The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates (8 page)

              “Borrow? No. Have? Yes. I never wore the stupid thing. Dad got it for my birthday a year ago. I don’t have the figure for it.”

              That last part was a lie, but I didn’t feel the need to burst Margo’s bubble.

              The door opened again and we all jumped. “Hey Em.” Finn had stuck his head back in the room. “What did you do your essay on?”

              “Shel Silverstein and his unconventional use of words and phrases to communicate big moral and common sense ideas to children.” I rattled the words off with my attention back on the TV.

              “Ah. Crap. I’ve got nothing.” He made as if to leave again, but Shannon lurched forward and grabbed his forearm.

              “No, Finn. You’re just the person we need.” She dragged him inside. “Come in here and tell Margo what you think of this top.”

              “What does Finn care about clothes?” I asked, turning a critical eye to my friend, and then felt very stupid. “What to
I
care about clothes?” I turned back to the TV.

              “Finn cares plenty.”

              “I do?”

              I glanced up at Margo, who was getting redder and redder. She was inching toward the bathroom door now, obviously thinking to get the blouse off before someone said something really embarrassing.

              “Yes, you do. Look at her, Finn. Margo!” Shannon grabbed her retreating friend and pulled her in front of Finn. “What we need is a man’s opinion.” I looked from Shannon to Margo, then back again. What was Shannon
doing
?

              Oh. Right. Shannon’s new hobby. For being such a meddler she wasn’t very good at it.

              I looked from Margo to Finn, back and forth. Margo was almost purple now, and Finn still just looked indifferent and confused. Poor Margo. It was in that moment that I decided it was time for a bit more subtly, and a bit less meddling.

              I got up and stood next to Margo. “Yeah, Finn. Doesn’t she look great?” Finn turned his gaze to me, but said nothing. “Doesn’t she really look nice? Even a
man
such as yourself must see the value of an attractive woman in attractive clothes.” Margo looked like she wanted to sink into the floor now, but I knew that I had said the right thing. She would thank me later.

              Margo may not be the dream woman Finn had described, but why should he wait for something that may never happen?

              “Why-” he stopped short, watching my face carefully. I could almost see the pieces slipping into place in Finn’s brain as he realized the implications of my words. Something huge had just occurred to him, and it was all thanks to me.

              His smooth gaze slipped over my face and came to a rest on Margo’s. “You know, you really do look good in white.” There was a look in his eye that I couldn’t quite identify. It was as if he were seeing a whole realm of possibility that had never occurred to him before. Shannon looked like Christmas had come early, but she managed to keep her hysterics at bay for the moment.

“Thanks.” Margo managed to drag her eyes up from the floor to meet Finn’s gaze. It was perfectly timed and I silently blessed her for it because her shy blushing only added to the homeliness of her overall look.

“You should wear that to Shannon’s party,” he said. “You haven’t got a date yet, have you?”

Margo blanched. “Um, no.” She looked like she was going to vomit all over him.

              His wide mouth stretched into a grin. “You and I should go.” I had never once thought of Finn wrangling himself a date. He did it all so confidently. So casually, as if it were no big deal at all.

              “Um. All right.” She managed a smile. She at least thought this was a big deal.

              He grinned even wider, and punched her playfully on the arm. “Don’t look so terrified,” he teased. “It’s just a date. Tell you what, we’ll have a dress rehearsal. What are you doing
this
Friday?”

              Holy crap, this was going far better than I could have hoped for.

              She laughed, loosening up a little. “Hanging out with you, I guess.” How she pulled off wit in her state, I’ll never know, but it worked like a charm.

              “I thought you weren’t going to be involved in the party,” Shannon said to Finn.

              “I believe my exact words were ‘I’m not going to be responsible for this mess.’” he corrected. “And I’m not. I’ve got a date for the biggest party in town, which is more than either of you two can say.” He pointed at Shannon and me both, winked at Margo, and stepped into the hallway. “Now nobody bother me. I’ve got to go research a two-page essay that’s due tomorrow.”

              We all waited in absolute silence until we heard Finn’s bedroom door click shut. “Oh my God!” Margo breathed, lowering herself onto Shannon’s bed.

              “Congrats, Margo!” I grinned. “Well done. Isn’t this great, Shannon?”

              But my friend was frozen where she stood, an odd look of strained happiness pasted onto her face. Her bright hair had fallen into her eyes and her hand was frozen in mid air on its way to brush it aside.

              “Shannon?” Margo was breathing hard and had one hand at her throat. It was going to take her a while to get over this one.

              “What?” 

              “What’s the matter?”

              Suddenly her hand flashed through the air and her hair was back in its place. “Nothing!” But she said it too loudly, and I knew there definitely
was
something wrong.

              “Shannon?” I asked, but she wouldn’t look at me.

“I’m so glad this all worked out so well!” she said suddenly to Margo, snapping out of whatever it was that had bothered her. “What will you wear? What do you think you’ll do?”

And that was my cue to turn back to the TV.

Seven

“What’s wrong with you lately?” Ethan asked me that Friday after school.

“What do you mean?” The half-chewed pencil in my mouth muffled my words a little. Mr. Yarsden had given us one problem for our homework that weekend, but that one little problem was the longest, most involved word problem that I had ever encountered. Ethan and I sat alone at the picnic tables behind the school for half an hour before we finished the first
half
of the stupid thing.

He closed the text book that I was desperately trying to distract myself with. “I mean you’ve been really mopey for the past three days.”

I brushed my hair out of my face and glared at him. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“Something is. Out with it.”

              “I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong. Can we please finish this stupid problem? I want to go home.”

              “No.” He crossed his arms. “It’s Friday night. We should do something.”

              “Like what?”

              He shrugged. “Anything to make you stop being so depressed. What’s everybody else doing tonight? We should all get together and go see a movie.”

              “Finn and Margo have plans for tonight, and Shannon’s busy obsessing over it.”

              Comprehension dawned on his face. “Ah, right. The big date. I forgot.”

              “Yup.” I stuck my pencil back in my mouth.

              “Stop that,” he said, taking it away from me. “Lead isn’t good for the digestive system.”

              “It’s fortunate that pencil lead is made from graphite, then.”

              “That’s not good for your digestive system either.”

              “Well maybe I enjoy slowly poisoning myself to death.”

              “See?” He pointed at me. “There, right there! You’re so depressing!”

              I leaned forward to take back my pencil, but he leaned away, holding it just out of reach. I lunged again, stretching right across his body to try and get my chew toy back, but he just laughed. I stopped, my face just inches from his, and glared at him out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t mean to glare. My heart started pounding in response to how close his face was to mine and I suddenly couldn’t help but notice that he smelled amazing. Like fabric softener. The expensive kind.

              But I wasn’t done being mad so I glared at him. I wanted to wipe that cheesy smile right off of his face.

              “Let’s me and you do something then,” he said. “On our own.”

              I sat back on the bench. “I don’t feel like seeing a movie.”

              “Do you like go-carts?”

              “We don’t have a track in St. John.”

              “What about putt-putt golf?” He raised one eyebrow. “Eh?”

              “Not a fan.”

              “Fine. Since you’re being so difficult, I’ll choose. And I choose a movie. I’ve been wanting to see that new thriller that came out last week.
Dead End
, I think it was.”

              “Have fun with that.” I snatched back my pencil the instant he let down his guard. I stuck it stubbornly back into my mouth.

              “Oh,
we
will
have fun.”

              I grinned despite myself, and then wiped my face clean immediately. “All right,” the concession felt less like surrender than I expected. “Just call me later when you want to pick me up.”

              “I’ll pick you up at six, how’s that?”

              “That’s a little early for a movie.”

              “Well if we want to have dinner first, then we have to leave early.” He smiled innocently at me.
              “Dinner?”

              He shrugged. “I figure that we may as well make it official, since we’re going to be alone anyway.”

              My face flushed just then and I nearly bit clean through the pencil. “Make what official?”

              “Our second date.” He laughed at my shocked expression, and then carefully removed the ruined pencil from my mouth. He dug in his bag and produced a fresh one for me, inserting it between my frozen lips to replace the old one. “If that’s all right with you, of course.”

              I nodded, feeling more and more foolish every second. I took his pencil out of my mouth and wiped it off on my jeans.

              “Good.” He pulled my calculus book closer. “Let’s finish this, then.”

              “Yeah.”

              I really wanted to call Shannon and tell her about my date, but I didn’t have the guts. She hadn’t had much to say to me since the night that Finn asked Margo out, and she absolutely refused to talk about anything to do with relationships in the past three days. She agreed to help Margo prepare for her dates, but other than that she offered no advice. It was as if her success with Finn had completely satiated her urge to meddle.

I wasn’t complaining exactly, but I wished she could have been there for me instead of Margo.

              In the end, I decided not to tell anybody about it at all. Not yet, anyway. I didn’t want to deal with Shannon’s girlishness, or Aaron’s sarcasm. Finn and Margo were both completely absorbed in their own plans. The only person left was my mother, who I didn’t really want to talk about all of this with. She would just make it all so sentimental that I would be the one gagging instead of her.

              So I just told Mom that I was going out with some friends–which was completely true–and that I wouldn’t be home for dinner. She just shrugged and said, “Be home by midnight. Wake me up when you get home so I know you’re back.”

              “All right.” I was suddenly struck with gratitude that I had such an easy-going mother. I tried to smile at her, but my nerves wouldn’t let me. “I shouldn’t be out that late.”

              Ethan arrived exactly at six. I watched for him from my bedroom window and rushed to answer the door before Mom or Aaron could.

              “Hey!” he said, then looked me up and down. That made me a little uncomfortable, but I suppose that should just be expected. My brown hair fell over my shoulders in soft curls as I had taken the time to actually style it. I’d even put on a little make-up and some earrings for the occasion. I was wearing a black top with dark jeans that were a really tight fit. Shannon had once told me that those jeans looked sexy on me. I hadn’t paid her much attention at the time, but that night
sexy
seemed a little more important.

“You look great,” Ethan said appreciatively. “Wow.”

              “What?” I said, suddenly self-conscious. I never wore those jeans to school. They were extremely uncomfortable and they left angry red welts on my stomach at the end of the day. “Too much?” Ethan looked the same as usual. He was even wearing the same clothes that he had worn to school that day so I felt in contrast that I was far overdressed just for the movies. Then again, Ethan looked pretty well kempt all the time.

              He shook his head. “No, not at all.”

              “Emily! Who is it?” We both turned as Mom hollered through the house.

              “Just, ah, my ride! Be back later!” I called back, flushing pink. Why did she have to yell now? When Ethan was here?

              Ethan grinned at me and held out his hand. I took it hesitantly.

              Holy crap. My first date. Holy freaking crap.

Well, second date, technically. I suppose the movie night had been a date after all. I shut the door behind us.

              “So, where do you want to eat?” he asked as we pulled out of the driveway. “Chinese? Italian?  Good old American?”

              “American?”

              “Yeah,” he said. “Burgers and fries.”

              “So what’s Italian?”

              “Pasta. And Chinese is cat-on-a-stick, before you ask.”

              I shuddered. “Definitely not Chinese, then.”

“So American, then?”

              “Sure.”

              We drove through town without having much else to say. I wished he would turn on the radio or something. The silence was deafening. It was strange. We always had something to talk about. Why now, on our first real night out, do we have to be silent?

              I shifted my weight and tugged at the waistband of my jeans. I could already feel those welts forming on my gut where the denim pinched too tight.

              The silence persisted through parking, finding a table, and ordering our food. Our waitress, Shelly, wore too much make up and kept giggling after everything Ethan said, and he just ate it up like candy. He turned his grin away from me, and planted it on her instead.

              “I’ll be right back ya’ll,” Shelly said with a wink and turned tail toward the kitchen. 

              Ethan was still watching her walk away. I glared at him, scratching ineffectually at the edge of my cast. “So, tell me about yourself.”

              He turned his grin back to me. “What do you not know already?” It was as if nothing were out of the ordinary at all.

              “Lots of things!” I said, maybe a little too loudly. “Surprisingly enough, you and I haven’t really talked much except about calculus. Why did your family move to Arkansas?”

              “Because I ran out of pretty girls to charm.” He winked.

Shelly returned with our drinks. This time he didn’t even glance at her.

“Seriously,” I said, grinning despite myself. “Why’d you guys move?”

He shrugged, sipping on his soda absentmindedly. “Nancy’s family’s from around here, and Dad didn’t feel like fighting with her over it.”

              “What about your dad’s family?” I asked. “Aren’t they in Texas?”

              “Yeah, but so is my mom.”

              “Ah. Sorry.”

              “Naw. It’s no big deal. My mom’s crazy, really,” he said with resigned chuckle. “She cheated on my dad when I was a kid, then when Dad got remarried, she tried to run Nancy over with her Tahoe.”

              “
Oh my god
!” I said. “What happened?”

              He shrugged. “Eh. We got a restraining order and moved to Arkansas. Nancy had been begging to move anyway, and Dad has always wanted to set up his own
practise
. He did some research, saw there wasn’t much competition in little old St. John, and bought a house.” He spread his arms wide, laying the information out for me.

              “You’re awfully cavalier about all this,” I said. “I mean jeez, you have a restraining order out on your own mother.”

              “It’s okay, though,” he said, settling back in his seat. “She left when I was really little, and Nancy’s been around almost as long. She’s pretty cool.”

              “Oh.”

              “Besides, feeling sorry for myself will get me nowhere. I mean, who doesn’t live with a broken family these days, right?”

              “I don’t. My parents are still happily married.” I rolled my eyes as the familiar dead weight rolled back into place in my stomach. “And procreating.”

              Ethan laughed. “Well you’re in the minority then, and we should all feel sorry for you.” He watched my face carefully. “You know, you never talk about your mom being pregnant. What’s up with that? Shouldn’t you be excited or something?”

              “Would you be?”

              “Yeah, I think so. I’m an only child, remember?”

              I shrugged. “Well maybe it’s just the people who have families that are whole and untarnished that turn out sullen and angry.”

              He laughed suddenly. “You’ve been hanging out with Finn too much.”

              “What?”

              “Nothing, it’s just you use such big words in everyday English. You and Finn are the only people I’ve ever met that do that. Though, Finn’s a lot worse about it.”

              “I’m not using big words.”

              “Cavalier? Untarnished? Sullen?” His eyebrows were raised and he looked at me in a way that clearly said “Oh please!”

              “Those aren’t big words!” I was laughing at him now. “I hate to think of all those kids you left behind in Dallas who aren’t getting a real education!”

              His face melted into a surly scowl. “Hey!”

              “What?” I asked, after taking a long drag on my soda. “I’m sorry, but those are not big words. Those are
average
words in an
average
vocabulary.”

              He didn’t say anything, but glared at me. For a few terrifying seconds, I was afraid that I’d offended him, but he let his guard down. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly. It was just enough for me to see that he wasn’t really upset about anything.