by Holly Jacobs
If Ned had said he was a fugitive I don’t think I’d have been more surprised than I was when he said the word date. I repeated it just to be sure I’d heard correctly. “A date? With you?”
“Don’t sound so shocked.” He looked more amused than insulted.
“I mean, a date? Us?” When I wrote, I could place characters neatly into their boxes. Protagonist, antagonist. Hero, heroine. Best friend. Boy next door. Classmate. Enemy. Frenemy. Yes, there was overlap, but most characters had a firm description in my head.
Ned was in the best friend box, right up there with Cooper.
To be honest, probably closer to me than Coop, who had a new boyfriend and she’d been preoccupied with him the last few months.
What if we dated and it didn’t work? I’d lose Ned as a friend.
No, that was a stupid cop-out. I’d broken up with Anthony, and we’d stayed friends. I mean, if I got arrested, he’s the attorney I’d call.
I’d broken up with Anthony because I wasn’t in love with him. I was in like with him. Very much in like.
I was in like with Ned as well. I had been since he moved in. And for half a moment when I met him, there had been a spark, but I’d snuffed it out the moment I found out he had a girlfriend. Could a spark be rekindled, and more . . . could it grow into something deeper after all this time?
“I can see you thinking,” Ned said. “You’re running through a bunch of scenarios. What if we dated and it didn’t work out? Could we still be friends? What if we dated and it did work out? What then? What if . . .”
“Yes,” I admitted. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Here’s something else I know from our walks and talks, and from reading your books . . . running through multiple scenarios is a big part of your profession. But maybe just this once, you don’t. Maybe you simply try a date with me and see how it goes.”
“What if I lose you in the process?” I asked. That was my true fear. I’d come to count on Ned in a way I didn’t count on anyone else. Not even Coop.
He pulled me close. I thought he might kiss me, but he didn’t. He simply held me and said, “Of all the scenarios that you can imagine, take that one off the table. You’re my friend. My best friend, truth be told. I think there could be more between us, but I’m absolutely certain there can’t be less.”
I’d thought something similar about Anthony. He was a friend. I will never know how I could have thought he was anything more than that, but I knew for a fact he’d never be anything less.
If I could know that about Anthony, how could I doubt that, no matter what, I’d always have a firm friendship with Ned? Like Dad and Aunt Bonnie.
“Pip, if we try it and it doesn’t work out, we’ll go back to being us and someday laugh about the failed attempt,” he promised.
“But . . .”
Ned put a finger to my lips. “Just say yes.”
I was still nervous, but I realized that I wanted to know the answer to this particular what-if. What if we did date and it worked out?
I took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
“Great. I’ll put a date together. Saturday?”
I nodded. “So if you’re planning it, what you’re saying is, I have to wear something better than this?” I lifted up a knee, where a new hole was forming.
“You can wear whatever you want, but this is a real dinner at a sit-down restaurant, not pizza in your jungle.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s a grown-up clothes sort of evening then.”
I did the only thing a woman in my position could do.
I called Coop.
Big mistake.
On Saturday, I found myself at the mall with her as she said the words, “Now, let’s shop for makeup.”
We’d already shopped for clothes and shoes. She’d even made me buy a new purse. I wasn’t sure I could handle shopping for makeup, too. “Really, there’s no need. I have makeup. Why on earth would I need more?”
“When’s the last time you used makeup?” she asked.
I had to think about it. “The Amanda’s Pantry dinner last year.”
“Yeah, just toss that all out. We’re starting from scratch.”
“Coop, seriously—”
“I have never heard anyone whine so much about shopping.”
“I really, really hate shopping.”
“Really?” Coop asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Because I couldn’t tell.”
I hefted the bags I was carrying. “I could have bought all this online.”
Coop shook her head and looked stubborn. I noticed as we walked we were moving toward the makeup counter.
“No,” she said firmly. “You couldn’t have shopped for this online, because if you did, you’d have bought the dress you tried on first. It was a size too big. So rather than look sexy, you’d have looked frumpy.”
“Ned’s used to me looking like this. He wouldn’t have minded the larger, more comfortable dress.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded, but he wouldn’t have been blown away by it. This one, he’ll be blown away by.” She smiled, as if she was the one personally responsible for my impressing Ned.
“I don’t necessarily want to blow him away. And let’s be honest, he knows what I generally look like. He knows I won’t maintain this look for any length of time.”
“One look at you in this and he’ll forget everything he’s ever known.”
“Coop—” I started to protest.
She cut me off. “Listen, you two have danced around this since he first moved in. When it’s just you and me together, do you have any idea how often you say his name? Ned said this. Ned did that. Or Ned and I . . . You two have been an item for years; you simply didn’t realize it. Everyone else did. Mela did. And I’m pretty sure Anthony did. I did. And I bet if you called your parents, they did.”
“If you all thought that I . . . that we . . . Why didn’t anyone say anything?”
“Because it wouldn’t have mattered. Not until you were ready. I’ve known Mark since high school. But it wasn’t until this year, when he started teaching with me, that I realized there was more than just friendship.”
Coop hadn’t said much about Mark, but every time she did mention him, she practically glowed. “I’d like a chance to see you two together.”
“Maybe you, me, Mark, and Ned can go out sometime,” Coop said.
Talking about going out with Ned as a couple was odd. There was a difference between me and Ned doing something, and me-and-Ned-the-couple doing something.
I asked the question that was haunting me. “What if Ned and I try it out and it doesn’t work? What if we mess up our friendship in the process?” Ned had reassured me, but I wanted to hear Coop say the words, too.
Rather than reassurances, she scolded me. “You can’t live your whole life afraid of making a mistake, worrying about what might happen.”
“What if . . . ?” I said more to myself than to Coop, but she heard me.
“Right. Those kinds of worrying questions can paralyze you. Go out and knock his socks off. Let what comes next find its own way.”
I nodded. I was going to try.
I finished dressing and looked in the mirror. I was pretty sure with Coop’s help I’d gotten beyond my normal six or seven. I thought I might actually be dressed to the eights.
I jumped at the sound of the doorbell. I looked at the clock. Ned was early. I ran down the stairs to the front door. My palms were sweating as I opened it.
But it wasn’t Ned. “Mom?”
“Wow,” was all she said. “Where are you going?” She stepped inside.
I shut the door. “Just dinner,” I said, though I knew there was no just about it. Tonight could change everything. I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to change.
I liked my life. There was a
rhythm to it.
I liked my friendship with Ned. I could count on it.
“I don’t think any woman in the history of the world has gone out to just dinner dressed like that,” she said.
“Is something wrong?” I tugged at my hem. I’d thought it was a bit too short, but Coop had assured me it was just right.
“No, nothing’s wrong. You look lovely. So who’s the guy?” she asked as she came into the house.
“Ned,” I admitted.
“Finally.” She packed a lot into that one word.
“What do you mean, finally?” I asked, although I was pretty sure she was going to join in the Coop serenade.
“Honey, your dad and I have always wondered why you and Ned weren’t dating. It’s as obvious as the nose on my face that there’s something between you.”
“We’re friends,” I said.
If dating didn’t work, we’d still be friends. I kept reminding myself that Anthony and I had stayed friends, so there was no reason that Ned and I couldn’t manage it, but still . . .
“Your dad and I are friends, too. Some people are destined for simple friendship, but for some, that friendship is the basis for something more. You can be friends with someone you love. Honestly, I think the best romantic relationships have a deep friendship at their core.”
I thought of Aunt Bonnie. She and my dad had never been more than friends. But with my mom . . .
Mom continued, “Yes, you and Ned are friends, but I think, if you let it, there’s more between you two.”
I said, “We’re going to see if there is.”
“Good. I just stopped by to see if you wanted to come over for pizza tonight.” She laughed. “I think your plans are probably going to be better.”
“I hope so,” I said, more to myself than her. To be honest, I wished Ned had asked me for pizza. That would have been easy. I know how to do pizza with Ned. I looked down at my outfit. I wasn’t sure I knew how to do this with him.
“Enjoy yourself, honey,” Mom said.
“I’d enjoy myself more if I weren’t all dressed up,” I muttered.
“You’re going to knock Ned’s socks off.”
“I kind of like his socks exactly where there are,” I said. I liked things the way they were. I shouldn’t have said yes to this date.
“Have fun,” my mother said.
I walked her to the door and opened it to see Ned. He was dressed beyond the eights and was definitely in the nine-ish zone. I thought the word wow, but didn’t say it out loud.
I just drank in the sight of him. He was my Ned, but more.
He didn’t say anything either.
We just stood there, looking at each other, and I’ll confess, I forgot my mom was there until she said, “Well, you two obviously don’t need me here,” and left.
As she left, I realized Ned had Princess with him. “Princess wanted to spend the evening with Bruce, if that’s okay,” he said.
“That’s fine.”
He unclipped her and let her into the house. Princess disappeared inside, looking for Bruce.
Ned extended his arm. “Shall we?”
I put my arm in his and we left.
I had high hopes for our date.
In the end, my hopes were the highest point of the date.
Dear Amanda,
It’s been a week since my date with Ned. I’ve wondered why it was such a flop. It was as if we couldn’t find anything to talk about and while Ned looked great and I looked as good as I could, it was as if the clothes just served to remind us both that this was more than one of the countless meals we’d shared. Meals where we never ran out of things to talk about.
I was so thankful when we got to the movies, but even that was different too. It was a Saturday night, and I don’t think either of us had given any thought to the fact that Saturdays are date nights. The theater was packed with couples.
The show we wanted to see was sold out, so we took the only other one that started in the same time slot. It was a morbid story of obsessive love that ended with one character dead and the other in jail. Not my kind of movie. Ned’s either, to be honest.
We pulled into Ned’s driveway and he went to change before coming over to get Princess. I changed as well.
When he came back, we were just Ned and Pip again.
And that made all the difference.
I’m not saying that dressing up and going out on the town doesn’t have its place, but I’m saying that maybe the best relationships don’t need makeup and high heels. Maybe they just need someone who likes you just the way you are.
Love,
Piper
I didn’t go into detail about it in the journal, but Ned came back over after the date wearing a T-shirt and jeans. I’d torn out of my dress and put on yoga pants and a B Is for Bully T-shirt.
He came in, took one look at me, and said, “There you are.”
“And there you are, too.”
And without waiting for an invitation, I walked into his arms. And what started out as an end-of-date, goodnight kiss, became an introduction.
Ned didn’t go home that night.
The next morning, we took Princess and Bruce for a walk, all four of us in our normal formation, until Ned reached over and took my hand.
It was a new configuration to our walk.
We’ve been walking that way ever since.
Senior Year
Chapter Twelve
I sat on my porch for another first day of school. It would be Amanda’s last first day of high school. She was on the cusp of adulthood.
The thought brought a mix of emotions and I wondered what she was planning to do when she graduated. Move on to a university somewhere? A year abroad? Straight into the workforce?
She was on my mind as I watched the annual chaos across the street. Last year’s students were all moving up a grade, and transfer students were joining them on the front lawn of the school, waiting for the bell to ring and start not just another school day but another school year.
Cooper had come over for an early breakfast. She’d been back at school a couple of weeks, getting ready for her students. But today was special, so I made her waffles and she bubbled over about her plans for the year. She warned me that the students had loved last year’s books, so this year’s class would expect to do them, which meant I should plan on some visits.
I was thrilled at the chance. I loved Coop’s enthusiasm for what she does.
Before she left, I’d handed her a bagged lunch with “Miss Cooper” printed boldly on the side.
She’d laughed and carried it off as she crossed the street.
Kids walked by and called out their hi-Miss-Pips. The littler ones chased each other and shrieked, while the older kids stood in clusters and tried to look cool.
I enjoyed the show. I had a cup of tea in my very proper forget-me-not teacup. The original had always been my favorite, but this replica was doubly so. Every time I used it, I thought of Ned. Those thoughts warmed me more than the tea.
I tried to work but couldn’t seem to manage it. The hustle and bustle across the street was a distraction. I finally gave up pretending to work.
I closed my eyes and let myself really listen to the sounds. A squeak of the metal teeter-totter. Cars rolling past. Car doors opening and slamming shut. A horn. And beneath all of that, the buzz of the children’s voices. Shouting greetings. Talking loudly. Laughing.
The word cacophony came to mind.
This was a wonderful example of a joyous cacophony.
The bell rang and I opened my eyes. A number of kids bolted toward the front doors. Others followed at an even pace. And a few walked so slowly they were almost moving backward.
Eventually they all disappeared into the school. Another bell rang and I knew they were heading into their new
classrooms. They were meeting their new teachers, getting new books.
They were happy, afraid, excited.
Maybe I liked writing for kids because they had a life of endless possibilities in front of them. Whether they were living an idyllic childhood or a troubled one, they could become anything they wanted to be.
It was warm. More than warm, it was downright hot. I had on a pair of capris and a tank top. My hair was pulled into a high ponytail, so it didn’t touch my neck. It had been a cool summer, so to have such a hot day for the first day of school seemed slightly unfair.
It always seemed that cooler first days of school set the proper atmosphere.
I sat there thinking about the weather rather than writing. I finally admitted that I was not going to get any work done on my book, so I gave up. I went inside and got the journal, which is what I’d wanted all along.
I hadn’t written in it much this summer. It wasn’t that Amanda wasn’t on my mind or even that I was running out of things I wanted to say to her. It was that the blank pages in the journal were dwindling, and I was becoming very discriminating about what I wrote now. I wanted these last pages to count.
But even though I had nothing earth-shattering to share this morning, I still wanted to write something. It was her first day of her senior year of high school.
Oh, I knew I could be off. She had one of those birthdays on the cusp of school rules. Maybe her parents held her back an extra year and she wouldn’t graduate until next year, or maybe she was a prodigy and had started school early. Heck, if she was an academic prodigy, she could be in college already. But after consulting about summer birthdays with Coop under the guise of using it for a book—which I did, so that wasn’t a lie—I was pretty sure I was correct and this was her final year of high school.
The schoolyard was quiet now, except for an occasional straggler. I picked up the journal.
Dear Amanda,
It’s the first day of school here and my thoughts are on you. You’ll be a senior this year.
What if you were here and we were talking in person? What sort of advice would I give you?