Someone Else (7 page)

“Are you still at that same chicken place?” she asked, passing me the basket of rolls.

“Chick N’ Burger,” I said. “Yes, unfortunately.”

“They have the best onion rings,” Megan said. She was the twin who looked like her mom, small with dark hair and the same blue-gray eyes that most of the family shared. She was also more outgoing than her sister, Jennifer, who was tall like their dad and looked a lot older than her thirteen years. I couldn’t believe how much they’d both grown since the summer. Jennifer was taller than me now, and Megan had turned into a beauty.

“You’re not happy there?” Cheryl asked me.

I shrugged. “It’s a job.”

“True, but I’m sure the pay isn’t all that great considering the amount of work involved.”

She was right. I busted my ass for a wage that more often than not wasn’t even enough to keep gas in my car. “No one else would hire me,” I said. Michael smiled and bumped my knee under the table.

“What about waitressing? At least you’d get tips that way. I was a waitress all through college and the tips alone were enough to keep me in gas and clothes.”

“But that was the sixties, Mom,” Megan said, as if dinosaurs roamed the earth back then.

“The seventies, actually, but thanks for reminding me how ancient I am.”

“I applied at a bunch of restaurants,” I told her. “But no one called back.”

“Their loss,” she said, and I felt all glowy inside. Michael’s mom tried her best to make up for her husband’s coldness by always being present and supportive for her kids, and occasionally it spilled over to include me.

“What about Moretti’s?” Michael said. “He owes you one.”

“Oh!” His mom beamed at him like he’d said something ingenious. “Why didn’t I think of that?” She turned to me. “David and I,” she said, glancing over at Michael’s father’s empty chair as if he were sitting in it, even though he hadn’t been home all day, “we have a friend who owns this little Italian place on Hudson Street. The food is amazing. Maybe Sal is looking for someone.”

I tried not to get too excited. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d been in that restaurant during my job hunt to fill out an application. “He owes you one?”

She flipped her hand modestly. “He almost went bankrupt a few years ago. We helped him out a little. This was before he changed locations. He’s doing really well now.”

“So pull some strings, Mom,” Jennifer said.

Cheryl stood up. “I’ll call him right now.”

“Oh no,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to. I mean, it can wait.”

“Don’t be silly, Taylor. The sooner you quit that chicken job, the better.”

She left the dining room. I looked over at Michael. “Just like that, huh?”

“How do you think I got my job?” he said. “Connections.”

Michael’s mom came back into the room five minutes later, carrying dessert and looking triumphant. “You have an interview next Monday at four-thirty,” she told me. “Is that okay? Will you have enough time to get to Weldon after school?”

“I guess. I mean, yes, that’s fine.” My head was spinning from the speed at which she’d arranged this. “Really? An interview?”

“Sal told me he’s been considering hiring a new server. May as well be you.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thanks.”

She grinned. “You can thank me when you get the job.”

Later, after helping clean up, Michael and I went up to his room. It looked barren in there now with most of his things gone. Just his books remained, and his bed, where we stretched out together.

“Better,” Michael said, closing his eyes. “Estrogen overload down there tonight.”

I laughed. “It’s too bad you don’t have enough time this weekend to go visit Josh.” The prison that had been Michael’s brother’s place of residence for the past year or so was about a three hour drive away. Usually he went to visit him once or twice a month.

“I’ll see him over Christmas break,” Michael reminded me. Josh was scheduled to be released, finally, in December. The family was cautiously excited about it. Jail time had never had much of an effect on him before.

“What do you want to do tonight?” I asked, even though I was too full and tired to even contemplate standing, let alone leaving the house.

Eyes still closed, he tilted his head toward me and smiled. “Lay right here,” he replied. “With you.”

“That,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck, “is the best plan I’ve ever heard.”

When he kissed me he tasted like the apple crisp we’d had for dessert—sweet and warm with a hint of cinnamon, just like always.

Chapter 6

Michael dropped by my dad’s house the next morning on his way back to Avery. This good-bye was almost as horrible as the first one, but this time I refused to cry. At least not in front of him. I simply hugged him extra hard and told him I’d see him at Christmas, which felt like an eternity away instead of two short months.

In a way, seeing Michael had made me even lonelier. It was like everything had reset and I had to start missing him all over again. Even worse, he seemed glad to be getting back to Avery and his life there. Relieved, even. It made me feel a little resentful, and jealous of whatever held him there. Engrossing school work? Doubt it. His friends? Maybe. Another girl? God, I hoped not. Michael knew how I felt about cheating, and we’d vowed to never do that to each other. We’d break up first. I’d witnessed the effects of cheating when my father left my mother to be with Lynn, and again when my ex Brian dumped me for Kara Neilson. I didn’t have it in me to relive it again.

With everything that happened on the weekend, it was no surprise that I totally forgot about starting chemistry labs on Monday morning. I forgot about something else too, I realized when I shuffled into class a little late and glimpsed Jessica, Dylan, and Ashley sitting at a table near the back of the room. Ashley saw me and raised her eyebrows all the way up to her hairline. My weekend with Michael had totally erased the matchmaking scheme from my mind. But now it was back, and three pairs of eyes bored into my face as I sat down.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and ready to mix chemicals when all I really felt was depressed and ready to go to bed.

“Where were you?” Ashley demanded.

“I went to the classroom first. I forgot we started labs today.”

“Jessica said we’re all working together, but I don’t remember anyone discussing it with me.”

Damn Ashley and her outspokenness. Okay, so I’d failed to mention the group plans to her, but only because I knew she would say no. For one, Ashley didn’t like Jessica all that much. Secondly, she always got tongue-tied around boys she thought were cute. She never would have agreed to this arrangement.

“Sorry,” I said.

She sent me a look that I’d seen many times before—cold-eyed disapproval—and then pretended to go over her notes. Jessica cleared her throat in the tense silence that followed, and Dylan gazed longingly over to a group of his friends at another table, undoubtedly wondering how in the hell he got stuck with three crazy girls. I thought of Michael’s words from Saturday night:
estrogen overload
.

McDowell started explaining in his dry tone that we would spend today’s lab getting familiar with the equipment and going over safety procedures.

“And next week,” he said, actually sounding a little animated now, “we’ll start working with base metals.”

Across from me, Jessica yawned loudly. McDowell ignored her and began demonstrating how to use a Bunsen burner. And after a long, boring tutorial, he let us play too.

“I have a feeling I’ll be breaking a lot of nails in this class,” Jessica said as she struggled with the rubber tube for our burner. “You guys will have to do the manual labor.”

Ashley shook her head, annoyed, and Dylan looked like he’d rather be experiencing a Novocain-free root canal than sitting here with us. He hadn’t spoken a word since I’d sat down.

McDowell turned on the main gas supply. A roaring sound filled the room and for a moment I was sure we were all goners.

“Remember,” he said, circling the room. “The hottest part of the flame is just above that cone of unburnt gas. Respect the flame, people. Okay, let’s shut everything down and take a look at the eyewash station.”

The roaring stopped and I slouched against the table, exhausted. McDowell started lecturing again, his deep, monotonous voice lulling me into a kind of daze until I was barely conscious of my surroundings. I rested my head on my hand, my eyes focused on the teacher but my mind somewhere else entirely. It was important to learn this safety stuff, I knew, but I was too tired to concentrate. In fact, I was so out of it that it took me a while to realize that Dylan was staring at me.

I’d caught him in my peripheral vision, which he obviously didn’t realize because he kept doing it. I jerked upright, my hand knocking into my pen and sending it rolling to the floor. I leaned over to get it and by the time I came back up, Dylan’s eyes were fixed on the teacher.

He didn’t look at me again for the rest of the class. I knew this because I spent the whole time watching him, trying to catch him in the act. I’d never really looked at him before,
really
looked, and all of a sudden I started noticing things about him, like that his forearm—which rested on the table as he half-turned in his chair toward McDowell—was covered in fine blond hairs. They matched the hair on his head, which was sandy blond and cut short. He was thin but not scrawny—lean and fit from soccer. His profile was nice but his nose, like mine, was a little on the large side. His face wasn’t all sharp planes and angles like Michael’s, but it was attractive enough. Or it could have been, if he quit the brooding for one second and actually smiled.

To pass the time, I began dreaming up possible reasons why he never smiled. Braces? Bad teeth?
No
teeth? Severe depression? I couldn’t pin it down. He was a jock, and most of the jocks I knew were noisy and obnoxious, always joking around. He and his friends were generally popular, and he was good-looking enough to have his share of girlfriends. As for his personality, I couldn’t say. He’d have to, you know,
speak
first.

The bell rang for lunch. As I gathered my things, I realized I hadn’t heard a single word of the safety lecture. Beside me, Ashley slung her bag over her shoulder and glared at me sideways. I knew what that meant—she was going to ream me out as soon as we left the room. I slowed my pace, trying to delay the inevitable, and in doing so I was also able to eavesdrop on Jessica and Dylan, who were having a conversation.

They were talking about someone they both knew, someone who had apparently gotten smashed over the weekend and threw up somewhere he shouldn’t have. Jessica made some kind of scathing remark, and that was when it happened.

Dylan smiled. He smiled and I stared, but not because he had braces or bad teeth or no teeth or anything like that. Not even close.

He had the most adorable dimples I had ever seen.

****

“I’m switching groups in chemistry,” Ashley told me on Friday afternoon as we stood at our locker, getting ready to go home. “I’ve been thinking about it all week and today I made a decision. I’m going with Brooke’s group. It’s just her and these two boys who show off and act like idiots around her, so she needs me to act as buffer.”

I stuffed my math book and two binders into my bag. “Okay.”

“You know how I feel about Jessica.” She spoke quickly and without apology. “She’s so shallow and flakey. I mean, be friends with whoever you want, obviously, but I don’t have to like everyone you like.”

“
Okay
, Ash.”

She gave me that disapproving look again. “And honestly, Taylor, I’m not a moron. I know it was your idea to work with Dylan because you wanted to throw me at him.”

I pretended to hunt for my calculator.

“It won’t work. Even if I did want to go out with him—and I’ve told you a million times that I don’t—I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be on board with the idea. He’s never so much as looked at me. Come to think of it, all he did during chemistry lab on Monday was stare at
you
.”

I forced out a laugh. “He did not.”

“He did too. I’d be careful if I were you.”

“Why?”

She slammed the locker shut. “Your boyfriend is hundreds of miles away with college girls all over him, and a cute guy right here in Oakfield has the hots for you. Do the math.”

As if on cue, Dylan walked into the Dungeon and headed straight for his locker. Ashley and I turned away quickly, but not before I caught him giving me a brief once over. Apparently, Ashley caught it too because she whispered, “See?”

There was no point in arguing. We both knew she was right. I saw it every day now, saw how he’d glance up when I walked into a room, saw him brighten when I spoke during lunch, felt his eyes on my backside as I passed him in the halls. All week, I’d been well aware of it. I was being watched, and it made me extremely uncomfortable.

My agitation had only quadrupled by the time Robin called me at my dad’s house that evening. I was so freaked out, in fact, that I lost my head and did something stupid: she was having a party at her house tonight, and I agreed to go.

My uneasiness over Dylan wasn’t the only reason I decided to go out. Neither was the fact that I hadn’t seen Robin in two weeks. Both of these things together would not have gotten me out the door. In the end, it was the phone call with Michael that drove me to the comforts of an old friend and large amounts of alcohol.

On weekends I usually called Michael’s room at around seven, before he headed out for the evening. Often, during our calls, he’d have a room full of friends, a boisterous group of guys who laughed a lot and rarely gave him a moment’s peace. I knew them all by name now. Sometimes they even answered his phone when I called, teasing me, calling me “the little woman” or “the wife” or refusing to put Michael on the phone. But I could deal with that.

What I
couldn’t
deal with was calling my boyfriend and hearing a strange female voice on the other end of the phone.

When this girl answered, saying “Michael’s room” in a cute, perky voice like she was his damn secretary, all I could do was croak out a few words, hoping they sounded something like, “Is Michael there?”