Wrong About the Guy (10 page)

“Wow,” I said. “What's that from? And how do you remember all that?”

“It's from a play,” he said. “
Inherit the Wind
. And I had to memorize it for my high school drama class.”

“That's cheating.”

“No, it isn't. Making up quotes is cheating. Memorizing them for a class isn't.”

“‘The clouds will smell of gasoline,'” I repeated. “I love that.”

He dropped me back home with another reminder that I should go to bed early and a recommendation that I have a small amount of caffeine right before the test. “Studies show it really does improve your acuity.”

“Oooh, good SAT word,” I said. “Too bad I don't know what it means.”

“You don't?”

“Just joking.” I opened my door.

“Good luck,” he said as I climbed out of the car. “Let me know how it goes.”

I promised I would.

I followed his instructions and went to bed early, but my mother woke me up when she got home by coming into my room. “What's going on?” I asked, raising my head from the pillow, groggily alarmed by the intrusion.

“Oops,” she said. “Sorry! Just wanted to make sure you were sleeping.”

And then of course I couldn't fall back to sleep for an eternity.

I
forgot about George's care package until I was desperately searching for a pencil the next morning and remembered that he had packed some for Heather. I poked through the contents, which were identical to Heather's bag, except apparently I didn't rate a cute stuffed rabbit. I felt a little hurt. If anyone should have gotten an extra gift, it should have been
me
: I was his actual tutee. Heather was just my guest.

Once I'd taken the test and come back home, I texted him to complain.

No bunny in my bag. Why do you hate me?

Just thought Heather would appreciate the extra luck. How'd it go?

It went.

And that was all I said to anyone who asked me that question. I had gotten through it, it was done, and I didn't want to think about it anymore until I had to.

Heather's texts to me were less Zen.

I failed

You did not

I didn't know what half the words meant and math was brutal

You always think you do badly on tests

Because I always do badly on tests

No you don't

Yes I do

This is a stupid argument

Can I come over? My parents are making me crazy. They keep bugging me to try to remember the questions and what I answered and it's not fun

Sorry Mom and L are taking me out to celebrate being done

OK

I felt a little bad not inviting her to come with us, but it was rare for both Mom and Luke to have a dinner free and I wanted to have them all to myself.

Except, of course, I wasn't going to have them to myself: Mom had forgotten to ask Lorena ahead of time if she could babysit and she couldn't, so we had to take Jacob with us.

“You sure he'll be able to sit nicely through a fancy dinner?” I asked as I buckled him into his car seat.

“I'm bringing the iPad,” Mom said.

“He'll be fine,” Luke said cheerfully.

Dinner was a disaster. The food took a long time to come, and the iPad had to be taken away from Jacob, because he kept turning the volume up on it. He screamed when Mom put it in her purse. Luke carried him out of the restaurant, but came back pretty quickly.

“Spotted,” he said, sitting down with Jacob on his lap. “People were coming at me with cameras.”

“At least Jacob's not screaming anymore,” I said.

People had gathered on the sidewalk to peer in at Luke through the restaurant window, and the waiters were a little too attentive—every time we took a sip of water our glasses would instantly be refilled, and seven different people stopped by to ask us if we were enjoying our meal, including the chef. Diners at the tables near us kept glancing over, trying to catch Luke's eyes. One guy actually came over to our table and said it was his fiancée's birthday and could Luke just please come to the table to say hi to her, because she adored him and it would mean a lot to her. Luke did, as quickly as he could, and I guess it was kind of sweet to see how excited and flustered the girl got when he shook her hand and wished her a happy birthday, but I just wanted my family to be able to celebrate me in peace.

Luke asked the hostess to give the valets our car ticket and once our car was in front, we darted outside and piled quickly into it while flashes went off all around us and people called out to Luke, who waved
and said a good-natured “Hey, guys” before jumping in the driver's seat and pulling away from the curb.

And that's when Mom told me that she had decided to accompany Luke to London, where they were shooting the show for three weeks in November.

I didn't mind that she and Luke were going, and I didn't mind that she planned to take Jacob: I'd miss seeing his little face, but I'd survive. (And given his behavior at dinner, I was in a particularly good place to accept the thought of his future absence calmly.)

No, the part that made me groan out loud was that she had arranged for Grandma to stay with me while they were gone.

“That's crazy,” I said. “
She's
crazy.”

Mom turned so she could look at me over her shoulder. “Don't talk about your grandmother that way,” she said primly.

“You talk about her that way all the time!”

Luke laughed, and Mom turned her glare on him.

“Don't pretend she doesn't drive you nuts just because you want to inflict her on
me
,” I added.

“She's a very good grandmother. And a very good mother, in her way—”

“Her crazy way.”

“She comes through when we need her, which is the best thing you can say about family.”

“Okay, fine, but I
don't
need her this time. I don't
need anyone to stay with me. I'm almost eighteen.”

“Bad things happen when teenagers are left alone.”

“Not with me!” I said. “When have I ever done anything wrong? I'm the best-behaved teen in the entire world.”

“You can be a little mouthy,” Mom pointed out.

“Everyone needs a hobby. Seriously. You know I wouldn't do anything dangerous.”

“It's not you I'm worried about,” Luke said, his eyes briefly meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “It's the crazies who stalk me. It's not that hard to find out where I live and I don't like to think of you all alone at night.”

“We have the best security system in the world,” I said. “And what could Grandma do if someone attacked us? Lecture them to death about the dangers of gluten?”

“We'll just both feel better knowing she's there with you,” he said.

I gave up. If they were in agreement, I wouldn't win this one.

My birthday was a couple of weeks later. I turned down my mother's offer to throw me a party in favor of a visit to a day spa in Malibu with Heather. We asked for a “couples massage” so we could be in the same room, and we giggled a lot whenever we glanced over at each other.

On our drive home, we stopped to get coffee at a
Starbucks right off the Pacific Coast Highway. I glanced around the room as we got in line. “Oh my God! There's Aaron!”

“I want to meet him!” Heather said, squinting in the direction I was pointing. “Is that him in the red shirt? Who's he with?”

“His stepmother. Hold on—don't lose our place in line. I'll bring him over.”

Aaron and Crystal were sitting at a small table near a window. I called out to them and Aaron jumped to his feet and came running to meet me. He threw his arms around me.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you following me?”

“Of course I am.”

“Next time, show up sooner.” He lowered his voice. “The she-wolf dragged me out on the pretense of needing caffeine. Turned out what she really wanted was to ream me out for being too messy to live with.”

“Are you?”

He shrugged. “I'm not
un
messy. But it's not like she cleans—we have people who do that for her. She just likes to yell at me.”

I squeezed his arm consolingly. “I want you to meet my friend,” I said, but Crystal beckoned to me so I went to greet her first. We exchanged an air kiss and I asked after Mia. She said, “She's fine,” then abruptly stood
up. “It's getting late, Aaron. I have yoga in an hour. We have to leave
now
.” She headed toward the door. Aaron rolled his eyes at me behind her back and followed her to the exit.

I rejoined Heather in the line.

“Why didn't you bring him over?” she asked plaintively.

“I was going to, but his stepmother said they had to leave. I promise you'll meet him soon.”

“He looked really cute.”

“He's even better up close.”

That week, the speech therapist told Mom that Jacob's language delay and some of his behaviors “could potentially be consistent with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder.” Mom had taken notes at the appointment, and she carefully read that last bit out loud for me and Luke that night, so she could get the wording right.

Luke said, “‘Consistent with'? What does that even mean?”

“It means he's autistic,” Mom said.

“She didn't say that!” He sounded annoyed so I quickly jumped in.

“I think it means he
could
be autistic. But not that he definitely is.”

“Right,” Luke said. “This woman who sees him for
less than two hours a week said there's a
possibility
that he has a disorder that would just happen to significantly increase the number of hours we pay her each week—”

“She's not like that,” Mom said. “And she admitted she's not a diagnostician.”

“Which means she really doesn't know what she's talking about.” Luke shook his head. “All I see is a kid who's just like his dad—I was shy and hated talking to strangers when I was little. That's all that's going on here.” He got to his feet. “You take a toddler who marches to his own drummer, and people go and slap a label on him. It's ridiculous.”

“We can't just ignore this,” Mom said. “A developmental pediatrician could give us a definite diagnosis.”

Luke shrugged irritably. “You really want to start hauling a two-year-old around to unnecessary doctor appointments?”

“He's almost three.”

“Jacob's
fine
,” he said. “Why can't a kid just be a little bit different anymore? Jesus!” He took a deep breath. “I need to get some work done. I'll be in my studio.” He left the room.

I stared after him. Luke didn't get mad often. He once told me he'd had a bad temper as a kid, but playing music always calmed him down. The only time I could remember him getting really angry at me was when I was thirteen and called my mother a . . . well, best to
forget that one. He told me I had hurt her and disappointed him and even though he never once raised his voice, I burst into tears. He was the guy who always smiled at me, and his frown was like the sun going away.

But he was clearly pissed off right now. I turned to my mother, who was still staring at the doorway, even though Luke was gone. There was a line etched between her eyebrows I'd never noticed before. I put my hand on hers. “Don't worry,” I said. “I bet Luke's right and the therapist doesn't know what she's talking about.”

She pulled her hand away. “So you don't support me either?”

“Of course I support you. I just agree with Luke that doctors like to scare people. Seriously, Mom, you should see how many kids in my class supposedly have ADHD and get tons of extra time on tests. It's insane. Heather told me her mom was convinced she had dyslexia because it took her like a month longer than the other kids to learn to read back in kindergarten. And at least five kids in my grade claim to have Asperger's but they're totally normal. People are out of control these days.”

“I know. But still . . .” She shook her head. “Something feels wrong to me.”

“He just needs to start talking more. Then you'll feel better. It's good you're doing the speech therapy. That's enough for now.”

She nodded wearily.

I texted Luke on the way to my room.

Please don't be mad at Mom.

He replied quickly.
Don't worry. I'm not. I just needed a little time to myself.

Write a song for me.
I always said that to him when he was in the studio composing.

And he wrote back the same answer he always did:
Every song I write's for you, little girl.

He was a good stepfather.

A week or so after that, I got my SAT scores and there was general rejoicing throughout the household.

Mom came into my room that night and said, “I really am so proud of you, Ellie.” She sat down on the edge of my bed, where I'd been reading, and I drew my knees up to make room for her.

“I'm just relieved I don't have to take them again.”

She glanced sideways at me. “I did a little research. With these scores, you'd have a good shot at getting into an Ivy.”

“I don't want to go to an Ivy. I want to go to Elton College. Remember when I toured it last year and came back and said it was exactly what I wanted? Remember that?”

“I know, but . . .” She leaned back on her hands. “When I was a kid, I heard about Yale and Princeton
and Harvard and thought people who went to those places were like a different species. And now I have this daughter who could probably get in. And we can actually afford it—”

“But it's
your
dream,” I said. “Not mine.”

“I can't help wanting big things for you. You're so brilliant, Ellie. I don't think I appreciated how easily things came to you until all of this happened with Jacob and I see him struggling just to . . .” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Just to talk.”

“Jakie's going to be okay,” I said. “Me, I'm not so sure about.”

“My kids,” she said, like those two words were a sentence all by themselves.