The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates

by Anna Cackler

  I nodded, feeling more and more foolish every second. I took his pencil out of my mouth and wiped it off on my jeans.

  “Good.” He pulled my calculus book closer. “Let’s finish this, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  I really wanted to call Shannon and tell her about my date, but I didn’t have the guts. She hadn’t had much to say to me since the night that Finn asked Margo out, and she absolutely refused to talk about anything to do with relationships in the past three days. She agreed to help Margo prepare for her dates, but other than that she offered no advice. It was as if her success with Finn had completely satiated her urge to meddle.

  I wasn’t complaining exactly, but I wished she could have been there for me instead of Margo.

  In the end, I decided not to tell anybody about it at all. Not yet, anyway. I didn’t want to deal with Shannon’s girlishness, or Aaron’s sarcasm. Finn and Margo were both completely absorbed in their own plans. The only person left was my mother, who I didn’t really want to talk about all of this with. She would just make it all so sentimental that I would be the one gagging instead of her.

  So I just told Mom that I was going out with some friends–which was completely true–and that I wouldn’t be home for dinner. She just shrugged and said, “Be home by midnight. Wake me up when you get home so I know you’re back.”

  “All right.” I was suddenly struck with gratitude that I had such an easy-going mother. I tried to smile at her, but my nerves wouldn’t let me. “I shouldn’t be out that late.”

  Ethan arrived exactly at six. I watched for him from my bedroom window and rushed to answer the door before Mom or Aaron could.

  “Hey!” he said, then looked me up and down. That made me a little uncomfortable, but I suppose that should just be expected. My brown hair fell over my shoulders in soft curls as I had taken the time to actually style it. I’d even put on a little make-up and some earrings for the occasion. I was wearing a black top with dark jeans that were a really tight fit. Shannon had once told me that those jeans looked sexy on me. I hadn’t paid her much attention at the time, but that night sexy seemed a little more important.

  “You look great,” Ethan said appreciatively. “Wow.”

  “What?” I said, suddenly self-conscious. I never wore those jeans to school. They were extremely uncomfortable and they left angry red welts on my stomach at the end of the day. “Too much?” Ethan looked the same as usual. He was even wearing the same clothes that he had worn to school that day so I felt in contrast that I was far overdressed just for the movies. Then again, Ethan looked pretty well kempt all the time.

  He shook his head. “No, not at all.”

  “Emily! Who is it?” We both turned as Mom hollered through the house.

  “Just, ah, my ride! Be back later!” I called back, flushing pink. Why did she have to yell now? When Ethan was here?

  Ethan grinned at me and held out his hand. I took it hesitantly.

  Holy crap. My first date. Holy freaking crap.

  Well, second date, technically. I suppose the movie night had been a date after all. I shut the door behind us.

  “So, where do you want to eat?” he asked as we pulled out of the driveway. “Chinese? Italian? Good old American?”

  “American?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Burgers and fries.”

  “So what’s Italian?”

  “Pasta. And Chinese is cat-on-a-stick, before you ask.”

  I shuddered. “Definitely not Chinese, then.”

  “So American, then?”

  “Sure.”

  We drove through town without having much else to say. I wished he would turn on the radio or something. The silence was deafening. It was strange. We always had something to talk about. Why now, on our first real night out, do we have to be silent?

  I shifted my weight and tugged at the waistband of my jeans. I could already feel those welts forming on my gut where the denim pinched too tight.

  The silence persisted through parking, finding a table, and ordering our food. Our waitress, Shelly, wore too much make up and kept giggling after everything Ethan said, and he just ate it up like candy. He turned his grin away from me, and planted it on her instead.

  “I’ll be right back ya’ll,” Shelly said with a wink and turned tail toward the kitchen.

  Ethan was still watching her walk away. I glared at him, scratching ineffectually at the edge of my cast. “So, tell me about yourself.”

  He turned his grin back to me. “What do you not know already?” It was as if nothing were out of the ordinary at all.

  “Lots of things!” I said, maybe a little too loudly. “Surprisingly enough, you and I haven’t really talked much except about calculus. Why did your family move to Arkansas?”

  “Because I ran out of pretty girls to charm.” He winked.

  Shelly returned with our drinks. This time he didn’t even glance at her.

  “Seriously,” I said, grinning despite myself. “Why’d you guys move?”

  He shrugged, sipping on his soda absentmindedly. “Nancy’s family’s from around here, and Dad didn’t feel like fighting with her over it.”

  “What about your dad’s family?” I asked. “Aren’t they in Texas?”

  “Yeah, but so is my mom.”

  “Ah. Sorry.”

  “Naw. It’s no big deal. My mom’s crazy, really,” he said with resigned chuckle. “She cheated on my dad when I was a kid, then when Dad got remarried, she tried to run Nancy over with her Tahoe.”

  “Oh my god!” I said. “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Eh. We got a restraining order and moved to Arkansas. Nancy had been begging to move anyway, and Dad has always wanted to set up his own practise. He did some research, saw there wasn’t much competition in little old St. John, and bought a house.” He spread his arms wide, laying the information out for me.

  “You’re awfully cavalier about all this,” I said. “I mean jeez, you have a restraining order out on your own mother.”

  “It’s okay, though,” he said, settling back in his seat. “She left when I was really little, and Nancy’s been around almost as long. She’s pretty cool.”

  “Oh.”

  “Besides, feeling sorry for myself will get me nowhere. I mean, who doesn’t live with a broken family these days, right?”

  “I don’t. My parents are still happily married.” I rolled my eyes as the familiar dead weight rolled back into place in my stomach. “And procreating.”

  Ethan laughed. “Well you’re in the minority then, and we should all feel sorry for you.” He watched my face carefully. “You know, you never talk about your mom being pregnant. What’s up with that? Shouldn’t you be excited or something?”

  “Would you be?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’m an only child, remember?”

  I shrugged. “Well maybe it’s just the people who have families that are whole and untarnished that turn out sullen and angry.”

  He laughed suddenly. “You’ve been hanging out with Finn too much.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, it’s just you use such big words in everyday English. You and Finn are the only people I’ve ever met that do that. Though, Finn’s a lot worse about it.”

  “I’m not using big words.”

  “Cavalier? Untarnished? Sullen?” His eyebrows were raised and he looked at me in a way that clearly said “Oh please!”

  “Those aren’t big words!” I was laughing at him now. “I hate to think of all those kids you left behind in Dallas who aren’t getting a real education!”

  His face melted into a surly scowl. “Hey!”

  “What?” I asked, after taking a long drag on my soda. “I’m sorry, but those are not big words. Those are average words in an average vocabulary.”

  He didn’t say anything, but glared at me. For a few terrifying seconds, I was afraid that I’d offended him, but he let his guard down. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards ever so sligh
tly. It was just enough for me to see that he wasn’t really upset about anything.

  “Fine,” I said. “You can give me the cold shoulder all you like.”

  He just stared at me and cocked his head to one side.

  “Two can play at this game.”

  He stayed silent.

  “You forget that Shannon is my best friend,” I said. “I’ve gone days without breaking her silent treatments.”

  He raised his eyebrows, clearly pointing out that I was still talking while he was not.

  At this point, Shelly returned with our burgers. She placed them in front of us and gave us a broad smile. “Is there anything else I can get for you?” she asked, looking at Ethan specifically.

  He looked back at her and smiled, but still said nothing.

  “No?” she asked, turning to me now as her smile faltered. I shook my head at her. She nodded and we both watched her leave. She turned back twice to throw a confused glance in our direction.

  Ethan and I stared each other down across the table. Neither one of us had touched our food. My stomach rumbled angrily, but I ignored it. Ethan looked quite comfortable where he was, still as a statue, but I was getting more and more irritated. After about five minutes, I decided enough was enough.

  “All right!” I said. “I’m sorry! Can we eat now?”

  “I was never preventing you from eating,” He picked up his huge burger and took a healthy bite, and I did the same. It was kind of greasy, but definitely worth the six dollars advertised on the menu.

  “Sure,” I muttered.

  He laughed suddenly. “Days?” he sputtered. “You’ve gone days?”

  “Yes!”

  “I think I just broke you in less than five minutes!”

  “Shut up! I was hungry!”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure you want me to do that?”

  “No!”

  He grinned triumphantly and took another healthy bite.

  Eight

  “What do you mean you had a date with Ethan Friday?” If Shannon hadn’t been wearing lab goggles at the time, I would have been a little abashed at her tone. Monday was lab day in Chemistry. Enough said.

  “You know, I can’t take you seriously in those goggles, Shannon.”

  “Just answer the question!”

  “How many connotations of the phrase, ‘I had a date with Ethan on Friday’ are there?”

  “How could you not have told me?” she asked. “What did you do? How did it go?”

  “We had burgers then we went to the movies.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Dead End.”

  “You saw a thriller on your first date?” She groaned and clawed the air in frustration. “That’s not even supposed to be a good thriller!”

  “It really wasn’t.” I adjusted my own goggles, wincing as the sharp edges dug even further into my face. We were both going to have huge lines around our eyes for the next hour, but the fact that everyone in our class was sharing our doom made the humiliation much less.

  “So how did he ask you?” she asked. “What happened exactly?”

  “Why aren’t you dating anymore?” I asked, suddenly annoyed. “You used to always have plans with some guy on the weekends. Now you’ve resorted to pretending you have plans when you don’t really. I haven’t even seen Charlie around lately.”

  “How is my love life relevant right now?” she asked, stung.

  “Because you’ve been so caught up in everyone else’s for the past two months!”

  “Well don’t worry,” she said, turning back to our lame little experiment. “I was just happy that you finally got your date with Ethan. Please forgive me. I’ve given up meddling as a hobby.”

  Guilt washed over me. Maybe my comment on Shannon’s love life hadn’t been exactly necessary. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say those things.”

  “But you did say them whether you meant to or not.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You know, it’s not like I haven’t been asked out several times this year already,” she said. “I just felt like a break. That’s all.”

  “I know.”

  She cast a sideways smile at me and shrugged. “It’s all right. I have been meddling.” She hesitated, and then continued in a low voice. “I didn’t want to tell you, but I’ve been talking you up to Ethan every day in Spanish class.”

  “What?”

  Mr. Lankford glared at us from across the room where he was helping Randi Feldman light her Bunsen burner when my voice echoed across the lab. “What?” I whispered. “I didn’t even know you had Spanish class together!”

  “I’m sorry! I stopped, I swear. I stopped bringing it up last week!”

  “You stopped?”

  “Yeah. I told you. I’m giving up meddling.”

  “Why the change?”

  She shrugged, avoiding my eye. “I guess I just saw the error of my ways, that’s all. But hey, it worked, didn’t it?” She seemed more hopeful than excited.

  “Yeah.” I grinned a little despite myself. “It worked, I guess.”

  She smiled, relieved. “See? It’s all working out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So,” she eyed me carefully. “Did you kiss him?”

  “No.”

  Her face fell. “Oh well. There’s always this weekend.”

  “What’s this weekend?”

  “My party, stupid.”

  “I’m not going to your party, stupid.”

  “Ethan is, though.” She brushed her hair out of her eyes as she leaned back down to write a couple of figures in our lab book. “And he seemed to have eyes only for you this morning at breakfast.”

  Really? I fought a grin. “No he didn’t.”

  “Sure he did. I’m starting to feel like a fifth wheel. Finnegan and Margo have hooked up, and now you and Ethan. Maybe you’re right. I do need to get a date.”

  “No! If you need a date for the party, I’ll go with you. Ethan can be the one who’s left out in the cold. But not you.”

  She laughed quietly. “Don’t worry about me, Emily. I won’t have a problem getting a date. I’ve actually had my eye on Charlie for a while now.”

  “Really? Charlie?”

  “Yes. Charlie. What of it?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just thought that the two of you didn’t really date, that’s all.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. You always say you’d never date him because he’s-” I shuddered, “-too pretty.”

  “He’s not too pretty! He’s good looking! Isn’t he good looking?”

  “Too good looking.”

  “No he’s not. And he’s funny and he really likes me. What’s the big issue?”

  I stirred the mixture in our beaker absentmindedly. “The big issue is that you don’t really like Charlie and you’d just be toying with him. The boy follows you around like a puppy dog.”

  “I would not be toying with him! I do like him!”

  “Fine!” I said. “Ask Charlie.”

  “I will.”

  “Good.”

  “Great.”

  And she did. She asked Charlie Hamilton after school that day to go to her stupid party with her, which subjected the rest of us to his company for the entirety of the week preceding it.

  “Dude,” Ethan muttered to me at breakfast the next morning. “It hurts to look at them.” I glanced up from the orange Finn had just handed me and saw exactly what he meant. Seeing Shannon and Charlie talking and laughing together practically ruined my retinas. They were both just so beautiful. And together, they seemed to feed off of each other’s radiance and practically became a supernova of super-model wonderfulness.

  I’m pretty sure they were discussing the finer points of Charlie’s game-winning catch in the last football game.

  “Yeah,” I replied, not bothering with my more colorful descriptions. Ethan would probably just mock my vocabulary aga
in.

  “I think it’s nice,” Margo said, just as Shannon smiled. I had to look away. Margo was sitting across from me, writing something on my cast.

  “What piece of wisdom are you adding today?” I asked, turning my whole arm so that I could read the words she had written at the very edge of the plaster near my knuckles.

  Oh crap… Am I dreaming?

  “Sweet,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, and then turned to look shyly at Finn whose nose was still buried in a book. I frowned. Suddenly her quote seemed more lovey-dovey than comical.

  “What are you reading, Finn?” Ethan asked suddenly. My eyes slipped over to the cover of Finn’s book and stared, horrified. I hadn’t recognized it before because Finn had removed the plastic cover. But now that I saw the title printed on the binding, I wished more than anything for the warning bell to ring.

  It didn’t.

  “Mouth, for Goodness Sake,” Finn replied, glancing up at me. “By Mr. Jeremy Bates.”

  Ethan laughed, comprehension dawning on his face. “Your dad’s book?”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “The most recent one, anyway.”

  He turned back to Finn. “Okay, you have to loan me that when you’re done.”

  “No!” I said.

  Finn closed the book and handed across the table to Ethan. “Take it now. I’ve read it before.”

  “What’s it about?” he asked, flipping to the first page.

  Finn’s smile stretched even wider. “It’s about Emily.”

  “Oh no.” I thumped my head on the table.

  “Really?” Ethan was intrigued. He turned and grinned at me, but I was glaring determinedly at my food. “A comedy, eh?”

  “It’s about Emily when she was little.”

  “You’re enjoying this,” I said to Finn.

  “Very much so.” He turned back to Ethan. “When Emily was little, she got the words ‘damn’ and ‘darn’ mixed up.”

  “Finnegan!”

  He ignored me.

  “And so she was always getting in trouble. And she would always say, ‘My damn mouth for goodness sake!’ whenever she got in trouble, which just got her in even more trouble. It took her–how long Shannon?”

  “Two years,” Shannon supplied, not even turning away from her conversation with Charlie, who was flexing his bicep for her.