Wrong About the Guy (17 page)

H
eather showed up too soon. George and I had worked steadily the whole time—I mean really steadily; no texting, even though I'd heard my phone buzz a few times—but I wanted more time alone with him.

I kind of wished I hadn't invited her at all—come to think of it, she'd pretty much invited herself—but when I let her in the house, she hugged me so warmly that I felt bad for having thought that.

“Let's do this thing!” she said. “Let's submit it and be done.”

“Well, not really
done
,” I said.

“We're both going to get in early, right? That's what you keep saying.” Big blue eyes begged for reassurance.

“Right,” I said. “Of course.” For the first time, I felt
uneasy about my optimism. There would be no going back once we clicked send. She'd have used up her early decision shot.

It didn't matter—Luke would call, and they would let her in.

But would she even like it there? It had become my first choice after I'd visited and loved everything about it. But Heather had never actually toured the campus; she'd chosen it because I had. Because I told her to.

“George is in the kitchen,” I said, forcing a smile.

But she was already ahead of me. “George!” she sang out, bounding through the foyer and running to greet him. She was wearing a flippy little black skirt and a tight pink sweater, and her hair had been plaited into a bunch of tiny braids and then twisted and pinned into a loose, low knot. In the brighter light of the kitchen, I could see that she was wearing more makeup than usual—lots of eyeliner and mascara.

“Hey there!” George said. “I hear you're just about ready to hit the send button.”

“I'm terrified,” she admitted, dropping into the seat next to him, which had been mine . . . but whatever. “Do you think my essay's good enough?”

“I do!” he said.

Her face lit up. “And do I really have a shot at going to Elton with Ellie?”

“Ellie might not get in,” he said. “You might not
get in. Either or both of you could get deferred. But I'm sure you'll end up where you want to be when all of this is over.”

I noticed he had managed to dodge her question.

“There's no way I'll get in if you don't,” Heather said to me. “You're so much smarter than me.”

“We can both get in,” I said. “It's not either/or. And everyone says applying early raises your odds like a million percent. Which is what we're just about to do.”

“Right,” she said. “And then we should celebrate. Maybe we could all go out somewhere?”

I hid a smile. I knew what she meant when she said “we all.” “I'll text Aaron and see if he's free.”

“Great!” she said, and showed her dimple. “You should come, too,” she said to George, which proved what I'd always known—that she was nicer than I was. It wouldn't have occurred to me to invite him along, but it was a good thought, given how much he'd helped us both.

“Thanks,” George said. “I can't.”

“Why not?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Plans,” he said curtly, and looked down at his phone, which had just lit up.

My phone buzzed, too: Aaron had texted me back, saying he was free after nine. “Let's pick him up at his place,” I said to Heather. “You've never seen it, right? It's unbelievable. It's like my favorite house in the world.”

“Your house is
my
favorite house in the world,” she said.

“That's because you haven't seen Aaron's yet. Plus, you know . . . Aaron lives there.” I grinned at her.

“Do you still need me here?” George asked, getting to his feet.

“Yes!” Heather said instantly. Then, “I mean, if you don't mind . . .”

He sat back down.

She said, “I want to go over my short essays with you. And my long essay. All my essays.”

“You guys go ahead,” I said. “I need to change my clothes if we're going out.”

“You might want to read through that essay again,” George said to me. “If you're really planning to send it in tonight.”

“It's fine.” I waved my hand airily. “Good enough.”

He sighed. “At least you're consistent.”

“If it's too perfect, they won't believe that I'm as bad about follow-through as I say I am. Form should follow function or something like that.”

“In that case, you should end it in the middle of a sentence.”

“Is that a dare?”

He held up his hands. “No! Just a joke. Please don't do anything that will make your mother angry at me.”

“Fine. Then we'll leave it as is, shall we?” I tossed my
head and left them alone in the kitchen.

I figured since Heather was already dressed up, maybe we'd go out somewhere nice, so I put on a short black dress that had an empire waist and lacy bra-like shoulder straps and paired it with cherry-red Doc Martens so it wouldn't look too sweet. I took out my topknot and braided the hair at my temples back into a circlet around my head, with the rest of my curls set free to tumble in whatever direction they wanted. (Sometimes I thought of my hair as being alive. Like a pet I needed to groom a lot. That's not weird, is it?) I stopped by my grandmother's room to let her know we were running out—she was already ready for bed—then went back downstairs.

“Well?” I said when I reentered the kitchen. “What do we think?”

“Oh my God, you look so beautiful,” Heather breathed.

I laughed. “I meant about your essays, not about me. But thanks.” I gave a little twirl that ended in a curtsy. George had looked up when Heather did, but he didn't comment on my changed appearance, just turned back to her laptop. They were sitting right next to each other so they could both look at the screen—so close their shoulders were almost touching.

“What do you think?” Heather asked him.

“It all looks good to me. I don't think we'll accomplish much fiddling around with it more.”

“I'm scared,” she said, and kind of clutched at him, which was so Heather. I once watched a horror movie with her and I literally had bruises on my arm afterward.

“Come on,” I said, and marched over to the table. “Let's do this thing. We'll read our apps quickly through one last time and then send them in. Agreed?”

“Let's do it,” Heather said.

Fifteen minutes later, after we'd both read through our applications carefully, we counted down from ten together and hit submit at the exact same moment.

“Woo-hoo,” I said, and we high-fived. “We did it!”

“We did it,” she echoed.

There was a moment of silence.

I sat back in my chair. “This is really anticlimactic.”

“That's why we're going out,” Heather said. “To make it more climactic.”

“I don't know what kind of evening
you
have planned,” I said, and she blushed and protested that she didn't mean it that way.

“And on that note . . .” George stood up. “My work here is done. I mean, except for my other work here.”

“I can't believe we're not going to see you anymore.” Heather jumped to her feet, her little skirt swinging with the motion. “That's so sad!”

“You're done with your application,” he said. “That's good, right?”

“Unless we don't get in and have to apply to more
schools. Which I probably will.”

“No, you won't,” I said automatically.

“If you do end up having to write more essays,” George said to her, “I'll be happy to help you.”

“What about me?” I said. “Will you help me if
I
need to write more essays?”

“You don't need my help. You always end up doing whatever you want, no matter what other people say.”

“That's not true,” I said, stung. “You totally helped me. I wouldn't have written that second essay if it hadn't been for you.”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “You wrote that completely on your own. I didn't even know you were doing it.”

But I wrote it
for
you.
It was weird to me that he didn't realize that. That the essay was my side of a conversation I was having with him—but apparently he didn't even know we were having it.

“You wrote a new essay?” Heather said to me. “What's it about?”

“How I don't finish stuff I start.”

“Really? You wrote about
that
?” She looked worried. “That seems a little weird. Do you think colleges will be okay with that?”

I shrugged, not interested in discussing it with her right then. “The point is,” I said, addressing George, who was packing his laptop into its sleeve, “you helped
me more than you realize, and I'll need you if I have to write more essays. Even if it's just to bounce ideas off of.”

“Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that,” he said lightly, and stood up, tucking the laptop under his arm. “I'll come back tomorrow to work on your mom's office, Ellie, but it'll probably be when you're in school. Take care, both of you. Congratulations on submitting your applications.”

“You'll stay in touch, right?” Heather said.

He smiled at her. “Of course. Call me the second you hear from Elton. Good or bad news. We're in this together.”

“I will,” she said. “And if it's a yes, then we'll all go out and celebrate together, right?”

“Absolutely.” He gave her a quick hug and then nodded at me. “Bye. Enjoy your night out.” He walked out of the kitchen.

Heather and I just stood there for a moment, gazing at the doorway.

And I had thought hitting send felt anticlimactic. . . .

H
eather called her parents and told them she'd sent in her application. I wanted to call mine but had to wait: it was five in the morning in London.

Heather was very quiet on the drive to Aaron's, so I asked her if she was okay.

“Yeah,” she said, staring out the window. “It just felt so weird. I thought more would happen at the end. But we all just sort of sat there and then George left.”

I glanced over at her. “Be happy. We're about to see Aaron.”

“Fun.” She didn't sound as enthusiastic as I'd expected, but I understood her dim mood; it was sobering sending off the application. It should have felt like the start of something, but instead it felt like something had ended. “Where do you think he was going?” she said after a moment. “George? Do you think he, like, had a date?”

“Nah,” I said. Then: “I mean, maybe. I don't know. He did keep checking his phone, which isn't like him.”

“Has he ever mentioned a girlfriend?”

“Never.”

“Do you think he'd tell you if he was going on a date?”

“Probably not.” We were both silent for a moment and then I said, “I bet it wasn't a date.”

We reached the Marquands' front gate, and I punched the call button on the keypad. No one responded. “That's weird,” I said after an entire minute had gone by and I'd pressed it a few more times. “He said he'd be here.”

“Try texting him,” she suggested, so I did.

No response to that either. Since the gate was tall and solid—designed to block prying eyes—I couldn't tell if there were any lights on in the house or any movement around it.

“Do you have their home number?” Heather asked.

“No. I'll try his cell but he's not answering my texts.” I let it ring a few times, and then to my surprise and relief, he actually did pick up, but the first thing he said was “I can't talk.”

“We're in front of your house,” I said. “Can you come out?”

“Wait a sec,” he said. “No, wait . . . Don't wait.”

It sounded like a joke, so I laughed, but he didn't.

“Just . . . go home,” he said in a strained voice. “I'll come over when I can. If I can.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, but he had already hung up.

“What's wrong?” Heather asked.

I stared at my phone, bewildered. “I have no idea.”

Heather and I decided to ditch our plans, since Aaron had said he'd meet us back at the house and I felt too worried now to just go out without him. Instead we picked up sandwiches and chips at Whole Foods and brought them back to my house, where we ate them in front of the TV—Grandma was watching
The Stoned Housewives of Dippity-Do
or whatever it was, and Heather wanted to watch it, too. Before it was over, her parents called to say they'd like her to come home soon, since it was a school night. “I'd argue with them if there was a reason to,” she said as she packed up her laptop, “but since we're not really celebrating—”

“It's fine,” I said. “Go.”

“You have to let me know what's going on with Aaron as soon as you find out. And also whether George went on a date.”

“I'll pass on any information I get.”

Poor Heather. She looked pretty deflated as she dragged herself out to her car. No wonder: she had made herself look so pretty for Aaron and then he'd totally flaked on us. What was going on with him?

I called Mom around eleven—it was still early in London, but I figured Jacob would have woken her up by then. “Is everything okay?” she said.

“Stop worrying every time I call you. I just wanted you to know I submitted my application to Elton. The deed is done.”

“Wow,” she said. “Congratulations!”

“How's it going there?”

“Meh.”

“What's wrong?”

“Remember how I told you Jacob liked Bob? The male babysitter we got through the hotel? He was amazing and was making my life so much easier—but then he had some kind of family emergency and now he can't come anymore. We've tried two other people since then. One of them was really young and she quit after the first day because Jacob wouldn't stop crying. She was in tears when I came back to the hotel. I mean, literally in tears. She and Jacob were both crying in different corners of the room. . . . It was ridiculous.”

“What about the other one?”

“More competent, but I get this weird vibe from her. Like she hates Jacob.”

“Seriously?” I pictured my wavy-haired little beauty of a brother. “How could anyone hate him?”

“I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. It's possible I'm really as insane as Luke keeps telling me I am. It's just . . . she babysat twice and both times I felt like she couldn't even bring herself to smile at him. That he was just like this
difficulty
she had to deal with to get paid. I don't want Jacob to be with people who feel that way. So I don't want to use her anymore. But I also don't want to leave him with another stranger. So it's been me all day for the last couple of days, with no breaks. Luke's already left for the set today—it's going to be a long, lonely day here for me.”

“I have a great idea: Grandma should fly out and help you. That would solve all our problems!”

She gave a weary laugh. “Nice try. She's all yours. Luke has tomorrow off, and he said he'll take Jacob and I should go get a massage.”

“You should get ten massages.”

“You deserve one, too,” she said. “Sending in your college application . . . that's amazing.”

“Save the praise for when I get
into
college,” I said. “But I'll take the massage. Can I schedule one with Margo?”

“Sure,” she said. “Enjoy yourself now because when we get home, you are going to be spending a lot of quality time with your little brother.”

It was almost midnight. I had given up on hearing from Aaron and was getting ready for bed when I finally got a text.

I need a place to crash. Can I come there?

Like for the night? What's going on??

No response.

About fifteen minutes later, the monitor in the upstairs hallway buzzed, and I opened the front gate, then crept downstairs to let him in. I was glad Grandma was a sound sleeper and already in bed.

Aaron looked . . . weird. Disheveled and tense and not at all like his usual cheerful, polished self. Even while he bent down to kiss my cheek, his eyes were darting around nervously, and as he stood back up he kept thrusting his fingers through his hair and tugging hard at the ends. He was dressed in gray sweatpants, a T-shirt in a slightly different gray, and flip-flops. “Can I come in?” he asked, blinking rapidly. “And sleep here?”

“Yes and sure, but you're going to have to tell me what's going on.”

Aaron sat down heavily at the table, hunching his shoulders with his head thrust forward.

“What is it?” I asked, sitting across from him. “What's going on?”

He looked at me. Then he looked away and ran his fingers through his hair again. “You guessed, right?” he said.

“Guessed what?”

“You know. What's been going on . . .” He shifted in his chair. “At the Halloween party, I could tell you had guessed. I was going to just tell you everything that night—it would have been a relief to have someone to talk to—but then I got the sense you didn't really want to hear about it and I got that. I mean, why would you?”

At the Halloween party? Wait—was this all about being in love with me? “I'm so confused,” I said.

“Crystal,” he said. “Me and Crystal.”

“Did she kick you out? Was it because you're so messy?”

He stared at me like I was an idiot. “No,” he said. “Jesus, Ellie, really? You didn't know? I thought . . . I mean, you saw us at that Starbucks. . . .”

“Oh, wait,” I said slowly. “Oh, Aaron. Oh my God. You and Crystal? As in . . .
you and Crystal
?”

He dropped his head into his hands.

“Oh my God.” I was stunned. “Oh my God.” Then, “But you hate her.”

“Yeah, no,” he said, raising his head again with the ghost of his usual grin. “Not so much.”

“You kept complaining,” I said. “About how she was driving you crazy and how she and your dad—” I stopped. “Your dad,” I said. Then, “Oh, Aaron.”

“Shh,” he said, even though I wasn't talking anymore.
“Don't. It's his fault. In a way.” He rose suddenly to his feet and started pacing around the table, his hands twitching at his sides. “I mean, he was totally ignoring her. She's like the most amazing, beautiful woman in the entire world, and he was never home and even when he was, he barely talked to her. She came to me crying one night. I'd thought she was so . . .” He ran his fingers through his hair again, searching for the word. “You know. Cold. Cut off. Almost inhuman.” He shook his head vehemently. “But she's not like that, I swear. She'd just been hurt. That's why she seemed like that. She was trying to defend herself against how mean he could be. And it's so hard with a baby. I felt so bad for her. I just wanted to help her not be lonely.”

“Sounds like you succeeded.”

His mouth twisted into something that wasn't a smile. “I guess.” He sank back into his chair and held his hands up in supplication. “You just have to know that she's actually incredibly sensitive and caring and emotional. The way she seems—that's just a mask.”

“Maybe.” I was skeptical. “But no matter what, she's married to your father. That's . . . weird.” It was a lot worse than weird, but I settled on the gentlest word I could think of.

“She's closer to my age than to his, you know.”

“And that makes it okay?”

He said helplessly, “We were alone together so much.
It wasn't like we planned it. Things just happened.”

I could picture it: the beautiful young woman, bored and lonely and feeling like motherhood is draining her of her sex appeal, stuck at home with nothing to do because her famous husband is always at work or out schmoozing . . . and then along comes this incredibly handsome, dynamic stepson and the place is alive again and he makes her laugh and he's
there
, and day after day they see each other and they eat dinner alone together and the baby's off with the babysitter and she starts to look forward to their evenings together, when it's just the two of them, and sometimes their hands touch when they're passing food . . .

So much made sense now. Like that time I ran into them at Starbucks—they had probably snuck out to be alone together. No wonder she had acted so weird and couldn't wait to get away: she was probably freaked out that I'd seen them, afraid I'd guess what was going on.

But all I'd seen was a kid being dragged out to a coffee shop by his stepmother. It hadn't occurred to me for a second to look at it any other way. Which maybe meant I was incredibly naive.

And the way she had acted so cold to me—almost rude . . . she probably felt like I was some kind of rival. Aaron had flirted shamelessly with me in public—so much so that even
I
thought he was in love with me. Crystal must have known that he was trying to mislead
everyone, but maybe it still bugged her to see the two of us walking around together, openly teasing each other and holding hands, when she had to keep her distance and be all stepmotherly.

“I get it,” I said. “Really. And I'm not judging you, but I still feel bad for your father.”

“You should have seen him half an hour ago,” Aaron said. “You wouldn't have felt bad for him. You would have been terrified of him. I know I was.”

“Did he find out? Is that what was going on tonight?”

He nodded, sinking down low in his chair and staring at his own knees. “Crystal told him. It was crazy. I—you know how I had plans with you tonight? She was upset. She's sort of jealous of you—”

“I can't imagine why,” I said. “It's not like you were all over me at the Halloween party or anything. It's not like you bent me over backward and gave me a steamy kiss in front of the entire guest list. Oh, wait, my bad, it was
exactly
like that.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I knew my dad wanted us to go out, and I thought that if he saw us together a lot, he'd assume we were and . . .” He trailed off.

“It's great,” I said. “I can take being someone's beard off my bucket list.”

“Are you mad at me?” He sat up so he could reach across the table and touch my arm. “I didn't think you'd
mind. I honestly thought you knew what was going on.”

“You're just lucky I didn't buy into all the flirting. I could have been really hurt right now.”

“You're not, though, right?” he asked, studying my face anxiously. “You're not heartbroken or angry or anything, are you?” I rolled my eyes and he gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Right. No. Good.”

“But I might have been.” I didn't want to let him off the hook too easily. It was only luck that had kept him from hurting me—I had completely misread the situation.

“But you aren't.”

“But I might have been.” I let it drop. “So why did Crystal tell your dad tonight?”

“God knows. She'd been a wreck all week, kept saying she was sick of hiding things, that she couldn't stand to sneak around anymore.”

“Did you feel the same way?”

“Not really. I mean, I didn't like sneaking around either, but it's not like we could run off together. I'm eighteen. She has a baby. Realistically . . .” He stopped.

Yeah, it was absurd.

“Anyway, she'd had a lot of wine tonight, and got mad at my dad about something and started going on about how he was never home and I was more of a husband to her than he was and then he was like, ‘What
are you talking about?' and then . . .” He flinched. “And then she told him exactly what she was talking about. While I just stood there like an idiot, not knowing what to say or do until he turned on me and scared the hell out of me.”