Call me smitten, but that disappointed look made me feel good. “Mine’s in the middle of the afternoon.”
“We’ll work something out.” I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket, borrowed his pen, and wrote my cell number on it. “Call me. Good night.”
“’Night, Gillian.” And he stood there, watching me walk up the stairs.
Good thing he couldn’t see me walking down the hall to my room. Because I’m sure I was floating at least two inches off the ground.
I couldn’t wait to tell Lissa and Carly that Lucas and I were friends again. I found the two of them in Carly’s room, surfing fashion Web sites.
“What’s that?” I squinted at the screen, which was smaller than mine. “
Entertainment Weekly
?”
Carly shook her head. “Fashionista.com. And guess who’s front and center, as usual?”
“Don’t tell me.” I sat on the edge of the bed to look. “Talbot and Miller light up San Francisco Fashion Week,” trilled the headline.
Sienna Miller, in town to promote her Twenty8Twelve spring line of frocks, gives teenage socialite Vanessa Talbot some closet advice in the front row at the Rodarte show. Talbot, who attends the elite Spencer Academy in Pacific Heights, is the daughter of former U.N. Secretary-General Victor Talbot and the globetrotting Principessa di Firenze, now married to London financier Bernard Cook.
“Look at that dress.” Carly sighed. “Where did she get the Rodarte watercolor chiffon before the show?”
“She’s connected,” Lissa retorted. “A walking billboard. Look, here it is on SeenOn.com, too. The designers probably sent it to her so she’d be photographed in it. I wish I’d seen the courier coming up the drive. I’d have hijacked it.”
“Guys. Can we talk about real life here for a minute?” I asked.
Lissa laughed and turned to me. “What’s up?”
I moved the Mac out of the way and got comfortable on the empty bed. “I was practicing downstairs, and guess who came and found me?”
Carly looked at Lissa. “One guess.”
A finger to her chin, Lissa tilted her head and said in a blonde voice, “Oh, please, can I have two guesses?”
“Everyone’s a comedian,” I said to Carly’s Chingon poster above the headboard, but I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Lucas asked me out.”
“Whoa!” Lissa sat back on her hands.
“Well, not on a real date or anything,” I said hastily. “Just on a walk down the hill to get something to drink. But seeing as he’s only ever talked about planetary volume and the properties of light with me before, this is real progress.”
“How romantic.” Carly sighed.
I gave her a narrow glance and she giggled, then leaned across the space between the beds to give me a hug.
I hope I hid my surprise. I mean, mine is not a family of huggers, as you can probably imagine. I don’t go around greeting people that way, and I’m not used to it when others do. But I guess Carly’s family is different. She hugs Lissa and me when she sees us on Mondays, after the weekends she spends with her dad. She hugs stray dogs on the street if they wag their tails at her. And you can bet your lunch money she’d hug Brett Loyola for no reason at all, if she got the chance.
So I hugged her back. After all, being asked out by the most brilliant guy in school is worth celebrating, right?
“So when are you going?” Lissa asked.
Good question. “I don’t know. I mean, just the fact that he asked me at all is pretty amazing. I didn’t want to scare him off by getting out my iPhone and calendaring it on the spot, you know?”
“Don’t let him think about it too long,” Lissa warned. “If you let it lie for more than a day, he’ll get cold feet and think maybe it was a fluke. Or that you’re not really interested—you were just being nice.”
Uh-oh. I hadn’t thought of that. “I’m such a dork,” I moaned, dropping my head into both hands. “What if he thinks I’m pushy?”
“You?” Carly asked in faux amazement.
“Okay, he probably already knows I am,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to be, with him.”
I know I come off all loud and confident with people. Maybe I should have listened to my mother and Nai-Nai, who were always telling me I was too noisy, that I talked back too much, that I wasn’t respectful enough. I tried to be what they wanted me to be at home, but once I got out here, words and noise all came spilling out as if they had been penned up inside me for weeks.
I mean, other than when they’re telling me to be quiet, my dad and my brothers don’t really notice me at home. I guess that’s why I make up for it when I’m out on my own. But it’s one thing to put on a secure front. It’s another thing to be secure behind the front. I think that’s where the Lord has His work cut out for Him.
Lissa reached over and patted my knee. “Be yourself. That’s what he likes, right? Don’t try to be something you’re not, because, take it from me, you’ll screw up, and usually at the exact wrong time.”
“Sounds like the voice of experience,” I said.
“It is. I dated this guy in Santa Barbara for months. I tried to be everything he wanted in a girl. The problem was, he didn’t want who I really was. He wanted the fake. Then when I relaxed one day, thinking, hey, we’re a couple now, and didn’t act in character, it was over.” She paused for a second. “Of course, what I didn’t know was that he had the homecoming queen on autodial, too. And she was really what he wanted. Not me.”
I thought about that as they clicked through the rest of the pictures from Fashion Week on the Web sites. I tuned their voices out and leaned against Carly’s colorful folk-art appliqué pillows, wondering if I should dial it down a little. After all, Lucas wasn’t a noisy person. He was studious, intellectual. When we talked, it was conversation he liked, not smart-mouth remarks. I could still be myself, couldn’t I . . . while I acted more like the girl I was at home?
On the other hand, this could just be a whole bunch of speculation on my part. I hardly knew the guy—but what I knew of him, I liked, even if he ate lunch once in a while with Vanessa’s crowd. That was probably just politics, anyway. And he’d put himself out there by apologizing to Lissa for me, hadn’t he? This wasn’t something just anyone would do. Carly was right. He’d done it because my opinion mattered to him.
And if my opinion mattered, maybe I mattered to him, too.
I hugged my knees, seeing the gorgeous clothes on the screen and yet not seeing them at all.
Father God, help me know what to do. If it’s Your will that Lucas and I get together, help me listen to Your voice. Help me get it right. And thank You, Father. I’ve never had a serious boyfriend before. I don’t know why it’s happening now, but I’m glad it’s Lucas
.
GChang
Friday tomorrow. Half day. How about that walk?
LHayes
OK. Have experiment running. Say 3pm?
GChang
Meet you on the front steps.
LHayes
Look forward to it.
To: GChang©spenceracad.edu
From: IsabelCZhuo©gmail.com
Date: January 22, 2009
Re: New Year
Hey Gillian,
Give me a call at work tomorrow as soon as you can. We’re coming up to the City for the big New Year’s parade (24th) and you absolutely must join us. It will be a wonderful family time, especially since Michael is an Ox (stubborn little guy) and this is his year! There might even be a red envelope in it for you :) Call me!
Love, Aunt Isabel
S
PENCER DOESN’T OFFER
sailing and rowing in the winter, mostly because no one would go to class. Who wants to freeze their rears off in the water in the middle of January? So for my Phys. Ed. elective, I was stuck with the choice of an individual program with a personal trainer, or team sports—soccer, volleyball, or the cross-country running team. Being allergic to mud and rain, I opted for volleyball, where I could at least make up for size with my defensive skills.
Not to mention a really deceptive bump that fools them every time.
Lissa might look like she belongs on the cover of
Glamour
, but she’s not afraid of weather. She came into the shower room splashed with mud to the knees as I was changing to go out on the court.
With a quick look to make sure no one was listening, I whispered, “It’s today. Lucas wants to go at three.”
Lissa grinned. “Excellent. Did you bring it up, or did he?”
“I did. It was a risk, but it worked.”
She began to strip out of her muddy soccer uniform. “Nah, it wasn’t. He’s got a thing for you. No risk involved.”
I hoped she was right. Thinking about it played havoc with my game, and the coach had to remind me twice to get back behind the line when I served the ball. But, hey, who cares about where the line is, when you have Lucas Hayes in your future?
After lunch, when the day students left for home and the ones who had weekend plans took off in everything from rented Hummers to their own BMWs, Lissa and Carly decided they’d be practical and do their Spanish homework until I got back. Carly’s dad always sent a car to take her down to San Jose, but it wouldn’t be here until six. She was so jazzed about my date that she’d probably stall the car until midnight if she had to, long enough to hear all about it.
Nothing like a little performance anxiety, huh?
I didn’t know what was worse—waiting for three o’clock to get here, or waiting for it all to be over.
Chill, Gillian
, I told myself as I waited on the front steps.
You’re walking down the hill and back. Big deal. It’s not like you’re going to the opera or meeting his parents or something huge like that. It’s a latte or a smoothie, not an eternal commitment.
I decided to call my aunt, so I’d at least look as though I was doing something productive.
“Gillian, hi!” Isabel greeted me and took me off speakerphone. “I was hoping you’d gotten my e-mail in time.”
“I’m OCD about mail. But with classes and everything, I haven’t had a chance to call until now.”
“I’m so looking forward to tomorrow. We’re going to have dinner at the Slanted Door—we’ve had reservations for months—and then go to some friends’ to watch the parade from their balcony.”
“It sounds great!” I’d heard that San Francisco’s Chinese community really went all out for New Year’s—and the parade was bigger even than New York’s. It got televised on all the networks and everything. And I had to admit, the big street dragons were always my favorite part. When I was little, we were in Taipei one winter, and the whole city just exploded with fireworks and parades and craziness. A big dragon pretended to bite me as I stood with my parents on the sidewalk, and my mother told people proudly that, instead of screaming, I tried to grab its glittery streamer beard.
“We’ll pick you up at the school at six,” Isabel said.
“Perfect! I’ll be on the front steps. In fact, that’s where I am right now, waiting for a friend.”
“Ooh, hot date?”
“No. Just a smoothie with someone from class.” No way was I saying a word about Lucas. The news would blast to New York, bounce off my mom’s ear, and she’d be on the phone to me in five minutes.
“Well, have fun, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
I disconnected and, a second later, heard running shoes slap on the steps behind me. “Hey.” Dressed in jeans and a yellow anorak, Lucas loped over.
“Hey.” I gave him a big smile.
“Ready?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “And waiting,” but that might have sounded critical. “Yes.”
He had a long stride, and I found myself having to make the occasional hop and skip to keep up. Finally, halfway down the hill, I said, “Slow down, Lucas. Where’s the fire?”
“Sorry.” He cut his stride in half and I was able to match my steps to his. “You have such a big personality, I forget how small you are.”
I fought the urge to press my palms to my cheeks. Was that me? Blushing? “Five-two isn’t that small,” I finally said. “My friend Carly is the same.”
“Is she the Mexican girl with all the curly hair?”
“She’s about as Mexican as I am Chinese,” I said dryly. “It’s not like we’re fresh off the boat, you know.”
“So do you have a Chinese name?”
Come on, Gillian. Open up. This guy could be your boyfriend. You don’t need to be shy with him.
“Jiao-Lan. It means ‘fragrant orchid.’”
“Jiao-Lan.” The syllables sounded odd on his tongue. “So are you?” He stopped outside a black lacquered door and held it open for me. I breathed in the fragrance of oranges and fresh-cut grass and realized he’d brought me to a juice bar. And not your standard chain, either.
“Am I what?”
“A fragrant orchid?”
“Only after a hard game of volleyball,” I cracked, and he laughed.
I kept it simple and ordered an apricot colada. He went for carrot juice with ginger. What an adventurous pair. The point, though, was that he paid for both of them, putting a hand on my arm when I went to dig my wallet out of my little Stella McCartney satchel.
I can’t even tell you the last time a guy other than my father paid for something on my behalf. Try never.
He led the way to a skinny black table whose chairs had extra-long legs, and then my brain proceeded to seize up. I could not think of a single thing to say. Me—the one my brothers call a magpie on amphetamines. If I prayed for something to talk about, would the Lord take me seriously?
And then I had it.
“Have you found a church to go to around here?”
“A church?”
Why did he sound so surprised? “Yes. You come to prayer circle, so . . .” Oh, help. Had I just made a great big incorrect assumption? “You’re a believer, right?”
“Oh, sure,” he said, and I felt my spine wilt with relief. “You just took me by surprise. Most girls want to talk about other girls and clothes and stuff.”
“With you? I don’t think so. Quantum theory, maybe. Definitely not Theory jeans.”
“Whatever those are. But to answer you, yeah, I go to Pacific Heights Community Church, about three blocks that way.” He pointed east. “Have you been there?”
I shook my head. “I kind of got into the habit of going out to Marin with Lissa and her mom. We go to this funky little clapboard church and then to their place for lunch.”