The Other Fish in the Sea (36 page)

Really, it was very creative and we should’ve won. And yes, you can find all sorts of candy like that at Christmas time, plus there are all the specialty stores that only sell candy. That’s where we got the dog, the crime scene candy tape and some of the taffy.

Christmas Day itself was very quiet and relatively subdued.

Since we do the big family thing the night before, the four of us usually just spend Christmas morning and day at home or at a relative’s house, as we used to live out of state. Occasionally we’ll catch a movie, but not this year. Even though we have an open door policy, understandably, none of my friends made an appearance either. I’d talked to Kate a couple times during the week and tomorrow Tristan is taking me over to Jeff’s where she’s now living to wish her a happy birthday. I’ll also be delivering Jillian’s Christmas gifts to everyone. She went with a standard gift of a deck of cards and a towel for everyone in our group. Melissa was doing her family thing as was Pete, and Tristan stayed home too, choosing to spend some quality holiday time with his family and grandparents whom he doesn’t get to see more than a few times a year.
 

Tristan had also been drinking spiked eggnog so even though we’d sort of planned it, that’s why I’m thinking even a quick trip to my house was out. That being the case, he and I decided to open our presents together over speaker phone. We both got a good laugh out of our gifts and it was a good thing he and I both opted to do this in the privacy of our bedrooms, because I’m just not sure how I would explain why my boyfriend gave me a schedule of local Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and two tickets for the Titanic Exhibit that’s coming to town in a couple months,
or
why I would be laughing my ass off about either of those.

The next day Tristan showed up in a great mood and even though I’m feeling pretty freaking unattractive with greasy roots, he didn’t seem to notice or care when he gave me a not-so G-rated kiss upon his arrival. He was also what you might call “clingy” while we were at Jeff’s having a mini celebration for Kate, which of course, I didn’t mind or complain about one iota.

“Yeah, it’s really weird living with my boyfriend, my mom, and her boyfriend, who just so happens to be my boyfriend’s dad,” Kate said with a smaller than usual smile and a low-grade giggle.

She’d been telling us, “us” being the inner gang of me, Tristan, Melissa and Pete. I would probably include Jillian in the gang too since she’s sort of been indoctrinated into it over the last month, but she’s not here. Anyway, Kate was telling us how she and her mom are in the process of moving into Jeff’s house. Her mom is listing her house for sale and then she and Grey might or they might not buy a place together after the divorce is final. They
are
getting married regardless of whose name their home is in, though.

We talked for a little bit about that and the weirdness of not just living under the same roof as her boyfriend, but sharing a bedroom too, all with parental consent, and then Melissa brought up the fashion show we’d all signed up to model in. The ASB puts one on every year to raise funds for something or another. I
swear
, it seems like they’re always doing that.

“So the fashion show is scheduled for February third, but we’re all supposed to be fitted and stuff no later than the fifteenth, which is a holiday this year and Camie’s birthday, her party is the day before that, Jillian’s is the day before that, so that leaves this week, this weekend, which is New Year’s so that’s out too, which means we’re left with the following week after school or that weekend... Since when did our weekends get booked so far in advance?”

“Hell if I know, but I’m not doin’ shit for school while I’m still on vacation so I guess I’ll do it the week we get back or that weekend,” Tristan informed us solidly while rubbing my shoulders and neck for me without having been asked to. He knows I’m still a wee bit sore in spots so this was his excuse for touching me at the moment. It seems like he’s having a hard time not touching me or making sure we maintain some kind of skin-to-skin contact today...it’s sort of funny.

“Dude, I’ll go when you go,” Jeff put in.
 

He’s been very uncharacteristically morose today, which I can’t blame him for. It
is
hard to look at him, though. Kate’s doing a pretty good job of pulling off her happy charade, but Jeff looks haunted and it breaks my heart.

“Tristan, are you
ever
gonna grace us with the sight of you in formalwear?” Melissa asked, looking at the clothing category list.

“Fuck NO,” he answered, emphatically resolute.

“Um, what do you mean?” I asked, not understanding. Honestly, just the idea
alone
of him in formalwear makes my salivary glands go berserk.

“Well, Camie, your boyfriend here doesn’t dress up.
EVER.
Not even a little. He’s a giant pain in the ass about it too…every year they ask him to do formalwear and he flat out refuses. Did I hear you threatened to boycott the whole thing if they don’t stop bugging you about it?” Melissa explained, which reigned in my drooling considerably and let me know that I probably have a mighty battle coming up.
 

“Yep, you heard correctly. I’ll do it too.”

“But, Tristan, what about the dance?” I asked him, thinking, seriously, I love him and everything, but he can’t wear jeans, a t-shirt and Ugg boots to the winter formal which is being held the weekend before Valentine’s Day this year.

Jeff started genuinely laughing (which I was
really
glad to hear, but still…) at Tristan’s scandalized and sort of sheepish expression. “My friend, it looks to me like you’ve been remiss in not letting your girlfriend in on one of your big pet peeves, which should provide us all with some rather unwholesome entertainment. You know, since she’s never been to a dance before and probably
really
wants to go. Anyone wanna place a bet on how long it takes for them to start fighting about this and who’s gonna win?”

Beautiful.
 

So yeah, if I wanna go to the dance, which I really, really do, I’m gonna have to wage war against my more than stubborn boyfriend who, previously unbeknownst to me, has a
major
aversion to getting dressed up. I’m pretty sure I was glowering when all of a sudden, my mental image of Derek in a tux at my wedding morphed into him wearing a poncho and a sombrero.

18.

His Wait Is Finally At An End

The following day I was doing the Snoopy happy dance with honest to goodness clean hair. Truthfully, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve come to appreciate running water and how I will probably never take being able to shower for granted again. My chin still has a bandage on it, but it’s healing pretty well and I’ve downgraded from a butterfly bandage to more of a regular band-aid type dressing, which is fine by me. It still itches a little, but I don’t have to keep it one hundred percent dry like I did with the stitches, so, woohoo!

The only rain cloud in my life at the moment is that my dad doesn’t want to let Jillian and me go to Pete’s New Year’s Eve party. I guess Mike normally throws this event, but he’s in freaking Switzerland with his parents. My dad is still being pretty restrictive of my activities too, which sucks more than a hungry newborn vampire. It wasn’t until Friday evening as Tristan and I were trying to figure out how we could stay home and still call it date night and after spending another whole freaking week—the last week of my vacation mind you—cooped up in the house, that I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

When my dad came home from work bearing Chinese food, he sat Jillian, Tristan and me down for a “little talk.” I was
wholly
unprepared for what he was about to lay on us, so I’m pretty sure I spent most of dinner with my mouth ajar.

“Girls, I want to discuss your birthdays with you…I know you’ve already made plans and in the past we’ve always let you two go all-out celebrating them…” That’s essentially because we’re both born so close to Christmas and, even more so, to each other. “But this year we may have to do things a little differently,” he paused while he took a bite of orange chicken and I was about to protest, but something about the expression on my sister’s face had me holding my tongue. “I’m going to be taking your mother up to L.A. to have a procedure that her doctors feel might benefit her and we’ll be gone from the eighth to the fifteenth or sixteenth, which means we won’t be here your birthday weekend.”
 

When my dad paused this time, he regarded Jillian and me with an expression of apology while we both kept quiet waiting for him to continue with this disturbing revelation. Honestly, I don’t know what to be more upset about…my parents missing my sixteenth birthday or being unaware of my mom being in a state where she could benefit from having a “procedure.” Before my dad went on however, he shifted his focus to a quietly observant Tristan who was sitting across from me at the table, looking like he was trying to figure out why he’d been called in for this particular meeting.
 

“Now being that you’ll both be back in school by then, it would be a lot to ask for you two to stay with your Aunt Karen and Uncle Brett (Remember, they’re Derek’s parents.) and have them get you to and from school every day, so your mother and I have talked about it and I spoke with Stan about it this afternoon…he and Trinity agreed that if The Boy is game, he’ll stay here with you two while we’re gone.”

Yeah, this is where my mouth fell open and my bandaged jaw went
ker-splat
on the kitchen table. I stole a quick look at Tristan and saw my shock mirrored in his eyes, but he didn’t move a muscle or make a peep.

“We were originally thinking the two of you would stay at his house with his parents being home that week, but then those two home invasions around the corner happened while both the families were out of town for Christmas, and we’d rather not take the risk of leaving the house unoccupied for that long. We’d ask Kate or Melissa and even though both you girls can handle a firearm, I honestly just feel better having a strong male presence being seen coming and going every day. I’d actually feel even better if Jeff or Pete were staying here too, so if they want to and their parents are okay with it, they’re welcome to crash on the sofa. So, Boy, wanna take a day or two to think it over or should I just go ahead and start making the den livable?”
 

Uhhh…
Anyone got a choice expletive for me here? No, really. I need one, but my brain just hemorrhaged and I can’t think anymore. So much for my dad not wanting me to over exert myself…

By the way, “the den” is actually the downstairs bedroom and what the females of the house refer to as the homeschool room. It’s where we keep all our books, curriculum, past projects, etc… We do have another pullout couch in there, but as of right now, it’s not really the best place for someone to spend a week, although with a little tidying up and moving junk around, it’ll work nicely. Not that I expect The Boy—I mean Tristan (Jeez, thanks Dad) will actually be spending his sleeping hours in there.
 

Tristan gave his, not reluctant really, but certainly not eager, consent to play the title role of
Charles In Charge
while my parents are gone. It’s an old TV sitcom starring Scott Baio who played Cha-chi on
Happy Days
…anyway; he’s like a male nanny in the sitcom. I wasn’t perturbed in the least about Tristan’s less than enthusiastic acceptance, though, because I was watching his eyes when he responded. He was purposefully trying to not sound or look like a fox who’d just been invited to live in the henhouse by the farmer himself while said farmer and the Missus wouldn’t be there to shoot him if he decided to pluck the feathers out of one of the farmer’s teenage hens.

I should also probably take a quick minute to mention that this request of my boyfriend was not made without my parents having met his. Not only did Tristan and I learn that my mom was a freshman and my dad was a sophomore at Grossmont when his mom and dad were seniors there, but back when he and I first got together, the six of us (Jillian was, thankfully, elsewhere for that event) spent an afternoon and evening out at Tristan’s parents’ “property.” You remember, the one where we were gonna go fishing in the dark for our first date? Yeah, here’s the thing though, it’s not really just a little fishing hole on a patch of grass or even on an acre. It’s a freaking lake. It has a freaking waterfall too, although it’s not natural. The lake is separated by boulders so that one side is stocked for fishing and the other, the side with the natural hot springs, is for swimming. There’s a freaking floating dock for diving or sun bathing. Oh, and yeah, there’s a freaking fifty-five hundred square foot “cabin” on site, the site being about sixty-some-odd acres. This is also where they stable their horses. So add to that time of getting to know the freaking loaded future in-laws quality time (which it was, our parents get along freaking amazingly well) and fishing, my dad and Tristan’s have gone to a couple of Chargers football games together and our moms have been to lunch and a movie or two since then as well.
 

Anyway, I just thought you should know it’s not like my parents are inviting a teenager belonging to complete strangers to live at their house for a bit. And yeah, I know there’s a mighty lack of descriptive creativity here with my choice of freaking as an adjective and/or adverb, but really, you gotta cut me some slack…my father just asked my boyfriend to take his place as ruler of the roost for a week, so please, freaking’s all I got right now.

We discussed how things were gonna work and my dad assured me they’d be home no later than Monday so he could take me to the DMV for my driver’s test on Tuesday, which I was already prepared for anyway with my birthday falling on a holiday this year in the first place. Also, I got the very distinct impression that this procedure of my mom’s is a bigger deal than what he’s letting on, but rather than push for details, I didn’t question it. Jillian didn’t either. Sometimes I believe my parents keep things from my sister and me if they feel it will cause us undue worry and stress, and so I try to live in ignorant bliss because I also believe that my parents have my best interests at heart. It doesn’t always work but I do try. I really hope unenlightened bliss will be easily attainable in this situation, though, because I don’t want to be a stressed out basket-case the whole week before my milestone sixteenth birthday and truthfully, I
really
just want my mom to be okay.