Flat-Out Love (8 page)

“I should bring Flat Finn?” she guessed.

Matt was silent for a moment. “Yes. The back seat is down, and there’s a blanket in there so you can cover it up.”

“You mean
him
.”

“What?”

“I can cover
him
up. Be respectful. How’d you like it if Flat Finn referred to you as an
it
, huh?”

“If Flat Finn referred to me as anything, I’d have a whole new respect for
him
. So far
he’s
refused to call me anything. It’s a little rude, if you ask me.”

“I’ll talk to him about it. See if I can soften him up a bit.”

“Excellent,” Matt said. “Thanks for getting Celeste. I think she’ll be OK with you being there. She seems to like you. Tell her that I’ll call her after my meeting.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“She’s rather regimented. Changes in her schedule and unexpected people—”

“She’ll be fine,” Julie repeated. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise anything—”

“Good-bye, Matthew. Have fun at your meeting.” Julie hung up before he could protest. For crying out loud, she was perfectly capable of picking up someone at school—with or without a cardboard boy in the back seat.

She ran upstairs and changed into a breezy knee-length tank dress and pinned her hair up. A quick touch-up to her makeup, which had begun to smear in the heat, and she headed out the front door to get Celeste. She stopped on the front steps and spun around.

Flat Finn stood poised expectantly in the living room. Julie approached the figure. God, this was messed up. “Come on, dude. We’re off to get your pal. Now, normally people are not allowed to ride in the way-back, so keep your head down, and maybe we won’t get arrested.”

She lifted up the cutout boy and tucked his waist under her arm. Figuring out how to open the front door without smashing
Flat Finn was a bit of a challenge, and she had to set him on the front porch while she locked the door. She lifted the trunk open, got Flat Finn into the car, and covered him with the large blue blanket that was waiting there to conceal Celeste’s secret.

The old Volvo was blistering hot, and Julie wondered why a family that clearly had money would not bother to maintain what could be a perfectly running car. Granted, it was a Volvo and would probably run forever no matter what. And they only had one car, too, which seemed odd, since two busy professionals and a student could certainly get use out of two vehicles. Apparently people with money did funny things sometimes.

She was pleased to note that Flat Finn had not left the gas tank empty. “Thank you, FF. I appreciate the consideration.”

Julie found Celeste’s school easily. She pulled into the arched driveway and idled behind a Lexus sedan. Students were just beginning to pour out of the front doors, and Julie scanned groups of girls, looking for Celeste. The middle-school students milled around in easily identifiable cliques, and Julie remembered exactly how it felt to be thirteen. It was such a strange age, that screwed-up, early-teen time when you vacillate between desperately wanting to be a full-fledged adult and still feeling like a little kid. The torture of trying to figure out how to dress and get your eyeliner exactly as they do in music videos, which singers were cool and which singers you shouldn’t be caught dead listening to, what to do to get boys to like you, and what to do if they did. Ugh. Thank God Julie was done with that.

A girl in a miniskirt and a ponytail stepped aside, and Julie saw Celeste. Julie dropped her head to the steering wheel, hitting her head lightly a few times. Why was Celeste wearing a pastel plaid shirt and pale-blue pleated pants? Julie lifted her head and sighed, wanting nothing more than to leap from the
car and yank the dorky backpack off the girl’s shoulders. This kid stood out for all the wrong reasons. Like it or not, other kids cared about how you looked, and Celeste looked…
Wrong
. Gorgeous underneath the horrible clothing and totally unstyled hair, but still wrong.

But worse than how she looked was the undeniable fact that she was alone and quite obviously invisible to her peers. Julie cringed as a boy passed by Celeste, failing to notice or care that he bumped into her elbow as he joined up with a cluster of trendy, T-shirt-wearing guys.

Julie beeped the horn and waved, finally getting Celeste’s attention. Celeste scanned the cars and then headed toward the Volvo. She stopped by the passenger door, her eyes wide and her face expressionless.

“Hey, kiddo. Hop in,” Julie said warmly.

Celeste stood still, waiting a moment before she spoke. “Why are you here?” There was a noticeable shake in her voice that Julie couldn’t miss.

“Matt asked me to pick you up today. He is really sorry. I guess he had something important to do at school. Celeste? It’s OK. Flat Finn is with me. He helped get me here, because Matt’s directions were dreadful.”

Celeste opened the door and slipped into the seat. “Oh. This is fine.” She turned to Julie. “This really
is
fine.”

“Good.” Julie pulled the car out to the main road. “So what should we do?”

“What do you mean
do
? We go home after school.”

“Let’s do something. Come on!”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” Julie turned up the radio and tapped her fingers on the wheel. “I don’t even know what street I’m on right now. Maybe we’ll get lost and spend the next few hours
trying to navigate our way home. We’ll listen to old-school Kelly Clarkson power songs and sing until we lose our voices.”

“That is not a good plan.” Celeste turned and peered into the back of the car. She inhaled deeply, then slowly let the air escape from her lips. “I always just go home.”

Julie took a left turn onto another main road and drove for a few minutes. “Aha!” She pulled the car into the parking lot of a supermarket. “Let’s make dinner tonight. I want to thank your parents for letting me stay at your house. Do you like Italian? I make a mean manicotti.”

“Oh.” Celeste thought for a moment. “That could be acceptable.”

“Acceptable? It’s going to be more than acceptable. Homemade tomato sauce with fresh basil? Ricotta and spinach stuffing? And my secret touch? Cheesy white sauce drizzled over the top. And we can all discuss Italian Gothic architecture or ancient Rome during dinner. I know how you guys like theme nights.”

“Or the Italian Renaissance. Dad likes the Renaissance.”

“You got it.” Julie parked the car and started to get out. But Celeste didn’t move. “Celeste? You coming?”

“Me? No. I should wait in the car. That’s what I do.”

“You don’t go into stores?”

“No.”

“Not ever?”

“No.”

This was unbelievable. Julie tightened her fist around the car keys until they dug painfully into her hand. Somebody had to fix this. She walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. “Well, that’s too bad because FF and I want your help picking the best tomatoes.” She flung the blanket off Flat Finn and eased him out of the back. “So I don’t want to hear you
complaining about the poor quality of the produce we select.” She slammed the trunk shut, pulled a shopping cart out from the stack next to the car, and stuck the cutout brother into the cart, angled so that his entire top half jutted out.

Celeste flew out of the car. “What are you doing?”

“Shopping. What are you doing?”

“Beginning to have a type of anxiety attack that I would prefer to avoid.”

“What else are you doing?”

Celeste pursed her lips together, hiding a smile. “Shopping.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

“And do not call him FF. He doesn’t care for abbreviations.”

“Tell him to stop calling me JS and I’ll consider it.”

Matt set his messenger bag on the stool next to him and sat down at the kitchen counter. He looked at the plate in front of him. “What is this?”

“It’s a gastronomical representation of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
.” Julie put her hands on her hips. “Don’t you see it? The clear depiction of the struggle for sexual identity as evidenced by the two phallic shapes?”

Matt looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

“What are
you
talking about? It’s manicotti, you nut. What do you think it is?”

“I know
that
. I was referencing the noticeable absence of takeout cartons. You made dinner?”

“Celeste and I made dinner,” Julie corrected.

“And they did a wonderful job.” Erin swooped into the kitchen and set her wine glass down on the counter. “Thank you again, Julie. It was wonderful. I don’t remember the last time we’ve bothered to cook dinner ourselves. I’m surprised the stove is still working.” She turned to Matt. “You’re home late. How was school? Did your meeting go well?”

Matt nodded as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. Half his food was already gone. “Very good. Sorry I’m home late. And
even sorrier that I’ve managed to double my workload by agreeing to be a research assistant.”

“This is with Professor Saunders, correct? He has an excellent reputation, so this is an important opportunity for you.” Erin took a sip of wine. “I do hear he’s very demanding, Matthew, so you’ll have to be incredibly diligent with your work.”

“I realize that. In fact,” Matt said as he stood up, “I should get upstairs and get to work. I’ll finish dinner up there. Thanks, Julie.” He picked up his plate and started out of the kitchen. “Hey, Julie?” He stopped in the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“So things went all right today?”

“Totally fine. I told you that when you called. Both times.”

“OK. Thanks again.”

Julie wiped down the counter and moved to the sink to start washing the pans that hadn’t fit into the dishwasher. Erin took a towel and stood next to her.

“Julie, tell me how your mother is. Until she called me the other day, I hadn’t heard her voice in years. She’s doing well?”

Julie nodded. “Yeah. She still works for her parents’ copier company as the office manager. She seems to like it.” She rinsed a saucepan and handed it to Erin.

“She’s still working for them?” Erin said with surprise. “Bless her, because I could never work for my family. Kate is a better woman than I am.”

“Erin? This might sound weird, but you and my mom seem very different. I have a hard time seeing you two as friends.” In fact, Julie found it impossible to see her mother and Erin hanging out and swapping approaches to socioeconomic policies in between classes and dorm parties.

“We were. We roomed together for three out of the four years. We may be different people now, but when we were in college,
we were probably more alike. Your mother was an excellent student, and it came so naturally to her. Did you know that? She’s very bright. We chose different paths after we graduated, though. You mother and father were already dating, and they got married a year after they graduated. I worked for a few years and then went to law school. I was simply more career-oriented than your mother. Kate chose a path that was comfortable for her. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. I’m glad she’s so happy.”

“Did you think she was going to go to law school or something, the way you did?”

“She could have. She certainly had the intellect. It just wasn’t what she wanted. Kate wasn’t interested in graduate school or a more prominent career. She wanted your father, and she wanted the life she got.” Erin paused. “Until…I’m sorry. That was thoughtless.”

“It’s OK. The divorce is the divorce. It happens all the time, so it’s not a big deal.”

“They separated when you were about four or five, is that right?”

Julie nodded.

“Do you see him much?”

“Once or twice a year. After the divorce his career really took off, and he just hasn’t been able to see me as much as he would like. He’s really busy with his job. He comes into town for business sometimes, so I have dinner with him when he can. It’s the nature of his work, I guess. I understand.”

“He’s still with that fancy hotel chain?”

Julie nodded. “Yup. He’s the regional vice president for the West Coast. And he’s taking me to California over winter break this year. My first Christmas without snow.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Erin said. “I’m glad you’ll have some time with him.”

“Yeah. I’m sure it will be great,” Julie said. She turned off the water. “I’m glad my mom called you.”

“I’m glad Kate called me too.”

“I hope you know that I’ve been doing everything I can to find an apartment. I don’t want you to think you’ll have to put me up permanently.”

“Well, why not?”

“What do you mean?”

Erin shrugged and refilled her wine glass. “Why don’t you stay? Free room and board. That’s a pretty good deal, don’t you think? You shouldn’t have to worry about rent and bills and all that nonsense when you should be focusing on school.”

“I couldn’t let you put me up all year. That doesn’t seem right.”

“If you have morning classes, then you could take care of Celeste in the afternoons. How about that? She enjoys you. I noticed her hair looked different tonight. Did you do something to it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Julie said distractedly. “I did a quick French braid for her. She seemed to like it. So, seriously? You would really be OK with me staying here?”

“Absolutely. What’s the big deal? Although I understand that you might prefer to live with friends and experience a more traditional undergraduate social life. You’re an adult now, so you should certainly set your own schedule here. I have no interest in monitoring your every move. You’re obviously smart and responsible.”

Julie thought for a moment. Why not? She’d save her mom a ton of money, and if she found a good deal on an apartment in a few months, she could always move out then. “I’d love to stay, Erin. Really. That’s incredibly generous of you. I assume you need to talk to Roger about this, though, and I understand if he doesn’t want an unexpected boarder.”

Erin waved her hand dismissively. “He won’t mind in the least. Besides, he’s going off on his trip soon, and we could use an extra hand. And this way Matthew can really apply himself to his studies.”

Julie smiled. “OK, then. This sounds great. I like Celeste. A lot.”