Even though one part of me knew I was being paranoid, that there was no way someone was outside plotting how to hide my body in a shallow grave in the woods, there was the other part that had been influenced by way too many Friday nights watching cheesy horror movies on TV with Lucy and Josie. So I usually kept on as many lights as possible without making it too obvious that I was hoping a few hundred-watt bulbs would deter a homicidal killer.
After I tucked Sophie in bed and read her a story, I went back to the family room and flipped on the TV. But I wasn’t about to kick back and watch the E! True Hollywood Story on the Olsen twins. I had work to do. I had the guide.
I took the brown notebook out of my backpack and prepared to write about turning our lists of tips and suggestions into tangible results. There was only one problem. I’ve never been someone who bought into that whole diary/journal thing. When I was seven my mom bought me a diary for my birthday and I loved holding the little gold key in my hand and coming up with new hiding places. Of course, I was also so good at hiding the key that eventually even I forgot where it was. But by then it barely mattered. I’d completely lost interest. My entries were always more along the lines of “today I had tuna on wheat for lunch” than hidden yearnings. And even though I tried journaling years later when it seemed everyone was filling blank white pages with poetry and sketches of unicorns, my journal started off with “I think my jeans looked good today” and went downhill from there.
But if the guide was going to be turned into my personal journal for the next few months I had to begin somewhere, and my lunch with Luke in the parking lot at Sam’s was as good a place as any to start. Admittedly, there wasn’t a ton to write about, but at least I could explain how my attempts to complete step one were progressing. And they were progressing, if I did say so myself. Ever since Sam’s, Luke was way more friendly, even waiting for me by our lockers yesterday so we could walk to English class together. He didn’t attempt to hold my hand or anything like that, but I didn’t take it personally. I couldn’t expect Luke to change over night, even if it would make my job a lot easier if he did.
It had been almost three years since I last babysat for the Brocks, and I thought that the strange noises and weird rattling in the basement wouldn’t freak me out anymore. And I was right. To a point. I could rationally explain away any creak or squeak in the house, and when I noticed a set of headlights coming up the driveway, instead of freaking out that my killer had borrowed a car, I thought maybe the Brocks had decided to come home early or something. I was even collecting my coat and about to stuff the notebook into my backpack when the doorbell rang. And that’s when I knew something wasn’t right. Nobody rings their own doorbell.
Instinctively I reached for the phone and then stopped, just like those TV shows where they freeze the action right before cutting to a commercial. This was when I used to call my dad, but my dad wasn’t at our house. He was back in Chicago, and that meant I couldn’t call him. My mother’s Babysitting Etiquette Lesson #4: No long-distance phone calls.
I sat there trying to figure out what to do as the bell continued to ring like bad background music in a horror movie. Wasn’t this when you usually see the babysitter get up and go into the kitchen for a butcher knife? That option didn’t really seem like an option at all. In those movies the babysitter always ended up with the knife in her back and the telephone cord wrapped around her neck.
So instead of trying to come up with a weapon, I slid off the couch, crouched down, and tiptoed to the front door, careful not to pass by the front window just in case it was really a serial killer, albeit one polite enough to ring the doorbell.
When I reached the front door, I slowly stood up, easing my eye toward the small circular peephole, the entire time hoping the Brocks just forgot their keys. But when I got there it wasn’t Mrs. Brock. Instead, a single large brown eye was staring back at me, and before I could stop myself I let out a noise that was more strangled poodle yelp than scary movie scream.
“It’s me,” the eye yelled through the door.
This time when I looked through the peephole, the eye had moved back and I could see the head it was attached to.
I unlatched the deadbolt and threw the door open—almost grateful for the familiar face, but also slightly pissed off.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, smoothing some loose hairs back into my ponytail. As if that was the worst of my problems. Who’d notice a few stray hairs when I wasn’t exactly dressed to thrill in sweatpants and a ratty long-sleeved Martha’s Vineyard T-shirt. And instead of smelling like some fabulous perfume, the only thing I reeked of was ChapStick.
“I was just in the neighborhood,” Luke told me, coming in without waiting to be asked. “Your brother told me where you were.”
I watched as Luke took off his coat, made his way to the couch, picked up the remote control, and started flipping through the channels like he’d been here a million times. And maybe he had. Who knew which hot high school girls had been babysitting for the Brocks in my absence?
“Look, you can’t stay,” I warned him, standing in front of the TV to block his view. Had Luke not heard me say that I shouldn’t have uninvited guests? Besides, in addition to looking less than stellar, Luke completely caught me off guard. I needed time to psych myself up for my encounters with Luke. I couldn’t be expected to just wing it. Especially not when I was wearing TJ’s sweatsocks.
“I can’t stay?” Luke looked slightly confused. “Why not?”
“You have to go,” I repeated. “I’m not supposed to have company.”
“Look, there’s nothing to worry about. They’re not going to come home anytime soon; it’s only eight o’clock.”
I made a mental note to add this to the list of annoyances: Do not think that you know better than I do just because you don’t like what I know.
I was about to tell Luke that this was a non-negotiable issue when I saw it. The guide. Luke was sitting about six inches from my backpack and the notebook that contained a two-page description of our lunch at Sam’s, ketchup-stained chin and all. And that’s when it occurred to me that instead of trying to block the TV with my ass, I should be using this unexpected, and somewhat unwelcome, opportunity to my advantage. The Brocks weren’t due home for at least another hour. Instead of arguing, I should be gathering material for the guide. And maybe running upstairs to see if Mrs. Brock had a little makeup I could borrow.
“Okay, but just for a little while.” I moved away from the TV, deciding to give Luke a half hour, strictly for the benefit of our little experiment. “So, what are you doing here?”
Luke didn’t seem to understand my question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why aren’t you at Curtis’s party with everyone else?”
“You told me you were babysitting.”
“I also said I shouldn’t have visitors while I was babysitting.”
Now Luke looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “Yeah? So?”
“Did you not understand that I meant you shouldn’t come over while I was babysitting?” I repeated, realizing I sounded more than a little testy. I immediately softened the tone of my voice. “No big deal. I guess you just didn’t hear me.”
“No, I heard you. I just didn’t think you were serious.”
“Why would I say it if I wasn’t serious.”
Luke considered this for a minute. “I guess I just thought you were saying that to see if I would come over. When I called your house your brother gave me the address like you were already expecting me or something.”
“TJ knows the address because he’s been here a million times, not because I told him to send you over.”
“So you meant it?” Luke still didn’t look like he believed me.
“Yes, I meant it. Why would I say it if I didn’t?”
“Because you guys say things like that all the time, and don’t mean it.”
By “you guys” I assumed he meant “you girls.”
&
nbsp; I was about to tell him he obviously knew nothing about “us guys,” when it dawned on me that while I was having this inane conversation with Luke, the rest of our senior class was at Curtis’s party. Which meant that Luke didn’t just call my house to talk to me (score one), he’d also ditched Curtis’s party to come to the Brocks’ and see me (score two). Sure, maybe he thought he had a better chance of getting in my pants in an empty house than at a party, but he was still here. With me. And, from the smell of shaving cream wafting from his direction, he’d shaved. Maybe even showered. So he was trying to impress me. And that meant that my attempt to successfully conclude step one was actually working.
Somehow, I was doing it. And if Luke was on his way to believing that I liked him, if he was on his way to really trusting me, than that meant I should be doing more than blocking the TV so he couldn’t watch Cops. I should be moving on to step two.
But first things first. I went over to the couch and removed the backpack and notebook from his reach. Now I just had to get them out of the room.
“Do you want something to drink?” I offered, ever the congenial hostess. My mom would be proud. “I think they’ve got some Sprite in the refrigerator.”
Luke nodded. “Sure.”
I turned to go into the kitchen and became acutely aware of Luke’s eyes following me. All of a sudden I wondered if there was a jiggle scale for rear views, too. Not that my ass was that bad, but gray sweatpants didn’t exactly present my assets in the most flattering light. I turned around and faced the TV, pretending to be captivated by a shirtless, handcuffed guy in a trailer park as I walked the rest of the way backward into the kitchen.
The cabinet where the Brocks kept their glasses was empty, and I was about to open the dishwasher to look for a clean glass when I noticed Sophie’s macaroni-and-cheese–encrusted My Little Pony cup in the sink. There were probably eight adult-size glasses in the dishwasher without cartoon characters, but I didn’t go looking for them. Instead, I washed the remaining chocolate milk out of the plastic cup and filled it with Sprite. Watching Luke Preston drink out of a My Little Pony cup complete with an attached pink Krazy Straw in the shape of a horse’s head was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Cool Luke Preston drinking out of a plastic cup with pastel-colored ponies on the side. He’d be mortified. And I’d have my chance to transition to step two by teaching Luke a thing or two about being gracious, even if what he was gracious about was a six-year-old’s plastic cup.
I couldn’t help grinning as I carried the cup over to Luke.
“Here you go.” I handed him the Sprite and waited for his reaction, a snide comment or eye roll that was meant to tell me there was no way Luke Preston was going to drink out of a My Little Pony cup. Then I’d have to explain that this wasn’t a restaurant, I wasn’t a waitress, and he should just say thank you for the effort and drink the damn Sprite. But Luke didn’t say anything. Instead, he just took the cup and didn’t seem to care as much as I thought he would. Maybe he was just really thirsty.
So much for Luke’s first lesson.
“So, you really didn’t want me to come over?” he asked again.
I shook my head. “No, I really didn’t want you to come over.”
Luke smiled.
“Why do you think that’s funny?”
“Because I can’t figure you out.”
“Am I that perplexing?”
“Maybe.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you didn’t throw a shit fit when I didn’t show up at the dance. And you didn’t tell me not to come over tonight just to test whether or not I would.”
Maybe the night wasn’t a total loss. Maybe I’d be able to teach Luke a few things after all. “Well, first of all, I’d just like to say that, while I didn’t throw a fit about you not showing up at the dance, it was still a pretty rude thing to do,” I told him, putting step two into action: guide Luke in the right direction. “Why do guys say they’re going to do something if they’re not? It’s just like when a guy says he’s going to call and he doesn’t. I mean, really, what’s the point?”
I hadn’t expected Luke to give me an answer, but he offered one anyway. “Because, at the time, we think we will. Or, if I really don’t think I’ll call, I don’t tell you because you’ll just get mad.”
“Well, it’s not like not calling makes us any less mad.” I sat on the arm of the sofa and attempted to process what Luke was telling me, trying to make logical sense out of something that was completely illogical. “So what you’re saying is, you’d rather us get mad later rather than then and there?”
“No, we’d rather you didn’t get mad at all. But if you are, I’d rather take my chances.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, beginning to wonder who was the teacher and who was the pupil. “That’s insane.”
“Not any less insane than when you say something you don’t mean.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Luke took a sip of his Sprite while he thought about it. “Like when Josie told me she didn’t care if I got her a Christmas present or not.”
“How do you know she really did care?”
“Because one minute she tells me I don’t have to get her anything, and the next minute she’s pointing out some necklace in a Tiffany catalog her mom got in the mail.”
“Maybe she just liked the necklace,” I suggested.
“Please. She expected some huge present but she wouldn’t come out and say that. Instead it was like she was testing me to see what I’d do. She may have a ton of money, but I don’t. And even if I did, I wouldn’t spend it on some useless necklace.”
I felt a tinge of disloyalty talking about Josie like this. Even though she had no problem talking about how annoying Luke was, she’d never mentioned how she acted while they were going out. I had Josie’s side of the story, and here was an opportunity to hear Luke’s. And, despite myself, I wanted to hear it. I wanted to know more about what went wrong with them. Maybe it would help me figure out what went wrong with Sean. “Is that why you sent Josie a breakup email? Because you didn’t want to get her a present?”
“She made me feel bad about the present thing, but that’s not why. We just weren’t having fun anymore.”
I was about to tell him that maybe a relationship wasn’t about having fun, but I stopped myself. Even I knew that was ridiculous. Besides, instead of debating whether or not Josie expected Luke to drop a significant amount of cash on a present wasn’t going to get me where I needed to go. And where I needed to go was on to step two.
If Luke was going to be here with me, I had to make good use of our time. And that meant he was going to go home knowing that 1) you call when you say you’re going to call, and 2) you don’t rely on AOL to do your dirty work.
“Maybe she was being unreasonable, but you should have told her in person instead of over the Internet.”
“Are you kidding me? If I don’t want to say I won’t call, can you imagine how I feel about breaking up with someone?” Luke grinned and he almost got me to grin, too. Luckily, I caught myself.
“So you took your chances?”
“Exactly.”
I had a hard time believing that Luke was anything more than a coward who wanted to take advantage of the fact that Josie was on some Caribbean island while he was back here thinking about all the girls who would be at Owen’s party. Besides, in Luke’s world, Sean wasn’t being a complete dick when he broke up with me the morning I moved. In fact, he was actually quite brave. Luke would probably think Sean deserved some sort of medal of honor for actually showing up and telling me in person. But I knew the truth. Sean was no better than Luke, even if he did get out of bed on a Saturday morning and trek to my house in the freezing cold. With my family waiting in the cab to go catch our flight, there wasn’t a whole lot of risk I’d freak out on him then and there. So, in a way, he gets credit for being honest but without the consequences. Quite well-planned, now that I thought about it. So wel
l-planned, in fact, that I had to wonder if Sean knew he wanted to break up with me long before he actually uttered the words.
This conversation was getting me nowhere. Maybe I was trying to move onto step two too quickly. Maybe I had to go back to step one and continue earning his trust.
I moved over onto the couch next to Luke and watched as he continued to flip through the channels. I probably should have asked for the clicker and suggested he give me a turn. But we’d already covered a few corrective issues and I didn’t want to overload the guy all in one night. There was probably only so much he could process—especially while concentrating on a hundred-and-nine cable channels.
It didn’t take very long before Luke reached for my hand and laced his fingers between mine without ever once taking his eyes off the TV. For some reason I thought his hand would be sweaty or rough or something equally unappetizing. But his skin was warm and surprisingly soft for a guy. Sean would get calluses on his fingertips from holding the football, and his cuticles were always kind of ragged and peeling. It could get quite gross, especially toward the end of the season.
Once he settled on a show, Luke let go of my hand and draped his arm over the back of the couch cushions in a move that was so transparent as to almost be funny. But I didn’t say anything, and instead, I let his arm slowly fall down the back of the couch until it was resting on my shoulder. This was step one in action.
“You smell nice,” Luke said, his face moving closer to mine.
I knew I was probably the billionth girl Luke had said that to, but still, I sort of wanted to believe him. Maybe he had a thing for ChapStick. “Thanks.”
The Book of Luke Page 12