Just You (19 page)

His face drooped a little. “I see.”

I started picking at my garlic bread, making
tiny bread balls out of it for the remainder of the meal. At this
point I began to suspect something was up.

Leanne lingered in the kitchen after dinner
to give me a hand with the dishes, and we worked quietly together
until everyone else scattered, leaving us to finish up. Once we
were alone, my stepsister glanced at me as she wiped down the stove
and said, “My mom knows.”

“Knows what?” I said, rinsing silverware
under the faucet.

“She knows it’s not Robin you’re going out
with every weekend.”

I froze in place. “How do you know?”

“They’ve been talking about it all week. My
mom and your dad.”

“My dad knows too?” The stack of forks and
knives were still clutched, forgotten, in my hand. “He hasn’t said
anything.”

“I guess they were waiting until you got
here before they pounced.” She tossed the dish cloth into the sink
and turned to me. “Just a warning…my mom is ruthless. She can smell
a lie a mile away. It’s no use trying to trick her. Believe me, I
know. It’s like she’s clairvoyant or something.”

“Wonderful.”

“For what it’s worth, I think she’s on your
side. They both are, but they’re pretty pissed about the
lying.”

I switched on the dishwasher. “I guess I’m
going to be grounded for life,” I said bleakly. But in a way I felt
relieved. At least now it was all out in the open. Some of the
weight had been lifted off my shoulders and now it was up to them
to deal with it.

“I’m not sure how Mom found out,” Leanne
said. “Or if she figured it out on her own. She does have a talent
for that. I’m telling you, my mother would fit right in with the
CIA.”

Great. I was toast.

My father poked his head around the doorway.
“Taylor, may I see you in my office please?” he said, his
expression a mixture of sad and cautious. He’d been making that
face at me a lot lately. We’d been stepping warily around each
other ever since I’d accused him of feeling guilty over ruining
Mom’s life. We hadn’t discussed it, and I hadn’t apologized.

“Sure,” I said, and he disappeared
again.

Leanne clucked in sympathy. “Good luck. And
remember—she’s ruthless.”

“Don’t forget clairvoyant,” I said, and my
stepsister gave me a small smile before leaving me alone. I stayed
in the kitchen for a moment, gathering my wits about me before
heading toward what was sure to be my father’s version of a
home-based trial hearing. Too bad I didn’t have my own lawyer to
represent me.

Dad’s den was a dark, ominous room. The
walls were hung with bookshelves and creepy tribal art. The only
cheerful thing in there was the colorful, floating fishies
screensaver on the computer. I focused on that as I took a seat
next to Lynn on the sofa. Dad sat in the black leather desk chair,
his fingers steepled under his chin and his brow furrowed in
concentration.

“So,” he began. “You’re going out with Robin
tonight.”

I knew by the way he said this that the jig
was indeed up. “Yes,” I said, lying right to the end.

He picked up a paper clip from his desk and
began to bend it into different shapes. “You’ve been spending a lot
of time with Robin lately. Parties, movies, dances…you two must be
running out of things to do.”

“Not really.” I fiddled with a piece of
thread sticking out of the couch.

“It’s funny how we never see her over here
on the weekends.”

I sneaked a peek over at Lynn, who was
looking at Dad as if to say, “Get to the point, you moron.”

And finally, he did.

“We know you’re still seeing Michael.”

I didn’t bother trying to act surprised. I
knew he’d just been waiting for me to buckle under pressure.

“Am I right?” he asked. I kept on playing
with the piece of thread. “Am I, Taylor?”

“Yes, Dad, you’re right,” I snapped. He knew
he was right. I knew he was right. Did he have to force me to admit
it?

Dad ignored my attitude and leaned forward,
tossing the mangled paperclip back on the desk. “Would you mind
telling us why you’ve been lying to us for, what now, a month?”

He didn’t sound angry, exactly, so I
mustered up the courage to look him in the eye and state the
obvious. “You wouldn’t let me see Michael. I didn’t want to stop
seeing him, and I didn’t understand why I had to.”

“Taylor, we’ve discussed this again and
again.”

Familiar anger ignited in my stomach. “But
it doesn’t make any sense. I’d understand if he was a juvenile
delinquent or something, but he’s not. So he’s a year or so older
than me. Big freaking deal!”

“Age is not the point right now, young
lady,” Dad said, raising his voice to meet mine. “The point is,
you’ve lied to us for weeks instead of coming to us.”

I have a short laugh. “Yeah, right. Come to
Mom? She doesn’t care how I feel about any of this. She’s never
even met Michael and she’s convinced he’s some sort of manipulative
sex fiend.”

I saw Lynn’s smirk out of the corner of my
eye, and I knew she had my back on this one. Dad rubbed his hands
over his face and made grumbling noises. He was struggling to be
fair and not take sides, though I assumed he too shared my views on
Mom.

“Like I said before, if it were up to me,
I’d let you see Michael. But it’s not my call. Your mother has a
say in this too.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his
nose, as if all this fighting was giving him a headache. “I can’t
let you do something she has strictly forbidden you to do.”

“I don’t think it’s fair that you and Mom
get to decide who I can and can’t see. Dad, I’m sorry, but I have
to see Michael. I know what I’m doing. If you’ll just trust me,
I’ll prove it to you.” I glanced over at Lynn, who smiled
encouragingly at me.
She
understood, and I knew she could
talk my father into coming around too.

The office was getting dark. Dad reached
over and flicked on the desk lamp, filling the room with muted
light. “Well then,” he said, beaten and resigned now. “What
are
you planning to do tonight, if you’re not going out with
Robin?”

I folded my hands in my lap. “I was thinking
I’d go over to Michael’s house…if that’s okay with you.”

My father didn’t speak for a long time. I
waited, scared to even look at him in the chance that I may glimpse
even a shred of negativity. Next to me, Lynn cleared her throat a
few times until Dad threw up his hands, surrendering at last.

Then, my stepmother uttered her first words
since the start of this meeting. She looked at me, grinned, and
said, “Need a drive?”

****

Michael was home alone when Lynn dropped me
off at his house an hour later. He led me down to the basement,
where we sat on the couch and I spilled it all out to him.

“So no more sneaking around?” he said when
I’d finally finished.

“At least not with Dad.”

“Is your dad okay with keeping your mom in
the dark like this?”

“He doesn’t like it. He’ll do it, though,
for me. But…”

“But?” he said dubiously.

“He thinks your parents are home. He said
he’d prefer it if you and I were ‘regularly supervised’.”

Michael slid his hand up my leg and said in
a low voice, “That’s probably a good idea.”

I removed his hand. “Hey now. I swore to my
father not two hours ago that you were
not
an uncontrollable
sex maniac.”

“Well, sorry to make you a liar, but…” He
put his hand back, higher this time, and then pushed me back onto
the couch cushion. I squealed as he fell on top of me and pretended
to bite my neck.

Feeling him pressed against me, so close, I
had a fleeting urge to celebrate my freedom in a big way, with
Michael, right here on this couch in his family room, right this
minute. “How long do we have?” I whispered.

He gazed down at me for a long time, long
enough that I started thinking he’d changed his mind about wanting
what I’d just offered. But that wasn’t the case. He lifted himself
off me and grabbed hold of my hand, pulling me up alongside him.
“Long enough,” he said. And then, still holding hands, we went
upstairs to his room, where we locked the door behind us and eased
back on the bed.

It was effortless at first. We did all the
things we normally did in his family room or in the backseat of his
car or in dark, empty rooms at parties. Only this time we were
alone in his bed with no chance of anyone walking in, and instead
of stopping before the point of no return, we crossed it and kept
on going.

There was pain, but it was the kind of pain
I could handle, because I knew it only happened that first
time.

And afterwards, as he stroked my hair and
told me he loved me, it occurred to me for the first time that sex,
for some people, is the ultimate act of trust. You’re completely
vulnerable in the moment, both body and emotions exposed as you
give your whole self to another person. With anyone else I would
have been terrified, probably even regretful later on. But lying
there with Michael, I couldn’t remember why I had ever been so
afraid.

Chapter 18

In the middle of March we had a week off
school, and Emma and I were scheduled to spend it at our dad’s.
When Mom dropped us off on Friday evening, we found our father
surrounded by a disaster in the kitchen, Leo standing by with a
hungry, hopeful look in his eyes. Dad cooking on anything besides
an outdoor grill was a sight to behold. It was as if he didn’t
quite understand how an indoor, electric stove worked. It was a
good bet that if you caught a whiff of burning food, Dad was the
one in the kitchen.

Tonight he’d made scorched chicken and
vegetable stir-fry, with overdone rice. We ate at the kitchen table
with Leo watching us pitifully from the entrance of the laundry
room. As usual, Emma and Jamie liked to take advantage of Dad’s
tolerant nature by acting barbaric at the table. Tonight they held
a contest to see who could build a bigger mountain out of rice.
Jamie won because he had saved a broccoli spear to stick in the top
of his mountain, like a lone tree. I made grossed-out faces at them
as Dad rambled on about his latest plan to install a hot tub out on
the deck in late spring. When Emma started petitioning for a pool
to go with the hot tub, I got up to take a stab at the catastrophic
mess.

After hosing down the kitchen, I showered
and then called Michael to make sure he was still coming over
later. Both Dad and Michael’s parents had been really cracking down
on the parental supervision lately. This drove us mad, but at least
it kept my father off my case. He still had some reservations about
letting me see Michael behind my mother’s back, and I knew it made
him feel more secure to have us under his semi-watchful eye.

When Michael arrived later, we went up to my
room. Dad’s golden rule when Michael and I were alone in my bedroom
was all but written in stone: lights on and door open at all times.
I resented this lack of privacy but obeyed the rule without
complaint, knowing I shouldn’t push my luck. So Michael and I sat
on my bed and talked, all the while repressing the urge to shut the
door, turn off the lights, and attack each other. Every so often
we’d get interrupted by my father, who would casually stop by under
the guise of needing to ask me a stupid question (“Taylor, have you
seen the can opener?”), but it was glaringly obvious he was really
checking to make sure we weren’t horizontal.

We leaned in for stolen kisses,
half-listening for my dad the entire time. Luckily he was as loud
as he was predictable, with a booming voice that echoed throughout
the entire house and a gait that rivaled a stampede of
elephants.

“Another cookie!” he said now, his words
clearly detectable through the ceiling and walls. “Bottomless pits,
the two of you. And what do
you
want?” At this last
question, the dog barked expectantly.

I pulled away from Michael and sighed. This
house was a zoo.

Finally, after the kids and dog were in bed
and the house was quiet, Michael and I escaped our prison without
bars and headed downstairs to pretend to watch TV.

“Lynn will be home in half an hour,” Dad
reminded us before he retired to his bedroom for his usual
ten-thirty bedtime. “And my door will be open.”

I buried my face in a pillow. “Dad.”

He kept talking, oblivious to my
humiliation. “I’m a very light sleeper.”

“Good night, Dad,” I said through gritted
teeth.

When he finally left us alone, Michael
started laughing. I whacked him with my pillow.

“Your father’s really subtle, isn’t he?” he
said, dodging the next smack.

“I swear, it’s his life mission to embarrass
me. I’m glad you get such a kick out of him.”

He tugged the pillow weapon out of my hands
and flung it toward the other end of the couch, out of my reach. “I
can’t help it. I think it’s funny when he says whatever pops into
his head.”

“Yeah, he’s hilarious. Wanna trade?” As his
smile faded, I realized the stupidity of that remark. I had no
right to complain about my warm, loving father, and I knew it.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “That was dumb.”

His smile returned, but with half the
wattage as before. “It’s okay. I guess I’m a little sensitive on
the father topic tonight. Mine’s been on me a lot lately.”

I rested my chin on the edge of his
shoulder. “College?”

“Mostly.”

“He’s still pressuring you about Avery? Did
you tell him you’re considering Kinsley now?”
Because of me
,
I added in my head. He’d applied to the local university along with
Avery, but he hadn’t thought about actually going there (and
sticking close to home and me) until a few weeks ago.

“He knows.” His jaw muscles did their
stress-induced twitching thing. “Anyway, September is five months
away. Let’s not talk about this now.”