But I was tired of the mind games after last night with Walter. A nd this was not the eighth grade, and this was not just any cute boy. This was Drew.
He studied me right back. “You look like a different person. I didn’t even recognize you. I saw A llison first.”
He meant that I’d poofed my hair and applied full makeup this morning. “I was going to be around A llison and other pageant girls all day,” I explained. “I didn’t want to look like that purple-haired assistant next to A nna Nicole Smith.”
“You couldn’t look like that girl if you tried. A nd I think you’ve tried.”
I grinned. “Remember this picture. You may never see it again. This is what eyeliner looks like when you put it on right.”
He frowned.
I shouldn’t have reminded him about the twin.
“You look beautiful,” he said. “You always look beautiful. A re you dating Walter now?”
It took me a minute to catch up. I was still on “beautiful.” You always look beautiful.
“What?” I said finally. “No, I’m not dating Walter. But we made out Friday night.”
Drew’s frown deepened. I thought he might be just a little bit jealous. Hooray!
But then he said, “I have a lot of respect for Walter. You’ve got to like a guy who takes living in a bus as well as he has. Don’t play with him, okay? I can tell he really likes you.”
I felt bad enough about Walter without Drew giving me a guilt trip. Who did he think he was, Match.com? “I wasn’t playing with him,” I said.
“I was in the process of telling him that we should just be friends.”
“Is that what you always do? Tell guys you want to just be friends with them, then make out with them?”
Well, I wasn’t going to tell him that Walter Lloyd and Bobby Thompson were my entire experience. “Yes,” I said, trying to sound offhanded. I glanced at the cars crawling in the drive-through lane. “Like takeout.”
“Like a to-go box,” Drew suggested.
“Exactly!”
“You told Mr. Rush in his office on Friday that you and I are just friends. A nd you didn’t make out with me.”
“That would be because you’re dating Miss Icktory’s sister.”
“No, I’m not. I broke up with her at Barry’s party.”
I tried not to laugh out loud. A nd failed. “I am so sorry!” I laughed. “Condolences. Why in the world did you break up with her?”
He laughed too. “She smokes.”
“How do you know it’s not Tracey who smokes?”
“They both smoke.”
“A re you sure? Have you seen them both smoking at the same time, in the same room?”
“Yes. A nd anyway, I only started dating her because the entire senior class warned me not to. Then, after she or Tracey was evil to A llison, I didn’t break up with her because everyone told me to—even though I should have. You know, I have a little problem with people telling me what to do.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“But that wasn’t fair to her, no matter how evil she or her sister is.”
“I’m glad you’re so worried about Cacey’s and Walter’s feelings,” I said, patting his knee. “Very responsible of you.”
“Well.” He winced like he’d been punched. “Right after you and Walter left the party, Cacey let something slip about A llison.”
I turned cold, just as I had in the school hallway outside the lunchroom the day before. “Something bad? Something racist?”
“I went home and took a shower.”
Now I winced. Gazing at the traffic cruising the strip in front of Burger Bob’s, I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be A llison and to be stuck in this town until her graduation next June. I was her best friend, and I couldn’t imagine.
Giggles broke through the silence. A llison’s giggles. Luther sat on the tailgate with her, gesturing widely to the huge trophy like he was selling it on the Home Shopping Network.
Drew went on, “A nd I wondered why Cacey couldn’t have said something a few hours before, so I could have broken up with her earlier.” He still looked pained. “A t Barry’s party I was only hanging on to her long enough to make you mad. That’s not very responsible. My punishment for all this was that I had to kiss her while she was smoking. The things I go through for you.” He pinned me to the door with his dark eyes.
“Did it work?”
“Of course not. Or if it did, I wouldn’t admit it. You’re not the least bit upset that I made out with Walter.”
He frowned again. “I never thought you’d date Walter. You’re too much alike.”
I thought about this. Weird, but he was right. No wonder Walter made me nauseated. What girl wanted to date herself? “Perspicacious,” I said. “More perspicacious than me.”
He put his warm hand on my shoulder, then moved it up to massage the back of my neck. Terrific. Now I would walk around with another phantom limb. Drew’s head on my thigh. Drew’s hand on my knee. Drew’s thumb tracing my hand. Drew’s hand on my neck.
“I feel happy,” I said.
“I feel lust,” he said.
Our eyes met. Then his gaze flicked down to my lips.
I giggled. Stop giggling! “I feel expectant.”
“But I also feel curious,” he said.
“I’ll just bet you do.”
He laughed. “No. I mean … You look so different.” He touched his nose at the position of my nose stud. “Tell me what happened to you.”
A wave of longing washed over me. I’d wanted to tell A llison in the car. I wanted to tell Drew. But I couldn’t. “I can’t.”
“You can. I was about thirty seconds from breaking down in Mr. Rush’s office. You know all of my secrets. A nd you managed to get out of there without telling us any of yours. Tell me what happened to you.”
“I can’t, Drew.”
His warm hand moved up my neck to finger the hair at my nape. “Tell me,” he said.
“My dad cheated on my mom.”
His hand stopped on my neck.
I was stunned too that I’d said it.
“Your dad, Dr. Sauter?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Cheated on your mom, who made me breakfast?”
“More than two years ago.”
A llison’s laughter rang out. Over at the SUV Luther tapped on her hair helmet like he didn’t believe real hair could be formed into that shape.
“You see why I can’t tell anybody?” I asked. “My parents swore me to secrecy. It would ruin my dad’s practice if anyone knew. Women would feel threatened. They want to imagine that their ob-gyn doesn’t have sex. I can’t even tell A llison. Especially not A llison, because our dads are partners.”
His hand moved down my neck to my back and rubbed soothingly. It wasn’t about lust anymore. It was about comfort. A friend comforting a friend.
I went on, “My mom did everything she was supposed to do to be attractive to a man. She was Miss State of A labama 1982. She gave up her own education to help my dad get his education and a career. A nd in return, he cheated on her. A nd you … I don’t know.”
“I what?”
I was embarrassed to say it. I was afraid he wouldn’t understand. But in the spirit of family counseling, I gave it a shot. “A t the time, I sort of had a crush on you.”
I cringed, waiting for him to laugh.
He didn’t. His hand stopped on my back for a second, and then he started rubbing again.
I started again. “I mean, I was in ninth grade. Your brother was drum major. You were in the big bad tenth grade. You started the
‘Ooooooh, aaaaaah,’ which I thought was pretty funny. I didn’t really think you’d ask me out. But let’s just say I put on my eyeliner in the morning with you in mind. A nd then you made that JonBenét comment. You made fun of me.”
He said softly, “I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. A nd I know it had nothing to do with my par
ents. It was bad timing. The thing with my parents had just happened, and I made the connection. Why should I try to be what boys want when they make fun of me for trying? So I gave up and did what I wanted.”
“Drums,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Nose stud.” He touched the tip of my nose.
“Yes,” I said.
He tapped my foot with his foot. “No shoes.”
I wiggled my bare toes. “A nd I didn’t want to be a majorette like A llison. I wanted to be drum major, like your brother. I didn’t want to be the girl who glittered and danced in front of the band. I wanted to be the girl in charge of the band. Glittering will only get you so far.”
I turned to face Drew because I wanted him to understand where I was coming from. “I was glad my parents stayed together. I was also so proud of Mom for nearly kicking Dad out. I didn’t know she was that strong. But if she had kicked him out, what would she have done? She didn’t finish college. She hasn’t held a job in probably a quarter of a century.”
“It’s not like she’d be out on the street if she divorced your dad,” Drew said. “She’d come away with something.”
“A little Botox fund.” I nodded. “But that’s not much of a life.”
“Some people would think that was a great life,” Drew pointed out. “Just not you.”
I shook my head. “Not me.”
“You know,” Drew said, “from the little I’ve seen, your mother’s gotten over it.”
I thought of my parents holding hands in the football stadium. “She has.”
“So why aren’t you over it?”
I sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I think I know.” He slid one warm hand over my hands gripped together in my lap.
I stared down, not quite comprehending that his hand was on my hands. Very slowly a tingle crawled from my hands up my arms and shoulders and neck to my face, like sap rising in a tree in spring.
“I know how you feel,” he said.
The tingle? No, parents. We were talking about parents. “You’re kidding,” I said. “Your dad cheated on your mom?”
“I have the opposite problem. My dad can’t keep off my mom.”
We laughed.
“No,” he said, leaning forward so our foreheads almost touched. “I mean, I know that feeling. You argue with them, and you don’t want to do what they tell you. But somewhere in the back of your mind you’re thinking all along that they’re perfect and they know best. You feel like you can be a kid and get in trouble, and in the end it will be okay because they’ve got your back.” He picked up my hand and squeezed it.
“A nd then they let you down.”
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s exactly it.”
I stared at our hands. We were holding hands. I was holding hands in the back of a car with Drew Morrow.
A nd I was wearing a watch.
I jerked my hand away from Drew’s and looked at the time. “Oh, God.” I opened the door, stood up, and called over the roof of the car to A llison, “Hey, Cinderella. It’s almost midnight.”
A llison squealed. She directed Luther, Barry, and Craig as they hefted the trophy back into the SUV.
Drew frowned up at me from inside Luther’s car. “I wanted to talk some more.”
“We have curfew,” I said. I closed the door, rounded the car, and hopped into the SUV before he could even get out of the backseat.
In the rearview mirror I could see him watching us go. It probably wouldn’t make sense to him, but suddenly I’d been very uncomfortable sitting so close to him in the back of the car. I’d said too much. Even to the crush of a lifetime.
By late Sunday afternoon the uncomfortable feeling had disappeared completely, and I needed a Drew fix. A fter he’d held my hand in Luther’s car and come so close to kissing me—hadn’t he?—I expected him to call or come over. He didn’t.
I finally gave my mother clear instructions as to my whereabouts in the event that a tall, dark, handsome drum major happened by. Then I walked to A llison’s.
A llison and I played Baton Battle at the end of her pier. In Baton Battle you throw the baton as high as you can, spin as many times as you can, and catch the baton. But you can’t hit yourself or your opponent with said baton. A nd if you drop said baton in the lake, you have to go get it. The stakes were high because the past few nights, the temperature had dropped into the low 60s, and the water was cold.
We hadn’t played Baton Battle in ages. We used to play it all the time (we were often bored as children). I wasn’t doing well. I used to win more than half the time, but I was rusty, and A llison had been majoretting and performing her baton act in pageants.
A nd I was distracted. Every time the warm breeze swayed the trees, I imagined it was the whoosh of tires on the driveway. I fought the urge to rush to the front yard to greet Drew.
A llison got cocky. She picked up a second baton and twirled it at the same time she threw the first, turned around four times, and caught it.
She handed the batons to me. “I dare you.”
“Do you want to stop this now and have a drum competition?”
“No.”
With a sigh I twirled the first baton, threw the second, and turned. One turn, two turns, three—
“Hey, batter batter batter batter, swing!” a boy’s voice called.
I heard a plop. A llison and I stood on the pier and watched the baton sink three feet to the muddy bottom of the shallows.
“What does this look like, Little League?” I asked Luther crabbily. I was wearing shorts, so I could wade in and kick the baton back to shore without getting my clothes wet. But I wasn’t going to like it.
I was also annoyed at him because he wasn’t Drew.
“I’ll get it for you,” A llison said. “Help me, Luther.”
“That’s not the procedure,” I said.
She glared at me.
“Yes, please get it for me,” I corrected myself. “I’m afraid of fish.”
A s she kicked off her high heels she instructed Luther on how to hold her under the arms and lower her into the lake. She planned to pick up the baton with her toes, and then he could lift her back out.
I hoped Luther could swim, because this maneuver looked precarious. I would feel even more annoyed if they both fell in and I had to save them.
But A llison brought the dripping baton safely back onto the pier. She and Luther congratulated each other, and then—what the hell?—hugged each other. He sat her down and made a great show of patting her legs dry with the edge of his shirt.
“So, Virginia,” he said. “What was up last night? You’re off Walter Lloyd, and youÙve moved on to Barry?”
“No, I was never on Walter, and I haven’t moved on to Barry.”
“That’s not what Drew thinks.”
A llison raised her eyebrows at me.
I sat down on the pier with them. “It doesn’t matter what Drew thinks, Luther. You’re over here visiting A llison. Why isn’t he over here visiting me?”
Luther glanced at A llison in embarrassment. Then he said, “Drew’s on the tractor. He has to get the crops in or something.”
“How rural,” A llison said.
“You snob.” He grabbed her with one arm around her waist and tickled her ribs.
She laughed like I’d never heard her laugh before. Her desperate cackles echoed across the lake and back. She braced her bare toes on the dock and tried to pull away from him. She didn’t try quite hard enough.
“Time out!” I yelled into the giggle fit. “I would like more information on these crops.”
Luther stopped tickling A llison. But he didn’t remove his arm from around her waist. A nd she didn’t make him. She settled back into him.
He turned to me again. “Drew’s dad is working overtime at the mill to make extra money. Drew has to do the farm practically by himself.
Haven’t you noticed how tired he is? No, of course you wouldn’t notice.”
A llison slapped him playfully on the chest. “How ugly! What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she’s jumping from Drew to Walter to Barry.”
“You are totally making up this thing with Barry,” I said.
“Tell Drew that,” he said. “A fter we left Burger Bob’s last night, I thought he was going to kick Barry’s ass.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Why?”
“Barry expressed his admiration for you, knowing Drew likes you too. A s you found out in the lunchroom on Friday, you can only push Drew so far, and then …” He snapped his fingers.
A llison and I gaped at each other, and then at Luther.
Luther gazed down into A llison’s eyes and smiled.
“A nd then what?” A llison insisted.
“Oh!” Luther said, like he’d completely forgotten what we were talking about. “A nd then Drew fell asleep in the back of the car. Like I said, he has to bring in the harvest. He stays exhausted.”
“A re you trying to make us feel bad because we don’t have to sit on a tractor twenty-four seven?” A llison asked.
“I don’t see a whole lot of physical labor going on in your neighborhood.”
“That’s where’ you’re wrong,” A llison said triumphantly. “Virginia’s dad makes her cut the grass.” She turned to me. “Virginia, you should go see Drew and reassure him that you don’t have the hots for Barry Ekrivay.” She made a go away motion with her hand, like she was trying to get rid of me. Like she wanted to be alone with Luther. Like we were boy-crazy teenage girls.
Finally!
I followed Luther’s directions to Drew’s farm. A dirt road, which Luther had referred to as a “driveway,” wound through rolling green fields.
Dark green trees framed the fields far away, at the edges of the earth. A tiny white house and an enormous red barn crowned the biggest hill.
A nd then I saw the red tractor off in the fields, trailing a wake of dust.
Disappearing in a valley, then cresting the next hill.
Coming for me.
I parked my car under an ancient oak tree. Then I tiptoed gingerly across the acorns as I rounded the car to sit on the hood.
The noise of the motor grew louder and louder as the tractor loomed larger and larger. Drew drove under the canopy of the oak tree, and the motor was unbearably loud. Then he cut the engine. My ears rang in the silence.