Girls in Love (14 page)

After a virtually sleepless night, Lara had risen with a sense of purpose. She was still feeling sad, but she was resigned to resolve what had happened between her and Drew. She knew he was furious at her, and she didn’t expect to change that. But she also knew she had to tell him that she was sorry.

She crept downstairs and lingered outside the dining room, watching Drew (or Drew’s back, anyway) as he consumed the giant stack of pancakes that was his favorite breakfast. She felt sort of like a spy, but without the cool spy gadgets, like watches that were actually recording devices or earrings that were video cameras. And instead of wanting to eavesdrop on her quarry, she just needed to go up and talk to him face-to-face.

The trouble was, she was afraid. She couldn’t bear the thought of Drew turning away from her again, the way he did when he’d overheard her trying to break things off with Marco. She couldn’t bear it if he looked at her with his emerald eyes as dark and cold as the Arctic Ocean.

Her mother came down the hall and swatted Lara lightly on the butt. “What are you doing lurking around like that?” she asked as she breezed by in a cloud of her favorite rosewater scent. “He won’t bite, you know,”

Drew, having heard Lonnie’s chirpy voice, turned around and spotted Lara in the doorway. His face was expressionless as she walked forward and sat down across from him at the gleaming ebony table.

She reached into the fruit bowl and pulled out a banana, which she began to peel nervously. Her stomach was tied in too many knots for her to actually eat it, so after it had been skinned she set it down on the table. Instead of looking at Drew, she just stared at the poor naked banana. She could feel Drew waiting for her to say something, and the whole house seemed heavy with silence.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“What are you apologizing to the banana for?” Drew asked.

Lara looked up at him then, and her heart gave a tiny leap of hope. He’d made a joke, and even if he wasn’t
smiling, it meant that he couldn’t be so mad that he actually
hated
her, which was what she’d been afraid of.

“I was apologizing to you,” she told him, her voice gaining strength. “It’s just hard to look a person in the eye when you’ve done what I did. I never meant to hurt you, Drew. I should have told you about Marco, but I was confused, and things just got out of hand.” She paused, then corrected herself. It was important to take all the blame that she deserved. “I mean, I
let
things get out of hand. When we stopped talking, and when you didn’t show up here, I missed you so much. But instead of calling you or sending you an e-mail, I guess I sort of tried to forget you. I know that doesn’t make any sense—I can’t understand it myself. All I can say is that I’m so sorry, and I hope that you don’t hate me.” She looked down at the banana again. “Or if you do hate me, I hope you’ll get over it sooner rather than later.”

Drew reached across the table and touched her hand. “I could never hate you, Lara,” he assured her. “But I am really…really hurt.”

She nodded meekly. “I know.”

He let his finger wander over her knuckles, and then he touched the chipped polish on her thumb. “But I know that I’m to blame, too.” He grimaced a little and then went on. “I mean, as I said the other day, when we got in that fight over the phone, it was my own fault that I never called you
back. And then not telling you that I was going to be a camp counselor instead of coming to Pebble Beach wasn’t cool at all.”

Lara shook her head. “It wasn’t,” she agreed.

He withdrew his hand and leaned back in his chair. “You may have noticed that I’m not the world’s best communicator.”

Lara’s response was good-naturedly sarcastic. “Oh, really? You don’t say.”

“Really,” he confirmed, apparently missing her taunt entirely. “And then just showing up like I did, assuming that everything could be the same, and trying to convince you that we should tell everyone about our relationship—that was sort of uncool, too.”

Lara was surprised at how easily he took a share of the blame. She was the one who’d kissed another person, and then lied about it, and yet Drew was doing most of the apologizing. The thought occurred to her that perhaps Drew had a guilty secret of his own. She felt her brows come together in frowning concentration.

“Before you start wondering if I cheated and came back to Pebble Beach because I felt guilty, I didn’t,” Drew said, reading Lara’s mind precisely. “I came back for you.”

Immediately, Lara felt like shrinking into her chair. He’d come back for her, and she’d just continued to make out with another guy. What kind of horrible person was she?

“And I don’t think you’re a terrible person or anything like that,” he said, and Lara practically fell off her seat. Since when was Drew psychic? “I just think you made a mistake, and I think I made some mistakes, too.”

Lara smiled shyly at him. Their conversation was going so much better than she expected. She felt like if it kept going in this vein, she might even be able to eat that banana after all. “So does that mean—”

But Drew held up a hand to cut her off. “I still think that maybe we should be…apart for a while.” He paused while his words sunk in for them both. He was sad, Lara could tell, and she was, too. But she knew what he said was right. “We live hundreds of miles away from each other,” he continued. “And when we were together it was always like playing some kind of secret game. I think that warped things a little.”

Lara nodded, but she couldn’t quite speak. The truth, after all, wasn’t always easy to take. What they’d had had been wonderful, but it belonged to a particular place and time that was neither here nor now. Something had changed between them in these summer months. She knew that she would always have memories of him at Ahoy, on the sunny beach, in the quiet of a bedroom empty but for the two of them—and that would have to be enough.

She felt a single tear make its way down her cheek and land on the shiny lacquered table with an audible plop.
Then Drew stood up and came around to where she was sitting, and he pulled her from her chair and gave her a hug.

“I’ll always love you, you know that,” he murmured into her hair.

She nodded again, into his chest, and then she managed to find her voice. “I’ll always love you, too,” she whispered.

They stood that way for what felt like a long time, and then they tenderly kissed. It was their way of saying good-bye.

Lara cried in her room for a while, letting the hurt of losing Drew wash over her. Then she decided it was time to search the house for Jessica. Painful as it was, she had made her peace with Drew, and now it was time to do the same with his sister.
If Jessica will let me, that is
, Lara thought. In talking to Drew, she’d been reminded again about the importance of honesty. If you cared about someone, you didn’t hide the truth from them, not even if you thought it would hurt them. You could tell white lies once in a while (“Yeah, I really
do
like that mauve-and-puce-striped sweater of yours!”) but nothing more than that. And Marco certainly hadn’t been a white lie.

She checked the deck, the living room, the two other rental houses, and the beach, but there was no Jessica. Lara
made the whole circuit again, with no luck, and then she returned to the dining room. The banana was still on the table, skinned and defenseless. She picked it up and took a bite, even though she still wasn’t the least bit hungry.

Well, in that case, now you better go find Marco
, said the voice in her head. At that Lara sighed wearily. There was so much explaining and apologizing to do. Who would have guessed she’d be able to get herself in so much trouble in only three months?

With a heavy heart, she climbed onto one of the house bikes and cycled slowly toward the harbor. White blossoms of Queen Anne’s lace lined the road on either side, and here and there, Lara saw the dark glint of ripening blackberries. The day was perfect, but it failed to cheer her up.

When she saw the bright, multicolored sail of Marco’s boat, she leaned her bike against a fence and hesitantly approached. Even though she knew that he deserved a real apology, there was a part of her that hoped he wasn’t around.
I could send him an e-mail
, she thought.
Maybe that’s the best thing to do.
She told herself that she’d walk a few more feet, and if Marco didn’t appear, then she’d just turn around and go home.

But then Marco, wearing a white T-shirt that seemed to glow against his dark skin, climbed up the ladder from the hull. The look he gave her was very unwelcoming.

“Lara,” he intoned coldly.

She froze in her tracks. “Marco, I came to apologize,” she said. “And to explain.”

He gazed out over the blue water. “I don’t need an explanation.”

Lara gathered her courage up. “But I want to give you one.” She took a few more steps toward the boat, until she was standing right at the edge of the mooring. “Drew was my boyfriend, but then we basically broke up. He sort of disappeared for a month without talking to me. So when I met you, I considered myself single.” She bit her lip and then went on. “And I really liked you. You were hilarious and smart and totally gorgeous…I mean, you still
are
those things.”

Marco crossed his arms and gave her a dark look. “Fat lot of good it does me.”

Lara hung her head and stared down at her feet. “So you and I, we were having this great time,” she stated, without looking up to see if he agreed with her. “And then Drew showed up and acted as if we’d never had a fight. And the thing is, I still cared about him. I mean, you can’t just forget someone you dated because they don’t call you for weeks.” She cleared her throat but still kept her eyes on her toes. She could hear Marco moving around on the boat, and she hoped he was still listening. “I just wasn’t strong enough to know what I wanted. And in a way, I still don’t. All I know is that I hurt both of you, and I
lost
both of you, and
’ve never been sorrier about anything in my life.” Finally she raised her eyes, which by now were full of tears.

Marco had left the boat and was standing by her on the dock. His expression seemed kinder. As she gazed at him, she thought she saw the glimmer of a sad smile on his face. “Well,” he said, “I guess there probably couldn’t have been a future for us anyway. I mean, we live almost a thousand miles away from each other. I just wish that you had been honest with me. I wish you’d told me about Drew. I would have hung out with you anyway. I can have girls just as friends, you know.”

Lara sighed. Marco was right. “I’m just so sorry,” she said.

“Well,” Marco replied, reaching out for her hand, “I forgive you. I don’t believe in grudges.”

Lara looked up at him, smiling gratefully. “So does that mean we can be friends?” she asked, hope in her voice.

Marco didn’t reply right away, but when he did, he said that he thought they could. “If we weren’t friends, I guess I’d miss your tirades about the evils of mass consumption and the sheeplike mentality of American society.” Lara clapped her hands over her ears in dismay, but she could still hear him parroting her lectures about the dreadful influence of advertising and the problem of people purchasing goods in excess of their basic needs.

“You’re just trying to punish me,” she cried.

At this, Marco began to laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t help it.”

Lara grinned ruefully. “So I guess I’ll just have to send you anti-capitalist e-mails,” she offered.

“Sounds like a plan,” Marco replied.

Marco held out his hand, and Lara shook it.

“Friends,” she said.

“Friends,” he agreed.

The August breeze lifted Jessica’s golden bangs from her forehead as she parked her bike outside Lily Fitzgerald’s front gate. Roses spilled over the picket fence in brilliant clusters of pink and yellow, and here and there, fuzzy, striped bumblebees dive-bombed into lilies and emerged covered in pollen.

The Fitzgeralds’ house was a modest but utterly charming New England beach cottage, complete with weathered cedar-shingle siding, freshly painted white shutters, and blue hydrangea bushes flanking the red front door. There were window boxes full of pansies and a pair of birdbaths, each one being enjoyed by a coterie of small, brown birds.

It looked like a house where nothing bad could ever happen, Jessica thought. But something bad
had
happened,
and Jessica had played a role in it. Obviously she wasn’t to blame for the fact that Lily was pregnant, but it was definitely her fault that Lily’s parents had found out when and how they did.

The whole thing just sucked, plain and simple. But Jessica had decided that part of getting over Connor was letting him go, and wishing him the best in his new life with Lily and their baby. She was still deeply hurt and extremely confused, but she felt sorry for him, too. Who wanted a baby at seventeen? Certainly not Jessica, and she was pretty sure neither Lily nor Connor wanted one, either. At least Connor was taking responsibility for the situation and being a good partner to Lily.

Partner.
Ugh, she hated that word. And the little voice inside her head cried out,
He was supposed to be yours! Not hers!
But she gritted her teeth and told the little voice to shut up before it started calling Lily a redheaded slut or something. It was not the time to be mean; it was time to make amends. Because the fact of the matter was, Jessica would be leaving soon, and she’d be going back to school and her regular teenage life of sports and parties and homework, while Connor and Lily would remain in Pebble Beach, catapulted suddenly into adulthood.

Lucky you and Connor never did it
, the voice said.
Otherwise that whole teen mom thing could have been you.
She felt a shiver run up her spine.

“Jessica?” came a high, questioning voice.

Jessica glanced up to see Lily standing in the doorway with a confused look on her face. Even though the girl couldn’t possibly be showing yet, she was already wearing a soft, shapeless dress. Her hair was done up in two long, red braids, and she reminded Jessica of Pippi Longstocking. A sad, pale, pregnant Pippi Longstocking.

Jessica felt herself flush. “I guess I’ve been standing out here for a while,” she admitted. “Do you have a minute?”

Lily nodded, and Jessica pushed open the gate and walked up the stone pathway to the Fitzgeralds’ front stoop. She stopped right in front of Lily and looked her straight in the eye. “I came to apologize,” she said firmly. “I never, ever should have yelled the way I did. It was your right to tell your parents what was going on, and I ruined it for you. I’m so sorry. And I also want to say that I hope you and Connor are really happy. I’m sure you’ll have a beautiful baby.” Jessica felt a knot rising in her throat, and the knot threatened to become a sob, which in turn threatened to blossom into a full-on cry fest. So she quickly turned and started down the walkway to the gate. She’d said what she came to say, and now she could go back home and pull the covers up over her head and feel sorry for herself for the next week.

“Wait,” Lily called, and started down the path after her. “Jessica, wait.”

“What?” Jessica wheeled around and saw Lily reaching out for her.

“Just hang on,” Lily said. “You’ve got it all wrong. Connor’s not the father.”

Jessica’s mouth fell open.
Connor’s not the father?

“The dad is a guy from my history class,” Lily went on, her voice now flat. “Andy Marcus. He’s a total wannabe frat guy
jerk
, and I can’t believe I was stupid enough to fall for him. He can’t even
spell
, Jessica, and I thought I loved him.” She shook her head at the memory, or maybe at her own foolishness. “He won’t even talk to me now. He says the kid’s not his, even though he’s the only guy I ever slept with. And so Connor, who has been one of my best friends since we were six, told me that he would help me out however he could.” She turned to Jessica and looked her in the eye. “That’s it,” she said firmly. “He’s just being a good friend, because that’s the kind of guy he is. He loves you, Jessica, not me.”

Jessica hardly knew what to say. There were so many emotions coursing through her—surprise, relief, happiness, pity—that she felt like she might be going temporarily crazy.

“Let’s take a walk,” Lily said, and Jessica, not knowing what else to do, fell in step beside her. They strolled down the quiet road as tiny white butterflies danced in the wildflowers on either side of them.

Lily reached over to the road’s shoulder and plucked a pretty blue flower and tucked it behind her ear. Jessica noticed in that moment how beautiful she was. “I told Connor not to tell anyone,” Lily explained softly. “For a long time he was the only person who knew. Until that party, and then suddenly a lot of people knew.”

“I’m really sorry about that,” Jessica managed to get out. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Connor—she should have known he’d never betray her like that. No wonder he’d been so furious with her. She felt like bursting into tears. For her, for Connor, for Lily.

Lily shrugged. “Well, my parents needed to know sometime,” she admitted. “You just sort of speeded up the process.”

Jessica smiled ruefully. That was certainly a generous way of looking at it. “Did I ever,” she agreed.

They walked a little farther down the road, and in the distance Jessica could see the buildings of downtown Pebble Beach, with their brightly colored storefronts and their cheerful signs.

“This is a nice place to raise a kid,” she offered shyly.

Lily nodded. “That’s what I tell myself,” she said. She put her hands on her belly. “I’m scared, though. I mean, terrified.”

Jessica put her arm around Lily’s thin shoulders. “I’m sure it’s scary,” she whispered.

Jessica watched as a single tear slid down Lily’s freckled cheek. “This never should have happened,” Lily said. “But it did. And so I just have to go on. My parents will help me, too, even though they’re still pretty upset.”

“You’re going to be okay,” Jessica said.

Lily wiped the tear away fiercely. “I know. Eventually it will all be fine. In about twenty years.” She laughed humor-lessly. “But you know what? Despite all of it, I think I love the baby already.”

You’d better
, Jessica thought grimly.
Because babies are no freaking picnic.
“You’ll be a great mom,” she assured Lily. “I just know it.”

To her surprise, Jessica felt herself reaching out to give Lily a warm hug. Lily hugged her back, and Jessica understood why Connor was such a good friend to Lily. She was a special person.

And so was Connor.

And now she’d pushed him away.

After saying good-bye to Lily, Jessica turned and set off, determined to remedy that.