Luckily I’d showered, uh, four hours ago, so I could skip that part. And I’d only had the extensions put in two weeks before, so no hair worries. I splashed my face with water as cold as I could make it run and woke up enough to make a coherent decision on what to wear.
A skirt, not too short. My new Philip Lim 3.1 tuxedo shirt with the ruffled cuffs. A bright silk vest over it that Mom had sent from Paris in the summer, after she’d been to someone’s trunk sale on the Left Bank.
Shoes. Hmm. I considered my inventory and thought, what would Lissa do? The girl always looks fabulous but she’s practical, too. She wouldn’t let Gillian go to this big sci-fi trade show in heels because her feet would have committed suicide by the end of it. Since I didn’t know what was going on today, I decided on boots—my Sergio Rossi suedes with what Carly calls “swashbuckles” on the sides.
Speaking of…I glanced to my right. Mac blinked at me over her mound of covers.
“Oh, look.” She yawned. “A roommate. Have we met?”
“Very funny. I went out last night—”
“We noticed,” Carly said as she surfaced, too.
“—and forgot that Danyel was coming at eight to pick me up.” I flipped open my phone: 8:13. “Gotta go.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Carly asked as I scooped up my roomy Helena de Natalio tote and tossed the phone into it.
“Danyel’s taking me to his sister’s and I’ma go to church with them.” A final check in the mirror and I was good to go.
“Fill us in later,” Carly said, a little hesitantly.
Guilt poked me, right under my heart. Okay, so I hadn’t been around much yesterday, but we’d spent all Friday evening having an adventure together, hadn’t we? And she knew me. It wasn’t like I was Party Central with every club in town on speed dial.
“You know it,” I promised, and hit the door at a run.
BLAME IT ON sleep deprivation. Or the fact that I’d told Danyel I liked him and then gone and kissed someone else. Whatever. Because breakfast was Awk. Ward.
Malika passed me a bowl of applesauce. “Try this on your pancakes, Shani. I made it myself. Our backyard is only big enough to hold one tree, but it produces enough for a whole orchard.”
I took the bowl. “You made this?”
Danyel’s brother-in-law Sol smiled at his wife as if she spun the thread to make their clothes, too. “What, you think applesauce only comes in cans?”
“I don’t think anybody thinks that.” Even I could hear the stiffness in my tone. But hey, did we really need the putdown this early on a Sunday morning? Before church?
“He was just teasing,” Danyel murmured beside me. “Ease up.”
Ease up? It wasn’t me dissing people I’d just met. I handed him the applesauce and poured syrup on my pancake instead.
“You’ll be hungry halfway through service, you don’t eat more than that,” Malika said. “How about some seven-grain toast?”
“She made that, too,” Sol put in.
“No, thank you.”
Malika smiled, too, though her eyes were busy sizing up Danyel and me and speculating on just what I was to her brother. She could speculate all she wanted. Even I didn’t know the answer to that.
“You on a diet, girl? You don’t look big enough to cast a shadow on a hot day, but who knows with girls now. It’s all about that top-model nonsense.”
“I never watch that show.” Project Runway, now, that was different. But mostly I just listened while I did homework. She was the one taking notes.
“How’s Rose doing after her first month of kindergarten?” Danyel changed the subject as he handed half a banana to his niece, who, I have to admit, was about as cute as kids came. And they were off and running on the fascinating subjects of finger painting and the alphabet, leaving me in peace to eat my pancake—I hate them, did I tell you?—and steal a couple of eggs off the plate when no one was paying attention.
After breakfast, church turned out to be a relief. Danyel’s family visited over their shoulders with people as we all settled into the pew, but no one said much to me—though somehow the pastor figured I should be going with the youth group to do whatever they did. I just looked at him and stayed planted where I was, and he got on with it. The service wasn’t like the one at Lissa’s church in Marin. Instead, it was more like the one I’d gone to with Gram as a kid. I even knew some of the songs, and got a little of the spirit as I let my voice go. Malika watched me out of the corner of her eye, her eyebrow raised just enough to tell me I’d surprised her.
Huh. Yeah, I can sing. That probably doesn’t make up for not liking your pancakes, though. Or for liking your brother.
“… and Mary’s chosen the better part,” the pastor said, “and she’s sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to what He says.”
I tuned in. The pastor was pretty interesting. There was nothing wrong with what Martha was doing with all her housekeeping and serving and homemade applesauce. Somebody had to keep the place clean with a dozen dusty guys overrunning it. But there was Mary, ticking off her sister because she’d rather listen to Jesus than help with the dishes.
Yeah, no kidding. I’d be right there with Mary, too. I mean, if a person gets the choice, it seems like a no-brainer, right? How else is a person supposed to learn?
After a couple more songs, during which I watched Danyel’s fingers move as he held the hymnbook—I don’t think he realized he was doing the chord changes—the service let out.
“You’re coming back for lunch, right?” Malika said. Then she leaned to look behind the seat of his truck. “Why’s your stuff in here?”
“I don’t think so, Mal. I’ve got to take Shani up to the city and drop her off, then head south. School tomorrow.”
“The BART station’s only ten minutes from here. Why don’t you two stay and eat and then you can drop Shani there?”
Oh, happy thought. Just what I wanted—to be dropped off at the train station like a suitcase. This woman did not like me, and that was that. Carly was so lucky. Brett’s parents thought she walked on water. She got hugs every time she went over, and his mom had given her an all-access pass to the fabric stash from Italy.
What do I get? Botulism in a bowl and BART.
“Thanks, Mal, but I want to take Shani back. We don’t get a lot of time to just talk.”
“You can talk here.”
“Sis.” He gave her a hug that meant good-bye. “Leave it.”
She hugged him back. “Can’t blame a sister for trying. It’s not like we see you every weekend.”
“I’ll try to get up here more often.” He hugged Sol, and gave little Rose a big, smacking kiss that made her giggle and hide behind her mama’s (no doubt homemade) dress. “Come on, Shani.”
Okay, so maybe botulism was a little harsh. The applesauce probably only had a touch of salmonella. Which was completely survivable.
Danyel didn’t say anything until we were on 101 heading north and completely free of little blue signs pointing the way to the BART station. “You okay?”
“Sure.”
“You just seem kinda tense, that’s all.”
“I’m fine.”
“My sister means well. She’s a nutritionist and the kitchen is kind of her lab. When we were kids she’d grind up all kinds of seeds and pods and make me eat them. I used to envy the guys whose sisters made mud pies.”
My chilly frontal shield melted and I laughed. “At least Rose will be healthy.”
“She’ll turn thirteen and her big rebellion will be to blitz out on Fritos and Red Bull.”
“With a side of Twinkies and a bag of Gummi Worms.” It felt good to laugh with him. “Sorry, Danyel. Maybe I should send Malika an e-mail saying I actually do like applesauce.”
He tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Next time you’ll feel more comfortable.”
“You want to inflict me on your family again?”
“Sure. Malika owes me for years of abuse.” He looked so hap
py about it.
“I always wondered what it would be like to have a sib.”
“You an only?”
I nodded. “An only that wasn’t in the plan.” He looked puzzled, his eyes on the freeway, so I went on. “I mean, my folks didn’t mean to have kids. Oh, they took good care of me. Their house is in an upscale neighborhood, I’ve been to the best schools, and have anything I want. But I only see them on layovers, it seems like. And if there’s some big school event, I have to give them, like, a month’s notice.”
“I’ve heard of people’s dads having jobs like that, but your mom does, too?”
“She goes with him everywhere, when she’s not chairing charity events in Chicago. She sends me e-mail from places like Cairo and Paris. The last one was from London. She saw a picture on the Web and was all squee about it.”
“What picture?”
I gave my guilty self a mental smack and waved a careless hand, as if it didn’t matter. “A bunch of us were out at TouTou’s and the paparazzi were there. Mom must have a Google alert on Spencer or something. Keeps her up on what I’m doing.”
He snorted. “That’s cold.”
“Sometimes I think it’s easier for her to be my mom over e-mail than it is in person.” I shrugged. “Anyway, they expect Big Things. Whether I buy into it or not.”
“What kind of big things?”
“I want to run my dad’s company some day. But I think it’s more than that. Mom’s all up in my social life right now. That’s never happened before.” Probably because I’d never dated a prince before.
“Maybe she misses you. And like you say, this is her way to connect.”
“It’s a little late for that. I’ll be eighteen in October and then it’s hello, Stanford.”
“If you get in.”
“Right. Along with the Farm, I’m applying to Harvard Business School, plus Northwestern, Pepperdine, and Sarah Lawrence.”
“Wow. Ambitious much?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Maybe, but in a different way. I was thinking of taking a year off and going to Brazil or Africa to help our missions. And then when I get back, I’ll apply to Stanford Law or Harvard Law.”
“You’re going to be a lawyer? How are you going to catch the waves when you’re holed up in the law library with glasses on your head?”
He grinned and swung left on California Street. “That would be the advantage of Stanford. Santa Cruz is only an hour away. And lots of environmental lawyers surf. It’s like a job requirement.”
“It is?”
“No, but I could start a trend.”
We laughed together at the visual, but at the same time, I had a lot to chew on. My dad’s company went exploring for oil. He had a subsidiary that cleaned up the sites afterward, but you had to believe the birds and animals in the ecosystems weren’t exactly beating a path back there. And Danyel would be dedicated to saving those ecosystems. Someday, in a far gray future, would he and I be on opposite sides of some courtroom? Would we look at each other and remember we once sat on a sunset beach and sang old songs around a fire? Or would we have forgotten each other’s names by then?
Man. Here I was, riding in a Jeep with one of the hottest and nicest boys I’d met in the past decade, and what was I doing? Taking an E-ticket ride straight to the blues.
He jammed the Jeep into low gear to take the last hill, and before I could come up with some cheery conversation starter, we were cruising through the school gates past two photographers hunched into their jackets, and pulling to a stop in front of the steps.
“I wish I didn’t have to drive away.” Danyel set the emergency brake, even though the driveway was flat. “Seems like I’m always having to say good-bye before I’m ready.”
“There’s still phone and e-mail. And you promised your sister you’d be back soon.”
He gave me a long look. “What did you think of their church?”
I picked up my bag and pretended to check that everything was in it. “It was good. Your pastor makes sense. Some of them don’t. They’re so far above my head, they can’t see where I’m coming from. But this guy was okay.”
“Think you’d like to go again?”
“Danyel.” I closed my bag. “Stop pressuring me.”
“I’m not. I just hate to see anyone not enjoying the ride through life with my big bro Jesus, that’s all.”
“I’m enjoying the ride just fine.”
“You say that.”
“I mean it. What’s with you, anyway? Gillian and Lissa and Carly never bug me about it. They do stuff like prayer circle, and I go and it’s all normal. They don’t ask me what did I think.”
“Maybe I’m more invested than they are.”
“What does that mean?”
He ran his hands over the steering wheel, making two halves of a circle. “Honestly?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“The Bible says we’re not supposed to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. But besides that, if I was going out with a girl, it’s just easier if we both have the same expectations.”
“About what?”
He shrugged. “The physical side, for one thing.”
I flashed on Rashid’s kiss last night—er, early this morning. “Why, did you make a promise like Lissa did? Do guys do that, too?”
“Sure. And yeah.”
“So I can live with that. I can wear white to a wedding, if you know what I mean.”
He chuckled. “TMI, but thanks for telling me.”
“So now that we have that cleared up, what else?”
“You sound like you’re negotiating.”
“I feel like I’m negotiating. So what you’re saying is we can’t date unless I go to church?”
“No way. What I’m saying is a relationship is…?more when you both believe. You can share more.”
“You had this with your other girlfriends?”
“One. I’ve done it both ways. That’s how I know.”
“What happened?”
He lifted a shoulder. “We were sophomores. We moved on. Mostly I just have friends now and don’t get too serious. Then I went to this beach party at a friend’s and all that blew up.” His grin held all the promise a girl could want. It could make her do something crazy, like go to church every Sunday because it was something she wanted and needed instead of just a thing to do with her friends.
I gripped the door handle and steadied myself. If I did that, what was I going to do about Rashid? I mean, you have seven-grain toast and surfboards on one hand, and front-row seating and stretch limousines on the other. Dark eyes and being treated like a princess versus dark eyes and being treated like a…what? A friend with possibilities? A practice Christian?
Rashid thought I was amazing just the way I was. Danyel thought I could be amazing with a little work.
On the other hand, I was attracted to both of them, in different ways. With Danyel, I could show up in a headwrap and a layer of moisturizer and he wouldn’t bat an eye—he’d just offer me something to eat, and talk. With Rashid, I could be the girl my parents wanted me to be—the glittering socialite mixing with all the best crowds.
Which was me? What did I want? Who did I want?
Because this couldn’t go on forever, partying with Rashid Saturday night and going to church with Danyel Sunday morning. I had to make up my mind before one of them found out about the other.
Which, knowing the grapevine at Spencer, was only a matter of time.
Celebrity Hangout Shuts Down
Pacific Heights hot spot TouTou’s is officially off the party circuit. According to charges filed this week, the restaurant owners, members of a local corporation, face several counts of serving alcohol to minors.
One employee, a member of the waitstaff who refused to be named for this article, said that it was common practice for the private rooms upstairs to be reserved for parties, where underage guests were freely served everything from beer to martinis. “The
management knew all about it,” he said in a telephone interview. “But those kids made it worth his while.”
While the employee declined to name names for fear of retaliatory lawsuits, it’s common knowledge among the party set that students from Spencer Academy have been using TouTou’s as their personal venue from which to see and be seen. Whether they were among those minors being served is unclear.
What is clear is that local celebs will have to find another place to go on their off nights. A sign has already been posted on the restaurant’s door advising the public that it has been closed indefinitely.
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for early next week.
Chapter 11
THE NEWS ABOUT TouTou’s spread through the seniors like a grass fire. If I’d been Vanessa or Dani or DeLayne, I’d have been looking over my shoulder waiting for the cops to arrive, but they went to classes looking cool and unruffled. The most anyone got out of them was a bored, “We were tired of going there anyway. Have you heard about Cream? It’s opening on Nob Hill and you have to be a member to get in.”
Of course they were already members.
Rashid was, too. The always resourceful Bashir never failed to amaze me—just on the off chance that the prince might want to hang out with the rest of the A-list, he’d already gone down and intimidated the management into giving him a tier-one pass. Not that it mattered to me. But someday, when I was running PetroNova, I was going to have an assistant with those kinds of skills. Only he’d be cuter. And dress in something other than black suits.
“Are you getting into Cream?” I asked Carly on Tuesday morning on the way to Global Studies, which we had together. I was still feeling a little ragged after my busy weekend, but it was nothing a little Mountain Dew couldn’t cure. “And do you have any clue who squealed on TouTou’s?”
“No and no,” Carly said.
I stopped in the corridor and dragged her to the side, even though people seemed to be clearing a path for us. “What do you mean, no? Everybody’s trying to get into Cream. It opens on Saturday. Rashid already has his pass.”
“Of course he does.” Carly shrugged. “Everybody can do what they want, but Brett and I discovered this totally cool gallery-slash-restaurant-slash-dance floor that’s going to open in the Marina. His cousin owns it. It’s like Second Life, only alive.”
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