Pie Town - Lynne Hinton [91]
It was some notion that Trina learned before she even knew she was learning survival skills. It was the instinct she was given that she was always going to have to fight, going to have to make a place for herself. She knew before she could walk and talk that her life was going to be a battle, and she never entered a place, joined a gathering, walked into a classroom, or ran onto a soccer field expecting to be received. So that when she was bullied or rejected, she didn’t run off and pout or get her feelings hurt, she just assumed that was the price for being a part of a group. She accepted that bad behavior and unwelcoming gestures were just a part of the initiation rites of any party or company. She wasn’t turned off or turned away by how the other kids acted toward her. So, while others called her obstinate or mulish, she just thought she was playing by the rules that somebody put in place long before she had anything to say about it, and the only time she was ever surprised or taken aback was when she was accepted, when she was welcomed.
Trina had built her life on a set of beliefs that said she was different but deserving, social but wary, friendly but decidedly not in need of friends. She had made her way through childhood and adolescence, middle school and a year of high school, Parkway Baptist Assembly and two Presbyterian churches, parties, Girl Scouts, soccer teams, after-school activities, and even a stint on student council—after being told she would have to be elected and ultimately she was—fighting to be included, refusing to be pushed out. And she stayed counted as a member in good standing of those groups until she was bored or restless.
She left when the others had given up trying to bully her or dismiss her or overlook her. It was only when she had defeated their hostility and won some kind of acceptance, though always with a measure of resistance, that she decided to quit, to walk away and leave. Trina prided herself on never, ever being told when to leave. Until now. Until Pie Town, this place she thought had received her, this place she had thought she would call home.
She glanced over at the small table she had covered with a brightly colored tablecloth. Bea had given it to her when Trina commented on how much she liked it. It was a sample for the diner, one that Bea had not chosen. So instead of packaging it up and mailing it back to the restaurant supply store, she gave it to Trina. And Trina, never having owned a tablecloth, never having had her own table, washed it with dish soap and made sure it was dry before spreading it over the old table in the apartment, then added a small vase of flowers and a set of salt and pepper shakers. She loved that table with its bright colors dancing across the top. She got up from the sofa and sat down at the table, smoothing down the cloth and following the floral design with her finger, a gesture of good-bye.
She wasn’t sure if it was being pregnant that had somehow made her sentimental about her decorations, a tablecloth and knickknacks, and if it was also the reason she had become sensitive for the first time to how she was being treated. She didn’t know if she was already experiencing some kind of maternal drive to protect somebody else and create a homelike atmosphere, or if she was just tired of not being received.
Maybe, she thought, having finally experienced friendship in her life, the real sense of family she enjoyed in Amarillo with Dusty and Jolene and Lester, she was spoiled now, needy in some way she had never known. Once she got a taste of full acceptance, genuine love, sincere hospitality, and a place she looked forward to coming to after a day’s work, maybe it had broken her, forced a crack in that