Perfect You (20 page)

"No, just vitamin infomercials."

Will grinned at me. "I had to sit through a thirty minute presentation on how to measure feet."

"I have a carrot hat."

"Really?"

I nodded. He cleared his throat. "I . . . look, are you avoiding me? I mean, if you don't want to go out with me--"

"I want to go out with you," I said and it was true, but wow, did the truth sound like I really liked him. And I did like him. I liked him a lot. But I didn't want to like him that much. I was afraid to.

Plus maybe I should have let him finish his sentence. What if he was going to say, "If you don't want to go out with me, that's fine with me because I don't want to go out with you"?

"Hey," Will said, touching my arm. "I. . . me too." He looked toward the mall exit, and then back at me. "Do you want to--?"

I knew what he was asking. He wanted to go make out with me. My heart started hammering in my chest. He wanted to kiss me AND go out with me! Why had I been avoiding him again?

"Kate!" Dad yelled. I looked back and saw him frantically waving his arms at me. Great.

He talked about me not taking breaks and now . . I sighed and looked back at Will. His face was red. I had no idea why, but it was cute.

"I guess I'd better go," I said, and started to walk away before Dad decided to yell more-

-or worse, come after me.

Will grabbed my hand.

"See you tomorrow?" he said, and the grin he gave me when I said, "Okay," sent me floating back to the booth.

"What's wrong?" I asked Dad when I got there. He'd stopped waving his arms around, but was watching me pretty intently.

"Was Will the person from school you ran into the day you sold those Chocolate Chews?" "What?" Since when had Dad developed a memory?

"You know, the day you sold Perfect You's specially formulated kids' vitamins, the ones with the song. 'Choose Perfect You Chocolate Chews--'"

"Dad, don't sing. And yeah, I saw Will that day."

"You started organizing the storage space around then, right?"

"I think so."

He gave me a look. "Are you two an item?"

Parents! "An item? Dad, ew."

"Are you?"

"We're going out tomorrow night. It's not a big deal." I mean, it was, but I clearly couldn't tell Dad that.

"You're my daughter. Everything you do is a big deal. And no more going off and making out with boys when you're supposed to be working, okay?"

"Dad!"

He grinned at me. "Not as dumb as I look, am I? Now, have you seen my pen?"

I grinned back at him. "It's behind your ear, Einstein."

When Dad and I got home, Mom told him it looked like someone was going to make an offer for the house.

"Now we really have to think about where we're going to live," she said, and at first I thought she was angry because her voice was so sharp it almost hurt to hear it. But then, when Dad said, "Sharon, honey, don't worry so much. Anyone can get an apartment," and she nodded, hands shaking, I saw that she wasn't mad. She was scared.

I couldn't understand why Dad didn't see it, but as he and I sat eating chicken salad sandwiches, and he tried--and failed-- to get her to smile, I realized he did see it. He knew she was frightened, but he couldn't stop pretending everything was fine.

And Mom--she didn't say anything to him. She just sat

there, arms crossed, fingertips trembling, silent. Waiting for Dad to say something that he never would--and that I didn't think he could.

I left the kitchen then, not wanting to see any more. Grandma was in the living room, draping bracelets against a rainbow of shirts piled on her lap.

"Are you working tomorrow, darling?" she asked. I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or Todd, but Todd emerged from his blankets and said, "Of course I am. All I do is work.

My life is coffee and this sofa."

From the kitchen I heard Dad laugh, fake and nervous, and then say, "Sharon?"

Grandma stood up, carefully folding the blouses she was holding across her arms, and glanced toward the kitchen. "I think I'll go to bed. Kate, darling, come with me."

"In a second," I said, looking at Todd, and as soon as Grandma left, I asked him, "What's going on with them?"

"What do you think? They're--" Todd said, and then broke off, a sad look on his face.

"This has been a pretty crappy year for you, huh?"

"You think?"

He sighed. "Fine. Don't forget to take out the trash in the morning and yes, it is your turn."

"You're so annoying," I said, but he'd already pulled the blankets back over his head.

I woke up late, and both the trash bags I lugged outside broke right before I could toss them in our bin, leaving me a pile of garbage to clean up. Not the best way to start the day of my date, and things only got worse from there. Mom wasn't up when Dad and I left for the mall, so I had to leave her a note asking her to pick me up at five, and hope that Grandma didn't lose it.

At work, Dad acted weird, and given how he usually acted, that was saying a lot. He'd seemed okay when we first got to the mall, but then Mom called the booth and whatever she said made him really upset because he said, "I'm going to get coffee," and practically ran away. It took him a long time to come back too, and when he did he just sat and stared at our display case, like he was looking for something inside it.

"Dad, if you need to go out for a while I can handle everything here," I said, and when he looked at me his smile was so painfully false I had to look at the floor.

"Are you kidding me? Miss out on a Saturday, the busiest day of the week?" he said.

"This is what I live for."

"Mom's still coming to get me at five, right? I know you guys must have talked about . . .

tonight, and I left a note, but I just wanted to make sure."

Dad was silent for a moment. "I don't know if she's coming," he finally said.

"You don't know?"

He shook his head. What was going on?

"Well, can you call her?"

"I really need to reorganize the display case, honey. But you can call and ask."

Great. Not only was Dad avoiding Mom, he was clearly not talking to her. Or worse, was afraid to talk to her. Weren't parents supposed to be, you know, adults? I called home. Grandma answered the phone.

"Hi, it's me," I told her. "Kate, I mean. Can you make sure Mom comes and gets me at five today? Because I need to come home. I--I'm sort of going out tonight."

"Darling, what did you say?" Grandma said. "Your mother's outside honking at me. Why on earth are car horns so loud? And how can she expect me to change my shoes so quickly? I mean, my outfit needs a certain kind of heel and--"

I ground my teeth together. "Remind Mom to pick me up at five, okay?"

"Darling, we'll see," she said, and hung up.

I slammed the phone down, which made me feel a little better, especially since I pretended it was Grandma's head.

"Did you talk to your mother?" Dad said.

I looked over at him, but he was kneeling, rearranging bottles inside our display case, and I couldn't see his face.

"No. Look, Dad, is something going on?"

"Everything's fine," he said, looking up at me, and he smiled so brightly I knew he was lying. I also knew that no matter how much I asked, he'd keep smiling and telling me that everything was fine.

Things went rapidly downhill after that, and by the time five o'clock rolled around, I'd decided I'd walk home if I had to because I desperately wanted to get out of the mall and away from Dad, who'd gotten quieter and quieter as people walked by, seemingly unaware of him standing eagerly by the box of free samples he'd put out. I'd wanted Dad to wake up and see that his dream wasn't coming true, but seeing him so drained, so unable to try to talk to people or even fake smile, was frightening.

"I'm going," I told him. "You want me to ask Mom to call you?"

"I'm sure we'll talk later," he said, skimming his fingers over all the bottles on display like he needed to remind himself they were there.

"Are you okay?"

"I think I can handle working by myself tonight," he said, and his smile was so sad I had to look away. He knew what I was asking, but he wasn't going to answer. I don't think that he could.

I headed out of the mall, determined to ask Mom what was going on, only to find Grandma waiting for me.

"Hello, darling," she said, motioning for me to walk beside her out to the car. "How was work?"

"Long."

"Where are you going tonight?"

"Out."

She laughed. "Darling, I was able to gather that from your extremely garbled speech on the phone earlier."

"I have a date. With the guy who called before, the one who had my shoe."

"That sounds lovely," she said, and I looked over at her. She was smiling at me, and seemed genuinely happy.

"I guess. Mom's going to be mad, though. I haven't said anything to her about Will or tonight."

"Darling, don't worry about a thing," Grandma said as we got in the car. "I'll talk to her." Nightmare visions of Mom freaking out as Grandma mentioned the night I'd arrived home in a rather disheveled manner, not to mention the phone call that made it real clear who I'd been getting disheveled with, danced through my head. "I'll do it."

"The thing is, darling," Grandma said, her hands tightening on the steering wheel, "your mother isn't feeling so well, and I think it's best if you let her rest. I'll talk to her for you later, all right?"

"Mom's sick?"

"She just needs some rest," Grandma said. "Besides, I'm sure she'd want you to go out and have a good time. What are you going to wear? How about those lovely purple boots I bought you?"

"I'm, uh, saving those," I said. "I think they might be better for later in the year." Or never.

At home, Mom was in her bedroom, but her door was shut. I could hear her moving around, though, opening dresser drawers and then closing them, but when I knocked and said, "Hey, Mom, I'm home," she just said, "Hi, honey. Can we talk later? I'm sort of busy right now."

"Oh," I said. "Sure."

By the time I was ready, I'd changed clothes four times. Well, four times plus two more.

Also, it was seven o'clock.

7:02, actually.

I went out into the living room and sat on the sofa, reminding myself that no one showed up for a date on time. Or at least, that's what I'd heard.

"What are you all dressed up for?" Todd said, coming out of the kitchen with a sandwich and sitting next to me. "Wait a minute . . are you going out?

Like, with another person?"

"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be working or out mooching off some girl?"

"You are going out! Awww, Kate has a date, how cute. What's his name?"

"Todd, darling, leave your sister alone and finish telling me about this customer who hurt your feelings," Grandma said, also coming out of the kitchen, a glass of soda filled with ice, just like always, in one hand.

"I didn't say my feelings were hurt," Todd said, flushing as I laughed. "I said . . . hey stop laughing, Kate."

"Why? Am I hurting your feelings?"

Todd threw a blanket at me, and I retaliated by kicking him and stealing the remote.

Soon we were yanking it back and forth, flipping through the channels at maximum speed and volume.

"Children," Grandma said, and then, when we ignored her, sighed dramatically and left the room. Todd and I grinned at each other for a second before we started fighting over the remote again.

"Is someone at the door?" Grandma called a moment later. It sounded like she was back in Mom's room. "I think I hear something."

"Just total silence from Kate's so-called date," Todd said as he yanked the remote away from me. "Admit you made the whole thing up and I'll let you have half the sofa till I go out."

I took it back. "So, are you going to tell your date how a mean customer hurt your little feelings?" "Don't worry children," Grandma said, coming back into the living room. "I'll get the door."

Todd and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. I turned the television down, figuring that would make her happy, and made a face at Todd when he took the remote away again.

"Sucker," he said, and as I stuck my tongue out at him and jammed my elbow into his side, Will walked into the room, followed by Grandma.

Perfect. Just perfect.

"Oh, hey, your date did show up," Todd said, grinning at me. "I guess you didn't make the whole thing up after all."

If looks could kill, Todd would have died a slow, gruesome death. But they couldn't, so I settled for mashing my foot into his.

"Well, I can see we shouldn't wait for Kate to introduce us," Grandma said. "I'm Rose."

Thank you, Grandma. I glared at her, but of course she didn't see it.

"Hi, I'm Will," Will said. "I think we've spoken before. I called--"

"Oh yes," Grandma said, beaming. "The young man with the shoe. You know, you have really lovely teeth. Not that I'm saying you're unattractive or anything, mind you, although I do find young men's hairstyles rather odd these days."

"Um, thank you," Will said.

"Me and Will should probably get going," I said, but Grandma shook her head.

"Darling, we're chatting," she said, and smiled at Will. "Tell me, have you had braces?" I stared at her. Why, oh why, had the universe gifted Grandma with the power of speech? WHY?

Will shook his head, looking a little confused. Todd shot me a sympathetic look, which just showed how bad things were.

"Okay, we're going now," I said. "Grandma, will you tell Mom I left?"

And then, before she could say anything else, I grabbed Will's arm and headed for the door. I didn't run, because that would have looked desperate.

I just walked really, really fast instead.

Outside, I dropped his arm, mostly because I

wanted to keep holding it and knew that would look strange or desperate or both. And right now I needed to appear normal. Or as normal as I could after what had just happened.

"Sorry about all that. My grandmother . . . well, it's like there's her world and then the real world."