Out of My League Read Free Page A

Most days she watches Jerry Springer while reading her collection of Bible walk-throughs concerning the Apocalypse. She doesn’t make it through the Bible or the programming before she falls asleep. For her, there is something irresistibly relaxing about watching sinners fight over trailer park politics while she reads God’s comforting promises of roasting them in hell—her own variation on the modern bedtime story.
    My grandma practices her “you hope I’m dead, but dead people don’t fart in their sleep” impression pretty regularly these days, ever since I started dating Bonnie, actually. I used to think Grandma was tired because she went out late at night to feed, but I later discovered it was because Grandma liked to stay up and eavesdrop on my conversations with Bonnie.
    Though they’ve never met, my grandma doesn’t like Bonnie and she tells me so every time I leave the house with a smile on my face. According to my grandma’s twisted algorithm of what makes a woman proper and respectable, Bonnie just doesn’t add up. Grandma says a woman should never date a boy she met on the Internet; that makes her a stalker. She says a woman should never drive hours to see a boy; that makes her desperate. A woman should never talk to a boy after midnight; that makes her a whore. And above all, says my grandmother, a woman should never date a boy who doesn’t make any money; that makes her stupid.
    I firmly believed that if my grandma met Bonnie in person, she’d change her opinion. However, considering my grandma was also fond of listening to the counsel of imaginary people when rendering judgment, I decided her napping might not be a bad thing.
    “Should we wake her?” asked Bonnie.
    “No,” I said.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Absolutely. If she’s asleep every time you come over, I’ll be perfectly fine with that,” I said with a beaming smile of hope.
    “I feel weird. I mean, look at her.”
    Grandma was drooling now.
    “Don’t feel bad,” I said. “She’ll wake up soon and then we’ll do a quick, painless lunch. If she wonders what happened, I’ll act like she was awake the whole time and just can’t remember. I’ve done it before. Let’s put these groceries on ice and make the most of our good luck.”
    Bonnie had brought the meal with her. A picnic in December, she called it. She even brought a bottle of wine to put the meal over the top. We put the picnic on hold, stuffing it into my grandmother’s cemetery of a refrigerator to await its time. Then I playfully herded Bonnie toward my bedroom with tickle prods.
    Aptly named, my bedroom was almost entirely occupied by the air mattress parked there. Since there was no room for chairs, Bonnie and I took a seat on the bed, which, being a giant inner tube of sorts, groaned and squealed like a pool toy when we plopped on it.
    “Do you ever feel embarrassed by the fact that you are dating a guy who lives with his grandma?” I asked, looking around the room at the suitcase that served as my dresser and my travel companion, the card table I used as a desk, and the four feet of open space not occupied by a collection of my grandmother’s antiquated heirlooms.
    “No. And don’t ever think it does,” Bonnie said. “Besides, I still live with my parents.”
    I thought about her answer for a second. We were both stuck in that age of sacrificing independence for a chance to get a foothold in our dreams. Giving up some pride was par for the course. Bonnie had an amazing job as a music therapist working with people with special needs as well as with Alzheimer’s patients, and was living at home so she could save money before moving out to start her own therapy practice. I was trying to survive long enough in baseball to wash up on the golden shore of the big leagues. Dream chasing; it made sense when you took time to explain it, yet when my eyes fell upon a picture of a little girl getting into a bathtub with her bare butt showing, which my grandmother had