Scary Cool (The Spellspinners) (23 page)

“I’d like that,” I told
Tres
.

And just like that, boom. I had a date.

Nonny
was
French braiding the hair along the sides of my head
. We were both nervous, but for slightly different reasons. Neither of us had pictured Zara’s First Date as being with
Tres
Palacios
. But life is full of surprises.

“I wish you were double-dating with Meg and Alvin,”
Nonny
said, for maybe the twentieth time.

“Meg doesn’t feel like sharing Alvin,” I said. “I’ll be fine with
Tres
,
Nonny
. Really.”

Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “Don’t break his heart,” she warned. She was only half kidding. “I need him at the nursery.”

“I know you do.”

And I need
Tres’s
friendship. I don’t exactly have a lot of friends. But I didn’t say that, because
Nonny
seems to feel guilty about it—as if my
friendless state
is her fault. True, she kept me pretty much hidden during my childhood, but under the circumstances that was probably a good thing. It’s easy to imagine little Zara wreaking
spellspinner
havoc at some kid’s birthday
party—which is doubtless why she
never
took me to
birthday parties
.

Meanwhile, I was sixteen
, not six,
and about to go to Homecoming
with
a real, live boy. A boy wh
o was three years older than me
and
not in high school anymore—
but as I had reminded
Nonny
repeatedly during the past few days, that was the whole point of Homecoming. The grads returned. Like zombies
from the grave
, according to Meg
. H
a, ha.

Needless to say, I didn’t share
that joke with
Nonny
. She was already spooked by the idea of me going out, even
with
Tres
.
Maybe especially
with
Tres
. It was hard to tell.

“The braiding looks nice,” I told her. “Elegant.”

“So grown up.”
Nonny
sighed. “You look beautiful, honey.
I wish I had a string of pearls or something to loan you.
”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not the prom
, you know
. It’s just Homecoming.”

I kept telling myself it was no big deal. And I kept trying not to think of Lance, who had not spoken to me
since our falling-out over Amber
. He hadn’t come to school and I didn’t care one bit. Not one bit.
Good riddance, I thought. Who needs him? I thought. I hope I never see him again, I thought.

Yeah, right.

I was so busy not thinking about Lance that I almost missed
Tres’s
arrival.
It was
Nonny
who called my attention to it—by uttering one of her trademark retro exclamations: “Jiminy crickets!”

I joined her at the window to see what was so amazing. And I have to admit, I was pretty amazed myself.
Tres
had parked a
big
black Lincoln in our driveway and was walking toward the house wearing a suit. Neither of us had ever seen
Tres
in a suit. He was surprisingly impressive.
And he was carrying a corsage in a clear plastic box.

Okay,
s
o much for Homecoming not being a big deal. It was obviously a big deal to
Tres
.

And deep inside, I
was mourning the fact that the foots
teps climbing the porch stairs…
th
e finger pressing the doorbell…the boy waiting outside for me…
was
anyone other than
Lance Donovan.

I swallow
ed
hard and put that thought sternly aside.
Wholesoul
isn’t everything, I reminded myself. I might feel connected to Lance
for the rest of my life
and
still
choos
e to spend my life without him.

Tonight I would try that concept on for size—and try very hard to make it fit.

Nonny
shooed me back upstairs. She wanted to
open the door and call me, so I could make an entrance. I was wearing a
slinky, silky, dressy
wraparound thing
like nothing I’d ever worn before.
And in a daring color, for me: violet. The color drew attention to my eyes, but when I chose it I thought that wouldn’t matter because it also drew attention to portions of my anatomy
that a boy might find more interesting
. But now
I was half af
raid I looked ridiculous in it.

The
ex
pression
on
Tres’s
face when he saw me made me laugh, but it made me feel good too, in an embarrassed sort of way. Because he
clearly
didn’t think I looked ridiculous.

Nonny
waved
a camera at us. “You kids look great,” she said. I groaned. “Humor me,” she said. So we did.
Tres
slipped the corsage onto my wrist
and
we
stood in the arch between the parlor and the dining room and smiled while
Nonny
snapped. I felt funny about holding
Tres’s
arm, but I did it. He looked good and he smelled good and his arm muscles felt strong beneath my fingers. It was unsettli
ng to see him in this new light, but
kinda
fun too.

I briefly wondered
whether I’d ever see
Lance
dressed to the nines .
But I pushed that thought firmly out of my head
, s
colding myself for thinking about Lance yet
again.
I swear, it’s like being haunted.

I smiled at
Tres
and walked with him to the car. He opened the door for me and I sank into the upholstery, sniffing appreciatively. “New car,” I commented as he slid behind the wheel.

He gave
me a
sideways
smile that was almost shy. “It’s my uncle’s,” he said.

“Nice.”

As
Tres
backed his uncle’s car carefully down our crunchy gravel driveway, I gave one last wave to
Nonny
. She was standing in the front door, watching us, and waved back.
Maybe it was a premonition, and maybe i
t was what they used to call a Kodak moment…
but it was
an image that, even as I saw it, I knew would stay with me always. I could feel it
tattooing itself on
my brain
. It brought
a lump of nostalgia (for want of a
better word) into my throat.
Nonny
,
standing in the
open door with the porch light showing me her
smile
and the warm
lamplight of home behind her
…
as I
slipped away
, backwards, pulled
into the night
.

Goodbye,
I thought.
Goodbye.

Which was really stupid, right? I was just going to a dance. But suddenly I was glad we had taken all those silly pictures.
Life’s a fleeting thing, after all.

The Lincoln
glided through the night like a ghost. I couldn’t help thinking it was a senior citizen’s car—you
know, big and slow and
boatlike
.
I barely felt the
spellspinner
shield when we
floated through
it and wond
ered if that was because the cabin
was
smotheringly
comfortable.

I hoped that was
it. Because the alternative was that
the shield was weakening.

Which, of course, is exactly what I expected to happen once Lance stopped helping me.

I turned my head and stared into the
darkness
through the passenger window, hiding my expression from
Tres
. I didn’t want him to see that I was scared, and I
sure
didn’t want him to see that I was sad.

And
then
it hit me like a ton of bricks:
I had to come up with some excuse to
not let
Tres
drive me home!

I hadn’t even thought about that until this moment.
What a dope!
Even if
the shield
was weaker than it had been—and I couldn’t be sure that it was—
it
would
mess me up
if I hit it coming from the other direction.

After my fight
with Lance, I
perfected a
shield-crossing
technique to get me home
from school
: I
ride
my bike close to where
I kno
w
the shield crosse
s
the road,
get off, walk
the bik
e with one hand out until I feel
the invisible wall, then give
the bike a shove so it sails
thro
ugh on its own. The bike
go
es
about ten feet and fall
s
over.
At which point
I
skatch
past
it,
turn around,
pick it up and move on.

This works beautifully as long as there i
s no one around to
see me do it.
But what excuse could I give
Tres
for having him drop me at the top of Chapman Road?!

Oh, well, I thought. Guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Now my
palms were damp
. I surreptitiously rubbed them on the plush seat cushion.

I
don’t know why i
t was awkward to make conversation with
Tres
-in-a-suit
, but it was
. I kept sneaking little glances at him, marveling at how different he seemed. Sometimes my little glances caught him sneaking little glances at me. After the third time this happened, my nerves got the better of me and I
giggled
.
So
Tres
grinned, and that broke the ice.
Sort of.

“It’s like I don’t even know you,” I confessed. “I’m sitting here, like, who
is
that guy?”

“Same guy,” he said. “Maybe you never really looked at me before.”

I felt myself blushing. Because he was right
; I’ve never looked at him
—at least not the way he wants me to. A
nd—sorry
,
Tres
—I never will.
But
when he said that,
my anxiety
cranked into
hype
rdrive
because I really, really don’t want to hurt my buddy
Tres
. And I was afraid my blush would give him the wrong idea.
Plus I had just
giggled
, of all things.

So
now
I
got all tongue-tied
because I was embarrassed about the blushing and the giggling.

And then I had to really w
orry, becaus
e being tongue-tied
and
blushing
and
giggling was totally the wrong direction to take this scene.

I really suck at this boy/girl stuff.

“This means a lot to me, Zara.”
Tres’s
voice was so soft I could barely hear him. “Taking you to Homecoming.”

“Um,” I said. Miss Eloquence. My brain raced to try to think of something I could possibly say in reply to that. Came up empty.
None of the obvious responses—like,
Gosh,
Tres
, it means a lot to me too
—were true. So I said nothing.

I have never been so glad to pull into the school parking lot.