She Loves You, She Loves You Not... (5 page)

Dad’s head snapped around to Tanith’s face, then up to mine.

Not much gets past Tanith. Well, some stuff does.

“No,” I said.

“I think it’d be all right.” Tanith winked.

“I don’t,” Dad said to me. “Why don’t you bring him here?”

I mumbled, “Just forget it,” and left the room.

I heard Tanith say, “Paul, it’s fine with me. Alyssa’s growing up, you know, and we won’t always be together for holidays.”

Dad caught me listening at the doorway. He held my eyes, and a thin smile pressed against his lips. Pausing the movie, he said, “When do we get to meet him?”

There is no him!
I wanted to shout. There’ll never be a
him
.

Why did he always make it so hard? Why does he still?

On Thanksgiving morning, Tanith knocked on my bedroom door. The aroma of turkey and sage and pumpkin swirled through my room, making me hungry. I love Thanksgiving. The food and the spirit of giving and—the whole family thing.

Now it’ll never be the same. I don’t even know who my family is.

“I talked to your dad last night.” Tanith stood in the threshold. “He wants us to have Thanksgiving dinner together, but I got up early to get the turkey in the oven, so we’ll be eating around noon or one. Will that give you time?”

I jumped up to hug her. And I almost did. Tanith could be so great.

I’d already told Sarah I couldn’t make it. She’d been sulking all week.

Tanith said, “Maybe afterward you could bring your boyfriend home to meet your dad?”

My face flared. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on. What’s the worst that could happen? He knows better than to humiliate you. Although that probably wouldn’t stop him.” Tanith made a face.

What’s the worst? Being disowned. It’s beyond what I imagined Dad would ever do.

It was a mistake to go to Sarah’s. The first of countless errors in judgment. Why did we have to involve our families? Why?

I’d never felt so uncomfortable or nervous. Sarah has a large family; all these relatives around the table. “What does your old man do?” her father asked me.

“He’s a lawyer,” I told him.

Sarah’s family
ooh
ed. What did that mean?

Her mom said, “How old are you?” Her accusatory tone of voice made me tense.

“Sixteen,” I said.

“You’re a sophomore?”

“Junior.”

“A junior! You’re too old to be Sarah’s best friend.”

I glanced sideways at Sarah. I had no idea what she’d told her parents about me. “Alyssa’s in Spanish Club with me, and gymnastics. She’s tutoring me in math,” Sarah said.

She was a good liar.

“I hate lawyers,” Sarah’s dad said. “They’re all crooks.”

What a jerk. People who assume all lawyers are dishonest are ignorant. At least my dad was honest. He honestly hates me.

Tears sting my eyes, and I force them to
stop
. I’m so sick of hurting.

I need to
do
something. Occupy my mind. I could read, but lately reading doesn’t even take me out of myself.

With all this supposed natural beauty around me, I should go exploring.

My backpack is still stuffed with books and clothes and CDs. Tanith didn’t give me much time to pack. In the front pocket are a bunch of video games that Paulie must’ve stuck in there. Carly doesn’t have an Xbox or Wii that I’ve seen. The last thing I want to do is play video games all by myself.

I can’t hike in my flip-flops, and it’s too hot for my boots, so I slip into Carly’s room to check out her shoes. She has racks and racks. On one side are wedge sandals and athletic
shoes. On the other are her stripper shoes—sparkly stilettos and strap-on fuck-me heels.

I have the urge to try on a pair, just to see how they feel. I wonder if she takes them off or leaves them on when she does it. The image makes me sick.

I can tell by looking that all her shoes are too big for me, anyway.

The mountainside is loose gravel and steep banks, slick as ice. My flip-flops keep falling off. I need to climb higher, maybe up through the dead trees, where there might be thicker vegetation and more shade.

I trip and grab on to some scrub to keep from tumbling all the way down the mountain. A swarm of gnats buzz in my ear. I swat them away, and six or eight million mosquitoes lift off my arm. My hands flail around my head. Ew, ew, I hate bugs.

Forget this. I could take a drive. If I drive slowly, stay off the interstate…

Even though it’s been in the garage since I got here, the Mercedes is caked with yellow pollen and filmed with a layer of dirt. It’s obvious Carly hasn’t driven it in a while. Every time she opens the garage, though, another whirlpool of pollen blows in. The front seat of the SUV is pushed way back, and it takes me an eternity to find the adjuster and figure out all the knobs and buttons and gauges on the dash. I hear Dad’s voice in my head: “Step one: Always learn the car you’re about to drive.”

He forgot to mention where the instruction manual is.

“Okay, you can do this,” I say aloud. I twist the key. A
grinding sound, then the motor dies. Great. The battery must be dead. I try again, and the motor
vroom
s to life, startling me. I sit for a minute, feeling the power. I garner courage. Shifting into reverse, I release the parking brake, give the engine a touch of gas, and back right into the garage door.

“Shit.”

I ease forward, shift into park, and turn off the car. I get out and check the damage. Thank God I didn’t hit hard enough to dent the bumper or the garage door. I’m the worst driver in the world.

This time I press the garage door opener
first
and then back out slowly, slowly. Shut the garage. Shift into drive. Inch forward down the access road, riding the brake the whole time.

To the right is Majestic, then a town named Frisco and a highway that leads to the interstate. I turn left.

A semi swerves around the corner, horn blaring, and I jam on the brakes. When the shrieking in my ears stops, I open my eyes. I’m still alive, but stopped dead in the road.

I putter forward again. This road, Highway 102, curves around Caribou Mountain. I drive slowly, getting a feel for the steering, the gas and brakes. I push buttons on the armrest to find the window opener. The hot air outside is stifling, but better than the stale air inside the car. There’s a sunroof, so I search the dash to find the control. The button I push blasts hot air in my face, but soon the air gets cooler. Score. I found the AC.

The drive is nerve-racking, but the scenery is pretty. The smell of pine. Fresh air. In Virginia Beach, summer means the smell of salt off the ocean, and humidity that wilts you like
wet spaghetti. My clothes are always damp there. Without warning, a dog darts into the middle of the highway, and my foot slams the brake just in time. A person runs into the road to retrieve the dog.

My heart thrums in my ears. I blink, and Finn’s standing there, holding the dog. My first impulse is to
go
, don’t let her see me. But she’s already seen.

I click the turn signal and pull to the side of the road ahead of her. In a few seconds, she saunters up alongside. How do I open the passenger window? Finn’s waiting. I press a button, and the passenger window plus the two back windows go down.

“You almost hit us,” she says.

“I didn’t mean to. Your dog ran right out in front of me.”

She eyes the inside of the car. “Is this yours?”

“Yeah, right. Carly let me borrow it.”

The dog whines, and Finn shifts him to her other arm.

“Is this your third job?” I ask. “Walking dogs?”

She gives me a funny look. “People get paid for that?”

Apparently not here. The dog is a mutt. Long-haired dachshund-bulldog mix or something. “What’s his name?” I ask.

“Boner,” she says.

I laugh.

She doesn’t crack a smile.

“Seriously?” I say.

A car races up behind us, and the driver honks. Finn waves as the car zooms past.

“Where are you going?” I ask. “You want a ride?”

“No, thanks. This isn’t a good place to stop. There’s a picnic
area up ahead. Why don’t you pull in there?” I check out where she’s pointing.

She sets the dog down and starts walking along the shoulder again. I signal and merge back onto the road.

The picnic area, overgrown with weeds and long, dry grass, has one table. I shut and lock the car door and then sit on the bench and wait for Finn. She looks both ways before trotting across the highway, carrying Boner. What a name. She’s lean and tan. Muscular, but not in a fake I-work-out-at-the-gym sort of way. More naturally buff.

She sets Boner down and says, “Stay.” He sniffs the ground and lifts his leg on the end of the picnic table, barely missing my foot. He wanders off through the grass. “Boner, stay,” she calls to him. He acts deaf. She shakes her head at me. “Dumb dog.”

We look at each other, and something—I don’t know what—passes between us. She opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off. “If you say I look exactly like Carly, I’ll smack you.”

“Don’t move.” She raises her hand. “You have a wasp on your neck.”

I slap my neck and jump up, flapping my hands around my head.

She lowers her arm and stares at me.

“What? It was a wasp.”

Her eyes shift over my shoulder, and she calls, “Boner!” His tail wags up through the weeds. Finn turns her attention to me again.

“Sorry. I hate bugs,” I say.

“They’re just looking for their next meal. Or a little excitement in their day.” One end of her lip curls up.

“Ha-ha.”

She steps up on the bench and plops down on the picnic table, resting her elbows on her knees. I climb up next to her. We seem to have forged a truce. She gazes out across the open field, where Boner’s digging up something. “I wish I had a dog,” I say. Maybe now I can. “We had a dog when I was little, an Irish setter, but it got cancer and had to be put to sleep.”

Finn twists her head my way. “I’m sorry.”

It’s an old memory. Dad cried all the way home from the vet’s. After that he said, “No more dogs.”

“How old is he?” I ask, jutting my chin toward Boner.

“I don’t know.” Finn peers back at him. “He’s a stray.”

A moment of silence passes. It’s peaceful. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” I say.

“In a few hours. I should be sleeping, but it’s such a nice day, I thought we’d get out and hike up to Caribou Lake.”

“There’s a lake?”

“In the crater.”

“There’s a crater?”

She sits upright and whistles through her teeth, about splitting my eardrums. Boner’s off by some boulders, sniffing around. His tail wags, which means he heard, I guess. Finn says, “Where were you going?”

“I don’t know. For a drive.”

She reaches into her backpack. “Give me your arm.”

“Why?”

She holds up a plastic bottle of bug spray. “Ticks,” she says. “And mosquitoes.”

Not to mention wasps. I extend my arm, and she grasps my elbow. Her hands are strong and calloused. She sprays me over and under. Even through the toxic fumes, her nearness, her touch, generate heat. I cool it down.

She takes my other hand. She has gorgeous light brown skin. Sculpted arm muscles. She really does look Native American. Kind of a round face. That long, thick, coal-black braid.

“Shut your eyes,” she says. She points the bug spray at my face.

I close my eyes and see her in photo negative. A blinding white aura.

She mists my cheeks, under my chin, around my ears. She sprays the exposed skin on my chest and back. For a heart-stopping minute I soak in her sensuality. She oozes it. It’s hard to squelch the feeling.

The dog barks shrilly, startling me.

Finn bounces off the bench, dropping her pack, and races through the long grass over to where Boner is. I scramble behind her. She stops, her arm jutting out to the side like a crossbar to halt me.

“Stand still,” Finn says. “Very still.”

The dog barks, and Finn lunges, catching him by the collar. She hoists him up as he barks and barks. “Shh, Boner. Hush.” She clamps his snout. He whines, and she whispers, “Shh,” to him.

I say, “What is it?”

Her palm stops millimeters from my mouth. I hear it—a sound, like
chchchchch
.

Finn’s arm drops, and she grabs my hand. “Step back very, very slowly.” Her grip tightens as she leads me backward. When I falter in my flip-flops, she curls an arm around my waist.

After nine or ten steps, we freeze in place. She exhales a breath and lets me go. “That was close.” She returns to the picnic table, dog in tow, me stumbling behind. “They usually don’t come up this far, but it’s a hot summer. I’ve seen a bunch of them around the quarry south of town.” Finn scoops her backpack off the ground.

“What was it?” I ask again.

She takes out a leash and clips it onto Boner’s collar. Then she says to me, “Rattlesnake.”

“What!”

“Western rattlesnake. Pretty big one. Not a good idea to be walking around up here in flip-flops.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“You should get some decent shoes.”

I’m paralyzed, seized with fear as I imagine snakes everywhere, crawling all over my feet and legs.

“We should get going.” She shoulders her pack and tugs at Boner’s leash.

“Wait.” I rush up behind her. “Can I give you a ride?”

“The trail’s just around the bend here.” She pivots and walks backward away from me. “I didn’t know Carly had a kid your age. She never mentioned you.”

“I’m not a kid.” And thanks for the slap in the face.

Finn smiles. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” I lie. “How old are you?”

She doesn’t answer. I’m guessing early twenties.

I get in the car and start the ignition, expelling a sharp breath. I drive past her, speeding up so she thinks I’m cool. Yeah, I’m so cool. Watch, I’ll run right off the road or get hit by a semi. Out the rearview mirror, I see Finn veer up onto Caribou Mountain and just sort of blend into nature.

The front door shuts, and I jerk awake. I shift to sit up on the sofa, find the remote, and turn down the sound on the TV. Carly appears on the main-floor landing. “Oh. You’re here.”