by Linda Gerber
“Do you get an employee discount at Kinnear?”
He laughed. “Uncle Dale doesn’t carry amps. And if he did, he wouldn’t give me a discount on them.”
“Oh. Not a favorite uncle, I take it.”
“Not so much.”
The conversation died, but I was content just to sit there on the couch with him. “Which movie did you want to watch?” I asked finally.
“Goldfinger?”
“Is that a question?”
“Either that one or Dr. No.”
“How about both?” I held my breath, watching from under my eyelashes. Was that too long to expect him to hang out with me?
He thought about it for maybe half a second and then picked up Dr. No. “Let’s start with the original.”
I ducked my head to hide my smile and took the DVD from him to slip into the player. He wanted to stay! Even after all the weirdness, he wanted to stay with me.
When I returned to sit down, Jake had stretched his arm out across the back of the couch. I dropped back down beside him close enough that when he let his arm slip from the couch cushions to my shoulders, it was the perfect fit.
We finished Dr. No and started in with Goldfinger. By the time Bond was escaping the Auric Industries plant in his custom Aston Martin, the popcorn was long gone and Jake’s arm rested snug around my shoulders. I glanced up at him to comment on the car at the same time as he turned to me to say the same thing and we laughed.
Then Jake’s laughter faded. He looked at me for a moment, suddenly serious as his fingers traced the side of my jaw. He lifted my chin and his lips brushed mine, hesitantly at first, and then more sure.
For the first time in forever, I didn’t even think. I didn’t worry about the trances; I didn’t worry about the numbers. I kissed him back. All that mattered at that moment was Jake and me, together. I wrapped my arms around his waist and cuddled close, letting my eyes drift shut. I did have a fleeting thought that this is not what I had resolved to do. In fact, it was the polar opposite. But I didn’t want the night to end. Even though I knew it would have to.
I woke with Jake’s arm still around me, my head still resting on his shoulder. I sighed contentedly and was about to nuzzle closer to him when I opened my eyes enough to see the angle of the sun coming through the windows. I bolted straight up on the couch. It was morning. We must have fallen asleep during the second movie. I checked my watch. 7:05. Dad would be coming home soon.
“Jake,” I whispered. I shook his arm. “Wake up.”
His eyes opened slowly, reluctantly. And then sprang open wide.
“It’s morning,” I said needlessly.
“Oh, man!” He jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry. I should . . . get going.”
“Right.”
In the hallway, he bent to pull on his boots. “I left my bike at the mall,” he called over his shoulder. “Could you give me a ride? I’m supposed to be playing for a church group in an hour.”
“Oh.” My stomach sank. “I . . . don’t drive.”
He paused and looked back at me. “Seriously?”
“It’s a long story.”
When Jake stepped into the bathroom to put on his shirt and tie, I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Michelle. She was understandably suspicious, but I promised I would explain everything after we dropped Jake off at the mall. I felt like a middle schooler, having to make arrangements for a boy to be picked up from my house.
The ride to the mall was awkward at best. I hadn’t thought to ask Jake how he would feel about Michelle providing the transportation and he looked shocked and more than a little embarrassed when she showed up. I kept apologizing and he kept telling me it was okay. Michelle drove without a word, although her eyebrows kept rising and rising until I thought they would disappear into her hairline.
As soon as we left him in the parking lot, she turned to me, her eyes almost as huge as her smile. “Okay,” she demanded. “You have to tell me everything!”
“Seriously,” I told her. “Nothing happened. We fell asleep watching TV.”
“Why did he leave his bike here? How did he think he was going to get home?”
I told her how he had run after me, literally, and she clutched her chest. “That is so romantic!”
“It’s not like that,” I told her. “We’re just friends.”
She didn’t believe me, but I hadn’t really expected her to.
“Tell me about the meet,” I said. “How did you do?”
“I’ll tell you.” She lowered her sunglasses and gave me a look over the tops of them. “But this conversation is not over. I want you to know that.”
For the next twenty minutes, we drove around town while she recounted the events of the day I’d missed. Surprisingly, I felt only mild disappointment that I hadn’t been there.
“I’d better get home,” I said finally. “My dad’s coming back today.”
“All right.” She turned the car around. “But we need to meet up later because you owe me details!”
Michelle dropped me off at the curb. Across the street, Mrs. Briggs stood at her open front door instead of in her window. She looked me over and pressed her lips together in a prim line. I could almost hear her hmmph as she raised her nose in the air and turned to go inside her house.
I trudged up to the front door. What was that about? I pulled out the key to let myself in the house, but when I grabbed the handle, the door opened. Unlocked.
Uh-oh.
17
“Dad?” I called. “Are you home?”
From the back of the house I heard angry footsteps and I held my breath, wishing I could duck back outside.
“Ashlyn,” Dad’s voice demanded. “Front and center.”
I made the prisoner’s walk to the great room, averting my eyes from my mom’s room on one side and the living wall on the other. Dad stood waiting for me in a classic anger pose: elbows out at sharp angles, chest puffed up, chin thrust forward.
“How was your trip?” I asked weakly.
“How was your weekend?” he countered.
I sighed and walked over to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair. I didn’t have the energy to deal with a whole roundabout line of questioning. I wished he’d just say what he wanted to say to me and get it over with. I sat.
“Where were you just now?” he asked.
“With Michelle. We were driving around, talking.”
He nodded, but briskly, dismissively, as if this was not the information he was after. “Mrs. Briggs reported that you were entertaining boys in the house. Could you explain that, please?”
Mrs. Briggs. I should have known. “Not boys, Dad,” I shot back. “One boy. One. I don’t know what she means by ‘entertaining’ either. We were watching a movie and we fell asleep. That’s it.”
“You know the rules, Ashlyn. No friends in the house while I’m gone.”
“We didn’t plan it. He was walking me home and we got caught in the rain and—”
“Rules are rules. I need to know that I can trust you.”
“Of course you can, Dad. Haven’t I—”
“I don’t know, Ash.” He blew out a heavy breath. “Ever since you went back to that mall job, you haven’t been yourself. Skipping school, missing meets, disregarding the rules . . . I think it’s best you quit now before things go any further.”
“Quit working?” I stared at him, stunned. “That job has nothing to do with—”
“Yes. Now. Today. As of this moment, you are done.”
I shot up from my chair. “No! I can’t leave them shorthanded this week. It’s—”
His face grew red and he raised his voice. “This is not open for discussion, Ashlyn. You’ve chosen this course by your actions. Our arrangement isn’t working out any longer.”
I took a step back. “What do you mean?”
“A guardian,” he said. “Someone to watch over you while I’m away. Mrs. Briggs said that she would be willing to come over and—”
“
What? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Why? She’s close, she’s reliable. She can stay here with you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Dad.”
He folded his arms. “I don’t know what you need, Ashlyn. But I’m not going to stand by and let you jeopardize everything you’ve worked so hard to accomplish by being reckless. I won’t stand by and let you throw your dreams away by—”
“Your dreams.”
“What?”
“Your dreams. You have no idea what mine are.”
His voice dropped. “Excuse me?”
I just about backed down, but enough was enough. I had to stand up to him and he had to hear it. “This is about what you want, Dad. But I’m not a perfect student and I’m not the track star you want me to be, okay? I don’t even like track. I run because I want to. On my own, not to compete. I run because you used to run with me. Why don’t we do that anymore?”
His face turned red and he turned away.
“You thought ShutterBugz would be good for me,” I continued. “You wanted me to work there. But now that you don’t want that for me anymore, I’m just supposed to quit?”
“We are not discussing this right now, Ashlyn.”
I slammed the chair I had been sitting on up against the table. “So when, Dad? When I’m dead like Mom? When I’m gone like Kyra? When do you intend to talk to me?”
He wouldn’t even look in my direction. “That’s enough,” he said, and retreated to his office.
“You can’t hide in there forever!” I yelled after him.
But the sad thing was, I knew he could.
To my surprise, Dad actually joined me at the table that afternoon instead of asking me to bring his lunch into the office.
He ate politely, napkin in his lap, elbows tucked close to his side, offering appropriate thanks and compliments at appropriate times. For a minute, I thought that his anger from that morning was forgotten. But when he was done, he laid his fork carefully across his plate and cleared his throat. “Ashlyn,” he said, “I’ve asked Mrs. Briggs to keep an eye on things while I’m gone tomorrow.”
“What? Tomorrow? But—”
He raised his hand to shut me up. “She won’t have to come over, but you’ll need to check in with her when—”
“No. I mean, you’re leaving? It’s not on the schedule.”
“Emergency meeting. It couldn’t be helped.” He laid his napkin next to his plate and stood up from the table and that was the end of it.
I called Carole that afternoon to break the news about me quitting. I lied and said it had to do with school and that my dad wouldn’t let me keep a job until I brought my grades up. I didn’t see the point in letting her know that my dad stupidly believed her kiosk had anything to do with my troubles.
She responded in usual Carole fashion; denial, acceptance, and then panic. “No, that can’t be. Oh, dear. We will miss you. What are we going to do without you this week?” She promised that I could come back to work whenever I was ready, which made me feel even worse about abandoning her.
I hung up with Carole and was just about to call Michelle when the familiar buzz began to gather in the back of my head.
Grabbing a notebook from my backpack, I hurried over to the desk and sat, flipping through the pages to the first blank space I could find. I picked up a pen and dared the vision to show itself.
The effect was immediate. Before I even felt the pen touch the paper, the room disappeared. Wind rushed in my ears and I found myself in the dark, standing alone on a long stretch of highway.
In the distance, bright beams of headlights speed toward the boy in the road. He doesn’t see them. I panic and rush to one side of the road and then the other, trying to get his attention. I don’t know where to tell him to go to get out of the way. I reach for him, but before I can touch him, I feel myself being sucked away.
I came to with my head on the desk, the walls swirling around me like a vortex. Bolting upright, I pressed the pencil to the paper again. Come on. Please. I needed more. I needed to see his face.
But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t go back. The trance was over.
Mrs. Briggs came over before Dad left the next afternoon and he gave her a whole list of instructions. I had to leave the room because I couldn’t stand the pleased pinch to her lips now that she knew she was really in charge. At least he wasn’t going to make me stay with her, but still.
I hid in my room and felt pretty sorry for myself, watching another day slip into evening. And then Michelle knocked on my bedroom window. I scrambled over my bed and let her in.
“Put on your shorts,” she said. “We’re going running.”
“What? But we went this morning.”
She crossed to the closet. “Don’t argue. Where are those cute blue shorts with the hearts on them?”
“Since when do you care what I—”
She silenced me with a look. “Get dressed,” she said.
I understood the reason for the running, of course. It’s so I could escape from the house without Mrs. Briggs saying anything. But Michelle was up to something, I could feel it.
We started out on our regular route, but instead of turning left when we got to Earlington, we turned right, toward the park.
“Okay, I give up,” I said. “What are we doing?”
Michelle did a little skip for a few steps. “I know someone who’s anxious to see you,” she sang.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Jake?”
She nodded. “I ran into him yesterday when I went to the mall to grab some eyeliner at Sephora, and he asked for your phone number. Seems you guys never got around to sharing contact information, huh? So I got you his, too.” She handed me a slip of paper, grinning so hard I thought her cheeks would break. “You can thank me later. Anyway, he said he hoped he’d see you at work, but then when he found out you quit . . .”
I practically turned cartwheels right there.
“They’re supposed to meet us by the parking lot.”
“They?”
“Trey and Jake. You didn’t think I would miss this reunion, did you?”
When I saw Jake ahead, I was glad that Michelle had talked me into primping. He looked achingly wonderful in his basketball shorts and a sleeveless Under Armor tee that showed off his biceps. His boots had been replaced by a pair of black high-tops. He was leaning up against a silver Mazda, talking to Trey, one arm slung casually over a basketball, but when he saw us, he pushed away from the car and waved. His smile sent warm chills through me.
I was so happy to see Jake that I didn’t even mind the self-satisfied smiles Michelle kept throwing at me. Or when she announced that she had to get home to pack for South Carolina and asked Trey if he would mind going with her. It was all so un-smooth that I probably should have been embarrassed. But I wasn’t.
Jake and I played basketball for a while, then we wandered around the grounds until we ended up at the playground. I had forgotten the simplicity and joy of playground equipment. We climbed up on the slide and slid down, ran in circles at the merry-go-round, hung upside down on the jungle gym, and tried to out-pump each other on the swings, seeing which one of us could go higher. On the playground, I had the power to do whatever I wanted. I could go as high or as fast as my own strength would allow. It was the first time in a very long time that I felt completely free.
“I brought something to show you,” Jake said as we walked back toward the parking lot. “Come on.” He took my hand and held it the rest of the way.
He opened up the trunk of the Mazda and took out an old, beat-up guitar case. “This,” he said, “is the first guitar I ever owned.” He closed the trunk again and led me over to a bench nearby. We sat and he unfastened the silver clasps to open the case. Inside lay an old acoustic steel-string guitar. He picked it up gently and rested the body snug against his knee.
“I was thinking,” he said as he adjusted the tuning pegs. “After you showed me your photography, I should show
you what I love to do.” He strummed a couple of chords and then adjusted the pegs again, then took the pick in his hand and looked up at me with little-boy earnestness. “Don’t laugh.”
If seeing him at the piano was revelation, seeing Jake with a guitar in his hands was pure magic. He started slow, coaxing sweet, simple notes from the strings, and then the tempo changed and the music took over. His fingers danced over the frets to a song I’d never heard before. It tugged at my chest, made me want to cry.
When he finished, he looked up at me shyly. “So . . . that’s what I do.”
“It’s wonderful.”
He shrugged. Thunder rumbled in the distance and he glanced up at the sky. “We’d better get you home if we don’t want a repeat performance of the other night.”
I laid my hand over his. “Jake, thank you.”
His smile surfaced again. “You’re welcome.”
18
The next day, Michelle dropped by to see if I wanted to see a movie. I didn’t even have to think about that one. I grabbed my purse and ran out the door.
“You look pretty dressed up for a movie.” I slid into the passenger seat and buckled my seat belt. “What are we doing?”
“Smile and wave,” Michelle said.
“What?”
“Smile. And. Wave.” She gestured with her head to where Mrs. Briggs stood watching from her picture window. “Unbelievable. Does she ever take a break?”
“Just get me out of here,” I said.
She couldn’t keep from smiling.
“So, where are we really going?” I asked.
Michelle shrugged. “Just one more innocent gathering before I take off for South Carolina tomorrow. We’re having lunch at La Scala.”
La Scala was one of the nicer restaurants at the mall. But it could have been McDonald’s for all I cared. All that mattered is that I was going to see Jake again.
The guys were waiting for us at a corner booth when we got there. Jake looked up and smiled and a warm shiver ran down my spine. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his ugly music-note tie, and hoped that meant he wasn’t working and this wasn’t just his break. That way, we’d have more time together.