Tru Love (4 page)

              A white boy who can’t turn his r’s.

              “Why aren’t you with Hunter?” she asks.

              Genny shrugs. “I think we broke up.”

              Serena’s mouth falls open. “You think?”

              “It’s hard to tell with Hunter,” Genny admits. “He’s always so happy.”

              “True. He’s a lamb. Soft and cuddly. But tell him about the wolf and he runs.”

              Genny told Serena earlier about her mother’s expectations.

              “Is that what you think it is?”

              Genny doesn’t think of her mother as a wolf. She’s intimidating, but that’s because she’s beautiful and everything she touches turns to gold.

              “That, or when you brought up taking that step, he realized he doesn’t feel
that
strongly for you.”

              “Ouch,” Genny mumbles, but the truth is, she appreciates Serena’s honesty.

“Hunter,” Serena begins, thinking her words through before she releases them, “is a great guy. Remember all that dove and eagle stuff we learned last year in history? Hunter is definitely a dove. I don’t think he’ll ever fight for you. I don’t think you should expect that of him.”

              Genny thinks about this. Hunter states his opinions, he doesn’t defend them. He listens to what others have to say, and respects their position, he doesn’t challenge it.

              Genny thought it was maturity. Now it just seems spineless.
Why won’t he even consider letting their parents meet?

              Because he’s just not that into her.

              “I’d rather have an eagle,” Genny decides.

              “We all want an eagle,” Serena agrees, then says a little breathlessly, “Or a wolf.” She nods her head toward the corner of the cafeteria where Truman Lennox is sitting with an audience of seven or eight girls—some seniors. “Don’t you just get wolf off of him? That
hair
.”

              Genny thought fox, but wolf is probably a better description. He seems stronger, bigger than a mere herbivore.

              “Let’s eat outside,” Genny suggests and leads the way.

              “Are you
loco
?” Serena pulls on her arm. “I spent a good hour with the straight iron this morning. I’m not putting this—“ she indicates her pressed and artfully piled hair with a wave of her hand, “out in the rain.”

              “It’s raining?”

              Serena looks at her like she’s wondering just when Genny joined them on planet Earth.

              “How did you get to school this morning?”

              Genny groans. She hasn’t told Serena about this morning and really doesn’t want to revisit her fifteen minutes of fame.

              “I just broke up with my boyfriend,” Genny reminds her. “So I didn’t notice the weather. Give me a break.”

              Serena nods. “You’re right. I’m really sorry about that, not that you seem choked up about it. He wasn’t your true love or anything, of course, but still, your
novio.
My aunt had a husband like that. He was her best friend. No passion.”

              Genny wants to argue that with her friend, but she’s probably right. Passion is supposed to be red-hot, isn’t it? Something that makes your heart knock against your ribs?

              They settle at a table that’s only partly occupied. Unfortunately, Homer is sitting with his tuba wrapped around his torso like a snake. Genny hopes he doesn’t start up until she and Serena have eaten and escaped.

              The school’s marching band is one of the best in the state. They win awards all the time. They also practice at lunch, on the soccer field behind the school, but some of the players get antsy and start early. Homer is a regular offender.

              Serena isn’t taking any chances. She pins Homer with her eyes and says, “Don’t blow on that thing, Simpson.”

              “Homer,” Genny whispers. She doesn’t want to antagonize the guy and she thinks they’ll have better luck winning him over if Serena gets his name right.

              “Sorry, Homer,” Serena corrects and smiles so that her lips curl with an apple pie sweetness.

              “What do you have against music?” he asks.

              “Well, if you must know Harold,” Serena starts. Her best friend is hopeless with names. It took her three months to get Genny’s right on a consistent basis and she later admitted that she practiced at night, with her eyes closed, memorizing the feel of it in her mouth. A trick the speech therapist taught her. “Genny just broke up with her boyfriend, another music man, so tunes are the last thing she wants to hear.”

              “Serena!” Genny protests.

              “What?” She blinks her eyes like her innocence is offended.

              “Do you mind not airing my business?”

              “The truth shall set you free,” Serena says. “And let the boys know you’re back.”

              Genny sighs but misses her chance to set Serena straight when Homer lifts his tuba to his lips and starts playing,
‘Torn Up by You.’

              Genny’s sure she’s paralyzed. She tries to stand up, but her legs won’t cooperate. Words swirl around in her head, but never make it to her lips. When Homer slides down the bench toward her, serenading her, she panics and looks at Serena with death in her eyes. But she’s no help. She’s as stunned as Genny, as rooted to the spot as if they were in quicksand. Her eyes and mouth are both wide with horror.

              It
is
as bad as Genny was thinking.

Serena recovers first. She jumps to her feet and shoves her carne asada down the horn and then rips into Homer as he clutches wildly at his instrument.

“
Laton! Bocaza! Tu hablo burradas!”
She shoves her can of Coke past Homer’s hands and down the same chute as her burrito, then she bends over the table and snaps her fingers in Genny’s face. It breaks the spell. Genny’s up and running. She doesn’t think about where she’s going, knowing the only place acceptable at this point is out. Outside. Away from the eyes, the snickers, the last echoing notes of Homer’s sympathetic melody.

              It is raining. Misting, really. But Genny doesn’t notice this until she’s off school grounds and crossing Sutter Street—in the same crosswalk she’s now made famous. She wipes at the film of water on her face, wondering if her tears are mixed in there.
This has been the worse day ever—in anybody’s life.
The thought pounds in her head. Keeps time with the beat of her heart. A headache. She never gets headaches.

              “Hey
!
Wait up.”

              The voice is directly behind her and she recognizes it. Great, Mr. Scotland with the hero complex. Genny ignores him and puts more steam into her galloping walk.

He catches up, though, and keeps pace with her, saying nothing. Genny doesn’t look at him. She tries not to breathe through her nose, because there’s no denying it, the guy smells good. Too good. And has the face of a steamy, lost-at-love guy in a music video. It probably isn’t fair that anyone is born with a face so perfect and she reminds herself of how annoying perfection really is. Botticelli didn’t like it. He painted nothing but fat ladies.

They walk in silence until they’re deep into the Sunset District. He doesn’t seem to mind that she’s ignoring him. At some point, he swings his coat over her shoulders and says, “Please don’t toss it on the ground. It’s taken a beating today.”

             
So have I,
Genny thinks. She pulls the leather around her, slows her pace, and when she spots a stone bench outside the park they’re circling, she sits down. He settles at the other end and leaves a good two feet between them.

              Silence. It builds up between them until Genny feels the pressure in her ears.

              “Don’t you want to say something?” she asks.

              “I’m sorry?” he takes a guess.

              “For what?”

“For saving your life so you could live through one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of Fraser Preparatory School?”

              She groans, covers her face with her hands, and wishes she was a crier. Would tears wash away everything that happened today? No. Sadly. So what would be the point?

              “Are you practicing for a career with the fire department?” she asks. “Or do you just have this, I don’t know,” she waves a hand at him, “Need to save?”

              “You just seem to need a lot of help today. But now I understand why.”

              “Really? Enlighten me,” she invites.

              “Well, did you really break up with your boyfriend today?”

              “I think he broke up with me.”

              “Even worse.”

              “It is.” But not for the reason he thinks. “He was my friend first.”

              “Oh.” He packs the single word with a lot of understanding and Genny wonders if he’s ever done the same thing—dated a girl who should have stayed a friend.

              “We never should have dated,” she admits, knowing it’s true. “We ruined a good thing.”

              “Maybe not.”

              “What would you know about it?”

              “A lot,” he admits, and Genny watches, amazed, as a dull red color comes to his cheeks. “Kids here like to talk.”

              “Gossip,” she corrects.

              He nods. “You just started dating. Maybe you can return to normal. No harm, no foul.”

              “Maybe.” She thinks about that. It would be like Hunter to let things go soft and in a few days act like the past two months never happened. It fits the dove profile Serena described to her.

              “Thanks.”

              Genny looks at him and smiles, because for the first time in this miserable day she feels a ray of hope. He stares at her for a long time, though, his mouth flat but his eyes flared in surprise.

              “What?” Genny asks.

              “You have the most amazing eyes,” he says.

              “I know.” Violet. That, her dark hair and high cheekbones, make her the spitting image of Elizabeth Taylor in
National Velvet.
Genny’s watched the movie with her mother.

              “And modesty, too,” he says and laughs.

              “You do that a lot,” Genny observes. “Laugh. Mostly at my expense.”

              “I’m not laughing at you,” he begins, then changes his mind. “Well, maybe a little bit.” His voice grows serious, deeper, so that Genny thinks about the night sky. “This morning wasn’t funny,” he says. “You weren’t paying attention. At all.”

              And she thinks again about his strange comment. Does Truman think he can read minds? Probably not. It was a heated moment, at the peak of an adrenalin rush.

In any case, Genny chooses to fill the moment with long overdue grace.

              “Thank you for that,” she says, and blushes because she should have said it much sooner. “I’d be road kill for sure if you hadn’t tackled me.”

              “You’re welcome. Try not to let it happen again, though. By my count, you have seven lives left.”

             
Six
, she thinks. And maybe even less.

              “Like you said, today was an off day. I’m usually more observant.”

              He nods and stands up. “You ready to go back?”

              Genny glances at her watch. By the time they get back to school it’ll be time to go home.

              “It’ll be better to face the music now,” he suggests, and his lips twist with the irony.

              “Funny,” Genny says.

              “Sorry. It will be funny, though. Next week,” he amends.

              “You think?” She’s still reluctant.

“If you let this grow over night, coming in tomorrow will be harder.”

              He’s probably right, but she’d really rather go straight home. She’s wet, even swallowed up in his jacket. Her hair and make-up are a mess. Right now, a hot bath and comfy sweats are all she wants.

              “You look fine,” he says.

              Genny cocks her head and looks up at him, squinting her eyes as she tries to figure him out.

              “I have a sister,” he offers. “She’s twenty years old and at college now, but I remember how much she hated the rain in her hair and everyone knowing she broke up with her boyfriend.”

              He offers his hand and after another moment of hesitation, Genny accepts.

Chapter Five

              The doorbell rings at precisely five-thirty and Genny unfolds herself from the couch, walks to the intercom set in the wall, and presses the button to release the front gate. As she makes her way to the door she wonders what her mother was thinking today: Italian or Thai? They had American last night—burgers and buffalo wings delivered from
Casey’s Most Excellent Cuisine.
Genny hears the scraping of footsteps on the mosaic tiled stairs and then a soft rap on the stained-glass panels of the door. She doesn’t bother with the peep hole. They take delivery at this time every night. Her mother doesn’t cook and doesn’t want to hire one. Not when they live in one of the finest cuisine capitals of the world, as her mother likes to put it. Genny opens the door and pulls the cash out of her pocket.

              “Thai,” she says through a smile as the curry flavors rise to her nose.

              “The very best,” the woman assures her. She hands Genny the white bag and accepts the bills with a nod.

              “You need change?”

              “No,” Genny says. “Thank you.”

              She closes the door, opens the bag and buries her face in it. “Yum.”

              She takes the food into the living room, pulls the cardboard boxes out of the bag and arranges them on the coffee table.

              “Well, at least I’m a pampered prisoner.”

              The school contacted her mother to report her missing and before Genny could call and tell her she was fine, her mother alerted her father and both of them left messages on her voice mail—Genny’s cell phone was in her bag on the table in the cafeteria. Serena put her things in the locker they share and when Genny pulled her phone out of her bag, it was flashing an angry red.

              Truman insisted on checking in at the office and Genny watched as he sweet-talked the secretary, and even the vice principal, into a show of compassion for Genny’s situation—first her near-death experience in the crosswalk and then the emotional trauma of her public heartbreak.

              He laid it on thick, but the ladies didn’t seem to notice.

They clucked around Genny, wondering aloud at how she managed to survive such a horrible day. They got off with two hours of detention to be served on consecutive days, the days to be determined through a conversation with their parents.

              As they walked away, Genny asked, “Does that always happen?”

              “What?” Like he doesn’t know what’s she’s talking about.

              “You smile and common sense becomes a casualty.” She can’t keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Like sun on snow.”

              “You don’t melt.”

              “No,” Genny agreed, then lied some more, “And I never will.”

              “Good. I like to work for my rewards.”

              Her cell phone rings and Genny shakes herself loose, once again, of Truman Lennox’s influence.

“Hello?”

              “It’s mom.”

             
I know.
“I have caller ID.”

              A long pause. “Are you getting snotty with me?” her mother wants to know and Genny cringes. All along she’s been the kid without attitude. The kid easy to raise (well, except the incident with her father’s car and a few other minor scrapes). The one person in the whole world who makes her mother feel lucky.

              “Sorry,” she mumbles. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

              “You’ve had a bad day,” her mother says.

              The school told her mother about her near-miss with the Mercedes and hinted about a possible fall out with Hunter—thanks to talking with Serena—before Genny even got back to school.

              “Why aren’t you here?”

              “Sorry, baby. I’m tied up. I’m waiting for a call from Brussels. I can’t blow this off. Eat without me, OK?” Her mother’s voice is hesitant. Guilt. “Will that be OK?”

“Sure,” Genny says. She doesn’t want her mom to feel bad, but she does want her home.

              “I promise, if the call doesn’t come through in an hour I’ll come home anyway, and then we can talk.”

              Genny likes talking to her mother. She’s good with the boy stuff. She even earned an A-plus for the sex talk she gave Genny at age nine, then again at twelve. And fourteen. And again two months ago.

              “Sounds good,” Genny says.

              “I love you,” her mom says.

              “Me, too.”

              Genny drops her phone on the couch, then sits down and rummages through the paper sack for the plastic utensils. She doesn’t really know what she’s going to say to her mother—what bothers her more, breaking up with Hunter? Or her attraction to Truman Lennox?

              Why
does
Truman bother her?

              Because he’s
divine
? Serena’s description, but very accurate.

Because he always seems to be laughing at her?

Because he’s saved her life
twice
? Which really puts a cramp in her mental image of herself as invincible.

Because he always seems to be
there
?

Yes, he’s very annoying. For all of those reasons.

              And then she slipped her hand into his. It was a brief touch, just long enough for him to help her up from the bench, but it was electric. Her heart stopped beating, and the pulse in her wrists throbbed for a long time afterwards.

              She never felt anything like that for Hunter.

              She looked up at Truman. He wasn’t smiling. His jaw was as set as stone, and in his eyes she saw the reflection of herself, her lips parted, her eyes flared. She looked both scared and ready.

              Ready for him to kiss her. And wanting it to happen. It was all over her face and as easy to read as a party invitation.

              “Breathe,” he said. The word was whispered, soft but a command all the same, and Genny complied.

              By then her lungs were burning.

              For once, he didn’t laugh. His hand contracted around hers and then he pulled away.

              She doesn’t plan to tell anyone about that moment.

              But then of course she’ll probably never figure out why he didn’t take what she was offering. He seemed to want exactly that, right? Wasn’t he attracted to her after all?

              Her cell rings again, scattering her thoughts, and Genny checks the screen. Her father. She left him a message earlier to let him know she was OK. He was playing—in Montreal—and gave his phone to one of the assistant’s. The guy was clearly president of the Ben Vout fan club. He insisted on writing down—word for word—everything Genny said. It got so laborious, she finally complained about using up her minutes.

              “Your father is Ben Vout,” he answered, like Genny didn’t know that or the amount of money he made.

              “Yeah, but a kid has to have rules. I get five hundred minutes a month.”

              The guy grunted and Genny said good-bye.

              Now, she stares at the phone and wonders how much trouble she’ll get in if she doesn’t answer it. He already knows she’s on house arrest, so he wouldn’t worry. Much.

              Did her mother tell him about Hunter? The break up? Would her father want to talk about that?

              Yes. Yes. And yes.

              She answers anyway. Not to would mean another hundred years of knocking around the house by herself.

              “Hi, dad.”

              “Genny.” She can hear the relief in his voice. “Are you OK?”

              “Yes. How are you?”

              “Don’t try to change the subject,” he says, his voice stronger. He’s not usually so touchy; she wonders if they lost the game.

              “Sorry,” Genny says. “Sorry about today, too.”

              “Remember our deal?”

              She searches her brain for any possible matches but finds none.

              “What deal?”

              “The one where you don’t get into any trouble when I’m out of town.”

              “But I never get in trouble,” Genny says.
Not anymore.

Three years have passed since the accident with his Porsche, but her father continues to struggle with the possibilities:
What if you weren’t wearing your seat belt? What if the car rolled? 
His current vehicle, a Ferrari, is started with a thumbprint scan.

Genny listens to her breath whistle against her teeth as she exhales.

              “You’re right,” he says. “Not in a long time. So what happened today?”

“I didn’t see the car coming, dad. I guess I was too preoccupied and didn’t even look before I started to cross the street.”

              “That’s not like you.”

              “I know.”

              “You’re usually careful.”
Responsible.

             
“That’s me.”
Boring.
“It won’t happen again.”

“What about Hunter?” He says the name like it’s a brand of diaper. “You never told me you were dating. Every time I asked, it’s always been, ‘We’re just friends.’”

              “We were just friends,” she admits, “until two months ago. It was a bad idea. That’s all.”

              Her father digests that in silence, then asks, “What about this kid who saved your life today? You think he might want to sit dug out at our next home game?”

              Genny’s whole body rocks with a groan of protest, but she manages to keep it from hitting air. “He’s from Scotland,” Genny says. “They don’t play baseball there, do they?”

              “Invite him, Genny,” her father insists. “I’d like to thank him in person.”

              Great. “It was no big deal, dad.”

              “He
saved
your life,” her father presses. “That’s a pretty big deal to me.”

              Genny falls into a stubborn silence.

              “Invite him, Genny, or I will.”

              She mumbles something he takes as a yes then hangs up.

              Well, that settles it. This is truly the worst day of her life.