50
Intersection
THAT NIGHT, as Mom and I were enjoying a perfectly pleasant bowl of double-fudge ice cream, she brought up the subject of my dad, trying to convince me that "we should get together as a family and talk."
I, in turn, told her that "we should get together as a family and hammer nails into each other." I frowned at her. "It would definitely be more fun."
"Look, sweetheart," she said, scraping daintily at her ice cream, "your birthday's coming up and--"
"And what? You'd like to ruin it by inviting him?" I dug up a glacier of ice cream and bit in. "No thank you!"
"You and he used to be so close..."
"Stop it! The past is behind us. It's over. Why are you letting yourself be manipulated by him? Whose idea was it for you to go over to the house, huh? His, right?"
She blinked at me a moment, realizing that I was fully aware of her little rendezvous. Finally she took a deep breath and said, "Look. I really think we should all go to counseling together. We can get things out and an objective third party can help us sort through our feelings."
I shoved back from the table. "You can go. I don't need a third party--I know exactly how I feel." I folded my napkin and restated the obvious: "My father's a two-timing jerk and I don't want to see him."
She gave me a pitiful look. "But he's sorry, honey. He's really, truly sorry."
"He should be," I told her, and went to bed.
In the morning, I was half awakened by tingling. Tingling, and a racing heart. I hugged my feather pillow close. It was a warm, soft cloud, and I sank into it deeper and deeper.
"Aaah!" I cried, jolting upright.
I'd been dreaming about Eddie Pasco.
I threw back the covers and got out of bed, muttering, "Don't be insane!"
I showered and blew out my hair, and with half an hour to spare after dressing and putting on my makeup, I decided I deserved a frappuccino for breakfast.
A grande!
With whipped cream!
Unfortunately, my dad was parked outside the condo when I slipped out the door.
I walked past him and his ridiculously cool Mustang.
He got out and followed me.
"Evangeline! Evangeline, please. Talk to me."
I kept walking.
"Evangeline, come on. How many times and ways do I have to say I'm sorry. I was a jackass. Yes, I know. Yes, you're right."
The light at the intersection was green, so I stepped into the crosswalk with great confidence, ignoring him. And then my shoe started squeaking.
Why was my shoe squeaking?
Why did today of all days have to be squeaky shoe day?
"Angel, please!"
I spun on him. "Don't you ever, ever call me that again," I seethed.
Then I ran away, leaving him in the middle of the intersection with traffic idling in all directions.
51
Bumping into Tatiana
WHEN I GOT TO SCHOOL, I took my frappuccino directly to Room 212 and signed up for after-school tutoring.
"When can you start?" the teacher asked after she saw that I'd checked off math and chemistry as areas of strength. "We're desperate for chemistry and math tutors."
"Today," I answered.
"Wonderful!" She put out her hand. "I'm Mrs. Huffington. Delighted to have you on board, Evangeline."
I shook hands and left, and immediately ran into Tatiana Phillips.
"Evangeline?" She blushed. "Wow. You look really...different."
I couldn't seem to find any words.
"I...I'm sorry you didn't come out for volleyball this year."
"Not your fault," I managed.
"Thanks," she said, and she seemed relieved. Not in a phony, dramatic way. More like she'd been secretly holding her breath and could finally let it go. "I'm sorry," she said, looking down, "about everything."
I nodded. "The whole thing stinks."
"You're telling me." She glanced at me. "Is your mom taking him back?"
I don't know why, but I rolled my eyes and gave a goofy smirk. "I sure hope not."
She laughed. "Parents, huh?"
I laughed, too. "Exactly."
"We missed you on the team this year," she said, and her eyes looked soft and a little sad.
I snorted. "Oh, right. You missed me all the way to league championship!" Then I added, "Congratulations, by the way."
She nodded. "Thanks." Then suddenly she shot forward and gave me a hug. "Please come out next year," she whispered.
All at once my chin quivered, my eyes stung, and my throat totally closed up.
I couldn't speak, but I could still nod, and I could hug her back.
So that's what I did.
52
An Unexpected Kindness
ROBBIE MARSHALL WAS STANDING OUTSIDE OF MATH when I arrived. It being Tuesday, I couldn't help but notice his pumped-up arms. Biceps the size of softballs, triceps like fleshy mountain ridges.
He was, without question, sizzling hot.
He tugged out his ear buds when he saw me coming and pressed off his iPod. "I downloaded some Stevie Ray last night. He's awesome!"
I stopped cold. All of a sudden I was back in the intersection with my father. All of a sudden coffee for breakfast didn't feel like such a good idea. All of a sudden I was just shaky.
"Evangeline?" Robbie asked, stepping forward.
"Please," I said weakly. "Please don't ever mention Stevie Ray Vaughn again."
"But--"
"I'm sorry. I know it doesn't make sense."
He looked crushed, and I felt bad, but I wasn't about to explain.
Robbie followed me inside and took his seat, too, but I avoided looking at him. As other people filed in, I went through the motions of preparing for class. Planner out. Homework out. Pencil out. Book out. Then I tried to look busy, even though I had nothing left to do.
"Psst!"
It was Robbie, leaning across Sandra Herrera's desk.
I shook my head and didn't look over.
"Pssssst!" he said louder.
How annoying did he want to be?
I flashed him an angry look, which softened immediately when I saw that he was trying to give me something.
A small, crisp, white paper sack.
"I got these for you," he whispered.
I probably should have refused the gift, but it's hard not to take something that's being held out to you.
So I took the sack.
There was a box inside.
A little white cardboard box.
I gave him a puzzled look.
Robbie Marshall may have arms of steel and diamond-encrusted teeth, but the smile that danced across his face was boyish and very shy. "Open it."
Sandra Herrera appeared as the tardy bell rang, putting a human screen between us. And as Mrs. Fieldman clapped her hands and called, "Settle down--we've got lots to cover today!" I peeked inside the little white box.
Robbie Marshall had brought me chocolates.
53
Avoiding Sweets
"HE BROUGHT YOUCHOCOLATES?" Adrienne gasped when I showed them to her at break.
"I tried to give them back, but he wouldn't take them."
"Are you going to go out with him?"
I shook my head.
"Are you going to eat them?" she asked, staring at the box.
I shook my head again. "I'm not sure."
"I'll help you," she offered, a mischievous grin dancing across her face.
They were still unopened at lunchtime, unlike the gossip circuit. Word had been transmitted to Sunshine, who found me in the Snack Shack line and immediately began short-circuiting. "I just want to know if it's true," she said, her eyes sparking.
"Probably not," I replied. "Especially if you heard it at school."
"Quit being clever and just tell me!" She glanced over her shoulder, one way, then the other. "If he brought you chocolates, I'm going to kill him!"
I moved forward with th
e line. "Then he most definitely did not bring me chocolates."
"He did, didn't he! You're not going, 'Chocolates? What chocolates?' You know exactly what I'm talking about!"
I sighed and said, "Look, Sunshine. Robbie and I are not going out. Stu and I are not going out. You can have either of them or both of them. I don't care."
For some reason, this totally popped her fuse. "He never brought me chocolates. Ever. And I did a lot more to deserve them than you!"
I resisted the obvious and very tempting retort and instead said, "Can you take it up with him? Because this conversation is making me lose my appetite, and I've really been looking forward to a half-frozen bean burrito all day."
She took a step back and stared at me. "You are weird. Just weird."
I nodded. "Well. I'm glad we've cleared that up."
She made a strangled-sounding noise and stormed off.
After I bought lunch, I set off to find Adrienne, but in the process I ran into Eddie Pasco.
"Hey," he said, looking at me with bedroom eyes. "I had a dream about you last night."
"Aaah!" I cried, bolting past him.
With a laugh, he followed me, footing his soccer ball along as he went. "It was a great dream...."
"I don't want to hear about it!"
"Sure you do."
"No! I don't!"
Trevor Dansa was coming toward us. Trevor Dansa with the khaki Dockers, polo shirt, and 4.0. Trevor Dansa, whom I'd known since seventh grade, whom I'd done science fair projects and PowerPoint presentations with. Conservative, sober, and moderately handsome Trevor Dansa.
Eddie was grinning at me as his feet spun and toed and caressed his soccer ball. "There was honey involved." One eyebrow arched in my direction. "Do you like honey?"
That was it. I didn't want to imagine him and me and honey! And I should probably have run or ducked into the girls' bathroom, but instead I grabbed Trevor Dansa by his polo shirt buttons...and kissed him.
54
The Pitfalls of Avoidance
NEVER SURPRISE-KISS A BOY who's listening to an iPod. (Unfortunately, in my rush to get away from Eddie, I hadn't noticed the ear buds.)
Trevor's lips were a confused knot as he yanked the buds out of his ears. "What are you doing?" he mumbled into my mouth.
"Just kiss me!" I demanded.
So he did. Or, at least, he tried to.
Let's just say he's better at PowerPoint.
But still, to my great relief Eddie Pasco and his soccer ball did move on, leaving me with a very awkward Trevor Dansa. "Thank you for saving me," I said. "He was stalking me."
"Eddie was?" he asked.
I nodded. "He had some dream about me and honey. I didn't want to hear it."
Trevor blinked at me, then blushed.
"So thanks," I said, backing away from him. "You're a lifesaver."
"Sure," he kind of stammered.
I continued my search for Adrienne but never did find her. She wasn't in the Performance Pavilion like she said she would be, and the choir classroom was locked up tight. So I sat on the walkway in an isolated corner of the 400 block and picked at my cold burrito, vowing to start packing my own lunches. I was craving lettuce and tomatoes. Sliced turkey. Whole wheat bread!
"Evangeline?"
It was the literature lover herself, carrying an armful of library books. "Hi, Miss Ryder."
"What are you doing here...all by yourself...on cement...?" she asked, peering at me through her black rectangular glasses. It struck me that even her regular speech was stylized. She seemed to dance with words, waltzing with them through the unexpected twists and turns of life.
"Eating a sucky burrito," I so eloquently replied.
She smiled at me. "Sounds appetizing...in a school cafeteria kind of way."
I gave a wry nod. "Exactly."
Having exhausted the subject of my delectable lunch, you'd think Miss Ryder would have moved on. Instead, she asked, "So what are you reading?"
I didn't have a book in my hands. I had a burrito.
She smiled when she saw my expression. "For pleasure! What book are you reading for pleasure?"
I grimaced. "Not The Last of the Mohicans, that's for sure."
She laughed. "Perhaps you'd like some recommendations?" She started fingering the spines of her books, reading the titles aloud.
I stopped her with a gentle "That's okay, Miss Ryder."
"Are you sure?" She smiled demurely. "Sucky burritos taste a lot better with a good book."
"Actually, I do have one." I opened my book bag and showed her the tattered pages of A Crimson Kiss, being careful not to reveal the cover.
"Oh, very good!" she said, then moved away, saying, "Friends may fail you, but books never do."
I watched her go, thinking about what she'd said.
Then I put my burrito aside and opened my book. Didn't matter what page. Anywhere was good. I just dived in and escaped.
55
Page 143
"WAIT!" SHE CRIED, then immediately softened the command with a plaintive plea. "Don't go."
Silence fell in the wake of her words. At every turn this maddening woman rebuffed him. Why should he stay?
But Grayson found himself drawn in again by her haunted eyes. He longed to help her surface from the depths of her agony, not just for gasps of air but for full, deep breaths of life's sweetness. Time and time again he'd pulled her up, only to watch her submerge once more into her dark sea of unnavigable despair.
Silently he cursed himself. How could he liberate her from the past when she held so tightly to it? Was it not wiser to walk through the door now than endure another inevitable round of defeat?
With a determined air, Grayson turned his back and strode toward the door.
"Please" came her hoarse, desperate whisper.
He turned to face her.
"Please," she whispered again.
It was all he needed.
56
Tutoring
TO MY GREAT RELIEF, Eddie Pasco ignored me in psychology.
If only Andrew Prescott had done the same.
Instead, I had to endure his dejected puppy-dog look and quivery smile. Even though I only saw it for the fleeting moment I dared a look in his direction, it was seared into my brain for the rest of the class period. It reminded me of a ripped-out hangnail (which, for some reason, I had a few of).
When the dismissal bell rang, I bolted out of the classroom, wondering how my quest for a kiss had gone so terribly wrong. I felt uncomfortable everywhere, and in my hurry to get away from Eddie and Andrew, I was actually early to tutoring.
Now I felt dweeby, too!
So I sauntered around a little, then returned to the infamous Room 212.
A girl with short, bleached hair, Paxton, and Mrs. Huffington were the only ones there.
"Reporting for duty," I said with a salute as the door squeaked closed behind me.
"Come in, come in!" Mrs. Huffington gushed.
So I did.
"Paxton, Lisa, this is Evangeline," Mrs. Huffington said.
"Hey," we all said with a nod.
A few minutes later we were still the only ones in the classroom. "So where are the droves of students desperate for help?" I asked.
"Oh, they're on their way!" Mrs. Huffington assured me.
As if on cue, the door whooshed open, but it was Adrienne who whooshed in.
"Hey!" I said, jumping up.
"Yay! You signed up!" she said. "Hey, Paxton," she called with a wave, then slid a desk next to mine, keeping a watchful eye on the others as she whispered, "I looked all over for you at lunch today! Miss Ryder told me you were sitting by yourself on the sidewalk eating a cold burrito!"
"Only after I looked all over for you," I whispered back.
She rolled her eyes. "Mr. Vogel was a no-show at our choir practice, if you can believe that! But why weren't you in the quad?"
I shrugged. And not wanting to say too much in the presence of undeniably pe
rked ears, I simply said, "I ran into Tatiana."
She gave me an empathetic "Oh."
"Actually, it went okay." I glanced over my shoulder, then whispered, "But I have so much to tell you!"
A handful of what appeared to be freshmen came through the door, so she stood and said, "Call me tonight, okay? Or come over. Can you come over?"
I nodded. "I'll call you when I get home."
She moved toward the door, saying, "You know what? Just come over for dinner."
I hesitated. Dinner at the Willows' with all the familial bantering was always so much fun.
"Six o'clock--be there!" Adrienne said, then waved goodbye to Paxton and pushed through the door, letting herself out and Roper Harding in.
I cringed. Roper Harding? Was this why they desperately needed chemistry tutors?
No wonder!
"Roper! Come in, come in!" Mrs. Huffington said. "You got my message?"
His oversized glasses seemed to lead his head in a bob up and down.
"Well, here she is!" she said, swooping a hand in my direction.
For the next forty-five minutes I tried to ignore oily zits, flecks of dust (or whatever that was clinging to his greasy hair), and insanely potent B.O. It was an exercise in extreme self-control, but the maddening thing was that Roper acted like he was the one tolerating me.
When it was over, he barely grumbled a thanks before jetting off to catch the late bus, leaving an almost visible stream of body odor behind him.
After he was gone, Paxton propped open the door, and Lisa said, "Mrs. Huffington, someone's really got to talk to him about his personal hygiene."
"I know," she said with a tisk.
"I'm not doing that again," I said flatly. "He's rude and he stinks."
"I know," Mrs. Huffington said again, with another tisk and a shake of the head.
It was obvious that Mrs. Huffington didn't know what to do about the situation. And as we filed out to her friendly "See you Thursday!" I muttered, "Not if Roper's back!"
Paxton, who was right behind me, chuckled and said, "Well, as of today, I don't have to deal with any of this anymore." He slipped the second strap of his backpack on. "I'm done!"
"You've completed twenty hours?" I asked, instantly jealous.
He grinned and nodded as we walked along. "And I'm not doing it again next year, that's for sure."
Confessions of a Serial Kisser Page 10