But I’d never been a Stick-It before. Not even with Paul. What was happening? Were Hayden and I really turning into something as dad presumed? Something not like Chanel and her hormone spasms but something…
Real?
“Hey, lovebird.”
I spun around and laid a hand over my chest. “Jeez. Are you trying to scare me?”
Dana laughed, tossing her free arm around my waist. “You so have it bad for that boy. I saw you two walking in the gardens.”
I grinned, actually liking the feel of the blush in my cheeks now. Denying Hayden and I to dad, yeah I had to. But I couldn’t lie to my aunt. “Do you like him, Dana?”
“Yes. I think he’s a fine young man.” She sipped her glass of wine, then swirled the contents around. “Though I will say he’s not the type I pictured you with at all.”
“Huh! A fine young man indeed.”
We snapped our heads around. Lyle’s mother was standing off to the side, staring into space with her shawl hanging over her bony shoulders.
“A classy woman like you, Rosalia, deserves the finest,” she continued, drinking some of her margarita. “You should be draped in pearls while dancing under the stars on the roof of The Hilton. Not rolling in the dirt with grease monkey, street boys.”
My temple pulsed. I knew she’d meant it as a compliment, but it still didn’t stop me from wanting to take Dana’s wine glass and smack the old broad upside the head. How dare she say that when she didn’t know him?
Dana looked between us, instantly quiet.
“I choose my men based on heart, not money, Mrs. Mason,” I stated firmly.
She blazed me with a stare. When I held her eyes, unafraid—and I’m sure not many dared to cross her—she snorted and looked away. “You sound just like my daughter.”
One of my hands curled into a fist. I was preparing to leave, go back inside.
“Mother! Oh—crap, excuse me.” A young woman in heels and a navy dress caught my attention as she patted the shoulder of the gal she’d just stepped on. “Sorry about that.”
Mrs. Mason rolled her heavily-lined eyes. “Speak of the devil.”
The clumsy blonde exhaled, clearly embarrassed as she joined us. She straightened up and brushed her hair behind her ears. “Hello, mother.”
“Well, look who actually made it for once.” Mrs. Mason scanned her, then threw back the rest of her margarita.
The woman’s hands fiddled with her clutch purse, a sign she was nervous. “Of course. Don’t you think I’d be here when my brother’s about to get married?”
“Oh yes.” Mrs. Mason grabbed another glass from a passing waitress. “Since you’re known for being present at these kinds of things.”
The blonde’s jaw tightened. “I try my best to do things the lady like way for you. You know that.”
“Sure.” The old snoot was more interested in her drink than her daughter. “That makes so much sense.” She glanced through the glass windows and jumped. “Aw—for God sake, Ronald!”
Mr. Mason appeared to be playing poker with some busty brunettes and having a cigarette back inside. Their figures were fuzzy against the cloud of smoke, but I had no doubt where Mr. Mason’s eyes were wandering. Not on his cards.
“Oh my—of all the disgraceful things,” Mrs. Mason snarled, strutting towards the glass doors in her floral heels. “Ronald!”
I glanced at Dana. She was still dumbstruck. “I think I’m going to need some more wine.” She turned towards a cooler under the snack table. “I’ll be back, honey.”
“You do that,” I told her.
She disappeared, leaving Mrs. Mason’s daughter and me alone. We glanced at each other, both kind of unsure what to do. Her cheeks looked terribly pale now. Poor thing. I decided I could at least be polite.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she breathed, rubbing the side of her head.
“Headache?”
Her blue eyes widened. “You’ve no idea.”
“No worries, I’ve been there.” I blinked at the windows. Mrs. Mason was ripping the cigarette out of her husband’s mouth, hawk-eyeing his playmates with scorn. “So. She’s your mother, huh?”
“The scrawny bitch with the facelift? Yeah.” She scuffed, then closed her eyes tight. “I’m sorry. That was—that was an awful thing to say. Please don’t say I said that.”
“No problem. Your secrets are safe with me,” I promised with a nod.
She spared me a weak smile. “I’m Ita.”
“I’m Rose.” I pointed at mom, now sporting a tiara as she stood near the glass doors. “Denise’s daughter.”
“Oh! Really?” She gave me a better look, eyes scanning me up and down. “Wow, I should’ve known that. Lyle’s talked so much about you.”
“Really?” I didn’t suppress my disgust.
She nodded. “Oh yeah! He’s always talking about his future stepdaughter.”
“Oh. Wow.” I ran my heel along the grass. Besides thinking that my feet really hurt, I knew I couldn’t tell her I’d have preferred being Ozzy Osbourne’s stepdaughter. Not Lyle’s.
“You don’t sound so happy about that,” she whispered. “You get along with Lyle?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. Trashing someone’s brother or sister to their face was also a bad idea. So I settled with a simple: “We don’t have much in common.”
“Oh.” Her gaze fell to the grass, but she seemed understanding.
Suddenly a funny beeping sound came out of Ita’s clutch purse. “Oh, excuse me, hon,” she said to me. Stepping a few feet away, outside the tent, she answered, “Hello? Hey, Gina… Yeah, he did.”
My heart fluttered as I spotted Hayden’s figure coming back already. He was crossing the dance floor inside, heading for the glass doors. Yay, yay, yay. I couldn’t stop the grin if I tried.
“No, I’m at a wedding shower… Yeah, for Lyle.” I listened to Ita as Hayden stepped onto the grass, passing crowds. He weaved through a group of loud men and waved over Mrs. Ray’s head as he spotted me. He looked even more confident than when he left. Mr. Wick must’ve been pleased with him.
I waved back, leaving the tent and stepping out onto the lawn.
“Hey,” he laughed as he joined me.
“Hey.” I grinned. “How’d it go?”
“Well.” He nodded, definitely pleased with himself. “Just some small problems. I told him to take it in when he has a chance.”
I opened my mouth, but at the same time Ita made a gasping noise behind me. When people make abrupt noises, it’s sort of hard not to look and see what they were freaking out over.
So I looked back. She was staring at Hayden—not like the others had been, either. She was full out gaping with enormous eyes, her jaw hanging askew. It was like she’d seen a ghost.
“Ita?” I frowned, wondering if maybe she was having cardiac arrest or something. Hayden wasn’t that big of a shock, was he? Or maybe she was more like Lyle than I’d thought.
Her phone slipped from her hands, crashing to the ground. The voice of her friend Gina mumbled out of the phone. For a second, it looked like she might keel over, so I stepped towards her—just in case. Hayden grabbed my arm, yanking me back.
A cross between outrage and fear had taken over his features. His irises lost all trace of blue. They were a deep, almost black, silver color as he stared at my soon-to-be step aunt.
Ok, something was wrong here.
“Hayden?” I whispered. “What’s up?”
No answer. He was rock-still, hand wrapped around my wrist. I stiffened as traces of silver started coming out of his skin.
Ita cautiously stepped towards us, hand over her heart. She swallowed. “H— Hi,” she stuttered, her voice barely audible.
Suddenly my wrist was let free. I spun back to look, but Hayden was gone.
My insides plummeted. I whirled this way and that, but he was nowhere. He’d moved faster than Lea! “Hayden?!” I called. It was no use. There was no response. Then, throug
h the windows I thought I caught a glimpse of his dreadlocks slipping through a crowd inside.
Ita’s hands were over her mouth. A watery film glossed her eyes as she sunk to the ground.
I didn’t have time to ask, nor did I care that I was attracting a crowd. Ignoring the fact my feet were strapped into high heels, I bolted across the lawn. Trotting down the hotel hall, my heels echoed all the way to the lobby. Sprinting out the electronic doors, I came to a halt on the asphalt.
The truck was gone, an empty parking spot left behind.
It felt like frost had settled into my bones. I stood in the parking lot, a statue, my fingers tingling until they went numb.
He’d just run away from me. No explanation, no goodbye, no nothing. I was so shocked, I could’ve cried. Even with so many people I suddenly felt all alone, a stranger to this massive unknown place. Eventually, I drifted back inside, collapsing onto an empty couch around the corner. I stared into space until I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of the Embassy.
I wanted to go home.
After retrieving my purse from the coat rack, I took out my phone. My throat and nose were backing up with tears, head throbbing as I thought, who will pick me up? If I called dad, he’d nail Hayden for this on Monday. I wasn’t going to ask mom—it’d ruin her stupid, happy night. And I couldn’t swallow my pride and ask Dana or Grandma El. They didn’t need to see me like this.
I was flipping through my phone list when a shadow caught my peripheral vision. I looked up just in time to see a tall figure with black hair disappear behind the lobby’s angel fountain.
Adrian? I shuddered, punching send and holding the phone to my ear. How I hoped it was just a trick of the light, that I was only imagining things.
She answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Nelly?” My voice squeaked. “Can you come get me?”
19) Sorry
“Is this it?” Chanel gestured to the parking lot coming up on the left.
“Yeah,” I breathed, feeling nauseous all over again. She pulled into the old apartments. My car was still parked in the back by an old white Acura with duck tape over the back window. Hayden’s truck was nowhere to be seen. Good. Chanel parked in the empty spot next to my car and cut the engine. It was her way of saying she wanted to talk—if she wanted me to leave, she’d have stayed silent and left the car running.
“I’m sorry.” I decided to start the conversation. “For making you feel I didn’t want you around. I’m sorry.”
“No,” she sighed, leaning back against the headrest and frowning at the ceiling. “I’m sorry for being such a hoe lately. I should’ve just been understanding of your space. I was being kind of invasive, and not very good to you.” She inhaled deeply. “And I’m sorry I talked you into the Viper and Vixen. I know you hate disappointing people and it was crumby that I used that against you… I’ve been really immature lately.”
A major weight seemed to lift from my shoulders with every word we said. “It’s ok. We’ll work on your immaturity together.”
She tilted her head. “Promise?”
I nodded. “Promise.”
In the light of the blinking street lamp, I could see her eyes sparkling. She leaned across the glove box and hugged me. “Call me tomorrow?” She sniffled and wiped her eyes as she pulled away.
“I’ll try.” I gave my own eyes a quick wipe. “If I forget, Myspace me.”
She nodded, then looked towards the sidewalk. “If you talk to him… tell him I’m going to shove my mom’s glass chopsticks up his ass.”
I choked on a laugh, picturing Mrs. Ballantine’s face as Chanel jacked her expensive chopsticks. “I don’t know what happened, Nelly. One second he was there, the next he wasn’t.” I squinted at the wooden stairs, the stairs we’d walked up just last night together. “But I don’t think it was me. It had something to do with Lyle’s sister… whatever it was.”
“Yeah well, he owes you an apology.” Chanel took my hand. “Do… do you really like him, Rose?”
I hesitated, then nodded again. “I really like him,” I confessed to the question I knew she’d been dying to ask. “And I’m sorry I made you think he was all badnews-bear. I just panicked when I saw some of his records. There was some stuff on there that made me think he was dangerous.” Not that he wasn’t dangerous, but it was a type of hazard I considered to be in a different category.
“I know.” She squeezed my fingers. “Well, I have to get back home. Mom’s been tight on my case lately.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to be here when Hayden comes home.” I spared one more glance at his still empty parking spot. “I don’t want to talk to him right now.”
“… He could’ve at least told you what was going on.”
“That’s what bugged me. He didn’t even say goodbye.” I grabbed my purse, realizing my jacket was still in his truck. Dammit, I thought while getting out of the Volkswagen. “Bye, Nelly.”
“Bye, Rosie.” She leaned over and smiled at me.
“And thanks. For coming to get me.”
“Anytime. Anywhere.”
I watched her little car back out, the horn peep twice before she disappeared down the street. Walking towards my car, I couldn’t describe how grateful I was that we were talking again. It almost made tonight turn around.
Almost…
*
Sunday was bound to be long and heartbreakingly uneventful. Hayden hadn’t called me since the morning of the wedding shower. No texts, no voicemails. Like his wings, he just disappeared into thin air.
I lounged—I refused to call it sulking—on the couch, restless and frustrated. I wanted company, yet I didn’t want company. One minute I wanted to cry, the next I wanted to laugh. But what I really wanted was to drive over to the apartments, or call him.
No, my mind hissed, stopping me every time. No. You will not wait on him. You will not wait on anyone. I always made fun of those girls that moped around waiting for some guy to call, the ones that filled their Myspace pages with broken heart graphics and mushy ‘I still want you’ icons. It was simple for me: guy breaks girl’s heart, girl breaks boy’s nose, end of story. That’s what dad taught me, and it’s what I told Cheyenne and Tansy when they came sobbing about some guy—which is probably why they never talk to me much about ruined relationships anymore. Heck, there were even times I cackled at the girls that checked their empty voicemail twenty times a day and slumped around eating ice cream to drown their misery.
Yet here I was. Leaving my phone on overnight and wondering what a gallon of chocolate mint ice cream from the seven-eleven would cost…
What comes around goes around, mom used to always say. Eff it. Karma really was cruel at times. It was so unfair. Eff it, eff it. So to avoid turning into a mopegirl, I slid on some flip-flops and drove to Starbucks. After getting my banana chocolate vivanno (the closest thing to an ice cream shake I could get), I decided to go for a walk around town. When I’m antsy, sitting around trying to read or watch TV at home was a bad idea—it made me crabby and emotional. Dad didn’t handle crabby and emotional (what man does?) and he tended to send me out anyway when I was being so. I shuffled around town until my feet were blistered and the heat had given me a headache…
Monday came and there was still no word from Hayden. By this time, I was close to tearing my hair out. His image was plastered to my brain, making it very hard to not think of him during school. In cooking, there was a boy wearing the exact same brown fleecy he’d worn when he drove me home on Halloween. In fictional writing, we were assigned to type a story to fit the title ‘A Lovely Disaster,’ upon which it was tempting to write about being abandoned at the wedding shower.
Maybe you should call him, I thought while Mr. Schzinow rambled about Germany’s geography. Maybe if you told him you missed him. Maybe then he’d talk to me. Tell me what his problem was so we could move on. I could at least text him. Maybe he’d respond to texts.
I bit hard on my tongue. What is wrong
with you, Rose? He ran out on you! Don’t turn into a mope! I laid my face in my open German book. Don’t turn into a mope.
As the bell rang, students dispelled in massive noisy clumps into the hallways. I was making my way towards the back door when a hand caught me by the arm. “Na-uh! Not that way,” Chanel laughed, pulling in the opposite direction.
“Whoa. Hi, Nelly,” I greeted, recovering from whiplash.
She grinned. “Sorry, thought you might want to walk with me.”
“Yeah, sure.” I wasn’t in any massive hurry. I wasn’t going to the shop today… maybe not for a while.
“So.” She linked our arms as we joined the traffic jam in the main hall. “I broke up with Trent.”
“What?” My eyes bugged out of my skull. I about dropped my bags. Did I just hallucinate? “No way! You did not!”
“Yup, I did.” She raised her head, clearly suffering, but proud. “I even told him just because he’s filthy rich doesn’t mean he’s worth a penny.”
“You did not!” I started laughing, amazed, then threw my arms around her shoulders. “Oh my goodness! I’m so proud of you!”
“Thanks. I know it was the right thing.” A weak smile lifted her face. She hugged me back as we approached the crowded lobby. “Now I think you need to do the right thing, too.”
I let go of her, furrowing my brows. “Huh?”
She slowed our pace, then nodded across the way.
Hayden was leaning against one of the lobby pillars, the only guy in sight wearing an emerald hoodie—Zoo York instead of the popular Hollister or Abercrombie. He kept jiggling his leg and staring out the windows.
I endured a new shipment of butterflies to the pit of my stomach. “What’s he doing here?” I snapped.
“What do you mean what is he doing here? He’s probably looking for you!”
I tried to swallow my saliva, but my throat had gone dry. Her hate towards him from Saturday sounded resolved. “Come on.” Chanel pushed me forward.
“No! Nelly, stop I can walk—I can walk myself!” I wiggled out of her grip, shifting my bag over my shoulders. “Jeez.”
A Taste of Silver Page 24