by Ann Steinke
Everyone laughed, then we all went over to the stove for seconds. Ter and Lou reached for the ladle at the same time, so they ended up fighting for it playfully. Ter slapped Lou’s arm, snatching the ladle right out of his hand. But Lou managed to take it back again by tickling her around the waist. Then finally Ter picked up a nearby cooking fork and threatened to stab him with it, so Lou raised his hands in surrender, dropping the ladle into the cooking pot. Ter giggled as she ladled out a bowlful of chili for herself, then one for Lou.
“Okay. So you won,” Lou said to her good-naturedly. “There’s no need to gloat.”
As I watched the two of them banter back and forth, I decided that Lou qualified as the nicest guy Ter had ever dated. Though they weren’t exactly dating yet, it certainly appeared as if they were heading in that direction. And I really hoped things would work out for Ter. Lou was funny and he seemed to look out for everyone around him. And besides, Lou cooked! That was so neat. It would be so much fun to have a guy cook for you all the time. I was amazed Lou didn’t have a girlfriend. But then I had a horrifying thought. What if he did? What if there was someone else in his life, and he hadn’t told Ter about her? I knew that I was entertaining ridiculous thoughts. I mean, Lou hadn’t done anything to arouse suspicion. But I couldn’t help it. Watching Lou talk to Ter, and watching Ter bask in his attention, was enough to make me nervous. What if, after all these years of waiting for the guy of her dreams, he came along and broke her heart?
CHAPTER SIX
After Scott took us to my house, Ter and I sat on the stoop outside and talked for a while.
“You don’t think Lou is just stringing me along, do you?” she asked, her face creased in worry. She was chewing on her lip—a sure sign that she was having a case of self doubt.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because sometimes I get the feeling he’s not as interested in me as I am in him,” she explained. “You know. It’s just a feeling.” She paused for a moment. “Like, he smiles at me sometimes, but the smile isn’t a whole-face one. You know what I mean?”
“I haven’t noticed,” I said honestly.
“Well, next time we’re all together, watch. I really want your honest opinion, Krista,” she said with a worried look on her face. “I talked to Cathy in gym the other day. And I told her about how we might be forming a band. So anyway, I asked her if she’d watch Lou during orchestra and see if he looked interested in me. . . .”
“And?” I prompted.
Her voice came out sounding wistful. “She said that she honestly hadn’t noticed anything different so far, and that he seemed to be really into his music during orchestra. But she agreed to start watching him whenever she sees us talking, or whatever.” Ter was running a finger along the seam of her jeans. “That’s why I need your input too,” she said, looking up at me.
I nodded slowly.
“I don’t know,” she continued. “Maybe it’s just too early for him to like me like I want him to,” she said stalwartly.
“Right,” I agreed.
The next day after school, I was doing some research for economics in the county library. I had two reference books and four periodicals laid out on in front of me. And I needed to find even more information. I’m not very interested in economics—except maybe my own personal economics. I didn’t care much about international trade or the trade deficit. If countries wanted to get themselves into monetary trouble by importing too little or exporting too much, that was their problem. But unfortunately my teacher, Mr. Hernandez, felt differently. He had assigned us a heavy-duty ten-page paper, and I was desperately trying to get enough information to write an intelligent-sounding report.
I rose from my seat and headed for the book stacks again. I rounded the end of the aisle, moving toward the shelves where I knew my next source would be, but I found my feet stumbling over themselves. Lou was standing right in front of the spot I’d been aiming for. He turned his head and looked at me, his eyebrows rising in surprise. Then he smiled.
I walked up to him and noticed he was holding the book I needed. “Hey, that’s the book I wanted,” I said. “You have economics with Hernandez, too?”
“Yup.”
“So do I,” I said. “First period.”
“Good for you,” he said. “At least you get it over with right away.”
“Oh yeah? Try concentrating on that stuff at 7:55 in the morning,” I said, laughing. “I’m practically inert at that hour. My brain doesn’t wake up until third period.”
“But being unconscious for Hernandez’s class sounds ideal,” he said. “I’m wide awake by the time I have to face him during fifth.”
“Ugh, right after lunch,” I said with appropriate sympathy. “It must give you heartburn.”
We grinned at each other.
“So did Hernandez assign your class a ten-page treatise?” I asked.
“Yeah, we got the monster report to do, too,” I answered. “Which is why I’m here at the library instead of where I really want to be—home practicing my drums.”
“Me, too, although for me it would be violin,” I said, looking down at the book he was clutching under his arm. “You know, I really need that book.” I tried to put on a winsome, begging expression.
Lou laughed. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, holding the book aloft. “As soon as I photocopy the pages I need in here, I’ll let you have it.”
“Fair enough,” I said, satisfied.
I returned to my seat and started scribbling some notes from the sources I had already amassed around me. Lou returned to his own table and sat down with his back facing me. I stared at his wide, strong-looking shoulders, and the weights in his garage came to mind. Then I reminded myself firmly that I was in the library to study economics, not human anatomy.
Twenty minutes later Lou appeared at my elbow and laid the book down next to me. “All done,” he said, juggling a sheaf of photocopies. “Good luck understanding this stuff.”
“That bad, huh?” I asked, smiling up at him.
“Worse.” He grinned and went back to his table. This time he sat down facing in my direction.
I tried to go back to my reading, but I felt slightly distracted. I tipped my head down, making my long blond hair fall in a sheer curtain partially covering my face, and looked across at him. I had discovered early on in my life that this was an extremely useful maneuver, because it allowed me to watch people without them knowing. Lou seemed to be staring at me, but I tried to convince myself that I was imagining things. Maybe he was just mulling over an economics problem. For a long time, though, or so it seemed. I frowned and prodded my pen into action, writing gibberish. I wiggled in my seat. I aligned my paper more neatly, then pressed on the pages of the book spread open in front of me to make it lie flatter. Lou was still pondering—and staring at my table. I looked down at my book again and tried to read it, but the print on the pages blurred, and the words made no sense to me. This was ridiculous. There had to be an easier book about the common market.
I got up, scurried down the aisle, and replaced the book. I chose another one that had larger print. I figured that if the print was larger, it would be easier to understand. Then I returned to my table.
I sat down facing away from Lou, knowing full well that I was being ridiculous. The guy had every right to stare anywhere he wanted. We were separated by at least twenty feet, and the library was full of other tables at which several people sat doing whatever they were doing. At twenty feet it was certainly possible that I couldn’t focus well enough to really know where Lou’s eyes were aimed. The fact that I had perfect vision meant nothing. People with excellent vision make mistakes all the time. Look at how three different people can witness an accident and not tell the same story.
Suddenly I sensed a presence nearby and shifted my eyes away from my book. Lou loomed large next to me for the second time.
“I’m out of here,” he said. “There’s just so much of this torture I can take
.” He was grinning down at me. His eyes were the color of bittersweet chocolate.
“Uh, okay. Bye,” I said, hoping he would think I’d been staring at economics books so long my brain cells had liquefied.
“See you tomorrow night, right?”
I struggled to remember why. “Oh, yeah,” I said, bobbing my head up and down. “The jam session. It’ll be great.” I tried to infuse sufficient enthusiasm into my voice. What was my problem anyway?
I saw a flicker of a frown on his face, then his expression cleared, and he smiled. “Yeah, great,” he said. “Catch you later.” He nodded and sauntered off. I made myself look down at my book, and restrained myself from watching him go.
A weird feeling sat in my chest, making me feel uncomfortable, uneasy. I’d never felt anything like it before, so I couldn’t identify it. But I hated the feeling. I bit my tongue and realized that I’d been grinding my teeth. I grabbed up my pen, yanked the book closer to me, and forced myself to copy several pages of information. I could have just photocopied what I needed, but I thought that by doing mindless busywork I might somehow shake whatever it was that was making me feel so tense.
“I stopped off at Tape World last night and bought us some sheet music,” Ter was telling the three of us the next day.
We were all standing outside the orchestra room just before class. I tried not to look at Lou, even though he was standing directly across from me. I hoped that if I didn’t make eye contact with him, he wouldn’t mention seeing me in the library the day before. There was no reason Ter shouldn’t know I had run into Lou. So why hadn’t I just mentioned it to her offhandedly while we were driving to school that morning?
“Great,” Scott said, beaming. “What did you get?”
“It’s a surprise,” Ter answered, her eyes shining. “I’ll show you later.”
“Tease,” Scott joked.
Then we heard Mr. Marsh yelling for order.
“We’d better get in there before he blows a gasket,” Scott said.
We all traipsed in and took our places. But just before I sat down, I happened to glance up at the drum section behind us. Lou was looking in Ter’s and my direction, but for a second I felt his glance lock with mine. Then his eyes shifted off to the side by a fraction, and he winked. That’s when I realized Ter had been looking at him too.
I didn’t look at Ter once we had turned around and taken our seats, but I could hear her humming a little tune under her breath. Had Lou been staring at me? Or Ter? And if he’d been looking at me, why?
I shook my head and turned my attention to my violin. Mr. Marsh has an impossible dream: He wants our orchestra to play like the Philadelphia Orchestra. He had even given us the score for The Nutcracker and had actually expected us to play it at the winter concert. No one in class had the heart to tell him that the likelihood of that happening was close to nil, so we practiced like fiends for forty minutes each day. And when the period was over, I think all of us just wanted to lie down and take naps.
After class, Cathy came up from behind me. “He must think we’re all candidates for Julliard,” she whispered.
I clucked with my tongue. “Poor misguided man,” I said.
“Really. What does he expect? This is only the second week of school,” Gavin said, joining us.
Dan overheard us from his place right next to mine. “If we improved our attitudes, instead of being defeatist like some people, maybe we could play like we were in Julliard.”
I clenched my jaw and started packing up my violin with slow, methodical motions, hoping he would get out of my sight before my baser instincts took over.
Ter made a growling noise deep in her throat. “Some day Daniel Nguyen is going to find that violin rammed down his throat,” she said under her breath.
Cathy and Gavin laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Jojo asked, tramping down from her position up in the risers. As Ter gave her an account of Dan’s latest remarks, Scott appeared at my side.
“So, you guys coming over now?” he asked. On our lunch break, we had agreed to practice for a couple of hours after school before I went to work.
“Absolutely,” I said, still smiling at the picture of Dan with a violin in his throat.
“Great!” Scott said. “Then let’s get out of here.”
“What are you guys up to?” Gavin asked.
Before either Ter or I could say anything, Scott responded. “It’s a secret,” he said, raising his eyebrows and placing a forefinger over his lips. Then he grabbed me and pulled me out of the huge room. Ter and Lou followed right behind us, and we ran like gazelles over to the senior lockers.
“Why did you tell him that?” I asked Scott, gasping for breath.
“‘Cuz I don’t want anyone to know about our band until we sound really good,” he explained.
“Oh,” I said in response. But I really wanted to point out that we did sound good together. Scott had said so himself. How good did we have to sound before we could tell people about our band? I wondered. Then I realized Gavin would probably find out about the band very soon anyway, through his sister Cathy, whom Ter had told, but I decided that there was no point in mentioning that to Scott.
After whipping out what we needed from our lockers, we continued on to the parking lot, where Lou jumped into Scott’s Jeep, and I hopped into Ter’s car. Ter kept up a constant stream of chatter all the way to Lou’s. I hadn’t seen her this happy in months. She’s in love, I thought, smiling, but then I felt an uneasiness settle somewhere deep in my chest once again.
The music Ter had bought us was Tell It Like It Is, from Heart.
“This is for girls’ voices,” Scott objected.
“So adapt,” Ter said, wrinkling her nose at him.
Scott cocked his head to one side and gave me a warm full smile. “Come on, Krista, come on over here. I’ll try this song with you.”
I came over and read the music with him. Then we ran through the song a couple of times. Scott said we sounded great, then he announced that Lou had a surprise for us too.
Lou looked pink from embarrassment, but Scott went on anyway. “Here it is,” Scott an nounced, waving some sheet music over his head. “Lou’s original composition.
“You wrote something?” Ter all but squealed.
Lou just grinned.
“That’s great, Lou,” I said, taking the music from Scott. “I had no idea you could write music.” I quickly skimmed over the pages. There were no lyrics. It was a straight instrumental piece.
“He’ll be the next John Lennon,” Scott said, looking at Lou with undisguised admiration.
We practiced the piece, and found that it had some great sound combinations. It started out slow, built up to a fast pace, then subsided into a sustained moderate pace. And Lou had allowed for each one of us to have solos, too. We practiced the song for about half an hour, before Scott suggested that we call it a day. “We sound so good, I don’t want to spoil it,” he said.
We laughed, feeling elated, and packed up our instruments. Then Lou led us into his house where we had snacks. I was beginning to realize that this was standard procedure for the guys. Music first, then snacks.
Lou’s dog, Doglette, came into the living room where we were hanging out. She went around the room, sitting in front of each of us, trying to beg. Predictably, Ter gave in first. She put a piece of pepperoni on the carpet, and Doglette nosed it around the room, trying to figure out if she wanted to eat it or play with it. We watched her and laughed, until Lou took the dog and the pepperoni and threw them both out into the backyard.
I glanced at my watch.
“Late?” Ter asked. She knew I had to be at work at six.
“Kind of,” I answered. “But we have a few minutes.” I knew Ter didn’t want to go yet. She was sitting very close to Lou on his couch, and he had his arm stretched out behind her. Ter was feeding Lou chips and dip, and Scott sat at my feet with his back leaning up against my chair. I was very conscious of the way his
right shoulder was touching my left leg.
“What nights do you work?” Lou asked me.
“Normally, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday nights,” I replied. “But occasionally Ernesto asks me to fill in for someone who can’t make it.”
Lou nodded. “So what nights do you work abnormally?” he asked with a straight face.
“Huh?” I said, genuinely confused. Then I understood the joke, and we all laughed.
For some reason Lou’s eyes lingered on me after the laughter had died down, and I felt uncomfortable. I quickly leaned over to face Scott. “You work too, right?”
He nodded vigorously.
“Where? When?”
“Oh, I work at a farm south of here on the mesa, where they grow trees, bushes, flowers, stuff like that,” he replied. “A lot of the builders around here use our stuff to landscape lots in their subdivisions.” He flexed his arm. “It’s good healthy outdoor work, for strengthening muscles,” he added heartily. “The better for playing a guitar.”
I laughed, then reached up and felt his arm at the elbow. “Really? Well, you don’t work enough,” I teased. “There’s a lot of bone here.”
Scott chuckled, then grabbed my hand and held it.
“You mean the one north of Nipomo?” Ter said, perking up.
“Yeah,” he said, looking surprised.
Ter went on. “My dad has his own landscaping business. He buys stuff from that place.”
“Yeah, we sell at a discount to landscapers,” Scott said.
“I’ve been there a couple of times with him, to pick stuff up.” Ter leaned forward, biting her lip. “What days do you work?” she asked.
“Every other Saturday, and Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons,” he answered. “It’s a real grind, but I need the cash to romance beautiful blondes.” He grinned at me.
I laughed, trying to make light of his comment, but I knew Scott was only half joking. He really was interested in me, and knowing that made me nervous. I wasn’t sure I was as interested in him.
I wondered why Ter was being so inquisitive about Scott’s job, but then I saw the gleam in her eye as she looked at me, and I knew she’d asked about it for my benefit. She was plotting some way for us to join her father one day when he went down to the mesa for a pickup.