My Life Next Door (25 page)

I shudder, jerking the cork, which breaks. “Oh, damn.”

Tim reaches for the bottle, but I move it away from him. “It’s okay, I’ll just try to get the broken bit.”

“Timothy? What’s taking so long?” Mom marches through the swinging kitchen door, glancing between us.

I hold out the bottle. “Oh, honestly!” she says. “That’s going to ruin the whole bottle if any cork gets in.” She pulls it from my hands, frowns at it, then drops it into the trash and opens the refrigerator to get another. I start to take it from her hands, but she picks up the opener and twists it herself, deftly. Then does the same to the second bottle.

Then she hands one to Tim. “Just go around the table and top off people’s glasses.”

He sighs. “Okay, Gracie.”

She removes a wineglass from the dish rack and fills it, then takes a deep swallow. “Remember that you are not to call me that in public, Tim.”

“Right. Senator.” Tim’s holding the bottle out in front of him, as though it might explode.

Mom takes another sip. “This is very good,” she tells us
absently. “I think it’s going really well out there, don’t you?” She directs this question at Tim, who nods.

“You can practically hear the purse strings loosening,” he says. If his voice is slightly sardonic, Mom doesn’t pick up on that.

“Well, we won’t know until the checks come in.” She finishes the glass of wine in one last swallow, then looks over at me. “Do I have any lipstick left?”

“Just a rim,” I say. Most of it is on the glass.

She blows an impatient breath. “I’ll run upstairs and reapply. Tim, get out there and fill ’em up. Samantha, the foccacia’s getting cold. Bring it out with some more olive oil for dipping.”

Whirling, she heads up the stairs. I take the wine out of Tim’s hand, replacing it with the bottle of oil.

“Thanks, kid. This isn’t nearly as tempting.”

I look over at the glass with its blush-pink stain. “She kind of knocked that back.”

He shrugs. “Your ma doesn’t like asking folks for shit. Not really her style. Dutch courage, I guess.”

Chapter Thirty-two

“You’re not gonna
believe
what just happened to me,” Jase says the minute I flip my cell open, taking advantage of break at the B&T. I turn away from the picture window just in case Mr. Lennox, disregarding the break sign, will come dashing out to slap me with my first-ever demerit.

“Try me.”

His voice lowers. “You know how I put that lock on the door of my room? Well, Dad noticed it. Apparently. So today, I’m stocking the lawn section and he comes up and asks why it’s there.”

“Uh-oh.” I catch the attention of a kid sneaking into the hot tub (there’s a strict no-one-under-sixteen policy) and shake my head sternly. He slinks away. Must be my impressive uniform.

“So I say I need privacy sometimes and sometimes you and I are hanging out and we don’t want to be interrupted ten million times.”

“Good answer.”

“Right. I think this is going to be the end of it. But then he tells me he needs me in the back room to have a ‘talk.’”

“Uh-oh again.”

Jase starts to laugh. “I follow him back and he sits me down and asks if I’m being responsible. Um. With you.”

Moving back into the shade of the bushes, I turn even further away from the possible gaze of Mr. Lennox. “Oh God.”

“I say yeah, we’ve got it handled, it’s fine. But, seriously? I can’t believe he’s asking me this. I mean, Samantha, Jesus.
My
parents? Hard not to know the facts of life and all in
this
house. So I tell him that we’re moving slowly and—”

“You
told
him that?”
God, Jase
!
How am I ever going to look Mr. Garrett in the eye again? Help
.

“He’s my dad, Samantha. Yeah. Not that I didn’t want to exit the conversation right away, but still…”

“So what happened then?”

“Well, I reminded him they’d covered that really thoroughly in school, not to mention at home, and we weren’t irresponsible people.”

I close my eyes, trying to imagine having this conversation with my mother. Inconceivable. No pun intended.

“So then…he goes on about”—Jase’s voice drops even lower—“um…being considerate and um…mutual pleasure.”

“Oh my God! I would’ve died. What did you say?” I ask, wanting to know even while I’m completely distracted by the thought.
Mutual pleasure, huh? What do I know about giving that? What if Shoplifting Lindy had tricks up her sleeve I know nothing about? It’s not like I can ask Mom. “State senator suffers heart attack during conversation with daughter.”

“I said ‘Yes sir’ a lot. And he went on and on and all I could think was that any minute Tim was gonna come in and hear
my dad saying things like, ‘Your mom and I find that…blah blah blah.’”

I can’t stop laughing. “He didn’t. He did
not
mention your mother.”

“I
know
!” Jase is laughing too. “I mean…you know how close I am to my parents, but…Jesus.”

“So, what do you think?” Jase asks, picking up two cans of paint from the floor and setting them on the counter. He pops one lid open, then the other, dipping in the flat wooden stirrer, swirling the paint around. “For the Mustang? We’ve got your plain racing green.” He slides the stick along a piece of newspaper. “Then your slightly sparkly one.” Another slide. “Which would you choose?”

They’re barely different. Still, I scrutinize both sticks carefully. “What was the original paint job on the Mustang?” I ask.

“The plain green. Which kind of seems right. But then—”

My cell phone sings out.

“Hey kid—I need your help.” It’s Tim. “I’m at headquarters and I left my laptop at the store. I wrote this speech, intro thing, for your ma to use tonight. I need you to forward the copy to her e-mail. It’s in the supply room—on Mr. Garrett’s desk.”

I locate the laptop easily. “Okay, what now?”

“Just go on in, I can’t remember what it’s called—there aren’t that many files. Work or something like that.”

“What’s your password?” My fingers hover over the keyboard.

“Alice,” Tim says. “But I
will
deny that if you tell anyone.”

“In Wonderland, right?”

“Absolutely. Gotta go—that tight-assed Malcolm dude is
having a fit about something. Call me back if you can’t find it.”

I enter the password and look for documents. There’s nothing labeled
WORK
. I scroll through, searching, and finally come upon a folder labeled
CRAP
. Close enough, knowing Tim. I click on that, and up pops a series of documents.
Give that Girl an A: A Study of Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne. A Comparison of Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield
.
Danger in Dickens
.
The Four Freedoms
.

I click on
The Four Freedoms
…and there it all is. Nan’s prize-winning Fourth of July speech. Dated last fall.

But she wrote it for American government. This spring.

Daniel took American government last year. I remember him going on and on about John Adams at our lunch table. So Nan must have gotten the syllabus from him. She’s always prepared like that. But still…writing the paper before the class even started? Extreme. Even for Nan.

And why would it be on Tim’s computer? Okay. Nan did borrow his laptop a lot when hers was a mess.

I shift the mouse, edging it to
Holden Caulfield and Huckleberry Finn
, Nan’s essay to be published in the literary journal. Here it is, the Lazlo-winning essay, word for word.

I know she covered for him. We both have, let’s face it. But this is so much further than I thought she’d go.

I can’t believe it. Tim’s been using Nan’s work.

I continue to stare at the screen, feeling like someone siphoned all the blood out of my head.

“Samantha, I need you! Can you un-Velcro yourself from The Boyfriend for a while?” Nan’s voice crackles over my cell, high and shaking.

“Of course. Where are you?”

“Meet me at Doane’s. I need ice cream.”

Nan’s going for sugar-rush therapy again.
Bad sign. Did she go to New York with Daniel? It’s only Saturday. I thought Tim said she’d told her parents he was taking her to some Model UN and they were staying at his very strict uncle’s house.

I don’t even know if Daniel
has
an uncle who lives in NYC, although if he did, that the uncle would be strict is a safe bet.

The Masons’ house is much closer to town than mine, so I’m not surprised to find her sitting at the counter at Doane’s when I get there. I
am
surprised to find her already plowing into a banana split.

“Sorry,” she says through a mouthful of whipped cream. “Couldn’t wait. I almost jumped the counter and dug into the buckets with my fingers. I definitely need some chocolate malt salvation now. Just like Tim. Since he stopped drinking he’s like a maniac with the sweet stuff.”

“But you’re not kicking a habit,” I say. “Or are you? What’s up with Daniel?”

She turns bright red and tears come to her eyes, spill down her flushed, freckled cheeks.

“Aw, Nan.” I start to put my arms around her, but she shakes her head.

“Order yours and let’s sit at the picnic table outside. I don’t want everyone in Doane’s to hear this.”

The only other people in Doane’s at the moment are a mother with a toddler who is screaming because she won’t let him buy a foot-long Tootsie Roll. “BAD MOMMY. I’M GOING TO KILL YOU WITH A SWORD!”

“Yeah, we’d better get out of here before we’re material witnesses to a homicide,” I say. “I’ll get ice cream later. Lead the way.”

She sets her bowl in front of her on the table, scoops up the cherry, and dunks it in a pool of chocolate sauce. “This is how many million calories, you think?”

“Nan. Tell me. What happened? Tim said you were spending the whole weekend.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Daniel didn’t want anyone to know. I only told Tim the truth because I thought he could help me come up with a better cover story, but he said the Model UN and the strict uncle were inspired. Although he said it would have been even better if I’d said we were staying with his aunt at a convent.”

“You could have told me. I would never tell on you.” Does she know about Tim stealing her essays? Should I tell her?

Her eyes fill again and she dashes the tears away impatiently, taking another mountainous scoop of ice cream. “I know. I’m sorry. I was…I felt like you were too busy with the Hometown Hottie to care. I thought I’d just go and come back a Sophisticated Woman Who Took Her Relationship to the Next Level in the Big Apple.”

I wince. There’s no way I’m bringing up Tim right now. “Did Daniel use that phrase again? Maybe if we made him a little dictionary? We could translate his words into something remotely sexy. Take Our Relationship to the Next Level could be Come on, Baby, Light My Fire.”

She gulps another scoop of ice cream, swallows, then says, “What would It’s Time to Push Our Comfort Zone be?”

“Oh Nan. Really?”

She nods. “He can’t really be our age. Maybe it’s like
Freaky Friday
and some middle-aged insurance salesman has taken over Daniel’s body.” She scoops up another enormous spoonful.

“What comes after pushing the comfort zone, Nan?” I probe.

“Well, we were at his uncle’s town house—that part was true. But his uncle was away in Pound Ridge for the weekend, so…we’d had dinner and walked in the park—not for very long, because Daniel kept thinking someone was going to mug us. Then we walked back, and he put on music.”

“Please tell me it wasn’t Ravel’s
Boléro
.”

“Actually, he couldn’t get the station he wanted, so we wound up with all these rap songs. But he thought that was sort of funny too. I noticed that he got less starchy when we, well, when I got more—um—”

“Confident?”

“Right. I kind of knew that was Daniel’s Kryptonite. So I was wearing my green dress with all the little buttons down the front and I just ripped it open. Buttons everywhere. You should have seen his face!”

“Wow.” I can’t imagine Nan doing this. She still changes in her closet when I spend the night.

“Then I said, ‘Stop talking, Professor.’ And I ripped open
his
shirt.” She’s smiling a little now.

“Nan, you shameless hussy.” The smile fades away and she puts her head down on the table next to her melting sundae and sobs. “I’m sorry, I was kidding. What then? He didn’t make you go right out to Madison Avenue and buy him a new one, did he?”

“No. He was totally into it. He told me this was a new side of me and he wasn’t threatened by confident women.” She digs out a chunk of banana dribbling with syrup but then drops the spoon back down and blows her nose on the hem of her T-shirt. “That I was beautiful and there was nothing better than brains and beauty together, and then he stopped talking and started kissing me like crazy. We were lying on the floor in front of the fireplace and—” Another sob.

My hand is stroking the back of Nan’s head, my mind racing with every possible scenario.
Daniel announced he’s gay. Daniel has Erectile Dysfunction. Daniel confessed to being a vampire and not being able to have sex with her because he might kill her.

“His uncle came in. Right into the library. He wasn’t even away. That was supposed to be next weekend. He’d been at work when we dropped off our suitcases and now he was upstairs taking a bath and he heard noises and he came in with a cane ready to kill us.”

Oh poor Nanny.

“He’s shouting at Daniel and calling me a slut and all this stuff and Daniel can’t find his pants so he’s just standing there naked, and then he shoves me in front of himself.”

Damn Daniel. Couldn’t he even be gallant and shield her? Tim was right. He’s a putz.

“What a coward.”
Oops,
will that make Nan mad? I brace myself. But she just nods her head and says, “I know, right? Steve McQueen would never have done that. He would have beaten him up like he does to the bad doctor in
Love With the Proper Stranger
.”