How to Meet Boys (17 page)

“Aren’t you worried about traffic?” Jackson asked.

I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. The image of my mother in her perfect dress and her perfect veil getting blown around by a semi going past was impossible not to laugh at.

Even my mother had to smile. “Not that kind of bridge, no—one in a park, or maybe by the lake, something that goes from the lake to the shore.”

“I think there’s one at the Beach Club,” said Jackson. “People use it for portraits, like senior pictures and stuff.”

“Mom, I hope you don’t mean you want to get married at the Bridgeport Beach Club,” I said. “I’m sure they’re booked solid.”

“No, nothing so traditional as that. I have a few other ideas.”

“Great,” I said. “Can’t wait to hear them.” And hear them and hear them and hear them.

“Oh, I just knew you’d be on board with this. Well, I’m off to make some plans. I’ll see you later!” She touched my shoulder, gave a little flounce, and headed out the door.

Jackson and I looked at each other. “Well. That was strange,” he commented.

“For her? Clearly you remember my mother?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. “I mean, not like that. She made good cookies. That’s about all I remember. Your house always had the best snacks. Plus you had a nice minivan.” He laughed. “Remember the time we went to the movies with about ten other people and we all fit into the van?”

“I think it was fifteen people and breaking the law,” I said, laughing.

“So, uh, when did your parents get divorced?”

“About two years ago,” I said. “Tons of fun.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. My family’s had some pretty bad times lately, too.” He had a faraway look in his eyes. I wanted to ask him about it, but my mom barged back in, tote bag over her arm.

“Back already?” I asked.

“I forgot to ask where your charming little place is. Do you think I could go by and drop off some of my things or would that wake up Mikayla? She doesn’t work the night shift, does she?”

“She’s at a club, Mom, not a factory. What are you dropping off—stuff for the house, like we talked about?” I’d texted Mom a wish list of the things we needed.

“Oh, no. Just my luggage,” she said, holding out her smartphone to me. “Punch in the address, would you?”

My finger hesitated above the screen. “Mom, why are you bringing your bags to the cabin? Why aren’t you staying at Nana and Grandpa’s? They have a lot more room.”

“It’s just for tonight,” she said. “I want to make sure you girls are squared away safely for the rest of the summer. Later!”

My mom had promised me I could be on my own this summer; it was one of the main reasons I’d come here—to become more independent and less involved in her daily drama. Now she’d followed me here? With
luggage
?

Great. My mom was moving to town. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing about this summer was going the way I’d planned.

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The second I got released from
work, I raced outside and dived into the cold lake—even though no one else was around to go with me. I’d had such a long, hot day teaching tennis and doing a bike ride with the older kids. I felt like I could have scraped the dried salt off my skin.

I dived under the surface, feeling my hair fan out behind me, staying submerged long enough to truly cool down. Was it just me, or was the lake getting warmer as the summer went on? Or was I building up a tolerance, the way I did every winter to the frigid temperatures?

When I walked out of the lake, Jackson was standing on the beach. I couldn’t have imagined a better sight at that moment. He had on a faded red T-shirt with long khaki shorts, and his face lit up as I got closer, his mouth widening into a smile. But at the same time something seemed a little restrained about him, like he had something on his mind he needed to share. We usually greeted each other with a big hug, but he didn’t look like he wanted that right now.

“Hey. What are you doing here? I thought you had to be at work at five thirty.” I picked up the towel I’d left by my shoes and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“I got someone to sub for me tonight,” he said.

I rubbed my wet hair with the towel, feeling a little nervous about his subdued tone. “You’re kidding—that’s great! So instead of meeting at eleven, we can meet now? What should we do? You want to—”

But Jackson was shaking his head. “Nah, it’s not what you think.”

“It’s not?” I pressed the towel against my face. I’d been looking forward to seeing him all day. In fact, I think I’d actually started looking forward to it the day before. This didn’t sound good, for some reason. I started to think about Ava’s warnings. Was this when he turned back into the Jackson that Lucy knew—and dumped me?

“I can’t meet you tonight. Like, at all.” Jackson scuffed at the sand with his shoe. He wasn’t making much eye contact. All of my warning signals were going off inside. My heart sank, like a rock in the lake. Down . . . down . . . nearing bottom.

“Why can’t you?” I asked. I might have a problem initially talking to boys, but I had no problem sticking up for myself—no matter who I was talking to. I needed to learn why he was blowing off our plans.

“It’s kind of a long story,” he said.

“So . . . tell it to me,” I urged. I wasn’t about to settle for the “long story” story. That didn’t tell me anything!

“You know how I’m living with my grandparents,” Jackson said. “Well, my older brother is here, too. I need to hang out with him tonight.”

Jackson hadn’t talked much about his older brother. I wasn’t sure how close they actually were. “Oh. Well, I could tag along,” I suggested.

He shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t want you to.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Why not?” I asked. “I have brothers. It’s not like I don’t know—”

“You
don’t
know,” Jackson said coldly. Then he touched my arm. “Sorry—I’m sorry.”

“Do you not want him to meet me?” I asked. “That’s pretty insulting.”

“No—I didn’t mean that. This is coming out all wrong.” Jackson ran his hands through his hair. “I’m just stressed out. He makes me so frustrated and I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Sorry.” He reached for my hands. “He’s just . . . He can’t be alone right now. Listen, I promise I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’ll call you later. And I’ll make it up to you next week, when we go to the carnival, watch fireworks . . ”

“That all sounds great,” I said, squeezing his hand. Whatever was going on with his brother, it didn’t sound good. “I didn’t know there was a carnival in town. You like rides, don’t you?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jackson said. “I once won a new bike by staying on a rollercoaster longer than anyone else—”

“How long?”

“Thirteen and a half hours,” Jackson said.

“Wow.” I stood back in admiration. “I don’t know if I
have
that much time.”

Jackson laughed. “You know what? Ten minutes ago I was miserable. You know how to get me to loosen up.”

“Anytime,” I said. “Just promise you’ll get me a cotton candy. And a funnel cake.”

“You’re too sweet.” Jackson ran his fingers through my hair. “No. Seriously.” He put his hands on my shoulders, like he was telling me something serious. “Your sweet tooth is out of control.”

“What? It is not,” I said, pushing against his chest with the palm of my hand.

“How about that blueberry pie at the diner? You had your piece and mine,” Jackson said. “And then there’s the Midge’s Ice Cream incident. You single-handedly ate a banana split.”

“I went for a really long run that morning,” I said. “Ten miles!”

“I’m just saying. You have a bit of a sweet tooth.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“No, it’s no problem.” He pulled me toward him. “Nothing you do is a problem. Well. Except maybe the fact you haven’t invited me over yet. You do have your own place.”

“Not exactly,” I said. I smiled nervously. Yeah,
that
wasn’t going to happen for quite some time.

When I got back to the cabin half an hour later, Lucy was sitting at the kitchen counter. We quickly said hi, and then I started to head for my room. Then I stopped. This was it. My chance to really talk with her. Ava was at work, so we had the house to ourselves.
Then again
, I thought,
maybe we ought to go for a walk—neutral territory and all.
We could get everything out in the open. “Lucy?” I asked. “Do you maybe—”

“You need a new soap dispenser.” Lucy’s mom rounded the corner from the hallway into the living room. “Mikayla!” she cried. “How are you? You don’t mind a new roommate, do you?”

“M—Mrs. Carpenter?” I said. “It’s nice to see you. I didn’t know you were coming,” I said, turning to Lucy. But she didn’t make eye contact. Normally she’d have texted me about this eighty-five times by now, asking for help and advice. But I hadn’t heard a word from her all day. Was she giving me the silent treatment, or what?

“I’ve been really busy,” she said, leafing through one of the magazines. “Slipped my mind.”

“Oh, Lucy. Be honest. Mikayla,
she
didn’t even know I was coming until today. It was an impulse decision,” Mrs. Carpenter said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “So thanks for letting me stay here.”

“You’re staying here?” I repeated.

“Don’t worry. Boy, the panic in your eyes! It’s just for a night.” She winked at me. “I know you’re a bit crowded in here, and you need your space. So how’s your summer going?”

“Um, fine,” I said.

“This little house has a certain cozy charm, doesn’t it?” she commented.

I looked at Lucy and tried not to laugh, remembering her saying that’s just how her mom would describe it. I thought I saw a hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth, but she just kept flipping through the magazine on the counter. “I love the deck. I thought we could grill out tonight.”

“Mom, we don’t have a grill,” said Lucy.

“Oh. Well, maybe we’ll get takeout, then. You’ll have to excuse us, Mikayla, but we have a lot of planning to do.” Mrs. Carpenter flipped through an issue of
Midwest Bride
magazine. “I thought this one would have some good ideas for outdoor receptions. What do you think of this trellis?”

“Wedding stuff? I can help,” I said. “Hand me some of those magazines.”

Lucy begrudgingly slid a stack of three fat bridal magazines toward me. “Dig in,” she said.

This wasn’t a bad way to spend the night—at all. A couple of weeks ago I would have been completely happy to hang out with Lucy and her mom, looking at magazines.

But now, sitting here and thinking about Jackson, I felt like I couldn’t concentrate. I wanted to be with him instead.

I slipped my phone out and sent him a short text, hoping everything was going okay.

He wrote back seconds later and my phone dinged with an alert:
Should have asked you to come. Miss u.

We exchanged a few more messages, making plans for the next day.

Can we meet later tonight?
he wrote.

Somehow I didn’t think that would go over well, me sneaking out later to meet Jackson. Especially not with Lucy’s mom staying here. When I looked up from responding, Lucy was frowning at me. “That alert is really annoying. Can you turn it off, or not text for two seconds?”

“Sure. Of course.” I thought about what Ava had told me earlier. For whatever reason, and maybe there was more than one, this was really difficult for Lucy to accept. I needed to make sure I wasn’t making it harder.

At the same time, I didn’t want to ignore Jackson when he was having a hard time.

I decided to divide the night in two parts. Right now, I was focusing on Lucy and on not making her even more annoyed with me. I could talk to him later, when I was alone in my room. I slid my phone into my knapsack and zipped the pocket closed.

“So. What kind of stuff are we looking for?” I asked Lucy’s mom.

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I met Mom at Blue Cove Catering
on Monday. The place was on the first floor of a large old house halfway out of town, on the lake. I didn’t see a cove, but people tend to use those descriptions loosely in order to bring in more business. Just like there had never been a blackbird at the Blackbird Café, or the Mafia at Walleye Mafia—at least, not as far as I knew.

We were there to sample food from their menu for her upcoming wedding in Bridgeport—which I hadn’t been able to talk her out of yet, despite trying and trying and trying over the weekend, but I didn’t mind checking out the food options. It was lunchtime and I was starving.

But who was I kidding? The real reason I wanted to go, the real reason I’d even brought up Blue Cove with her, was Gus. Ever since we’d exchanged phone info the other day—okay, let’s call it what it was: our phones kissed—and he’d hung around the store for way too long, I’d felt myself thinking about him more and more. He was so easygoing. And funny. And considerate. And he had these cheekbones that were model-like, and his eyes . . 

I’d been so busy focusing on Jackson and Mikayla that I’d neglected my own life for the past week, not seeing Claire, or going out much with anyone at all, and just mostly moping around at home. I was ready to be done with that. I didn’t know how, exactly, I was supposed to move on. But I was starting to realize that was what I needed to do.

So instead of dropping by his work on my own, I’d had my mother call and arrange an appointment. Slightly chicken of me. I realize that. But if Mom wanted my help, I needed her help just as much.

I kind of thought that Gus liked me, too, but I wasn’t going to get carried away and kiss him or anything, without having a whole lot of proof that it wouldn’t end in disaster.

Mom was waiting for me in the parking lot—she was on the phone, of course. She’d spent the morning racing around Bridgeport like her wedding was tomorrow and she had hair, dress, food, and venue emergencies. (Well, according to her, she actually
did
.) After she wrapped up her latest conversation, we headed up the steps and rang the bell.