---

Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

---

 

---

 
The Legal Stuff: Bears Know Best  © 2012 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2012 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
It's been a while since my readers have heard from me, and I know that this isn't the book that they expected to be next. The Standing Up to Life series will be concluded, but I had reached a writers block with the series and needed to take a break. Bears Know Best has been that break, and I hope you all will enjoy it!

Like the first three books I posted here on BigCloset, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. I will be posting it up in 28 installments, but that may change if I feel like a posting needs more. The book has a total of 35 chapters and a short epilogue. The full version should be completely posted by September. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. There are two types of eBooks available depending on how you wish to read it. One is the ePub format that you should be able to load on any e-reader (you may need an additional app, but I believe all will read it), and the other is a standard PDF formatted file. I believe the PDF is the best way to read it on a computer screen personally. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($8.95 for the eBook formatted files).

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy reading Bears Know Best!

Chapter 3: Are You Sure?

THE NEXT MORNING Mom had to go to work, and I chose to sleep in. At ten though I gave in to the sunlight streaming through the windows and took a shower. My hair was still dripping wet when the doorbell rang. I pushed it out of my eyes as I opened the door to a Fed Ex deliveryman.

“Taylor Landt?” He asked.

“Yes sir,” I told him.

“I have a bunch of boxes for you, would you care to sign here first and I’ll bring them up.”

“Shouldn’t I look at them first?” I asked him.

He shrugged, “Whatever,” and began bringing me the ten boxes that contained my life in them. Most of them were larger and heavier than I would be able to have managed to unload on my own. Thankfully he wheeled them all on his dolly into the foyer of the house. I checked to make sure the boxes looked mostly undamaged, and got to work on opening them and taking the contents upstairs. I’d managed to get about five of the boxes upstairs and unloaded when the doorbell rang again.

I stood up from the drawer I was leaning over and looked through the peephole. It was Alyssa!

“Hey Alyssa,” I said opening the door and suddenly self-conscious of my still damp hair. “Come on in, I’m just unloading the rest of my stuff. It just arrived today.”

I mentally ran through my head on if there was anything ridiculously embarrassing in the remaining boxes that I didn’t want her to see. I’d already unpacked my underwear, so I figured I was safe.

“Do you need any help?” She asked me.

“Sure,” I answered with a smile.

I wanted to crawl into a ditch though as soon as we made it upstairs to my room with an armful of stuff each. I’d completely forgotten about the way the room looked.

“Are you sure you’re not a girl?” she asked sternly, hands on her hips.

I groaned, “Yes I’m sure... I guess this was the paint scheme from the family before us,” I noticed her face was smiling now. “You knew that didn’t you...” I added.

“Jessica was a cute kid… it’s too bad her parents were so screwed up. She was nine, and this room was like her dream come true for all of the month they lived here,” she told me. Her face was a bit sad about it. “It suits you well too though,” she giggled.

I stuck my tongue out at her. She laughed, and the two of us got to setting up my room more. Most of the boxes had contained clothes, books, a few toys that I just couldn’t bear to throw away, and a lot of various music related items.Among the toys was a stuffed teddy bear that my mom and I had put together at Build-A-Bear Workshop when I was five. It was one of the last things we had done together before she had left us. It didn’t help my ‘boy’ status with Alyssa, because it had a dress on.

“Okay Taylor, what’s the story?” Alyssa said as she held it up to me with a grin.

I blushed, but was determined to come out of this okay. “On my fifth birthday Mom and I went to Build-A-Bear. I saw the bear and decided it was the one I wanted.”

“Okay, the bear I can understand... but?”

I knew that the white dress with multi-colored polka dots was confusing her. I shrugged, “I told my mom that it looked like a ‘girl bear’ to me, and I insisted that we dress it as a girl. I don’t know why the bear struck me as a girl, but I insisted that she be dressed in a dress.”

“What’s her name?” She smiled, how did she know that my bear had a name...?

“Allie,” I responded.

“Cute!” She didn’t seem to be judging me about it, and instead carefully lay her down on my pillow.

“Well now that you know all of my most embarrassing secrets,” I muttered, “You want something to drink?”

“Sure,” she smiled. She followed me downstairs and the two of us enjoyed a glass of iced tea before continuing through the boxes.

When we came to my well packed French Horn we did the best we could to avoid having packing peanuts everywhere. “Can I see?” She asked excitedly.

“Sure,” I answered and let her open the case.

“It’s beautiful,” she said with a bit of awe as she opened the case. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like it.”I showed her how to attach the removable bell. It was a gorgeous horn that my dad had given me for Christmas last year. It was a red brass color that looked like rose gold. It sounded absolutely beautiful, and I loved playing on it. I could see her drooling and handed her a spare mouthpiece after I washed it off.

“Here, go for it,” I told her.

She played a few scales and a piece of music she remembered from band last year. I was sad that she wasn’t even close to being in my league. Alyssa looked like she enjoyed playing on it though. After she finished I took my horn apart and put it away. She was helping me put away the music in the box when she asked, “You can play this stuff?”

I nodded. “I’ve been playing and taking lessons since fifth grade.” I didn’t mention that for the last two years they’d been with the principal player of the symphony in Atlanta. While not Cleveland, they were pretty good, and my lessons had left me able to play really well. My teacher had been trying to get in touch with the principal player of Cleveland before I left, but hadn’t had any luck yet. I was hoping by the end of the summer to be taking lessons again, even if it meant driving an hour into Cleveland each week.

She gave me a look like I was nuts as she rifled through the pieces. “Mr. Brandt is going to love having you in the band!” she told me with a big smile.

“Both of us!” I said smiling back. She helped me file away my music downstairs into a pile in my new ‘practice studio’ as she called it. I liked the sound of it actually, and began thinking of ways to make it a more comfortable place to practice. It took us another hour of moving things around, but we had all of my stuff out of the boxes, and put away in my room. I even managed to squeeze my iMac onto the dresser and kept my MacBook Air next to it! I was determined however to get an actual desk soon. The idea of staring at my reflection while working on the computer just didn’t seem right for some reason.

Alyssa invited me over for lunch and I discovered she could make macaroni and cheese with the best of them. “So what do you want to do the rest of the afternoon?” She asked me.

I was kind of surprised that she planned on continuing to hang out with me. I figured she’d grow tired of me soon.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I figured it would be kind of a boring summer when I moved out here, and hadn’t really planned to do much.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, “You heard me play earlier, but you never played anything...” Alyssa had this hopeful look in her eyes that made me feel like I was going to be beating a baby puppy if I said no.

I hesitated for a moment, and answered, “Okay.”

She smiled and seemed genuinely excited. I just didn’t want to be seen as showing off... I may have gotten the wrong impression, but my guess was that I was going to easily be the best horn player at this new high school. The two of us cleaned up the dishes from the macaroni and cheese at her house. “Do you have a horn here too?” I asked her.

“Umm... yes, but it’s not as pretty as yours...”

“That’s fine, why don’t you grab it, and maybe we’ll play some duets or something,” I suggested to her. She had a scared look on her face, “I’ll even trade horns with you for the duets if you want,” I added. That was enough to do it!

She dragged me upstairs to her room to grab it, and I forced myself to look away from a bra that was sitting out on her bed. I didn’t want to seem like some creepy guy staring at her underwear. We weren’t in her room long enough for her to notice my discomfort though as she found her horn in the closet, and we went back over to my house and into the basement.

Luckily I had a good music stand and a couple of folding chairs down there, so I didn’t need to track anything else down. I opened up my case and put the bell on my horn. I grabbed my favorite mouthpiece out of the case and twisted it into the horn. In the meantime Alyssa had plopped down in one of the two chairs I’d set up with her horn in its case beside her.

“What do you want to hear me play?” I asked.

“You said you took lessons?”

I nodded.

“What were you working on there?”

I sighed. I wondered if she’d ask this one. “The last piece was called the Hindemith Horn Concerto,” I told her and began searching through my stacks of music for the piece. I grabbed the Strauss Concerto I’d played for Solo and Ensemble too, and a stack of duet books my teacher and I used to play through.

I sat the Hindemith and the Strauss on the stand and opened up the Hindemith. I played through the last movement of the Hindemith, as the first couples were kind of hard to understand fully without the accompaniment. When I finished playing her eyes looked wider than humanly possible.

“And you let me play in front of you?!?!?” She asked semi-horrified.

“Why would that be a problem,” I feigned ignorance.

“Because you’re like... amazing!”

“You’re good too,” I told her.

“Not that good.”

“What do you consider to be ‘that good,’ then?”

I just smiled, I had no answer. “Get your horn out, let’s play some duets.”

“I can’t keep up with that,” she told me.

I laughed, “I didn’t used to be able to either, come on get it out and we’ll trade horns for the duets,” I told her with a smile. My horn really was pretty enough to get her over herself. She pulled her horn and mouthpiece out of the case and I pulled mine out of my horn and we traded. I tried not to grimace on the outside, this is what my horn from the school used to look like. It was old and dented, with a nickel finish that had long since begun to be scratched off. Still, at least it was a double horn, I’d been afraid she only had a single.

She looked happy to have my horn to play with, and so I shrugged it off and grabbed the easiest book I had. “That doesn’t look too bad,” she said.

“I hoped you’d say that,” I told her with a smile. We played through the first duet, and were fairly quickly flying through the first book. Before I knew it we’d played through all of the easy stuff I had, and began looking at some more interesting things.

I had no idea how much time had flown by, until Mom came in and said, “You two sound good together.”

“Taylor is amazing Mrs. Redding!” she said. “I don’t know anyone that can play that well.”

“This is actually the first time I’ve heard Taylor play,” she admitted.

“I’ll play again for you at some point Mom,” I said guiltily.

“Alyssa, I was just coming to get Taylor to go get something to eat, do you want to join us?”

Alyssa smiled at me, and said, “Sure, if it’s alright with my parents.”

“Do you need to borrow our phone?” Mom asked.

It was a silly question; because of course Alyssa had her cell phone in her pocket. We went upstairs and she pulled it out of her pocket, calling her mom, who was still at work to ask permission. “Mom, Taylor’s mom wants to know if I can go to dinner with them.” I heard her work out the details for a few moments before she said, “Okay mom, see you later,” she finished.

“Everything okay?” my mom asked.

“Yep, let’s go!” Alyssa said with a smile.

As we left the house, I had to wonder where we were going to go. Apparently Alyssa was wondering the same thing, “Where are we going?” she asked mom. She named an Italian sounding restaurant, “Oh cool, I like that place,” she said with a smile.

It wasn’t far, as it was still in Conneaut, and looked like a cozy restaurant. La Trattoria was the restaurants’ name, and it was a short walk away from the town’s square. An older waiter dressed in a nice suit seated us at a booth. Alyssa and I slid into one side on the opposite side of Mom, and I found myself looking at an authentic Italian menu that was complete with names I could barely pronounce.

“Madam, what would you like to drink?” he asked my mom first.

“An iced tea please,” she replied.

“And you two ladies?” he asked the two of us. I could feel Alyssa fighting a giggle.

“Same,” she said through a grin.

I just smiled and said, “Me too.”

I wanted to poke her in the side, but I didn’t feel like I quite knew her well enough. Instead I turned to glare at her. She was smiling widely.

“So how often does this happen?” She asked me.

“What do you think?” I replied.

“You could shave your hair off,” Mom said quietly.

“No.” I responded. “I’m not cutting my hair...” I paused, “I really don’t think it would help either.”

I went silent and studied my menu. Chicken parmigiana seemed safe, so when the waiter came back and asked, “And what would you like to have, miss?” I answered him, and just ignored the ‘miss’ part.

I stopped pouting when he brought back some bread for our table, and began talking animatedly with Alyssa again. I noticed at one point that my mom was just watching us interact, not saying anything, but suppressing a giggle it seemed. Amusingly, about the time I said, “What?” quizzically, Alyssa’s voice was in unison with mine.

Mom just shook her head, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the two of you have been friends for a lot longer than the two days you’ve known each other!”

If she had planned to explain more she didn’t get a chance, the waiter chose that moment to drop off our food. The food was very good, and I found myself distracted by it quickly. At the end of dinner I needed to go to the bathroom, but didn’t really want to go there with the waiter so sure I was a girl. Alyssa noticed something funky was going on with me, and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

I whispered back, “This is where I really hate this whole mistaken girl thing, I need to go to the bathroom, but I don’t want to go into the men’s room and have people look at me like I shouldn’t be there...”

She looked thoughtful for a second, “We’ll be right back,” she said as she pushed me out of the booth and very forwardly pushed me towards the bathroom. I just about squealed as she pushed me towards the women’s door.

“Are you crazy?” I whispered.

“Just sit down, pee, and make sure you flush, you’ll be fine.”

“What about Mom?”

“She’s busy waiting for the check. It’s either this, or explain the rest of it to the waiter since he’s coming over here.”

That decided it, and I wanted to die in embarrassment. There were three empty stalls in the bathroom, and I took the one that was the farthest against the wall. I did as she said and sat to pee, and wiped like I could hear her next to me. I emerged from the stall, washed my hands quickly, and then held the door open for a lady and her young daughter as they came in front of me at the door. They didn’t even bat an eye on my being in the bathroom, but the mom said, “Thanks,” to me.

My heart was racing outside the door, was Alyssa crazy? I watched a very large man come out of the men’s restroom that didn’t look like he’d shaved in a week. He gave me a look that suddenly made me feel very conscious of my temporary solitude. I looked back at the door behind me just as it opened, and Alyssa came out. The two of us returned to the table with my mom just standing up to leave.

“Better?” She asked without knowing what had transpired. I just nodded. The three of us headed out, and caught a goodbye from the waiter on the way out.

“Anything you want to do before we head home?” Mom asked after we climbed into the car.

“What is there to do here?” I asked honestly.

Alyssa shrugged, “Not much.”

“Just head home then?” I suggested.

Everyone decided that was the best option and I found myself talking to Alyssa about a movie that was coming out in the theaters on Friday. “My friends and I were talking about going to it, you should come with us!” she insisted.

“Maybe,” I said, not sure about meeting her friends. I didn’t generally do people well, Alyssa was so far the only exception I’d really encountered.

When we drove into our driveway we could see that her parents’ main car was gone. “Why don’t you come over to our house until they come home?” My mom suggested. She seemed to be latching on to Alyssa as much as I was.

“Okay,” she said with a smile. “I need to get my horn from Taylor’s practice room anyway,” she added.

The two of us ended up going downstairs for it, and then plopping down on the floor in my practice room. Thankfully there was carpet laid down already. “You really need to get some bean bag chairs or something,” Alyssa suggested.

“That’s a great idea,” I agreed. “Mom was talking about repainting my room, maybe we can work on that this weekend and we’ll hit somewhere for something like that.”

“You should so take me with you!” she suggested.

“I’d love to have you there for moral support,” I agreed. “Why do you want to hang out with me though?”

“You’re really cool Taylor, and you’re really nice...” She paused, “I have a feeling you don’t even see how awesome you are.”

I sighed.

“No really, you are,” she insisted.

“Only a crazy person would think that...” I said with a smile.

“Well, I won’t lie and say my friends don’t think I’m crazy,” she said with a bright smile, “but I honestly think that’s the truth. Maybe coming up here is good for you to get a fresh start,” she added.

“A fresh start at what though?” I asked.

“I’m guessing down in Atlanta you were always trying to be your father’s son... and everyone expected that you should be him. Give this town a chance, and I think they’ll give you a chance too.”

“I hope you’re right Alyssa. I’m tired of being the outcast.” I told her honestly.

“Have you ever thought about...?” she paused and then clammed up. “Never mind, that would be weird.”

“What?” I asked. Both intrigued and scared to death about what she might have been thinking.

She looked at me... “Not now... I’ll tell you tomorrow?” She suggested. I didn’t know why she couldn’t tell me tonight, but I’d learned enough about her in the last couple days that I didn’t figure I could make her talk if she didn’t want to.

“Okay,” I said. “Does that mean you want to hang out tomorrow?” I asked in slight surprise.

“Of course!” She told me with a smile, “You’re by far the most fun friend I’ve made in a while!”

I smiled at her, “Me too,” I told her. There was silence for a moment, and then I thought about something. “Say, do you like to jog at all?”

“A little, I actually prefer aerobics and cycling more.” She told me.

“I need to start back into jogging again, or I’m going to lose my habits, would you like to go with me tomorrow morning?”

She looked at me for a second before answering, “Sure, but you can’t leave me in the dust!”

“I’m not that fast,” I replied.

“Meet on the sidewalk at seven?” she suggested.

“Sounds good,” I told her.

Mom chose that moment to come down the stairs, “Alyssa, your parents’ just drove up to your house.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” she replied.

I walked with her up to the door and said, “See you in the morning,”

As I closed the door I checked out my phone and saw it was after nine already. I was startled when it chose that moment to ring, with my dad’s face showing on the screen. “Hey Dad,” I said as I swiped the bar to answer the phone. He was checking up on me, and making sure that I was doing okay. He told me again that he really didn’t want to see me move away, even though he knew I was right and I wouldn’t be seeing much of him until after January even if I was home. I’m sure it still didn’t make it any easier on him for me to leave. We talked for forty-five minutes before I said, “Dad, I need to go to bed. I’m going to go jogging with my friend next door tomorrow morning.”

He sounded a little bit offended on one hand, but ecstatic that I had used the words ‘friend next door,’ so he said good night, and said he’d talk to me more in a day or so. He was flying to a summer sports camp the next day to coach some high school students, so I wasn’t sure if I would actually be able to catch him or not.

Before I went to bed that night I took care to remember to do a few things I’d forgotten the last couple nights. Allergy pills were a must, as my skin kept itching more and more for some reason up here in Ohio. ‘Maybe my body is just allergic to Ohio,’ I mused. I also made sure to brush my hair back out, as I didn’t want it to be a mess of tangles again like it had been this morning. I stared at myself in the mirror for a brief moment, with my hair out of the ponytail, and grimaced at how unlike my dad I was. ‘At least I got his eyes,’ I told myself before leaving the bathroom. Everyone seemed to always think they were our best physical trait.

I grabbed Allie from my pillow and considered placing her on my dresser. I had done my best to convince Dad and Rachel that I didn’t sleep with her anymore… but the truth was I still preferred to fall asleep with her clutched tight to my body. I would have carried her in my suitcase, but I had been so worried Rachel would find a way to throw her away in a last ditch effort of spite that I’d hidden her in one of my boxes. Ever since I’d had her she’d always seemed to be an important friend that I couldn’t be without. I felt sillier about it as I grew older, but that night I hugged her tight and didn’t care about what Rachel, Dad, Mom, or anyone else thought.