Infinite (Strange and Beautiful, Book 1) (12 page)

“Lucky!
My mom’s specialty is Hamburger Helper,” I laughed. “I mean, she tries, but
most of the time her dishes don’t turn out quite right. I’ve come to dread it
when she attempts to make meatloaf.”

“Well,
it’s not like meatloaf is exactly stellar to begin with,” Jackson said
diplomatically.

“True
enough,” I conceded, “but I think meatloaf recipes like my mom about as well as
gravity likes me.”

“How
rude.” I glanced up at Jackson to find him grinning down at me with a glint in
his hazel eyes.

I
bit my lip to hide my own grin as I replied, “I know, I mean, what did I ever
do to gravity? What did my mom ever do to meatloaf?”

“Maybe
you offended them in some way without knowing it.”

“I
suppose so.” Jackson and I shared a conspiratorial smile before we both laughed
softly.

As
we reached the end of the sidewalk, I knew our time was coming to an end. I
glanced around, spotting Skylar’s car, and yet again felt disappointed that she
hadn’t left me.

Before
we began our goodbyes, though, I remembered something. “I almost forgot. I
finished
Looking For Alaska
last night.”

“Already?”
His dark eyebrows shot up.

I
nodded sheepishly. “Once I started reading, I had a hard time putting it down.
You were right. It was really good.”

“I’m
glad you liked it.”

“Thanks
for recommending it. I’ll probably at least start, if not finish,
An
Abundance of Katherines
this weekend.”

“There’s
no need to rush,” Jackson assured me. “You’re not being timed, I swear.”

“I
know,” I admitted, my face growing warm. “I tend to obsess a bit about
reading.”

“Nothing
wrong with that. Just means I’ll have to think of more books to recommend.”

“Good,”
I smiled, “I look forward to hearing your suggestions.”

Before
Jackson could reply, someone across the parking lot called his name. His head
snapped up, and I followed his gaze to some stocky guy by an old, blue station
wagon. Jackson waved, and then held up a finger as if to tell him, “Just a
minute.”

He
turned back to me and smiled apologetically. “That’s Chris,” he informed me. “I
guess I should go see what he wants.”

I
tried not to let my disappointment show. “Okay, I’ll see you around.”

After
wishing me happy birthday one last time, we said goodbye. I hurried over to
Skylar’s car. She was already inside, but she was playing with her phone,
probably sending a text.

“What
took you so long?” she asked. There was a slight edge of annoyance in her tone,
but, mostly, she seemed distracted.

“I
was trying to fit my presents into my bag.” I only felt slightly guilty about
lying as I covertly slipped my card from Jackson into the front flap of my
messenger bag.

When
I got home, I called Tegan right away to tell her about, first, the card
Jackson made me, and, second, about our conversation.

“I
can’t believe I missed that!” I knew on the other end of the phone Tegan was
most likely pouting. I’d tried describing Jackson to her before, but I’d mostly
emphasized, “He’s hot!” I’d tried looking for him, but it appeared his classes
were all located in a different part of the school, and he, obviously, had a
different lunch period, so I hadn’t been able to point him out for Tegan to see
for herself.

After
telling her about the conversation about gravity and meatloaf, she’d declared,
“I don’t care what he looks like. This guy’s a keeper.”

“In
order to keep him, I’d actually have to have him first,” I reminded.

“Sounds
to me like you have a good shot at catching him.”

As my
best friend, Tegan was obligated to root for me even if the exceptionally hot
boy was way out of my league. While I appreciated the sentiment, I wasn’t
convinced. It just seemed too unbelievable that someone like him—good looking,
friendly and kind—would be interested in someone like me—average, awkward and
bookish. In all honesty, catching Jackson’s interest at all was more than
enough. Despite my growing crush, I would be more than satisfied just to call
him my friend.

When
Skylar came into my room—without knocking, mind you—demanding to use the phone
(she, Luke and I shared a line), my conversation with Tegan was cut short. As
soon as I hung up, Skylar stalked from the room, already dialing a number into
the handset that belonged in her room.

I
pouted at my handset, wondering why my sister couldn’t just use her cell phone.
After only a moment, I guessed she was probably running low on minutes. I
fiddled around online for a while, wishing I’d thought to tell Tegan to get
online so we could carry on our conversation about Jackson. Of course, Skylar
had been glaring daggers at me and was ready to rip the phone from my hand. I’d
barely had enough time to say, “Tegan, I’ve got to go. Skylar needs the phone.
I’ll talk to you later.”

Even
though we convened at Red Lobster, dinner was the usual affair of convert texts
or games being played beneath the table by Skylar and Luke. Dad complained
about the things he’d heard on NPR, which he made Mom and me listen to on the
way to the restaurant. Luke and Skylar drove separately. Yes, I was quite
jealous.

Mom
quizzed everyone on their orders—sirloin
and lobster for Dad, popcorn shrimp for Mom, clam chowder and a garden salad
for Skylar, fish and chips for Luke, and the create your own feast for me
(three options: garlic shrimp scampi, steamed snow crab legs and jumbo coconut
shrimp)—before Dad’s litany of complaints began.

As usual, we all tuned Dad out while we ate our food. Then,
finally, when there
was a break in Dad’s complaints in favor of a bite of his food, Mom asked about
my day. I kind of felt put on the spot, but I was thankful for the reprieve
from Dad monopolizing the, albeit one-sided, conversation.

I
ran through a quick list of my gifts from the Tylers, but I left out the card
from Jackson.

“Oh,
it was so nice of Tanner and Tatum to make you a cake,” Mom commented. Then she
frowned, looking embarrassed. “I didn’t have a chance to make you a cake. I’m
so sorry, Silly.”

I
tried to shrug off the disappointment, but Mom went on. “We’ll just have to
order dessert here.”

Dad’s
eyes widened at this announcement. He was, no doubt, thinking of the cost. Mom
ignored his sour expression, and even Skylar—apparently not on a diet this
week—seemed excited by the prospect of ordering a rich dessert.

Dad’s
mood seemed to lighten slightly after he ordered a third Bahama Mama. He didn’t
even object when, instead of getting refills of our Coke Products, Skylar
ordered an orange freeze to go with her key lime pie while Luke asked for a
Sunset Passion Colada and the New York style cheesecake with strawberries.
Feeling brave, I ordered a strawberry banana smoothie and the chocolate cake.

After
ordering dessert, any disappointment I felt about Mom not buying or making me a
cake disappeared, but that didn’t make me any less curious as to why she hadn’t
had time to get one. It also made me wonder if she’d had time to get me a gift.
That did put a bit of a damper on my mood, but my spirits were lifted when our
waitress placed a rich, chocolaty cake concoction that came with a side of ice
cream in front of me.

The
next time I saw our waitress she, along with the rest of the wait staff, was
clapping and singing birthday wishes as they made their way to our table. I
forced a smile but was relieved when the mortification of everyone staring at me
was over.

Dad
slurped down every last drop of his drink. Luke, Skylar and I followed suit,
knowing complaints would likely be made if we didn’t. Dad’s eyes widened and
the corners of his mouth turned down as he pulled out his credit card once he
was given the bill. After the waitress carried it away, Skylar and Luke took
that as their cue to leave, saying hasty goodbyes and wishing me a half-hearted
happy birthday each.

Once the waitress returned Dad’s
credit card, we made our way out to the car, where Mom insisted on driving
since Dad had been drinking. Naturally, he complained the whole ride home about Mom’s
driving, which Mom ignored. I wasn’t sure how since it was incredibly annoying.
I loved Dad, but he could be such a know-it-all.

Then,
apparently, the alcohol really loosened his tongue because he said, “I cannot
believe how much we just spent on a damn dinner. We could have made all of that
for half the price at home.”

“Theo,”
Mom said, her voice surprisingly strong and stern, “it’s Cecilia’s birthday.”

“And
she better appreciate it,” he muttered, either forgetting I was in the backseat
or thinking I couldn’t hear. “My family wouldn’t spend a hundred dollars just
for dinner on my birthday.”

Mom
caught my eye through the rearview mirror, and all I wanted to do was sink into
the leather interior. She sent me a sympathetic smile, which I tried to return,
but I couldn’t manage to do more than make the corners of my mouth twitch
upward.

“It’s
once a year, Theo,” Mom reminded. “Besides, how much do
you
pay to be a
member of that country club?”

That
threw him for a minute, but then he finally replied, “That’s not the point.”

I
glanced back to Dad. Gone was his usual good posture. Instead, he was slouched
down in the seat. It was such an odd sensation to see my father completely
sloshed. I’d always thought a few drinks might loosen him up, but, after his
comments tonight, it seemed it only made him more uptight. Usually, he wouldn’t
complain too much about money in front of Skylar, Luke and I. It seemed now he
just didn’t care.

“I
don’t care what your point is,” Mom said calmly. “What matters is that it’s
Cecilia’s birthday, and we had a nice family dinner to celebrate that.”

This
time when I found Mom’s eyes in the rearview mirror I was able to smile back when
she winked at me.  Even if she couldn’t make a decent meatloaf, I really loved
Mom.

Because
Halloween was one of my favorite holidays, I’d had this year’s costume picked
out for weeks in advance. I’d always found the idea of being able to dress up
and pretend to be someone else for one day out of the year to be very exciting.
Even though my peers sometimes perceived me as odd for reasons I’ve yet to
understand, aside from talking to myself and asking random questions in grade
school, I didn’t want to pretend to be someone else because I disliked who I
was. I just liked dressing up and getting candy.

This
year’s costume of choice didn’t take much consideration. I was going as
Hermione Granger.

“It’s
not much of a stretch since you already share the same last name,” Tegan
teased. “And you’re both bookworms.”

“But
I’m not a know-it-all,” I assured her. My brain capacity seemed much smaller
than that of Hermione Granger; though, I did have a knack for remembering
useless facts, such as: it was against the law to plow a cotton field with an
elephant in North Carolina and Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland
because he didn’t wear pants. If I could have channeled this toward remembering
facts related to school assignments or tests, I would have been golden. Things
never quite worked like that, though.

 In
the past, Tegan and I had both dressed up for Halloween and wore our costumes
to school, but Tegan seemed reluctant—probably because it was somewhat
childish—and I didn’t want to make myself more of a target for Mark Moses than
usual, so I decided against wearing my school uniform and black robes to
school. I did, however, go to school with bed head, which suited Hermione’s
hairstyle, in hopes that I might be able to tease it into a frizzy Hermione-like
mess later that evening.

Tegan
kept playing with it, trying to make it frizz without much luck. “Well, at
least it looks like you have a little volume,” she shrugged.

Overall,
the school day wasn’t very exciting. There were a few students that dressed up
for Halloween, and Mrs. Willis gave the class candy and allowed us to watch a
movie—
Scooby Doo
—in Spanish instead of making us do any real work, which
was nice for a change. Trying to keep Spanish verb tenses straight was making
my head spin.

The
only eventful moment of the school day occurred when Tierney sat down at our
table during lunch. Tegan and I were still trying to decide what we were going
to do that evening. We both agreed we were probably too old for
trick-or-treating, but staying in and watching movies wasn’t that appealing for
Halloween either. 

“I
just got invited to Jesse Millet’s Halloween party,” Tierney announced. She
tried to look unconcerned by her news, but she couldn’t quite keep the smile
off her face. Besides, both Tegan and I knew she was more excited than she
wanted to let on.

Tierney
had been crushing on Jesse since their freshman year. She claimed he didn’t
even know she existed, but I found that hard to believe when it came to someone
as pretty as Tierney. However she wanted to play it, it was obvious—at least to
Tegan and I—that she was thrilled by the invite.

“I
think he invited most of our class to come,” Tierney said casually, “but he
said I could bring friends, and the last I knew neither of you had plans, so want
to go?”

Naturally,
Tegan and I looked at each other, wide-eyed and excited, before turning back to
Tierney and nodding furiously. Neither of us had been to a high school party
before, so our previously lame plans for the evening had just got a whole lot
more exciting. I just had to figure out how I was going to convince my parents
to let me go.

Tegan
and I talked strategy throughout the rest of the day. We finally decided that
if my parents flat out refused to let me go to the party, then I would concede,
gracelessly, and I would pretend to go trick-or-treating with Tegan. Of course,
we would really go to the party, but my parents didn’t need to know that. It
was devious, I knew, but I really wanted to go. As it turned out, convincing my
parents was much easier than I thought it would be.