Abithica (9 page)

So
that
was it! I’d studiously avoided answering her question about whether I intended to meet Lane, so she was going right ahead on the assumption that I was. Time to set a few facts straight. In the first place, I hadn’t decided to go to the food court, and second, even if I did go, I’d choose an old, faded pair of Faith’s jeans and maybe a long-sleeved khaki shirt, the kind she’d worn on our hike. No delicate-yellow eyelet blouse with a lacy collar this time, and no exposed legs. Just jeans. They’d be right for the ponytail, and right for me, but Faith would have no part in it. Her optimism was depressing.

“He only asked me to meet him as a way of helping his sister. You’re making this into a dinner date, when
he’s
thinking burgers and fries, if even that. Maybe it’s just a quick chat over coffee he has in mind.” My inability to get through to her was even worse.

“See?” she said, handing me a mirror. “Doesn’t it make you look carefree?”

Actually, the look did suit Sydney beautifully, even if the ponytail was a little short. It was a far cry from her usual dark, Goth look, so she’d undoubtedly hate it. Faith puffed up like a strutting rooster when she saw my positive reaction.

“For the next date, we’ll toss him a bone and leave your hair down. Too much guessing early on isn’t good either.”

“There isn’t going to be any next date,” I said through clenched teeth. “This ‘outing’ doesn’t even count as a
first
date. It’s all about Shae.”

“Oh, there’ll be another. You want to bet that he won’t even wait until the weekend to ask you out again? He’ll find some excuse to see you sooner. Wait and see.”

“Don’t you
get
it, Faith? This isn’t some fairytale, this is my hopelessly screwed up life we’re talking about here. People don’t like me, they find reasons to be anywhere but around me, and he’s no different. His sister is too young to notice. Just trust me on that one.”
Whoops, remember that she knows only Sydney’s part of this. Don’t confuse her.

I needn’t have worried. Her lack of response was maddening. Even more frustrating was the way I let her pull me into her bedroom, where I dutifully sat on her bed with the silver sandals in hand and waited while she rummaged through her magical closet to find the perfect, problem-erasing outfit. Finally, she replied to my earlier comment.

“Do you blame them for not wanting to be around you? Before you started wearing your hair straight, it looked just like the pincushion my mother had sitting next to her sewing machine. And that lip ring… What were you thinking, defacing your body like that?”

She asked the question while laying out a pair of light, khaki silk pants. The top was going to be more difficult. How many blouses could one woman own? Some still had the price tags attached. Rejecting one after the other, she finally latched onto a red silk blouse with tiny silver buttons and laid it out next to the pants with a triumphant yelp.

“Perfect,” she said, gesturing for me to try them on. My image of jeans and khaki went up in smoke. Deep in thought, she watched me struggling with the buttons for awhile, then finished speaking her mind. “Sydney, everything about you screamed ‘stay away. I hate you’—your walk, your aggressive mannerisms, your clothes, your scowl… everything! In the restaurant I was actually scared of you. Imagine that, my own daughter. If it hadn’t been so important to Steven, I’d have left before you saw me. Believe me, I did think about it. Is that terrible to admit?”

“And now, Faith? Are you afraid of me now?”

“Have you seen yourself lately?” She pulled me over to a full length mirror, one of those double-sided antiques. “You’re not the same girl anymore. You’ve changed, and I’m not just talking about your hair or your clothes. There’s something special about you now, something beautiful. I’m not the only one who’s noticed. People stare when you walk by, children follow you. Can’t you see it?” She laughed. “I know, I know. You don’t believe it, but you swept Lane right off his feet. Why do you think I left when you asked me to? I thought he’d ask you out then and there. Shae was his excuse to see you again, and I know you don’t want to admit it, but you like him, too.”

“Faith… liking people has been extremely painful in the past. It has never ended well… for me, at least… to the point where I don’t think my heart can take any more rejection.”

“Past? I thought you couldn’t remember your past.”

Tucson Mall

During our drive to the mall, I mentally prepared as best I could. Shae was the key. All I had to do was remember I was there for her. Lane was just an accessory, so it didn’t matter what I was wearing, or not wearing, or that Faith kept going on and on about his hair and boots and steadfastness and loyalty and half a dozen other things she’d thought up since fastening her seatbelt. None of that would make a dent in my resolve if I kept Shae firmly in focus and Lane off to the side and blurry. In fact, I’d already refreshed all my new rules and numbered them to make them more official: 1. Don’t Get Attached, 2. Avoid Crowds and 3. Say As Little As Possible. My assignment was
not
going to be helped one bit by breaking those rules every time I happened to see someone interesting.

Faith? Well, I’d pretty much categorized her matchmaking as an impulsive thing. In her world, a pair of boots could win an election or help kick start the greatest romance since Snow White. After meeting Kojak, she naturally wanted to fix up her daughter with a “nice looking man.” My job would be to make sure that Sydney was ready for such a change in her lifestyle, if and when it happened, even though I couldn’t think of a single clue that would help me. Yet.

There they were in the food court, and they hadn’t spotted me. Good! Now I could watch them for a few seconds. If I felt my pulse rate rise, I could do some really deep breathing and maintain control, but miraculously I was extremely calm. I hid behind a big arrangement of elephant ear caladiums, ferns and fake palms, thankful that none of the other mall patrons had noticed me. If I had been wearing those faded jeans, I could have blended right into the greenery. Instead I was a huge, red hibiscus on a tan stem, but the important thing was that I was still in control.

I already knew what had gone wrong last time. It was Lane’s magnetism. I simply hadn’t been ready for it. Oh, God! I’d even stared at his… stared where I shouldn’t have. Could it get worse than that? Sure it could. I’d probably embarrass myself again, unless I found some way to hook my chin to the mall ceiling. Good thing I was ready this time. He could radiate all the magnetism he wanted. I wouldn’t care. It would be my willpower over his, and I’d win.

He and Shae had been standing next to the Eegee’s kiosk for awhile. Finally, he glanced at his watch, then leaned in and whispered something in her ear. I hoped I’d ducked in time, because they both turned in my direction. They were looking for me. Me! The pleasure of that thought lasted all of three seconds before I realized it was just plain wrong. I wasn’t there for me, but even so my heart rate had jumped, and now I’d have to force it back down. That shouldn’t have happened. In fact, everything about this moment suddenly seemed all wrong—my hiding and spying, the way my pulse was now racing in anticipation of talking to him, thinking that he might actually be excited, too. Why would that matter? This was for Shae, not him.
Focus!

So I focused, and yet my heart rate jumped another notch or two. Without thinking, I dropped down and sat right there on the floor behind the fake foliage, even though there were a dozen empty chairs I could have used. They were all too visible and that blip in my composure told me I wasn’t as much in control as I needed to be. I’d just stay low, pretend to fiddle with one of the straps on my silver sandals and breathe until my composure returned. No big deal. The problem was that I couldn’t see him… or Shae… from that position. There was another problem too. How often had I seen a grown woman in fancy silk pants sitting on a dirty floor, especially when there were chairs nearby? Ah… hell! Bad move, really bad! Any moment, someone might come over to find out if something was wrong.

I quickly got back up and resumed spying.
Close eyes. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Don’t think. Don’t imagine. Don’t visualize his… Oh, Lord, if you’re really out there, please help me! Despite how I behave, I’m a decent girl, right?
When I looked again, Lane and Shae were gone! I’d closed my eyes for no more than a couple of long breaths, and both of them had disappeared. They weren’t in the Eegee’s line or at any of the other kiosks, either. Dozens of people were milling about, buying pizza, hamburgers, cookies and pastry, fudge, ice cream—but the two people I’d been hiding from were nowhere in sight. This wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I’d prayed for help.

Or was it the ultimate joker again?

Perhaps Lane’s sixth sense had kicked in. Maybe his internal warning bells had gone off like an air raid siren. What if he’d seen me—seen how dressed up I was for what he’d intended to be nothing more than a casual meeting—and he’d lit out like a scared rabbit? In that case, had Shae gone willingly, or did he need to drag her away?

My composure was gone, shot, kaput. Probably never even existed in the first place. Why had I put so much effort into being able to handle Lane’s effects on me, all the while denying I was the least bit interested? Was it a result of my recent confessions to Faith, our unexpected friendship, her shoe philosophy, her magic closet? Maybe I just wanted to believe—needed to believe—that my prayers had been heard, that this switch was going to be different in some way.

Nope, impossible. I really didn’t remember any of my switches beyond Claire, so how could I have prayed for anything other than simple answers? I felt terribly alone, even while surrounded by hordes of people, and was one sniff away from crying when I heard his voice directly behind me. “You must really like plants, Sydney. You’ve been staring at this one for quite awhile.”

I was quite sure that my eyes were little white donut-holes, so fierce was my surprise, and for an instant I visualized myself spinning around and leaping into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. In reality, I twisted around and stood there, trying not to look as stupid and dumbfounded as I felt.

“Most girls like flowers—real ones—but if you’re into plastic plants I’m sure I can haggle something just like this one into your home.” He was obviously amused as he touched one of the dusty, frayed plant leaves. “We can even arrange to have some dust applied to the leaves if you’d like. “

“No! I mean, no thank you. That was nice of you to offer, though.”
Brilliant! Awe inspiring! Get your control back, fast!

“Interesting. You’re either not used to having people do nice things for you or you’re drawing a line in the sand, making it clear you’re only interested in friendship. So which one is it?” He turned to his sister and jabbed a thumb in my direction. “What do you think, Shae? Is our plant-loving new friend with the ponytail going to accept the nice meal we promised her or is she going to balk?”

Ponytail? Faith was right. He’d zoomed right in on that change, and now he was pretending not to notice the rest of me. Wasn’t he? I still hadn’t grasped the fact of his standing there in the flesh. He was close enough for me to get a scent of pine soap and the desert after a rain shower. He smelled safe.
You’re too close! Step back. Take charge, or you’ll be doing a lot more than looking at him.
I backed right into the planter, plopping down on my rear end in the sphagnum moss. When I grabbed at the nearest huge leaf, a big cloud of dust filled the air. He had my hand a moment later, gently pulling me back to my feet.

“I
do
so admire the way you emphasize your answers. Any other girl might have used ordinary, boring words to tell me she preferred real flowers.”

Once again my eyes were on his lips.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Don’t you dare look down! Look anywhere but there.

Was that two questions or three I hadn’t answered? It didn’t really matter, because I didn’t trust myself to talk to him without saying something incredibly indecent, so I ignored the question and focused on Shae instead. This was all for her benefit, and so far she’d just stood there.
Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.
He chuckled when he saw what I was doing, but I ignored that, too—for the moment. The rubber band holding Shae’s hair in place was doing anything but that. Bold as you please, curls sprang out in every conceivable angle. I had the urge to reach out and fix the problem, but something about Lane’s note made me hold back. I didn’t know enough about Shae’s problems to feel comfortable following my instincts.

In her turn, she was studying me intently. It was a strange sensation, being sized up so thoroughly by a child.

“Shae, how old are you?” I asked. “No wait, let me guess. Are you six?”

“If I ask you something,” she answered, ignoring my question as I had ignored her brother’s, “will you give me an honest answer?”

Lane’s outlandish choking reminded me that Shae rarely spoke, and yet, she
was
talking… to me.

“Of course I will. What do you want to know?”

“Sydney… is that your
real
name?”

If I’d had all eternity to imagine what her first question would have been, I’d never have guessed that one.
Stay calm. She doesn’t know anything. Probably didn’t mean it like you’re thinking.
I went for the amused response. “What? Don’t you like my name?”