Just You Read online

  Chapter 13

  “No drinking tonight, young lady. I mean it.”

  “Mom, don’t worry.” I grimaced into the phone. “Are you leaving soon for Aunt Gina’s party?”

  “In a few minutes. She needs me to help her get the food ready. That reminds me, I need to bring over my big glass platter.” She paused before adding, “I want you in by one-thirty, by the way.”

  “No problem. Robin and I are just hanging out at her friend’s house tonight, anyway. Nothing exciting.”

  “Good,” she said. “Now let me talk to your father.”

  My mother and I wished each other a happy New Year, and then I called Dad to the phone. He danced over to me in his party outfit, which consisted of black pinstriped dress pants, a red cable-knit sweater, and shiny black Oxford-style shoes. He looked neat and stylish, for once. He and Lynn were leaving soon for a party at a swanky hotel downtown.

  “Happy New Year to you, Diane,” Dad said cheerfully into the phone. “Why, yes, I am in a good mood. And how are you this fine evening?”

  My parents had gotten to the point where they could be cordial with each other, but in different ways. My father tended to go overboard in his kindness while my mother just barely tolerated their conversations. At least they communicated now, which was more than they did right after the divorce.

  I went up to my room to grab the clothes and accessories I’d need to get ready over at Robin’s house. She’d decided to go out with us at the last second and was expecting me in ten minutes or so. Contrary to what my mother believed, I wouldn’t be hanging out at any of Robin’s friend’s houses tonight. I was actually going to a New Year’s party with Michael, whose name—after two entire months of dating—still had not been mentioned around my mother. She was completely clueless. This was a miracle in itself, seeing as how my father and sister both had big mouths and couldn’t keep a secret at gunpoint. It was almost like they sensed that if Mom got wind of the situation, they might never see Michael again. I sensed the same thing.

  “Yes, I will remind her about her curfew,” my dad said as I passed by him on the way to the front door. “That’s all taken care of…Natalie is coming over to watch them…I know, one-thirty. I heard you the first time, Diane.”

  I double-checked my bag, making sure I had everything. Finally, after placating Mom three more times and then wishing her a happy New Year again, my father hung up the phone.

  “That woman is wound tighter than a drum,” he said in his usual genial way.

  “A few glasses of wine tonight will loosen her up,” I said. “I’m going now, Dad. And yes, I will be home by one-thirty.”

  He came over to kiss my cheek. “Pay Natalie when you get in, all right? The money is on top of the hutch in the dining room. Lynn and I will be home around two or three. Happy New Year, sweet pea. Have fun tonight.”

  I waved on my way out. “You too.”

  As usual, Robin wasn’t anywhere near ready when I showed up. But it wasn’t a big deal, considering it was after seven and I still wore my sweatpants. I had washed my hair and marinated myself in a tub full of Citrus Breeze bath foam that afternoon, so all I had left to do was get dressed and do my makeup.

  Robin headed for the shower while I spread out my clothes on her unmade bed. Dark jeans and a form-fitting red blouse. I began to change out of my ratty clothes.

  “Casual with an understated sexiness,” Robin said as burst into the room, her body wrapped in a big green towel.

  I assumed she meant my outfit. “You think?”

  “Wish I could pull it off, but booblicously-challenged girls such as myself need a little more flair.”

  “Booblicously?” Robin had this weird habit of inventing new words on the spot.

  “Right,” she said, brushing her wet hair. “Booblicously-challenged. Lacking good boobs. You know what I mean.” She put down the brush and knelt in front of her closet, rummaging through a large pile of clothes. She glanced back at me as I slipped on my blouse and buttoned it. “Please tell me you’re wearing sexy underwear.”

  “Depends on your definition of sexy.”

  “Like…” She moved to her dresser, where she opened the top drawer and pulled out a minuscule scrap of material that looked suspiciously like a piece of pink dental floss. “This,” she said, twirling it around with her finger.

  “An eye patch?”

  “It’s a thong, stupid.” She shoved it back into the drawer.

  “I don’t like thongs. They’re uncomfortable. I always feel like I have a wedgie.”

  “It’s not only about what you like.” She gave me a pointed look and went back to her closet rummaging.

  “My underwear is fine, okay? Besides, we’re not even close to that point.”

  “You never know when the mood will strike. Details like this are important, Tay.” She stood up, holding a pair of black satin pumps. She slipped them on and began trouncing around her room, wearing only the shoes and her green towel. “What do you think?”

  I started on my makeup. “The towel is very becoming.”

  She dug out a skimpy pair of panties from her dresser drawer and wiggled them up her long legs, then flung the towel to the floor in order to fasten her push-up bra. Robin had no hang-ups when it came to her body, which never failed to impress me. A minute later, when I turned away from the mirror again, my jaw fell practically down to my neck. She looked amazing in a black, knee-length cocktail dress. The cut of the V-shaped neckline, along with the help of her push-up bra, actually produced some decent cleavage. Her high-heeled satin shoes made her seem six feet tall, like a fashion model. Suddenly I felt very underdressed.

  “That dress is awesome,” I said, still staring.

  She smoothed the skirt with her hands. “It’s my mother’s. Do you think it’s too much for tonight? I mean, it is New Year’s, but...”

  The dress would have been too much on anyone else, but somehow she made it work. “It’s perfect.”

  Michael picked us up at eight-thirty, looking gorgeous and smelling of cinnamon, as usual. He’d been popping mints again. We were going to some girl’s house in Redwood Hills, where Robin planned to hang out with some friends and a big bottle of Absolut while Michael and I planned to do what we usually did at parties—talk to his friends and then find a deserted spot by ourselves.

  Soon we arrived at a massive saltbox house with an attached three-car garage. It was still decorated for Christmas with lights strung along the eaves, a piney wreath on the front door, and plastic candy canes sticking out of the garden. The hostess’s name was Monique something, but Robin and I didn’t know her and never did end up meeting her. Even this early, the place was crammed full of familiar faces from previous parties.

  “Wow,” Michael said when Robin took off her coat in the entryway. She posed playfully as he admired her. I poked him in the ribs until he stopped gawking, and then raised my eyebrows at him. I’d never seen him take notice of Robin’s appearance before. I couldn’t blame him though; she did look beautiful and classy in that dress.

  “Are you done?” I asked archly. Jealousy was a brand new emotion for me. Once in a while it crept up, surprising me, burning in my stomach like a bad case of indigestion. I’d never experienced jealousy over Brian, even when I found out about Kara. With him I wasn’t territorial like I probably should have been if I’d loved him at all.

  But Michael was a different story. I could fully imagine myself ripping a girl’s hair out over him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said in my ear as we joined the crush of people. “You’re hotter than anyone here.”

  I laughed at the absurdity of this, but he was dead serious. It was then that I realized it—he was a goner.

  “Beer?” R.J.’s girlfriend, Kayla, asked as we shoved into the kitchen.

  “Okay,” I said, ignoring my mother’s voice in my head as I accepted a Corona.

  “No thanks,” Michael said. “Driving.” He squeezed my shoulder and told me he’d be right back
. I leaned against the counter, sipping my beer. Above me, a fat orange cat perched on top of the fridge, its green eyes peering down at me.

  “How’s it going?” Kayla yelled over the pounding music as she mixed two drinks at the counter beside me. I liked Kayla. She was one of the few exceptions to the barracuda bunch. Of all the RH girls, she was the nicest and most down to earth.

  “Good,” I replied, glancing again at the cat. All that staring made me nervous. “You?”

  She poured Bailey’s into one of the cups and then took a gulp. “Better now. Don’t mind Clarence, he’s harmless.”

  “Who?”

  She nodded toward the cat. “He gets freaked out by crowds.”

  “Oh.” I moved out of pouncing distance anyway. For some reason cats hated me. Maybe because I was often covered in dog fur.

  “Time to track down that boyfriend of mine,” Kayla said, gathering up her drinks. “Wanna come with?”

  We headed toward the living room, Kayla maneuvering through the bodies, red plastic cups held high to avoid spillage. I followed in the path she cleared.

  “Hey!” she shouted, shaking one of the cups as if it were a beacon, guiding R.J. toward her. She must have spotted him. While she waited for him to get to her, she glanced back at me to make sure I hadn’t been trampled. “You okay?” she asked.

  Before I could nod I got bumped from the side, causing my bottle to tip and shower beer down the front of my shirt. Great, I thought, dabbing at my cleavage with my sleeve.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Kayla said to the bumper’s retreating back. Then she looked down at my top and shook her head. “There’s a bathroom right over there. I’ll show you.” She reached over several people’s heads to hand R.J. his drink and then grabbed my hand, leading me in the opposite direction.

  “I can find it,” I told her. She either didn’t hear me or chose not to answer. As we approached a long hallway, the mob thinned and I caught sight of Michael. He stood not ten feet from us, talking to a blond girl with an incredible derriere. I didn’t have to see her face to know who she was—Elena Brewster. At it again.

  I crashed to a halt. Kayla kept going, her fingers around my wrist, until she met resistance. Confused, she turned to see what had distracted me. All she had to do was follow my narrowed eyes to get her answer. She flicked glances between my face and Elena, who now stood so close to Michael that her boobs practically rested on his arm. My stomach burned the way it always did when she took advantage of my absence to weasel her way in.

  “Don’t give her a second thought,” Kayla said, as if it were possible to ignore this unsettling spectacle in front of us. I forced myself to tear my eyes away from Michael’s smile—aimed at her—and continued on to the washroom. As I cleaned myself up, I kept picturing myself stomping over there and pushing Elena to the floor, screaming obscenities at her. And how good that would feel.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, Kayla was gone but Michael was there, alone now and waiting for me. He smiled the same smile he’d bestowed upon Elena a few minutes earlier and irritation licked up my spine. “I saw you go in,” he said, noticing the way I’d stopped short at the sight of him.

  “Yeah, I saw you too,” I said in a testy voice. Then I bit my lip, hard, mad at myself for even opening my mouth. This jealousy thing was making me crazy. But I’d had it up to here with Elena Brewster and this whole situation.

  Hearing my tone, Michael’s forehead creased in confusion. I gazed down into my beer bottle, but I could feel him watching me, trying to figure out why I was miffed. Finally, he took my hand. “Let’s go somewhere quiet for a minute,” he said.

  I let him pull me down the hallway, past the bathroom and the mounting line-up of people. He steered us into a darkened room, closing the door behind us. Once my eyes adjusted to the dark I realized we were in an office/den much like my father’s at home, with a desk and computer and shelves of books. A futon rested against one wall, and we headed for that. Michael sat and pulled me down beside him.

  We sat there for a long time, not talking, listening to the muffled music and voices seeping through the walls. I picked at my bottle label with my thumbnail, aware that Michael was waiting for me to speak, to tell him what was bothering me. I wanted to, knew I had to, but the mere thought of his reaction immobilized me. What would happen if I told him the truth, that Elena made me feel threatened and vulnerable and every time he talked to her I wondered if she’d become his someone better, his Kara Neilson? And worse, what would happen when he found out that I cared?

  Finally, I just blurted something out. “You said you didn’t like her.”

  “Who?” He seemed taken aback by my abruptness. “Elena? I don’t like her.”

  “You were talking to her. Smiling at her.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” Now he sounded relieved. “She cornered me while I was looking for you and started talking to me. I was trying to get away from her. Honestly. I don’t like her.”

  “She likes you.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But she knows I’m not interested.”

  “Doesn’t seem to stop her.” Annoyance sneaked into my voice, giving me away. “She hates me.”

  “She doesn’t even know you.”

  “She gives me dirty looks and makes cracks at me whenever she gets the chance.”

  “Really?” Michael said, sounding surprised.

  “Really.” I deposited my beer on the desk beside me. “And now that you’re with me, she sees you as this big challenge and that makes her want you even more.”

  “She has her work cut out for her then.”

  I felt a little better, hearing that. My breathing slowed.

  “I get it, you know,” Michael said, his cinnamon breath washing over my cheek. “Why you have a hard time trusting people.”

  I grabbed my beer again, needing something to do with my hands. “It’s stupid, I know…”

  He jostled my knee with his. “It’s not stupid. It’ll take a while for me to earn your trust, I realize that. You probably don’t believe it right now, but I’ll never hurt you like your ex hurt you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to cry in front of him. Crying in front of anyone, especially people of the male variety, was something I tried to avoid. “He didn’t hurt me. I mean…” I sighed, frustrated over my inability to find the right words. “It never bothered me when girls flirted with him. The girl he dumped me for had been chasing him forever, like Elena chases you. But the difference is I didn’t care what Brian did because I was never in love with Brian like I’m…” My voice trailed off when I realized what I was just about to say. Heat crept up my face. “Um…” I said weakly.

  “Do you mean that?” Michael asked. I couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but it sounded like he was smiling.

  “Mean what?”

  “What you almost said just now…the last part.”

  “Um,” I said again. So smooth.

  “I really hope you did.” I could feel him moving closer to me, his thigh pressing against mine.

  “Yes.” I grew warm again, this time for a different reason. “I meant it.”

  “Good.”

  His lips found mine in the dark. We eased back onto the futon, where the kissing progressed until the door slammed open and some guy staggered in. Michael and I sat up, trying to pretend like we had not just been caught groping each other.

  “Oops,” the guy said, obviously drunk. “Sorry, thought this was the bathroom.” He backed out and closed the door.

  “Bad choice of rooms,” Michael said, running his fingers through his hair, fixing it. “No lock on the door.”

  I buttoned my shirt with shaky fingers and surveyed our surroundings, trying to get my bearings again. Right. Office. Futon. Party. Not exactly private. We debated on going back out, but decided not to just yet. The noise factor outside the door had been increasing by the minute, so I knew it must be close to midnight by now. If we were lucky, we would
stay undiscovered a little while longer and bring in the New Year alone.

  No such luck. After being interrupted by two more directionally-challenged people, we left the futon behind and returned to the party. In the living room, a huge flat-screen TV showed the local New Year’s countdown party, but it was turned down low and no one seemed to be watching. As Michael and I worked our way through the room, I spotted Robin on the sectional sofa with Jeremy Vogel, this really cute guy who’d been chasing her for months. And from the looks of things, chances of catching her were good. Since dumping Devon over Christmas break, she’d been on the hunt for a replacement.

  “Hey guys!” Robin said when she saw us. When I sank down next to her, she flung herself on me. Her lipstick was smudged, and there were dozens of little orange hairs stuck to the front of her dress. She must have been cuddling with Clarence. And possibly with Jeremy. “It’s almost time! I’m so glad you’re here.” She hugged me again, getting all mushy. “I love you guys so much.”

  I turned to Michael on my other side. “She always acts like this when she’s drunk.”

  “I noticed,” he said, smiling.

  “I do not!” She made a face at us, and then twisted around to elbow Jeremy in the ribs. “Can you get me another drink?” she asked him, her voice like honey. That revived him from his infatuated daze and he hopped up, full of energy, and dashed to the kitchen. Robin’s powers never ceased to amaze me. With a snap of her fingers, boys literally jumped to do her bidding.

  “What have you done to Jeremy?” I asked her. “He looks dumbstruck.”

  “He always looks like that,” Michael said.

  Robin leaned across me to swat him. “He does not. He’s sweet. Maybe a little too eager to please, but sweet.”

  Right on cue, Jeremy returned with her drink and handed it to her carefully, as if she were the Queen of England. Then he grinned at her like he was expecting a cookie. “Thank you, Jeremy,” she said, and he beamed.

  “It’s time,” someone announced from behind us. All heads swiveled toward the TV. An audience of bundled-up people started counting down, red-cheeked and excited, all of them gazing up at a digital clock as it ticked away the seconds. Ten...nine…