In Stereo Where Available (14 page)

“That’s sweet of you to say that.”

Ducking to check the top of the steak, Jerry cautiously let go of the oven-door handle and took a few quick steps across the kitchen to get a potholder from a drawer. As he passed behind me, I nearly jumped to feel his hand on my shoulder and the quick kiss that touched firmly against the back of my head. “It’s the truth,” he said.

Jerry was a good cook. He sliced the flank steak paper-thin and served it with homemade au gratin potatoes and green beans amandine and the salad. Just like last time, his house was spotlessly clean. His cats hid from me, one of them peering out from under the sofa with luminous green eyes as we ate dinner at his polished-cherry dining-room table. He poured Coke from a two-liter bottle into two blue-rimmed glasses nearly overflowing with ice.

“Pretend it’s wine,” he said.

I giggled and sipped my Coke, the ice bumping up against my lip. “You forgot to buy some?”

“No, I just act like an idiot when I drink, so I don’t drink.”

“Ever?”

“Nah. It’s been years since I drank anything stronger than coffee. I drank a lot in college. A lot.”

I set my glass down carefully. “Like…problematically?”

“It was starting to go that way. That’s why I stopped.”

“Sounds like the right thing to do.”

He nodded, crunching down on an ice cube from his glass. “Yeah. It wasn’t as hard as quitting smoking. That took me three years. Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.”

“No, come on. Why?”

“You just reminded me of something my roommate says.”

“What would that be?”

I dropped my gaze to my plate and picked up a piece of steak with my fork, folded like a piece of Christmas ribbon candy. “She says that people who eat ice are, you know, frustrated.”

He stopped chewing. “You mean like sexually frustrated?”

“Yeah. That’s what she says.”

He chuckled. “I do it all the time. I’ll have to remember not to do it in front of your roommate.”

“Oh, she already thinks we’re wrong for each other. She’s got a whole system that she uses to get dates off the matchmaking Web sites. Zodiac signs, zip codes, blood types, what kind of cars they drive. She keeps warning me. She says you’re all wrong.”

He crunched the last bit of ice that was still in his mouth and swallowed. “You don’t know my blood type.”

“What is it?”

“O positive.”

“See, I’m A positive.”

“Is that bad?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what the system is for that.”

His mouth twitched into a smile. “I think it’s perfect.”

At eight o’clock we sat down on the sofa with bowls of Moose Tracks ice cream, Jerry’s arm bumping against mine as we settled in. The green-eyed cat darted out from under the sofa and raced off to another room, a streak of white fur through the darkness. Jerry pointed at the TV with the side of his spoon as we watched one of the Yankee girls go out on a date with Rhett.

“Have you noticed you never hear him talk?” Jerry asked.

“Who, Rhett?” I swallowed my ice cream. “You do hear him, a little. Anyway, they’re trying to make him mysterious. Maybe whatever he says gives away if he likes the girl or not.”

Jerry shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“Well, what’s your opinion, then?”

“I think either he doesn’t have a Southern accent, or else he’s such a moron that it would break the whole Rhett Butler spell if you heard him say more than a few words at a time.”

“You think?” I considered the theory, letting a spoonful of ice cream melt in my mouth. “No, I really think it’s the mystery thing. Ashley does talk more, but none of the girls really wants Ashley. Rhett’s the one they want to keep us guessing about.”

I already knew from the teaser that tonight would be Madison’s date with Ashley. The date consisted of horseback riding through a park to a candlelit dinner under a tent with a harpist playing softly nearby. Madison had been riding horses since she was eight years old and was obviously thrilled at her good fortune, dressing in a tight pair of jeans and blousy white shirt that showed her lacy bra when the wind blew it against her skin. The camera caught lots of shots of her with her blond hair blowing around her face, her butt perfect in her stonewashed Levi’s, looking playfully over her shoulder at Ashley as he rode his horse behind her like Jefferson Davis inspecting the troops.

“Come on, slowpoke,” she called teasingly.

They settled down to a candlelit dinner under a romantic canopy in the woods. Madison managed to fake her way through a long conversation about film and poetry and art, lowering her chin to let the candlelight catch her eyes, shadows cast along her very expensive cleavage. She smiled adoringly. By the end, Ashley actually seemed to like her.

I turned to Jerry. “She’s a better actress than I thought. It almost looks like she likes the guy.”

“She’d better be careful,” he warned. “She keeps that up, she might end up having to marry him.”

“What happens if both Rhett and Ashley pick the same girl?”

“Can that happen?”

“Yeah, I suppose. The way it works is that the girls try to vote out the ones they think are the biggest threat, and once it’s down to four girls, Rhett and Ashley pick the ones they like best.”

Jerry looked thoughtful. “Maybe they’ll fight a duel,” he offered.

“That could be fun. My money’s on Rhett.”

“What if they don’t like
any
of the four girls who are left?”

I shrugged. “Maybe they can both put the diamond rings behind their backs and ask each of the girls to pick a hand.”

As we watched Madison and the rest of the Yankees lose the vase-throwing immunity contest and send a Wisconsin girl home, I snuggled up to him and nuzzled my nose against his neck. I felt him smile, and when I pulled my face back, he kissed me lightly on the lips.

“You ready to call it a night?” he asked.

“In a minute.” I caught his cheek with my index finger to turn his face back toward mine. “We both get to sleep in tomorrow, remember? Friday’s a holiday.”

“I didn’t forget.”

“So there’s no rush.”

He smiled patiently. “Long day for both of us, though. All the family stuff.”

“Are you tired?” I had my hand on his thigh, but he didn’t move.

“Kind of, yeah. Driving to Lusby and back. It’s a long hike.”

I took my hand off his leg and turned my face away. He’d made his point. “Well, I guess I’ll get going.”

“What’s the matter?”

I shoved my feet into my shoes. “What makes you think something’s the matter?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, God. Here we go.”

“Here we go, what?” I grabbed my parka from the floor and shrugged it on.

“The ‘I make you read my mind and then I bitch you out’ game. I’ve played this one before.”

“Not with me, you haven’t.”

“Phoe-be,” he grumbled, drawing out the syllables. “How could I have done something wrong without either talking or moving? Come on.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re tired. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I was doing what I could to avoid storming out in a full-blown huff, because that wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t feel the same way about me as I felt about him. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t interested in kissing me. Actually, it was, but I was determined not to address the subject until I was safely out of the house. Then I’d go home and scrawl it all in my journal, filling it with four-letter words that didn’t include “love.”

“Can you at least give me a hint?” he asked, following me to the door. As I pulled it open, the chilly air rushed in, sending his cats scurrying for the heaters.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“You’re doing this just to torture me.”

True enough. I turned my face upward and gave him a peck on the lips. “I’ll call you.”

He sighed and leaned against the door frame as I brushed past him, then hurried through the darkness to my car.

On Thursday night I woke from a deep sleep to the sirenlike ringing of the phone beside my bed. I fumbled for it and knocked it off the hook, then nearly fell off the side of the bed as I scrambled to pick it up from the floor.

“Hello?” I mumbled.

“Phoebe, it’s me. I need you to come get me. I’m at school.”

I blinked and tried to read the numbers on my clock radio. “Alexa? It’s after midnight.”

“I know that. Listen, I really need your help. I’m sort of stuck.”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Did Dad forget to pick you up?”

“No, I mean
really
stuck. Like, literally. I’m in the third-floor science lab and the door slammed shut, and now I’m sort of—”

“What are you doing in the science lab at midnight? Hold on a sec. Didn’t you have today off?”

“Yeah, of course I did. We were just sort of visiting the lab rats.”

“Visiting
the lab rats?” I shoved the covers down to the end of the bed and plunked my feet onto the floor. I was wide awake all of a sudden.
“Releasing
them, you mean?”

“Well, they were doing all these behavioral tests on them in Allie’s AP psychology class, and it just wasn’t fair, Phoebe. Like all that running around just to
get food
, even. It’s barbaric.” She dropped her voice down a level. “Can you get us out?”

“You want me to break into your high school and rescue you from the science lab,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“You don’t have to break in. The back door is unlocked. Like, by the gym.”

I moved the phone away from my head long enough to pull on a sweater. “Does Dad know where you are?”

“No. I snuck out.
Please
don’t call them, Fee. I’ll be grounded
forever
. Promise you won’t say anything to anybody.”

“No.” I pulled on my jeans and snapped them closed. “How am I supposed to get you out, anyway? What do you think, I just have some kind of magical teachers’ key that opens every classroom door in the world?”

“I dunno. You’re the teacher. You’re supposed to be smarter than me. Listen, can you bring a cardboard box or something? These stupid rat cages weigh about a zillion pounds. I don’t know how we’re ever going to get them down the stairs.”

Somewhere between when I merged onto the Beltway and when I reached the Kensington exit for the second time that day, it occurred to me that while I didn’t have the magical teachers’ key to Kensington High School, Jerry did. It was twelve thirty when I pulled up in front of his house; naturally, all of the windows were dark. Alexa would probably be safer if I just left her in the school all weekend. If I got my hands on her, I’d kill her.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Jerry’s home number. He answered on the second ring, sounding groggy. I cringed and started explaining.

“So now I need to try to get her out, and I know it’s late and I’m really sorry, but—”

“It’s no problem. Where are you, on the Beltway?”

“Actually, I’m in your driveway.”

There was a pause. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Uh, no.”

The shade went up on his bedroom window, and he peered down at me. He had the cordless phone up against his ear. I waved. He waved back and laughed.

“I’ll be down in a second,” he said.

He opened the front door for me, and I stepped into his darkened living room. He wore pajama pants and a T-shirt, along with his glasses. I’d known that he wore contacts, but I’d never seen him in glasses before. They gave him a nice intellectual look, even in his pajamas. He set them down on the arm of the sofa and turned his back to me to pull off his T-shirt. I started to look away, but caught a glimpse of the tattoo on his back and stared. It was a cobra that covered his entire left shoulder blade. He popped his head out of the top of his clean T-shirt and grinned at me.

“You checking out my ink?” he asked.

I laughed self-consciously. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

“That’s the biggest one I’ve got. The other ones are a lot smaller.” He put his glasses back on. “Stay here a sec. I need to get my jeans out of the dryer.”

We got into my car and drove out to the high school, parking across the street out of concern that a lone car in the school parking lot would attract attention. I followed Jerry past the bleachers and around to the back of the gym. The football field was wet with rain and soggy brown leaves, and our sneakers made squishing sounds with each step. A light misting rain had begun again, catching in Jerry’s hair and on the back of his shoulders in a fine spray. His back looked broad and solid in the dim light, and I was glad to have him with me. As he mucked through the field, I tried to picture him as a hard-partying head-banger, a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The image didn’t work, and that made me feel somehow relieved.