White Pickups, Conversations: Kelly Ball

Contents

Hi. I’m Tina Kelly Ball…

So you go by your middle name?

Yeah. I got my mom’s first name and my dad’s middle name. It’s just easier to tell us apart if I go by Kelly.

Right. School…

I’m a junior this year, or was. I don’t guess I’ll be going back to school any time soon.

Were you in any extracurricular activities?

I was on the JV basketball team as a starter. I got called up to varsity for a few weeks last year, when Keri Graham got the flu. I mostly sat on the bench, but I played 6 minutes and 12 seconds in the first game (yes, I looked it up!), and got one assist. The coach put me in because he said Jenna Shafer was slacking. They all played a lot harder after that, I guess they didn’t want to get benched for the girl up from JV, but I got to play the last 3:07 in the last game when Andreya Nicoles fouled out. After that, Keri was OK to play and I went back to JV. It was a big difference, going back and seeing how sloppy the other kids were. I tried to get them to step it up a notch, and they did for a little while.

So you’re a natural leader. :-)

Not really. I’ll speak up if nobody else does, if something needs to be done, but that’s about it.

Tell us about your parents.

Well, Dad’s gay, but he wouldn’t even admit it to himself until about five years ago. Mom took it really hard when he told her, I guess it had to do with how she was brought up. My grandparents on her side are really cold people, not the kind you’d think about doing anything fun with. Mom got a long way away from them, but she can’t get away from her programming, right? I usually go see Dad once a month or so, spend the weekend with him. It’s a lot different from suburbia, kind of exciting. It feels dangerous. Then there’s all these cute guys around, but they’re all interested in each other, that’s kind of a letdown.

It doesn’t bother you about your dad, then.

Not really. He’s always been my dad, that’s what’s important. I don’t exactly go around broadcasting it at school, you know how some kids are.

Do you have a boyfriend?

Just a few dates, nothing serious. I haven’t heard from any of my friends since Friday… I guess they’re all gone too. Now there’s Cody… I don’t know how I feel about him. I really didn’t want to date him, but if I had to marry him that wouldn’t be so bad. Weird, huh?

We’re just so different. He reminds me in a way of some of the guys downtown when I go to visit Dad, except Cody’s obviously straight. But he’s really useful to have around. He has his own way of looking at stuff, and I guess that’s really good now because everything’s different.

So what do you think happened?

I wish I knew. I wish I could put it back the way it was. There were a lot of decent people that drove off, I was almost one of them.

Back to Episode 8…