoped. Kirk is for me, and wherever he wants to go, I’m going to go.”

“California is pretty far away,” Julian told him.

“What about Chicago?” Jesse suggested.

Paul shrugged.

“It’s up to him. He’s never had a chance to dream. I have.”

“But…”Claire began. “It’s not like you had a great Hollywood life, Pauley.”

“Yeah, Claire, I know that,” Paul said a little aggressively. “But it was a life I chose. I decided to go out there, and I decided to come back. I’ve had a lot of choices. That’s not the way it’s been for Kirk. He never got to have a dream. So…. Now he does.”

“I can’t believe that business is shutting down,” Julian said, partly because it was true, and partly because he wanted to defuse things. “It’s been there my whole life.”

“It’s just up the street from your house, right?” Paul said.

Julian nodded.

“Well,” Claire said, weakly, touching her brother’s hand. “Whatever you choose.”

“I think I meant to say whatever you choose I support,” Claire said.

“He knew you meant that.”

“But I didn’t mean it, Radha,” Claire said, turning around from the mirror and walking to the large bed where she flopped down.

“Chad’s screwing Brian Babcock, my brother’s running off to California with Kirk and…. Noah just fucking disappeared with James. Everyone’s doing all this crazy shit and I wish I could control it. I wish I could say… Stop! Let’s make some goddamn sense, people!”

Radha chuckled.

“You know what the worst thing is?” Claire told her friend.

“Hum?”

“I get the feeling that it’s not the world that’s crazy. It’s me. For trying to control everything.”

With the burning roach in one hand, Radha sat down beside her friend and put the other hand on Claire’s head.

“Well, now, Claire, that’s good news, actually.”

Claire looked up at her, waiting for an answer.

Radha smiled. “Honey, it’s a lot easier to fix one crazy bitch, than to fix the whole world.”

“I found out where she is!”Aiden said, sitting at the table.

Mark sat down, shaking his head and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Layla.”

“Oh... I screwed that whole thing up.”

“Well, unscrew it up,” Aiden said.

“You know what? You’re one crazy Mexican.”

“Puerto Rican. Shall we go?”

Mark shrugged and said, “Hell, we shall go!”

“So this is a campus,” Mark said.

“Dude, I know you’ve seen a college campus before.”

“I’ve never seen this college campus,” Mark told him. “Smart ass.”

“You’re the one trying to make me a Mexican.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with Mexicans.”

“No, not unless you’re Peurto Rican. Hey, park over there.”

“Dena said Layla would be in Camden Hall. Is this Camden Hall?”

“You know what? We could actually walk to Camden Hall.”

“No we couldn’t,” Mark objected. “It’s too cold.”

“Um,” Aiden reflected, “I thought white folks loved the cold.”

“No,” Mark said, levelly. “We just think that if we pretend it’s not real it’ll disappears.”

“Explains that whole wearing sandals in winter.”

“Explains the pneumonia.”

Radha heard Claire calling her name from down the hall.

“Ra-Dha!”

“I really need to shut my door.”

“Look,” Claire said, bursting into the room. “These fine boys here—”she pinched Aiden Michaelson’s cheek, “are looking for our Layla.”

“Well, our Layla isn’t here,” Radha said, winking at the dumbfounded Mark. “But I am.”

“Oh,” Mark grinned at her stupidly. “I’m Mark.”

“Radha Hatangady,” Radha thrust out her hand, jangling with brass bangles. “Whaddo you need our girl Layla for?”

“I… uh…”Mark began. But Aiden stepped in front of her and said, “Nothing at all.”

“Not that the Puerto Rican one wasn’t nice to look at,” Claire began. “Because he was, and if I wasn’t attached to someone, then—”

“If you weren’t attached to someone what?” Julian said coming in.

“If she weren’t attached to you, then she’d wish she were,” Radha finished, coming up and pinching his cheek.

“What I was saying,” Claire began again, “is that the Mark guy, the one with that red hair, was looking at you and liking what he saw, and…I think you liked what you saw too?”

“Really?” Julian said.

“Really what?” Jesse came in.

“Damn, everybody eavesdrops,” Radha said.

“Basically, “Claire told him, “your sister just had a gentleman caller.”

Jesse looked at her, “Radha!”

“I didn’t fuck anybody!”

“Oh,” Claire said, “No. That’s not what I meant. These two guys came looking for your sister,” she said to Julian. “Only one of them, I’m sure, fell for Radha. And I think Radha fell for him.”

“Bitch, I did not,” Radha said. “Quit trying to put shit in my mouth.”

“What would two guys want with Layla?” Julian said.

“She’s single,” Jesse said. “She’s hot.”

Julian stared at him.

“She is,” Jesse defended himself.

“She is,” Claire said. “But so is Radha, which is why this Mark guy wants her.”

“You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”

“Nope,” she told Radha.

“Wait a minute,” Julian interrupted. “Are these guys who go to school with Layla?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Radha shrugged.

“Then they’re high schoolers?”

“So?”

Jesse smirked.

“That makes you a cougar!”

Radha seemed unaffected. She shrugged and said, “Well….”And then made a swipe at her brother with her paw: “Growwwwwwllll!”