The thin slab of oak shielding her from an onslaught of unhinged parental rage swung inward and bounced off the doorjamb. Showtime.
She spun around in the computer chair to face her father, crossing her legs to exude a casual vibe. Though, she gathered that the ‘I have nothing to hide’ act would not get her far judging by his police takedown of the door.
“Why’d you even knock if you were planning on coming in anyways?”
“Don’t talk to me like that, young lady,” Dexter cautioned. His expression shifted between fury and disappointment faster than she could blink.
“Young lady? How old am I, 12?”
Ryleigh fought to maintain a calm exterior as she internally succumbed to a sinkhole of panic. Defying her parents was not in her wheelhouse, but in this situation, resorting to the extreme seemed to be the only option.
“I’d suggest you watch your tone. And where exactly were you all this time?”
“With Andy.”
“Oh, is that so? Because I rang up the Fuentes’ late last night, and Andrea told me you weren’t at her house, that you hadn’t even stopped by her house for a moment. You were with him, were you not?”
She broke her focus on the plush rug and dared a quick glance at her disenchanted father. The accusation had deflated her forged tough-girl attitude beyond repair.
“You wouldn’t even give him a chance. You’ll never understand,” Ryleigh complained, voice tremulous as her courage abated.
“Do you realize I cancelled all of my appointments at the practice today to make sure you made it home, in one piece? I want to protect you, not punish you.” He snatched her twinkling key ring, shaking it like a mad man. “What’s this? You’ve got a key to his place now? You’re going to end up pregnant before graduation at this rate.”
No, he made it clear he doesn’t plan on sleeping with me.
“It’s not like that.” Ryleigh vaulted out of the computer chair. “You have no faith in me. Do you think I would be that irresponsible? You raised me. I’ve done everything you and mom have wanted me to do, my whole life. When is it time to start living for me?”
She swiped her wristlet off the desk, snatching the key ring from her father. Their arms brushed as she moved past him out of the room.
Dexter trailed her down the staircase. “Have you lost your mind? Where are you going?”
Expedient footfalls pummeled the wood in tandem.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
“I’m meeting Andy. We have plans.”
“You honestly think you can just waltz out of this house after everything that’s transpired? I have news for you, sweetheart, you’re not an adult yet. You can’t come and go as you please. There are rules, and you broke all of them with your little sleepover.”
“If your rules revolve around keeping me from the one thing that makes me happy, I won’t be adhering to them.”
“Take a good, hard look in the mirror and see if you like who you’re becoming. You said I raised you. Well, this sure as hell isn’t the daughter I raised.”
“Whatever.” Indifference elbowed her already weakened chest. “I’m going to be late.”
The stuffy but expansive junior formal section in Nordstrom had Ryleigh mortified at what the monumental event signified.
Graduation approached without mercy. Summer rode her heels, nipping at her ankles, bearing an aching reminder that this frailly constructed fairytale with Peter would soon crumble, reduced to a woeful pile of ash.
“I asked Zeth Katsaros to prom,” Andrea announced, sifting through an ombre collection of orange dresses at an alarming speed.
“Katsaros,” Ryleigh repeated. Her hand froze, fingers spread on a glittery halter. “Wait a minute, isn’t he on the soccer team? You didn’t.”
While she had no intention of attending prom, Andrea’s blatant sabotage of their girls’ night out ignited a quiet storm in her mind’s harbor. Andy had betrayed their sacred vow of friendship on the phone with her dad, and now this?
She freed one of her infamous, earsplitting shrieks and beamed on the other side of the rack, smoothing her flat-ironed locks to command some calm. “Oh yes, I did. And he said yes.”
“I’m sure Colin will be thrilled you’re going to prom with his teammate. I thought we were going to be each other’s dates? You could’ve alerted me to our change of plans.”
Ryleigh plastered on a smile so fake, it felt as though her cheeks had been ripped apart.
“I didn’t think you’d care since you’ll probably spend the night sulking in the corner, given your displeasure for teenage-infested social gatherings.” Andrea pulled several dresses—delicate apricots and peaches—draping them over her arm. “I’m surprised you showed up today. I haven’t heard from you outside of school in weeks.”
Playing Barbie doll dress-up with her perfect, preppy best friend lost all of its appeal as agitation bubbled from the tips of her toes to the roots of her bedhead.
Inhaling a deep, controlled breath that would pave the path toward vengeance, she laid the foundational layer of bedrock. “I stayed overnight at Peter’s place.”
This kind of tidbit usually kept Andrea’s scandal tank on an unbudging ‘full’ for a week. But she shied away from her gossip queen title, downcast lashes and halo of nonchalance earning her a gold medal in indifference. “Did you sleep with him?”
Ryleigh’s eyes capsized in her skull. “Why does everyone think we’re sleeping together?”
“When two people love each other very much—”
“Shove it, Andy.”
“Who else mentioned it?” Despite her considerable stack of gowns, Andrea remained unflinching in pursuit of fully browsing the boundless selection.
No dressing room attendant in their right mind would have let her through the door with an entire runway in tow. Perhaps guilt had taken over the dress shopping in light of the obvious confrontation barreling toward her.
“My dad.” Those words rivaled the speed and damage of a lightning bolt, out of one’s mouth and into the other’s ears tinged with an accusatory malice. “Thanks for ratting me out.”
Andy’s frantic hanger flipping stilled.
“I didn’t rat you out, I just told him the truth: you weren’t at my house.”
“God, I can’t believe you. What happened to our figurative blood oath? We’re supposed to be in this high school survival thing together.”
“We were. Until you decided some 40-year-old guy who has absolutely nothing going for himself was more important than me.”
Invisible cinder blocks tied themselves around her ankles. Had she been that neglectful of their friendship?
“That’s not true.”
“Of course you’d say that. You can’t see anything past the animated hearts dangling in front of your eyes.”
Oh, how this day had devolved from the high note on which it had begun. She had awoken on Peter’s couch, wrapped in ephemeral bliss, only to be eaten alive by a hellmouth of social and familial problems.
Her chest hitched as if someone pinched the layers of skin sheathing her sternum. “Why are you being such a bitch?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Ry. Maybe because when I told you I broke up with my boyfriend you gave me a spacey comment for consolation. Maybe because you’ve ditched our Saturday movie night ritual for a month. Maybe because prom is the last big thing we’re doing together, and you don’t seem to be the least bit excited about it.”
“I’m not going to prom.”
The sun burned out in her golden complexion, giving way to uncomely sallowness. She replaced the dresses on the rack, each painstaking return of the carefully selected garments sparking greater indignation. “Then why are you even here?”
“To support you. I know I’ve been absent lately, and I’m sorry. I want to make things right between us.”
Andrea averted her iridescent copper eyelids as she turned on her heel in parting. “I think we’re past that point.”
Peter waited on
the side of the exhibition center, as per Ryleigh’s instructions. He made sure not to stray from the appointed post. If Dexter happened to see him, their carefully constructed cover would be blown.
Chatter ascended at the front of the building as students arrived. His nerves grew in conjunction with the steady uptick in volume. He and Ryleigh were embarking on an honest to God date.
A real date, where they dressed up and flaunted their not-quite-togetherness to the world.
The Bransons’ sleek, black SUV swung into the parking lot at eight past seven, joining the long line of cars crowding the designated drop-off zone.
He toyed with the keys in his pocket, sweat slicking his palm. Nausea asserted itself from the pit of his being, forcing him to rely on the wall for support. His introspection superseded the cement mixer he now had for a stomach; could they pull off the evening without a hitch?
Peter’s systems leveled out to homeostasis when Ryleigh rounded the corner, dressed to kill.
She ambled toward him in low heels, charcoal dress bouncing at her ankles, its billowing hem teasing but never touching the concrete. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
“Not at all.” He cleared his throat. Though he fought hard to concentrate on her face, his traitorous gaze wandered to the chiffon clinging to her curves. His heart did not skip a beat, it skipped three or four. Ten, perhaps. “Ryleigh, you look—”
Eyes tumbling toward the heavens, she offered mocking guesses. “Nice? Ready to seduce the flu?”
“Ah, no.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he dared, “You look beautiful. You are beautiful.”
She licked her lips to conceal a grin.
“Don’t make me cry, Rosenfeld. We haven’t even left the parking lot. I’ll kick your ass if you ruin my makeup.” Ryleigh performed circular gestures in front of her face. “I know your inherent masculinity precludes you from appreciating it, but this took an hour. 60 minutes. It’s basically the Mona Lisa of my cosmetic-wearing career.”
They fell into step as they crossed the lot to his car. He wanted to hold her hand but thought it unwise given the sheer number of people hanging around the entrance, some of whom were faculty of Victory Hills. People he may have very well been acquainted with through interviews.
Anxiety-inducing headlines rattled off his mind’s paranoia-powered printing press: ‘Local journalist seen snatching innocent girl from prom.’ ‘Cradle-robbing reporter can’t stay away from H.S. senior.’
The melodic clicking of Ryleigh’s heels on the asphalt soothed his overzealous concerns.
He unlocked the car and yanked open the driver’s side door, preparing to duck inside until he noticed Ryleigh staring with gathered eyebrows across the parking lot at a newly arrived couple. The girl wore an apricot dress and her date had coordinated his tie.
Oh, no. Do you see that look? She’s already regretting her decision to leave with you. You can fix this. Convince her to stay.
Peter deduced the girl must have been Andrea precisely as she said, “I told her they’d be back together by prom.”
“Do you want to go say hey? I can hang here.”
“No. No, I’m not ready for that.”
He got in the car and she followed his lead. But Ryleigh dove into the backseat rather than the passenger side. “You guys still aren’t talking?”
“Not since our fight in the middle of Nordstrom. During which, by the way, she said that you have absolutely nothing going for yourself.”
“That’s a relatively accurate assumption.”
The shrill whining of a zipper being pulled filled the cabin, followed by the chiffon scratching against itself, pooling in layers as she peeled it off her body. “I don’t really want to talk about Andy.”
Peter trained his eyes on the car parked in front of them, then the lamp posts lining the sidewalk, the temperature gauge. Anywhere but the rearview mirror, where he may have caught a glimpse of her sans the extravagant gown.
Incongruous emotions fenced one another amid the internal deliberation. He despised himself for wanting to look, yet found that he craved more of her with the passing of time.
Each second, Peter gained a greater understanding of her beautiful mind. On each occasion she bared her soul, he was tempted to lower the barriers enlisted by his ever-present worry and dissuasion.
Neuroticism had become his ultimate cockblock.
A rustling grocery bag, signaling the retrieval of her non-prom clothes, broke him out of his reverie.
“I think it’s adorable that you’re obviously trying to not look back here, but I don’t care if you watch me change.”
Five-alarm heat set his sunken cheeks ablaze. “I’d like to preserve whatever modicum of decency I have left.”
“Would it kill you to be indecent for an evening?” She imprinted a kiss on his cheek as she climbed over the console in a backless dress and dirty sneakers before collapsing into the passenger seat.
His fingertips ghosted over the smokey lipstick stain, pulse poised to combust in his tight throat. The plum pigment smeared on the pads of his fingers. Peter marveled at those smudges, the physical evidence of affection.
“Let’s go, paperboy.”
Ryleigh birthed a grin that set his soul on fire—because the magnificent display of joy was at the prospect of going out with him.
Peter made a questioning face at Ryleigh’s half-completed canvas. “Your palm tree looks like an overstuffed blunt.”
He embodied the casual but simultaneously cocky nonchalance of an artist, daring to paint in office wear, sleeves cuffed at his elbows.
The top button of his lavender dress shirt was undone, a comfortable middleground of emphasizing his pronounced collarbone while shielding the subject of self-consciousness that lay beyond the other buttons.
How Ryleigh craved to see, smell, and touch that part of him again. The cursed track lighting in the studio only further elevated his heartthrob status.
They perched on rickety metal stools donned in smocks. Ryleigh had taken off her shoes to create a free-spirited painting experience, and the instructor grimaced whenever he passed by, giving her naked feet a distasteful side eye.
The mustachioed gentleman avoided their station altogether when Peter joined in on the shoeless adventure.
“Thanks for the astute observation, Bob Ross. Your halfway decent art skills are ruining all the fun. Where’d you learn to paint?”
Dipping her brush into the emerald pool of paint on the plastic tray, Ryleigh tried to rectify the horrendously executed tree which should have gotten her permanently banned from any paint and sip establishment in New England.
If she had any forewarning of the venue for their outing, she would have cautioned Peter that nary an artistic bone resided in her body.
“Set design. I was a drama geek in high school, and before you slingshot a smart remark, I joined out of desperation, not genuine interest. There was this girl I liked, Sadie. I thought she’d be into me if I hung around her fellow thespians. Didn’t work out. At least I can paint a palm tree that doesn’t resemble something you’d find in Seth Rogen’s couch cushions.”
“Kendall was right, you are a dick.” A resigned sigh escaped from Ryleigh as she stared in defeat at the hopeless palm tree. She plucked up a fresh, fine brush and dotted dark brown speckles amid the sand. “So, I’m guessing you didn’t take Sadie to either of your proms, then?”
He had taken her to dinner ahead of their instructor-led class at the paint studio. And while technically they were not together, the properness of the date gave them some semblance of a real couple, a normal couple.
Though that thin illusion shattered each time Peter sipped from his merlot along with everyone else, while Ryleigh nursed a can of green tea and licked her wounds over having her faux adult status revoked.
“Prom is another thing that never worked out. I asked my lab partner senior year, and she agreed but then she stood me up the night of. I spent what would have been my prom drinking
rum in a rented tux on my bedroom floor. And dare I say, that pathetic anecdote just about sums up my lackluster existence.”
“What do you mean?” Ryleigh laughed.
“I mean, whenever I ask a girl out, something always goes wrong. It’s like a curse. My mother must have pissed off one of those palm-reading, love and relationship crackpots before I was born.”
“That’s a wildly unrealistic theory. And, in case it escaped your notice, we’re out on a date now. What’s happened?”
His hand came to rest on her bare thigh, blessing the flesh with a deliciously gentle squeeze that sent a shiver up her spine. A half-smile tugged at his thin lips. “The night is young, sweetheart.”
The abject sarcasm may have cancelled out the swoon-worthy usage of ‘sweetheart’ to anyone else’s ears, but Ryleigh had learned to take what she could get.
Their instructor commanded the room’s attention, demonstrating how to achieve the look of glistening water, but she tuned out his nasally self-important speech and turned inward. Plus, her painting had been rendered unsalvageable.
Sparkling water would not distract from the tropical horror she had splattered on this innocent canvas.
Her butt ached from sitting on the metal stool for nearly two hours. As she sat there, spaced out and rubbing her foot on the stool’s inner ring while the elitist instructor babbled on, it occurred to her that during their many talks, Peter gave no present-day insights, no mentions of current hobbies or hint of a social life.
Everything he mentioned lurked in the past. It was an odd thing to process, realizing she knew so little about this person who she felt she had known her entire life.
Ryleigh eyed him, appreciating the comical sight of someone his stature perching on one of the studio’s short stools. His face hovered close to the wet canvas while he applied white strokes to his sea of blue with the utmost precision.
“Peter, what do you do for fun?”
“I go to work, I come home, I sleep—and I do my best not to think about the time in between.”
Loving Rosenfeld Page 15