Текст книги "Pulled Under"

Автор книги: Michelle Dalton

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

I’m not sure how to describe the vibe as we walk down to the beach. Our chemistry feels completely different. The problem is that I don’t know if this is because things have changed between us or if it’s because he’s tired and I made a mistake by coming over this late. I’m also a bit concerned by the fact that he said he wanted to talk, but he’s keeping awfully quiet.

I decide to take charge of the conversation.

“If you want to talk about what went down with your parents and the judge, you know that I’m more than happy to listen,” I tell him. “But if you just want to forget about that stuff, that’s fine too.”

He thinks for a moment. “Maybe another time, but right now I’m just happy to be away from it.”

It’s night, but it’s still too hot and humid to snuggle as we walk down the beach together. We hold hands, but there’s a formality to it.

“I hope you got to have at least some fun while you were up there.”

“There was a big party at the lake, and I saw a lot of my friends from school,” he says with a faint smile, “so that was fun.”

I can’t help it, but the first thing I do when I hear this is wonder whether or not his ex-girlfriend, Beth, was at the party. Amazingly, I resist the urge to ask him and instead let my crazy worrying stay in my head.

“What did you want to talk about?” I ask, not sure I really want to hear the answer.

“I really missed you,” he says.

“I really missed you, too.”

“But in a couple weeks I’ll be going back for good and . . . I wonder if we should—”

I put my finger up against his lips to quiet him.

“Why don’t you stop right there,” I say. “We both know that September’s coming. But I don’t think we should talk about it. I think we should just enjoy the moment.”

He takes a deep breath and considers this. “It’s just—”

“I don’t even want to talk about surfing,” I say, cutting him off again. “I just want to hold your hand and walk along the beach.”

“Okay,” he says reluctantly. “We can do that.”

We don’t say much after that. We just walk, and as we do I hold on as tightly as I can.

The next few days aren’t much better. Ben and I both smile and say all the right things, but there’s a definite distance between us. He even cancels on me twice. Yesterday he backed out of lunch because there was a problem at work, and today I was supposed to give him another surf lesson, but he bailed at the last moment. He said that he had to go listen to a couple bands he was considering for the Sand Castle Dance. I offered to go along with him, but he said that since it was work, he really shouldn’t bring anyone along.

I’m pretty sure he was about to break up with me on the beach, and now I wonder if I should have just let him do it. Rather than sit in my room so I could stress and obsess, I call Sophie and ask her to meet me at the pier for some intensive training.

“What’s wrong?” Sophie asks when she sees the expression on my face.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I say. “I just want to work.”

She nods. “Okay. Let’s work.”

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but my new surfboard doesn’t just look amazing. It is amazing. Mo told me that because our styles are so similar, she knew just how to shape it. (We’ll call that the understatement of the year.) It’s perfect in every way and feels like an extension of my body whenever I’m in the water. At first I was worried that it had too much curve to it, but that curve has opened up my ability to attack my cutbacks. That’s what I’m working on today and the reason I called Sophie. She’s great at them.

The cutback is probably the most important surfing maneuver of all. As the energy of the wave pushes you forward, you can get too far in front of it. When that happens you have to turn, or cutback, into the wave and go against it until you’re closer to the power source. It lets you ride the wave longer and gives you the power to do bigger and better turns and maneuvers.

If you do a cutback right, you look like you belong in the Bolshoi Ballet. If you do it wrong, you look like my Uncle Barry doing the chicken dance at a wedding reception. After thirty minutes I’m looking more like Barry than Baryshnikov. I think this is partly due to the fact that I’m trying to add some flair to the maneuver in order to look good for the judges, but also because of my Ben funk.

“So tell me,” I ask Sophie as we sit on our boards in the lineup, waiting for the next set of waves. “What am I doing wrong?”

She gives me that Sophie smirk and asks, “Are we talking about surfing or Ben?”

I think about it for a moment before answering. “Surfing.”

“I think you’re trying too hard. The thing that’s so great about your technique is how smooth it is. But today you look uncomfortable, like you’re fighting the waves.”

I nod as I make mental notes.

“When you drop down into that turn, try leaning back more, right up to the point where you feel like you’re going to fall into the wave. And then picture big round circles in your mind as you start to whip around. It will make the move more fluid and help you pick up speed. No wasted energy.”

I think about this for a moment. “Okay,” I say. “That all makes sense. I think I can do that.”

“I know you can do it,” she says, with just the right amount of enthusiasm in her voice.

We look back at the ocean and all we see are pancakes. There are no real waves coming our way, so we just bob quietly for a few moments until I break the silence.

“All right,” I say with a smile. “What am I doing wrong with Ben?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “The same thing. I think you’re trying too hard. You look uncomfortable.”

“It’s not just a look,” I say. “I am uncomfortable. It used to be that when we walked on the beach our hands fit together like pieces of a puzzle. It was just perfect. But ever since he came back from Wisconsin, there’s been a distance between us. Physical and emotional. I keep hoping it will go away, but it doesn’t.”

“Do you think it’s because of what happened when he went home?” she asks. “Is he freaked out because of his parents’ divorce?”

“Maybe.” I shrug. “I have no way of knowing. He doesn’t talk about it, and I’m too scared to ask.”

“I understand him not volunteering it,” she says. “But you can’t be scared to ask him something. If you’re a couple, you should be able to ask him anything you want. Don’t be shy. You know what happens to timid surfers?”

“They wipe out.”

“You bet they do. It’s the same with boys. If you’re timid, you wipe out. Now show me that cutback.”

I see a set of waves coming right at us and pick out the one that’s just for me. I catch it, and as I ride along the shoulder just ahead of where it’s breaking, I think about the advice that Sophie gave me. I lean back farther and farther. At first it feels like I’m going to fall off the surfboard, but instead of falling I start picking up an amazing amount of speed. I shoot out in front of the break and do a wide sweeping turn known as a roundhouse. I can hear Sophie squealing with delight and cheering in the distance. After another hour of practice it’s almost second nature.

By the time we’re done, I’m exhausted. The practice has taken my mind off Ben, and the fact that my cutback has improved so much at least gives me something positive for the day.

“You own that move,” Sophie says as we carry our boards back toward the shop. “You need to be that bold with Ben.”

“I’ll try,” I say honestly. “But that’s easier said than done.”

“All the great things are.”

Throughout the week I try my best to be bold with Ben. It’s not my default setting, but I’m determined to do whatever I can to make things right. It works best one morning when I convince him to come out for another lesson. At first he’s reluctant, but I’m able to fill the lulls in conversation with surf talk. Then the instruction starts to pay off, and he catches a few waves in a row. This is without a doubt the happiest I’ve seen him since he’s come back from Wisconsin. And best of all, he doesn’t pearl and end up with a bloody face this time.

I try to extend this emotion when we finish, so I tell him that I’m taking him out for lunch to celebrate his success. When he says that he really should get to work, I say, “I won’t take no for an answer.”

This is me being bold. This is also me being stupid, because he really does have a lot of work to do. We’re only a few bites into our pizza when he gets an angry phone call from his uncle, wondering why he’s late for work. Lunch ends abruptly and this blah vibe carries over into everything we do for the next few days. I pick a movie for us to see and it’s terrible. I arrange a picnic on his lunch break and we get rained out. And unlike the movies, there’s no romantic gazebo to hide under. Karma is doing everything it can to keep us apart.

On Tuesday we hit rock bottom.

Ben arrives at Surf Sisters with the summer campers, but we can’t let any of them in the water because there’s a rip current. It’s hard because everything looks fine on the surface of the water and the kids don’t understand. This makes them cranky, and when I try to convert the lesson so that it works on the beach, it all falls flat. Their bad mood boils over into mine, and I wrap up the lesson a half hour early.

“We’re done?” Ben asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve stretched it out as much as I can without going in the water.”

“What am I supposed to do with them?” he asks. “The van won’t be here to pick them up for another thirty minutes.”

I’m sure that I will look back on this moment as a lost opportunity. But my funk keeps me from coming up with any creative solution to the problem. So, instead of saying, “We can go shell hunting,” or something like that, I say, “I’m sure you’ll figure out something.”

He shakes his head and asks, “Why are you being this way?”

“Because I can’t change the ocean current,” I snap. “And I can’t magically put kids in a good mood. And I sure can’t seem to make you happy about anything.”

It is totally irrational, and I can’t believe it as I hear the words come out of my mouth. But that’s what I say. I can’t really read Ben’s reaction. I’m not sure if he’s angry or just confused, but I am totally off the rails. Luckily, Sophie has come down to help with the lesson, and she distracts the kids before they get to watch me break down.

“Who do you think can build a better sand castle?” she says. “The boys? Or the girls?”

The kids all shout, and within thirty seconds Sophie has them split into two groups who are happily building away. Fearful that I might start crying in front of everybody, I say a quick good-bye and head up to the shop. This is strategic on my part because I know that Ben can’t leave the kids, so he won’t be able to follow me.

I hide out in the shop’s storeroom for about twenty minutes and make it back down just as they’re finishing. The sand castles look great, and the kids are having a wonderful time. I’m really disappointed that I acted the way I did. I feel like I let them down. Ben walks up to me, and I still can’t read his face.

“I’m really sorry,” I say, convinced that it’s too little too late.

“Me too,” he replies.

There’s an awkward silence.

“Do you want to do something tonight?” I ask, half prepared to hear him say that he doesn’t ever want to do something with me.

“Sure,” he says. “Whatever you want.”

I am so not good at this. Considering my current track record of bad ideas, I decide to stop with the boldness.

“I want you to pick,” I say. “None of my ideas seem to be working out too well lately.”

He gives me a little smile. “The picnic almost worked out.”

“You mean except for the thunderstorm.”

“Yeah, but the sub sandwich tasted good. Wet . . . but good.”

It feels nice to joke, even a little bit. “Still, I’ll let you pick. Surprise me.”

He nods. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

The ultimate surf maneuver is to ride inside the barrel or tube of a wave. It’s super difficult, especially here in Florida where there aren’t usually waves big enough, but when you do it, you are surrounded by water collapsing on you from all sides. Your only hope is to keep aiming for the light at the end of the barrel where you come back out again. That’s how I’m feeling about things with Ben. Everything is collapsing around me, but I’m still aiming for that light, still hoping to ride this wave all the way in to the shore.

Since I don’t know what he’s got planned for us, I’m not sure what I should wear. I decide to turn a negative into a positive. Rather than worry about what’s appropriate, I just pick out the cutest outfit I can find: a navy skater skirt with a white tank and a sleeveless plaid shirt. I like how it looks, but just to play it safe I text a quick picture to Nicole, and she responds with a row of smiley faces. The most important smiley face, though, is the one Ben shows me when I greet him at the door.

“You look great,” he says.

“Thanks,” I reply. “Is this appropriate for where we’re going?”

“That all depends. Can you dance in it?”

Dancing. I like it already. I should always let him decide what we’re doing.

“I can dance in anything,” I say with some surprising confidence. “Where are we going dancing?”

“There’s a party down the beach.”

Suddenly my mood drops.

“Whose party?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” he says. “Kayla promised that it was going to be huge and fun.”

“Kayla?” I say, trying to control my anger. “Seriously?”

He looks utterly confused by my reaction. “Is that a problem? She invited us to a party, and I thought it would be fun.”

“Kayla didn’t invite us to a party. She invited you to a party because she likes you. She saw me have a breakdown today at camp and probably figures she’s in the perfect position to swoop right in.”

“No,” he says, completely oblivious. “She knows you’re coming with me. I thought you would like this.”

“Why on earth would I like this?”

Is it possible that he doesn’t know that Kayla and I are mortal enemies?

“You said you never get invited to these parties. I thought you might like to go to one and meet some new people.”

I’m trying to keep my voice down so my parents don’t hear, and as I take a deep breath, I realize why he went for this.

“Is that what this is about? You want me to meet people?”

“I don’t see why that’s a bad thing.”

“I don’t want your charity,” I reply. “I don’t need you to find people for me to hang out with once you’re gone.”

“It’s not charity.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I have in fact met all of these people? It’s not that big an island. I’ve grown up with them, and they never became my friends. That’s not going to magically change because they see me arrive at a party with you. They might be nice to me while you’re around, but they’ll be making fun of me the second we leave.”

None of this has occurred to him, and I see him trying to make sense of what I’m saying.

“It’s just a party,” he says. “You said you wanted me to surprise you.”

“Well, you certainly did that.”

“We can just drop by and then do something else.”

“You still want to drop by?” I reply, incredulous.

“I don’t want to be rude. I told Kayla I’d go.”

“Oh, yes. Let’s make sure we look out for her feelings and not mine.”

“Fine,” he says. “We won’t drop by. We can do something else.”

“No,” I say. “I don’t feel like doing anything. You go to the party. You have fun. Meet all the people you want. I just want to stay home. Alone.”

It’s at this point that I think we might be breaking up. It is excruciating and painful and more than I can bear.

“Okay,” he says. “I really am sorry.”

There is a hesitation, and for an instant I think he can save the moment. I don’t know what he could do, but I know I don’t want it to continue this way. I look at him with sad eyes and wait for him to say something. Anything. But he doesn’t. He bites his lower lip for a second, and then he turns and walks away.

I don’t start to cry until I’m back in the house with the door shut. I don’t know how I made it this far, but once I’m clear of the outside world, the tears start to fall. My mom comes down the hall toward me, and from her expression I can tell I failed miserably at making it so my parents didn’t hear me. I bury my face into her shoulder. She doesn’t say a word. She just puts her arm around me and hugs me tightly as I sob uncontrollably.

Izzy.”

A hand grabs me by the shoulder and tries to wake me.

“Izzy, get up.”

I am completely disoriented as I wake up from the deepest sleep. My eyes are still sore from last night’s extended crying jag, and they’re also bleary due to the early hour. I squint and look out the window and my fears are confirmed. It’s still pitch-black outside.

“Dad? What time is it?”

“Five oh seven,” he says.

My head slumps back onto the pillow. “Leave me alone. I need to sleep.”

He yanks the pillow out from under me, and my head plonks down on the bed.

“Oww!”

“We’ll take the pillow with us,” he says. “You can sleep in the truck.”

Now I am completely confused. “Where are we going?”

I’m finally able to focus on him as he flashes a huge grin.

“Sebastian!” he says. “It’s going to be epic.”

Now I’m starting to wake up. Sebastian Inlet is the best surf spot for over a hundred miles.

“How epic?” I ask.

“There are two hurricanes in the Caribbean, and according to the surf report the waves might be as big as we’ve seen in years.”

I let this sink in. “We better get going.”

Dad has an orange and blue Ford Bronco that was old when he got it back in college. It’s not much to look at, but it’s weathered decades of salt air and sand, and is the ultimate surf vehicle. We load our boards into the back and minutes later pull out onto A1A, the highway that runs right along the Florida coast. It’s going to take us about an hour and a half to reach Sebastian, so I tuck my pillow against the window and fade off to sleep.

At the halfway point we pull off for a pit stop at a hole in the wall diner that serves amazing breakfast burritos. They have egg, peppers, chorizo sausage, and salsa all rolled up in a homemade tortilla. Dad and I stop here whenever we get the chance.

“That is so good,” he says as he savors his first bite.

I’m still too tired to talk much, so I just nod my sleepy agreement and smile before taking another bite. We sit there silently eating for a moment until Dad catches me off guard with a comment.

“Despite what you may be thinking,” he says, “Ben really cares about you.”

I continue to eat in silence, but I flash him the expression that says I’m not interested in having this conversation.

He totally ignores it.

“He’s probably not great at expressing it, but he’s heartbroken about his parents. It makes him doubt everything.”

I swallow another bite of my burrito and look right at him. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

He nods. “Okay. I just know you’re hurting.”

“I’m serious, Dad. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right, my mistake. Let’s finish these in the Bronco and get back on the road.”

We climb back up into the truck, and after silently finishing my burrito, I resume my sleeping position. I’m not actually sleeping this time, but I figure it’s the best way to keep him from trying to talk about Ben.

When you drive along A1A, you can see the ocean in between gaps in the sand dunes, and with the sun rising over it, it all seems kind of magical. I think about what Dad was saying in the diner, and after about twenty minutes of mulling it over, I ask him, “How do you even know?”

“Know what?”

“That Ben cares about me? Parents just say that stuff to make their kids feel better. You can’t know that.”

“You’re wrong about that,” he says. “I can know it. I see it in the way he looks at you and in the way he talks to you. But I also know it because he’s told me so.”

Now I sit up and look right at him. “When?”

“We run together three times a week,” he reminds me. “What do you think we talk about?”

“Sports?”

“No,” he says. “Well, sometimes we do. But mostly we talk about life and things. He talks about you a lot.”

“What does he say?” I demand. “I want specifics.”

Dad shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that. It wouldn’t be fair. Just like I wouldn’t tell him things you told me in confidence. But I can tell you that he cares about you more than he’s cared about anyone in his life. You mean the world to him, Iz.”

“It sure doesn’t seem like it,” I reply.

He smiles the same smile that he’s smiled at me my whole life. “I know, baby. Being a teenager can be really confusing, can’t it?”

“You’re not kidding.”

“Just remember that sometimes it can be amazing.”

“Like when?”

“Like right now,” he says as we pull in to the parking lot and look out at the surf. The sun has just broken over the horizon, and there’s enough light to see that the waves are amazing.

“You weren’t kidding,” I say, referring to his prediction. “Epic.”

We spend hours surfing the inlet. It’s crowded, so you have to wait your turn, but the wait is more than worth it. These are the biggest waves I’ve ever surfed, and the fact that I’m sharing them with my dad makes them even more special.

We’re both working on specific skills to help at the King of the Beach. I’m still trying to be more aggressive, and Dad is practicing his carving. Carving is what you do when you make turns and dig the rail—the side of the surfboard—into the wave and send water spraying.

“You’ve gotten so much better,” he says while we wait in the lineup. “It’s unbelievable.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he says. “I bet you’re ready to try an aerial.”

“Come on. There’s no way.”

An aerial is when you ride up the face of the wave, launch into the air, and then come back down and land on the same wave. It’s an incredible move, and not only have I never done it, I’ve never even tried it.

“The waves are big enough,” he says with a wink. “You can get the speed.”

I shake my head as though it’s a ridiculous idea, but in my mind just a little part of me considers it. Completing an aerial would be awesome. I remember the first time I saw one. My dad and I were watching a DVD of surf highlights, and seemingly out of nowhere Kelly Slater just rocketed right off the wave. I couldn’t believe it. I made Dad pause it and go through it frame by frame. Last year Bailey Kossoff did one during the King of the Beach, and that’s the moment I knew he had it won.

“Just try it once,” Dad says. “For me.”

I give him another skeptical look, but I don’t completely reject the idea. Am I good enough to land an aerial? I guess there’s only one way to find out.

The next wave I catch is my biggest one of the day. I am flying across the face, and I pass up some prime turning opportunities to look for just the right spot. I see it on the lip and shoot right up into the air.

For an instant I feel like I’m flying. It’s breathtaking.

I reach down and grab the rail with my right hand to keep the board from separating, and then I land back on the wave. Or rather, I try to land. I come in awkward and fall off the back, slamming hard into the ocean. It takes my breath away, figuratively and literally. That doesn’t take away from the experience one bit. I try it a few more times, and each time I come close but struggle with the landing and wind up eating a face full of ocean. By the time we climb back into the Bronco, I am battered, bruised, and exhausted. I’m also inspired.

“So, what do you think?” asks Dad as he pulls out of the parking lot and back onto A1A.

I know he’s asking me what I think about the day in general, but my answer is much more specific.

“What do I think?” I reply with a big grin on my face. “I think I can land it.”

Dad cackles as we start to glide down the highway. “That’s my girl.”

As I blend in with the tourists near the bandshell, I watch the summer campers get picked up by their parents outside the Parks and Rec office. None can leave without sharing a high five or a supersecret handshake with Ben. Kayla’s there too, which complicates things, but luckily she heads off in the opposite direction and doesn’t see me. Once Ben is alone I walk over to him.

“Hey,” I say quietly as we make eye contact.

“I tried to call you yesterday, but you never answered.”

“Sorry about that. My dad and I went on a day trip that was kind of sudden.”

There is an awkward pause before I ask the question that has been eating away at me for the last forty hours. It’s one that I have to ask in person.

“Did we break up? The other night on my porch, was that what happened?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” I reply honestly.

We stand there for a moment, and I can tell that he’s in real turmoil. I certainly don’t want to be the cause of that.

“Can we maybe grab a bite at Mama Tacos and try to figure it out?” I suggest. “I promise there will be no drama. No raised voices. No tears.”

“Sure,” he says. “That sounds good.”

Mama Tacos is at the other end of the boardwalk, so we hop into his truck and drive down Ocean Ave. I don’t know what to say, so I just fiddle with the radio.

“Where’d you go?” he asks. “With your dad?”

“Sebastian Inlet. It’s a great surf spot, and the waves were really good because of a couple storms out in the Caribbean. It’s kind of our special place. We go there every once in a while but never with anyone else. It’s always just the two of us.”

“That’s nice.”

We arrive at Mama Tacos between the lunch and dinner rushes, so we’re able to get a quiet booth in the back. Once we place our order, there’s no one around to hear us talking.

“First of all, I want to apologize for how I acted the other day,” I say. “In fact, for how I’ve acted a bunch lately.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “I’ve been a mess. I’m trying to figure things out, and you keep getting caught in the cross fire.”

“What are you trying to figure out?” I ask. “I’m not sure if I can help, but I’d like to try.”

He picks up a tortilla chip and studies it for moment as he tries to think of what to say to me.

“We were a happy family when I was growing up,” he says. “At least I thought we were. We took trips together. We had fun together. Everything seemed perfect. Well, the last few years weren’t perfect. I knew my parents were arguing, but I still thought they loved each other. But the people I saw when I went home—I can’t believe they ever loved each other. Not the way they acted.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

“You and your dad have . . . What’s the name of the place where you went surfing?”

“Sebastian Inlet.”

“Right. Sebastian Inlet. It’s your special place. I bet just seeing it on a map makes you think of him and smile, right?”

“Yeah.”

“My parents had that. There’s a place in Michigan called Mackinac Island. It’s beautiful, with old Victorian buildings. Very romantic. They went there when they were dating and liked it so much they had their wedding there. They even went back a few times for their anniversary. It was their special place.”

“It sounds really nice,” I say.

He looks up at me, and I see tears welling up in his eyes. “When we were going through everything with the judge, I found out that Dad already took his new girlfriend there. They even stayed in the same bed and breakfast where he and Mom got married. Why would he do that? I mean seriously, how messed up is that? Isn’t it enough that he broke her heart? Isn’t it enough that he has totally ruined everything? He has to go back and ruin the past, too?”

I reach across the table and take his hand, gently rubbing my thumb across his fingers.

“I wonder if she wishes that she never saw Mackinac Island in the first place,” he says. “At least then it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

The conversation stops when the waiter brings our food, and I feel terrible for Ben and how he’s feeling. Once we’re alone again, I ask him a question.

“Do you wish you hadn’t come into the shop that day to give us the poster?”

He doesn’t hesitate at all. “Of course not.”

“Neither do I,” I tell him. “Even though I know it’s going to hurt when you go home, I would not trade this summer for anything in the world.”

He looks deep into my eyes. “Really?”

“Not one second of it . . . Well, maybe the meltdown on the beach the other day . . . and the fight on the porch . . . but other than that, not one second.”

For a moment I think he’s going to cry, but he holds it off and smiles.

“Neither would I.”

“We don’t have to put a label on this. We don’t have to say that we’re girlfriend and boyfriend. But I still want to spend as much time as I can with you before you go home. I’ve been a better version of me ever since I met you.”

Now he reaches across and takes both of my hands.

“Me too.”

On Saturday I have him over to the house, and for the first time since he returned from Wisconsin, he seems like the old Ben.

“Are you ready for a surprise?” I ask as I greet him at the door.

“I guess so,” he answers cautiously.

I get behind him and cover his eyes, which is not easy considering how tall he is. I guide him down the hallway and through the kitchen, and we only run into two chairs along the way.

“Happy Birthday!” I yell as I pull back my hands and reveal my miniature surprise party. There’s a cake, a pizza, and three presents.

“This is surprising,” he says with a crooked smile. “Especially because . . . it’s not my birthday.”

“I know that,” I answer. “But tomorrow is the King of the Beach and we’re both going to be really busy, so I thought we’d celebrate a day early. Besides, Mom and Dad are out, so I get you all to myself. No charades. No parents liking you more than they like me.”

“You got me presents?” he says.

“And I baked a cake. There are a couple cracks on the top layer, but where other people might see that as a negative, I see it as a place to hide bonus frosting.”

He leans over to give me a kiss, but it’s just a peck. Our relationship is undefined, and at this point I’m determined not to push it any.

“Everything has a special meaning,” I say as we sit down. “The pizza’s a Big Lu from Luigi’s Car Wash. . . .”

“In honor of our first meal together.”

“Exactly.”

“And the presents . . . They have special meaning too?”

“Why don’t you open them and find out?”

First I hand him a flat, rectangular box. I have a slight panic attack as he starts to unwrap it, because I’ve never bought anything for a guy who isn’t named Dad. I’m not sure if I found the right mix.