Spin Control (16 page)

“Hey,” David says, taking his arm off the back of my chair and pointing to the screen, “I think we’re about to win again. MONSTER missed that one entirely. Look!”

Sure enough, they did. The next question appears at the same time the waitress drops our check on the table. It’s about Pickett’s Charge, which we studied last semester in Mrs. Bennett’s class.

David picks the correct answer, then gives me a killer smile that makes me want to ignore our entire discussion about gay marriage. How can he possibly be such a hottie and so smart but so set on ideas that maybe aren’t so cut-and-dried?

“We make an awesome team, Winslow.” He gives me another quick kiss before grabbing the bill.

Unfortunately, we miss the last trivia question—about an obscure 1960s football player—and end up in a tie with MONSTER. Probably for the best. I really don’t want to tick them off.

After we put on our coats to leave, David pulls me over to their table. He introduces me, but instantly gets into a conversation about rugby. John looks up—since it’d be rude not to, I think—and he gives me a nod that lets me know he wants to say hello but that he’s not going to acknowledge that he knows me. Or, at least, from where.

I give him a little smile of thanks when no one’s looking. Then, when all the other guys start high-fiving one another over some big rugby play they made in their
last game, he mouths, “No problem.”

As grungy and strange as he is, I decide right then and there that John’s a good guy.

But the something’s-not-right-here feeling is still sticking in my gut, like I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. But since we’re about to leave, I force myself to ignore it.

After a few more minutes of rugby reminiscing, David puts his hand on my back and steers me out of TGI Friday’s, since it’s time for his brother and his brother’s girlfriend to pick us up. David has them drop us off at the entrance to the apartment complex instead of at the door, so we can talk for a while as he walks me home.

And, I can tell, because he wants to kiss me again without his brother seeing. His brother gives us an
I know what you’re doing
look, but I notice he’s not exactly protesting having to wait for David. It gives him a few more minutes alone with his girlfriend’presumably to do the same thing.

As we start down the sidewalk, David grabs my hand. “I didn’t want to say anything
at dinner, but the guys at the other table were staring at you the whole time.”

“Really?” So he did see.

“Yeah. One of them was trying to set me up with a friend of his, and I told them I couldn’t—that someone I really liked was coming to town and that I thought I might be otherwise occupied.”

“Oh.”

“I just wanted to tell you in case you were wondering why they were staring. They were probably curious.”

We get to one of the darker places on the sidewalk, in between the glow of two streetlights, and he stops walking and pulls me right into his arms. “Thanks for keeping me otherwise occupied.”

I let him kiss me. This time, since we’re alone, it’s finally a real kiss.

And after all these years of dreaming about it—of dying every time he looked at me or slowed down on the walk to school so I could catch up to him and his friends—the whole kissing-David thing just doesn’t do it for me.

“You’re the best, you know that, Valerie?”

“Thanks.” I want him not to say any more. It’s making me feel horrid.

“I always thought we’d be good together, you know? I kind of suspected you might have a thing for me, but I didn’t know for sure until Christie told me a few weeks ago.”

The blessing of a friend with a big mouth. At least she didn’t tell him I’ve wanted him like mad since I was five. Geez, I hope she had that much sense.

“But I was stupid, and I never did anything about it.” He twists a few strands of my hair around his finger, then lets go and starts running his hand along my shoulder. “I kept asking out other girls, thinking that they were what I wanted.”

Yeah, the future prom queen types. Who wouldn’t want them?

“So why me?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I really want to know.

“I think it took hearing you were going away to realize that, in the end, all I’ve wanted is someone who thinks like I do. And Winslow, I believe you’re it.”

Hoo, boy. If he only knew.

I let him give me a few more quick
kisses, then say, “I think your brother’s waiting.”

“I doubt it. But I don’t want you to miss your curfew.” He walks me to the door and says he’ll call me—he wants to see me as much as possible before I have to go back to Schwerinborg.

I thank him for dinner and trivia, then duck in the door. As I watch him walk back toward his brother’s car from the glass windows of the stairwell, I feel tears burning up in my eyes. After they drive away, I sit down on the stairs.

I realize that I want the same thing David does: Someone who thinks like me. Or, more accurately, someone who gets me. Who doesn’t just spout his opinion and expect that I’ll agree. Someone who will listen to and respect my opinion, too, even if he doesn’t agree.

Someone who won’t expect me to be his Armor Girl.

I let myself into the apartment as quietly as possible. Mom left on the reading light in the living room, but it looks like she’s gone to bed.

Good thing, because I know she’d want to talk. And I need time to digest what has happened.

Maybe I’ll make a list. David in one column, Georg in the other. Just to be certain. Although, in my gut, I know what the answer will be.

No. Too
Glamour
magazine. Although it did help when I did it at the PFLAG meeting, so maybe—

“What’s wrong, honey?”

I jump about a mile. What’s she doing lurking in the kitchen without the light on? “Geez, Mom! You scared the crap outta me!”

“Sorry. I was just getting a glass of milk,” she says, holding it up as proof. “I was reading in the living room, waiting for you to get home.”

Of course she was.

“You look upset. Did something bad happen on your date?”

“No, we had a good time.” At least, until I woke up to reality. And now I feel horrible. I should never, never have gone out with David tonight. Going to the movies was one thing. That was supposedly
casual. A favor to Christie, sort of, and because I’d committed to it when I thought Georg and I might still be “cooling off,” even though apparently he never meant it that way.

But tonight—tonight was a massive, no, make that a monster (ha-ha), mistake. Because if I’d taken a fraction of a second to think about it, I’d have known I wanted Georg, not David. And I never would have sent him that e-mail telling him I’d meet him.

Why did I do that??

Why did I not realize that’s the reason I felt wrong all night? I should have been here, either thinking about Georg or hanging with the girls. Doing anything except going out with David.

“You don’t look like you had a good time, Valerie. You look disturbed.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom.”

“Okay. But it might help to get it off your chest.” She walks past me and picks up her book—the latest best seller by one of Oprah’s self-help gurus—from the end table and gives me one of her
I’m an understanding mom
looks before sitting down.
“And Gabrielle’s not here. She went out to dinner with some of her friends from Weight Watchers after their meeting tonight.”

“So they can pig out on pizza?”

Parallel lines of disapproval appear between Mom’s eyes. “Valerie—”

“I’m
kidding
. I know Gabrielle takes it seriously.”

Mom just stares at me. Doesn’t start reading her book, doesn’t give me the usual spiel about how Gabby lost a ton of weight a couple years ago with the program, and how she now feels she owes her low cholesterol levels and “Earth-friendly” vegan lifestyle to the good folks at Weight Watchers.

Clearly she’s not going anywhere until I spill about my date. But I just can’t.

I feel too rotten to talk to anyone, let alone my mother. I mean, what does
she
know about staying loyal to someone?

I toss my purse on the counter because I know she’s not going to let me go to bed. And I don’t know that I can sleep, anyway. “Mom, stop staring at me.”

“No, I don’t think I will.”

Fine. Two can play this game. I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, then answer a question for me. Did you cheat on Dad?”

Ten

I let my hands fall to my side.

Where in the world did
that
come from? What is
wrong
with me? The way I’m acting tonight, I have to wonder which circle of hell I’m destined to occupy.

“I’m so sorry, Mom, it’s totally none of my—”

“I didn’t cheat on your father. Nothing happened with Gabrielle until after I told you and your father I wanted a divorce.” She takes a deep breath and fiddles with the ties on the front of her robe until they’re pulled tight. “Is that what you’re upset about?”

Wow. This was so
not
the answer I
expected to hear. “You didn’t cheat?”

“No.” She doesn’t look the least bit uncomfortable with this topic—when, if our roles were reversed, I’d kill me for asking—so I figure she’s been planning her answer for a long time. “But when I met Gabrielle, I knew. Sometimes, you
just know
. In here.” She taps her chest as she talks. “And it woke me up. I realized that I wanted Gabrielle in my life, most likely for the rest of my life, and to pursue that, I needed to leave your father first.”

“How did you know Gabrielle would want you?”

This draws a smile out of her. “I had my suspicions. Well, they were more than suspicions, I suppose. She’d been flirting with me a little, and me with her. But neither one of us acted on our attraction—we never even spoke of it—because I was married. But even if she’d never flirted, I knew that I couldn’t be with your father anymore. Staying with him when I felt that way about someone else—anyone else—would be cheating both myself and him. And you, too. I’ve always wanted you to be true to yourself, and if I lived a lie, what kind of
example would I be to you? How could you respect me if I couldn’t respect myself?”

She lets out a little sigh, then continues. “So before things got out of hand, I told Gabrielle how I felt about her, and that whether she returned my feelings or not, I’d decided to leave your father that night. It was a huge, huge risk for me to do that. Not just emotionally, but financially, too, because I knew leaving your father also meant I’d have to go back to teaching. And I wasn’t sure I could do that and enjoy it.”

I am beyond stunned. I just cannot picture my mom having all this angst and my never even realizing it. Ignoring the teaching thing for the moment, I say, “But Gabrielle returned your feelings?”

Mom nodded. “She said she had fallen in love with me, and that she wanted us to be together. She just knew the same way I knew that we belonged together, and for the long term. But, again, neither Gabrielle nor I acted until
after
I came home and told you and your dad. It would have cast a pall on our relationship to have taken that first step physically before I’d ended things with your
father. And Gabby and I wanted to start clean.”

Wow. She sounds like she’s been reading waaaay too many self-help books (probably because she has been), but still … I never realized how hard all this has been for her. And how much she worried about what
I
might think.

I cross the room and sit on the arm of the chair next to hers. “So you didn’t
just know
with Dad? Before you married him?”

She gives me a sad little smile and wraps one of the ties to her robe around her wrist, then unwraps it. “I wanted your father to be the love of my life. I really did. I wanted a nice life in the suburbs with kids and the whole shebang.”

“But … ?”

“But no, there was never any lightning bolt,
aha
kind of moment. I always had fun with your father—I liked him a lot, and will always love him on some level—but I know in my heart that I’m attracted to women and I’m just not capable of loving any man the way I should.” She takes a long drink of her milk, then sets it on top of the Oprah book on the end table.

“I just wish I’d been honest with myself about it sooner,” she adds. “I could have saved us all a lot of pain.”

“But then you wouldn’t have had me. I wouldn’t even have me.”

Her face splits into a wide grin at this. “No, and I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“I’m sorry I thought you were cheating,” I tell her. “I should have known better.” I think.

“It’s all right. I figured you’d have questions after you went to the PFLAG meeting. That’s why I’ve stayed up late the last couple nights, so you could talk to me if you wanted to. You’re not here long, and I wanted to make the most of our time.”

“Well, I’m not asking because of PFLAG. I’m asking because of me. I-I feel like I’m cheating, and I guess I needed advice.” I wave my hand in front of me, as if I can erase the words from the air. “That just came out all wrong. I’m not saying that—”

She frowns. “How, exactly, do you think
you’re
cheating?”

So I flop backward into the chair and tell her everything. Well, not everything.
But I do tell her about Georg’s “cool off” call, and then the e-mail from Zermatt, and how I went out with David, anyway—that the first time was theoretically casual, even though I let him hold my hand in the theater and I could have pulled away and just stopped everything right there. But then I was even worse and went out with David a second time. Where it was just the two of us, and it was definitely a date.

And I tell her that now I feel like I’m being one of those evil, bitchy types of girls who cheat on their boyfriends, and that’s just beyond wrong.

“Valerie, how old are you?”

“Um, Mom, you should know.”

“Fifteen, honey.
Fifteen
. And, to my knowledge, you and Georg aren’t married.”

“Not to my knowledge either.”

“And you made no promises to each other. So you’re not cheating—in fact, you’re perfectly normal. You and Georg have only been together a short time, Valerie. Far too short a time to be committed, even though the connection you felt with him sounds pretty intense.”