Holly's Heart Collection One (23 page)
Maybe I could try to ignore the whole thing. Maybe Mom would soon get sick of having zillions of extra people around. But by the frequency of her smiles, who was to say what would happen?
Wiping off the table, I heard laughter. It was Mom. Slowly, with dripping hands, I peeked around the doorway.
Gulp!
Mr. Tate’s arm was resting on the back of the sofa, behind my mother. And it looked like he was moving in for the kill.
I closed my eyes.
Please, God. Do something quick!
I imagined a lightning bolt descending from heaven, ripping through the roof, and frying the spot between Mr. Tate and Mom. Closer to Mr. Tate’s side, of course.
Right then, Carrie screamed from the family room. “Quick!
Something’s wrong with Zachary!”
Mom jumped to her feet, following Mr. Tate down to the family room. The timing was miraculous.
Thanks, God, you did it.
I ran to see what could possibly be wrong with Mr. Tate’s spoiled brat.
SECRET SUMMER DREAMS
I sat at the top of the family room steps observing the situation. What
was
wrong with Zachary?
“Call the hospital,” Mr. Tate told Mom. She snatched up the phone, punching the numbers as fast as she could. Carrie looked on fearfully as Mr. Tate carried Zach to the couch. He felt his face, then took his pulse. Zachary’s face was a chalky white.
I inched my way down the stairs to the bottom. The minute Mom was off the phone I asked, “What’s wrong?”
Mom ignored my question. Instead, she hurried to Zach’s side. “The doctor wants to see him, Mike.” She stroked Zach’s head.
In one swift move Mr. Tate picked Zach up, blanket and all. I moved aside as they rushed past me up the steps. Carrie and I followed them to the living room.
Mom stood in the doorway peering out as Mr. Tate put his kid in the car. “I wonder if I shouldn’t follow them down to the hospital,” she said, thinking out loud.
“I wanna go, too,” Carrie pleaded.
“All right, get your jacket. Hurry.” Mom flew to her room to get her coat and purse.
Seconds later the back door banged behind them, and suddenly the house was still. I stood alone in the kitchen. “Mr. bald Michael
Tate—dissipate…evaporate!” I said out loud. Then I made up another rhyme.
“One-three-five, four-six-eight,
Dirty dishes, you can wait.
Peace and quiet, no Mike Tate.
Hey! It’s time to celebrate!”
I ran to the freezer and pulled out a carton of strawberry ice cream. If Zach was as sick as he looked, no chance would Mom be dating Mr. Tate for at least a week. I didn’t need a degree in medicine to see that
this
was no twenty-four-hour flu. With Mr. Tate out of the picture that long, I’d have time to work on Mom. Getting her to say yes to a California visit was my top priority.
Halfway through my ice-cream binge, the phone rang. “Hello?”
I said.
“Holly?” It was Danny Myers! “Are you going to the youth group skating party on Friday?” he asked almost shyly.
“I’m going,” I said, excited.
“Great. Then I’ll see you there, okay?” he said. “Catch you later. Bye.”
Just like that, he hung up. I stood staring at the phone. I wondered if he’d hung up so quickly with his former girlfriend, Alissa. She’d moved away a month before choir tour. Last I heard, Danny wrote her letters occasionally. But they were basically just friends now.
I reached for the phone to call Andie. “Guess what?” I said when she answered.
“Hmm, let’s see.”
“C’mon, Andie. Guess.”
“You’re back with Jared?” she teased.
“Get it right…it’s something fabulous.”
“Yes,” she shouted into the phone. “Danny called you?”
“About Friday night,” I said.
“Did he ask if you were going?”
“Yep. And he said he’d see me there. It’s cool to know he cares whether I’m coming, even though it’s not a date. Mom wouldn’t let me go if it were,” I said. “I have to be lots older before I can go on a real date.”
“Me too,” said Andie. “Unless someone extra special comes along, then I can crash the dating scene early.”
“
My
mother will never change her mind.”
“She might approve of Danny Myers if she met him,” Andie said. “Get her to drive us Friday night. You could introduce him then.”
I tugged on my hair. “If Zachary Tate gets over the flu by then, she’ll probably have her own date.”
“Which is something Jared won’t have,” Andie said, snickering. “He’s stuck. Can’t get anyone to go with him.”
“Thanks to us.” I felt proud of protecting the rest of the Dressel Hills female population from the likes of two-timing Wilkins. “As Grandma Meredith would say, ‘He’s cooked his goose.’ ”
“That’s for sure,” Andie agreed.
After we hung up, I went downstairs to read a new mystery I’d borrowed from the school library.
An hour and a half later, Mom and Carrie arrived home. Carrie looked worried. Mom looked exhausted.
“How’s Zachary?” I asked.
“He’s hanging tough,” Mom said, tossing her purse onto the bar. “They’ll keep him for a couple days while the doctors try out some new medication.” Before I could ask what was wrong with him, Mom headed for the stairs. Guess she didn’t want to talk much about Zachary—at least not tonight.
Tuesday after school, I confronted Mom about my California trip.
“Holly, I’m not interested in having this conversation now.” She was sitting at the dining room table, sipping her peppermint tea, trying to unwind. “Let’s talk about it later, okay?”
I asked her again, during supper. I was actually enjoying supper for a change, minus Mr. Tate.
“Holly, you’re starting to bug me about this,” Mom said.
“But you said we’d talk later,” I whined. “It’s important to me.”
She sighed. “Your father’s lifestyle is much different from ours.”
“How do you know?” I put my fork down, eager for an answer.
“I keep in touch with Grandma Meredith. She’s told me she’s concerned that he’s still not a Christian.”
“Well, I’m concerned, too, but I don’t see why I can’t visit him just because of that.”
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Los Angeles isn’t exactly the best place for a young girl to spend the summer.”
“I won’t
be
in L.A. Daddy’s house is on the beach west of there.”
“Well, blame it on the beach crowd, then,” she said as she reached for the basket of rolls. “Your father will be gone at work most of the time. Who knows what could happen?”
“You don’t trust me, is that it?”
“Why don’t you do something for me, Holly?” she said, buttering her roll. “Think about your decision for the next month or so. Maybe by then you’ll feel differently.”
Change my mind? She had to be kidding.
“Aren’t you just hoping I’ll forget about this?” I demanded.
“Of course not.” But she avoided meeting my eyes and started fussing over Carrie not having had enough to eat.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered. “Right.”
Mom was wrong to put me off this way. It was a lousy scheme to delay my all-important decision. A month or so, she said? Well, in thirty days I’d be back with zillions of reasons why I should go. At least that many.
Wednesday night, Andie and I did homework at
her
house. Andie called it the great Tate-break, even though Mr. Tate was at his own house taking care of Zachary. The kid was on some new medicine. Maybe he was allergic to penicillin, like Andie’s twin brothers. Mom didn’t say much about it. We had sort of an unspoken pact going: She wouldn’t talk about Mr. Tate and Zachary around me, and I wouldn’t talk about Dad and going to California around her.
At Andie’s, I helped her with plot ideas for the creative writing assignment in English. She decided to go with my suggestion: the raft trip. While she started her first draft, I multiplied twenty-four hours times the days remaining till Friday. Skate night.
After school the next day, Jared was still scrounging for a girl to meet him at the skating party. Poor, pitiful thing.
Andie baited him. “What about asking the Miller twins? You
do
know Paula and Kayla, don’t you?”
Jared’s eyes lit up.
“They moved here from Philadelphia. Same place my uncle and cousins live,” I said.
“I heard their dad was stressed out back East and quit his executive job to live in our small town,” Andie added.
“That’s right,” I said. “Uncle Jack suggested they move to our peaceful, stress-free ski village.”
“How old are these girls?” Jared asked.
“Eighth grade,” I said. “Think they’d want to hang around a lowly sevey like you?”
Jared leaned on my locker. “I could make them forget my school grade,” he said, grinning.
“Fat chance,” Andie said.
“So which one of you wants to introduce me?” he asked.
Andie whispered behind my locker door, “He doesn’t have a chance! I already filled them in on him.”
“Andie, you’re wicked,” I said, straightening the books in my locker.
“Says who?” She slammed her locker shut.
Jared shifted his books. “Girls, I’m waiting.”
“Give up,” Andie said. “You’re on your own.” We turned away, leaving Jared in the dust.