by Unknown
Sweet Sixteen...
Tom was right. You need your educational date.
And since I’m filling in for him, the honor of becoming your first date has officially been transferred to me.
Real world. Real date.
Pick you up at seven tonight.
I smiled to myself.
Travis!
“Happy birthday!” Cindy said behind me.
I quickly tucked the rose inside my locker.
I should probably have told Cindy everything. Except that in a way, I was also like Travis. I didn’t always tell people about every single detail in my life. And right then, it was embarrassing to admit, even to her, that I needed an educational date from my brother’s best friend before I really became confident about going out with boys.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Anything planned?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe just a simple family get-together.” That wasn’t a lie. For years, Travis had been a part of my family, too. And right then, he was the only person who probably understood the pain I still felt on a daily basis after losing my brother.
“That’s nice. I think you need that after…” Her words trailed off. “Well, I think it’s nice to strengthen family ties. Especially on your birthday.”
I nodded, and somehow, I wished my parents felt the same way. But I knew that Tom’s death had crumbled their already failing marriage. For years, we had refused to see the elephant in the room. My parents were busier with work than with each other. Apart from the weekly family dinners, they didn’t see much of each other at all. And with Tom gone, they chose to mourn apart. Unfortunately, they forced me to do it by myself, too.
Chapter Three
I waited in my living room anxiously. I wore a pair of white capris and black halter top. I didn’t know how to dress, but I was pretty sure I looked nice. Not that I wanted to impress Travis, but this was a practice date.
I tied my hair in a neat pony, and then put on powder and gloss.
The doorbell rang.
Maria, our maid, ran to get it.
“I’ll get it!” I said to her.
She looked at my outfit and then smiled. “It’s nice that you’re going out on a date on your birthday.”
I was going to correct her that it wasn’t really a date, but then I asked her instead, “How do I look?”
She beamed at me. “Really lovely!” she replied. “Your date will not be able to take his eyes off you!”
I giggled nervously. I doubted that was true. If it was any other guy, maybe. But not Travis Cross, who saw me in pajamas and shirts with holes in the wee hours of the nights he slept over at our house.
I never imagined Travis would be my first date. A couple of months before, I would have vomited at the mere thought of it. But now, I felt like…better him than some guy I don’t even know.
I opened the door. Travis was standing in front of me wearing jeans, a white shirt, and a black jacket.
“Hey!” I greeted him cheerily.
He nodded at me.
“Happy birthday,” he said.
I smiled. “Thanks!” I closed the door behind me. “I suppose I should introduce my date to my parents first, but…first of all, they already know you. And second of all, they didn’t even bother to come home on my birthday. So, that’s out the window. Let’s proceed to step number two.”
To my surprise, Travis suppressed a chuckle at my attempt to joke about the fact that my parents weren’t home on both my birthday and the first time I would be going out on a date.
Travis opened the door of his Porsche for me.
“Quite the gentleman, aren’t we?” I teased.
“If the guy doesn’t open the passenger door for you, don’t proceed with the date at all,” he said in a serious voice that really sounded like he was giving a lecture.
“Note taken. Does he have to have a Porsche, too? Because that really limits my choices.”
He raised a brow at me. “Doesn’t matter. As long as he doesn’t make you walk all the way home.”
He rounded the car and got into the driver’s seat. He drove to a classy restaurant that was famous for steak and overlooking views.
“Wow!” I breathed. I stared at him. “Travis, this is setting the standard way up high!”
“Good! Maybe I’ll have more peace if you never go out on a date at all,” he said and then got out of the car. A second later, he was opening the passenger door for me.
“Hey, Tom would not be so strict!” I said.
“Well, he’s the angel. I’m the devil incarnate, remember?” he asked in a cold voice.
“Do all my dates have to be sarcastic, cynical, and cold, too?” I asked back.
He stared at me for a while. Then he sighed. “You’re right,” he said. He tossed his keys to the valet. Then he reached for my hand and guided me inside the restaurant.
“Good evening, Mr. Cross,” the receptionist greeted him. “This way to your table, sir.”
We were led to a secure corner on the terrace. It had a perfect view of the city and offered just the right amount of privacy.
“Privacy,” I said.
“That’s not for you,” he said. “I prefer that you date in public…where lots of people can see you…hear you scream if your date is a lunatic. This privacy…is for me.”
I raised a brow. “You’re ashamed to be seen with me in public, aren’t you?”
“Accusations are to be saved for the end of the relationship,” he said. “Not when you are hoping to start one.”
He had a point. But then I remembered, I did, too. “You’re avoiding my question.”
“No. Being seen with you is the least of my worries,” he said. “And if I were really a guy hoping to start a relationship with you, I would be proud to be seen with you in public. But enough with the compliments…the truth is…I don’t want you to be seen with me. At least not tonight.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “Because my father’s in town.”
“And?” I asked.
He stared at me for a moment. Then he said in a whisper, “Tom really could keep a secret.” It took him a moment to speak again. “My father and I have a broken relationship. It is worse than I let you know.”
“How bad?”
“Really bad,” he replied. “He lost his right to ground me and so I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.”
“How could a parent lose his right to ground his child?”
“The moment he stops doing his job of being a parent,” Travis replied coldly.
I sat back on my seat and waited for him to continue.
“And so whenever he wanted to keep me at home, he resorted to…tactics that would make you want to call child services if you found out,” Travis said. “I’m emancipated. I would sue his ass if it weren’t for my mother.”
“Travis…”
“He has bodyguards…hounds on the loose. Sometimes, I think they’re watching me, studying who moves in my circle.”
“Who you’re close to?”
“Right now, there’s only one,” he said. He stared at me for a long while, and in a rueful voice, he said, “I don’t want you to be involved in our war. I don’t want to break my promise to your brother.”
I smiled and reached out for his hand. “Thank you, Travis,” I said. “And anytime you want to talk about your father…I’m here.”
He pulled his hand away. “Thanks. But nope. I’m not going to waste your time talking about him.” He motioned at the menu. “Order.”
I ordered a New York steak and mashed potatoes. Travis ordered a ribeye and vegetables.
When the waitress was gone, we stared at each other.
“So, I suppose this is the part where I talk to my date about myself? And ask about him?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Now, what could I possibly ask Travis Cross that I don’t already know?”
“A lot,” he replied. “But I don
’t necessarily need to answer every one of them.”
“Aren’t you interested to know anything about me?”
He stared at me for a while and then gave me a crooked smile. “I know you more than you think.”
He said that with so much confidence I was actually surprised. “Really? You really think you know everything, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “You’re welcome to test that theory, cherie.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “My favorite color?”
“Green,” he replied without blinking. Wow! I didn’t know he knew that. My entire family thought it was pink.
“My favorite book?”
“Romeo and Juliet,” he said, wrinkling his nose.
I was taken aback, surprised he knew that, too.
“Movie?” I knew I had a lot of favorites. Only You, The Princess Bride, Some Kind of Wonderful…the list went on. Even I couldn’t answer that question easily. I would be shocked if Travis could.
He thought for a while. Then he said, Ever After.
I stared back at him. He raised a brow at me, as if he was challenging me to deny that. But then I realized—he was right. Out of all those movies, Drew’s Cinderella story was the one I watched over and over. Sometimes, I just turned it on and played it until I fell asleep.
“Song?”
“‘Walk On,’” he replied.
I couldn’t believe it. It’s like I replied to an interview and Travis spent hours memorizing my answers. “My secret crush.”
“If I knew that, then it wouldn’t be a secret, right?” he asked back.
Ha! There’s a page in the interview he’d missed reading after all. And I smiled to myself proudly.
He took a sip of his soda.
“But isn’t Ricky Martin gay?”
My mouth dropped. How could Travis know that much about me?
He was suppressing a laugh when he sipped his soda again.
Our food was served. I couldn’t say anything. I was still wondering how he knew all those things about me. Travis and I were not exactly friends when Tom was alive. I remembered him for his snide remarks—mischievous pranks, even. But I didn’t remember ever talking to him about anything regarding myself at all.
“You’re not upset, are you?” he asked.
I sighed. “I’m not. I’m just…shocked!” I replied. “How could you know all those things?”
He shrugged. He sliced his ribeye and then took a bite of his food. He didn’t speak for a long while.
I put my fork and knife down. “Would you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he asked.
“How did you know my favorite color, or movies, or songs? Even my thing for Ricky Martin?”
He shrugged again.
“Travis!” I protested. “Did you read one of my diaries?”
“Do you have a diary that has all that information?” he asked back.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
He smiled at me as if I were being ridiculous.
“Even Tom thought my favorite was pink,” I said.
“Well, he did get that wrong a lot,” he said.
“But how could you know all those things?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“My favorite color, for instance,” I said. “How could you know that?”
“The ink of your pens are green. You have a lot of green shirts.” Then he reached out across the table to touch my bracelet. It was a chain of green Swarovski crystals. “It’s the color of your birthstone.”
“So that day we went to your beach house…the room I stayed in was all green. Tom asked you to make it pink. Did you make it green on purpose? Did you already know I preferred that color?”
He stared at me for a while. Then he nodded. “I’ve always known you liked green.”
I sighed guiltily. I remembered that that day, I thought he was playing a joke on me that backfired. And yet, all along, he actually did it because he knew I would like it. I guess Travis really wasn’t as bad as I thought.
“What about the books I read?”
“Weren’t you carrying a Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights book around all the time?”
“The movie?”
“I slept next room to you about a hundred times. I could hear Drew Barrymore’s voice through the walls,” he replied.
“I suppose I play Menudo a lot, huh,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “And the portrait of Ricky Martin that you drew is stuck on your bedroom wall,” he said.
“So you got all that by observing?”
“Now you can’t say that nobody ever pays attention to you, cherie,” he said. “You’re…patriotic when it comes to the things you like. It’s hard not to notice.”
I sat back in my seat. “Funny. I didn’t know anybody really cared before.”
“I’m a very keen observer, particularly of the people around me.”
“Well, since you already know so much about me, maybe we should talk about you.”
He stared at me for a while. Then he took a bite of his ribeye.
“Can I ask the questions now?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Favorite color.”
He stared at me for a while and then asked back, “Looking at me, what do you think?”
“Black?”
He shrugged. “Black will do.”
“Favorite movie?”
He sat back for a while, and then he said, “The Good Son.”
It was the way he said it that made me look at him carefully. There were sorrow and bitterness in his voice.
“Something about the movie you want to talk about?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nope.” He looked at me and grinned. “You won’t trick me into telling you about my relationship with my parents, cherie. No matter how cute you try to be.”
I sighed. “Fine. But I will get you to talk about your parents. Maybe not now. But we have our lives to wait until you’re ready, Travis.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” he said, and somehow, I knew he meant that.
We had dessert. Since it was only Travis, and I didn’t need to pretend, I ordered their Mocha Lava specialty, which was a molten chocolate inside a chiffon cake with ice cream on top.
“Should I order dessert when I’m really out with a guy?” I asked. “I mean…will it turn guys off to know I don’t count calories?”
He chuckled. “I find it cute, actually. I think…if I wasn’t me, I have fallen in love with you already.”
“Why?”
“I don’t really like girls who are obsessed with their figures. I would rather they give in to the temptation of a nice Molten Lava cake. But that’s just me. And I’m not into relationships, really. It still depends on your guy. So I suggest you go with what you feel. You want to be comfortable with your boyfriend. You wouldn’t want to change just to fit his taste. He should fit yours.”
I looked at him thoughtfully. “I hope most of the guys our age think like you.”
“You have your whole life to look for him,” he said. “Well…not your whole life. But a decade and a half.”
I blinked back at him. “How could you know that?”
“Since I was twelve, I have been going to your family gatherings,” he replied. “Tom told me all about the ridiculous ‘curse’ the females in your family believe in.” He looked at me from under his lashes. “You don’t really believe in that, do you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think it will hurt that much to believe,” I replied. “I mean…in my family, if the curse does not happen to you, the others make it seem like it did. Like, for example, you don’t get married by thirty-one, and they look for all sorts of things that are wrong with you and they only talk about that at family reunions.
“I mean, who’s to say that it’s not Aunt Rosalie’s choice to be single for life, as supposed to marrying a man who would only break her heart? Or maybe Aunt Mildy’s dream was really to become Princes
s Jasmine she just couldn’t resist that proposal from a rich Sultan? But they talk about it at reunions and they give you a certain look, or they dish at every table that it looks like you’re doomed after all!” I sighed. “And sometimes, I realize I don’t want that. I prefer to be invisible compared to being so visible in the wrong sort of ways.”
“And so you prefer to get married before you’re thirty-one?”
I nodded. “Or be cursed for life? I think I prefer the lesser of two evils.”
He chuckled humorlessly. “Cherie, some men are not the lesser of two evils. Let’s just pray you don’t marry one who is a curse in his own right…like my father.”
I sighed. “Don’t bring up topics you don’t want to discuss further, Travis. Because I’m really getting curious about your father now.”
He brought his fingers to his lips and made a zipping gesture.
After dessert, Travis got the bill.
I took my wallet and pulled out some bills. “How much is my share?”
He stared at me as if it offended him.
I rolled my eyes. “I know you’re filthy rich, Travis Cross, but I’m not a free rider.”
He chuckled. “You did half of it right, at least.”
“Half of what right?”
I watched him place a platinum card in the folder and hand it to the waiter.
“Expect that the guy must always pay,” he said. “For me, if you cannot pay for the entire date, then don’t have the guts to ask a girl out. But it’s good that you did the check dance. You got that right. It’s impressive.”
“What did I do wrong?”
“The rolling of the eyes, and the sarcastic remark that followed,” he replied. “Offer to pay or split the bill, once, twice, or three times. Don’t try to insult or tease to prove why you should pay. Because you really shouldn’t. If the second or third time, he insists on paying, graciously thank him.”
I smiled at him. “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Travis…for such a lovely dinner.”
He nodded back at me. “You’re welcome, cherie.”
He signed the bill and then fished through his wallet to leave a tip. It was huge. But since he paid, I wouldn’t know how much the bill was.
“Can I…” I started.