Page 26 of Play to Win
9
“Hey there! Long time, no see.”
On Sunday afternoon, Portia looked up from the spot where she’d been sitting on the front lawn going through a box of CDs to see Camy Greer.
“Oh, hi,” she replied.
Camy’s smile was genuine as she lifted her sunglasses from her face to prop them on top of her head. She wore white shorts and a pink tank top as she knelt down across from Portia.
“So it was nice to see you last night at the bar. I was just driving past on my way from the store and saw you out here,” she continued.
“The bar was a change of scenery for me,” Portia said. “I’m glad I went.”
She was more than glad she’d decided to go to Game Changers last night because, it had, in essence, been a game changer for her. It was the first time in her life that she’d had a rewarding sexual experience. She’d thought about that fact all morning and now well into early afternoon.
“Good. If you’re not too busy around here today, I’d like to invite you over to my place. I’m having a cookout so there’ll be lots of food and drinks and just casual company.”
Casual company and an invitation to a cookout at someone’s house. More things Portia had daydreamed about while growing up here. She’d brought these boxes outside to go through because the smell of fresh paint inside the house was giving her a headache. But while picking through each item she’d been flanked by more memories than she could handle. Memories of her time in Providence, of the loneliness that she thought would someday kill her and the things she’d used to try to keep her sanity.
She’d thought things would change once she got to college, but for the most part it was still the same. There’d been no pledging sororities for her. A group of girls judging her on any number of things wasn’t really her idea of friendship, and while she could accept that for some people the experience was much different and bonds were made in those groups, she hadn’t been willing to try. Her mostly solitary status continued as she finally found a home in Seattle and after a while she’d started to think it wasn’t so bad.
After being gone for twelve years, she’d been back in Providence for a little over a week and she’d not only had sex with her high school crush, but was now being invited to an event she was fairly certain Ethan and his friends would also be attending.
“Come on, say yes,” Camy prodded. “It’s a beautiful day and we’re going to have so much food and music. Lance wrote this song and I’m going to sing it and then we’ll maybe play some cards or just sit around eating and drinking until we’re ready to fall asleep.”
She laughed and Portia smiled. Camy had always been outgoing and cheerful. While Portia hadn’t spent as much time at the church, in the school chorus or in any of the other circles Camy had run in, she recalled seeing Camy around town a lot and admiring her for the way she made it look as if being friends with someone was so easy. Portia had Sunny and her college roommate who’d married and moved to Germany with her military husband, but that was it. Back in Seattle, her relationship with her downstairs neighbor was pretty cordial, but she wasn’t totally sure she’d call Bethany a close friend.
“I should really get this packing done,” she replied to Camy and watched as the woman’s mouth turned down at the corners.
“Girl, you don’t want to sit here all day working. I can see it in your eyes. You’re itching to get up from here and do something fun. Lucky for you that I came along,” Camy told her.
Camy also took that moment to reach into the box and pull out a CD. “This is the old Mariah Carey. I used to love this CD. I sangVision of Loveso much my mother wanted to hurl me and my CD player out the window. I know I was just a baby when this released, but my mother always said I was an old soul.”
Portia heard the hint of sadness in Camy’s voice as she said those last words. Roxanne Greer had been sick for as long as Portia could remember. By the way Camy was staring with a mixture of grief and fond memories at the CD, Portia assumed Roxanne had passed away during the years she’d been gone.
“Well you and I were a lot alike because I migrated toward older music too. There are so many CDs here,” Portia said. “I’d forgotten all about them. But I remember all the nights listening to slow songs before falling asleep.”
She also recalled the songs that played through the speakers at the bar last night when she’d been with Ethan.
“You should bring them with you to the cookout. It’ll be fun to reminisce a bit. And we could have our own karaoke night. I keep trying to tell the guys they should have one down at the bar, but Lance is stuck on the playlists they use on loop or live entertainment,” Camy said, excitement once again in her tone.
“I don’t know about all that.” She decided she liked Camy excited and enthusiastic, instead of sad. “But I’ll come to the cookout to hear the new song you’re going to sing.”
“Great! You remember where our house is right? The rambling old colonial down by the bridge. Just show up around five or sooner if you’re inclined to help me with some of the food.” She stood, but then knelt again and grabbed the Mariah Carey CD. “Can I keep this? I want to listen to it in the car while I finish running my errands.”
“Sure. And I’ll come early to help. I just have to clean up this mess here first,” she told her and watched as Camy danced her way across the grass to her car.
Feeling a little lighter than she had just moments before, Portia began picking up the stacks of CDs and placing them neatly into the box she’d taken them out of earlier. This time as she moved, she hummed one of Mariah Carey’s tunes and felt the bits of happiness she’d been deprived of when she was a young girl collecting all this music.
Wayne and Judy did not like loud music being played in the house. That meant if they could walk past her closed bedroom door and hear the music, it was too loud. Wayne insisted on Portia remaining focused on getting perfect grades so that she would receive scholarships and acceptance letters to all the Ivy League colleges. Even though he’d already decided she was going to Yale. It was her mother’s job to make sure this happened, so Judy was stern about Portia’s extracurricular activities and her social life—meaning she basically had none. Sure, she could go to the library after school or to do anything that centered around academics but that was about it. There’d been a schedule on the back of Portia’s bedroom door and Portia dare not alter it because that would place her directly on the receiving end of Judy’s wrath.
The only place Portia was allowed to go with permission was here, to Sunnydale. All the kids in school referred to Sunny’s yellow Victorian by that name. It could’ve also come about because of the friendly neighbor Sunny was. While she was strict about not letting the busybodies of this town—as she called them—through her front door to feed their gossip mill, it wasn’t strange to see her sitting on her front porch with fresh baked cookies and lemonade for the children as they walked by on their way home from school. Portia always thought Sunny would’ve been a terrific mother. Except Sunny had been clear that men were only good for one thing and once they’d shown her all their tricks in bed, she politely moved on to the next one. And yet she’d talked to Portia last night of finding love.
With a shake of her head to clear that thought from her mind, Portia stood and paused before lifting the box to take back inside. She looked at the lovely yellow house with the gray shutters and realized with a start that every happy moment she’d ever had during her childhood had happened in there. Not in the house she’d shared with her parents, or the schools she’d spent the bulk of her time in, or even the church where older women whispered behind her back just as much as the young girls. Every fond part of Providence for Portia was at Sunnydale. And in a couple of days she would sign the paperwork to sell it to someone else.
Portia didn’t know how she felt about that and she didn’t have much time to consider it either. She had a couple more boxes to go through before she wanted to shower and change and head over to Camy’s house. It was her first social invitation in Providence. It didn’t matter that it’d come years too late, she was still excited about receiving it, partly because she knew Ethan would be there.
* * *
