Oh my God. I almost stumbled down the stairs.
Foster. I wanted Foster? Really?
I was pinning my hopes on Beelzebub?
I grabbed the rail to slow myself down. It didn’t really matter who I wanted to be waiting in the foyer. Whoever was down there was down there already.
I mustered my courage, tamped down my nervous bile, and held my chin high as I hit neared the bottom.
My mother was making small talk with Alden.
“Frank?”
“Um, hi, Layney.” He blushed, but that was nothing new. He always blushed when he had to speak to me.
“I thought you said your name was Alden, dear,” Mom said.
“It is, ma’am.”
Poor Mom. She frowned and looked at me for an explanation.
“Frank, I mean Alden, what are you doing here?”
“Jimmy asked me to make sure you made it to the date okay. He said sometimes your car doesn’t run so good, so my dad is waiting for us outside.”
“Your dad is giving me a ride to my date?”
“Us. He’s giving us a ride. Jimmy said I needed to stay with you in case something went wrong, like the creepy artist guy.”
My heart disengaged from my ribcage and plummeted into my already iffy stomach. Foster sent
Alden
as my chaperone? Obviously, he no longer cared whether I lived or died. Here I thought I’d been hiding from him—maybe he was avoiding me instead. No wonder it had been so easy.
I pulled out my editor-in-charge voice. I couldn’t afford to let Alden witness my disappointment. “Alden, the date isn’t until 8:00. Why are you here now?”
“Jimmy said you like to get there early and he told the date to be there at 7:45.”
I knew it. All this time, he’d been getting the guys there earlier than me. Asshat. I hated him.
“I’ll meet you there, Alden.”
“But Jimmy said—”
“I’ll meet you there.”
Don’t scare the poor boy.
“Foster usually stays out of sight, so you’ll need to find an out-of-the-way spot. I’ll text you if I need help.” I guided him to the door. “It will be fine. I feel safer already.”
“Really?”
I smiled. “Bye, Alden.” I pushed him gently—well, mostly gently—out the door and slumped against it once I’d gotten him through the threshold.
My mother looked at me like I was a lopsided layer cake that needed her attention, but she wasn’t sure where to start. “Would you like to borrow my car tonight, sweetie?”
“Yes, please.”
* * *
The International Language of Love, for what it’s worth, is not Czech.
Mr. October, Emil, was a foreign exchange student from Prague. He had really great cheekbones and thick, spiky blond hair. I loved that he blushed when he smiled.
Emil and I stared at each other over the dim sum variety plate between us. The only Chinese restaurant in town used to be a BBQ place. They never changed the decor for some reason. The food was great, but it was always a little disconcerting to eat mu shu pork at a wagon-wheel table. The owners had even left all the John Wayne memorabilia up, and the bar still served bowls of peanuts.
Emil and I breezed through the pleasantries based on what little English Emil knew. This meant we had forty-five minutes of nonverbal communication to get through.
But Emil was also very friendly and smiled a lot. He refused to take a dumpling first, so I finally broke down and put one on my plate.
He nodded and placed one on his plate but did not eat it.
I stretched for my water glass and he did the same. So I smiled and pushed my plate one inch to the left.
Emil pushed his plate one inch to the right.
I smiled. He smiled.
I couldn’t resist the urge, so I scratched the tip of my nose.
You guessed it.
If he hadn’t been so earnest about it, I might have thought he was messing with me. The poor guy had only been in the country for two weeks, though. I felt sorrier for him getting stuck with me than the other way around.
“Do you like ice cream, Emil?”
He nodded and his eyes lit up. “Yes. Ice cream is very good.”
“Do you like pizza?
“I like pizza. Americans make well of it.”
My mind wandered to Ms. Lowell’s suggestion that my friend “talk” about her secret. I tried to talk myself out of it, but after a few moments of not talking, I couldn’t help myself.
“So you really don’t understand anything else I am saying?”
He smiled and nodded.
“I could tell you my deepest, darkest secret, then. And you wouldn’t even know, would you?”
He gestured to his plate. “This very good.”
“Would it surprise you to know that Foster was right? That I did want him to break up with me even before he went to that party?”
Emil watched my lips closely while I spoke, picking out the words he knew. “Party! Yes, party is fun for me also.”
“I wanted him to break up with me because I didn’t want him to touch me.” I took a deep breath. It didn’t help. “I was afraid if he touched me that it would feel ugly. Tainted.”
Emil’s forehead crinkled as he concentrated. “But ugly is not pretty Layney from newspaper. Layney is pretty, like the flower called rose.”
“Thank you.” I took a bite of dumpling. My stomach didn’t reject it. I took that as a good sign. “I just didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. I wish I could unknow it myself.”
“I am sorry, but my English is not so good. I think you are—how you say?—sad.”
I nodded. “Yes, Emil. You are right. I am sad tonight.”
“My friend in Prague. When sad I give to her chocolate.” He looked out the window and pointed to a convenience store. “We go, yes?”
I nodded. He stood and offered for my hand. At the store, he bought two candy bars, and we walked around the block a couple of times eating chocolate and not talking. Whether or not he got the gist of my one-sided conversation at the restaurant, I didn’t know. But he did get the gist of what I needed that night—a friend—and he was willing to give it to me.
Chapter Twelve
Mr. November
It all started when I walked in the room and saw him sitting there. Waiting for me.
A moll knows when she’s been set up.
Frankie was crooning his way through the speakers—they don’t make them like Frank anymore. Dino would be next. I’d been here before. Some would call me a regular. A junkie.
My eyes found their target again—and he wasn’t alone. The good ones never were, were they? The steam obscured my vision just enough to make him look dangerous. Maybe he was.
I stopped at the counter. “Coffee. Black.” I told the barman. I was going to need it.
The screech of the espresso machines matched the noise in my head. I fed myself a slug of bitter to brace my nerves for the interview. It went down easy, like a good roast does. Only later would the acid eat me from the inside out. Just then, it slid down the gullet just right.
I joined them at the table. Made the small talk. I won’t lie. He made me a little nervous, Mr. November. I’m sure I wasn’t the only dame he intimidated. He was the strong, silent type.
Guys like him didn’t come along every day. And dames like me, well we were putty in their hands, weren’t we? The baby blue eyes, the pouty lips…
The way he hardly looked up from his Nintendo DS, even when sipping on his Vanilla Frappe he’d ordered with no coffee because Mr. November wasn’t allowed to have caffeine after eight o’clock at night.
According to his mother.
Who joined us at Java Junkies.
Because my date was only ten-years-old.
I shook myself out of my pulp-fiction daydream. I didn’t get to be Philip Marlowe, and JJ Burke was definitely no Lauren Bacall. Everyone on my staff was getting fired tomorrow. And I was strongly contemplating taking up violence to their persons as well.
I got that he was the only Mensa Club member in our school. I even understood that his genius was a novelty worth exploring—being a ten-year-old junior. But he most certainly should not be dating anyone, let alone me. Why his mother signed off on the calendar at all made me wonder about her—especially since she’d been glaring at me since I sat down.
“So, JJ, what game are you playing?” I asked while keeping eye contact with Mommy. Just in case she thought I was putting a move on him. He was cute but really not my type.
“Pokemon.”
“Oh.” I knew nothing about Pokémon, other than we used to buy the trading cards but never knew what we were supposed to do with them on the playground. I think each of us had about ten cards that we just carried with us and compared at recess. “Is it fun?”
“No. It’s horribly boring. It’s like a punishment having to even turn it on. That’s why I take it everywhere I go.” He looked up long enough to fire off a stunningly sarcastic facial expression at me.
Well, okay then. Reaching, I offered, “Do you have any other hobbies?”
He sighed, exasperated with me already, and shook his head at his mother before he looked at me again. “I find knitting to be quite soothing when I’m not too busy with my schoolwork, early college applications, chess tournaments, and practicing the twelve languages I speak fluently. Not to mention the seven instruments I play.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time for hobbies.” He turned back to his mother. “I see what you mean. Are they all like this?”
Mommy nodded. “I told you. You won’t miss out on anything by not dating high school girls.”
Wait a minute.
JJ slurped his frappe. “They can’t all be this vapid.”
“No,” she agreed. “Some are much worse.”
“Hey!” I wasn’t vapid. I was the anti-vapid. I may not have been a genius, but I didn’t think I was representative of insipid high school drama queens. Anger coursed through my veins and the roots of my hair itched.
Mommy patted darling, baby boy’s head while she answered me. “It’s not you, dear. It’s just your age group.”
Gee, that made me feel better. Not.
She went on, oblivious that her tact-lacking diatribe was causing me distress. “It’s just that JJ has been voicing some concerns that he would be missing some of the social elements of the high school experience by skipping through secondary school and on to college this young. This opportunity, to go on a date with a real high school”—she paused. The bitch paused—“girl…has given him much-needed insight.”
I looked around for Foster. This had his name all over it. But it was Alden I spied lurking in the corner. Foster seemed to have gone off me completely.
Dennis the Menace tsk-tsked at me. “I can’t imagine wanting to spend time with her even when I’m seventeen. As usual, Mother, you were right.”
Oh, kicking him would have felt really good. The little punk. “If you were seventeen, you would be all over wanting to spend time with me, pipsqueak.”
“Really?” He narrowed his eyes. “Is that why you don’t have a boyfriend and are reduced to dating by appointments your newspaper staff makes for you?”
Don’t pinch the little boy, Layney.
“Okay. Maybe I am a bad example. But I am sure that you will want to date girls your age when you are my age.”
Ankle biter
.
“I really don’t think so, Layney. My son has always been mature for his age—too mature sometimes. But I can’t see him wanting to waste the time with high school crushes.” She finished her tea.
Indignant, I addressed her, “Mrs. Burke, if I may,
of course
he’s going to miss out on the high school experience. You can’t just expect that his hormones will take a back seat to his intellect when he’s my age. He’s going to want to go out with girls his own age at some point. Dating in high school doesn’t have to be a curse. It can be a lot of fun. If you’re not ten, of course.” I took a breath. “And for God’s sake, JJ, stop slurping your drink. It’s driving me nuts.”
He slurped even louder. “Mother is correct. High school dating is a waste of my time and energy.”
“It is not. You learn a lot by taking chances on other people. It’s not like you are going to marry anybody you date—but it’s part of growing up.”
I frowned. Oh man. This was brutal. Hell was freezing over. Pigs were flying. I was changing my mind. So much for avoiding warm spots in the water.
I kept talking. “You’ll be really sorry.” I pulled in a long breath. “You’ll be really sorry if you try to bypass all the detours.” The familiar taste of regret filled my mouth. “You don’t want to get to your destination and not remember anything about the trip.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mr. December
A week had gone by since I kissed Foster in the hall. We hadn’t been alone together since, and that was all right by me. I needed time to marinate in the confusion he was causing.
I’d hurt Foster probably just as much as he’d hurt me. Granted, I didn’t kiss anyone at Lauren Parker’s birthday party, but I never gave him the chance to explain or make it up to me. I still might have broken things off with him, had I been myself that weekend. But I’d never know, because I hadn’t been myself since.
I had work to do, from the inside out. The first step was going to have to be talking to somebody, and that was still going to be the hardest thing I’d yet to do. Unfortunately, my confidence always petered out when I most wanted to use it. I’d tried three more times to get my mother’s Christmas list. She responded by baking more potato rolls than one family could eat in five years.
Tyler took the bench in front of me at lunch. “You are deep in thought. Again. Another crisis at the paper, or have you been slipping the tongue to Lucifer again?”
“Ha-ha. Can I borrow some lip gloss?”
“That’s it. I am never helping you with anything girly again.”
He would. We both knew it.
He began peeling his orange but stopped when he realized I was staring at him. “What?”
“I used to be more normal.”
“Riiiight.”
“I’m serious.”
He set his orange down. “Okay.”
“Something changed.” This wasn’t going to work. I could tell. My tongue swelled up in my mouth and I couldn’t swallow.
“What changed?”