by Kasie West
The rest of class went pretty much the same way. Fashion, homework, teachers, friends, she gave those all to herself. The only other one I got was siblings because she counted my cousin situation as unique.
I was pretty sure our list-making had only reinforced Victoria’s initial idea that she would lead the advice and I would back her up. Again, I was fine with that arrangement. The less talking I had to do, the better.
The bell rang. Victoria packed up her bag fast and was out the door before I’d even stood. The tension that had tightened across my shoulders released and I took a deep breath. The fun class Alana had promised was turning out to be more stressful than I’d anticipated.
Alana joined me. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Frank?”
She nodded. “I can’t believe I have to work with him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Let’s get out of here. Want to go get milkshakes at the diner?”
“I wish I could but I promised Liza I’d take her to her first day of tutoring. Tomorrow after school?”
“Deal.”
We walked several more feet in silence. My insides felt close to unraveling. “Advice is your thing, Alana. How am I going to do this?” I asked, kicking at the ground.
She took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “You got this, Kate. Advice can be your thing, too. People are just looking for understanding and a solution.”
I let out a single laugh. “Yeah, exactly. I’m not good at either of those.”
“Just don’t think about it too hard. It will come naturally to you. Imagine you’re sitting around talking to me.”
I nodded and gave her a hug. Then we separated to our own cars.
My cell phone dug into my hip when I sat down so I freed it and threw it on the passenger seat. I stared at it. I wanted to text Hunter—tell him about the craziness that happened today. He’d understand why I didn’t want to speak on air about things I knew nothing about. But he hadn’t even answered my text from last month. Why would I text him again? I was sure that if Alana’s topic had been picked for the podcast, letting go of someone who has already let you go would make the Top Ten list of dating advice. I stuck my key in the ignition and turned.
“Is she gone?” Liza asked. We had parked outside of the tutoring center, but as soon as I turned the car off, Liza had thrown her head down between her knees. I was surprised she hadn’t smacked her head into the dash in the process.
“I have no idea who you saw, so I don’t know.”
“A girl my age and her mom going into the grocery store. Didn’t I tell you this would happen?”
“You know, Liza,” I said. “Having a tutor is not a bad thing. A lot of people I know have had tutors over the years.”
“Well, nobody I know has, so I don’t believe you.”
“Okay. I think the coast is clear now.”
She poked her head up slowly and looked around. “Good. Let’s walk fast. You can walk fast, right?”
“Yes, I have the ability to walk fast. But I thought the whole point of me going with you was that it wouldn’t be so bad to be seen with me.”
“Yeah, I’ve decided you don’t hold that much power. Nobody at school even knows who you are,” she said, and flung herself out of the car.
By the time I caught up with her, she was at the door. When she opened it, a loud bell rang, announcing our arrival. There was a tall counter in front of us and behind that a large room with long tables. Along the back wall were small cubicles. An entire side wall was full of windows, which made the atmosphere bright and airy. If it had a view of the lake, I would’ve wished I had brought my homework so I could sit at one of those tables and work. But we weren’t in Lakesprings. The windows faced a parking lot. Not that Oak Court didn’t have nice views. There were lots of trees; we were in the Sierra Nevadas, after all. This just wasn’t one of those views.
A guy walked out of a back cubicle, in between the tables, and came to the counter.
“Welcome,” he said.
He and I both recognized each other at the same time.
“Kate.”
“Diego,” I said. “I didn’t realize you worked here.”
“You come here?”
“My cousin. I’m here for my cousin.” I pointed at her to verify my statement.
“Oh, now you understand the embarrassment of it all,” Liza said under her breath.
I ignored her. “Are you her tutor?” I asked.
Diego looked at a schedule on the counter. “No. Tommy is her tutor.” He called out over his shoulder, “Tommy! Your client is here.”
“See, you’re a client,” I said quietly to Liza. “That’s fancy.”
“Too late. Now I know how you really feel.”
A tall guy with long brown hair, wearing a band T-shirt, came out of a back room. Liza straightened up beside me.
“Tommy, this is Liza,” Diego said.
Tommy smiled big. “Nice to meet you. We only have an hour today, right? Let’s slay your homework.”
Liza nodded and followed him to a long table by the window.
“Tommy is great. She’s in good hands,” Diego said as my gaze lingered on them.
“Does Tommy go to Sierra High?” I asked, feeling a little silly for asking. If Alana were here, she’d tease me about her lake versus city theory.
“No, he’s a freshman at Fresno State.”
I nodded. Fresno—and its college—was about an hour farther down the hill.
“Oh, okay. Am I supposed to …” I looked around. To my right, there were chairs that formed a small waiting area.
“You can sit. Or come back in an hour.”
“I told her I’d stay.” I backed up and lowered myself into a chair.
Diego continued to stand behind the counter like he was guarding it.
“You don’t have to babysit me. I’ll read a magazine or something.” There were stacks of magazines on the coffee table beside me. I searched the spines for my favorite water sports one but didn’t see the standard green color.
“Full disclosure,” Diego said. “Those magazines are like three years old. So if you want to find out which celebrities were dating three years ago, be my guest.”
“That was exactly what I had hoped to find out today. It’s serendipity.” I plucked a magazine from the table. But it wasn’t celebrity gossip. It was a skating magazine. I raised my eyebrows and showed Diego the cover.
“Not serendipitous, after all,” he said.
“Who contributed this to the mix? You?” I reassessed him. He didn’t seem like the skater type, but really nobody seemed to fit into types anymore.
“That would be Tommy. You were trying to decide if it was me, though? You have quite the analyzing stare.”
“Really? That obvious?”
“Yes, kind of a squinty-eyed, silent judgment thing.”
“I’ll work on that.”
He smiled. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
“So are any of these magazines your contributions, then?” There were five stacks of them, ten deep.
“Yes, I’ve brought a few.”
I nodded.
“Can you figure out which ones, silent judger?” he asked.
“You’re asking me to judge out loud? That won’t end well.”
He laughed. “Give it your best shot.”
I shrugged. This could be fun, to get to know the guy Alana liked. If they ended up dating, I’d have to hang out with him, too. I might as well make an effort. “All right. Let’s see …” I spread out the first stack. It consisted of a home decorating magazine, a cooking magazine, several celebrity gossip issues, a magazine about bodybuilding, one on science, one on traveling, another about scouting, and finally woodworking.
I stood up and walked over to Diego.
“Uh-oh, she’s in the game now,” he said.
“Let me see your hands.”
“My hands?”
“Y
es, your hands. Hold them out.”
“Um … okay.” He held them out, palms down. He had nice hands, with long fingers and well-trimmed, clean nails.
“Flip them over.”
“Flip them over?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”
He smirked and flipped his hands over.
He had a few minor calluses on the pads of his fingers but otherwise his hands weren’t worn or roughed up. I walked back to the table and moved the woodworking magazine off to the side. I also moved the bodybuilding magazine over because he didn’t have the body of a weight lifter. He was well built, but more lean and toned than beefy.
“Should I be insulted about that last move?” he asked.
“For sure,” I said. I dug into the other pile of magazines, which added some new options: fishing, entertainment, sports, parenting (which I quickly added to the discard pile), gaming, music, and cars. “I’m impressed with the wide variety of three-year-old magazines you keep here.”
“We have a diverse staff, who apparently don’t know how to throw things away.”
I laughed. “Are these magazines you still read today, or are they from thirteen-year-old Diego’s life?”
He squinted at the stacks. “Two I still read today … online. One is from my younger life.”
I pulled out the scouting magazine. “Younger Diego,” I said, plopping it in the middle of the table with confidence.
“That was an easy one.”
“True.”
Now for the hard ones. I pulled out gaming, fishing, cars, sports, and science and stared at the covers like they could tell me who had spent time reading them. I remembered Diego’s clean nails and moved cars off to the side. I looked up at him again and took in his face. His skin was naturally tan, but I could see a lighter line of skin just under the collar of his shirt that showed some of his color was from spending time in the sun.
“This is intense,” he said, shifting under my gaze.
I dropped my eyes, realizing I was being obsessive about something he had probably thought was just a lighthearted game. “Um, the fishing is one, and the gaming, I guess, for the second,” I said in a rush, and then leaned back in my seat and tried to make up for my intensity by being the picture of chill.
A slow smile lit up his face, like he knew exactly what had just happened in my head. But he couldn’t know that, right? I maintained my relaxed position.
He came out from behind the counter and picked up the fishing magazine. “You were right about this one.” Then he picked up the gaming. “But when you gave up halfway through because you got embarrassed, you failed the second one.”
“I didn’t get embarrassed.”
“You totally did. You were like Sherlock one second and a person embarrassed to be Sherlock the next second.”
I laughed. “You couldn’t think of a contrast to Sherlock, could you?”
“I couldn’t.” He pointed to the four remaining magazines. “But … since none of your final selections were right for my second one, Sherlock, I won’t make you guess for real.”
He sat down in the seat next to me, riffled through the magazines, and pulled out the cooking one.
“Really?” I asked.
“I know, it’s like I’m a tiny bit interesting or something.”
I rolled my eyes. “For the record, I never said you weren’t interesting. But I know you walked in on the middle of a conversation between me and Alana. Perhaps it will be your lesson on eavesdropping.”
“Fair enough.”
“So you like to cook?”
“I do.”
“That’s cool.” Alana liked to cook, too. She specialized in Hawaiian dishes, but she loved all different kinds of food and trying new things to eat. As with a lot of things in my life, I didn’t go out on a limb with food; I preferred to play it safe.
I wondered if Alana knew Diego cooked. I’d have to tell her. “I didn’t realize how much insight the magazines someone reads can give into that person’s life,” I mused out loud.
“Really? What do you now know about me based on these magazines?” Diego asked, raising his eyebrows.
I tapped my fingers against my lips. “I know you like alone time, to think or ponder or speculate on the world, away from people. Maybe you’re a bit private.”
“Because I like to fish?”
“Yes.”
“What if I go fishing with a bunch of friends?” he challenged.
“Do you?”
“No.”
I smirked. “And cooking … that says to me that you like to try new things. You like to experiment and you have an adventurous side.” I really wasn’t sure about any of this. I was making some major generalizations based on very little knowledge.
“Impressive,” he said. “What about you, Kathryn? Any magazines on our table that you read?”
“Aside from outdated celebrity news?”
“Aside from that.”
The phone behind the counter rang, and it took a moment for either of us to react to it. Then it was like we both realized at the same time that Diego worked here. I pointed to the phone while he simultaneously hurdled the coffee table, slid around the counter, and picked it up.
“A-plus Counseling, Diego speaking.” After a moment he said, “She must be off exploring somewhere.” He rolled his eyes. “No, I got it. Dora and Diego are cousins. Yep. It was funny. How can I help you, sir?”
I cringed. Diego turned to the computer on the counter and began scrolling through some screens and typing. “How about Wednesdays at four thirty?” He waited for a response. “Okay, I have you on the schedule. Thanks.” He hung up the phone and looked at me over the counter.
I bit my lip. “Full disclosure in the spirit of honesty?”
“Okay,” he said warily.
“I thought of Dora when I first heard your name.”
He laughed. “I’m glad to know you are unoriginal. Thanks for clearing that up.”
The phone rang again and he gave me a smile and picked it up. “A-plus Counseling.”
I got my phone out of my pocket and texted Alana: You’ll never guess who I’m staring at right now.
She texted back right away.
Alana: Someone famous?
Me: Only famous in our world.
Alana: Like a local newscaster or something?
Me: No! Do you even know what they look like?
Alana: Who then?
Me: Diego.
Alana: You’re stalking him? For me? I appreciate it!
Me: He tutors at the counseling center where Liza goes.
Alana: Awesome! Now you have a legit reason to spy on him and give me intel.
Me: Yep. I already found out that he likes to cook. I think you should challenge him to a cook-off as a way to spend time with him outside of school.
Alana: Good idea. I will try to work that naturally into a conversation.
Me: I have faith that you can do just that.
Alana: Hey, find a way to say something nice about me while you’re there.
Me: He’s on the phone now, but as soon as he gets off, I’m on it.
Alana: Thank you!
Only he didn’t get off. Two more phone calls came in. While he was on the third call, Liza came around the counter to where I’d been sitting.
“I’m done,” she said.
“Already?”
“It’s been an hour.”
“It has?”
She raised her eyebrows, looked at Diego and then back at me.
I stood and pocketed my phone. “Do you need to schedule your second session?”
“Nope, they’re every Monday at the same time.”
“Okay … I guess we should go, then.” I gave one last glance at Diego, thinking I could wave or something, but he had his elbows on the counter and was glued to the computer screen. He didn’t even look our way when the bell on the door signaled our departure.
Once outside, I asked, “So how did
it go?”
“It wasn’t bad. Tommy is nice,” Liza said with a small smile.
I gave her a hip check. “Older guy, huh?”
“No, it’s not like that. Whatever.”
However it was or wasn’t, Liza didn’t seem to be as concerned about who might or might not see her on the way back to the car. So Tommy must’ve said something to make her realize going to tutoring wasn’t a bad thing. I’d have to thank him for that next time. Because Liza wanted me to come back with her again. And I would. For her.
“He likes to cook?” Alana said when I called her as soon as I got home.
I shut my bedroom door to keep my little cousins out—not that a shut door would stop them—and filled her in on the interaction I’d had with Diego.
“See, isn’t he amazing?” she said. “And I can ignore that fishing thing. That’s more a solo activity anyway, right? I knew we were meant to be.”
“I haven’t fished in forever,” I said, flopping down onto my beanbag chair.
“Even you, lover-of-all-things-lake, know it’s boring.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Now, we need to somehow use these tutoring sessions to my advantage. He and I have established we are good at flirting with each other, but flirting doesn’t always lead to a relationship.”
“Really?” I said. “He’s passed the Alana test? He’s ready to move past the crush phase?”
“Yes! And we need a plan before you go to Liza’s next session.”
“Okay. Let’s work on that.”
My door flew open and the handle banged into the wall, most likely adding to the dent that was already there.
“Kate!” Cora cried, dashing inside.
Cora was my youngest cousin. She was four and a half and right now had chocolate all over her face.
“Did you eat pudding?” I asked.
“What?” Alana responded. “No, but that sounds delicious.”
Cora was now circling my room, running her hand along the walls.
“Not if you saw it in its current state,” I told Alana. “I have to go before this ends up all over my stuff.”
“Okay, see you at school.”