Just You (11 page)

When Michael showed up for the dreaded
Meeting/Interrogation, my father and I were downstairs waiting for
him. Leo started barking when I let Michael in. He did this
whenever he saw someone he didn’t know around our house. Only Lynn
could get this stubborn pooch to quiet down, so I didn’t even
bother trying to reprimand him. Michael didn’t mind. He crouched
down and stroked the dog’s head, and after sniffing Michael’s
hands, Leo dismissed him as a threat and finally stopping his loud
yapping. My father entered the foyer, beer in hand, just in time to
witness Michael and Leo’s bonding.

“You! Out of here!” he bellowed, and for a
moment I thought he meant Michael and I almost passed out.

“Dad, this is Michael,” I said, recovering
quickly.

Michael stood up straight and wiped his dog
drool-covered hand off on his shirt before offering it to my
father. Dad laughed and shook his hand firmly. “Hello, Michael.
Steven Brogan. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Michael said,
giving Leo another scratch under the ears. Leo sat still, his tail
smacking against the marble tile. Michael had won
him
over,
at least.

“Okay.” Dad hooked the dog’s collar with two
fingers. “Come on.”

Leo barked once in protest as Dad dragged
him away, but all was quiet when they reached the kitchen and Leo’s
freshly replenished food bowl. My father returned a few seconds
later.

“Come in, come in,” he said, ushering us
into the living room. “Sit, sit. Anyone for a drink?”

We both declined. I was nervous, and every
time I was nervous and ingested liquid, it instantly expanded my
bladder to near bursting. And leaving Michael alone with my father
for any length of time didn’t sit well with me. Dad seemed to be
missing the important filter most people had between their brains
and their mouths.

“You look so familiar to me, Michael,” Dad
said, settling into his recliner. “Do I know your father?”

Michael and I were seated on the couch
together, a few deliberate inches between us. Surprisingly he
seemed relaxed, even under my dad’s scrutinizing gaze.

“He works at the golf course in the summer,
Dad.” I had told him this earlier, but of course he had forgotten.
My father practically lived on the golf course in the summer, so I
knew he must have met Michael without even realizing it.

“The golf course,” Dad said, as if he’d
remembered all on his own, without my help. “Yes. I’ve seen you in
the pro shop, haven’t I?”

“That’s right,” Michael said. “And you’re
usually with Dr. Fletcher, right?”

My dad smiled, pleased that Michael had
recognized him too. “Dr. Fletcher. Head of the oral surgery
department at the university,” he added for my benefit. “Good ole
Fletch. He’s a shark, that one. One day...”

Dad started talking golf-ese and my eyes
glazed over. Instead of listening, I watched Michael and wondered
what he thought of my father, and this house, as compared to his
own. Dad, while well-educated and somewhat clever at times, wasn’t
exactly as powerful and intimidating as I imagined Michael’s lawyer
father to be. As a professor, my father made a decent living. He
and Lynn had nice things, took nice vacations, and probably had a
hefty retirement fund sacked away. Their house was old, drafty, and
lived-in. You’d never see one like it in Redwood Hills. No backyard
pools or convertibles in driveways around here. No pristine,
housekeeper-clean rooms. Dad and Lynn’s house was always a little
messy—newspapers strewn about, video game boxes and DVD cases piled
up, clothes hanging on the backs of chairs, dust and dog hair and
dirty windows.

“So Michael,” Dad said later, when he came
back from the kitchen with a beer. “Any plans for after graduation
next year? College?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure where I’m going
yet.”

I squirmed. I knew this was a sore spot with
Michael. His future was his father’s favorite topic, but Michael
had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, not yet.

“Any ideas for a major?” Dad asked.

Michael hesitated, and I could feel his hand
start to sweat. Or it could’ve been mine. “I like history…”

“John Quentin teaches comparative global
history at Kinsley. He’s a remarkable teacher and a fine man.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Michael said
politely. Kinsley, the local university and my dad’s place of
employment, was a decent school, though maybe a little limited. Not
many lawyers had gotten their start there, I suspected.

To my relief and probably Michael’s too,
Lynn came downstairs at the moment, rescuing us from more college
talk. I introduced her to Michael.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, shooting
me a quick wide-eyed look, which I took to mean
Damn, girl,
where’d you find this hunk?

Lynn sat down in the other chair and started
asking a series of benign questions about school and his family,
and we all relaxed again. I could have hugged my stepmom for
steering us into more neutral territory. The rest of the evening
went smoothly because of Lynn’s upbeat presence. My father only
embarrassed me once, at the end of the meeting when he said, “It
was good to finally meet you, Michael. My daughter has been more
absent-minded than her old man since she met you.”

I shot him a dirty look as we left, and he
stared back at me with his innocent “What did I say?” expression.
He used that often, right after extracting the foot from his
mouth.

Michael and I didn’t speak until we got to
his car, and when I looked at him he had this amused expression on
his face. I stopped by the passenger side door, arms crossed.
“What’s so funny?” I demanded.

He grinned as he passed me on his way to the
driver’s side. “The death glare you just gave your dad.”

“He deserved it.” I climbed into the car.
“He’s not usually that bad. Most of the time he’s reasonably
sane.”

“I liked him,” Michael said. This wasn’t
unusual. Everyone liked my dad. Each year, students scrambled to
get a spot in one of his classes.

“He has his moments,” I said grudgingly.

“He seemed interested in what I wanted to
do. That was nice for a change.”

“I thought college talk made you
uncomfortable.”

He started the engine. “It does,
usually.”

We had planned to see a movie, but when we
got there a few minutes late, almost everything was sold out. It
was my idea to drive downtown to the waterfront boardwalk, which
was virtually deserted this time of year. We parked in a small lot
near a hotel, facing the water.

“I used to play there when I was little,”
Michael said, pointing to a boat-shaped playground structure in the
distance. “We used to come here almost every weekend. My brother
Josh…he liked watching the ships.”

He seemed wistful, as if he were remembering
nicer, simpler times. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought his
brother was dead. I held my breath, waiting for more, but he left
it at that.
Josh
. Now I knew his name, at least.

It was cold inside the car. I shivered,
pulling the sleeves of my jacket over my hands. Michael shook off
his pensive mood and reached for me, folding me against his warm
chest. Getting close wasn’t an easy feat with those annoying bucket
seats and the gearshift between us, so after a few minutes of
awkward fumbling, we moved to the back. There, in the shadows cast
by the streetlights, we kissed until cold was no longer an
issue.

When we came up for air a while later, a
question I’d had no intention of ever asking popped out of my mouth
like it had a mind of its own. “Why didn’t you go out with Elena
Brewster?”

“What?” He was gazing at my lips, still
distracted.

“Elena Brewster.” I pulled back a little.
“She’s asked you out before, right?”

“A while ago.”

“And you said no? Why?” I guess I found it
hard to grasp how anyone could say no to someone like her. She was
viciously determined. I knew that much from watching her try to
flirt with Michael—while simultaneously glaring at me—every time we
were in her presence. And it bothered me. The flirting
and
the glaring.

“I just don’t like her,” Michael said with a
small shrug. “She’s a…well, she’s not a nice person. And she’s
fake.”

“She’s also beautiful.”

He held my face in his palms. Even though he
hadn’t eaten any cinnamon mints lately, he still smelled like them.
“
You
are beautiful.”

“Not like Elena…and Robin…and most of the
girls you hang around with.”

“No…” Michael said, and before I had time to
wonder if I should feel insulted, he kissed me again. When he
backed away a few minutes later, he finished his sentence. “You’re
beautiful like
you
.”

Gulp. He certainly didn’t make it easy for
me to behave myself. I could finally understand what Ms. Winters,
my sex ed. teacher last year, had meant when she lectured us about
the overwhelming power of hormones. Kissing Brian had been nice,
but sometimes, right in the middle of making out with him, I’d
start thinking about other things, like song lyrics or who would
get evicted this week on my favorite reality show. With Michael,
however, all I thought about while kissing him was how I wanted
more of him. I could never get close enough.

But, as it turned out, Michael had the
self-control of a monk and
I
was the one who always ended up
feeling frustrated. I knew my inexperience made him a little
nervous, but I still hadn’t anticipated having to actually talk him
into things.

Later, after we’d finally shoehorned our
bodies apart, he said, “We should probably talk about this.”

“I agree.” I shifted away from him and
adjusted my clothes, giving us both some much-needed space. I
couldn’t think straight as long as I was near him, breathing in his
cinnamony scent.

“I don’t want to pressure you into
anything,” he said, leaning back against the seat. “And I’m not
just talking about this, right now. I really like you. I know
you’re not ready for anything serious after what happened to you
last time and that’s fine with me, but…” He took a deep breath. “I
don’t want to go out with anyone else. Just you.”

Even in the face of the blinding fear I felt
at that moment, I couldn’t help but melt a little.
Just you
.
They were the perfect words, even if they weren’t entirely true. Or
realistic. Brian had wanted “just me” too, at first.

“You know,” I said, smiling, “I think
I
was the one who did the pressuring.”

He laughed. “You can’t take all the blame.
Sometimes I forget you’re younger. I have to keep reminding
myself.”

I nodded. Obviously, I had to keep reminding
myself of certain things too.

****

The next day, as I was in my room packing to
go back home, something almost equally as scary happened. My wicked
stepsister appeared in the open doorway.

“Hey,” she said, all nonchalant, as if she
moseyed on in to my room all the time.

I froze holding a pair of blue bikini
underpants. Leanne had been gone all weekend and I hadn’t even
noticed her return.

“Oh, um, hi,” I said, stammering. The girl
had spoken maybe twenty words to me in the past two years. She’d
certainly never engaged me in an actual give-and-take conversation
before. I didn’t know how to react.

She studied my room like she’d never seen it
before, while I studied her. Her short blond hair was smoothed back
from her face with a black headband, and she wore a gray T-shirt
with the name of some band I’d never heard of emblazoned across the
front, boxer shorts, and bare feet. She’d taken out her nose ring
and extra earrings. She looked fresh and clean and somehow
younger.

“So,” she said, meeting my eyes for possibly
the first time ever. “How’s it going?”

“Okay.” I moved over to the dresser, where I
scooped up a pile of shirts. Leanne inched into my room, running
her finger along the wall as she walked until she ended up where I
was standing. I glanced at her, uneasy. Her light blue eyes told me
nothing. For a minute or two she watched me while I packed, making
me feel more paranoid with each passing second.

“Hey, I like those jeans,” she said
suddenly.

I peered down at the folded jeans in my
hands. “Really?”

“I like the pockets. Where did you get
them?”

“Old Navy, I think.”

She nodded. “It’s hard to find jeans that
fit when you’re short.”

“I know.” I’d encountered this problem
myself, and I had at least two inches on Leanne.

Neither of us spoke for a minute. I zipped
up my bag, the sharp sound of it making me wince. I returned to the
dresser to pack up my makeup and hair products. I knew my
stepsister would never covet any of those things. She wore only
eyeliner, usually black and heavy, and dark nail polish. I could
see chips of it on her bitten nails now as she drummed her fingers
on the wall behind her.

“Robin told me you’re going out with Michael
Hurst,” she said.

Robin? Robin told her this? Of course. Not
exactly shocking. Leanne and Robin did speak to each other once in
a while. They’d been neighbors for years, long before I’d met
either of them. Leanne liked Robin just fine. It was me she hated.
And Dad. And possibly Emma.

I looked at her again, noting her surprise.
“Yeah,” I said, verging on defensive.

“He’s hot.”

I allowed myself a quick, proud smile.

“I’ve never spoken to him—we aren’t exactly
in the same social network—but I see him around school a lot. He’s
in my AP physics class. He’s smart…not like some of the
Neanderthals he hangs around with.”

I’d almost forgotten that Leanne went to
Redwood Hills High too. She wasn’t in that school district, but
last year she’d transferred there for some reason. I was sure there
was a story there, but we’d never been close enough to talk about
it and I didn’t want to ask Lynn.