Secondhand Purses (4 page)

“I, uh, I guess I missed that. What are we doing?”

“We’re going to paint the back deck, of course.”

Of course we were. I was about to shoot back a smartass comment, but Nick looked like he was enthusiastically participating in her crazy, so I decided to go with it.

Nonna plopped a white painter’s cap on me, and gave me these weird cloth thingies to put over my shoes. We then went outside.

“So, what color are we painting it?”

“Who said we are only doing one color?” She pulled back a tarp on the ground and there were six small paint cans. Every color I’d seen on the walls in her house were represented in that canned rainbow. Oh. My. God.

“Wh-what are we doing?”

She grinned at me, seeming to enjoy my discomfort. “We’re going to just start, do a different color each board, and see how it turns out.”

“But, what if you hate it?”

“That’s easy, if I hate it, I’ll just change it later. Hell, I’ll probably change it later, anyway.”

“And that’s OK with you?”

She squinted at me again, a look of almost pity in her eyes. “Alex, you can’t be afraid of making a misstep in life. Mistakes happen. You need to accept that. You need to anticipate it. And when they do happen, you need to embrace them because they have now become a part of your history.” She turned her back, grabbed a paintbrush, and started painting bright yellow on the first board, whistling a nameless tune.

“My name is Vicki.” I mumbled. I wasn’t quite willing to openly contradict this enigmatic woman. Not yet.

CHAPTER fOUR

An hour and a half later, I sat back on my knees, bending backwards slightly to ease the ache in my lower back. I let out a little moan as the stretch both caused and released some pain. I heard a slightly strangled sound come from behind me and whipped around to see Nick staring at me, his mouth slightly open. Oh Lord, I could only imagine what that must have sounded like to him. I mean, it wasn’t like I had any experience or anything, but I’ve seen movies so I know that moan probably sounded crazy sexual.

“I, uh, I guess that probably felt good after spending all afternoon on your knees.”

His eyes popped open as he realized that there was more than one way that statement could be taken, and his olive skin took on a reddish hue as he blushed.

“I mean, because it was hard work, I mean, you were hard. Shit. I mean you were working hard today.” He jammed his fingers through his dark hair out of frustration, refusing to raise his eyes to meet mine.

I had my fist in my mouth to keep me from laughing at him, he looked so uncomfortable. I really should have tried to put him out of his misery but this was too funny. I just couldn’t believe that Nick, one of the hottest guys in the city, was getting all flustered talking to me.

He raised his head slightly, I guess to gauge my reaction, and when he saw me trying to hold back from laughter, he blew out a breath of relief, which caused his gorgeous hair to fluff up and then flop into his eyes. For some reason, I found this beyond hysterical and couldn’t hold it back any longer. Laughter poured out of me as I flopped back on the grass.

When I finally got myself under control, I looked up at him with tears streaming down my face, to see him standing with his hands fisted at his hips, trying to look angry. He was failing miserably.

“You found that funny, huh?” He took a step towards me.

“Uh-huh.” I started giggling again as I scooted back.

He took another step towards me. His lip curled in a cocky smirk that would have done me in except for the fact that I couldn’t figure out why he kept moving closer.

With lightning speed that served him well on the football field, he lunged towards me, fingers sinking in to my ribs. I didn’t have a moment to worry about the fact that he was able to feel that I had more than inch to pinch. I let out a high pitch squealing screech. Did I forget to mention that I am ridiculously ticklish?

He pulled back in shock (and probably horror) at the inhuman sound I’d managed to make. Then his gorgeous smile shifted into a somewhat evil grin as his eye narrowed to slits. Shit. I felt like an innocent little zebra about to be devoured by a lion. I squirmed a little. He could devour me any day.

He leapt forward to continue his assault on my poor, ticklish body and knocked me off balance. As I fell backwards, his momentum made it so that he couldn’t stop himself and he collapsed on top of me. Oh. My. God.

I opened my eyes to see that he was holding himself up by his arms, but from his waist down, everything was pressed against me. My mouth went dust dry. This was the closest I had ever been to anyone of the male species outside of my dreams, and I was acutely aware of everything about him. He was staring at me intently, as if trying to figure out some sort of a puzzle. I bit my lip and his eyes immediately shifted to watch, and they started darkening, as he slowly ran his tongue over his lips. His hair had flopped in front of his eyes again, and without thinking, I reached out to push it back.

That movement seemed to break his trance, and he jerked back just a tiny bit. He grabbed my hand before it reached his hair and held it while looking at me. We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, but that was probably only about ten seconds long.

There was a rustling coming from behind us. We burst into motion, with him jumping up to his feet in a beautifully fluid motion. He reached for me and pulled me up. However, I had pushed with my legs so between the two I found myself slammed up against his chest. His arms instinctively wrapped around me. I felt his breath in my ear as he whispered, “We must stop meeting this way.” I let out a shaky laugh. What the hell was wrong with me?

We stepped apart, still staring at each other as Nonna rounded the corner. I turned to face her, trying to act as unaffected as possible, not wanting her to know that an almost something had just happened.

So, what happened the rest of the afternoon? Damned if I knew. Honest. Can’t remember a thing after the almost. Or was it even an almost? Seriously, this was what swirled around in my head all freaking afternoon. Did he or didn’t he? Did we? Were we going to? UGH.

What I did remember was agreeing to return the next day. But I didn’t remember until I was halfway away that not only did I agree to return, but that apparently Nick would be there, too. Oh dear Lord in Heaven.

I walked home, still in a blissful cloud where everything was happy and unicorns pranced around me. Entering my house, I leaned against the door and let out a sigh.

“Victoria! What in God’s name have you done to your clothes?”

What? Who was that shrew yelling at me? Oh, yeah…mom. Yikes, I really was in my own world. Now wait a minute. What did she ask me? What happened to my clothes? I looked down and saw that my new jeans were covered in all sorts of paint colors. I leaned away from the door and cringed when I saw that I had left a small rainbow on it from when I had accidentally fallen back on the deck that we were painting. Mom was going to lose her shit when she saw that. Especially because we lived in a rental.

“Uh, I was kind of helping to paint a deck and some of it didn’t make it on to the deck?” I braced myself waiting for the impact of her wrath.

“Who on earth were you doing that with? I can’t get you to vacuum a room but you’ll paint some stranger’s deck?”

Crap. “I was there with Nonna. Oh, and Nick.” I tried not to blush saying his name. I really did. Based on the look of dawning realization on mom’s face, and the slow smile that grew, I knew I’d failed miserably.

“And who is Nick?” I don’t think she purposefully sing-songed that. I’m pretty sure she didn’t. I rolled my eyes.

“Just a guy.” I slumped my shoulders forward and started to shuffle to the laundry room, my euphoric bubble popped.

“Victoria Alexandra. I hope you don’t think you are going to just walk away after letting me know that you spent the afternoon painting some strange lady’s deck with someone who is ‘just a guy’?” She stomped after me as I switched into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt.

“Mom, seriously, it’s no big deal. It’s not a thing, so please don’t make it a thing. I had a nice afternoon with a guy who was nice to me, and it was a great change of pace for me. Please do
not
ruin it by making it a thing.” With that I tossed the painted clothes in the washer.

“I hate when you shut me out, Vic. You used to talk to me about everything.” Mom sounded so sad. I felt guilty for a moment. She was right. I used to tell her every part of my day to the point where she would beg me to take a breath and give her head a break. But, I mean, I was sixteen. I don’t know of any normal sixteen year old who talked to her mom about her latest crush.

“Mom, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to shut you out. There’s just nothing to say.” I pushed past her to go to the kitchen. I grabbed a sponge and attacked the Technicolor butt-print that I left on the door. Instead of removing the paint, I did an adequate job of moving the paint around on the door. I sighed in frustration, sitting back on my heels while looking at my latest artwork.

“Guess we know what you’ll be doing this weekend.” There was laughter in her voice, but when I turned, I could still see the hurt from my rejection in her eyes. Sigh. I suppose that it would be a good idea for me to try harder.

“Yeah, guess so.” I managed a half smile. “Maybe we could do something after.” There, that was the best olive branch my teenaged self could muster up. Judging by the way my mom lit up, I’d made the right call.

“That… that would be great. I’d really like that.” Mom sounded choked up. She quickly turned and walked away, but I caught the glistening of unshed tears in her eyes. Another eye roll. I might be able to reach a personal record for number of eye rolls in a single day if I continued at this rate.

I shook my head, and looked back at the door. Hmm, if you tilted your head just right, it looked a bit like funky 1970’s tie-dye.

I ran back up to my room to take out the composition notebook I kept under my mattress. I guess you could call it a diary or a journal. Call it whatever you want, it’s what kept me sane. Well, sort of sane.

I closed my eyes for a minute, mentally conjuring up the details of the day. I felt my cheeks warm as a recalled the way that Nick and I met. Writing down the details of what happened, it struck me as funny that I knew who he was, but he seemed to never have heard of me. While that may have discouraged some, for me it was a blessing. Perhaps he had never heard of ‘Icky Vicki’. And to think he’d even read the same book I’d read. Ohmigod, wait. Didn’t he say something about us going to see a movie together? I sighed with contentment as I sank down into the plush pillows on my bed. I finished up my journal entry with the embarrassing part about painting the front door to the house with my rear end. I giggled. I mean, seriously, crap like that only happens to me.

I wondered if he would be at Nonna’s tomorrow, too. Should I go by and help out some more? That would be the nice thing to do. I mean, she’s older and stuff and shouldn’t be doing all that painting alone. She might need someone to lift something for her. I pictured her reaching for something heavy, picking it up and falling to the ground under its heavy weight. Yeah, she needed me. This was totally a selfless act. I could probably get one of those hometown hero awards that were always in the paper.

Oh, who the hell was I kidding? I was going for the boy. For the first time ever, save the disastrous first date, I found myself concerned about what to wear. I jumped off the bed and padded towards the closet. Outfit after outfit was thrown on the bed. You’d think with my mom being the queen of all things girlie, that I’d have more of a princess complex when it came to personal fashion. The truth of it was, that I preferred dark colors, clunky shoes, and oversized sweatshirts.

If I wanted Nick to notice me, I needed to step up my game. This could be like one of those teenage angst type movies, where the high school football starts finally notices the dorky bookworm who had a couple extra pounds on her, once she’d had an impressive makeover. Yeah, right. As if something like that would happen to me.

I pulled out a pair of jeans that were a little warn, but that fit me well and seemed to hide the pudginess. A coral colored t-shirt and a light gray hoodie were paired and I thought the look was perfect because it didn’t look like I was trying to impress him. A pair of Chucks and the look was complete. Maybe I should go for some makeup, too? I first imagined the best case scenario. A transformation that took me from hot mess to Kate Moss. I saw myself in my head, with my black hair flowing behind me in silky waves, as if there was a perfectly placed fashion walk fan. Then I pictured what was probably a hell of a lot closer to reality. Eye makeup that was a little too drag queen, lipstick that was uneven, mascara that poked my eyes more than my lashes, and blush that completed the circus look. Eek. No makeup. Well, maybe lip gloss. Yeah, that was the right idea! Lip gloss would make my lips look plump and sexy and then maybe we’ll go from almost kiss to full on lip lock.

“Vic, ten minutes till supper. Have you started your homework yet?” I suppressed an eye roll. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get stuck like that.

“Yes, mom.” I scrambled off my bed and grabbed my book bag, pulling out my history text that was bound to induce insomnia.

***

The next morning, I took a lot of extra time to get my look just right. I knew that I had to survive a school day and then I would hopefully be seeing Nick again. I went down to breakfast humming a wordless tune.

“Good morning, sweetie! Did you sleep well?” Mom looked very hopeful as she watched me flit about the kitchen.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Do you have any big plans today?”

“I dunno, maybe. You know, same old, same old.”

“Oh, well, you seem extra happy today. I guess I just figured you had something exciting going on.”

“Mom, it’s just a normal day.”

“Oh, okay sweetie. Well, I hope it’s a good day.”

Damn, why did I feel like I had to keep this to myself? Why? I knew why. Because with my mom, everything was a big deal. And sometimes, in real life, it just wasn’t. So, like, right now I had no idea what, if anything, was going to happen with Nick. So I didn’t want to talk about it, because that would make it suck worse when it didn’t. Because I was pretty sure it wouldn’t.

“Um, I have a history quiz today.” I was trying. It was a totally lame excuse for a peace offering, but I was trying.

Mom shot a weak smile my way. She understood what I was doing, and appreciated, but definitely wanted to know more about the mysterious boy. All she knew was a name. That was it. She wanted more. I wasn’t sure how much, if anything, I was willing to give up. I started to walk back to my room to finish getting ready.