“I think they made up,” Ginger said an hour after Isaac went upstairs. They hadn’t come down yet. “Either that or she killed him and jumped out the window.”
“Oh really?” Taylor asked. “You think she would do something like that? I mean she’s fed up with being single, she just said it down here.”
“I was kidding.”
“I know. I’m just saying that, well, Roni’s weird.” Ginger rolled her eyes. “I’m telling you they’re back together and they’re probably bumping and grinding up there.”
“Taylor!” Ginger yelled. “I don’t even want to think about…ew!!!” She put her hands over her eyes and shook her head. “Get out!!”
“What’s so wrong, the two of you do it,” Taylor said. Kris looked at Zac and Ginger and immediately got a visual. She fell back onto the floor.
“Taylor stop, Goddammit!” Kris yelled. “These are your brothers you’re talking about!”
“Oh thank you Kristina, now it’s all gross!” He shivered. “Ew!!”
“We are so not having this conversation,” Zac sat, and put his head against Ginger's shoulder, his eyes closed. Kristina burst into laughter, thinking that they completely grossed each other out with something all of them did anyway.
Ike and Roni walked into the room, confused. “What the hell is going on down here? I hear a lot of people yelling at Taylor and now you all looked completely grossed out,” Roni said. Ginger looked and saw Ike's arms around her. She quickly shrieked and burst into laughter. The other three on the floor started laughing harder, leaving Isaac and Roni even more confused.
“I’m guessing we had to be there,” Isaac said. Taylor calmed down and smiled at them.
“No we just started talking about sex and grossed each other out. No big deal.”
“And yet it seems so,” Roni added. “And from the way you’re looking at us I have a feeling we had something to do with the conversation.”
“Well to tell you the truth,” Zac said, “um, Ike, you’re kind of holding her and we’re wondering about that. Did y’all finally get back together?”
“Y’all? Zac you’ve been in Chicago how long now?” Isaac asked. “Y’all is not in the Chicago dialect.”
“Shut up, Ginger got me doing it.”
“Ginger got you doing a lot of things,” Taylor said. “The earring, the y’all, the fashion sense…”
“Okay, that’s enough Taylor. So I showed him a few things,” Ginger said. “If I do recall you’re not the same person I met you out to be.” He shook his head.
“Yeah, you’re right. I drop my case,” Taylor said, trying to sound professional. It obviously didn’t work because he said it wrong.
“Taylor, first off, you really don’t want to sound like a lawyer. Second off, it’s rest your case, not drop,” Kris informed. Taylor nodded, a little confused but all right.
“Okay then.”
“Oh you have no idea how happy I am that you’re back together,” Ginger said. “It’s just so right!” They glanced at each other and figured they would hear a lot of this. “I’m sorry if you don’t think so but now, but this is the way I planned things out to be for the longest time and now it’s about damn time everything’s right.”
“Your plan?” Roni asked, and sat down. “What plan?”
“Well it wasn’t really a plan, more of a dream. When everybody met everybody, when me and Kris came to Tulsa for you guys’ last concert, I had a dream that we would be sitting here, in my house, right here in Chicago. Zac and I would be married, Kris and Taylor would be going out, and so would the two of you. Well Kris took it a notch higher with them engaged now but it seems as the dream has come true. There was someone else in it, though.” She looked down at the floor and ran her fingers over the soft carpet.
“Who?”
“My parents,” she softly said, then closed her eyes. She missed them so much, and she barely knew them. “That’s when it turned into a nightmare.” She felt tears welling; the events of the car crash piling into he head. Quickly she got out of Zac’s arms and ran upstairs.
August 19, 1990
“Where are we going today, mommy?” five-year-old Ginger asked, bouncing around in her seat. She was dressed in a plaid jumper and a white blouse underneath, her red hair in two pigtails on either side of her head, her two front teeth gone. Alex gave her a look, telling her to stop. Stupid seven-year-olds, they think they know everything!
“I told you, Ginger, we’re taking you to school! It’s your first day, aren’t you excited?” her mother said. Ginger smiled, completely forgetting that she had school to go to.
“Oh yeah! I can’t wait until we get there!”
“Honey, we’re about to leave, but your seat belt on,” her mother warned, and in the process forgetting to put hers on. Ginger grumbled but stuck it on, seeing her father and brother do the same. Her father started up the car and drove out into the road.
“I’m going to school, I’m going to school…” she chanted. Alex shook his head, staring out the window. “I’m gonna go to school and meet lots of people and have so much fun!”
“Ginger, please, Daddy’s trying to drive,” her father said, and looked at her through the rear view mirror.
“Watch out!” her mother yelled, just as another car pulled out into the road. With a flick of the steering wheel her father tried to avoid it but couldn’t. Our car hit head on with the other one. Her father’s head bashed against the steering wheel, and Ginger saw blood drip onto the seat. Her mother, having forgotten her seat belt, flew out the front window and landed in the street, her neck twisted and her cries suddenly silent.
Immediately Ginger started to cry, wondering what happened. Why wasn’t either of them moving? The other car sped off, the driver unhurt. They were just outside the neighborhood, so people came out of their houses and checked the scene out. One of her parent’s friends pulled her brother and her out of the car, and pushed us towards their house. “Mommy!” she screamed.
“It’s best you don’t see this, kids,” their neighbor said and stuck them in the house. What was going on?
Ginger landed on her bed face down. Immediately she started to cry. Everything was finally going right, and she had a flashback. She had just gotten over the nightmares that used to come every night. The accident, the funeral, being separated from her brother and her life…why was it all coming back again?
“Ginger?” Zac asked, opening the door. She didn’t turn to him or even look up.
“Please, Zac. Just go away. I need to be alone right now and you’re presence isn’t letting me.”
“I can’t let you be alone, you’ll torture yourself to bits.” She sat up and looked at him.
“Zac, get out.”
“No.”
“I just need to be alone! Is that so hard to ask?” she yelled, getting up. “This house is so fucking huge, find another room to be in! You have two brothers and two best friends downstairs, go talk to them!”
“What’s wrong, what happened to you down there?”
“I saw my parents die, Zac,” Ginger said, sitting on the bed. “You have no idea what it’s like to see a person die. Not only did I see someone die, I saw my parents die. Your parents are still alive, you just don’t treasure that, do you? They’re all I had, and my brother. My brother. They took him away from me. Just imagine when you were five, someone came along and took you away from your brothers and your sisters.” She stuck her head in her hands. “I saw them die and it affected my life forever.” Zac didn’t have anything to say. His life had been so perfect compared to hers. He had to admit—silently because he would never say it to her—her life sucked.
Ginger broke down again, putting her head back in her hands. Zac stood there a bit, then sat down next to her and stuck his arms around he. She let her hands find their way around his neck, and cried into his shoulder. "It's okay, sweetie. You're happy now. Everything's going your way. We're going along just fine and we're going to have a baby…you don't need parents because we'll be parents ourselves." She smiled, remembering the baby that was beginning to grow in her body.
“Thank you,” she whispered, looking up at him. “It’s just that all of a sudden everything came back to me…”
“That’s all right, baby,” Zac said to her. “No need for an explanation, just let me be there and everything will be fine. Now why don’t we go back downstairs and make sure they’re all right? They’re probably more upset than you are.”
“Okay,” she said and kept his arm around her as they quietly walked downstairs. Everyone was upset and rather worried. She understood considering it wasn’t often that she ran out of the room crying because of a memory. She wasn’t like that often, well, at least not anymore.
“Hey,” Kris said. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I'm okay now. I just had a memory. Same thing, old past coming to haunt me again.” Ginger fell into a chair, sighing. “Damn past,” she muttered.
“Well Ginger, just think about it. If you live in the past, what’s there to do? Everything’s all boring and planned out. The future’s so unpredictable, who knows what’s going to happen?” Roni said, smiling.
“I guess.”
“So stop being so pessimistic about everything. Good things are yet to come,” she said. Ginger opened her mouth to make a comment, but Roni he her me off. “And don’t think about ruining the moment. We all know life hasn’t been the best for you, just try and look at things the right way.”
“I don’t know…” she started only to have Roni cut her off again.
“Ginger, you’re married to the man of your dreams. He spoils you to no end, all of us can back you up on that. You’re pregnant with his baby. Your cancer is in remission for the second time, the odds of that are very unlikely yet you’ve beaten them. You’re have two sets of parents that love you more than anything. I know one set has passed but that just means you have two more guardian angels looking out for you. You have three sisters and a brother that adore you. You have Kris, who can’t seem to understand why she would ever let you out of her life, you have Taylor who praises you for bringing Kris to him, you have Isaac who is there and always has been there for you to pour your heart out to. You have me, who can’t thank you enough for changing my life forever. What is so wrong with all that?”
“Dammit,” she muttered. “I hate it when you guys do that, it always gets to me.” Ginger glanced out of the window. It was still raining. The power was still gone. “This sucks, if we had any power I’d stick on a CD or something and we’d get this party going, but we don’t have any power!” Suddenly all the lights went back on. "Score!" she said and ran over to the stereo and stuck on Ricky Martin’s Vuelve, and immediately Kris, Roni and Ginger were dancing around, singing. She couldn’t believe the six of them had been best friends for about two years now, and Taylor and Isaac still haven’t seen them when Ricky Martin is on.
“Ginger!” Taylor said. “You’re Irish!”
“Yeah but I’m Cuban at heart!” Ginger said. “Anyways, I’ve been raised by a Cuban family, I grew up on Ricky Martin and Julio Iglesias.” She waited for Kris’s comment on Enrique Iglesias. It came quick.
“Woo! Enrique Iglesias, gimme a piece of that!” Ginger smiled. Taylor gave his fiancée a strange look. She smiled at him. Since the three women of the house had come from a very Hispanic town, Latin music was common among them. “Um, Ginger, this really doesn’t fit you,” Isaac said. “I can understand Kris and Roni cause they’re actually Hispanic, but you’re Irish. Weird.”
“Well I’m weird Ike,” she said. “I was raised in a Cuban household, it’s just something that’s been mixed in my blood. Along with leprechauns, four-leaf clovers, and of course, my red hair.” She smiled, putting a hand through her red hair. She loved her hair. “I hope my child has red hair.”
“I hope our child has hair,” Zac commented. “Period.” Ginger rolled her eyes. “I’m only joking. If we have a girl I want her to have red hair, so she’ll look just like you.” Ginger smiled and let herself fall into his lap. Isaac looked at them, smiling and laughing with each other. He let his eyes gaze back over to Roni. They had just gotten back together, for a second chance. Roni had made a perfect point. If you live in the past, what’s there to do? Yet she had lived in the past for over a year now. Roni was so beautiful. And just then Isaac realized he knew nothing about her. No one did, she kept her past to herself. It was just that no one had asked about her past.
“Hey Ike we know you love her a lot, but you don’t have to stare,” Taylor whispered.
“I was just thinking.” Taylor gave him a strange look, but turned away. He found himself right in front of Zac and Ginger kissing.
“What the hell? You’re married, isn’t that enough? I don’t want to see this!” Zac and Ginger ignored him. Just because they were married didn’t mean they have to stop expressing it. Kris walked over and sat on Taylor’s lap.
“Honey, don’t say that. When we’re married I don’t think you’d want to stop.” Taylor thought about it and nodded.
“Yeah, I guess. Sorry,” he said. Kris stuck her arms around his neck and hugged him. “I love you.”
“Well honey I love you too.”
“Aw,” Ginger cooed. They turned to her. “Well I’ve never heard you say it before. Well, I’ve heard about it and stuff but I’ve never heard you two say it to each other. It makes me happy.”
“Yeah Ginger, I just say it to make you happy,” Kris said, with her hand covering her mouth, faking a whisper. “But don’t tell anyone cause if Taylor finds out he’ll kill me.” Taylor started tickling her. Zac was appalled.
“What the hell?” he yelled. “That’s my job! You stole my job!” Taylor stopped, looking over at Zac. Apparently he didn’t know about their weekly tickle fight. “It’s been my job to tickle the hell out of her every week! I’ve been doing it for years now.”
“Years?” Taylor asked, obviously forgetting the length of time he’s known Kris.
“Yes, I started about three years ago! That’s my job and you stole it so I no longer consider you my brother.” Zac pouted, looking away. Ginger pulled him back to her and looked him in the eyes.
“Now honey you know you don’t mean that.”
“Yes I do. He stole the only thing that let me bond with my sister-in-law.” Ginger gave him a strange look. “What?”
“I thought you hated my sister.”
“I do.” She smiled.
“No, I think you really love my sister, don’t you?” He shook his head. “Don’t you?” He shook his head again. “Face it bub, you love my sister and that’s all their is to it.”
“Fine then. You happy?” She thought about it, then shook her head. “Damned hell.”