Shadow of the Past (26 page)

“Hey Steve,” she said.

“Hey yourself.” He was positively
beaming over the phone, and she knew why. “What’s going
on?”

“Well, this is kind of awkward . . .”
she started, and she could feel Steve’s mood crash on the other end
of the line.

“Oh geez,” he mumbled. “Did he say
something to you? I was just trying to stick up for him, that’s
all!”

“I know, but . . . can you blame
him?”

“What’s that supposed to
mean?”

“Steve, c’mon, you know what Mark’s
like, don’t you? You’ve been his friend longer than I have, and I
know how something like that would get under his skin. He’s so,
y’know, insecure about stuff like this, and if you try to stand up
for him or be so overt in helping him out, he’s just going to
resent it.”

There was a long pause, and then
“Really?”

There was no way she could stifle her
laugh. “Of course!” she smirked. “God, how long have you known him?
Since like, the third grade or something, right? And you haven’t
figured that out yet?”

“Well, I’m a teenager, not a
therapist.”

“Clearly,” she said, still
chuckling.

“Well, I’ll just have to make it up to
him by making sure that you get a kick-ass grade on that paper,
huh?”

“Yeah, about that . . .”

“Oh you didn’t, did you?”

“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t
just look him in the face and lie. Even if it was by
omission.”

“Was this before or after he and I had
our own lovers spat? If it was before, that’d explain a
lot.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Well, during our little quarrel, I
mentioned how we’d been talking about what’s going on with him,
and--”

“Oh, and you’re mad
at
me
for
mentioning stuff to him?”

“Yeah, I know. Let’s just say he didn’t
take our little heart-to-hearts well.”

She grinded her teeth
together as the anger rose in her. She wasn’t even allowed
to
talk
to someone
else? Who the else did she have around here to talk to? Mark hadn’t
been lying when he said that dating him wasn’t the best move for
her social life.

“Super,” was all she could bring
herself to say.

“I know it sucks, but look, you still
need these notes, right?”

“Yeah,” she murmured.

“So why don’t you just swing over and
pick them up. He doesn’t want you to fail, right?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. The
fact that she even had to think about just going over and get notes
made her even angrier. “Sure,” she said.

“So you were just trying to get
away?”

“Yes,” Christine said, tapping her
fingers impatiently on the dashboard.

“So you don’t want to see the movie?”
he brother asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.

“No,” she said, forcing the words out
through gritted teeth. “I just want you to drive me somewhere,
that’s all, and not have Mom and Dad ask me a bunch of stupid
questions, okay?”

Ryan just grunted and kept driving.
“Where are we going again? I thought you said Puppy boy was
poor.”

“I’m not going to see Mark. I’m going
to pick up some notes from a friend of his. After I do that, you
can drop me off at the mall while you see whatever testosterone
fest movie you’re going to see, okay?”

“Yes, Miss Daisy,” he
snickered.

“What?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say
anything.”

“Keep it that way.”

She had scribbled down the directions
to Steve’s place, which turned out to be fairly close to her house.
Not as big, but still very nice and well looked after. There was
only an old station wagon in the driveway, and Ryan parked as she
headed for the back door. Steve opened the door with a grin before
she even had a chance to knock.

“Hey, study buddy.”

“Hey,” she smiled. “So you’ve got the
notes, right?”

His smile faltered a little bit, but he
backed up and waved her inside. “I’ll run upstairs and get
them.”

She tapped her foot impatiently,
looking around the immaculate kitchen. Mark had said a couple of
times that Steve’s Mom was kind of a clean freak, and it was clear
that he wasn’t exaggerating. She could hear Steve’s footsteps going
up stairs, and a TV playing softly somewhere in the house, but
other than that the place was deathly quiet.

Steve came down a couple of minutes
later, a three-ring binder under his arm. “I think these are
it.”

“You think?” she said, taking the
binder from him and beginning to leaf through it. He hadn’t been
kidding when he said his handwriting was bad. “How am I supposed to
read this?” she said, desperation creeping into her
voice.

“Well, it’s not that bad, is it?” he
said, leaning over her shoulder to take a look. “Well, I think
that’s . . . that’s ‘Lincoln.’ I can tell because of the little
stick figure with the hat. I think that says ‘Gettysburg.’ And I
think--” but Christine snapped the binder shut before he could
finish.

“Steve,” she said, “I thought you said
they weren’t that bad.”

“Well, I was probably just having on
off day that day. The rest can’t be that bad,” He smiled at her
crookedly.

“Steve!”

“Hey, look,” he said, raising his hands
defensively. “I’m just trying to help, that’s all. I know you don’t
want to hang out here or anything, and I don’t blame you, really,
but that’s all I’ve got.”

She let out a sigh and opened the
binder again to take a closer look. From cover to cover, it was
indecipherable. She looked back up at Steve, who just shrugged his
shoulders. “Can you help me figure this out?”

“I’m sure I can,” he smiled sweetly. “I
mean, it’s not like we’d have to pull an all nighter or
anything.”

“Yeah,” she smirked. “It’s not like you
took tons and tons of notes. It won’t take too long,
right?”

“An hour, probably no more than
that.”

“And your folks will be cool with
that?”

“Oh, they’re in the city for some party
my Mom’s office is throwing. They’ll crawl in near dawn, I’m
sure.”

She heaved another sigh. Of course they
were. “Okay, let me go tell my brother to take off.” She dropped
the binder on the table and headed back out to the car.

“Took you long enough,” he said before
she could even say anything.

“Look, I have to stay here and figure
this out, okay?”

Ryan just raised an eyebrow.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what? This is one of his friends,
right?”

“Yes,” she said, “His best
friend.”

He raised the eyebrow
further.

“Quit it, Ry.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he said,
smirking. “So you’ll be in good hands?”

“Just fucking leave, okay?” she said,
turning around and storming back to the house.

“Well, you know what they say,” he
muttered to himself as he backed out of the driveway. “Nice guys
finish last.”

“Slow down,” she said, breaking the
kiss.

“Sorry,” Steve mumbled, moving his hand
north of her waist.

“No,” Christine smiled, guiding his
hand back downward, “You were just doing it too fast.”

“Oh,” he said, smiling back at her. The
notes, half-organized, were strewn over Steve’s bedroom floor and
rustled under her naked body. She gasped, squeezing her thighs on
his hand as he continued fingering her. She was kissing his neck
and bare chest, and soon her hand began to work its way into his
pants.

Everything had started innocently
enough. They moved from the den to his bedroom so they'd have more
room to spread out. They laughed when both their hands went for the
same sheet of paper and they touched by accident.

She'd felt it coming almost an hour
before when they inched closer to each other and when there was a
lull in the conversation Steve leaned forward to kiss her. She’d
had plenty of time to think it over and make a decision as he drew
near.

When he leaned in to kiss her, she
moved forward to kiss him with no hesitation.

She knew it was wrong, but there was a
small, angry part of her that didn’t care about that. This was
familiar ground for her. No matter how sweet it was with Mark this
didn’t have any of the reassuring, consoling or comforting he
seemed to require. It was simple, and that was something she didn’t
even realize that she’d been missing.

“Do you . . .” Steve asked, pausing,
and then simply arching his eyebrows.

“What?” she started, but realized what
he was talking about before the whole word got out of her mouth.
“Oh. God no.”

“Ouch. You don’t have to sound so
grossed out by it,” he said, raising himself up on an elbow to peer
down at her.

“Well I’m a virgin, and I’m not going
to just give it up that easily, okay?” she snapped, scooting away
from him. Her nakedness quickly went from turn-on to
handicap.

“Oh.” He had a quizzical expression on
his face. “I didn’t realize that you hadn’t done it
before.”

“Is that surprising?” she said, sitting
up and trying to remember where they had thrown her
clothes.

“Well,” he said with a slight smirk, “I
guess it was a little presumptuous, but hey, that’s fine, we don’t
have to if you don’t want to.”

“Gee, thanks,” she snapped, wrapping
her arms around her chest. It was kind of chilly without him on top
of her and all of the excitement and passion she'd unconsciously
stored up was leaving as quickly as it came.

“Hey,” he said, sitting up and moving
next to her. “You don’t have to get defensive. I mean, I know it
was kind of a stupid thing to think about, this being our first,
y’know, and--”

“Our first what?” she said. “Affair?
Fling? Fuck? What exactly is this to you?”

“Hey, ease up, okay? I’m not the one
who’s . . .” he cut himself short, but she could clearly see where
he was going.

“Oh that’s nice,” she said, getting to
her feet. Modesty had suddenly taken a back seat to wanting to get
the hell out of there as soon as possible. “You’re not the one
who’s fucking around on her boyfriend, right? I’ll clearly throw
over someone I care about for a cheap lay, right? You’re just
surprised that I haven’t screwed the best friend of all my
boyfriends, right?”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too
much.”

“Congratulations, you’ve got me figured
out. I’m just some cheap slut who was looking for a good time, and
you were the only big stud who could give it to me. Does that make
you feel better about this now? Why don’t we just say I threw
myself at you so you can be completely innocent in all of this,
okay? Let's just say that I seduced you and make me more of the bad
guy?”

“Like you didn’t?” he yelled, his voice
rising to match hers. “Like you weren’t giving me the eye since the
first day that we met? Like you haven’t wanted to be right where we
are now since then?”

“Jesus, listen to yourself,” she said,
snatching her bra up off the floor and trying to get it back on as
quick as possible. “All your helpful advice, setting yourself up to
be the good guy, the best friend, all so you could fuck me quicker,
is that it? Some prize you are.”

“Don’t start,” he snapped, wagging a
finger at her.

“What, are you going to start
threatening me now, is that it? Smack me around and tell me that I
better not say anything about this to anyone? Please,” she said,
waving a hand at him dismissively and gathering up the rest of her
clothes from around the room. “I’ve been intimidated by bigger
assholes than you, Steve. You’re not even in their
league.”

“Wow,” he said, sitting down on his
bed. “And here I was admiring Mark’s taste in girls.”

“That’s funny,” she said, buttoning and
zippering as fast as she could. “I was going to say the same thing
about his taste in friends.” Finally finished, she turned and
stormed out, the notebook paper crumpling underfoot.

She almost made it out of the house
without getting her purse from the den, which would have been a
real disaster. Of course, it’s not like anything else about this
night was going very well anyway. She glanced at the VCR clock as
she left, and saw that it was almost 1:30. She and Steve had been
occupied far longer than she had thought. The only thing to be
thankful for was that Steve hadn’t been exaggerating about his
parents being out all night. She didn’t want to top the evening off
by running into his parents as she burst out the door, hair mussed,
clothes a shambles, smelling like pencil lead and sex.

On top of everything else there was
Mark. It had been so easy to push him to the side during, and even
right before. She was still angry at him for asking her not to come
here, and clearly, Mark knew what Steve was capable of more than
she did.