Deception (5 page)

She just called Ian
a
dreamboat
. I stood there watching the door, not wanting to face Ian with all my failure to hold myself together.  Ian always seemed to me as if he was older in years than he really was.  He was proactive and made it look easy to solve anything. 

“Just ignore him.  He’s just trying to get to you.”  Ian turned me around with a swift, but gentle tug on my arm.  I’d been standing so stiff I nearly tumbled into him when he pulled.  Like playing the game “Trust” when we were in third grade. 

“Sorry!”  I said as I stepped on his foot just as I began to relax again.  pHe just smiled.  I silently asked if he would please not smile like that for I can’t focus when he does.  He dropped the smile. 
Hey
! 

“I’m okay.  Years of practice.  I’ll just never understand his obsession with me. What happens in two days?”

Ian didn’t comment or answer the question.  He picked up my things on the table, placed them neatly in my bag, and gestured for me to go.  I watched him do all this and then follow out the door.

The rest of the Rec workers followed behind.  After the in house library ladies felt the need to give me their enchanting motherly pep talks to stay away from the one person I tried very hard to stay away from, I thanked them and proceeded to the outer doors.

Through the final front door I reminded Ian, “Saved again, I know!”  Not the least bit upset by him doing it, I tried to sound annoyed by waving my hand up flat in the air towards him.

“Do you not want to be saved?”

I turned too fast not realizing how close he was following and ran into him.  “Sorry!  No!  Yes!  I mean—“

”Yes!” he stepped back.  Dropping my shoulders at not hiding my emotions better, I was too obvious lately. Well, actually I was really good at hiding them from everyone else except Ian. He tipped my chin as a slow grin crept across his face. I gasped at the touch, but stopped it midway biting my bottom lip.  “Yes, you want to be saved?” he tipped my head up and down slowly watching my lips.  “No, you don’t? Which one?”  His hand stayed there tipping my head side to side.

This isn’t how best friends act. I did the one thing I felt hid my feelings well, I rolled my eyes, shrugged my shoulders, and told a lie. “Yes, I like that you save me from Kin.  But no, I shouldn’t always need to be saved.  I can take care of myself.” 

“Can you?” he simply said. 

Anger rose in me, “Yes!  Patronizing me doesn’t win me over either.  I could have handled him without you.”

He
wanted
to argue the point, but it wouldn’t help matters.  He knew this about me.  He shrugged, “You’re right.  You’re stronger than I give credit.  I was just trying to protect you.  Am I…winning you over?”

This conversation was way out of hand.  I wanted to continue, but it was getting a little too personal for my comfort zone.  I frowned and rolled my eyes again.  Guys always misinterpret the rolling of the eyes.   He won me over a long time ago.  Bravery wasn’t my middle name.  So, I said nothing, aloud!

When we were both outside, our eyes met seeing that the pouring rain made it back.  “Glad I brought my bike, though it didn’t seem to keep him at bay, but do you mind if I get a ride?” 

Didn’t I mention this already twice today?  Get in my car and never get out
.
But of course, I said none of this.  Nor did I acknowledge his attempt to help me avoid Kin.  “I’m cool with that.”  I smiled sweetly.

The ride home was mostly silent.  To add to the silence, the clouds were low and it was foggy and hard to drive in.  Homichlophobia!  Fear of fog!   Spelling it is harder than saying it! 
H.o.m.i.c.h.l—

I turned on the air to cool myself off. 

“You’re hot?”

What?  Was that a statement or a question?
I just gripped the steering wheel.  I needed to get out of the Ian box and get my head on straight.  He meant the air
.  Focus!

“Uh, yeah.  You’re not?”  Okay, stupid.  That was supposed to be a question, but it totally didn’t come out that way.  My mental devil I nicknamed Devil Grace was ramming a ruler repeatedly over my head.  “I mean… are you not…hot…that is...are you?”  My body was so flushed I needed the air up more to tame my breathing.  I didn’t once look his way.  He freaking laughed.  I barely heard it, but it was right there.  Ten inches away from me in a dark car.  He never answered otherwise.

With very little light on the road, I couldn’t see him even sitting right next to me.  But I was
very
aware of him sitting
right
next to me.  Once, he reached out to turn the radio dial to another song and I audibly held my breath.  What did I think he would do, grab my hand?

When we made it back to the tiny town of Winslow, Ian said he was going home to change before he came over.   He wanted to walk since it stopped raining...again.  He lived at the other end of the street with his mom. I headed in the door, but looked back out of curiosity.  Ian was walking on the opposite side of the street, something he never does.
When I saw him stop, turn, and look at the empty field beside him, and then look straight back to me I fakes a reverse and hid in the window where I felt more comfortable to peek out at what he was doing.  He kept looking at the front door.  Did he know? 

He crossed his arms. 

He did!  I moved back in the shadow of the door waiting and then leaned back to peek again.  He was gone.  Just vanished!  I watched for a bit and then headed upstairs to change.  The last two days have been unusual in the
how will Ian act next
kind of extreme.

I lived on one of the few streets in Winslow that had more than two to three houses.  You could almost call it a small subdivision like in the city but the houses were farther apart.   

Ian and Caylie have been coming to my house on Friday night for as long as I could remember.  Over the last year Caylie came less and less.  She was invited to the high school “cool” parties now.  And she kept mumbling things about being a third wheel.  I chose to ignore it because in truth, I didn’t mind her being gone more.  Ian seemed more himself when she wasn’t there. 

I heard the knock and the yell from the kitchen to get the door.  Racing downstairs and tumbling on one of the steps in anticipation to see him, I regained my composure the best I could and opened the door.  “Hey there!” I said without putting too much feeling in my voice. 

He knew better.  “Something wrong?”

“No, why?”  My face must be red.  I glanced in the decorative mirror hanging behind the area by the front door then bit my lip and clasped my hands together tightly to keep from doing anything unnatural. 

“No reason.” He looked upward to the stairs. I was sure I heard a small chuckle come from him.

As he stood in the door looking back to the cars when I realized how early he arrived.   I remembered that he had not initiated his ritual question of the day.   We ran late today. Always when we were alone!  We would go through the same dialogue. 

I couldn’t tell Caylie about them.  It seemed too personal.  Caylie never really cared about listening in the first place.  Caylie just loved to be heard.

But Ian…those talks were sometimes so intense one of us would change the subject to keep each other from being embarrassed or afraid to open up again.  We could talk about almost anything, including the dreams.  We just knew each other that well and trusted each other with it.  Except the subject of him.  I only had Caylie and Pam for that.

I was still standing in the doorway like an idiot.    

“What?” I asked.  “Did you see something?”

I closed the door behind him, but looked back out the window because oddly, my mom was doing it too.  In between cookie batches, she yelled out a few times about the vermin on the street though nothing was ever there.

My mother was always trying to make Ian and I feel more like two teens from “Leave it to Beaver”, but in reality she was trying to cover up the fact that the two of us were just not normal teens.  I was a freak and he was the one who hung out with the freak.  Sometimes I felt like my mom encouraged me to keep Ian around
too
much. Perhaps because she was hoping for some kind of sudden romance to kindle! Fat chance that will happen.

From the kitchen we heard, “Honey, are you two hanging out tonight?  I bought some of your favorite chips.”  Didn’t she just tell me to get the door?

Mrs. Starmen rounded the corner from the kitchen aiming her cookie battered up spatula of menacing doom towards the two of us, “Oh, well here he is.”  If it’d been clean, it would’ve routinely popped right across the back of my rear end.  Right in front of Ian! 
Honest
!  I was thankful for the cookie dough glob currently dangling in my face. 

My mom continued to the front window and looked out staying there too long though Ian was already here.

My mom walked away ten minutes before Ian arrived mumbling under her breath, “He knew to be here early.  They are everywhere.  Just glad he’s here with us tonight.” When I asked her why she was so apprehensive to get him here, she just told me that he promised to get there early.  Peculiar still, she mumbled in front of him now, “They are everywhere?” 
Uh, oh!
  One hand went to my mom’s hip.  A wave of Armageddon was coming down.

“Who mom?”

“No one dear,” she shook her head wearily and looked at me.  “Go change your shirt, young lady!”

I scowled at my mom realizing I’d put on the “Defy All” shirt she hated so much.  “I’ll be right back.”  I watched his eyes in silent protest as I stomped up the stairs.  My silver sequence shirt always sparkled in the moonlight anyway. 

“Yes, mom!” I yelled tartly between stomps.   And apparently too loud!

“No attitude with me!” she returned. “And don’t think I don’t know about the tardy.”

When I returned after fixing my hair in the bathroom mirror and spreading some shimmery lip gloss on my lips, I found Ian already digging into the cookies.  He looked up as I whipped past him to sit down and rewarded him with a secret smile he recognized as only ever given to him.  I caught him sniffing the air and wondered if he found the bit of lavender I spritzed on.

  “Eat your cookies, you two?” My mom’s small voice shouted from the kitchen.  She came around the corner in her vintage looking apron tied to her waist with her blonde hair all frazzled from baking. She always put it up neatly on baking day, but by the end of seven to ten batches, her hair was hanging everywhere.  She just didn’t want to stop baking, she’d say.  She still had her yellow plastic gloves on from washing dishes.  I couldn’t understand the obsession with gloves and washing dishes.  It was archaic.  Palmolive softens while you do dishes, right?
 

Ian was laughing.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You!” His killer smile aimed upward. “Your face tells it all, princess.” His words slowed making me incoherent until I realized he was laughing
at
me.

“Don’t princess me, heckler!” I kicked him under the table trying to regain my composure.

The bright otherworldly, green of Mrs. Starmen’s eyes suddenly brightened for as she rounded the corner of the table with another plate of cookies and sat them down.  She claimed it let her “de-stress” from the everyday worries.  Baking, that is!

“Oh, I see you already found them.” 

I let my eyes shut for a second hoping to make her disappear or at the very least shut her up.  I wanted my mom to stay out of my planning for this party of two.  I screamed inside my head wanting to be alone with him.

My mom grabbed the top of her own head, shook it, and walked back to the kitchen. 
Weird
!  She looked like she was about to say something and just stopped and left.  I wondered if I myself had something to do with it.  Just like the coach today at school and Kin.  Like a brain jump or some weird crazy thing, which wasn’t possible!

I knew Ian accepted me and my mom for our weirdness.  Like now, he gently put his hand on my arm to comfort me.  I felt instantly calm from his touch. 

When the kitchen sink was running and made the pattering splash sounds below the house, I thought of the plumber from last week who’d been shocked about our system.  He’d released the clog our garbage disposal made but left saying things about superstitious crazy people, meaning my family.

  My dad complained heavily about the cost of copper when mom wanted the pipes replaced after we moved into this old house the day before my twelfth birthday.  Mom wanted more land and no neighbors.  The house stayed on the market for all of two days before my dad, the  lawyer, had it paid for with cash.  And then mom insisted that the pipes below the house needed to be copper because copper lasted longer than iron.  That was a fiasco.  She was picky with our silverware not being iron, only certain flowers can be planted in our yard, and strange herbs even I had never heard of were growing in the kitchen.  And much more I wouldn’t bore myself with thinking about right now.  I didn’t want her
weirder than me
idiosyncrasies to sour my moment or my dad’s ability to always just give in to her. 

I started to call her in and try making her laugh with a salt joke to apologize for being rude about my shirt and then the screaming, but Ian stuffed a cookie in my mouth.  My mom’s obsession with salt across the window sills and the back door always made Ian laugh too.  Ian never walked through the back door; he just made a joke and went back through the front door.  My mom used to joke about it and say, “keeps the evil away from my baby girl.”  Now, my mom doesn’t even laugh about it anymore.  She doesn’t laugh about anything much lately.

When we were almost done with our cookie feast, my mom yelled from the kitchen, “Are you two going to the Halloween party like you planned?  Just want to make sure you have a great time.” 

“Ye—"

Ian interrupted me before I could answer  pressing a finger to his lips in slow motion.   I didn’t want my mom to tell me I couldn’t go.

“Yes, Mrs. Starmen.  I’ll pick her and Caylie up at six o’clock sharp, no lateness.  We will use Grace’s car.   The party is at a house down from the old church.  Don’t worry about how late we are.  I’ll get her home safely.”  My mom popped her head out and then walked all the way back in the kitchen.  Mom never doubted Ian like I thought a good mom should with a teenage boy.  But then again, he wasn’t like most teenage boys.  He never had been.  And he always rescued me from mom’s wrath when I let my temper show.  He was sometimes what I termed as a young guy hot bod stuck in a grandpa mind job with ADHD!

We headed out to the old, deserted trampoline Ian and I had adopted as our own hideaway a few years back, shed our shoes, and got comfy for the night. We lay there a while and watched the sun go down then stars were beginning to come out.  The chip bag was empty too soon.  Ian replaced the green rose that fell off my ear that I’d plucked off my mom’s rose bush out of tradition for our trampoline nights.   His fingertips touched the tip of my ear making me shiver which for the first time ever, didn't go unnoticed.

My mind wandered to keep from thinking about his touch.   I had been tossing around in my head the idea of what makes someone know their point in life.  I liked to ponder the stuff no one else did.  When does it become my turn to be important in the world or important to somebody or just be important to the person I wanted the most?   My dad used to say, “You’ll know when you’ve found that one reason why Grace Starmen becomes worthy of the history books.  Whether it’s your devotion to some cause, major event that changes you or the history around you, or simply your contributions to society.”  My dad was always tied up in his law firm and stocks.  There was an answer for everything in his eyes.  Why couldn’t he explain me, then?  I was too far from normal. 

“Any dreams last night?” he asked as his daily question of the hour caught up to us.  Although this was usually in the car ride to school or in the parking lot as he attached his helmet to the bike, I’d woken up late and he’d ridden the bike.  Why he didn’t just call and wake me up, I wasn’t sure.  But, I didn’t want to seem overbearing, so I stayed quiet for the fourth time in the day. 

I nodded to him and lied, “Same!  But didn’t you ask me that this morning?” 

“No, Princess Sleepyhead.  You slept in late, remember?” His eyes stared intently forcing me to either continue looking or away. I chose to stare back giving me the shock, not him like I intended.

“Oh yeah!”  Feeling guilty, I still liked reminding him he didn’t wake me up. Again, he continued to stare as if waiting for another answer. Finally, I gave in. “No new ending?” he said watching me squirm beside him. I didn’t answer this time either, but slid over to lie on his arm he’d extended out for my head.  Sometimes a dream was just that, a dream.  Or rather, this is what I had to keep believing because the alternative wasn’t a possible reality.  And besides, does the good guy
really
always win?  My dream started out as a nightmare.  And well, sometimes one also had to just believe that a nightmare is just that, a nightmare.  Dreams!  Nightmares!  It’s not like they are windows of the future. 

I changed the subject.  He knew my mind jumped around a lot.

“Do you think it makes me special to have been born on Halloween?  Weird things do happen to me.”    I turned to look at Ian after staring too long at the trellis of jasmine overhead.  I liked the way it moved in the breeze and made the scent carry on the wind as if winding its way straight to me.

“Well, I do believe you were specially made to be born on that certain day.”  Ian lifted his head and looked at the ground.

I sat up in disbelief knowing he was egging it on for some unknown reason as he often did though he always cut if off just at the breaking point, “Why that day?  Surely there is a divine purpose why, I, Grace Starmen, was brought into this perfectly normal world on that fine day of all days.”  I stretched words and arms in unison.  I wanted purpose in life.