“Sorry!” I squeaked, thankful at least that that was all I’d caught him doing. I came in and shut the door, locking it behind me. I didn’t have time to explain. “You had the light off!”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t find the switch.” Then he made a move to get around me to the door. “Do you mind?”
“Yes,” I said. “No. I mean, you can’t go out there right now.” I teetered on my crutches and nearly fell into the wall. George caught my arm and steadied me. I winced as my cast touched the floor. My leg was still killing me. “Sarah’s boyfriend Matt is here with two of his friends. They’re trying to get the SubSonic CD from Em, but she slipped it to me. I have to hide it in here. It’s the only way!” I finished breathlessly, reaching around and pulling the CD basically out of my underpants. He stared at it, then at me. “So you have to stay in here,” I explained. “To help me protect it. If this single falls into Matt’s hands and gets leaked, do you know what it would do to K.wack’ed’s career?” I didn’t actually know if it would make any real difference, but it sounded urgent, and it worked.
“All right.” George nodded. He walked around me and hopped into the Jacuzzi, where he stretched out his legs and reached his hands up behind his head. “If we’re staying a while, I might as well get comfortable,” he explained when I looked at him.
Suddenly, the hugeness of the situation hit me. I was alone, in a bathroom, with Gorgeous George. And not only that, he was in a Jacuzzi. With his clothes on, but still! For something to do, I opened the little purse Em had given me and took out my painkillers. I turned on the tap, cupped my hands underneath the water, and took two more. After all, my leg was really hurting, and I’d accidentally missed a dose earlier. I probably needed to catch up.
When I was done, I walked over, propped my crutches against the wall, and sat down on the edge of the Jacuzzi with my back to George. You could have cut the awkwardness with a knife. I was thankful that someone in the rec room had turned the music back up. The thumping beat gave me something to focus on.
“So. That song was awesome, eh?” I said finally.
“It rocked,” he answered. “I wish I could hear it again.”
“I know,” I said, letting my head fall to one side against the tile wall. The cool ceramic felt nice on my cheek. “Me too.”
We sat without talking for a minute—him, marveling at the incredibleness of the “Velocity” song; me, marveling at the incredibleness of sitting beside him. I closed my eyes. Overhead, we could hear crashing footsteps, then a thud, like more furniture tipping over.
“Did you see any of Shane Marlowe’s tattoos when you met him?” George asked, out of nowhere. “Huh? Tattoos?” I opened my eyes and blinked a few times to focus them.
“Like, the rabbit or the cobra?” I had no idea what he was talking about. And for some reason, when he said cobra, I heard korma, which is this Indian curry dish my mom used to make sometimes (in our pre-VTV days) when she was trying to honor my heritage. I don’t really like it, though. Too spicy.
“He has a tattoo of korma? Who?” I asked.
“A cobra,” George corrected. “Shane Marlowe…K.wack’ed.”
“Oh!” I said, much too suddenly, remembering that, apparently, I was supposed to have met him once at an amazingly cool party. I started laughing. “Right. Duh. No. He was wearing long sleeves that day.”
“The cobra tattoo is on his ankle.”
“And pants. Obviously. It wasn’t a naked party.”
“Oh. Just, I thought you said he was wearing a bathing suit. So I thought maybe…”
“Right. Well. Yeah. But he was mostly in the water. And then he got dressed and came inside. It was raining. My hair looked so bad. But then it always looks bad.” As soon as I said it, I started kicking myself internally. I hadn’t even been at Em’s modeling pool party. And since it was a huge lie anyway, I might as well have said that my hair looked amazing.
“I like your hair,” he said. My heart almost stopped beating. I turned to look at him over my shoulder.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s big.” He closed his eyes and lay back against the headrest of the Jacuzzi, then took a deep breath like he was trying to inhale the moment. I watched him with a whole new level of adoration. All of a sudden I could see it so clearly. He liked me. I knew he did. I mean, there was nobody else there—just the two of us. He didn’t need to tell me that he liked my big hair. There was no reason to lie to each other.
He opened his eyes, then flipped his hair, dispersing the ocean air smell of his shampoo. It was like breathing in a waft of pure dreaminess. I couldn’t help myself. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d turned all the way around and reached into the hot tub to brush one of the stray strands back from his face. My fingers slid through so easily, I’d swear his hair was made of pure, spring-fed water.
“I like your hair too,” I said. He turned to look at me. Our eyes locked, and suddenly we were connecting on a whole new level. I could just feel it. So I opened up my heart to him.
“Um—” he started to say, but I cut him off.
“I think you’re gorgeous,” I said, before the moment could slip away. “I think you’re so cool.”
“Umm. Okay.” He narrowed his eyes at me, like I was mysterious, like he couldn’t quite figure me out. “You’re…pretty cool too. I guess.”
“There was this time in third grade when we went on a field trip to the arena to skate. I kept falling down. And you came up to me and helped me up off the ice. You were wearing black mittens. Do you remember? With pictures of hockey sticks on them.”
“Um. Not exactly,” he said. “Third grade was a while ago.”
“I know,” I said. “But I’ve just always wanted you to know—that meant a lot to me.”
There was a knock on the door and we both looked up.
“Somebody has to pee,” I said seriously. “We should let them in. But I’m really glad we talked like this.” I handed him the CD. “Stash it between those towels, okay?” He reached up to the shelf behind him and slid the disk in. Meanwhile, I silently congratulated myself for playing it so cool. After all, I didn’t want to freak him out. Now that we’d established that we liked each other, there’d be plenty of time to tell him exactly how I felt about him. Plus, the CD would be safe in there.
When I stood up on my crutches, the world went black for just a second, but I only swayed slightly, taking a deep breath to steady myself, then I unlocked the door. “Oh, hi, Brayden.” I smiled at the star setter of the girls’ volleyball team. She looked over my shoulder at George, who was just climbing out of the Jacuzzi tub. “You can pee now if you want. We’re done.” Then I walked out to the L-shaped couch and lay my head against a cushion.
Before long, Em, Ken, the eighth grade guys, and the volleyball girls came back downstairs, telling the story of what had happened.
“Matt was so pissed,” Em said, recounting how she’d eventually let him corner her in her mother’s walk-in closet and wrestle a burned copy of a Soothing Sounds of the Ocean meditation CD from her hands.
“And we were all outside, just pounding on the closet door,” Ken said.
“Seriously, I thought he might hurt you or something,” Michelle added.
“But then, like a minute later he walks out and he’s all like ‘Uh, you guys. Let’s bounce.’”
“What did you say to him?” Kiki asked, incredulous.
“I just let him know he didn’t want to mess with me,” Em answered, all mysterious, then she met my eyes from across the room and smiled, and I had a feeling I knew exactly what she’d said. I laughed and made a mental note to suggest we stop by the 7-Eleven soon and buy Jason-the-gerbil a swamp water Slurpee to thank him for the dirt on Matt’s other girlfriend.
“Em Warner, you’re the queen of cool,” I said, letting my head fall back against the pillow. A few people laughed, then someone turned the music up even louder, and the party got back to normal. I remember a chocolate-bar-eating contest b
etween the eighth grade guys…then Charlie Baker and James Stilton crawling into the space under the overturned sofa and declaring it a party fort…and someone starting a game of spin the bottle. After that, I must have fallen asleep or something because…
“Margot.” The next thing I knew, I heard Em’s voice.
“Yeah?” I answered, opening my eyes to see what she wanted. The music was still loud, but the room was emptier now. The entrance of the party fort had been covered with towels, and for some reason, a bunch of books had been pulled off the shelves and arranged like a cobblestone walkway leading up to it. Empty pop cans littered the carpet. George and Ken were on the L-shaped sofa with the bowl of jelly beans, tossing them up in the air and trying to catch them in their mouths.
“Your stepdad’s here,” Em said.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “Are you sure it’s not somebody else’s stepdad?”
“He says his name’s Bryan.”
I blinked a few times. It didn’t make sense. As far as Bryan knew, I was in bed asleep.…But even if he had found out I’d gone to Em’s house, he didn’t know her address. I found my crutches on the floor beside the sofa and noticed the clock on the DVD player. It was 12:15. I’d meant to call a taxi at 11:00 at the latest.
By the time I managed to get to the bottom of the stairs, Bryan was already on his way down. I knew it was really him the second I saw his scuffed loafers. “What are you doing here?” I asked. He was wearing green plaid pajama bottoms underneath his yellow rain slicker. I could see him doing his best to take a yogic breath while he looked around the basement at the tipped furniture and general chaos.
“Margot, it’s time to go home,” he said firmly.
“How did you know I was here?” My voice squeaked.
He took another deep breath, then repeated: “Margot, I said time to go.”
“I asked you a question,” I said.
Before I realized what was happening, Bryan had picked me up. “Oh, no way,” I shouted. “Don’t touch me.” He didn’t even listen. For such a wimpy person, it was amazing that he actually managed to lift all one hundred pounds of me, even while I kicked at him with my good leg. “You have no right!” I shouted. He swung me around and carried me up the stairs without answering, then set me down at the top. Em followed behind with my crutches. “Go outside and get in the van,” he said. Then he turned to Em. “Is there an adult in the house?”
“My mom’s out right now.” She dug her hands into her pockets and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Does she have a cell phone? I’d like to call her,” Bryan said as Em led us out to the huge marble foyer.
“Awesome party, guys,” Zoe yelled, as she and Kiki headed for the door.
“See you later, someone’s dad,” Kiki said, waving to Bryan, then she burst into a fit of giggles. Bryan didn’t even react; he was still looking at Em, waiting for a phone number.
“Don’t embarrass me in front of Em’s mom,” I pleaded. “Let’s just leave, all right? I’m getting in the van. See?” I opened the door. He didn’t follow. “She said her mom isn’t here. You can talk to her later, all right?”
Bryan finally gave in, but as we headed down the front path, he looked angrier than I’d ever seen him. Then again, he’d just embarrassed me on the best night of my life. I was pretty mad too.
24
I Teach Bryan the Basics of Sign Language
THE THING ALL STEPPARENTS need to understand is that they should never try to act like real parents. Because they’re not real parents. At all. They’re more like random people your real parents decided to marry, usually against your wishes.
Think of it this way: It’s not like I’d go pick up some kid I met on the street and bring him home and tell my mom, “Guess what! I found this kid. I think I’ll make him my new brother. He’s your family now, and you’d better be nice to him, and clean out a closet for him, and buy him Christmas presents.”
But that’s exactly how my mom expects me to be with Bryan. And this shouldn’t be news to her (or to him) by now: it’s not happening. The more “fatherly” things he tries to do, the more I want to murder him in his sleep.
I slammed the passenger-side door of the van shut and stared straight ahead, determined not to say a single word. Thankfully, Bryan didn’t feel like talking either. The only sound in the van was the squeaking of the windshield wipers.
We would have probably made it the whole way home like that, too, if it wasn’t for the way my stomach turned against me. I tried to take deep breaths, then rolled down the window to get some air, but nothing helped. “Pull over,” I groaned. “Pull over, pull over, pull over.”
“Just a moment,” Bryan said.
“No,” I shouted. “Now. I’m going to be sick.”
“Hold your horses, Margot.” His voice was irritatingly calm. “I need to pull safely out of traffic.” I gagged, but thankfully nothing came out.
After what felt like forever, he finally signaled and pulled off to the side of the road. I pushed the door open and leaned out as far as I could, which didn’t turn out to be far enough. I threw up a little bit on the seat, a lot on the door, and even more on the floor of the van.
“Come on.” I hadn’t even noticed Bryan getting out, but he was suddenly in front of me. “Let’s get you some fresh air.” He helped me hop toward a bus shelter with a small metal bench in it. I sat down, leaning my head against the glass.
“Were you drinking?” Bryan asked.
“No,” I said. “I swear I wasn’t. I think it’s the flu.”
“What about your pain meds?”
“I took them,” I said.
“Did you have anything to eat with them?”
“No.”
“How many did you take?”
“Four,” I answered.
“You know you’re only supposed to take two every two hours,” he said.
“I know,” I answered. “But I missed a dose, so I took four. It’s basic math.”
“You can’t take four at a time, Margot, even if you miss a dose. And you need to take those on a full stomach.”
“Nobody told me that! All they said was don’t operate bulldozers. Nobody tells me anything!” I leaned my head back again. All I wanted to do was get home and sleep. “How did you find me, anyway?” I asked.
Bryan jingled the van keys in his hand. “You left the Web site with the taxi information open on the computer screen,” he said. “I called to find out where they’d driven you.”
“You were spying in my room?” I said. “At my computer? Bryan, that’s private.”
“It’s not private when we’re worried about your safety,” he answered in his fake-fatherly way. I rolled my eyes, but he was looking toward the van and didn’t even notice. He was probably busy worrying about being illegally parked. “Are you feeling ready to go?” he asked, definitely eyeing the No Parking sign.
“So, what now?” I asked, after he’d gotten in and closed the door. “Are you and my mom going to punish me by making me babysit on weekends, too?”
Bryan did a shoulder check and pulled onto the street before answering. “As far as your mother knows, you’re in bed.”
I gave him a confused look.
“She asked me to check on you, but she was asleep by the time I got back to our bedroom. She’s got so much on her plate these days, I couldn’t face waking her up with bad news.” He pulled up at a stoplight and turned to look at me. “And there’s the fact that your mother and I had a conversation about my tendency to avoid conflict with you. She’d like to see me take on a more active parenting role.”
I rolled my eyes again, not caring if he saw this time.
“I suppose,” he said carefully, “we could keep this between us. As long as you promise to always tell your mother or myself where you’re going in the future.” The light changed and he stretched his neck out like a turtle, looking for cars, even though the streets were deserted. “It’s important that we know you’re safe.�
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The active-parenting stuff made me want to vomit all over again. But at the same time, I almost couldn’t believe my luck.
“I’d still like to speak with Em’s parents, though,” he added.
“You can’t,” I said. “Her dad’s dead.” I don’t even know why I said it. As far as I knew, he was alive and well, making multimillion-dollar music deals in New York, even if he had been symbolically stabbed through the chest with a steak knife.
“Well, that’s unfortunate. I’m sorry for her loss. In that case, I’d like to speak with her mother.”
“You can’t. She’s deaf.”
He sighed. “Was she aware that an unsupervised party was going on in her home?”
“Oh, yeah. Em told her. Through sign language.” I could tell he knew I was lying, but he didn’t bother to say so.
Instead, he just took a deep cleansing breath. “Is there another adult in their home I could speak to?”
“They live alone.” I bit my nails to keep from having to look him in the eyes. “You could still talk to her mom, though…if you learned sign language. I know some. This means ‘microwave.’” I demonstrated the one sign I knew. Erika and I had learned it at a Brownie-pack sleepover once. “And this means ‘I love you.’” Everyone knew that one.
“And how would that apply to a conversation about an unsupervised party?” Now he sounded mad.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. We drove in silence for a while.
“When young teens get together, things can often get out of hand, Margot. Sometimes there’s drinking, or fights break out, or worse. It’s serious business.”
“I know,” I said, thinking about how scared I’d been when Matt had showed up.
“Prescription drugs can be dangerous too, if you don’t follow the pharmacist’s directions. I want you to promise me that you’ll speak to your mother or me if you aren’t sure how to take your medication.”
I nodded. I wasn’t planning to make that mistake again.
“All right,” I said. “Fine. I promise.” Then I closed my eyes the rest of the way home.
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