Page 55 of The Wrong Track
“Hey!” Hazel got out of her little car and waved her arm above her head, like she was very excited. And then she said, “I was so excited that you called.”
“I’m glad you could come,” I told her as she walked up to the porch and then I jumped a little, like Ella did when she was startled, as Hazel threw her arms around me.
“Thanks for inviting me over,” she answered. “Did you need my help with something?”
“Um, no. I just thought we could hang out. Or whatever.”
Hazel stared at me for a moment, then broke into a huge smile. “Sure, I’d love to,” she told me. “Is the baby here, too?”
There wasn’t really another place for her to be so I nodded, but I had a different answer to her next question: “Where’s Tobin?”
“He’s out with Lulu,” I stated, and Hazel’s brown eyes got big.
“Really? Good gracious. They are getting back together, then.” She came in and leaned down to look into the little swing chair that another cousin, Steve, had brought for us to use. “Hi, sweetheart. Oh, Remy, she’s even more beautiful!”
“Your mom came over earlier to say hi and to hang out with her. I got a ton done,” I said. Annie had been back in touch—she had gotten very behind with several clients, it turned out, and had forgotten to give me the projects that she’d meant for me to have.
“If my mom didn’t work so much, I’m sure she would want to babysit all the time. Can I hold her, or does she like to be in the swing?”
“She’ll like you to hold her,” I answered, and when I saw how Hazel was looking at the baby, I didn’t think that Monica needed to worry about whether she’d have grandchildren.
Hazel settled on the couch and tried to get comfortable on the cold leather. “What are Tobin and Lulu doing tonight?” she asked me.
“She’s cooking dinner. I guess she lives with her mom but she has the house to herself for the weekend and she invited him over.”
“Why did he go? I thought that he’d decided that they weren’t getting back together. That’s what Charlene told me, because it sounds like she’s been pestering him a lot about Lulu. Remy, look at how long her fingers are!” She gently held up the baby’s hand. “I’m going to give her piano lessons. Right, Ella? You want to play, right? You sweet girl.” She kissed those tiny digits.
“He says that they won’t get back together,” I answered. “But Lulu really wants to, and I don’t see why he wouldn’t.”
“Because they broke up for good reasons.”
That was what Tobin said, too. “I think he broke up with her because he was in love with you.”
Hazel made a face, sticking out her tongue. Ella did, too. “He wasn’t, not really,” she told me. She made another face, this one sillier, and laughed when the baby watched with big eyes. “I think he wanted to break up with Lulu because he knew they weren’t right for each other, and he got worried about losing me as a friend. Which he won’t, because I’m always going to stick to him. Like glue. Super glue.”
She smiled at the baby again but then looked up at me, serious. “He was used to having me around and when it seemed like I wasn’t going to be anymore, and then he and Lulu weren’t going to work, Tobin had a…like a crisis. A crisis of confidence,” she explained.
Tobin had also said that, almost the same exact words. “He thinks he’s grown up a lot,” I mentioned. I didn’t mention that he and Lulu had slept together since the breakup, at least once that I knew of but probably more. That was nobody’s business but it was a point of interest to me.
“I think he has, too,” Hazel agreed. “Tobin has always had girlfriends but Lulu was the first person I thought he was actually serious about. And he figured out by himself that he wanted more than that. He needs more than what she has to give.”
I knew what he needed: Hazel. I looked at her pointedly.
“Me? No! No, I don’t think so,” she disagreed now. “I really don’t. We’re getting back to where we were before, as friends. I’m so glad about that and I honestly don’t believe that he’s still, you know.”
In love with her, that was what she didn’t say.
“Really, Remy. He really isn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter to me.” It did, though. I didn’t want Tobin to be sad or upset, I didn’t want him to pine after Hazel, someone he couldn’t have. I wanted him to be happy and to move on. “Maybe they will get back together. Maybe that’s a good thing, even though all y’all think she’s poison or something. You know, just because someone acts in ways you don’t like, maybe in ways that seem awful, it doesn’t mean that she’s really a bad person.”
Those words had come out a little too loud and both she and Ella looked at me. I reached for the baby and held her on my shoulder.
“I don’t think that about Lulu,” Hazel said. “We all have good and bad, right? She really, really loved him and she helped you a lot, too. I don’t think they’re right for each other but that doesn’t mean anything about her character. Sure, she’s made rude remarks about my weight, but I don’t care anymore. And sure, she cried crocodile tears to control Tobin, she never cared about his career even though it’s so important to him, she kept him away from his family but used them to puff herself up on social media because they’re rich and whatnot. But I’m not saying she’s a bad person,” she repeated earnestly.
None of that sounded good. At all.
“It seems like you want him to be with Lulu. Oh, this feels so wonderful.” She brushed her fingers against Ella’s soft, dark hair which was coming in thicker, and maybe with a little wave.