Most Likely...

Most Likely...

Obi Rogue (real name Samantha Towers), gives everyone she meets the impression that she is going to be somebody. After all, she succeeds at everything she tries. Cutest Baby contest? Crowned the winner. Dance classes? Nailed it!  Scuba? Easy like Sunday morning. Poetry contest? Picked for publication in school newsletter. Science project? You guessed it! Top prize. 

So it is no wonder at all that at the accomplished age of...twelve, Obi needs to plan for her future. Her brother Tom (a.k.a Dream Crusher) is seventeen and a mere month away from escaping the family compound in the Pocono Mountains and heading for, of all coveted places, NYU.  Tom, as is well documented in family lore, was to be the one and only shining star of the Towers household. 

Mr. William Towers, novelist, historian and English professor at East Stroudsburg University, was decidedly against having a second. "Why populate an already overpopulated planet that is slowing dying at the hand of its inhabitants?" he loves to say.

His wife, Mrs. Lillian Masters-Towers, a former jazz dancer and stage manager, who danced her way around the world in her youth, believes that having popped out a son at the ripe old age of 40, meant that any thought given to another "down the line" was a wasted thought. 

There was no plan for the late and great arrival of Samantha Lynn Towers, just as Lillian turned 47. But let's be serious for a moment and accept our limitations. Plans are mere suggestions put out into the universe and regurgitated back up to you, not for your approval, but for a slump-shouldered acceptance.  

William, at 52, did slump his shoulders and welcome his daughter into the family. She's adorable, he has to admit, while banishing thoughts of crying, middle-of-the-night feedings, colic and teething.

It is the early winter of 2005, when the Towers become four and their quiet, retrospective life is never the same again.

"She is like a whirling, bubbling Magic 8 Ball of surprises. You never know what's up next. You can't catch your breath around her," Grandma Jolene tells everyone she meets. "Saman..Oops! She likes to be called Obi Rogue. That girl is greatness personified. She can't do a damn thing half way."

Grandma Jolene is William's mother, but they're two different planets. She is a free spirit who was never sure who his dad was and often left her young son in the care of friends, or relatives to chase her dreams of stardom. Meanwhile, William is the straight-laced, went all the way through school, is present for his kids, sort of man who can't fathom how Jolene did what she did during his childhood. They get into epic verbal battles where he accuses her of subjecting him to massive self-worth issues and she accuses him of having a vice-grip on the past. Neither mother, or son, ever raises their voice, preferring to do a carefully orchestrated sarcasm dance that is worse to witness, than if they just had a full-on throw down.

Though he only admits this through gritted teeth, William knows that his precious Samantha is more Mini Jolene than she is like either Lillian, or himself. At first he tried to limit Sam's exposure to Jolene. But Jolene lives in the apartment above their spacious house, so proximity is a given. And before her third birthday, it is evident that there's a connection between Sam and Jolene that he is helpless to sever. 

At age six, Sam reads a book during her summer vacation about a dog named Obie who accomplishes great things and has awesome adventures every day before his owners return home from work. She already decided that her name isn't unique enough to get her noticed by the world. So when she finishes Obie's story, she likens herself to the dog's spirited existence and demands to change her name. For one year, in no official capacity, she is humored by the family calling her Obi Towers. When she is seven, William buys a new family car, a Nissan Rogue. Obi is instantly drawn to the name, proclaiming herself as Obi Rogue and refusing to answer to any other name.

The only time Samantha Towers is alive anymore is during the school day. Some kind of legal mumbo jumbo makes it impossible for her to be Obi 24/7. Although Lillian, William, Tom, and especially Jolene, are all for the change, Obi knows it will be years before they will agree to let her legally change it. 

"...Knowing, as sure as we are of the air we breathe, that the graduating class of 2017 of Mountain View Middle School, will go on to do amazing things in high school and beyond!" Obi dramatically rolls up her speech and lifts it high above her head in her right hand. The crowd of students, faculty and families break out into a seductive roar of impassioned pride causing Obi to sway from the power of reverberation.

(To be continued)