Our Life Is Just a TV Show

Ugh dinner was full of questions.

The first one was courtesy of grandma.

“And who is this nice girl Tara?” she asked peering at Bill without her glasses on.

“Grandma this is Bill, my boyfr…uh…fiancé,” I explained.

“She’s marrying a girl?” my grandma whispered to Cam quite loudly and he looked like he was about to burst out laughing.

My dad started to carve up the ham and pass it around for us all.

“What is this?” Bill asked pointing at random dishes. He looked disgusted.

“Pineapple stuffing, carrot soufflé, green bean casserole,” I explained in a whisper.

“Ew it all looks so healthy,” he pouted.

“Eat it darn you!” Bill didn’t like healthy food. He preferred going to McDonald’s everyday. And he could, I mean he was still a stick after eating it. Not fair.

Bill took small portions of everything, except the ham. He put tons of extra salt on it.

We said grace once we had our food and then started to eat.

“Come on just eat it,” I whispered to Bill who was just staring at his plate. “Or try. Don’t look weird in front of my parents.”

He rolled his eyes and started eating the pineapple stuffing reluctantly.

“So do you two live together?” my mom asked, breaking the silence around the table.

I shot a look at Cam. Good, he didn’t look like he was gonna tell.

“Nope. The band has an apartment a couple blocks down,” I explained and took a bite of the gelatin mold that my grandma always made every year. God I didn’t even wanna know what was in it.

“You’re still living with Jeni aren’t you?”

“Yeah. She’s away a lot though since the show started,” I answered. I like never saw her anymore.

“And Bill, with your band, you’re not going to leave Tara behind are you?” my dad asked.

“No of course not. We’re probably going to record a few songs before our wedding and then finish an album after it so we can be together and just not think about the band for awhile,” Bill explained, glad to have an excuse for not eating his healthy food.

“Would you take her on tour with you?” my dad was good.

“I don’t want her on the road with all of us for a long time. It would be bad for…” I elbowed him quick. “Eh…that would be a terrible honeymoon. We probably won’t do a tour for this album.”

I saw that it pained him to say that. The band was everything to him, everything.

“And where are you going on your honeymoon?” my mom asked casually, though it felt like my rents were drilling questions at us.

“Germany?” I asked Bill in a whisper. “Germany,” I said before he gave me an answer.

“Uh no we’re just gonna stay in the city,” he gave me a little ‘agree with me’ glare. “We can’t go anywhere cause you’re sick…in the mornings,” he whispered fast. It was hard to understand with his German accent.

“Oh why stay there?” my mom asked.

“Yes Tara, why?” Cam smiled slyly.

"Um..." agh my mind was blank damnit!

"Because we need to look for an apartment which we'll move into after the wedding. We're gonna go to Germany in late summer," Bill explained, saving my butt.

"An since Bill is quite famous we will be a pretty popular couple. The paparazzi will follow us everywhere wanting to get a picture of us together and we won't have time alone," I explained. Good, now it was believeable.

"Oh that sounds cool," Cam was smiling mischeviously.

"Are you implying something Cameron?" I glared at him.

"No of course not sister," he said in his most cocky voice.

The rest of dinner we weren't drilled with questions thank God. I was trying to come up with ways in my head to make this work, to explain this easily without my mother fainting.

After cleaning up the dishes and putting the food away and junk my mom and I joined the rest of the family in the living room for our annual game of Trivial Pursuit. We always did that after Christmas dinner.

I remember years past when it had been so fun. It had been really fun with Grandpa Joe, my dad's dad. He was the coolest guy ever, but he'd died of lung cancer two and half years ago.

We had two teams-me, Cam, and Bill and then mom, dad, and grandma, and at about halfway through we were kicking butt.

I reached over for our game piece when grandma asked, "Mary, since when has Tara been expecting?"

"What?!" my mom cried and shot a look at me.

I knew my face went blank, pale.

"Mom what are you talking about?" mom asked grandma. I sat back down in my seat next to Bill on the couch. Well, we wouldn't be holding it in much longer.

"Well look at her honey. I had nine kids. I should know the signs. She's only two months along," my mouth was surely hanging open with that. Grandma could barely even see. Thanks grandma, the blind one points it out.

"She's not serious is she Tara?" my mom looked at me with a distressful look in her eyes. This would be so much fun.

"Um...well..." awkward guilty smile on my face. No hiding it now.

We just sat there for a few seconds. Grandma was just sitting back like a complete genious, mom was sitting there staring at me open-mouthed, and dad didn't really look shocked.

"Well at least he's marrying here," my dad said breaking the silence. "And she's keeping the baby." Good if my dad didn't scold me then mom would hold her tongue.

"She's 19," harsh whisper from my mom, she was glaring at my dad.

"Hey how bout our nice game of Trivial Pursuit?" Cam cut in.

I shot him a glance that told him to shut up unless he had a really good explanation for this.

"I think it's time to go to bed," my mom got up out of her chair and went straight to her room.

"You better thank God I'm okay with this. Really, thank God, you sinned Tara," my dad looked really disappointed in me, I hated that.

"Oh Tara don't you worry, I was seventeen when I had my first baby. I'll tell them everything is fine," grandma explained. Wow..she was useful for something.

"Um...lets go to my room?" Cam suggested and left. We followed, having nothing else to do.

"Well that went well," Bill said as we went in Cam's room.

"How the hell did grandma know?" I cried and shot a glance at Cam.

"Hey it wasn't me. I swear."

"Well you were hinting at it at dinner," I spat.

"Now that was funny."

Bill and Cam talked about all this guy junk for awhile and I was pretty bored.

When I figured it was safe I went into my parent's room to talk to my mom.

"You're really gonna have a baby?" the first thing she asked.

"Yeah," my stomach was quivering again and I sat next to her on the bed.

"I just don't know if I can trust this Bill kid," she declared.

"He treats me with respect mom and if you don't like him you don't have to come to my wedding," I explained to her. "I love him and we wanted this for awhile."

"But Tara you're so young," my mom looked about to cry.

"We can do it mom. He loves me, I love him, that's all we need."

"Well you've proven me wrong before. Go do it again."

"So you'll come to the wedding?"

"Of course honey," she smiled and I hugged her.

"We didn't plan on kids for awhile, it just sorta happened," I said.

"It's going to be a big responsibilty. And you want to raise them in the city? Why don't you move back here and raise the baby."

"Me and Bill live in New York mom. The office is in New York," well...there was a Chicago office. But still even though I loved home I would really miss New York. And Bill needed to stay with the band.

"I'm gonna be a grandma, huh? Ugh I seem old..."

"You are old madre," I teased.

"His family is nice then?"

"Yes, really nice," God they'd never met me before..except for Tom of course.

"And they're all German I suspect?"

"Yep."

"You better brush up on some of that. You know Tara you are a really good kid considering what most kids have done. You made it through high school without a scratch and well you're already into a good career so there is nothing I could disagree with in your life. You're dad will make sure Bill treats you right," mom explained.

"He will, don't worry," I smiled.

"You can share rooms I guess," my mom said reluctantly as I was about to leave the room. Before all of this Bill was set to sleep in Cam's room.

Ahh that would be the most hilarious thing ever. The only reason Cam talked to him was well cause he was almost my husband and cause it was a guy he could talk to. He'd really hated Bill when I was obsessed with TH. I'm glad that changed.

"So your mom understands now?" Bill asked as we were lying in bed that night.

"Yep," I whispered and looked out my window to see that it was snowing.

"It's almost Christmas," he smiled.

"Don't wake me up early for your present, cause I won't give it to you then," I explained.

"Okay," he whispered and pulled me close to him. I was feeling that quivering in my stomach.

I was starting to like it. I put my hand there and knew our baby was right there. Wow grandma was one smart old lady, I barely had anything there.

Bill put his hand on my stomach too, his touch was warm and the quiverings were faster, like the baby noticed that he was something special. And he was. Something so special.

"Our baby is gonna be so fucking sexy," he whispered and played with a lock of my hair when I was already like half asleep.

I slapped him, gently of course, and went back to sleep. But yeah I knew he was right.