Swoon at Your Own Risk (18 page)

"Well, sorry, dear." Grandma pats Mom's arm. "If I'd known you needed to look like that, I would've dated a Ken doll, not a series of boy toys named Ken." Grandma guffaws at her own joke, and even Mom cracks a smile. But I catch her running a hand over her plump hips. The weird thing is Mom used to jog five days a week and enter the occasional 5K for charity, but she hasn't since the divorce. Did she do that only to keep in shape for Dad?

"So, Mom, I guess it's you, me, and Grandma for the fireworks."

"Actually"—Grandma raises her eyebrows—"I've been invited to Hank's house for an intimate barbecue."

"But, Grandma, you hardly know him!"

"Mother!" Mom looks shocked. "The Fourth of July is a family holiday."

Grandma strikes a pose. "Maybe I'm expanding my horizons."

Mom scoffs. "By the way, the Fourth comes three days after the first. The day the mortgage is due. Minor details."

"You always know how to rain on a parade," Grandma says. "I've got to freshen up. Make sure I'm wearing the right day-of-the-week panties." She giggles.

"Grandma!"

She swats my butt on her way to refill her coffee mug. "Gracie, you've done a bang-up job on these flapjacks." She kisses Grace's forehead.

Grace grins.

Mom slams dishes into the sink, swearing when she chips a plate. So, yeah, it's shaping up to be a real great holiday. Part of me wants to call Dad, but I don't want to hear him make awkward excuses. I just wander back to my room and plan to lose myself in my summer reading list.
Anna Karenina.
My life isn't
that
bad, right?

I crawl back into bed with my book, but I'm having trouble concentrating on anything. It's that first line about happy families. I used to think we had a happy family. Maybe because I had all the stuffed animals I ever wanted. And then right after Mom and Dad divorced, it was like Christmas on steroids: they both tried to out-purchase each other to win our favoritism. Grace apparently still has her price. I look at the fluffy red, white, and blue bear sitting on her dresser.

"Knock, knock." Grandma peeks into my room. "I have a little something for you, too." She dangles a pair of red, white, and blue earrings in front of me. "Everyone needs some fireworks in her life, if you know what I mean."

"Thanks, Grandma. But what I could really use is some advice." I hold up
Anna Karenina
. "I'm not finding much here."

Grandma wraps an arm around me, carefully avoiding my road rash. "Come into my office, formerly known as your room. We can talk while I get ready for my big date."

My room looks like a department store during a one-day sale. I shove aside some clothing so I can sit on the bed. "I'm just so confused."

"Me, too. Do you think Hank would prefer the red blouse or the blue?"

"The blue. The red kind of clashes with your hair."

Grandma slips the blue blouse over her head. "Are you confused about having a crush on that skateboarder?"

"I don't have a crush. I'm just tempted to learn how to skateboard again. Even though I ended up looking like this"—I hold up my scabby arm—"the first time I tried to learn."

"Skirt or slacks?"

I smirk. "Why don't you show off
your
fanny in the pants?"

"My saggy rump looks great in these slacks, for your information." She shimmies the pants over her hips. "But now I'm confused. Why do you want to learn to skateboard?"

I groan. "Because
he
skateboards."

"Well, honey, Hank fixes dishwashers, but I'm not about to learn how to do that."

"Yeah, well, you have other stuff in common, probably."

Grandma shrugs, sorting through her jewelry box. "He makes me laugh."

"Well, then, you're doomed, because that's not enough. Look at all the stuff Mom did for Dad: golfing, jogging, piano lessons—at her age—oh, and, that French cooking class. Disaster! He still left her for Real Estate Barbie."

"Oh, honey. Like I told your mom after she tried to make me eat one of her soufflés, you've just got to be yourself."
Grandma holds up two pairs of earrings. I nod to the rhinestones.

"What if you don't know who that is?" I peel away a corner of my bandage, peeking at the thick black stitches beneath.

Grandma twirls in front of the mirror. "Hmm?"

"Nothing. You look great. Hank's going to
swoon
."

"Very punny."

"Yeah, well, it's a good thing he makes you laugh. Because the rest of the family is completely humor-challenged."

"Your mother spends too much time with ten-year-olds."

"Tell me about it." My head aches. Body aches. Heart—I don't know. "I think I'm going to lie down for a bit."

"You do that, sweetie." She kisses my forehead. See? Grandmothers kiss foreheads, not guys! "I'll catch you in the morning, but not too early."

I hobble back to my room and snuggle under my covers. I admire the way Grandma keeps trying to find a relationship that works. Every new guy gets a fresh chance to prove his worthiness. I keep thinking about how Grandma said that maybe Xander is a good guy. And maybe she's right.

What if the problem is me? No one likes me when they really get to know me.

Not even my own father.

I don't usually let myself think about it much, but when I 220
do, that thought hurts worse than the gash in my leg. I roll over in bed, curling my legs to my chest, pulling my comforter over my head. I allow myself to cry hard for a few minutes. I miss my daddy. I don't care if he hates Mom. Or keeps busy with his girlfriend-of-the-month club. Why doesn't he want to spend time with
me?

And no one wants to hear me talk about it, either. Not that I try that often. Grace doesn't get it. She was so little when our parents divorced that she doesn't remember that
Dad
used to make Fourth of July pancakes. We used to spend the entire day
together
. And we'd have ice cream sundaes after we got back from the big fireworks show at the park. Dad used to call me his Precious, Precocious Pollywog. I felt like the center of his world. And now he screens my phone calls like I'm one of his irritating clients. Yeah, I've kind of stopped calling, because nothing hurts worse than hearing the formal tone of his voice mail message, knowing that he probably recognized my number and chose not to answer.

I'm drifting into self-pity-induced sleep when I hear a light knock on the door. "Come in," I say. "And I don't know why you're bothering to knock at this stage of the game. It's not like anyone around here values privacy anymore."

The door opens a crack. "Sounds like you're feeling a bit better." Xander peeks into my room.

"Arghi" I pull my covers back over my face. "What are you doing here?"

A normal guy would leave if a girl talked to him like that. Not Xander Nightingale Cooper. "I brought something to cheer you up."

I pull the covers off my face; my hair zings with static electricity. But I'm not trying to impress anyone. He might as well see me at my worst. It will just save him time.

He walks over to the bottom bunk and kneels so that his head is exactly level with mine. "You've been crying. Does it still hurt that bad? Are you taking your pain medication?"

"Why do you
care?
" I'm acting like a trapped animal on a
National Geographic
special: snarling, scared, all teeth and claws.

He ignores my question. "You wanna see what I brought?"

"Knowing you, you're going to insist on it. You're as tenacious as black mold."

Xander laughs, still holding his hands behind his back. "Now, that's a line I haven't heard before."

I scoot up to a sitting position, kind of grimacing and grinning (I do pride myself on a good zinger). "Okay, what did you bring me?"

I expect flowers. I think they're a cliché. A stuffed animal. I detest them. Chocolates. Another total cliché. But he hands me a little square of paper folded into a crane.

"They're for good luck. My Thai grandma taught me to make them."

"Um, thanks." I hold the light pink crane in my hand. The paper is so thin, folded so delicately. I flush a little, because the paper reminds me of the soft way Xander's lips felt on my forehead. He didn't choose pink because of the underwear, did he? "You made this."

"Yeah." He rests his hand on my good arm. "Glad to see you're doing okay. You should've seen the doctor freaking out after you passed out. He thought you might have lost too much blood. And that's when your mom arrived and she started screaming—she puts my sister to shame—and they were all rushing around, getting IV fluids and everything. You missed out on quite a show."

"Trust me, I am more than happy to have missed it." I touch my finger to the tip of the crane's pointy head. "Besides, I was fine."

"I knew that."

I look over at him. Brown eyes level with mine. Leaning his elbows on my bed in a familiar way. Why is Mom even allowing a guy into my room? She barely let Kurt come into the
house.

"You have this certain smile when things are okay. Kind of
Mona Lisa
mysterious, but serene like a Thomas Cole landscape."

I crinkle my mouth into a sarcastic grimace, but Xander puts his finger on my lips. "No, don't," he whispers. "That's not it." His fingers smell like maple syrup, and I wonder who makes his Fourth of July pancakes. And then he moves his finger, but I still feel his touch lingering on my lips. He leans over and kisses me on the lips, soft, delicate—like that paper crane.

I'm too surprised to respond.

"That's it," he whispers.

I open my mouth to speak, but Xander shakes his head, smiling with his lips closed, looking into my eyes. He stands up and leaves, closing the door quietly behind him. I hear him call out a goodbye to my mom. Grandma gushes about how much I appreciated his help last night. I'm about to jump out of bed to defend myself when I notice writing on the paper crane.

I unfold the fragile paper, careful to remember how to make the crane whole again. I read:
With a dancer's grace she curtsies, bending to pick up a crushed soda can.

I look at the carefully printed words again, not understanding. It's hardly a love letter. Or even flirtatious. And it maybe sounds almost romantic, until the garbage is mentioned. The whole thing is weird, really. As inconsonant as the strange humming noises he used to make in fourth grade. I refold the
crane, wishing I hadn't dissembled it in the first place. He obviously made it out of some kind of scrap paper. I feel kind of foolish, thinking he would have written a note to me. I'm not the kind of girl that guys send notes to. I'm the kind of girl they flirt with, joke around with, mess around with, maybe send a few e-mails or texts, before moving on to someone truly girlfriend-worthy. I think of Sawyer wanting me to help him snag Kipper Carlyle.

I'm tempted to crush the tiny crane in my hand. But I can't. Instead I set it on the windowsill above my bed, where the sound of Xander Cooper zipping open the pavement enters the room every morning.

That night Mom and I watch the fireworks, just the two of us, but we don't even bother driving down to the park. We watch the show from our backyard.

"Ooh! Look at that one!" Mom exclaims.

"Mom, I can barely see it." I squint. "I practically need a microscope."

"Enjoy the colors! That one looks like your new earrings."

"Except smaller."

"True." She hugs me close. "Maybe we should just run to
the store and get everything we need for red, white, and blue Fourth of July sundaes, huh? What do you think about that?"

"I think we've all been eating enough sweets and fried foods this summer."

Her hand moves to her hips. "Yeah, I suppose."

When we head back inside, I say, "I think I'm just going to go to sleep early." I ignore the sad look on Mom's face. Before climbing under my covers, I tuck the little crane behind the window shade. I don't want it to distract me, because I can't figure out what to do. Grandma tries, but how seriously can I take her advice? It's almost eleven and she's still not home. She will come home, right? She's too old for
that
kind of thing, isn't she? Not to mention that she would be going against practically every advice column she's written since 1977. Not that she seems particularly predisposed to taking her own advice, and she did wear her black bra.

Maybe I need to approach my life like a scientist. I stand up—ouch!—and search through the random junk piled on Grace's dresser and find my half-filled bio lab notebook. I'm going to map out a truly scientifically based theory. I will propose my scientific question: why does Polly Martin suck at relationships? Background research. Let's see: Kurt, Jack, Gareth, Sawyer, Hayden. So, now I need a hypothesis.

Polly sucks at relationships of all kinds because she has five ex-boyfriends, a father who never calls, and a best friend who barely tolerates her, and she cannot even trust her mother or grandmother (who everyone adores!). Therefore, Polly would be much happier and would consequently benefit society if she hereafter avoided relationships.

To prove my hypothesis, I will not attempt any sort of relationship beyond the acquaintance stage with Xander Cooper. Paper cranes are not indications of relationship status.

Just to prove my point I toss the little pink crane into the trash can. But five minutes later I retrieve it: it really is cute. I stick it in my underwear drawer.
Not
thinking about my pink Wednesday underwear. Because they are in the wash.

Oh, and that kiss. Like a brother, not that I have a brother, but I'm sure it was a purely platonic, I-care-about-you-like-a-brother-who-waited-all-night-in-the-ER kiss. It didn't make me feel tingly. That was the pain medication. I'm sure ibuprofen can do that.

Underneath the chart for my new scientific experiment I make a few notes.

One: I will not let boys distract me.
Two: I'm going to save money.
Three: I'm going to study hard and get into a good school and find a laboratory-based profession, working with microscopic life forms or maybe rats—safe from homans—to make the next Nobel Prize—winning discovery. That I can one day torn into an anti-love potion.