Outcast (20 page)

Now, see, we didn’t actually get to go on a date until a good month and a bit after graduation. Training had taken a turn for the worse now that we were aiming at moving targets. Of course, I turned out to be just as awesome at that as I was with shooting at non-moving targets, but the others…not as much. Wild Frank was just plain dangerous the way he just shot wildly in the air, and Lacy was back to being really hard on herself every time she made a mistake. Even the Alexander brothers were having trouble with it. Lunches at Etta Mae’s had become a lot more subdued, and I had the feeling people weren’t as keen on meeting up for practice now that it had become more like work and less like fun.

At least we got to practice more frequently now that school was over. Of course, this also meant we had to be extra careful, now that we were mysteriously absent from our usual lives more frequently. Lacy especially had to worry and was under some obvious strain now that her parents had decided to attend Commune every Wednesday and forced her to come along. Commune, from what Lacy described, had grown into a huge affair since the last time I’d attended. I wasn’t surprised. With the way some people spoke now in the town, using some of the same lingo I’d heard that night at the Commune in their everyday conversations, it was pretty obvious there was at least one person per family in town in attendance. Pastor Warren didn’t float every time, but he often did. Lacy said that when he would, everyone would collapse to the ground and bow low in honor of the angels. I said it sounded more like they were bowing low to him. Lacy said, “Damn right they are. And you know he loves it. He says he’s all “reveling in the Glory,” but the only Glory I can see is the one he’s created for himself.”

“Wires and stuff…” I muttered.

“Yeah, probably,” replied Lacy.

“Anyone actually looked into it?”

“Like who? The only people who’d be interested are the ones wasting every free moment missing targets,” replied Lacy, her voice lined with bitterness.

She was right. We couldn’t do everything. We just didn’t have the time to investigate Pastor Warren’s bullshit. And saving people at the Taking seemed way more important.

Anyway, it was also tough for all of us to meet at the same time, and since I was the leader and the best shot and teacher, I had to be there for every practice session, even when most everyone else could only make it half the time. Gabe came with me, though, and at first I’d kinda wished he wouldn’t. Ever since he’d asked me out I’d felt stupidly uncomfortable around him again, like back in the fall when we’d first been getting to know each other. But as the time passed, and the idea of a date seemed more and more just that and less something that would actually happen, I became more and more comfortable with him again.

And then.

And then it happened. We were into August, just a little over a week away from the Taking. It was like everything that we’d been struggling with suddenly decided to straighten itself out. Suddenly everyone was hitting moving targets. Even Wild Frank had realized that if he stopped waving his gun around and aimed, then he’d maybe hit a thing or two. We got so good that we started having little competitions, which I was never allowed to enter. I had no idea how it happened, maybe just muscle memory or something, but suddenly I had a team of crazy-good marksmen, who I imagined could give any professional sniper a run for his money.

You’d think this would be a good thing. And it was, for our purposes. But it was also a bad thing because suddenly, for the first time, we were okay. We didn’t need to practice quite as often, and it was Curtis’s idea that maybe we take the day off.

“Just one day, Riley,” he said, when I’d made to protest. “We need to recuperate. Re-charge the batteries.”

“Could use some of that,” said John, and Daniel nodded.

“I don’t think we should stop now, it’s too close…” I said.

“It’s one day,” said Father Peter. “Curtis is right. And it isn’t just about us. You’ve been here every single day solid for two months.”

“Everybody thinks that’s totally awesome, Riley. It’s almost inhuman,” said Lacy, adding her voice to the chorus. “But you need a break. Do it. For us.”

I stared at them all with indignation. How could they say that? We needed every single moment to prepare. I’d told them what Gabe had looked like before, how fast he’d moved. How hard it would be to shoot a non-angel in flight. And still they thought it was cool to take some time off?

Besides I didn’t need any time off. I felt good. I felt better than good. I felt energized, calm. More calm doing this than anything I’d ever done. It was the other stuff, the other…life…stuff that made me exhausted. This was more like meditation, emptying the mind…

But I guess they didn’t all feel that way.

“If that’s what you all want,” I said with a sigh, “fine, let’s take a day off. But just one day, okay?”

There were big smiles when I finally agreed, and I realized that it didn’t matter how awesome I was feeling, they needed this. It’d been a little selfish not to realize it.

We all started to pack up. As I was putting my mother’s shotgun back into the trunk of the car (I’d started bringing it only once in a while, so that she wouldn’t get suspicious), I heard Gabe’s voice in my ear.

“About time you got some time off. So, you and me, tomorrow night?”

Without looking up at him I closed the trunk and walked around to the door. “Sure, why not?” I said as calmly as possible.

“Thought you might have been using all this training as a way to avoid it.”

I laughed, a little too enthusiastically. “Of course not!”

“Good.”

I opened the door and got inside the car. “So, see you at home?”

“I’m gonna hang out with John for a bit, work on the place, but I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

“Cool,” I said and closed the door. My heart was going at such a rate I thought it might explode out of my chest.

I drove a little faster than usual to get to the house as quickly as I could. I replaced the shotgun in the gun cabinet and locked it up and then ran upstairs to my room dialing as I did. There was only one person I could think of who could help me in my current state. I just hoped she wouldn’t make fun of me too bad.

“Hello?”

“Lacy, I need your help.”

The general reaction to Riley going on a date was as big and ridiculous as I had imagined it was going to be. Lacy had squealed through the phone at a pitch probably only dogs could hear when I told her. My parents thought it was just the cutest thing ever, and I’m pretty sure I saw tears in my mother’s eyes.

I couldn’t sleep all night and avoided Gabe as much as I could during the next day. It really sucked living with the guy you were going on a first date with. Your first date ever with.

Lacy arrived around 4:00 p.m. to help me get ready, and I was really glad she did. The idea of putting together an outfit for this was making me feel physically ill. Which didn’t make sense, since Gabe had seen me in just about everything I owned already and had still decided to ask me out. It wasn’t like I needed to impress him or anything. Still. I kind of wanted to.

Lacy’d brought over several clothing bags worth of stuff, plus some makeup and hair product, and we set to work trying to find the perfect outfit.

Of course, this was going to be tricky as we had very different body shapes. She was skinny all over, and I was, well, not.

“I’m so jealous of your curves,” she said as she laid out some dresses on my bed.

“Don’t be. They make you look fat even if you’re not.”

“That’s just ’cause you don’t know how to dress them.” She took a step back to examine the different options, then grabbed a short purple dress with a little bow on the shoulder. “Try this.”

I sighed, slipped out of the dress I was wearing, and put it on. It was tight across the shoulders and bust, a little baggy at the waist and tight again at the hips.

“This is going great,” I said, and peeled it off quickly.

“First try. Don’t be so impatient. This takes time,” she replied.

Indeed it did. Lots and lots of time. I’m not sure exactly how many outfits Lacy had brought, but I’d seen her closet, and I imagined she’d brought most of it with her. It was exhausting putting on then taking off all the different options. I was reminded of why I hated shopping so much. The tiny fan in my room hardly helped keep the heat at bay, and I was turning into a sweaty mess. Maybe that’s why fashion models were so skinny. Who knew getting dressed could be such great exercise?

“We’re running out of options,” I said as I took off a sleeveless white blouse and short black skirt.

I knew Lacy understood that, but she just raised her hand to silence me.

“Lacy, this is pointless…maybe I should just wear one of my summer dresses.”

“You are not wearing one of those. That’d be like wearing your school uniform on a date, you wear them so damn often.”

“Lacy.”

She turned to me with her hands on her hips. “Riley. Trust me. Go shower. Time’s getting close. I’ll figure something out. Besides, I need you out of my hair anyway. Y’all are getting seriously annoying.”

I was too tired and hot to argue back. So I grabbed my towel and left her to her own devices. Taking a shower turned out to be a pretty good idea, actually. It was a nice break from trying on clothes, and I felt fantastic after. I took my time, standing under the showerhead and closing my eyes, letting the water cascade over me. For this brief moment, I felt relaxed again. If I couldn’t be aiming at moving targets, a shower would do for now, I supposed.

When I was finished I dried my hair with my towel, then wrapped myself up in it and headed back to my room. I was greeted by Lacy standing at the foot of my bed holding up a red dress on a hanger. She looked pretty pissed off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Riley, what is this?” she asked.

“A dress. My mother gave it to me for Christmas.”

“And you’ve had this in your closet the whole time we’ve been going through my stuff?”

“I guess.”

Lacy flung the dress onto the bed behind her, and threw her hands up into the air. “Oh my god, Riley. Do you know how much time we’ve wasted? Could you put on the gorgeous red dress now, please?”

“It’s not going to fit,” I said. “It’s too small.”

“It isn’t, trust me,” she replied, and sat down on the bed, crossing one leg over the other and raising an eyebrow at me.

I shrugged and sighed. Then I put on some underwear and a bra and slipped the dress over my head. I had to wriggle a bit to get it down around my hips, but finally it was on, and I turned to Lacy, and, imitating her, put my hands on my hips.

“Happy?” I asked.

Lacy furrowed her eyebrows and stared at me hard. Then her face opened up and she smiled.

“It’s perfect.”

“No, it’s not!” I replied with a laugh.

“Riley,” she said standing up and opening my closet to reveal the full-length mirror inside the door, “it is.”

I turned and looked. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, which was, well, me. The dress wasn’t too small after all. It had some stretch in the fabric that made it just right to cling to my torso but also accentuate my waist. The skirt had a slight A-line to it, not too much, but enough that it flowed gently out from my hips and off my thighs nice and loose so I could walk around easily in it. The neckline was almost square, except that, where the sides came up, they angled in a bit. I just loved the short little sleeves that Lacy had described as “capped”.

“It’s so totally vintage but not old-fashioned. Oh my god, Gabe is so going to love this. It’s so his era.” She passed me a thick black leather belt to finish off the look.

That’s probably why my mother chose the dress in the first place, I thought as I tied the belt around my waist. Of course, she didn’t know Gabe was from the 1950s, she just thought he looked like he was from then. That’s why she’d got him the James Dean jacket.

“It’s not bad,” I finally confessed, turning from side to side and examining myself in the mirror.

“Riley, you’ve got to start owning your looks, otherwise people are going to start to think you’re full of yourself.”

I looked at her and I realized she was right. I didn’t think I’d ever feel like I looked as good as she did, but the reflection in the mirror really wasn’t that bad.

“Okay,” I said.

Lacy smiled and then clapped her hands together. “Right! Time to get started on makeup and hair.”

I tried to memorize everything Lacy was doing to me. I’d never known how to take care of my hair, which wasn’t really curly or straight. But she had some kind of magic product that made the wave look like it was on purpose. She put a sparkly clip in my hair on the right side, but left the other side free. “To go with the 50s theme,” she explained.

My makeup she did really simply, a little liner around my eyes and mascara. I refused to let her use the eyelash curler on me. It just looked way too threatening. Then a simple gloss on the lips and she said I was good to go.

I put on my plain black leather shoes with the one-inch heel. Lacy didn’t like that, but in this she had no say. I needed comfy footwear if I was going get through this date.

The final touch was the necklace Gabe had given me way back on Valentine’s Day. Up until now I’d only worn it under my clothes, but this time I was going to wear it proudly for the world to see. It just seemed the right thing to do. Even if people raised an eyebrow or two.

Lacy certainly did as she helped me clasp it at the back. But she didn’t say anything, which I appreciated.

Then we took one last look in the mirror, and Lacy seemed awfully proud of herself.

“You look great. And there’s no way Gabe isn’t going to love this.”

I really didn’t want to think about Gabe. It didn’t even feel I was doing all this dressing up for him. It felt like something I needed to do for me.

Still.

He’d better like it.

I turned to Lacy. “I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

I took a deep breath. “I lied.”

“About what?” Lacy looked totally confused.

“About losing my virginity. I don’t know why I did it. I guess ’cause you noticed something different about me, and it was really because of all the stuff that had happened with Gabe, which I couldn’t possibly explain. And then you made the suggestion, and it seemed an easy way out…”

“Oh.”

“Please don’t be angry with me. I’m really sorry.”

“So you’re a virgin?”

“Yes. And this…this is my first date. Ever.” I felt both relieved and terrified to finally come clean.

I watched Lacy think for a second. Then she shrugged. “I get why you lied. It’s okay.” I could tell she wasn’t as “okay” with it as she claimed, but I believed her that she wasn’t upset with me. “Wow. This is your first date ever?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you even kissed a guy?”

“Once.” I didn’t want to mention Chris’s name, not right now. Not when I was trying hard to keep him out of my mind for tonight.

“Wow,” she said again. “No wonder y’all are all freaked out. This is a super big deal.”

I shrugged. Inside, I thought I was going to die.

I think Lacy could sense that because then she said, “Riley, don’t worry about it. Gabe’s a great guy. Y’all are friends, and he’d never try anything. He’s the perfect guy to go on a first date ever date with.”

“Okay.”

She placed her hands on my shoulders and looked me hard in the eyes. “It’ll be okay.”

“Okay.”

“More importantly…it’ll be fun.” She smiled.

I smiled. I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I wanted to. “Okay.”