“Yeah,” I said hesitantly as I wiped at some nail polish that had dripped on my arm. “But it was just to take some pictures. We came home right after.” As if I had to defend myself to her.
“He showed me his project.”
I froze midwipe. “He did?”
“We were hanging out at his house last night, and I told him he had to show it to me or else I’d leave.” She twisted her earring around with her fingers. “I was mostly joking, but now I kind of wish I didn’t push it.” She sat up straight and ran both hands over her long, lean stomach. “I didn’t realize you two were so close.”
I kept wiping at my arm even though the nail polish was long gone.
“You’re his best friend,” she continued. “You’ve been there for him, and he’s been there for you. You two have a history that I can’t compete with.”
I wasn’t sure where she was going with that, so I remained silent and allowed her to finish.
“But I really, really like him Gemma, and I think he likes me too.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“So if you could just stay out of the way for a while, just keep your distance until he and I have a chance to make this work, then I’d really appreciate it.”
I nodded once more, not knowing exactly what she did or didn’t want me to do or whether I was willing to actually oblige either request.
Before another word was said, the doorbell rang and Lauren stood up to straighten her dress, “Can you go get the door?”
“Me?” What happened to me staying out of the way?
“Please, Gemma. I can’t open the door for my own date.”
I looked down at my shabby sweatshirt and worn out jeans. I was sweating from all the running around and the heat of the hair dryer and curling iron. Next to Lauren I looked like a hired hand. I figured that was why she wanted him to see me. Maybe that was her ulterior motive. Maybe she wanted him to know for certain that next to her I was a no body. I was sure it was information that he already knew so I relented. “Fine.”
When I opened the door Jess was standing on the front porch. He was wearing tan slacks and a deep blue dress shirt and tie. He looked crisp and clean and in his hand was a small box with a red rose corsage inside. Jess looked at me confused then darted his eyes at the house in front of him, “Am I at the right place?”
Hearing his familiar voice in such a strange, awkward situation made me fold my arms over my chest and recoil into the door pain at my side. “Lauren’s upstairs. She’ll be down in a minute.” I moved to the side so Jess could step in.
“So,” Jess said while passing the corsage box from one hand to the other, “What are you doing here?”
“I came to help Lauren get ready for the dance.”
Jess nodded skeptically, “Yeah, I’ve heard about girls doing that but I didn’t peg you as the type.”
“I’m not.” I assured him, “But Lauren apparently is and Drew was busy so…”
We both heard Lauren’s footsteps on the stairs. Jess turned to watch her and I turned to watch him. He bit his lip and shifted nervously. I had never seen him like that before. “You look really nice.” He said stepping toward her and handing her the box. “I hope this matches your dress.”
“It’s perfect. I love roses.” Lauren said elegantly and I almost forgot how disjointed and out of sorts she had been just minutes ago.
I became aware of how awkward I was just being there let alone watching and staring with intense jealousy in my ratty clothes and greasy hair. “I’m going to go now.” I said and I stepped in the great room to retrieve my coat.
Jess stepped aside so I could move through the door. Then he smiled and half waved but Lauren didn’t say anything nor did she look up from the corsage that she was pulling up over her wrist. I slipped out the door without another word being exchanged between any of us, then I got into my car and swore to myself for maybe the millionth time that year that I was really, truly and officially over Jess Tyler.
Chapter 15
Clark Nobottom was exactly what you’re thinking. A nerd. If Bridget would have mentioned that her online date’s brother’s name was Clark Nobottom, I probably would have regrounded myself for an extra twenty-four hours. He showed up at my house on New Year’s Eve with his cute (and quite possibly adopted) older brother, Rick. Bridget was ecstatic to find out that Rick looked just like his picture on Facebook. I, on the other hand, was staring into the face of a kid my exact same height, laced with oversized glasses, a red band holding them together around his head, and four ball-point pens sticking out of his front pocket. I had never seen such a typical dork in my entire life. Up to that point, I had actually thought they died out with the welcoming of the twenty-first century. Apparently I was wrong.
Bridget chose the restaurant since the Nobottom brothers were from Highlands and didn’t know Franklin very well. She thought it would be fun to go to Marc’s Pizza Arcade, which was notorious for its cheap, cheeseless pizza and kid-infested arcade games. I tried to get her to reconsider, but she was convinced that a fun, playful atmosphere was the best option for this kind of date.
“So, do you come here much?” Clark politely asked me while Bridget and Rick flirted on the other side of the table. They had barely touched their food all night while Clark and I downed half the pizza and three root beers each simply because we had no idea what else to do other than eat. Despite Clark’s nerd motif, his voice was surprisingly low and mature and if I had only talked to him on the phone, I would have thought he was a male model.
“I used to when I was younger. Do you like living in Highlands?” I offered, even though I knew it was the dumbest question in the world.
Clark smiled politely. “It’s a nice town. But I’ve never lived anywhere else, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. I like Franklin though.” He looked around the red-checkered restaurant. “We don’t have any good arcade places like this.” I had to give him credit. He really was one of the nicest boys I’d met. He gave me one hundred percent of his attention every time I opened my mouth, and he didn’t seem to be looking for a cuter girl in the room like so many boys did when you tried to have a conversation with them. But as far as sparks went, there were none in sight.
A few seconds of awkward silence passed between us before I nodded toward the arcade area of the restaurant. “You want to go play a game? They have a killer race car machine here.” Okay, it wasn’t that killer. But I couldn’t stand to watch Bridget blush at another one of Rick’s putrid compliments, and playing a game was my only chance for escape.
It was a double chair game. Clark put in four quarters, and the machine beneath us began to rumble and shake. The screen in front of us showed Clark as a blue BMW and me as a hot pink Ferrari. We were racing on sandy terrain off some coast in Hawaii. He was killing me. For a guy with a green button-up, short-sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of brown cargo jeans, he was an amazing arcade driver.
“You’re good!” I exclaimed as he wrapped up his fourth lap (I was still on my first).
“Thanks, I love cars,” he said between gritted teeth as he stretched the control to cut a corner. “I have to be honest with you though, we actually have this exact arcade game at our house. I play it all the time.”
An arcade game in his house? I knew that a lot of wealthy people matriculated from Highlands, but I had no idea that the average Clark Nobottom would come from so much money.
“I play the winner!” the shrill voice came from a chubby little kid no older than six that was suddenly standing right at my side. It was hard to concentrate on my race course with him breathing salty pizza sauce breath into my face.
“Sorry,” I said, with my eyes still on the screen. “But I think we’ll be playing for a while.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re losing!” he squealed. “Y
ou have to let me play! I’m next in line!”
“Sorry,” I repeated with more annoyance in my voice, even though I wasn’t sorry at all. “But we were here first. You can play when we’re finished.”
“That’s not fair!” he screamed. “I’m going to tell my mom!”
My ears were ringing, and my car was skidding off the track and into a boulder on the side of the virtual road. I heard Clark chuckle softly next to me. He was obviously getting a kick out of my distracting conversation with the boy from Hades. “Fine!” I said, twisting my body to try to get the car back on its course. “Go tell your mom. Whatever it takes to get you away from here.”
Well, the boy got his mom, but he didn’t leave his spot, “Mom!” he yelled. “Mom!”. I peeked over my shoulder looking for the woman that could have possibly given birth to this kid. “Momeeee!” He was screaming now, and his face was the color—and shape for that matter—of a cherry tomato. My car went off a cliff as Clark won the game, and as the words Game Over flashed brightly before me, a horrid sound came from the direction of the Hades boy. Before my brain could compute what was happening, both Clark and I were covered in three pounds of red, cheesy, acidic, fat boy vomit.
“Mom!” The kid was crying now as pink slobber drooled off his shirt and down to his shoes. The foul smell that accompanied the pool of fluid on my lap and in my hair was too much for me to take. Clark was sitting speechless with his hands in the air, and his eyes shut tight. Both of us were drenched in the stuff, and after you’ve eaten half a Marc’s pizza, you are not in the greatest place—digestively speaking—to handle a stench like that. Before I knew what was happening, both Clark and I were puking all over the arcade game in front of us. I remember the smell and the warmth of my own vomit covering my freshly washed jeans. I remember a lot of noise—kids screaming, parents murmuring in a low tone, “Now that’s a shame.” And then I remember Bridget angrily washing my hair in the bathroom sink while I dabbed at my clothes with a wet paper towel.
“This makes me want to puke,” she said over and over while I held on to the porcelain sink with my eyes shut tight .
“Please don’t.”
We drove home in Rick’s car in complete silence with the windows wide open. Clark took a shower in my parent’s bathroom while my dad found a pair of old pants and a T-shirt that my mom was going to take to goodwill that he could wear. I showered as well and put on “date outfit option 2” that I had laid out that afternoon when I still hoped my date was going to be a dreamy prince that would make me forget Jess Tyler forever.
Something happened, however, between the drive home and all of us sitting at the kitchen table showered and reminiscing the event. I actually felt something resembling a bond starting between Clark and me. Maybe it was the fact that he was wearing my dad’s clothes. Or maybe it was because I’d known him for three hours, and he’d already seen the inside of my parent’s shower. Or maybe that was just what happened when you went through a horrendous experience like that with someone and came out alive on the other side. But whatever it was, Clark and I were buddies, and we spent the rest of the night talking and laughing like we were old friends.
Bridget nudged me silently to walk Clark out to the car at twelve thirty that night. At midnight, Rick had given Bridget a small kiss on the lips, and it wasn’t difficult for me to figure out that she wanted some alone time with Rick at the door so they could finish what they’d started a half hour earlier. Clark and I crossed over the cold, icy grass to Rick’s car that was parked next to the curb. He was listing off his top ten favorite sci-fi movies when a door sounded across the street. We both looked up, and against everything I willed to be true, Jess and Lauren were just coming out of his house and were walking to her car that was parked in his driveway—how had I missed that? My stomach swelled, and the same impulse I’d felt earlier at the arcade began to rise in my throat once more. Clark and I waved politely at their awkward salutations as Jess helped Lauren into her car and walked back into his house. I felt like Jess was a million miles away from me at that moment, like he was a stranger that I didn’t know anymore, that I didn’t understand. I must have stared longer and harder than I meant to because Clark got my attention by saying, “You okay?” He looked back across the street at Jess’s house, and I knew I hadn’t hidden my emotions well.
“Yeah,” I replied, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m great.”
“You sure?” he said, stepping and inch closer to me. “You don’t look so great.”
I dug a small hole in the dirt with my left shoe. “It’s kind of a long story.”
Clark looked back at my house to where Bridget and Rick were talking closely just inside the door. “I think we have a while.”
I took in a deep breath and leaned against the side of Rick’s car. “The guy that we just saw, that’s—”
“Jess Tyler,” he finished. “I know.”
“You know Jess?” I asked, a little perturbed. I knew Jess was popular in Franklin, but in Highlands too?
“I’ve been playing baseball against him for years,” Clark explained.
“You play baseball?” I didn’t mean for that to sound nearly as stereotypical as it did.
Clark smirked. “I know I don’t look like the baseball type.” He wrapped his hand around his neck and took hold of the band holding his glasses on his head. “I got this when I was nine because my glasses kept slipping off my head. My nose isn’t proportioned right for them or something. And I can’t wear contacts because they give me infections. So I had to make the choice when I was nine years old whether to push my glasses up for the rest of my life or be classified as a geek. I went with geek.”
I didn’t mean to, but I looked down at the pens in his pocket. What was his excuse going to be for them?
He read my thoughts and clutched one of the pens in his hand. “And these are just a joke to go along with the rest of my motif. Kind of a self-mutilation thing.” He laughed at himself then added, “But honestly, you have no idea how handy these are. People ask to borrow pens all the time.”
When I finally looked beyond the glasses and pens, I noticed that his face was actually kind of cute—in a young Justin Beiberish kind of way—and in his eyes shined an unexpected air of confidence.
“Anyway,” he concluded, “geek or no geek, Clark can throw a baseball, and that’s how I know Jess.”
Oh yeah, Jess—and Lauren. I had almost forgotten about them during Clark’s entertaining self-analysis.
“So what’s the story?” he pushed carefully. “Is he an old boyfriend or something?”
“I guess you could say that. He broke up with me at the beginning of the school year and now he’s dating one of my friends.”
Clark grimaced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, it stings a little.”
“I guess that’s why you should never date your neighbor. You have a front row seat of him moving on.”
Clark’s comment was innocent, but it wrenched at my heart. Jess was so much more to me than just my neighbor, and to think that he was always going to be a name on the list of “Boys I’d Kissed Once” made me ache in places I didn’t even know I had.
“You know what you need?” Clark said with a newfound energy.
“A gallon of cookie dough ice cream?”
He ignored my joke. “You need to experience the Ice Box.”
“The what?”
“The Ice Box,” he repeated. “It’s what we call the lodge at Sapphire Valley Ski Resort. I work there.”
“You work at the lodge? What do you do?”
“I’m just a bus boy. I like working in the restaurant, but I’m not old enough to be a waiter. The pay isn’t the best, but I get to ski for free.”
“You ski too?” Seriously, if you would have taken one look at Clark Nobottom, you would have been surprised too.
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Clark grabbed a pen from his pocket. “Give me your hand.”
I did as he said, and he wrote down a website on my palm. “There are all sorts of jobs available from people who are leaving for college next year. They’re hiring this spring, so you should fill out one of the online applications. Training starts next fall.”
“What kind of training?”
“It depends what job you apply for. Do you ski?”
I thought about Jess dragging me to Sapphire Valley for the past five winters of my life, trying to get me to ski with him. I had hated it at first. There wasn’t anything enjoyable at all about being stuck in cement-like boots on a freezing hill with crazy snowboarders whizzing past my ears. But Jess loved it, and even back then—before my crush, our kiss, and all the heartache—I loved being with him, so I went. “A little.” I shrugged. “But I’m not good enough to get paid for it. Maybe I could be a hostess at the restaurant or something.”
“You won’t regret it.” Clark smiled. “The Ice Box has a way of changing people.”
I considered all this as I watched Rick’s car drive down our long, narrow street and out of sight. Bridget had already made her way inside and I was about to follow her when I heard my name called out from the direction of Jess’s front yard. I turned toward the sound, and sure enough, Jess was trotting across the street and onto my lawn.
“Hey.” He was a little out of breath. “Were you just with Clark Nobottom?”
I smiled with half of my lips. “What, were you watching us through your front window waiting for him to leave?”
Jess frowned. “I could say I just came out here to get my mail, but who gets their mail at this time of the night?”
“Nobody,” I said, allowing myself to laugh only slightly.
“Well, I feel like I have to make up excuses to see you these days.” He blew warm air into his hands. “I didn’t even see you on Christmas.”
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