Текст книги "Dirty English"
Автор книги: Ilsa Madden-Mills
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
“I never met a girl I couldn’t say goodbye to.”
–Leo Tate
WHAT THE HELL just happened?
One thing for sure, Little Miss Buttercup just blew my mind. When she’d first walked up there all prim and proper, looking like she’d just stepped out of a Gap ad, I’d expected to suffer through some boring speech about Briarcrest Academy. But, she’d surprised me. Amused, I watched the reactions of the country club audience, most with their mouths gaping open, staring at the girl who’d just dissed the elite of BA. Welcome to Highland Park, Texas, an affluent suburb of Dallas and home to conservative past Presidents and white-gloved debutantes.
Nothing like my beloved Los Angeles, where I’d spent most of my life, first as a musician and then as a businessman. Yet, the move here was a good one. We had relatives in Dallas, a cousin or two. And supposedly, this school was the best and that’s all I wanted for Sebastian, the chances I never had.
I checked out the girl on stage. She wasn’t a classically beautiful girl, or maybe just not the kind of pumped-up pretty I’m used to seeing at Club Vita, yet there was something compelling about her that had gotten my attention. From the moment she’d taken the stage, my eyes had followed her. Probably because she was tall and blonde and wealthy, a prime example of an American princess-type. I bet she was popular and the quarterback’s girlfriend. I bet she had a pet Chihuahua she carried around in her purse. No doubt, her parents gave her anything her heart desired. She was spoiled rotten and didn’t know shit about the real world.
Nora Blakely was everything I avoided when it came to girls. Her kind expected love and commitments, two things I’d run away from a long time ago.
But still I stared at her, now focused on her pouty, sexy mouth as it tilted up in a smile. Damn. I looked around guiltily, wondering where the hell that thought had sprung from. Bad, Leo. Buttercup was not sexy. A pretty piece of jail bait, definitely. And I wasn’t touching that. Ever.
“Dude, she just said fuck,” my seventeen-year-old brother declared, grinning. “That’s what I call entertainment. Good choice on the new school, bro.”
I smacked the back of his head. “Language, Sebastian.”
He smirked.
We both looked back to the stage-spectacle where Buttercup was still standing. I couldn’t seem to stop my eyes from running over her long-as-hell legs and curvy breasts and—I made myself stop right there. Why was I daydreaming about some school girl anyway? I knew plenty of girls my own age who were available. It was just too damn hot in here, that’s all. You’d think they’d have enough money to pay for better air conditioning, considering the price tag of this place. I picked at my collar and wished I was back at Club Vita. I wanted out of this suit and back in my jeans.
Excited, Sebastian leaned forward to get a better view, whereas five minutes ago he’d been complaining about how bored he was. Now his gaze has lasered in on the girl like she was his prey.
“Check her out, Leo. I mean, she’s got that smokin’ hot librarian look going on and that attitude of hers is a total turn-on,” he said, perusing her with a confident smile that was typical Sebastian. He was cocky, no doubt about that. “First day of school, she’s all mine. No one can resist the Tate charm when I crank it up.”
I scowled, not happy with the idea of Sebastian hitting on Nora Blakely.
We looked back at the stage and saw two faculty members and a man and woman who’d bolted up from the front row surround her. After some heated whispering and skillful maneuvering, they moved her toward the stage curtains. Nora seemed to be resisting their efforts, pulling and tugging to get away from them, but it was four against one and they were winning. I wondered what would happen to her now. Would she be denied registration or suspended before classes even started? I felt a bit sorry for her until I considered that in all likelihood, she was a brat who’d probably been pissed at someone and had wanted to spout off.
I glanced at the program, and it said her mom was an anchor woman for the show Good Morning, Dallas. I flicked my eyes back up to the stage, this time recognizing the lady from the crowd as the star of the number one morning show in Texas. Everyone watched the show, even me. As I sat there watching the family drama play out, the mother seemed to lose her cool a little bit, her claw-like hands grabbing Nora’s arm, forcing her backstage and away from the whispering crowd.
Yeah, I predicted a hefty school contribution on behalf of the Blakely family.
I glanced down at Sebastian. “I didn’t pay for this school so you could screw around with girls. You’re here to play football and get good grades so you can get into a decent university. Stay away from Buttercup,” I said, pointing my finger at him.
He chuckled. “Buttercup? Oh, man, do you have a hard-on for the smartest girl at BA?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“No, asshole. I just meant she’s got all that blonde hair…” I drifted off, gesturing up toward the now empty stage, hoping I didn’t sound as stupid as I thought I did.
“You’re lame, dude. And too old for her,” he told me, shaking his head and wearing a grin.
“Shut it, baby brother.”
He just snickered quietly.
After the open house had resumed with several heartfelt apologies from the headmaster, I looked for her. I don’t know why. But she never came back to the folding chairs that had been set up in the gymnasium. We finished getting Sebastian registered for his honor classes and received a print out of his schedule. After talking to most of his new teachers, I met with the football coach, Mr. Hanford, who told an animated Sebastian he’d be starting the season as running back. I grinned at Sebastian, damn proud.
As we walked out of the gym, he turned to me and said, “Hey. I don’t know if I ever said thank you for moving us here, but I am.” He stared at the ground and shrugged. “You gave up a lot to be with me.”
“I didn’t give up shit,” I said but that wasn’t exactly true. I’d given up seven years of my life, and it hadn’t always been easy. Yeah, we’d had some rough patches after our parents had died, especially that lean year before the insurance money had kicked in.
“I wish mom and dad were here to see you,” I said, reaching out to scrub his hair. I often wondered how much he remembered about them. My fear was that he’d forget them, forget what a great family we’d been. He’d only been ten when they were murdered right outside our house.
“Hey, let’s order in a pizza tonight and maybe pull out some old family albums? We can make fun of dad and his Hawaiian shirts,” I said, chuckling.
He nodded and we made our way through the parking lot to my black Escalade, the first big-ticket item I’d purchased when I sold my second health club in California. As we reached it, I glanced over at the car parked next to my driver’s side. Inside a dark-blue Mercedes sat Buttercup in the backseat, her head leaning against the window. Her eyes were closed, and I found myself wondering what color they were.
As if she sensed me, her eyes opened, and when her green ones found mine, I swear, it felt like someone hit the pause button on the universe, and she was all I could see. Within that suspended piece of time, my gaze ate her up, trying to figure out who she was and why she fascinated me. Whatever it was, I felt the crazy urge to comfort her, to smooth her hair out of her face and tell her life would get better. I wanted to see her smile again. What the hell, I thought, shoving away unexpected feelings. Since when did I care about some random girl—who wasn’t even legal?
Thankfully, the universe resumed when Sebastian honked the horn at me to get in the car. I jerked out of my trance and turned away from her, feeling disoriented. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered at him, opening the door and sliding in the driver’s seat. I sat there for a few seconds, not looking back at her. Because no matter the strange pull I felt for her, I was letting it go. That girl was a forbidden fruit I could never taste.
“What were you looking at?” Sebastian asked, his head nudging toward her car.
I shrugged, acting like it was nothing. “Nora Blakely.”
“Damn. I wanna see her,” he said in a rush, leaning over and straining to look out my window.
I pushed him off, maybe a bit harder than I needed to. “Dude, ease up. She’s probably been kicked out of school. Give her a break,” I said.
He shrugged and settled back in his seat, but not before giving me an odd look. “You stared at her for a long time, bro. Like, for a whole minute.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did,” he said, arching his brow at me.
“Huh,” I said. It hadn’t seemed that long.
He grinned. “Usually you let the girls chase you, not the other way around.”
“I wasn’t hitting on her. I need a run, that’s all, so I can work off some of this pent-up energy.”
“Uh-oh, here comes Mrs. Blakely,” Sebastian said, his attention caught by the anchor woman who was marching across the parking lot, her arms swinging from side to side. Her face appeared annoyed, and her hands were clenched into fists.
“And she’s pissed,” I said, deciding to wait a minute to crank the car.
The lady scanned the parking lot, her eyes seeming to skim right over my tinted windshield. She strode over to Nora’s door, flung it open it and went ballistic, a flood of obscenities pouring out of her mouth as Nora slinked back further into the car. It was messed up, seeing this pretty lady that was on TV, waving her hands about like windmills as she let loose with words I’d never use on Sebastian.
The way she stood there cursing at Nora made my blood pressure shoot up. I put my hand on the door handle when Sebastian grabbed my arm. “I know you want to rescue her, but don’t do it, bro. Don’t make it worse for her when she gets home.”
“Fine,” I muttered, easing back from the door. But I wasn’t leaving until things calmed down.
Right about then, the mother shut up. She slammed Nora’s door and got into the front passenger side, her face now a polite mask, like she was getting ready for the cameras to start rolling. She opened up her purse and pulled out her phone, like nothing had ever happened. I kept waiting for her to turn around, maybe check on her daughter. She didn’t.
And I couldn’t resist glancing back at Nora, and I think . . . I think she’d never stopped looking at me.
Chills raced up my spine.
Sebastian said, “It’s over. Let’s go, dude.”
I nodded, but I didn’t move. It felt wrong to leave her here.
“Yeah,” I said, finally tearing myself away from Nora’s eyes and starting the car. Yet, before I pulled away, something completely insane possessed me, and I kissed my first two fingers and sent the kiss to the lonely girl in the back of a Mercedes.
“My secret hobbies include people watching, composing lists, and knife throwing.”
–Nora Blakely
AUNT PORTIA’S HEAD popped up from behind the pastry case she was cleaning up front. “Nora, sweetie, you want a strawberry cupcake? Or a cinnamon roll? I got plenty left over,” she sang out, trying to tempt me as I sat at a booth inside her bakery, Portia’s Pastries.
“You trying to fatten me up?” I smiled, eyeing the distance between us, not wanting her to see what I’d written in my journal. She would be angry with me if she read my list.
She laughed, brushing her wispy gray hair out of her face. “Just wanna make you happy, that’s all,” she said.
I blinked at her words. Happiness. I believed few people ever achieved it.
But my Aunt Portia has, and if you watch her, like I love to do, you would see it. Right there on her content face when she smiles or hums a song as she works. She even has this peppy little walk, like she’s doing her own version of the jitterbug as she crosses the floor.
I asked her once when I was around fourteen why she was always happy. I mean, she’d never married and, for as long as I’d known her, she’d just been my dad’s sister, the chubby lady who ran the pastry shop where I loved to visit. She replied that happiness is simply collecting and remembering all the good moments in your life, kinda like beads on a necklace.
The analogy struck me. That day, I worked on picturing my own moments, trying to imagine them as these pretty glass beads I’d string onto a gold chain. Yet, here’s the thing. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make those beads turn out right in my head. Because my beads were vile pieces of plastic shit that no one would want to wear around their neck.
Because I had no happy moments.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and cringed at the young girl looking back at me, hating the deceit and secrets I saw on her face. Who was Nora Blakely?
Teachers and tests told me I was smart. My piano instructor said I had talent. Judges said I was pretty. I must be likeable since the students at BA had elected me their class president. And then there was the packaging, carefully designed by Mother so I’d fit in with all the other Parkie girls. She didn’t want people to know what a disappointment I was, so she controlled it by making all my decisions for me. She insisted on my hair being styled by Jerry Lamonte, owner of the top salon in Dallas; she demanded I wear two-hundred-dollar knit shirts from Neiman Marcus; she even chose my accessories and makeup. She dressed me up and paraded me around like a doll.
But no matter what she did, I was still ugly on the inside.
“Nora? Did you hear me?” Aunt Portia said, untying her flour-covered apron and tossing it on the counter. She turned down the soft rock radio station she’d been listening to. “I’ve been talking to you for five minutes, and you haven’t heard a word I said.”
“Sorry. What did you say?”
“That Mila called. She’ll be here in twenty minutes,” she said, laying her cleaning cloth next to the register and glancing around the empty shop.
Yes! Mila was coming. I hadn’t seen my best friend since the night of the incident at BA.
“Okay. I’m going to the back to clean up the dishes,” Aunt Portia sighed.
“Already did them while you were out here,” I said, feeling pleased at her relieved face. I guess, at fifty-three, running her own business was tough, especially when you kept bakery hours, opening at 6:00 a.m. and closing at 6:00 p.m. “And I took the trash out to the dumpster and laid out the pans for tomorrow’s muffins. You’re good to go home if you want. I’ll lock up and come by later.”
She picked out a giant cinnamon roll and came over to my table. “Pretty soon I’ll have to start paying you for all the work you do around here,” she mused, sitting the warm bun down in front of me.
“Just pay me with cupcakes,” I said, closing my journal. “Besides you know this place is my escape.”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “Things any better at home?”
“As well as can be expected. At least my grounding is over,” I said, picking at my fingernails, pushing the cuticles back until it hurt, remembering how I’d been locked in my room for five days straight, without anyone to talk to. “Dad left for a visit to Houston so who knows when he’ll be back. Mother is staying at the station apartment this week and probably next week—and the next.” I glanced up at her. “Looks like I might be staying with you for a while. Mother said it was okay, and you know I hate being alone in that monster of a house.”
She kissed the top of my head. “You can move in with me right now if you want.”
I smirked at her because she and I both knew Mother wanted me living at our fancy Highland Park address. Even if she was never there, I had to be. “If I moved out, people would talk. And then Mother would be angry at me.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know how she is, but let me know if things get to be too much. Okay?” she said, giving me one last glance as she walked back up front. After a few minutes, she went into the kitchen area, and I knew she’d be there a while, counting down the cash register.
I turned back to my journal and opened it, looking over the list I’d written. I wondered if these bad things would make me a happy person. The intelligent part of me knew they wouldn’t. Not really. I didn’t deserve happiness anyway. But after pretending for so long and holding it all inside, I simply sought relief, just like I’d gotten at the open house when I’d let those hateful words come out of my mouth. And if saying bad things to people made me feel better, then how much better would I feel if I took it a step further? What would it take to bring me back from the shadow I’d become?
Whatever it took to save me, I was willing to do it.
Taking my pen, I marked through some of the items, getting it just right.
Mila knocked on the locked shop door, and I hurriedly tucked my journal inside my backpack before I got up to let her inside the closed shop. She came in and plopped down at the booth where we always sat, wearing a pink-and-cream Liz Claiborne-type ensemble with matching shoes and a purse. To complete the look, she’d pulled her straight midnight-colored hair back with a headband. Somewhere along the way, someone had forgotten to tell Mila she was still in high school, not a career woman. When it came time to elect class favorites this year, there was no doubt in my mind that she would take the title Most Likely to Be a CEO.
She smiled widely. “Finally, you’ve returned from the asylum! Gah, I’ve tried to call you like a hundred times.”
I sat down across from her. “I was grounded in my room with no phone. But hey, at least I got all my summer reading done, and I made Aunt Portia a new apron,” I said lightly, glossing over how much I’d hated being denied human interaction.
“Did they feed you bread and water?” she teased.
“Only on the first day,” I joked back.
What I didn’t say was that Mona, our housekeeper, had brought my meals to me each day. As per my parents, this meant oatmeal or a protein shake for breakfast, a thinly sliced turkey sandwich with a side salad of organic greens for lunch, and dinner was either grilled chicken or wild salmon served with precisely two servings of vegetables. I picked up the still warm cinnamon roll Aunt Portia had given me and took a bite, inhaling the buttery smell and savoring the sugary icing that melted on my tongue. This was heaven.
Mila leaned in over the table. “Well, I’m glad you’re free now because Emma Easton and her cheer crew are doing a back to school mixer, and moi and you are going.” She held her hand up when I opened my mouth to interrupt her. “I know you and Emma aren’t BFFs, but the entire senior class is invited.”
“Emma Easton slashed my tires last year, and she calls me Nerdy Nora,” I said, arching my brows. “And let’s not forget the other names she has for me: bee girl, geek girl, blonde bitch, and my favorite . . . Amazon girl,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers.
“You forgot brownnoser. And she started the rumor about you and the janitor.”
“Exactly! She’s hated me since I beat her out of class president. Why would I go to her party?” I asked.
Mila seemed surprised at my declaration. “When she started the rumor about you and Mr. Bronski, you just laughed it off. Everyone thought you didn’t care. I thought you didn’t care.”
True, her repertoire of insults had never hurt me. After all, I’d had other more important things to worry about, like my essay on the merits of Walt Whitman’s nature poetry or whether Finn would be coming home for a visit that weekend.
“You should go and break out of this serious funk you’ve been in since Drew. You haven’t even been out on a date all summer. You need some male meat, chica,” she said seriously.
I bit back a grin because Mila had never had any male meat. She was still a virgin, and if she knew what I’d done with my body, she’d never speak to me again.
I nodded. “You know what, I do want to go. There’s something I want to tell Emma about her quarterback boyfriend. I figured it out last year, and she deserves to know,” I said, tapping my fingers on the table, remembering what I’d seen.
Yeah, a bad girl wouldn’t let Emma Easton run over her.
“Don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but if it gets you to go, then I’ll take it,” she said with a triumphant grin. “But you gotta tell me the scoop. You’ve got this evil gleam in your eye which means you know something on somebody.” Her gray eyes focused in on me. “Yep, you’ve been people watching again. Tell me what you know, chica.”
I laughed for the first time in over a week. “I’ll tell you this much: it involves her best friend April Novak,” I said, rummaging through my backpack. I pulled out dad’s silver flask. If I wanted to get to rehab, I better get started. I had some catching up to do.
I unscrewed the metal top and sniffed it gingerly. Mother had let me have glasses of wine and champagne on special occasions, but I’d never tried vodka. I poured a healthy shot into the glass of Sprite I had.
Mila’s eyes widened as she took in the flask. “Are you insane? What is that?” she whispered, furtively looking back over her shoulder for Aunt Portia.
“Grey Goose vodka,” I said, taking a test sip and shuddering at the harsh aftertaste. “I stole a bottle from dad’s liquor cabinet, and according to the Internet, this particular brand is expensive and made in France.” I raised my glass to her. “Therefore, it must be awesome, right?” I tossed back another big gulp, trying not to grimace.
She shook her head, and her mouth gaped open. With her Emily Post-type personality, it wasn’t surprising that she’d never taken a drink of alcohol.
“Since when do you drink?” she said heatedly, in a quiet way, sniffing my cup and making a gagging face. I laughed because vodka really didn’t have a scent.
“Today is officially my first day of becoming an alcoholic. And this drink is making my soda very good—actually, no, I take that back. It tastes like shit, but I’m going to drink it anyway. Want some?”
Before she could answer, my attention was caught by a black Escalade pulling up at the warehouse directly across from the shop. When two guys got out of the vehicle, a memory tugged at me, and I focused harder on them, but they were too far away and it had gotten dark outside.
Mila let out a long sigh, pulling my attention back to her. “Anyway, you wanna hit downtown tomorrow? Maybe do some shopping at the Galleria?” she said, choosing to ignore the alcohol.
“Is there a good tattoo place around there? If not, I wanna try this new shop that just opened around the block.”
Her hands went nuts, fluttering up and down, like the girly girl she was. “I’ll never see you again because your mother will kill you! God, Nora, do you want to be incarcerated again?”
Seeing her dramatic tirade triggered something in me, and I burst out laughing as she chuckled along with me. I laughed and laughed so hard my chest burned and tears streamed down my face. Embarrassed by the emotion, I tried to suck it in and stop, but I couldn’t. I gripped my waist with my hands, but it didn’t help. She eyed me, and you know that awkward moment when everyone else has stopped laughing at something, but you still are, so they start staring at you? It was like that, only worse, because she could see my hilarity had turned into something strange and dark. I pressed my hands over my mouth and stopped the awful laughter, but then the panic set in. A cold sweat rippled over me and my heart hammered, making me feel like I was going to pass out. I bent over, my body aching as if I’d just run a hundred yard sprint. I squeezed my eyes shut, took a deep breath, held it for five seconds, exhaled, and then repeated it until my heart finally slowed.
I sat up with care, and Mila was standing and staring at me, her face washed out.
“What was that?” she asked, blinking.
“I think . . . I think it was my version of a panic attack,” I gasped out, wiping my face with some napkins from the table.
“Damn. Has it happened before?” she asked in a scared voice. “Should I go get Portia?”
I shook my head. “At the open house I had some dizziness, but nothing this dramatic,” I said, shuddering at the horrible laughter that had come out of me. Had I lost my mind completely? Had just the mention of Mother and being locked in my room sent me off the deep end?
“You okay now?”
I bit my lip and nodded, but I was lying.
“Hey, maybe I’m just that funny. You think I could do stand-up?” she said.
I shook my head at her. “I’m screwed up, Mila.”
“No, you’re not,” she said firmly, settling back down in her seat. “Maybe a little weird sometimes, but that’s just because you read dictionaries in your sleep.”
My eyes were drawn back to the warehouse across the street when the door opened and the taller of the guys came out. He strolled over to the SUV and popped open the back. He wasn’t facing me, but I could see he was wearing jeans and a black wife beater. I squinted, trying to make out the shadows on his muscled arms, recognizing them as some sort of tattoo. I wished he’d step into the street light so I could see him better, but he didn’t. He picked up a couple of guitars from the car, slammed the door shut, and walked back to the warehouse. My eyes followed him until he’d disappeared inside.
Something about him pricked at me and made my stomach flutter, almost like I knew who he was but couldn’t place him. I needed to get a good look at his face.
I called out for Aunt Portia to come over. “Who’s the guy next door?” I asked her, gesturing out the window.
“Where?”
“Some guy just went inside the warehouse across the street. He was driving the black SUV there,” I said.
She nodded. “Leo Tate. He’s been renovating the old gym all summer and turning it into a health club. Supposedly, it’s going to be brand new with a pool, tennis courts, yoga classes, the works.”
“Huh,” I said with a dismissive laugh, remembering that exercise and I did not get along, not since Mother had hired a personal trainer for me when I was fifteen, forcing me to take a 5:00 a.m. boot camp class three mornings a week. Her goal was to squeeze me into a size double zero. Ha. True, I was slimmer now, but only because I’d grown five inches, not because I could run a mile in six minutes.
Prompted by thoughts of Mother, the filth that gnawed at me flared deep in my gut. I needed balm for my soul. I needed to lash out again at something or someone. Was it wrong? Yes, definitely. Would it make me feel better? I didn’t know, but I was willing to do anything to feel better, to stay sane.
So as Mila and Aunt Portia talked about the new neighbors, I sat and thought about the bad things I could do. When I had my plan in place, I went to the back of the shop. There inside the utility closet, I found exactly what I needed. I grabbed a can of yellow spray paint, the same one Aunt Portia had used to repaint the kitchen’s back door. I shook it, checking to see if there was enough. There was. I stuffed it inside my backpack.
MUCH LATER, AFTER Aunt Portia had gone home, I found myself standing in front of the new gym doors, which had the name Club Vita written in bold red letters. I cupped my hands to better see inside the glass doors, but all the lights were off. At midnight, odds were the owner had left for the night. Yet the Escalade was still here. Did that mean they lived here, too?
Mila followed and stood apprehensively behind me. “This is the worst idea you’ve ever had, Nora,” she soothed, like to a mad dog. “What if someone sees us?”
“They won’t. Come on, let’s do this,” I replied, taking a swig from the flask, my tongue numb to the taste. I passed it to Mila.
“You know I love you ’cause we’ve been friends since third grade, but we could go to jail. This is trespassing,” she said quietly, her gaze jumping around the deserted parking lot.
“You think?” I said, tucking my hair up inside my Longhorns ball cap and smiling a big Texas grin. Yep, the vodka had kicked in. “If we get put in jail, I’ll let you have the top bunk, I promise. I’ll even request silk sheets and a mint for your pillow.”
She didn’t even crack a smile at me. I sighed. “You’ll see, Mila, this will be fun. Come on, let’s live a little.” I walked over to the Escalade, eyeing the huge vehicle. Mr. Fitness must be well-off, judging by leather interior, high-end rims, and tinted windshield. And for some crazy reason this car had caught my attention, and I was going with it. I picked up a small pebble and tossed it on the hood, and when no alarm sounded, I turned back to Mila, victory on my face.
“What are you going to do?” she gasped. “I thought we were just checking the place out.”
I pulled the yellow can of spray paint from my backpack. “I’m going to turn this kick-ass vehicle into a preschool bus.”
“But why?” she said, a look of horror on her face.
Before I could answer, it started pouring, a hard summer rain that drenched us in no time. I tossed my head back and inhaled the suddenly damp air. And as I stared into the night sky, I saw no star in sight; I had no wishes to be wished.
No hope.
This night would not end well.
“Come on, let’s dance in the rain,” I said impulsively, pushing the bleakness away. I pretended to be okay and crooked our arms together and twirled her around, dancing and skipping like the professional square dancers did each year at the Fourth of July picnic in Highland Park. I wanted to be like those dancers. They seemed happy.
“You’re acting insane, Nora,” she said in an agitated whisper, pulling away from me. I stopped and stared at her a bit dumbfounded. Mila always did what I wanted. I was the dominant friend, and she was the follower.
She bit her bottom lip. “This isn’t the time to be trying out the dosey doe. You’re going to wake the whole freaking neighborhood.”
My spirits took a nose dive when I saw how frightened she was. She didn’t have the gumption for it, and I had no right to drag her down with me as I spiraled out of control. This wasn’t about Mila; this was about me. Whatever stupid thing I did tonight, she needed to be far away. I sighed heavily. “You’re right, Mila. Go back home, and I’ll call you when I’m leaving,” I said, taking the flask from her hand. She’d never taken a drink anyway.
