Arianna Rose: The Awakening (Part 2) (11 page)

Neither of them had heard her
m
other come in.

Luke let go of her embarrassedly.  She saw ribbons of scarlet streak his cheeks as he hunched forward to hide his excitement.

“Hi Ms. Rose,” he said, his eyes darting anxiously.  “Nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, too,” she crooned.  “Luke, right?”

“Yes,
ma’am,” he replied sheepishly.

“Ma’am.  I like that.  So respectful.  Arianna, this one’s a keeper,” she said loving every moment of
Arianna and
Luke’s
discomfort.
  Then she turned back to Luke and said
,
“Did I do that to you?” gesturing to the obvious bulge below his belt.

“All right, mom.  Enough!
  Can you give us a minute?”

Her mother did not say another word.  She disappeared in to the kitchen.  The clanking of pots reminded them that she hadn’t left and intended to ruin any further romance they may have had in mind.

“She’s a human mood killer,” Arianna said then giggled.

“You’re telling me,” Luke agreed.  “I’m going to, uh, use the bathroom and um, splash some cold water on my face before we leave.”

“You do that,” Arianna said and smiled.  “I’ll wait for you outside.”

Arianna walked to the kitchen and saw her mother smirking by the sink.

“Well, well, well.  It looks like you and loverboy were having quite a moment there,” her mother snickered.

“Please, mom,” Arianna cringed.  “I’m going out tonight and I won’t be back until tomorrow night.”

“Oh really?” her mother asked
.  “Just use protection.  You don’t want to end up knocked up like me.”

“It’s not like that.

“It sure looked like that.”

“We’re going to Rockdale.”

“Rockdale?  Why?”

“Lily, I haven’t heard from her since we moved here.”

“So maybe she doesn’t want to be your friend anymore.”

Arianna didn’t want to have this conversation again.  “Whatever, I’ve been worried and I want to check on her,” she said curtly.

“Suit yourself.”

“Can you call me in sick at school tomorrow?”

“Sure, no problem.  Just leave me the number.”

Arianna pulled a pad from the drawer below the telephone.  She scribbled the school’s attendance office number on it and left if near the phone.  “Thanks mom.”

“Have fun and be safe,” her mother said just as Luke came down the hallway.

“Don’t get my daughter pregnant, you hear?” her mother warned him.

“Mom!”

“Yes ma’am,” Luke said.

Arianna grabbed Luke’s arm and pulled him out.

“Good-bye mother,” she said testily.

Outside she apologized for her mother’s comment.

“I’m so sorry about that, about her, I mean,” she fumbled.

“Don’t worry about it.  She’s just worried about you.  She loves you,” he said offhandedly.

She was sure her mother had meant well, but her tact and timing left much to be desired.

“Yeah, well, she has a funny way of showing it,” Arianna said and folded her arms across her chest.

“At least she’s, I don’t know, conscious,” he said and the sadness in his voice made her heart lurch.

“I guess,” she said and reached in her bag for her cigarettes.  “Mind if I smoke?”

“No.  Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” she said and lit his cigarette first then hers.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to get in my pants,” he said impishly.

“You wish,” she joked and climbed in the passenger seat.

He closed the door.  “I don’t know, Arianna.  I think you want me,” he teased.

“Keep dreaming!”

“We’ll see,” he said and started the car.

They drove away from her trailer and out of her complex on to the main road.  Faint rays of sun waged a fruitless war against leaden clouds that encroached, advancing like a fleet of warships.  The wind had picked up and shook
flame-colored
leaves
from
treetops sending them cascading to the ground
like burning embers. 
Arianna watched as they fell chaotically, heard the wind hiss through the dried leaves and branches like a thousand voices whispering at once.  A strange sensa
tion washed over her and made her skin crawl as though innumerable spiders raced across her bare flesh.  Perhaps it was the just the eerie way the wind sounded or how the leaves fell like cinders to the earth, or perhaps it was something far more intrinsic that had unsettled her, but Arianna belie
ved a warning had been issued
; a warning that she may not return the same person she
was leaving
as.

Chapter 8

After four hours of driving, Arianna finally convinced Luke to pull off the highway they’d traveled on and eat before searching for a motel to spend the night at.  Sitting across from one another in a cozy booth at the Starlight Diner, Arianna devoured her cheeseburger as though it were the first meal she’d eaten in days.  In reality, she’d
had lunch
eight hours ago and had not been in danger of starvation, but the smell of French fries and griddle cook
ed
food had sent her hunger into
over
drive. 

“Wow,” Luke commented.  “The girls I’ve dated
just
picked at their salad, never scarfed down a whole cheeseburger before I finished mine.”

Squirting ketchup on to her plate, Arianna paused and searched his eyes.  As usual, his grey-blue irises shimmered with delight.  He was teasing her, and she decided to tease him back.

“Feeling pretty satisfied right about now, Luke?  Now that you’ve hurt my feelings,” Arianna said with feigned hurt.  “Would you have preferred it if I’d ordered a salad?  Or maybe if I didn’t eat at all?”

“No, no.  Of course not,” he fumbled.  “I love that you, that you’re not like other girls.  I meant what I said as a compliment.  I didn’t mean to hurt your feeling
s
,” he said and reached out for her hand.

Arianna smiled and said, “Gotcha!”

“That’s just wrong,” he
said good-naturedly.  “Toying with my feelings like that, you’re bad.”

“What’s the matter, sport, you don’t like when people tease you back?” she said and narrowed her eyes mischievously.

“Oh I can take whatever you dish out, Miss Rose.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well, I’m fresh out of snappy comeback
s
,” she said and star
t
ed to laugh. Luke laughed, too.  “And I’d like to get started on my fries.”

“Jeez, you have room left for fries?  I’m not even done with my burger and I’m stuffed,” he offered a final zinger.

Arianna narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at him a second time. 
But s
he was not mad
.  She imagined it would be impossible to stay mad at him on the off chance he’d ever said something hurtful.  Even the thought of him saying something to make her
angry
seemed impossible.  He laughed easily, at himself and others.  She liked that he could deliver a sharp, perfectly timed
remark.  He had a knack for it.  He was witty and she admired his wittiness.  Perhaps someone with a more sensitive nature would have found his jokes critical, or mean spirited.  But she was not among them.  She was thicker skinned.  Life had hardened her enough and made her realize that fretting over minor incidents and analyzing or agonizing over every conversation with friends and loved ones was a waste of time. 

“Earth to Arianna,” Luke said.

“Sorry, I zoned out there for a minute.”

“I know.  It’s hard to be around me and not get lost in a fantasy,” he started.

“Do you ever take a break?” she asked and giggled before eating her fries.

He smiled sheepishly, and she hoped she hadn’t hit a nerve. 

“I think we should stay at the motel across the street,” she said changing the subject.  She pointed beyond the window they sat in front of to the Main Street Motor Inn.  Few cars
were parked in the lot beside it.  “What do you think?” she asked him.

“Okay.  It looks slow ther
e,
so we shouldn’t have trouble getting two rooms.”

“I thought we’d get just one,” Arianna said casually.

Color touched Luke’s cheeks and he glanced at her quickly.  “Oh, okay,” he
said
coolly.  But Arianna lowered her gaze to his throat and saw the fitful drumming just below his jaw.  His carotid artery gave him away.  She swore she could hear the nervous beat of his heart.  His body language suggested that spending the night with a girl was no big deal to him, commonplace even.  But physiology never lied. 

“All right then, it’s settled.  We can get the check whenever you’re ready and head over there,” she said.

“What?  No dessert?” he kidded, but his smile ended at his lips.  His eyes had clouded over and become more serious.

As if she’d heard their desire for the check, the waitress appeared at their table.

“If you’re all set here, I’ll get you your che
c
k,” she asked pleasantly.

“We’re all set,” Luke said to her.

The waitress smiled and blushed, obviously thrilled that Luke had spoken to her.  She returned moments later and left their bill on the edge of the table.  Luke reached for it, but Arianna grabbed it before he could. 

“Come on,” he protested.  “I’m buying.”

Arianna flipped over the piece of paper and saw that the waitress wrote her name at the bottom of the ticket with a heart beside it.  She’d circled the
Come Again Soon
logo and had added an exclamation point to it.  Arianna did not feel threatened by the waitress in the least, yet a possessive sense of annoyance prickled inside her.  She’d never been a jealous girlfriend and wasn’t about to start being one now, but a burst of bitterness bubbled inside her.  She looked over
to
where the waitress whispered with a coworker.  She focused on them, concentrating. 
Suddenly, the world around her became quiet.  Conversations, music, the whoosh of cars passing outside on Main Street fell silent.  All she could hear was the sound of two voices.

“He’s so hot,” she heard the girl say.

“I know,” her friend agreed.

“Think those two are a couple?” their waitress asked.

“I don’t know
.  They haven’t held hands or anything, so
maybe
not.”

“Yeah,
you’re right.  They might
not
be
together.  Besides, they look just
wrong
together.  That
girl looks like a
real
bitch,” their waitress concluded.

“Ready to go?” Luke said and stood breaking Arianna’s concentration. 

“Yep, I’m ready,” she said and stood.

Luke grabbed the bill from her and said, “Ha! Too slow!  I’m paying.”

She did not argue as she would have under ordinary circumstances.  She refused to give the girls at the counter the satisfaction of having more speculative garbage to mull over.  Instead, she slipped her arm around Luke’s waist.  He immediately reciprocated and pulled her close thereby ending any question the girls had had about whether or not they were a c
ouple. Luke paid the cashier muc
h to her chagrin and they stepped outside. 
The temperature had fallen drastically.  She wrapped her arms around her body clutching her midsection as an icy breezed gusted.  Luke wrapped both arms around her and nuzzled her neck.  She stood on her toes and hugged him back pausing only to
smirk over his shoulder
at the waitresses
gawking at her with looks of disgust plastered on their faces. 
Another gust bit at them and they released each other in favor of running to the truck hand-in-hand.

Once inside, Luke spoke.

“Damn, it got cold out there!”

“I know!  I didn’t know I’d need my winter jacket tonight.”

“Listen, before we go to the motel, I want to stop at the gas station market first, okay?”

“Sure.  Fine by me.  Did you forget something?” she asked.

“No.  I just want to pick up a few things for tonight,” he replied casually.

The gas station he referred to was two buildings away from where they had eaten.  Luke dashed inside the market while Arianna opted for the warmth of the truck.  He returned with a brown paper bag in his arms and settled it between them.  She craned her neck to look inside and he quickly folded the top of the bag over.

“Hey, no peeking,” he teased.

“Okay, okay,” Arianna said and put her hands up in mock surrender.