“That can’t be right,” I answered. “You said Noelle had a steady boyfriend last year.”
He lifted the front of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “Maybe she was faking it with him. Maybe she’s always really wanted this guy and now he’s finally noticed.”
We ran on in silence, rounding the tennis courts, then Mona said, “Since Noelle probably won’t realize what a mistake she’s making between now and tomorrow night, why don’t you come with Ted and me to see the Bayhawks? They’re Baltimore’s professional lacrosse team, Jamie,” she added. “I wish you’d both come. They’re playing at Towson.”
“Sounds fun. How about asking Josh, too?” Sam suggested.
“Already did. He’s busy.”
“Well, I guess I can turn down those other three girls,” Sam said, “although I hate to break their hearts.”
“How about you, Jamie?”
“Sure,” I told her. If I stayed home, I’d just think about Josh. And Sam would be good company.
“Do you want to ask Andrew?” Mona asked.
I saw her glancing sideways at me, looking for my reaction. Her question was a test more than an invitation.
“No,” I said, then changed the subject.
Thursday’s basketball camp went well. The day before, I had bumbled around, bewildered by my strange feelings. Today I knew exactly what the problem was and worked hard with my girls, fully determined to eradicate Josh from my consciousness for three hours.
“Hey, the big J’s back,” one of my mouthy kids observed.
The big J? Like the big M? I wondered.
“You were acting really spacey yesterday, Miss Jamie,” one of my sweeter girls told me.
“Yeah, well, I’m not today, so I had better not catch you wandering out of your zone, Camille,” I warned.
The girls laughed, and I winked at my Energizer Bunny.
Noon came too soon. Mona had gathered her things and was waiting for me at the gym door. “Lunch?”
“Actually, I packed mine today and left it in my car.”
“Because you were afraid that Andrew would show up?” she guessed.
I nodded. It was a better excuse than saying I didn’t know what to do about Josh and how to sit at the same table without staring at him.
“Walk me to the dining hall so I can pick up something,” Mona said, “then we can get your lunch from the car and eat under the trees.”
We walked, discussing our campers and their progress. I guessed that Mona was curious about what was going on with me, but trying to keep the conversation to something I wanted to talk about. I knew then that I’d do whatever I had to do to work around her romance with Ted. Monalisa was one of a kind, and I wasn’t letting go of the chance to be friends with someone like her.
“I’ll wait out here,” I said, when we got to the dining hall door.
She returned quickly with a premade sub and two iced teas. “The trees by the parking lot are nice and cool to sit under,” she told me, handing the extra tea to me. “They’re pines, and the old needles make it cushiony.”
“Perfect.”
We walked toward the lot quietly, sipping our teas. When we were close, Mona veered toward the small grove, then stopped. I had just reached in my pocket for my car keys, and plowed right into her. Then I followed her eyes.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” she said, turning quickly, positioning herself like a good defenseman between me and the goal.
But I could see over her shoulder, and a hundred-something feet away, in a lovely place beneath the pines, Noelle was pulling food out of a cooler. On the big picnic blanket that had been spread beneath the cooler, Josh laid on his back, his eyes closed, looking totally content.
Mona turned me around and gave me a push in the direction from which we’d just come. “We can share my sub.”
I nodded and kept looking back as we walked. I felt so stupid, so blind, so ridiculously naive. There wasn’t a guy alive who wouldn’t find Noelle beautiful. Unlike big-boob Melanie, Noelle was both beautiful and classy, not to mention nice. And she didn’t do silly things, like hurdle library chairs.
How convenient, I thought, how very convenient I made it—what a great excuse I gave Josh for asking Ms. Mahler to change the schedule! Why had I assumed he was trying to avoid me? He had a bigger goal in mind. I was an idiot.
“I’m really sorry, Jamie.”
“For Sam?” I asked, taking a final look backward.
“For you,” she said softly.
“When did you know—about me, I mean?”
“I began to suspect on Monday,” Mona replied, “at the meeting, when you found out the schedule had been changed. You looked so hurt.”
I sighed. “Took me till yesterday morning to figure it out.”
She laughed and slipped her arm around my waist.
“I can’t believe how naive I am. It just never occurred to me—Josh and Noelle. Well, I guess I’m not the only one. When you bought your sub, did you see Sam in the dining hall?” I asked.
“Yes, sitting with Caitlin.”
“I don’t think we should tell him what we saw.”
“Well, he knows Noelle is going out with”—Mona stopped to revise what she had been about to say—“some guy on Friday night.”
“With the guy she’s wanted to go out with since forever and ever,” I said, completing the statement for her. “But it’ll be easier on Sam if he gets used to that idea first. Later on, he can deal with the fact that Noelle’s dream guy is his friend and teammate.”
Mona nodded. “What will make it easier on you?”
“Heart surgery. Know anyone who needs a donor?” I laughed at myself, then I swore.
“Let’s look for a good place to eat,” Mona suggested. “Are you hungry? Do you mind onions?”
“I love onions, but no, I’m not hungry. Of course, I didn’t think I was yesterday, either, when I ate Ms. Mahler’s peanut butter crackers.”
“She gave you her peanut butter crackers? Jamie, those are legendary at Stonegate! Only special people are offered them. Well, the PE building is as good a place as any.”
We camped out in the lobby area. When the big M returned to the building at ten minutes to one, she found Mona reading a Sports Illustrated and me sleeping on one of the sofas.
“Did you girls have your lunches?” she asked.
“We did,” I said, sitting up quickly.
“Jamie, I finally have good news for you. We have the necessary enrollment for the extra basketball clinic week after next. Shall I sign you up for that, as well as the afternoon session?”
I didn’t answer—didn’t know the answer. I loved the work, but if I continued on, it would mean day after day of watching Josh and Noelle.
If Sam can do it, I can do it, I told myself. But while I would never say this to Sam, I thought he might be in love with a dream, a person he didn’t really know, while I was in love with—no—while I was just starting to fall for—oh, who was I fooling—while I was in deep and hopeless with a guy who wasn’t just a fantasy.
“Can you give her twenty-four hours to decide?” Mona asked Ms. Mahler.
She bobbed her head. “Margaret comes in Monday to work with the afternoon campers. Let me know by then, Jamie.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She glanced at the clock. “Buses, ladies. Get going.”
Thanks to Mona and to Sam—his string of one-liners and my desire to keep him from guessing that something major had been discovered—I made it through that afternoon, even when I had to check in with Noelle and Josh about one of their second graders. When his group moved on to the art room, the little boy had stayed behind with a stack of dinosaur books in a cozy den he had made for himself with library chairs and pillows. I went to the art room to plead his case.
Josh looked up for a moment and went back to talking to a camper. Noelle came over to me.
“Listen,” I said, “one of your lambs has stayed behind with our she
ep.”
She glanced around the room quickly. Marcus.”
“Yeah. He’s holed up with some dinosaur books. I say we leave him there. It is a summer camp, after all, and we want them to be interested in books, right?”
“I agree,” she said. “We don’t have to tell the big M. And I’ll handle Josh.”
“Does he need to be handled?”
“When he gets grouchy, he starts talking rules.”
I glanced toward him.
“But really, he’s a sweet guy,” she said with a lovely, lilting laugh.
I laughed, too, though my stomach was clenched inside.
I returned to the library and continued on as before, but from that point on, I could feel the tears rising in me. Having told the others I had errands to run and had to leave right after work, I held myself together till I was in my car and had driven a block south of Stonegate. Then I pulled into a little shopping center, drove behind some buildings, and sat there bawling my eyes out.
After a while, I continued on, just driving around. I ended up going out to the mall and back, the only route I really knew, giving my eyes time to lose their redness. When I finally pulled up in front of our house, I saw Andrew’s Jeep parked next door. I debated which entrance to use, since he sometimes wheeled his bike in through the back. Parking the next block up, I walked cautiously toward our house, making sure he wasn’t lurking, then made a dash for our front door. I was never so glad to get inside the cool mauve, pink, and purple room with a zillion pillows. “Mom?” I called out. I could feel the tears rising in me again. Maybe even big girls needed their mothers sometimes. “Mom?”
I heard the scrape of her chair in the room behind the living room. I found her there, sitting stiffly in her writing chair, her back to me, rustling papers but not actually reading them. “Mom, is everything okay?”
“Hi, baby.”
Her voice sounded strained.
“Is something wrong?”
She shook her head quickly, indicating no, but she didn’t turn around.
As I crossed the room, her hands went up to her face. I gently pulled them away. Her eyes looked as red and puffy as mine had fifteen minutes ago, and there was a pile of tissues next to her laptop.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked.
She looked down at her hands. “I got dumped.”
“Dumped? You mean by Viktor?”
“He left.”
I sank down in the chair next to her. Oh, God.
Chapter 24
Thursday night, after a quiet dinner and an even quieter two hours of watching television with me, Mom finally went upstairs to take a shower. I grabbed my cell phone and headed for the basement, figuring I had till the pipes stopped singing to explain things to Mona.
“That jerk!” was Mona’s initial response. “That jerk!” Then she elaborated. “That rotten, greedy, disgusting specimen of mankind.”
“The thing is,” I said, “I can’t say that to Mom. It would make her hurt more.”
“He told her he’s been seeing someone else for the last two months?”
“Someone younger,” I replied. “Talk about putting a knife through her heart.”
“And he owes your mother money?”
“Thousands. He has this dream of owning his own business and was buying gym equipment. It’s a good thing I wasn’t here when the rental truck pulled up; he’d be wearing a piece of his Nordic Walker—permanently.”
“It hasn’t been the best day in your life either,” Mona observed. “How are you doing?”
I ducked the question, which I knew was about me and Josh and Noelle. “I’d be doing better if I knew what to say to my mother. She feels hurt and foolish, and I guess she was foolish, but he’s the one who should be ashamed. I mean, she loved him and trusted him. I kind of admire her for taking the chance. I just don’t know what to say to her.”
“There probably isn’t anything you can say, Jamie. Just being around helps her.”
“Which is the other reason I’m calling. I won’t be going to the game tomorrow night.”
“Do you want to bring her along?” Mona asked. “We could distract her.”
“No, I think some funny videos or shopping might be better.”
“I send you a big hug,” Mona said.
“Just so you know, I’m not being a martyr. I think it might be better for me, too.”
“Then I send you two big hugs,” Mona replied. “Did you tell your mom about Josh?”
“No. She—she has enough to deal with.”
“I think you should tell her.”
I didn’t ask why, mostly because I figured that Mona would have a good reason, and I didn’t want to hear it. Mona didn’t know how it was to love a parent long-distance. You don’t just throw open the door like that and start talking—at least, I didn’t.
I told Mona I wanted to skip tomorrow’s warm-up run, then I heard the house’s old plumbing go silent. I headed upstairs just to “be around.”
Seven hours and forty-five mintues, that’s all I have to get through, I told myself, as I parked at Stonegate Friday morning. Anybody could do that. “Just don’t look at the pines, Jamie,” I muttered, as I climbed out of my car. All I’d need was to catch Josh and Noelle sneaking in a good-morning kiss.
I could avoid the pines if I took a longer route to the girls’ gym, one that ran past a parking lot used by students when school was in session. I headed in that direction, doing my best to keep my eyes on the pavement in front of me. At the edge of the student lot, I stopped dead.
Josh and Noelle’s cars were parked there. Noelle was standing next to his car, and Josh was half inside it, pulling something out. To my amazement he dragged from the backseat a flowered skirt and a top—girls’ clothes in a blue Hawaiian print. He carried the outfit and other things, which were stuffed in a bag, to Noelle’s car. As the two of them walked together, he talked, and whatever he said made her continually laugh and throw back her dark, shimmering hair.
Then suddenly they were aware of me, both of them turning toward me at the same time. Despite yesterday’s picnic under the pines, I wanted desperately to believe that something innocent was going on. Maybe I could have convinced myself of that, if both of them hadn’t looked so—so caught, so guilty! When Josh saw me staring, his face colored and he quickly stuffed Noelle’s clothes in her car.
I turned back toward the other lot, taking the usual route past the pines. I made myself walk slowly, but I wanted to run. Oh, God, how I wanted to run. It seemed like the walk between the lot and the girls’ gym stretched for miles. I pushed through several sets of swinging doors, not stopping until I reached a bathroom cubicle. I went in, latched the door, and put my feet on the toilet seat so no one would see my legs and realize I was there.
For the next ten minutes I wasted a lot of toilet paper blowing my nose. The way Mom and I were shedding tears, I figured I’d have to pick up a case of Gatorade on the way home to restore our electrolyte balance. Regaining my composure, I washed my face and went out to the gym to shoot around and wait for my girls to come.
They arrived eager to play. In a way, they rescued me. Maybe I’d like to teach and coach middle school, I thought, as I worked the final session with them. The girls had made a big card for me, signing it and writing cute messages on it. I loved it, and after hugging them all good-bye, carried it with me to the dining hall. Mona had promised to save me a place next to her. Caitlin was bringing a cake to celebrate the end of the week, and I couldn’t not show up.
When I arrived, I saw that Mona had protectively placed me at the far end of the table, next to her and across from Sam. Josh and Noelle sat at the other end with Caitlin, Todd, and Jake in between.
“I’ll explain the game to you, Caitlin,” Mona was saying to her. “You won’t be bored. It’s really fast and exciting. Why don’t you come?”
Caitlin played with the minuscule seashells she had dangling from her ears, one of her artistic creations.
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“There are a lot of cute guys to look at,” Mona added.
“Yeah, I’m going,” Sam said, and everybody laughed.
Caitlin turned her usual pink, then asked, “Are you going too, Jamie?”
“I was, but something else has come up.”
“Got a hot date?” Todd asked.
“That’s right.”
“Good for you!” Sam said. “If he’s got a sister, let me know.”
There was more laughter.
“Where’s Andrew today?” Jake asked. “How can it be lunchtime without Andrew stopping by?”
“I’m not expecting him.”
“Pay up,” Jake said to Todd. “We had a little bet going,” he explained to me.
“If I were you, I’d watch out for little bets,” I told him quietly. “They have a way of turning on you.”
Any pretension by Josh that he hadn’t been listening to our conversation was blown by the jerk of his head in my direction. I met his eyes steadily, defiantly—for three seconds. I couldn’t keep it up. I went back to eating my sandwich. In three and a half more hours, I’d be out of there.
The time passed by slowly, it seemed, but then suddenly the kids were on the bus and camp was over. “Which cleanup job do you want today?” Sam asked me.
“Gym,” I said, figuring that Josh would continue with the lower-school library if Noelle was bored with her old cleanup task.
Josh must have followed similar reasoning, because he looked surprised when we met up at the same gym doorway where we had become “friends” on Monday.
“All done for the day?” he asked.
“Yes. You?”
“Almost.”
I hadn’t wanted to talk to him, but now that I was, I was going to prove to myself that I could carry on a normal conversation. “Good luck with girls’ lacrosse next week,” I said. “Mona told me she’s going to be your assistant. She’s so excited.”
“She has the skills and knowledge to coach it herself,” he replied. “But if it gives her some confidence to work together, I’m glad we are. Did you decide what you’re going to do?”
“About continuing with camp? I won’t be here next week, of course. Ms. Mahler said I could have the weekend to think about the sessions following that.”