Miss Adventure (20 page)

“Lisa!”

Suddenly, Jack was there, in the water with me. His arm wrapped around my waist like an iron vise. “Let go!”

But I was too scared to move, afraid we’d both be washed away. Jack pulled, I held. He poked me in the ribs. In an automatic reflex, I jerked back and Jack hauled me into the current. In a few seconds I felt grit and pebbles scrape the backs of my thighs. Jack was dragging me onto shore. He heaved my body well away from the water, then collapsed beside me.

“Oh…my….God. Oh…my…God. Oh…my…God.” I turned my head to look at him. I breathed and breathed and breathed. “How?” I panted. “How did you get me out of there?”

Jack takes a deep breath. “I walked.”

“What?” Pant, pant, pant. “Like, on water?”

He turned his head toward me then. “The creek’s maybe four feet in the deepest places.”

“But all the rain.”

“It’s usually about a foot deep here.”

This made no sense. I was bested by water no deeper than what’s in an assemble-yourself backyard pool? “How long was I in?”

“About fifteen seconds, before I got to you.”

Fifteen seconds? No way. He had to have meant minutes. Had to.

I opened my mouth to ask him, but my teeth started chattering so hard I was sure my jaw would shatter.

Jack stood up. He walked up the bank about ten yards, retrieved his pack, and came back. He dropped the pack, began stripping off his wet clothes.

Was he serious? He was getting naked after all that?

Once his clothes were off, the removal of which took about three seconds, he bent to the pack, fished out dry clothes. Then he started putting them on. Boxers, jeans, shirt. No socks, though. Mr. Survival Packer forgot socks.

He yanked me to my feet then, and started peeling the clothes off my shivering body. “Sun’s almost down. It’s supposed to drop to forty tonight. It’ll take a little over an hour, but if we race down the mountain, we should make it before you really start freezing. We’ll have to go fast. You’ll have to keep up, Lisa.”

“But t-testing. Y-you st-st-still have your g-gear.”

“Too risky. You have to get warm.”

Once he had me naked, he grabbed his shirt off the ground where it was lying under his jacket. They were both mostly dry, so he must have ripped them off before he jumped–walked–in for me. He started running the shirt over me roughly, drying me off.

“Ow!”

“That’s good that you can feel it.”

Then he grabbed silk long johns out of his pack and helped me into them. Next, he put me into his jacket. Then socks. He did bring socks, after all. Huh. He put each of my feet into a cushy pair of clean, dry socks as thick as slippers. Then he took a pair of shoes out of his pack. They looked like a cross between swim shoes and baseball cleats.

“Put these on.”

As I did, he gathered up all our wet clothes, rung them out, put them in his waterproof pack. He got the gear onto his back, then pulled a flashlight out of somewhere and flicked it on.

“I c-can c-carry something,” I offered.

“Just keep up.”

He grabbed my hand and we were off. My feet slid around, but the shoes stayed on. Branches and thorns snagged at Jack’s coat, but we kept going. Soon, my blood heated up and I moved faster. Jack, feeling my strength returning, picked up the pace. We drove ourselves down the mountain, through brambles, under brush, over logs, across puddles, into mud. It’s like Jack was hopping me through Frogger at warp speed. We cut a direct course down the same mountain we'd spent the day winding our way up.

When we finally got back to the truck, Jack opened my door, hustled me in, scooted around to his side, got in, and blasted the heat.

My body hummed and throbbed. I huffed and puffed.

Jack spared a second to look at me before peeling out. “Are you okay?”

The world came back into focus. “I lost the pack,” I said, tears rolling down my face. “I panicked in the creek. I thought I was drowning. I thought I was being swept away. And it was just a creek, hardly even waist high.” I sniffed and swiped at my cheeks. “You had no idea I would freak out like that. My spaz attack was off the charts. It ruined everything.”

Jack punched the gas, speeding us up. “Lisa, I don’t care about the pack. You DID almost drown. You got scared, and you went under. I should have been ready.”

I sniffled some more.

“Tomorrow,” he said, sounding quiet and very serious, “when you wake up, when this has had some time to sink in, think about forgiving me.”

“Jack, I was in the water less than twenty seconds. You said so yourself. You saved me.” I pulled back to look at him. The heat from the car started seeping through the damp clothes I was wearing. I didn’t forgive him because there was nothing to forgive. But I knew what he wanted to hear. “I forgive you.”

“You don’t get it,” he snapped back. “I took you up there. I should have been taking care of you. Better care. I know you’re a beginner. I know how scared you get.” He sighed. “I forget, Lisa. Sometimes, when I’m with you, I forget. Today on the mountain, you were hell on wheels, taking everything I dished out. I kept making it harder and harder, and you just kept going. I didn’t even care that you ripped your favorite jeans. Those were your Bruce Springsteen jeans, weren’t they? But you kept right on going.”

“You know about my Bruce Springsteen jeans?”

“You told me about them once. I figured this had to be them, when you started crying when you ripped a hole in the knee. But why’d you wear them to go camping in the rain?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn't going to tell him my ass had gotten too big for all my size eights and I had to wear the jeans I'd retired after seeing The Boss when I was a husky teen. “Nice try, Jack,” I said, sniffling. “But I messed up. This is my fault. I’m supposed to be getting braver. I’ve jumped down a hundred-foot waterfall, but I almost killed myself crossing a creek. And you want me to believe it’s your fault because you forgot I was Lisa Flyte? You expect me to believe I tricked you into thinking I was Indiana Jones with a manicure?”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said, not even busting me about the pathetic state of my nails. “Sometimes…” he said, “I forget how different our attitudes are, how you’re not going to react to something the same way I would. I forget that what’s instinct to me makes no sense to you. Sometimes it feels like we’re on the same wavelength, you know? But we’re not. We’re not even on the same planet. Do you get it?” he asked. “I stop thinking about how different we really are, and that’s what causes all the trouble. It’s just plain dangerous.”

* * * * *

The hot water blasts me in the face but the tears keep coming. I’m such a mess. Such a fool. I was going to try to get closer to Jack, to spend an entire night with him. For what? To prove to myself that he wants me in his life, despite what he says?

We’re not even on the same planet
.

I sob harder, making wracking, choking sounds like Claire Danes makes at the end of
Romeo and Juliet
.

Swish
.

The curtain slides back, and Jack steps into the shower behind me.

I sniff and look away. Oh, God. Could he
hear
me? I’m
louder
than the shower? Is he in here because he feels sorry for me?

Without trying to get me to look at him, he picks up the shampoo bottle and squeezes a dollop onto my head. Then he puts those big hands of his in my hair and starts lathering up.

We’re not even on the same planet
.

He slides his sudsy hands down my neck, massaging as he goes. My shoulders. My back.

Maybe he didn’t hear me crying. Maybe he has no idea I’m having a meltdown in his shower. Maybe he just wants to have sex.

He slides his arms around my waist, tucking me close into his body. “You’re all right, Lisa,” he says quietly into my ear. “You’re all right. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

I start to cry again, and he just holds me as the water pelts down on us.

When I get into my cubicle of an office at HEYA Tuesday after class at USC, the phone is ringing.

“Yeah?”

“Hello to you, too,” he chuckles. “So, are we a go?”

Crispin. His voice sounds so up-beat and happy, as if everyone loves him.

“Next week,” I boom, trying to make my voice sound as if I’m smiling. “The investor from Rankin gets back from Detroit next Wednesday, then we all sign on Thursday.”

“Awesome. Want to grab dinner to celebrate?”

“Very slick,” I say, “sliding it in there oh so casually like that. But no. We’ll talk
business
next week.”

“Sounds good.”

He sounds so un-fazed by my rejection that I almost reconsider. Maybe we could skip dinner and just have sex. In a bed.

“Bye.” I hang up quickly, before I destroy the plan to save HEYA with my desperation.

The phone rings again. “What?!”

“I’m working on something. Can you test Saturday, late afternoon into the evening?”

“Jack?”

“To quote you, ‘Duh.’”

“But you just saw me in class,” I splutter. “And you didn’t say a word to me.”

“You didn’t say a word to me either.”

“But I didn’t have anything to say.”

Which is such a big lie. I
really
wanted to tell him he's a terrible person for not even calling me since he dropped me home Saturday night. And for dropping me home in the first place! Mia was there to babysit the pets all night. We could have curled up safe and warm together and slept in his bed.

But what’s the point of regretting what
didn’t
happen, when Jack won’t even acknowledge what
did
. He’s never said a word about the shower. I mean, we were
naked
, and he was
nice
to me. It wasn’t just a quick, post-adventure bonk.

I feel myself blush hotly.

“Neither did I,” Jack says, making me blush harder. “Now I do. Can you test?”

Back to business. “Don’t know,” I answer. “I’ll let you know in class tomorrow.”

* * * * *

In the corner of my beautiful bedroom, as the sun streams through the filmy curtains, I look into the mirror, turning this way and that. Yup. It’s the same from every angle. I’m practically busting out of my Ann Taylor. I reach back to feel my big butt. Damn. I tighten my tummy and stand up as straight as I can, trying to streamline my figure. Who am I kidding? I can’t remember to stand like this all day.

Forty minutes later, I
clip clip clip
on my heels to the classroom to see if Jack is around yet. Nope. I turn away from the door and almost slam right into him.

“Whoa,” he says. He looks me up and down. “I thought you had HEYA today.”

“I–I do,” I stutter. “I have a meeting with Fidelity at two, to discuss our situation. HEYA’s situation. And I have a request or two. They need to be on board for my plan to work.”

“Well,” he says, still looking me up and down, “just ask them for what you want, nice and slow, and I think you’ll get it.”

I stupidly look down at the suit I’m spilling out of, then back up at Jack. “I can test on Saturday. Where should I meet you? What should I wear?”

“A dress,” he says. “A nice one. And I’ll pick you up at your house at five-thirty.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re going to a party. But not a kegger. More like a ball.”

I just stare.

“With dancing,” he says, almost in a whisper.

I step back. “You’re crazy.”

“And you’re scared of dancing in public.”

“That’s none of your business!” Students are starting to filter past us, so I do that harsh whisper thing.

He lowers his voice as well. “Did you, or did you not, come to me asking me to make you braver?”

“Physical bravery, Jack!”

“Dancing
is
physical.”

Damn it.

“Just where exactly is it that you think you’re going to take me?” I demand.

“Friends of my parents are putting on this big shindig. They bug me to go to this stuff a few times a year, and when something pretty innocuous comes up, I accept.”

“So you need a date,” I accuse. “And what? You think you’ll just humiliate me in the process and kill two birds with one stupid party?”

“Nobody ever
needs
a date, Lisa. It
is
possible to go to a party alone.”

“Oh, I get it. You go to stuff by yourself just to hook up, don’t you?”

“Are you even listening to yourself? First you accuse me of needing a date, now I’m a player preying on unattached partygoers. You make no sense, Lisa. None. I’m taking you to this party because you’re afraid of dancing.”

“I never said so.”

“Every time you hear music you start to twitch to it, but you stop as soon as you think someone might be watching.”

“
Twitch
?”

“If you don’t go we’ll both know it’s because you’re scared.”

“Scared, my ass! Maybe I just don’t like being hoodwinked into going to some ritzy party.”

“That’s no reason not to go.”

“Yes, it is.”

Jack nods. “So you won’t do it?”

Holy hell. Does he look
relieved
?

“I’ll see you on Saturday.”

Underwear.

I need to get some serious underwear.

Why did I wait so long to try on this stupid dress? I’m not as in shape as I was when I bought it. Jack was right all along. This is what I get for splurging with my evil corporate millions.

Once I got out of the hospital, I realized I had enough money to buy clothes I loved but would never wear. Dreamy, fabulous clothes. Long black satin gloves, boots that look like Witchiepoo’s legs, a downy soft feather boa, a mocha cowboy hat with a rhinestone band, and a shimmery white evening gown that slides along my curves as would sun-sparkled rain.

Make that SLID along my curves.

Past tense. Before my country-lane curves expanded into interstate highways. Now the gown sticks and clings. This is what I get for post-adventure pigging out. What am I going to do? I can’t snap my fingers and conjure up a perfect dress. I can’t even buy one. I’m on a budget now, with the house and all the pet food and everything.

I look at the clock by my bed. 2 p.m.

I have less than three and a half hours to find something to wear, so I’m down to relying on underwear. I’ll need to get something like a girdle so I can squeeze myself into the dress. I know such contraptions exist. I saw that
Emergency
! episode where John and Roy had to cut a woman out of the girdle that was suffocating her. Plus, a few months ago, bridal-shop bitches all over the Southland were all but throwing body-sucking underwear at me.

But are those things even still called girdles?

Three hours later I squeeze into my brand new Flexees one piece. It’s like this strapless bathing suit that compresses me so tightly I would get the bends if I ever tried to swim in it.

Plus I’d drown. You know, not being able to breathe and all.

Next, I barely manage to get myself into a brand new pair of stockings. I should have put them on before the Flexees, when I could still bend and stretch, but it’s too late now.

No way am I taking off the Flexees and then re-squeezing myself in. I have neither the endurance nor the will power.

After the thigh highs are in place, I wedge myself into hellish biker shorts-ish underwear meant to shape my thighs into sleek gazelle-like limbs. My entire body hurts when I try to move or think.

Finally, I slip the dress over my head.

It glides over me! It doesn’t get stuck on my bumpy curves. I look in the mirror at the smooth line of my S-like figure. I’m sleek with cleavage.

The doorbell rings, so I run-limp-gasp to the door. Thank God I put the dogs outside. If they got in my way now, I would tumble to the floor and wouldn’t be able to get up, just like snow-suited Randy. My underwear doesn’t allow for things like bending or calling for help. If I trip, I’m so dead.

Thoughts of death by underwear evaporate as I realize that Jack is on my porch. Remembering that I’ll have to dance soon scares me so much I don’t even
want
to breathe. As I open the door to let him in, I peek into the mirror over the mail table to check myself out one last time.

Wham
!

I slam the door in Jack’s face and turn fully to the mirror. Oh, my God! The top of my underwear is sticking out! The dress is too low cut! Movement of any kind causes my sleek-a-fying underwear to show!

“Lisa?” It’s Jack, through the door.

“Come in.” I scamper and wheeze my way back to my room. I hear him come through the front door just before I slam the door to my room.

Oh God Oh God Oh God! What the hell?

I want to scream and cry but I know I’ll never get enough oxygen to do that. Not to mention, Jack is outside, and I’m not about to be a woman who makes him wait a year while I get ready.

Swiping the straps off my shoulders, I let the dress fall to the floor. I struggle out of my underwear, noticing the red dents in my flesh. I toss the Flexees into my enameled trashcan painted with flowers and leaves. I step once again into the biker-shorts contraption, trying to salvage what I can. On goes the dress.

No good. Wearing just the bottoms of my flesh-compressing unmentionables doesn’t work. It leaves a big groove in the middle of my figure where the underwear ends and I burst out.

I lift my skirt, pulling off the biker-like underwear which quickly joins the Flexees. I go to my dresser, find a pair of panties, step into them. I look in the mirror to see myself billowing out of the white, shimmery dress. I’m the fat caterpillar about to burst out of a frothy cocoon. And tonight I was supposed to be a butterfly.

I go to my closet and rummage around, desperately looking for an answer. And there it is, wrapped around the printer that doesn’t work anymore.

The white feather boa.

I take it out of the closet and drape it around me. The plump snake of feathers distracts attention from the dress plastered onto my flesh. Hardly perfect, but on the up side, I can breathe.

I sweep out of my bedroom and head straight for the front door, ignoring Jack. But he snags the boa as I breeze past him.

“Hold on.”

Drat. My plan was to keep moving so that he couldn’t get a good look at my figure.

“Can I at least look at you?” He pulls me toward him by the boa.

I turn around.

Jack’s scrutiny is merciless. “That’s, uh, some dress.”

I notice he doesn’t exactly compliment me. He knows the fit is awful.

“Shouldn’t we get going?” I play all innocent, so he’ll feel really low when he tells me that my dress and I just don’t measure up.

He rips his eyes off the offending dress to look at my face. “Yeah, I guess. Look….” He stops talking.

“What?”

“It’s just that I think you should take off the dress.”

“I knew it!” I stomp my foot as I flounce my boa. “You
said
a nice dress! And now you want me to change?”

“No,” he says slowly. “I want you to take. Off. The. Dress.” He looks at me, his gaze steady and hot.

Oh.

We’re not even on the same planet
.

“Listen,” I say, backing away. “If you want to have sex with me, you can wait until after my death-defying dancing. Because honestly, I just can’t get in the mood without that intense hit of adrenaline.”

“Oh, no?” And then he’s on me, hands in my hair, kissing me. A long, slow, wet kiss.

But I’m not about to let it last three days. “Unh-uh,” I say as I break away from him. I open the front door and walk out first, trying to ignore the tingles all over my body. “Close the door behind you,” I toss over my shoulder.

But before I can even take two steps, he’s right behind me, hands on my arms, lips on my neck. “I’m not playing games,” he whispers, then bites my ear.

I turn, putting my hands on his shoulders to keep enough of my own space. “I’m not either, Jack.” My voice is level enough to show him that I mean it. “Jack, you can’t kiss me like this then expect to have sex with me like it doesn’t even count.”

His lips part in surprise, just a little bit, and he looks at me. He doesn’t say anything.

At all.

Turning away from him, I look toward the street. “What’s with the car?” A long black Mercedes sits at the curb. “Does it run on vegetable oil?”

“It’s not a diesel.” He hooks my arm to lead me down the path. “I was thinking of you. Thought you might not want your dress….” he reaches out to tweak my boa “….or your feathers, to smell like egg rolls.”

I slide him a glance. “Sure you weren’t thinking about yourself?” Jack looks incredibly lithe in a dark suit, white shirt, no tie. And no tie means I can see his neck and his throat. I look away. “No tie, I see.” I say this like it’s an accusation, like he’s bringing me down.

“Stepping out for a night once a year to see my parents is one thing. Wearing a tie for them is entirely another.”

He opens the passenger side back door of the car for me.

“Huh?” I say, peering into the car. “A driver?
You
got a driver?”

“Renting a luxury car at the last minute on Saturday didn’t leave me with a lot of options.” Jack shuts me in then walks around to the other door to join me in the back seat.

“Hi,” I say, scooching up to address the driver. He looks like he’s in his early twenties, and he’s not wearing a uniform.

“Hey,” he says, turning his head slightly to acknowledge me.

“This is Chick,” Jack introduces.

“Lisa,” I say.

“Hi, Lisa.”

“Hi, Chick.”

I sit back into the comfy seat. “Nice.”

“I figure I’ll ease you into my parents’ world,” Jack says, “one toe at a time.”

“So a party with them is like getting into a really hot bath?”

“More like a really cold pool.”

I inch forward again to talk to Chick. “How come you’re not wearing a uniform, like in the movies?”

“Mr. Hawkins requested I didn’t.”

“Mr. Hawkins? What does Jack’s dad have to do with anything? Wait. You mean Jack?”

“I mean Jack.”

I look back to Jack.

He shrugs. “I can take only so much. A uniform was pushing it.”

“You look good,” I tell Chick, then flop back into the seat.

“Thanks,” he says. “You, too.”

I beam. “Thanks.” I look at Jack. “So, off to the OC?”

“The Ritz Carlton Laguna.”

“Sounds very bling bling. What’s all this for?”

“Darcy and Simon Kitzmiller just had a baby about four months ago. Fourth of July, I think.”

“So there’re going to be kids there? And, like, balloons and stuff? What was it? A boy or a girl?”

“No idea. And no, no kids and probably no balloons. This party has more to do with Darcy showing off her red-hot after-baby figure. It’s not really about the baby at all.”

“You know Darcy?”

“Not really.”

“You nailed her in high school, didn’t you?”

“I nailed everybody.”

“Even Simon?”

“And his mom.”

“Right.” I move my butt so I’m not sitting on my boa. “Jack, why are you going to this? A baby party for a bunch of people you barely know?”

“Much less dangerous than a wedding or any kind of luncheon my mother can devise.”

I turn to him. “Why go at all? Why dip into your parents’ world if you don’t want to? It’s like going swimming when you’re not even hot.”

A deep ridge appears between his brows. “You’re saying I’m not hot?”

I catch Chick glancing into the rearview mirror.

“What do you think, Chick?” I ask on a laugh. “Is Jack hot?”

He smiles and shakes his head. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

I look back at Jack. “So, Jack? Why?”

“You know what it’s like, Lisa. Living in a different world from your parents.”

“Yeah. But I don’t visit.”

“But I do,” he says. “I decided a long time ago that I couldn’t blame them for not knowing me and my life and who I am as long as I stayed on my side of the line. So, every once in a while, I visit them in their world. I don’t accept every invitation, but I accept some.”

“How ‘bout them? Do they come visit you on your planet?”

“Not so much.”

He says it all casual, like it’s no big deal.

“But wait,” I say, as if I know his life better than he does, “your mom was at Into the Wild. That’s where I met her.”

“She stops by the office once or twice a year to tell me to take her to lunch.”

“That’s something.”

“It is.”

Hm. I cannot think of what to say to that. “Do they ever come to your house?” I ask instead.

“No.”

“Never?”

“Not once.”

But you still try
.

I am so amazed by his fortitude in the face of parental disapproval that I cannot muster the will to speak. It occurs to me in the silence that I’m about to dance through his family drama. Well, better his family drama than mine, I suppose.

At least I like what I’m wearing now that I’ve got the boa.

* * * * *

“Whoooaaa,” I breathe, a giddy warmth wafting through me as we stand in the doorway. The Ball Room. An actual ballroom. Miss Flyte, in the ballroom, with Jack.

Gauzy fabric drapes the walls, crystal sparkles on every table, and a small orchestra softly plays songs so classic that I feel like I’ve slipped into an Ernst Lubitsch movie. Could life be any sweeter?

“Shall we?” Jack offers his arm.

I take it and smile up at him. A deep breath, then we get set to glide into the gala. Suddenly, my muscles lock. I refuse to move.

“Oh. My. God.”

All the women in the ballroom wear slick, short, snappy cocktail-casual clothes. Black. Some glitter. Denim. Tight pants. Little skirts. Even the older members of the crowd try to look hip and pull it off with chic panache.

I look like a prom queen thrust into the dark glare of The Viper Room. What I wouldn’t do for a bucket of blood right about now. “You did this on purpose!” I hiss.

“What? Lisa, what’s wrong? What are you talking about?”

He has the
nerve
to sound concerned. After what he’s done. “What I’m wearing!”

He looks me up and down. “Huh?”

I growl.

“What?”

“Look at everyone else!” I screech in a strangled whisper. I feel myself turn to stone, except for the angry tears welling up. “How could you do this to me?”

Jack takes me by the shoulders. “Do
what
?”

“I don’t look like everyone else!”

Jack looks around. “Why would you want to look like everyone else?”

“Because!” Is the man dense? “Wearing the wrong thing is worse than wearing no pants!”

“I did tell you to take off the dress.”

A tear leaks down my face.

Jack moves to me then, cupping my face in his hands, wiping away my tear with his thumb. I feel his fingers run along the back of my skull and settle on my neck. He looks right into my eyes. “Lisa, I want you to walk right in there and pull this off.”

He is just so intense.
So intense
. And blue. His eyes are really blue. I close my own eyes, but I still see the blue through my lids. Oh, God. I’m wearing the wrong thing, but the cutest guy in the whole world still believes in me.

It’s better than a John Hughes movie. At this moment,
my
life is
better
than a John Hughes movie. I open my eyes and look right at Jack. “I’ll do it.”