He gave me this really sexy smile and raised one eyebrow, “They don’t call it the language of love for nothing.”
“Ah!” I smacked him lightly on the shoulder with the textbook. “Page 148, s’il vous plaît, Monsieur.”
We spent the rest of class conjugating verbs, but I have to admit he did most the conjugating before I could open my mouth. It seemed to please him that he could run circles around me in French.
Ten minutes before the bell, Mrs. Knoosh said we were allowed free time to talk quietly.
“So what do you do after school?” Evan asked, turning in his chair to face me. I stared at him for a minute just taking in the handsome lines of his face, his dark brown hair had that hand-tousled look like instead of combing it, he just ran his fingers through it. His green eyes sparkled from beneath long black lashes, set against a creamy, but not quite tan face. I still wanted to ask about the two scars, but figured it wasn’t very polite. For just a moment, I had forgotten all my troubles and secrets, and I was just a high school girl talking with a cute guy.
“Hello? Earth to Leese,” he said, waving a hand in front of my eyes.
“Umm—sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What did you say?”
“What do you do after school? Do you want to go hang out somewhere? I haven’t seen much of the town since I got here yesterday, but I’m guessing you have a McDonalds or some kind of place like that for a quick bite.”
Reality snagged me back to the problems in my life. “I—I can’t. I’ve got tons of home work and I have to babysit my little sister until my—my aunt and uncle get home. But,” I added. “There are a couple McDonalds close by, up on Fairview and one down in the historic district on Cervantes.”
“You’re kidding, right? You can’t stop to get something before you go home?”
“No, afraid not. But,” and it was killing me to say this, “I’m sure Jewels would be thrilled to show you around town.” Jewels had a half dozen guys wrapped around her little pinky and I was getting ready to add another one to her collection.
He honestly looked dejected as he closed his textbook. “Yeah, but going with Jewels doesn’t help me get to know you, does it?”
The way he said it gave me a tingle; this guy is interested in me. I had made some male friends while here at PHS, but they were easy to keep just as friends. I made it a point to never give out the signals that would lead a boy to assume that I was looking for anything else. I was used to the attention from the cute guys at my old school, but then again they knew who I was which always left me wondering what it was that they were really interested in. Here I didn’t have my Porsche or my designer clothes to scream out to everyone, “Hey, I’m somebody.” Instead everything about me had been toned down so that no attention would be drawn to me. Yet this guy didn’t seem to care that I was wearing Wal-Mart off-the-rack, or the fact that I wasn’t dripping in jewelry.
I tried a smile, but it was weak. “Jewels is more interesting, I’m sure.”
“Definitely not. I spent first and third period with her and I can tell you she is extremely shallow—nice, of course, but nothing more than ankle-deep. You on the other hand, I get the feeling have a whole ocean available.”
I rolled my eyes, but all the while my pulse was picking up the pace. “Not me,” I said, trying to sound convincing. “I’m an ankle-deeper one, too.” And then, thankfully, the bell rang.
He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Liar.”
In that instant I realized he had on cologne. It was very faint, like he’d put it on yesterday and only a little remained, but it was awesome. Without a conscious thought, I closed my eyes and inhaled. What was it? Expensive and very masculine, but I couldn’t think of the name. When I opened my eyes he was smiling and still just a little bit too close. I grabbed my books and made a bee-line for the door.
“Hey, wait up.” I heard him call. “Don’t I even get to walk you to your car?”
I didn’t slow down, but it only took him a moment to catch up with me.
“Do you always bolt for the door at the last bell?”
“You aren’t going to turn out to be some kind of stalker, are you?” I said with feigned terseness as I struggled to keep from smiling.
He didn’t answer as we dodged through the crowded halls and headed outside. He still wasn’t talking as we came out into the sun-filled mayhem of teenagers going either toward the bus line or the parking lot. I was starting to think I had actually hurt his feelings when I snuck a quick glance at his face. He caught me looking.
“Maybe,” was all he said.
I pulled out my key as we got close to my VW. Even though it wasn’t new, I had to retain just a little bit of the freedom that I once took for granted.
“Maybe what? You have a little bit of stalker in you?” I managed to put a tiny bit of a teasing edge back into my voice, but on the inside I felt like it was pointless. There was no way that I was going to get involved with a guy in Pensacola when my whole life was a couple hundred miles away.
“VW Bug. Cool. Whoa, I am impressed,” he added as I opened my door and toss my books to the passenger’s side.
“It’s five years old,” I retorted, sitting down in the driver’s seat. “Nothing impressive about that, not like that gorgeous Z you have sitting over there.”
He reached over me and wiggled the shifter. “No, I don’t mean your car. I mean that it’s a stick.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage as he had put himself practically in my face to reach inside. He must have sensed that I was a little uncomfortable over the lack of personal space because he backed off to an almost respectable distance as he simply leaned toward me from the door frame.
“Most chicks can’t drive stick,” he finished.
“My first car was an…” Oops. I’d said a little too much. How many cars could a seventeen year old girl have been through? “I mean this is my first car—and, yep,” I said waving my hand over the shifter like some ditsy game show hostess, “It’s a stick.”
“Mines a stick,” he smiled. “You could actually drive it sometime, if you’d like. If you think you can handle it.”
I was trying to keep the smirk from rising to my lips. I wanted to tell him that I’d been trained in an evasive driving school that specialized in survival, stunt and anti-terrorist driving tactics. I wanted to see him plastered to his passenger’s seat when I dropped the gears and spun his car a hundred and eighty degrees and then smoked his tires off as I reached speeds that were hardly legal for the Autobahn. I sighed as I thought about my gun-metal Porsche 911 sitting in storage on the other coast. “No, I don’t think I could handle it,” I finally said.
“Hi, guys!” came a welcomed voice from behind Evan, and I knew I’d soon be released from this uncomfortable moment. Jewels had found us.
“Hey, Jewels,” I laughed, glad for once to have her bouncy presence. “Evan was asking me where he could grab a bite.”
“Nah, that’s okay, I...” he started to say, clearly uncomfortable that he was getting ready to be put back into her grasp.
“Nonsense,” Jewels said with a dismissive wave of her perfectly manicured hand. “I’m meeting Kevin, Carlie, Nate and Natasha at Sonic in like 10 minutes. You can follow me or…” Her eyes suddenly lit up as she considered what she had watched Mr. Hunk crawl out of this morning, “I could ride with you and then you could drop me back off here at school.”
“I don’t know,” he began. “Do you think you could talk Leese into joining us?”
I gave him a blistering stare.
“Ah,” she sighed. “I only wish. Leese is the gotta-do-my-homework-babysitter-extraordinaire. I have a hard enough time just getting her to go out with us on the weekends.”
Ah, crap! I watched the grin spread across his face.
“So, you do have a life. I just have to wait for the weekend, huh?”
I had a feeling that this was payback for returning him to Jewels clutches. If I could have only slipped my finger
s around her dainty throat, I would have choked her. All I could think was that she should have waited to ask me if I had any interest in this guy before mentioning weekends.
“Yeah,” she continued, oblivious to the look of discomfort on my face. “There is a group of us going to the movies Friday night. Wanna come?”
“And you’re going?” He asked, looking down at me.
I wanted to say, ‘I was’ instead of ‘I am’ but then actually avoiding him would have been way too apparent. “Yeah,” I sighed. “Unless the earth falls apart first.”
His hand slapped the roof of my car, “Great, I’m in for Friday night!”
Jewels let out a squeal of delight.
I honestly don’t think she cared so much about the fact that he only seemed interested in whether I was going or not. She was the type of person who liked to surround herself with the cool or gorgeous people from school. Yeah, he was right—she was shallow. I started my car and told them goodbye.
I stopped by the grocery store to grab milk, bread and cat food for Beverly, my aunt-for-show. And then I headed over to the elementary school to pickup my six-year-old sister, Kimmy. The pickup line for car riders was long, as usual. I sat there inching my way forward every few moments, but the whole time I was thinking about Evan. I kept thinking about driving his car and seeing the surprise on his face. I chuckled to myself, but realized I needed a new game plan for tomorrow. I needed to act like I had no interest in him. I would have to be the stick-in-the-mud that Jewels had called me earlier this morning. I’d have to be more than a stick-in-the-mud—I’d have to be just plain old mud. I sighed as I made my decision for tomorrow; no makeup. Yeah, that should do it.
The car door opened and Kimmy jumped in with her Hello Kitty backpack in hand.
“Have a good day,” Ms. Brenderson said as she prepared to shut the door. “And don’t forget,” she added, pulling it open again. “Wear your seat belt.” She did that every day, and every time Kimmy would laugh.
She buckled her seat belt as I check my side mirror for an opening to pull out. “So did you have a good day, kiddo?”
“Oh, yes,” and she began rattling off everything she did in her first-grade classroom. I was listening, kind of. I couldn’t help it though when my mind would drift back to the smell of his cologne, the way he reached into my car, and the smile on his face when he knew I was going out Friday night.
“Snap out of it, Leese,” I said aloud.
“Snap out of what?” Kimmy questioned.
“Sorry, Kimmy. I was just thinking about someone from my school.”
“A boy?” she asked with a funny little lilt to her voice.
“No, of course not.” And here I thought she was too young to figure that out.
“I bet it’s a boy. It’s okay, Leese. You can like a boy if you want to. I like Michael Peters. He’s in my class. I think about him all the time, too.”
I looked at her and she looked at me, and then we both began to giggle.
“Is he cute?” I questioned with exaggerated interest.
“Oh, yes. He’s seven and he’s missing his front teeth, but I still want to kiss him!”
“Kimmy!” I didn’t have to fake the shock. “You don’t go around kissing boys.”
“Sure you do, Leese. Don’t you watch TV?”
“Apparently not the same shows that you do, young lady,” I said as I pulled into the driveway.
“Oh, come on, Leese: Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid—they all kiss the boys they love.”
I frowned for a moment, considering that even though they were cartoons, she was right; it was all about one great kiss. “I guess, but you should wait until you’re older. You might not even like Mike what’s-his-name next year.” For that matter, I was thinking we might not even be here next year, but I didn’t want to get her hopes up about going home or dash them about leaving her friends.
“Peters,” she said as she trudged up the front steps. “It’s okay, Leese. I’m just livin’ my life.” She sounded like some mini-scholar who dispensed wisdom to every dumb teenager that walked by. My eyes began to sting as the tears filled my bottom lashes; that was mom’s line. She raised us with the motto to always live your life, don’t just go through it.
“Life,” I remembered her saying, “is a daily experience. God gives us a fresh chance every morning to discover what’s out there. I hope when you grow old, God willing, you’ll look back and say, thanks for the memories, instead of saying wait, let me go back. I was just getting by. Let me go back and re-do it. This is a one-shot deal.”
I put away the small amount of groceries while mopping the tears off my face. I thought I was past all the sobbing and pain, but just five little words reminded me that I wasn’t living my life. I was stuck here because Mom started freaking out with the idea that someone was trying to hurt us, or worse. Ever since her dad took his life two years ago, she had become convinced that it wasn’t suicide and that someone was after our money. She started having trouble sleeping, then, when she did sleep, she’d wake screaming from nightmares. Dad was at his wits end when she started saying that Kimmy and I had to go some place safe. We had to go away until whoever it was that was doing this to our family was caught. The problem was that as far as I could tell there wasn’t anyone doing anything to our family—Mom was losing her sanity.
Then, last July, our yacht which was docked in the backyard in the intercoastal waterway, caught fire, and she snapped. She called Matt and Beverly. They had all gone to college together at Florida State University and were still close friends. I think they were the only friends that weren’t stinking rich. Somehow that equated to being safe in Mom’s book. She asked if they could take us in until things got back to normal. And, of course, with a generous cash offer to cover any needs we might have, they said yes. I truly think Matt and Bev would have let us come live with them even if Mom couldn’t spare a nickel, but Beverly said with the economy going the way it was, she was certainly grateful to put some extra money in the bank.
I checked on Kimmy. She was seated at the dining room table working on her vocabulary words. “Need any help?” I asked, my voice still filled with sadness.
“Nope, I’m fine.” She sat there with her pencil in hand, the tip of her tongue poking out the right side of her mouth and her feet swinging back and forth below the chair. She didn’t seem to notice the tone of my voice and I wasn’t going to bring her down by crying in front of her.
“I’m going to start my homework. You can watch TV when you’re done, okay?”
“Okay, Leese.” She never looked up, but just kept working to write her words neatly.
Moments like today I was glad that I’d taken honors and AP courses. I had plenty of homework to keep my mind off everything, especially things like Evan. He would just complicate my life, and it certainly didn’t need any more complications.
Matt arrived home first from work. He was an environmental engineer, but there wasn’t enough work to keep him with the firm that he’d been with since he got out of college seven years ago, so for the last year and a half he’d been working with a survey company. The problem was that there wasn’t much happening in the commercial or residential real estate business either, so the need for surveys had dropped dramatically. I could tell he was worried, but I also knew that Mom’s monetary gift would keep them from losing their home, and probably leave enough room to supplement their incomes for at least a year.
He walked through the door, setting his dirty work boots in the foyer. I had grabbed him a cold coke from the fridge and had just popped the top when he looked up at me.
“Hey, Leese.” He gave a little groan as he leaned backward with his hands on his hips trying to crack his back. “Oh, thanks,” he said, reaching for the coke.
“Tired, Matt?”
He made a nasal “Uh-huh,” as he slugged down the soda. Within moments he handed me back the empty can and then let out a huge burp.
“That’s gros
s, Matt,” I yelled as he marched down the hallway.
“Can’t help it, kid,” he shouted back. “You give me a coke and you know I’ll burp. I’m going to jump in the shower before Bev gets in.” The bedroom door closed and reopened a moment later as he peeked down the hallway. “Would you mind throwing the lasagna in the microwave, Leese? At least that will be done when Bev gets home.”
I had already set the frozen lasagna out and had the same idea, so I said, “Sure,” and kept working. I set the timer for 22 minutes and went to help Kimmy clean up her mess in the dining room. Bev pulled in just as the timer went off. It didn’t take long before I heard Matt Junior’s little footsteps running into the house. I jumped out from the dining room archway just in time to scare him.
“Boo!”
He squealed with delight and turned to run back to Beverly. “Mama,” he called.
“Matt-Moo,” Kimmy crooned from behind the living room couch, “Come find me.” And the game began. Every afternoon she played hide-and-seek with Matt Junior. He never seemed to grow tired of looking for her, even though the living room was small and there weren’t many places for her to hide.
Bev tossed a salad while I warmed a couple cans of green beans, and dinner was done. One thing I had to admit was that it was nice to be around so much normalcy in life. Back in Palm Beach, we were always on the go. Dinner together was usually at a restaurant between lessons. Mom kept us involved all the time doing something. Kimmy had taken swimming lessons before she could even walk. Then there were dance, singing, and art lessons. I had taken dance, singing, piano, and baton.
Before I turned fifteen, Mom bought me a Jaguar convertible and sent me to evasive driving school. It just wasn’t sporty enough, and I couldn’t do some of the cool things with it that a car with a manual transmission could offer, so when I got my restricted license, I bought my Porsche.
My driving trainer, Tony Dix, got special permission (amazing what money can buy) to let me try out my new car on the Daytona speedway. What a thrill that was! I could accelerate from zero to sixty in just over four seconds, and could reach one-ninety on the straightaway.
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