She opens the front door and pushes me out. I stumble directly into Max.
“Bellissima!”
“Stop it. No Italian.”
He holds his hands up. “Sometimes only Italian will do. No one appreciates beauty like the Italians. There’s an old saying in Buenos Aires: ‘Porteños are Latin Americans who talk like Italians, act like the British, and think they live in Paris.’”
“Enough sweet talk. You have to go.” I push against his chest with both hands.
“You look so beautiful, Daisy. That dress was made for you. You were made for dresses. Why do you hide yourself in those pants all the time?”
“You noticed?” I shake my head. “No, you’re not lulling me in. I’m leaving.”
Sarika and Angie pull up, and I step back from Max. “Hi, gals. Everyone’s in back eating. The band is going to start any minute, and then the rest of the people arrive.”
“The luminaries look so pretty,” Sarika says. She’s wearing her full-length Indian sari in a canary yellow with silver and gold beading down the front.
“You look gorgeous, Sarika.” I look over at Angie, who’s dressed in a tailored sailor dress that fits her snugly and hugs all the right places. “You too, Angie!”
“Are we
Gossip Girl
?” Angie asks.
“How would I know? I can’t watch it either.”
Max opens the door for them, bowing at the waist. “She’ll be right with you.”
I try to act flustered with Max’s defiance, but the truth is, it’s hard to walk away from someone who seeks you out like he does. This would make a great life lesson about God if I weren’t spending my whole night totally pretending at a party that shouldn’t be happening.
“Go on, Max. Leave or come join the party. I’ll watch out for her.”
“For who?”
“Chase must have asked you about the . . . you know . . . for Greg. Maybe he’s tired of playing the gentleman with Claire. I’ll make certain nothing happens.”
Max frowns. “I’m not wrong. Is that what you think? You think I’m going to accuse someone of trying to buy a drug off me, which by the way is extremely offensive, as if all Hispanics are drug dealers!” He stops to let me assess the craziness of the situation. “Do you think I want to tell the girl I desire for myself that her crush thinks I’m a drug dealer?”
“I just meant Chase wouldn’t—” I stop. “What did you just say?”
“I know I look like a jerk. I get it. No one wants me here. You think it’s easy to stand out here on the porch, knowing no one wants me here? Ask yourself.” He holds me at the arms. “Why would I be here if it weren’t true?”
“You don’t look like a drug dealer. You look like an Argentine model who starred as Nacho.”
He offers the dregs of a smile and my heart breaks. I want to tell myself there’s nothing here, that I don’t feel anything for Max, but instinctively I know that isn’t true, and I feel every bit the betrayer. I had my mind set. Chase is my date. Chase is the man I’ve always loved, and yet, so easily, my heart could be swayed by another. What kind of true love is that?
“You’re trying to put doubt in my mind.” I bounce my finger at him. “I have to admit, it’s a very good plan, and it would probably work if I didn’t know Chase so well. I barely know you, Max. You’re a stranger to me.”
“You know him because he sat in the same school for all these years?”
“Precisely.”
He shrugs. “Then go back to your Prince Charming. I’m happy to be wrong, but he did try to buy the drug from me, and he did take it when offered.”
“Wait a minute. You gave him the drug?”
Max rolls his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you? Where would I get a roofie? I slipped him an unmarked Excedrin. If he puts it in your drink, it won’t melt. A roofie melts.”
My eyes narrow at him. “Thanks for the information.”
“I looked it up on the internet before I gave him the Excedrin. I didn’t know. I sell hot dogs.”
“I know that.”
“Go enjoy your party. You look incredible. I like”—he waves his hand over his head—“you know, the blonde. I’m probably not supposed to notice that, huh? It’s like a woman’s age. I have so far to go.”
I stand beside him, pausing for some unknown reason. “Max, come on. Come with me. You can teach us how to tango.” I grab his hand, and he pulls me closer, pushing me into tango pose, which causes me to giggle.
“You are not ready to tango. First, you must learn the steps. It’s a circle, then you move with intention.” He stretches out my arm. “It is all in the attitude. Look at me. Give me some attitude.”
I try to muster all the attitude I can, but I’m worried I look more like I have a stomachache.
He laughs.
“You are way too smooth for me, Max. Sophisticated. Isn’t that what you like to say? You are way too sophisticated for the likes of me.”
He starts leading me again in his dance. “Do you feel my right hand?” He places it on my upper back. “This is how I lead. You follow my hand—when I push, you turn.”
“Like a puppet?”
“Uh, no. A puppet has no intention. When you learn the steps, you follow my ‘chest intention.’ You won’t even need the hand.”
“I think this is illegal.”
“You have watched too much
Dancing with the Stars
. First you learn the steps. Right.” He pushes me backward. “Left, right, left, promenade.” I stumble over his foot. “Try again. Right, left, right, left, pivot.”
“I’m terrible.”
“You are, but you’ll get better. Give me some attitude. Slow, slow, quick, quick, pivot. Wrap your leg around the back of my knee.”
We try the dance again, and I end up hanging like a limp rag doll. He lifts me close, and my heart is pounding at his proximity. “You have to learn to trust your partner. If you don’t let me lead, it is not the tango.” He lets go of me suddenly. “I doubt your band knows any tango. I am not smooth, I am utterly entranced.”
“Stop it.” I giggle, my hands on his chest. The chemistry between us is natural, but not because he’s any more velvet teddy bear than the next guy. We get each other. “You’re going to stand out here on the porch instead of coming and dancing with me? That’s weird. You’re pulling a tantrum.”
“A what?”
“You heard me, you’re acting like a toddler who doesn’t get his way.”
He pushes me away. “Go to your party,
Bellissima
. I will throw no more tantrums.” He raises his hand. “If you don’t check in with me every hour on the hour, I’m coming to get you.” His black T-shirt stretches across his perfectly toned body, and I force my eyes away.
“When I met you that first day, you seemed so unsure of yourself, so happy to meet me as a friend. To be known. But that’s not you at all, is it? You were playing me.”
“Just because I do things differently doesn’t make me a dog. The truth will bear out, and unlike your friend, I can wait.” He leans against the brick wall, crossing his arms and his feet at the ankles.
“What are you studying when you get back to Argentina? Are you going to be the next Bruno Tonioli?” I ask, referring to the Italian, overly expressive judge on
Dancing with
the Stars
.
“Hasn’t Claire told you?”
“Believe it or not, you don’t fill our conversations.”
“I should.” He grins. “I’m going to be a pastor.”
My cheek muscles tighten. “You are not!”
“What is so funny about that?”
“We’re not allowed to dance in my church. You’re going to be a tango-loving pastor?”
“You cannot live in Argentina and not know how to tango. It is a national necessity, but my country, like yours, is in desperate need of revival.”
I back away from him. “My dad sent you. That’s why I can’t trust you. This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it?”
He holds his hand on his heart. “I pledge that I have never met your father. Other than that day he took the stage at school, and I don’t know, I wouldn’t call that a meeting.”
The front door opens. “Everything okay out here?” Chase stands there and grins. He came to my rescue. I gaze at him, then back at Max.
“Everything’s fine.”
Chase holds up a bottle. “I stole some bubbly from my dad. Come share with us. I thought we’d celebrate my future.”
“Where’d you get that?” I try to grab the bottle, but he whisks it away. “Chase, we said nothing illegal at this party.”
“Champagne isn’t illegal.”
“It is if you’re seventeen. Give me that.”
He shuts the door but winks at me first.
“Did you see that? That was the most cheese-ball move I’ve ever seen. He did not do that.” I pace the front porch. “I’ve got bugs crawling all over me.”
Max is laughing. “Next thing you know, you’re starring in a cheesy rock video and writhing around on the beach in your Christian bikini.”
“This is not funny.” I drop my head. “I’m a poseur. Look at this dress. I’m a poseur. I’ve got to go keep this party under control. You know, I always think I can handle Claire, but that’s not true. She always throws me a curveball.”
“That’s not Claire. That’s life, Daisy.”
I meet Max’s dark, serious eyes. If there’s deceit in them, I am blind to all of it. I can hear the party getting louder, but I’m not wooed by it. I’m more interested in knowing why Max came tonight. Why he’s willing to stay on the front porch, in the background.
“Do you think I’m not capable of handling things? Is that why you’re here?” I ask him in an almost accusatory tone.
“I’m here because God told me I should be. I suppose I’ll find out.” He raises his brows mysteriously.
“Maybe I should wait and find out with you.” I step a bit closer to him. “Do you think?”
He grins, and I feel warmed by his presence. Safe. “I’d be honored if you would.”
I sink to the porch steps and pat the bricks beside me. Max sits beside me, and I can feel his leg touching my own. We talk about everything, from international politics to our rap names, well into the evening. Time seems to stand still.
Kids come. Some I recognize, some I don’t. The night slips away quietly.
The roar of the party reaches a fever pitch, and I look at my watch. “Max, it’s midnight!” My dress catches on the brick as I pull myself away.
He shrugs. “Do you turn into a pumpkin now?”
“I said I’d watch out for Claire! I have to go check on her. How did it get to be so late?”
He looks out across the driveway and the massive parking lot that’s replaced the brick path. “I didn’t do a very good job as sentinel either. I’m sorry, I was supposed to help you.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine. I’m just going to check.” I run through the house, which is now a mess. There are pillows on the wood floors, popcorn kernels on the marble, and empty plastic cups everywhere. It’s like I’ve been asleep and I’ve suddenly awoken to a very bad nightmare.
Max and I talked about his dreams, my dreams, and the reality that stops them from coming true. He promised to pray for me. I promised to pray for him, but the underlying current between us made me question everything I’d thought to be true about Chase. What if I wasn’t meant to have one true love?
I feel a strong sense of calm and hear a resonant voice in my soul.
You
were
meant to have one true love, Daisy. It’s
not Max or Chase.
I hear it as though it were spoken directly to me, and I know my conscience is seething.
I walk through the house, opening all the closed doors. Sometimes I find couples clutched together; another room has a group of guys playing beer pong on a skateboard. “Get out of here!” I hear myself shout. They scatter like rats. In the giant foyer, someone has taken toilet paper and threaded it through the curved bannister, and it waves in the breeze from the front door. All I can think about is how laughable my perfectionism seems now. How void my vision of maturity currently seems.
The majority of kids are still in the backyard, and the band’s music forces the talking levels to screaming. At the sight, I know I have to call the police. I need help, and all I can think of is that joke about how you eat an elephant one bit at a time.
I scour the crowd, searching for Claire, but she’s nowhere in sight amid the throng of kids. The yard is massive, and yet it’s inundated with throbbing, sweaty bodies, some clad only in bikini tops and skirts—which is disturbing considering this is supposed to be a Christian party. Most of the guys are wearing screened T-shirts and skinny jeans or plaid shorts, but some of them—those with six-pack abs, it seems—are shirtless. The shapes and colors mix and swirl into a giant canvas of bodies. Bodies, I think with terror, I’ve never seen before in my life.
The grassy area is used as a dance floor, with the brick Tudor pool house serving as a stage for the band, which I’d describe as a mix of AC/DC and Jonas Brothers. I wonder where Claire found them—how any of this happened, really. It seems impossible that our small seedling of a party, in order to get noticed by our classmates, could have erupted into this. My eyes and ears will probably never recover, and the thought of having fun in this kind of chaos is ridiculous. All I can think about is Claire’s parents and the house they’ve worked so hard for, the precious treasures they’ve filled it with, and I feel so ungrateful. All the times they fed me, took me on family trips, and this is how I repay them—with a yard full of gyrating strangers.
The swimming pool in the middle of the yard is full as well, with people dancing to the beat in their own watercise class. The food in the outdoor kitchen and patio has been picked over, and there’s nothing left but bits of parsley and chicken bones, along with a banged-up keg next to the smoking barbecue. No sustenance.
“You made it!” Chase wanders toward me in a crisscross pattern, and I can’t tell if he’s drunk or pretending to be. The bottle of champagne is in his hand, and he lifts it in some kind of toast. Our
Gossip Girl
theme looks more like
Animal House
.
I clutch my BlackBerry in my hand. One call to the police and this will all be over. Claire will kill me, but that’s probably the best of my options. I close my eyes in the middle of the ruckus and pray for an answer, then Chase barrels into me clumsily. I push him off me.
“What are you doing?” I shout.
“Come on, Daisy. Let’s celebrate,” he slurs. “We’re going to be off to college and these lazy days of high school will all be over.” He whips the bottle around as he speaks. Something tells me it’s not the first one he’s emptied. “Well?” He comes close to my face, the sour smell of alcohol on his breath. “They’re all over. I get trained. I’m off to war and I might never see you again.” He nuzzles into my neck, looks up at me with his hazel eyes wide, and puckers his lower lip. “You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you, Daisy May? My sweet Daisy May Crispin. I love your name. It’s so sweet. Girl next door. But come on, Daisy. I bet you’re not so shy. Huh, Daisy?”