Making Out (9 page)

She slid into the Volvo beside Luke and immediately smelled his aftershave. It was nice, so different from his sweaty smell in the mornings when they were running cross country.

“Kazanjian, you look amazing,” Luke said, staring as she crossed her long legs.

“Thanks. You smell good.”

“I hope you like Thai food,” Luke said. “This place we're going has a bunch of different Asian things, but the Thai dishes are really awesome.”

“Basil rolls it is,” Marianna said happily.

When they got to the café, the place was empty and quiet—the music didn't start till later. Perfect, Marianna thought. This way they could camp out in the best corner booth, which was more like a tropical hut, draped with printed Thai silk fabrics and layered with red and purple spangled pillows. If the place had been crowded, they'd never have gotten such a prime location.

Luke ordered an appetizer sampler platter, and when it came, he ate the prawn pancakes expertly with chopsticks.

“I love watching you eat,” he said between bites. “You're not like a lot of girls. They either won't eat, or won't admit they enjoy it.”

“You should see me eat a lobster with my bare hands,” Marianna said.

“With your bare hands?”

“My uncle Oscar taught me how to do it,” Marianna said. “You can even get the meat out of the claws with nothing more than a dinner knife, if you know how.”

“See what I mean? A girl who eats lobster with her bare hands!” Luke announced loudly to the neighboring tables.

Marianna giggled. She would have been embarrassed, but the nearby tables were empty, so no one noticed.

“Everything here is delicious,” Marianna said, and meant it in more ways than one.

By the time the band started playing, it was ten o'clock. Marianna had promised herself that she wouldn't get nervous and start acting like she was going to turn into a pumpkin, but she couldn't help it. Even though she was theoretically having dinner with her friends at the mall, she knew her dad would grill her when she got home. How come you're so late? Doesn't the mall close at nine? Why didn't you eat earlier?

He'd want to make sure that they hadn't run into any opportunities to rub up against boys.

Just to spite him, she scooted closer to Luke. She turned her face up toward his. He bent his head and kissed her softly.

Mmm. His kisses were wonderful.

When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her questioningly. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” It was a lie.

“You're worried about your dad?”

How did he know? He was amazing. He could even read her mind.

“Sort of.”

“Let's go, then,” Luke said.

He took her hand, and they walked to his car without saying anything. The spring night air felt soft on her face. She looked up through the trees on Connecticut Avenue and tried to find some stars, but there weren't any.

“I'll show you a good place to see stars,” Luke said, pulling her closer to him while they walked to the car.

He turned on an oldies station in the car, and they drove for a while in silence. Even this part was nice, just riding in Luke's car, letting him decide where to go. He crossed the bridge over the Potomac and parked facing the river, just a few miles from her house.

“Come here,” he said, pulling her toward him.

Making out with Luke in his car, with the cool night air blowing in the windows and the lights from the Jefferson Memorial sparkling across the way . . . Who needed to see stars, anyway?

Luke kissed her on the mouth, then the neck. Marianna thought she might melt.

He stopped before she was ready to. “I've got to get you home,” he said.

Marianna fought the urge to say, “No, you don't.”

When they reached her street, he stopped the car again, a few houses away, so her dad wouldn't see who was bringing her home.

“Listen,” he said. “I've got to say this. I want to take you to the prom.”

Wow. She'd been hoping he'd ask, even though she couldn't possibly say yes.

“I'd love to,” she said, apologizing with her eyes, “but my dad will never let me go with a date. I had to beg for two weeks—and Lisa Marie's parents had to call him three times!—before he'd even let me go to the prom with girlfriends.”

“I figured,” Luke said. “But I want to be there with you. Who cares if I don't pick you up? You can meet me there, and it'll still be a date.”

“Yeah?” Marianna said, glowing.

“I'll even bring you a corsage,” Luke promised, pulling her close for one last kiss.

Marianna floated from the car to her front door. She couldn't believe it! She had a date for the prom with the sweetest guy on earth.

 

 

 

 

“We've got to hook her up,” Marianna told Lisa Marie at lunch on Monday, while Heather was at the salad bar getting blue cheese dressing to put on the salad she'd brought from home.

“I know. I don't want to dump her the minute we get there, but . . .”

“Totally,” Marianna agreed. “She needs someone to hang with. What about Derrick?”

“Oh, please. She can't stand him.”

“How about Ahmad?”

“He's too short for her.”

“Michael Frenkel?”

“Can't dance.”

“Well, think! Who else is there? Although I admit it's going to be rough, since you've got half the senior class planning to meet
you
.”

Lisa Marie blushed but decided to ignore that one. “How about Tony? I still say it's Tony. She likes him.”

“Who likes who?” Heather asked, coming back with her perfectly arranged salad of apples, walnuts, jicama, edamame, and gorgonzola on oak leaf lettuce.

“We're trying to think of someone for you to be with at the prom,” Lisa Marie said almost defensively. “And I say Tony is the perfect guy.”

“Not again.” Heather rolled her eyes. “I thought we went over this.”

“We did, and we agreed you're giving up too easily,” Marianna said. “How about Max Snow? He's not going with anyone.”

Heather sighed. “Honestly, you should give up on trying to find someone for me. You can both go off with your guys, and I'll be fine.”

“Don't be silly. We'd never just abandon you. Come on, think. We made a list last week. Who was on it? Max Snow, Eric Sandberg, Tony . . . Oooh! I know! How about one of the Marshall twins?”

“How about both of them?” Heather joked.

“Whatever floats your boat,” Marianna said with a shrug before she realized that Heather was totally kidding.

Come on, Heather,
Marianna thought.
You're not even trying. It's one thing to be shy, but you've got to make at least
some
effort to get what you want in life.

Heather took two bites of her salad. “Mmm,” she said. “Extra blue cheese. I love when it's lumpy.”

She was barely participating in this conversation. Marianna and Lisa Marie were having to work twice as hard.

“Tony's the best choice,” Lisa Marie concluded. “He's not attached, and I
know
you like him. I saw you talking to him in the publications office last week.”

“Really?” Marianna latched on to that piece of info real quick.

Okay, so maybe it was a little bit self-serving to be trying to hook Heather up for the prom, but she was doing it as a favor, too. Somebody had to help Heather get past whatever was keeping her from having a social life. “When was this?”

Heather was chewing.

“Come on—details,” Marianna demanded.

“Umm, the lit mag people were working on the final issue last week, and I was doing layout for the yearbook,” Heather explained. “Someone asked Tony to do a spot illustration for the mag . . . he didn't know what size to make it . . . I helped him figure it out. That's all.”

“You were laughing and having a good time,” Lisa Marie pointed out. “I saw you.”

“He's funny,” Heather admitted.

Lisa Marie and Marianna waited expectantly for her to elaborate. God, this was like pulling teeth.

“He's got a dry sense of humor,” Heather explained. “Margo was asking everyone where to get a decent pair of jeans. Everyone knows she dresses kind of slutty, so Tony mutters, ‘I'd have thought you'd want an indecent pair.' ”

Marginally funny, but whatever.

“You had to be there,” Heather said when neither of them laughed much.

“Well, so, talk to him some more,” Lisa Marie encouraged. “He sounds perfect for you. Really.”

Heather shrugged and got up to get more salad dressing.

The minute she was out of sight, Marianna reached across Lisa Marie and dug into Heather's purse.

“What are you doing?” Lisa Marie was shocked.

“I'm looking for her cell phone,” Marianna said quickly. “I happen to know she's going to be in the pub office today after school . . . and I think Tony should be there, too.” She found the phone and dug the St. Claire's student directory out of her own backpack to look up Tony's number. Then she quickly sent Tony a text message from Heather. It said: “Meet me. Pub office. After school.”

“Hurry. She's heading back here!” Lisa Marie warned.

Marianna slipped the phone back into Heather's purse just in time.

“Someone took all the chunks.” Heather pouted at the dribble of blue cheese dressing on her salad plate.

Poor Heather. Why couldn't she get herself focused on what was important in life—like the prom? If she didn't work a little harder, she was going to end up spending the whole night alone.

Luckily, she had two good friends to handle the details for her.

“The sports section is a mess.” Marty Alexander, the editor of the yearbook, leaned over Heather's shoulder in the pub office that afternoon and looked at the pages in front of her. Behind them, the yearbook staff was bustling around like crazy. The final sections of the book had to go to the printer in three days.

Heather had laid out the sports section in Quark and printed out PDFs of the pages. Now she had the printouts spread in front of her on a big table.

“Well, we can't start with lacrosse—it's too marginal,” Heather argued. “That's why I put basketball up front.”

“But if we start with basketball, it looks like we're sidelining the other sports,” Marty explained. “Makes it look like we have a pecking order.”

“We do,” Heather said with a laugh. “Fess up. Why else did we put theater and dance in the front of the book, and all the sports in the back?”

“Because we hate the jocks?” Marty offered.

“
Hate
's a strong word,” Heather scolded.

“Yeah, you're right. More like utterly despise because we're intimidated by their big muscles,” Marty said.

Heather laughed. “So what do you want me to do? You're the editor. It's your call.”

Marty thought for a minute. “Put the cross-country team first,” he decided. “Use a huge photo of Marianna. That way everyone will think you're just playing favorites with your friends, and the heat'll be off me.”

“That's not fair.”

“Cry me a river,” Marty said. “It's my call, remember?”

He meant it, too.

Oh, whatever,
Heather thought. She didn't really care about the sports section anyway, and it would be cool to use a big picture of Marianna.

She sat back down at the computer and started rearranging the pages.

“Hi,” a voice behind her said.

Heather turned her head slightly, still staring at the monitor with one eye and clicking things with her mouse. Finally she looked up.

It was Tony. He hopped up onto the table beside her.

“Hi,” she said absently, wondering what he was doing there. The lit mag had sent their stuff off to the printer a few days ago.

“I got your text message,” Tony said. “Why did you want to see me?”

Text message?
Heather shook her head slightly.

“I didn't send you one. You must be confused.”

Tony reached into his tight black jeans and took out his cell phone. His all-black outfit—jeans, T-shirt, boots—set off his smooth, pale skin and blue eyes. Heather thought he looked like a postmodern painting.

“I'm not confused. This is your cell number, isn't it?” He showed her the text message.

Heather studied the phone and then saw what time the message was sent—during lunch that day.