The Trouble With Girls

Chapter 1
Life Was Simple Before Girls

The screen door slammed against the wood door frame with the promise of a great sunny afternoon for Tommy and friends. With his catchers mitt in one hand and his ball in the other he jumped off the old cement porch, over the bushes he had trimmed that morning to earn his freedom. Before his feet hit the soft well manicured grass, he heard his brother’s yell.

“Wait for me.” Ben barreled out the screen door Tommy had slammed moments before. Balancing his mitt and bats as he came. Ben didn’t take a lot seriously, but he took baseball and football very serious.

Tommy liked Ben, but sometimes it was nice to get away. It was hard to believe they were brothers even for them sometimes. Tommy was taller than most, for his 12 years because of his long legs, he was thin with blonde hair and blue eyes. Ben was shorter than the average 10 year old boy, his build was stocky and he had thick dark brown hair and matching eyes. Tommy stood in his slightly too snug last years baseball uniform looking at his brother who was also in last years uniform. Tommy wondered why their mother could get the stains our of his uniforms but not out of Ben’s uniforms? Was that a new hole in Ben’s shirt? Was there a nice way of blowing off his brother? He could try.

“Did you finish your chores?” Tommy asked throwing the ball in the air and catching it. Ben said yes. “Did you finish your homework?” Tommy sighed, repeating the throw and catch. School hadn’t started yet so there wouldn‘t be homework. Still the chance to needle his little brother was there, he had to do it. Baseball was Ben’s sport Tommy just did it for fun. Ben really cared about it. Tommy really cared about guitars. So, Tommy would do what he did every week, play with his brother.

“Geez, mom. I did everythang' I was suppose to. I won’t get in the way. I’ll play out field. I won’t say or do nothin' stupid, can we go already?” Ben was walking toward the park knowing Tommy was smiling and coming too. This was one of the things they did most Saturdays. They talked on the way about the neighborhood, friends, school, sports, animals all the important stuff out of the hearing of grown ups.

Today’s discussion centered around the house on the corner that the movers where unloading furniture and boxes into. The SUV parked in the driveway screamed family but nothing outside indicated boys, girls or ages, so they would have to wait to discover if they had someone new to hang out with or someone who might get on their nerves. If the moving van was gone by the time they came home from the park they would stop. Tommy would offer his lawn mowing services. That might give them more information.

The baseball game was a success, the boys team won. Ben caught a fly ball at third base for the final out. Ben offered to play out field but Tommy’s friends’ put him on third because he had a mean arm for a 10 year old. They usually moved Ben around every weekend which was fine with him. The boys walked home laughing and teasing about missed balls and awesome catches. They walked by the mystery house and the moving van was gone so Tommy walked up the steps to ring the bell while Ben stayed at the street with his baseball gear. Tommy could hear noises in the house, someone was home. His stomach had butterflies in it, he practiced in his head what he would say to the dad, ‘sir I am very dependable and work hard I would like to cut your grass to earn money. I currently do the six yards on this block and can give you several references‘. Or the mom, ‘ma’am, I am very dependable I will work around both my school schedule and your schedule. If you would like to meet some of the other ladies in the neighborhood they can tell you I’m good with yards‘. His hands were damp so he wiped them on his baseball pants. Okay, breath and knock. He breathed, he knocked. A few moments later the door swung open wide to a girl with a long thick blonde pony tail and a big smile holding a glass bowl. Her mouth lost it’s smile and formed an O as her eyes widened. She dropped the bowl. She watched frozen as it went crashing towards the marble entry way. Tommy’s eyes followed the bowl, his catcher’s reflexes scooped down and snagged the bowl right before in made contact. From his catcher’s stance blue eyes looked up into shocked wide green eyes of relief.

“Wow, thank you. My mom would have killed me if I had broke this dumb bowl.” taking the bowl from Tommy’s offered hand. “Get up, get up.” Abby put the bowl on the buffet table and using both hands dragged Tommy in the door. “Come it. Who are you? Why are you here? Do we know you?” My mom…”

“Slow down.” Tommy laughed staggering in behind her. He tried not to run into her as she drug him in. “Do you always talk this fast?”

“Yes.” she shrugged. “Well, sometimes. Were my parents expecting you? Cause you shocked me. Your eyes are blue, I mean really blue.”

“No, I mean, yes. I mean,” taking a deep breath to think, he tried to gather his thoughts. “No, no one is expecting me but I want to see one of your parents and yes my eyes are blue. There. Do you always confuse people?” She giggled. “Can you get one of them while I let my little brother know this is going to take a little longer than I thought so he should go on home.” Tommy smiled ‘Geez if her parents were as talkive as her, he’d be here all night. Abby tilted her head with a smile saying she would be right back with a parent. Tommy watched her walk way. She wore a green pull over top and blue jean shorts. She didn’t have on shoes though. For some reason that bothered him, moving boxes and no shoes didn’t seem safe. Tommy heard her coming back and realized he needed to hurry. He quickly went to tell Ben there was a girl who looked to be about his brother’s age and sent his brother home. He returned to the house to find both parents waiting.

They introduced themselves as the Jones’s and Abby as their daughter. They talked about the move asking questions about school. The Jones’s moving into the kitchen with Tommy in tow admitted they needed a break from unpacking. These new neighbors were a lively trio one question came after another while offering snacks and drinks. Reaching for towels, plates and cups, digging in boxes as if it was normal for everything to be out of place and to be searching for things. Tommy moved out of the way several times feeling like he was in the way no matter where he was. He answered questions as best he could sticking to yes sir and no ma’am which seem the safest way to go when what he really wanted was to mow their lawn. They didn’t talk as fast as their daughter but there were two of them and it felt like it. They were making his stomach hurt. The school was okay, he made good grades. After what felt like a game of twenty questions he had answered yes he lived here in this small West Texas town all his life, his dad worked at the high school and his mom at the library. He kept seeing Abby on the kitchen counter swinging her legs as she sipping iced tea. Did she even know were her shoes were? Her parents had on shoes. Did they realize their daughter was in danger of having a box drop in her toes? What if that bowl had dropped? It could have broke and cut her foot. More questions, reminded Tommy to focus on the parents and the lawn not that girl or her need to wear shoes. . What color is that pony tail anyway? One second it looks blonde, then the sun in the kitchen window hit it and it looked and it looked sort of red. How long was her hair, he couldn’t tell? Earlier her eyes looked dark green, now in the kitchen light they look really bright. He knew Mr. Jones said something directed at him and was waiting on a response, a sound came out of his mouth that he knew he was not suppose to make to an adult. He knew it but out it came anyway, “Huh?”

“Are you affiliated with a church?” Mr. Jones repeated. Tommy looked at him unable to answer. Shocked that he had said ‘huh’ to an adult, his dad would kill him.

“Do you attend a church near by?” Mrs. Jones asked. Great, now they think I'm and idiot. I have to answer.

“Geez, Tommy," Abby drew his attention back to her "going to church tomorrow?” Abby smiled.

“Oh, sorry, I got side tracked." Tommy looked at Abby's smile and forgot about everything but her smile and what was the question… oh yeah. "Church, yes, we go to the Methodist Church on Main Street." What was he thinking. She thinks I'm a idiot too. Why do I care? She's a kid, she can't be older than Ben. He needed to get out of there. He didn’t much care for hanging out with grown ups and he didn’t much care for strangers and he had done both of those things more than he liked today. He was embarrassed and ready to go home and get to the safety of his guitar. He answered a few more questions. No, he didn’t know how many adult classes the church had. He gave his phone number and address to the Jones’s explaining that he would be glad to cut their grass, they were welcome to look at his parents anytime to see what type of work he did. He said good bye and used those long legs to his advantage and got home as fast as any kid could without anyone else noticing he was trying to hurry. ‘Why does that girl sistract me so much? It’s got to be the shoes, cause she’s a kid.’ Tommy reasoned with himself.

He told his mom about the new neighbors and why he was late. That was a mistake. She wanted to play twenty questions too. Are they coming to church? He didn’t know. What kind of car do they drive? It was a SUV. What color was it? It was brown. How many children do they have? At least one, he didn’t ask. What do they do for a living? He didn’t know. He didn’t ask. Tommy couldn’t take it anymore. Every I don’t know and I didn’t ask seemed to prompt more questions when it was supposed to stop the questions. Finally Tommy said, “Mom, please go bake something and take it to them, geez, your making me crazy. All I want to do go out to the garage and play my guitar.” Tommy’s mother recognized when she was pushing and when he was uncomfortable. So she let him go, deciding she would have more luck with Mrs. Jones. She released her tormented son and quickly baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Tommy escaped to the garage and played his guitar until his dad came in and joined him. He knew he had been at it for hours because his fingers were getting sore. Tommy played often enough that sore finger tips rarely happened. His mom had left and come home. His brother had shot hoops in the driveway. He finished playing the newest song by Kelly Clarkson. She was a little to country for his dad and not rock enough. So Tommy started playing “You” by The Afters, a Christian Rock Band they could both agree on and dad picked up his bass and played with Tommy. They put down their instruments and were just hanging out in the garage together. Seating on amplifiers tossing the football back and forth. This was their time, they had they best conversations in the garage tossing a ball. "Heard you met the Jones’ today." his dad, Mike Nelson said. Tommy nodded. "Well. What did you think?" Mike prodded.

"Bout what?"

"Bout what?” Mike mimicked. “The Jones'." Mike threw the ball a little harder. “Mom said you seemed a little stressed about them. When she came back from their house they said they were sorry if they made you uncomfortable.” Tommy asked why they thought that. “Seems their daughter, Abby, I think, was upset about a church thing, said something. I don‘t know what happen.”

Tommy’s mind froze, his stomach dropped to his feet at the same time. Upset, upset with who, him or them, he was already embarrassed enough about not hearing what they said did she say something to them, come to his defense or call him an idiot? Did she get in trouble after he left, was it his fault? What happen. “What do you mean? What did mom say?”

“You’ll have to ask...” Mike shrugged and grinned realizing he finished the sentence for himself because his son had tucked the ball under his arm like the tight end he was and ran out of the garage “her.”

His mother was of very little help. She started asking questions again, Should Abby be mad at him? Did he do something to Abby? He didn’t think he did. He was nice. He saved the bowl. He answered questions. He said bye. Was he suppose to do something else? He was convinced his mom looked up new ways to torture him while she was at work. It was the only thing that made sense, that library had a secret section just for parents.

The next day at church Tommy sat in Sunday school next to his best friends Billy and Jack. The room had a big square table with 4 boys and 3 girls sitting around it. The boys joked that they idea of Sunday Best was clean jeans and T-shirts with no holes. Their parents had other ideas, like Dockers and button up shirts, preferable tucked in with a belt. Secretly, Tommy was okay with that, but would never admit it to his friends. The girls had on slacks with blouses or except Melissa who had on a sun dress. A sundress that Billy was quick o whisper looked hot on her. Tommy rolled his eyes Billy you think everything looks hot on Melissa. The door opened and they expected to see Ms. Karen ready to start class. She always ran a little lake because she had 6 kids to get ready in the morning. Instead, Abby walked in looking at her shoes. She could feel the eyes turn to her and the voices stopped. She hated this. Why did her mother talk her into a shirt? She looked up and saw him, she broke into a smile before she could stop herself . Those big blue eyes where made even bluer by his matching blue shirt. He was looking up at her with a smile as big as hers. Her mouth formed her famous Oh, I can’t believe it circles. Tommy laughed and the rest of the room looked back and forth between them as if they were watching a tennis match and not sure were the ball was. “I thought you were younger. Sit.” Tommy motioned to an empty chair next to Melissa.

“I thought you were older. You are awful tall aren’t you? Did you get held back in school? I’m really sorry about yesterday. I’m surprised your talking to me. You are talking to me, right? I’m so embarrassed.” Abby turned to Melissa as she scooted into the chair “Hi, I’m Abby. We just moved to town yesterday from Dallas cause Dallas is to big and wild. Who are ya’ll?”

“I’m Melissa, this is MaryAnn and Sara. Sara has a cousin that lives in Dallas.” Abby wanted to know where in Dallas and in the next 10 minutes the girls talked non stop.

The boys would have learned more about the three girls they grew up with in that 10 minutes then they had in the past 11 years but they where overwhelmed by how the girls could all talk at the same time and hear each other at the same time. It was all a blur to the boys. “Think they’re born that way?” Jack asked Tommy. Tommy shrugged confused too. He understood how the three girls could talk like that, they grew up together. But Abby was new, how did she just talk like that to complete strangers. He would not have been able to just start talking to strangers like he had known them all his life. It seemsed so natural. It was making his stomach hurt. But they were saved by the Sunday school teacher Ms. Karen. Never had the boys been so happy to hear about the Noah and the Flood. Sunday school ended and the boys took off running down the hall except Tommy. He held back and walked out with the girls.

"Tommy Nelson, why are you still here? You never walk with us.” Tommy’s eyes went to Abby. “Are you sweet on the new girl?" Melissa teased.

"Tommy doesn't like girls, he just likes guitars. Isn’t that right Tommy?" MaryAnn crossed her arms with a smile.

"Maybe he just doesn't like us but he likes Abby. I wonder why, we are just as pretty. No offense Abby.” Sara gave Abby a genuine smile before asking “Abby why does he like you and not us?" Sara asked.
"I don't know and no offense taken. You are beautiful girls." Abby's eyes twinkled as she asked. "Tommy, why do you like me?"

Embarrassed and confused Tommy decided he couldn’t give her an answer that wouldn’t give the girls something else to tease him about. He thought of the country song lyrics you gotta know when to hold em and know when to walk away. He looked at Abby, turned and walked away without saying a word. All he wanted to do was make sure everything was okay with her. Why are they picking on me? What did I do to them. The heck with the girls. Why am I trying to be nice to one of them anyway? She’s not my problem. He was going to get through church and go home to his guitar. MaryAnn was right, he liked guitars. His parents where going somewhere for the afternoon. He was in charge of his brother which didn't mean doing anything special, so get through church and relax. No grown ups, no questions, life would be good.

The Nelson family ate pot roast on Sundays that had been left in the slow cooker over night. It made for a quick meal preparation. Mom and dad left phone numbers and the normal don't do this and don't destroy that directions and warnings. Tommy and Ben had decided on one of their Saturday walks to the park that these don’t do lists must come in the parent manual that all parents hide. They knew their parents would be home no sooner than 5:30 pm and no later then 6:00 pm and to call Mrs. Anderson if they needed anything. Tommy escaped to the garage to play his guitar and he could hear Ben shooting hoops in between songs. A couple hours later Ben stuck his head in the garage and told Tommy he wanted to make cookies. Tommy said “Sure, go ahead.” before going back into his zone. Ben shrugged and headed into the house.

Tommy began to wonder what kind of cookies Ben was making in there. After a while his curiosity got the best of him and he went to see knowing his brother would share whatever kind he had. He expected to smell cookies as he walked in the side door. What he didn't expect was destruction. Destruction is what he found. Flour and sugar were all over the kitchen. A broken egg was next to the mixing bowl. A kitchen table chair was turned over and away from the table. Tommy could see Ben’s tennis shoes sticking out from under the table. “Ben, what happened, Buddy?” Tommy whispered.

Ben sat with his arms wrapped around his knees which were tucked under his chin. “Ask them.” Ben’s voice quivered as he looked down at his knees.

Tommy squatted down “Ask who?”

“Them, don’t you see them?” Ben whispered. Tommy looked around from his squatting position and back at his brother. He shook his head. “They’re there. They’re hiding. I’m not coming out until you get rid of them.” Just then Tommy and Ben heard giggling and a crash in the pantry. “See, see, that’s them. They are tearin’ up the pantry and I’m goin to get blamed for that too. ‘We want to help, let us help.’” Ben mimicked. “That’s what they say but they mess everythin’ up.” he ranted from under the table as Tommy stared at the pantry.


“Okay.” Tommy held out his hand to Ben, “You stay right there. I’ll go see what’s going on. You gonna be okay?” Ben nodded. Tommy walked across what used to be his mother’s clean kitchen leaving tracks across the tile to the pantry. He opened the door and saw the images of two girls come flying at him. He ducked as they landed across the room.

“Sorry about that.” The taller one giggled. “We haven’t quite learned how to go about our business. Fraid’ we are making a mess more oft than not, but we‘ll get it down yet.”

He stared at the girls trying to understand what he was seeing. They looked like girls but he could sort of see through them to his mom’s china cabinet. They had on long white dresses or maybe nightgowns and no shoes. What was wrong with girls? Abby didn’t wear shoes yesterday. What was wrong with him, now was not the time to think of Abby. “What?” Tommy stuttered.

“”Moving about? Trying to stay with these images and move about you see, it takes some skill, we haven’t quite mastered it. As you can see, we wanted to help Ben there with his baking, but we’ve” her head began to spin around and around until her hands came up to stop it “is it straight?” she asked with a worried frown. Tommy nodded trying not to laugh at her concern. “As I was saying we’ve only managed to make a mess.”

“Who are you?” Tommy asked in bewilderment.

“Don’t ask. She’ll tell ya.” Ben yelled from under the table.