The Stillburrow Crush (4 page)

A walk? Beside Luke Carter? I darted a look around me. He couldn't be talking to me. But Dad was busy, whistling in the shop. And Mom wasn't due home for a while, not with the town's gossip, Georgia Anderson, styling her hair. The rest of the houses around looked bored and lifeless. I glanced back up at him and almost jumped. He was staring directly at me.

He definitely wasn't talking to anyone else.

I was about to decline, say I should be helping Dad, when Luke took my hand and grabbed the opportunity away from me. I could've pulled away. But with my palm sheathed in his warm, protective fingers, I would've followed him anywhere just then.

"So you like to write, huh?" he asked as we crossed the street. Stillburrow Park wasn't large, and since the swing set and the jungle gym were the only pieces of equipment in the 32

The Stillburrow Crush

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recreation area, we were pretty much forced to head toward them. They stood under a couple of large sycamore trees.

"I guess," I said. And then, being a little nervous—OK, being very nervous—I started rambling. Out came details of my dream to be an investigative reporter. Out came my plans to apply for a scholarship the next year and then eventually work my way through college. Yes, I blabbed it all to him.

And he listened. I could tell he really listened too, because he kept interrupting and asking questions. He asked what kind of things I wrote and how often. It was so disconcerting to think he would even care. But he talked to me in a way that eased my whacked out nerves, and I began to grow comfortable being there with him. I mean, well, I got as comfortable as I could with my heart rate going overtime and my hands turning into quivering balls of nerves. It was like the happy medium between utter euphoria and a complete panic attack.

At the swings, he sat me down. It was the oddest thing.

But it felt so natural. My fingers wrapped around the cold metal chains and he pushed me slowly back and forth. I lifted my face into the biting wind and smiled. This couldn't be real.

Luke Carter was pushing me on the swings.

I stared up at the tree limbs above me.

"There's still one green leaf left on the tree," I said, thinking that it was somehow significant, like some kind of sign for hope.

"Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave / Thy
song, nor ever can those trees be bare,"
Luke said.

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His voice didn't echo but the words seemed to dangle in the air over us, leaving a presence that filled my chest with a heavy yearning. The single leaf above me rippled in the breeze and I shivered. I thought I could gladly be frozen there for eternity, stuck like that, listening to the twitter of birds and the squeak of the swing's rusty hinges. I could inhale the brisk fragrance of autumn and absorb the sweet embrace of romance forever.

"John Keats wrote that."

I glanced up at Luke and caught the distinct outline of his face in profile. Maybe I'd never seen his side view before, or only looked at him from the front, but he didn't look at all like the suave Luke Carter he usually was. His eyelashes were lowered as he squinted up at the sun. And his overbite was so pronounced it was the only thing I could focus on. He'd probably been a thumb sucker when he was a baby and it'd made his teeth jut out like that.

It caught me completely off guard. I'd never seen him from this angle and it made him appear somewhat insecure and lost. He stared up at the sky like it was a map that might tell him where he was and where he should go next.

But then he glanced down at me, and he was once again Luke Carter, football star and Stillburrow's poster child. I had this urge to tell him to turn back like he'd been a moment before because, for some reason, I liked him better with the malformed teeth and helpless expression.

"What?" he said, frowning at the odd look I was giving him.

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I cleared my throat and glanced away. "The poem," I said.

"It's pretty,"

"It's sad. Keats was only twenty-four years old and he knew he was dying when he wrote it."

I thought about that. Twenty-four felt so far away. But for dying, it was way too close.

"A finished body full of unfinished thoughts," Luke murmured. He pushed the swing again. I rocked forward. "I came up with that on my own."

I smiled and closed my eyes when his hands touched my back again to push. "A finished body full of unfinished thoughts," I repeated on a murmur. "I like that. You should write it down."

"Yeah. Maybe." The sound of his voice caused me to open my eyes. He sounded...I don't know. Wistful, I guess.

I was going to ask him about it but the moment was taken away from us. A car passed by on the street. I glanced over and saw the cheerleaders.

Liz Curry and Jill Anderson were creeping by, staring at us through the windshield of Liz's car. I stood up. And that's when Luke moved in front of me, completely blocking me from their view. He did it so subtly that if I hadn't been tuned into every movement he made, I wouldn't have noticed. The girls hollered a hello out their windows to him and he waved back, calling his own greeting.

I could already see the chain of gossip burning like a fuse to dynamite right through the town. Jill Anderson would tell her mother, who was fixing my mom's hair even as we stood there. I would hear about it at supper. Mom would play 35

The Stillburrow Crush

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twenty questions with me.
What were you doing with that
nice Carter boy? Does he have a date for the prom yet? Did
he ask you out?

Except there would be no gossip because the girls hadn't seen me. Luke had made sure of it.

"What's wrong?" Luke said.

I looked up and swallowed. "Nothing."

His return look implied he didn't believe me, but he let it go. "OK," he answered. "Well anyway. I was wondering..."

We were a few feet apart now and the intimacy from a moment ago had totally vanished. He went back to rubbing his neck.

"Did you just step in front of me so they couldn't see who you were with?" I blurted out.

His head snapped up. His eyes were wide and bright.

"What?"

For the briefest of moments, I had been on top of the world. I'd actually thought he was going to ask me out, maybe even invite me to go to the lake party with him. The lake party was a student-organized event and reportedly very wild. It happened every year, contrary to what parents believed. And I'd truly thought I, Carrie Paxton, daughter to the town grease monkey, would show up at the school's biggest bash of the year on the arm of none other than Luke Carter himself. I'd even imagined how everyone would pause and say hi to us. How when it turned cold, he'd slide his letterman's jacket over my shoulders. And when it grew dark, we'd slip from the group and walk alone through the woods or along the edge of the lake.

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I could almost hear the gossip that would follow us. Who does she think she is, trying to cuddle up to him? There's only one thing he'd want from her.

I frowned. He could have any girl in school. Heck, two of them had driven by moments before, waving and yelling. I don't know what I'd been thinking, but he'd certainly set me straight with that blocking move. It didn't lessen the sting, though.

"Why'd you do that?" I asked, setting my hands on my hips and giving him a glare I usually reserved for Marty.

"What're you talking about?" Suddenly, he was all innocence and confusion.

"You didn't want Liz and Jill to see me here with you," I said. "You stepped in front of me so they couldn't."

He laughed then, a nervous sound. "I did not."

"Why?" I said again, this time through gritted teeth. I wasn't about to let him get away with hurting me. I didn't care how big my crush for him was.

He blushed then, and kicked at a clump of dead leaves on the ground. "I don't know why you think I tried to block...Oh, never mind."

He said this to the leaves and jammed his hands into his pockets. When he looked up, he had to squint because the sun flickered through the tree branches, momentarily blinding him. A sliver of light briefly glowed golden over him, giving him unattainable, angelic appeal.

"No need to explain," I said. "I already know why, anyway."

He stared at me hard. "You do?"

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"You're embarrassed to be seen with me because you're so much better than I am." At his startled, appalled expression, I began to feel bolder. "You're the bank president's son and I'm just a mechanic's daughter. Isn't that why?"

His mouth fell open. "But that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"It's not to me." I stomped my foot and scared a squirrel into darting up a tree. I wanted to cry. "You're a real snob, you know that?"

"Snob?!"
For a second he didn't move. I saw the brief flash of pain in the clenching of his jaw before his brooding eyebrows huddled down protectively low over his eyes.

Then he snorted out a disbelieving laugh. Sucking his mouth around his overbite, he buried his hands in his hair and clutched his head. "I can't believe I'm hearing this."

For a moment he was quiet, and then he laughed out another snort. But this time it was a harsher, more cynical sound. "This is crazy, Carrie. You don't make any sense. Why would I invite you to walk in the park and then not want to be seen with you?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "Why did you?" My teeth dug into my bottom lip and I could feel moisture gathering at the corners of my eyes. My chin trembled.

He opened his mouth but closed it again. "I'm sorry," he finally said, furiously rubbing that spot on the back of his neck. "I just had an idea. A
bad
idea, I guess." And he walked away, calling over his shoulder, "I've got to go."

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My breath caught in my throat as I watched him retreat. A voice inside me shrieked, "Go after him, Carrie. Call out,

'Luke! What's your idea?'"

But I did nothing. Numbed and a little shell-shocked, I watched him walk away until he disappeared around a house at the end of the block.

Then I ran home, locked myself in my room and didn't come out until supper.

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The next day right after lunch, I walked into Getty's General with a shopping list and a letter gripped in my hand.

During church, Pastor Curry had talked about the sins of the father. There was an empty spot in the pew next to me and every time the door would open, admitting a latecomer, Mom would peer around me to get a look at who entered. But Marty never showed. So there I was, standing in the general store with Mom's hastily thought-up list and a note for my brother.

I couldn't get you-know-who out of my head. So when Mom commissioned me to go pseudo-grocery shopping for her, I was more than ready for the distraction. Luke didn't attend the same church we did. He went to the chapel on Main Street. So I didn't have to worry about getting stuck staring at the back of his head during the service or anything.

But that didn't stop me from thinking about him.

By this time, I had come up with a plausible reason why he had visited me the day before. It must've been because of what I'd called him in the paper. He didn't want to be referred to as Lucas, so he'd come to my house and made sure I wouldn't do it again. That had to be the reason, right?

But that didn't explain why he'd asked me to walk in the park with him. We'd discussed the whole Lucas bit before he'd asked for that stroll. So why had he asked? I was back at the beginning again. Biting my lip, I thought about it harder.

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And then the explanation finally came to me. He'd been buttering me up. Luke probably thought if he was extra nice to me, if he took a walk with me and fluttered his pretty-boy lashes a few times, I'd be less likely to call him Lucas again.

And it'd worked. I'd slipped right into his clever scheme—for a minute there anyway.

But Jill and Liz driving by had ruined his strategy. If he'd been caught in the park with me, his reputation would've taken a severe nosedive. He had no choice but to move quickly and dodge in front of me. He'd succeeded in blocking me out of the way. No one knew I'd been there with him. But now
I
was onto his game. If only I were stupid, he could've had me in complete adoration of him by now, right where he wanted me, and thus I would never bad-mouth him in
The
Central Record
again.

It was a low blow for me, but very clever of him. Too bad I was smarter. And too bad I still felt butterflies in my stomach every time I thought of him. I wish I could've hated him completely and been done with it. Instead, I felt betrayed and hurt.

I unfolded Mom's list and read the contents: milk, eggs, and flour. It wasn't too original, so I slipped a pen out of my pocket and scrawled in chocolate almond ice cream at the bottom.

Hey, if I was being forced to do her dirty work, I might as well get paid for it.

The store was fairly dead. It was open only from noon to five on Sundays and that was for just-in-case items, like someone needing extra potatoes for their Sunday dinner. The 41

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sheriff's wife, Mrs. Bates, was shopping as I started up the produce aisle to get to the milk and the eggs in the back.

The store was small, only four rows wide, so I had my list completed within the minute. Marty was at the checkout line talking to Abby Eggrow. She'd been working there about as long as he had and was showing up to school in a lot of new outfits since she'd started.

She smiled up at my brother, blushed and tucked a straight lock of hair behind her ear. Marty was half sitting on the end of the conveyer belt with one foot still on the tiled floor and one folded under him. He had a Blow Pop stick poking out of his mouth and there was a bulge in his cheek where the sucker was stashed.