Jane Austen Girl (12 page)

But then that was crazy, wasn’t it? Because this morning during every minute of sitting in that room, all she had wanted was to get up and run, as far and as fast as she could from the whole thing.

A horn tooted behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Kyle idling up in his rattly old Ford pickup. He leaned across the seat and rolled down the window.

“Hey, Andy! What are you doing?”

“Walking. What does it look like?”

“You’re in the middle of town. Barefoot. In an evening dress.”

“It’s not an evening dress,” she said.

“Cocktail dress. Whatever. Where have you been?”

“None of your business.”

He revved the engine and rolled on ahead, then pulled over at an angle, swinging the door open. “Get in,” he said. “We’ll go get ice cream.”

“I don’t want any ice cream.”

“You always want ice cream.”

“I don’t want any now.”

“Andy, come on, get in.”

She glanced over her shoulder, saw her mother’s convertible pulling up behind them, and said, “Go! Go!”

“What is wrong with you?” Kyle said, eyeing the low neckline of her dress and then jerking his gaze up when she gave him a pointed look. “Where have you been?” he asked.

“At the Inn,” she said. “Can you just go?”

He gunned the truck, and they took off. “Don’t tell me you were there for that stupid George, Duke of—”

“Stop!” she said.

He started to laugh. “You really entered that, Andy?”

“It’s none of your business whether I entered it or not.”

“Are you kidding me? You? Why in the world would you care about some ridiculous date with a—”

“A date with a duke sounds like a pretty good thing to me right about now,” Andy said.

“Since when?” he said.

“Since you became such a jerk?”

“Andy. Ever since I started playing football—”

“You don’t have time for anything you used to have time for.”

“I lift weights and run track so I don’t get out of shape.”

“And hang out with the cheerleaders,” Andy said.

“You’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Andy, I asked you to come to the games last fall.”

“I didn’t want to come to the games. I hate football.”

“Well, I need a scholarship for college. Unlike you, mine’s not paid for.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair. You haven’t picked up on that yet.”

They glared at each other, while Andy swam in a pool of mixed emotions. Fondness for the boy she had known since she was six years old and the first day of kindergarten. Frustration for the jock he had become since school had started in the fall and he’d become such a big football star. Whatever it was they’d been to each other all these years was no longer there. And it was just high time they both accepted it.

A car laid on the horn behind them.

Andy glanced back to see her mother barreling down on them.

“My mom’s still behind us. Go! I don’t want to talk to her right now.”

Kyle swung a right on Cherry Street, hit the gas and the old truck shuddered once, then bolted forward. He hung a left on Amherst Way. Andy glanced back. Her mother had missed the turn.

“Yay,” she said, sinking back against the seat.

“So why are you running from your mom?”

“Because she makes me crazy,” Andy said.

“A person could call you Sybil where she’s concerned.”

Andy shrugged at this. “It is kind of like that.”

“What did your dad say about you going to that thing?”

“What do you think he said?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter what he said.”

“Since when?”

“Since I decided it’s time I grew up.”

He looked at her and then said, “Why don’t we go to a movie tomorrow night?”

“I’m sure you already have plans with your cheerleader friends.”

“I don’t have plans. If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, now that you think I might be going out with a duke, you’re all hot after me.”

He laughed. “Who says you’re gonna win?”

“I say I’m gonna win. And for your information, I’m busy tomorrow night.”

Kyle turned into her driveway. The brakes squeaked. “I’ll get out here,” Andy said, popping open the door.

“I can drive you up, Andy,” Kyle began.

“No need. See you, Kyle,” she said, hopping out and walking barefoot down the paved road. She had to try her very hardest not to look back.

“Winners, I am convinced, imagine their dreams first. They want it with all their heart and expect it to come true. There is, I believe, no other way to live.” 

–
Kyle Summers’ favorite Joe Montana quote

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kyle turned off the engine to the Jeep and let it coast down the gravel driveway, flicking off the headlights just before he rounded the curve to the trailer.

It was late, after eleven now. His dad would have fallen asleep hours ago in the recliner chair where he’d spent every night in front of the TV for as long as Kyle could remember, watching shows guaranteed to rot the brain. He rolled to a stop next to his dad’s truck and pushed in the parking brake.

He dropped his head against the back of the seat. He dreaded going inside. Dreaded his dad waking up and asking where he’d been. It was the same question he asked every time Kyle came home. A question they both knew the answer to. It didn’t matter where he was as long as it wasn’t here.

Blowing out a sigh, he opened the door and slid out, crossing the mostly dirt yard to the trailer door. Through a window, he saw his dad in the chair, wished that for once he could make it to his room without waking him.

He turned the knob and slowly pulled the door open. The hinge squeaked, and his dad sat upright, shaking himself awake. “Kyle. What time is it?”

“Six or so.”

His dad stared at him for a moment, then raised the chair to an upright position. “I must have dozed off.” He still wore the blue Dickey pants and shirt he wore each day to the textile factory where he’d worked for the past twenty years. His hair, once as dark as Kyle’s, had gone mostly gray while Kyle was still in elementary school. It seemed like one day, all of a sudden, his dad had just become old, his shoulders no longer straight, but stooped. His skin wrinkling like balled up tissue paper.

“You had dinner?”

“I’m not hungry,” Kyle said, sure there wasn’t anything in the frig even if he had been.

“All right, then.”

“Got some studying to do,” Kyle said, catching the scent of b.o. as he walked by his dad’s chair. He wondered how many days it had been since he’d showered. A feeling of disgust rolled up inside him. Kyle pushed it back and headed down the short hallway to his room at the end of the sixty-five foot trailer.

He closed the thin, fake wood door behind him, flicked on the lamp next to his twin bed. The dark paneled walls were covered with posters of football heroes, Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana and Eli Manning. Today’s heroes didn’t do much for him. It was the legends that interested him. Because that’s what he wanted to be one day. A legend.

On a rectangular table in the far corner of the room sat the trophies he’d won throughout his years of sandlot football, then junior varsity and now varsity.

He stood there against the door, thinking about his dad’s apathy. There had never been anything momentous that Kyle could pinpoint as a single cause. Instead, as he’d gotten older, he’d come to see in his dad something that terrified him more than a physical disease ever could have. Defeat. His dad had given up. Let life beat him. Finally admitted that he was never going to get ahead. The hill had gotten too steep, and he’d just stopped trying to climb it altogether.

It was this realization that made Kyle wonder sometimes if he would ever really have another life. If he would struggle like a fish on the end of a hook, until, like his dad, he just one day gave up and accepted his fate.

Not if he could help it. There were things he wanted in this world. Things he intended to have. And at the top of the list was respect. Respect for himself. And the respect of other people. Neither of which he’d ever seen in his dad.

Kyle shoved out of his clothes, then went to the bathroom next to his room and took a hot shower. When he sat down at the desk he’d put together out of milk crates and an old table top, he picked up his cell phone and texted Andy.
Don’t like it when you’re mad at me.

He waited a few moments, and when there was no reply, he tossed the phone on his bed, and opened his science book.

But he couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking about Andy and how great she’d looked in that cocktail dress. . . evening dress. . .whatever the heck it was called. She never wore things like that. And even though he felt like he’d been looking at someone other than Andy, his heart kicked up a notch at the memory of her in it.

Andy was the only real friend he’d ever had. The one person he’d shown all his emotional baggage to, piece by piece, until he’d thought for sure she’d back off big time. Not want anything to do with him.

He thought about her happiness when she’d told him about the interview for that show. He’d been a jerk. There was pretty much no other word for it.

But a date with a duke? How real could that be? Andy was so much better than something like that. He wondered sometimes if she could even see it, though.

All through elementary school and junior high, he and Andy had been best friends. Their friendship was the one thing in his life he knew he could count on, and he valued it above everything else.

But then last year, things had started to change. Andy didn’t seem as comfortable around him. He’d started to think maybe she was bored with him. And then this whole dating thing. Part of him felt like he ought to be able to talk to her about the girls he went out with. And part of him didn’t think it felt right at all.

With the beginning of this school year, she’d started to pull away from him. Just little things at first. Not meeting him at their lockers in between classes. Not sitting together at lunch. Not studying together after school. And then not having time to get together on the weekend.

It was like they were standing on opposite sides of a canyon that kept moving farther and farther apart. Sometimes, it felt like even if he shouted, she could no longer hear him.

He slapped the book closed and blew out a heavy sigh. He wanted what they used to have back.

He’d start tomorrow with an apology. And as for that stupid show? He’d be her biggest supporter. Because wasn’t that what friends did? Supported each other. Even when you didn’t always agree on what they were going after.

By some accounts, a man gets exactly what he deserves in this life.

Words of wisdom from Bobby
Jack’s
 father
on the day he died

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Bobby Jack met Andy at the door.

“Where have you been?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

Andy refrained from rolling her eyes. “Kyle brought me home, Daddy.”

“Can’t he actually drive you up to the house?”

“I wanted to walk.”

Bobby Jack ignored the sass in her voice. “Why did you leave the Inn without telling your mama?”

She gave him a look.

“You should have told her where you were going.”

“Sorry,” she said, even though her tone clearly said she wasn’t.

She started up the steps, but he stopped her with, “So, how did it go?”

“What do you care?” she asked.

“Andy—”

“It went fine. I made the first cut. I don’t know about the second yet. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“That’s not fair. I never said I wanted you to lose.”

“All but.”

“No, I don’t want you getting your hopes up over some silly date with a royal jerk. What kind of duke needs to get a date that way, anyway?”

She didn’t answer, disappearing at the top of the stairs.

“Andy,” he called out, “did you forget Darryl Lee and the kids are coming over tonight?”

“No, I didn’t forget,” she tossed back.

“I’m getting the grill started. We need to get some tomatoes and onions cut up for the burgers.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

Bobby Jack sighed and headed for the kitchen.
Yes, Daddy
used to sound so sweet to him. Now it sounded like
Whatever, Buzz-Kill
.

The cookout hadn’t been his idea. In fact, it was the last thing he wanted to do, considering his current level of aggravation with his brother. But he’d hoped it might cheer Andy up. She loved her cousins, and they thought she all but walked on water.

He glanced at his watch. And they would be here in fifteen minutes.

He got busy pulling dishes from the cabinets, locating some napkins, forks and knives, pulling a case of Coke from the pantry. The doorbell rang. He frowned. It wasn’t like Darryl Lee to be early for anything, but he guessed there could be a first time.

All the way to the front door, he warned himself against getting into it with his brother.

But it wasn’t Darryl Lee and the boys standing on his front porch. It was Grier McAllister.

“Hi,” she said, holding up a familiar looking purse and looking awkward in a way he didn’t imagine she often did. “Andy left this in the meeting room at the Inn. I thought she might need it.”

He took it from her, words tangling on the end of his tongue. “Thanks,” he finally managed. “Did you want to see her?”

“That’s not necessary. I just thought I would drop it off.”

“Okay, then. Thanks again.”

Footsteps clattered down the stairs behind him.

Andy bulldozed her way in between him and the doorframe. “Ms. McAllister! What are you doing here?”

Grier smiled. “You left your purse at the Inn. I just dropped it off.”

Bobby Jack swung the purse in front of Andy.

She smacked at it. “Daddy!”

Grier’s smile grew.

“Thank you,” Andy said, looking embarrassed.

“You’re welcome,” Grier said, opening the car door and starting to get in.