Tempted (22 page)

Heath gazed out the window at the lawn, as if watching the scene all over again. “She said I was …” He couldn’t bring himself to utter the exact words. “She said my e-mail about you and your blanket reminded her of when I used to tease her.” The admission apparently brought no apology or self-reflection. The simple statement floated around the room and died on the stale air.

Then why’d you say it?
Brandon wanted to ask. He sensed Heath’s weakness and was about to seize the opportunity and lay into him about his total disregard for other people’s feelings. But one look at Heath told him it wasn’t necessary. He’d never seen his roommate so shaken. They were in unfamiliar territory, and anything could happen. “That sucks,” was all Brandon, could think to say. He scratched his ankle with the toe of his John Varvatos loafer.

Heath ran his hands through his hair. “She said she wasn’t that into me as a boyfriend. She said she thought of me more as a funny friend. Can you believe that?”

“Wow.” Brandon got up from his desk and sat on his navy blue plaid Ralph Lauren bedspread, bringing his laptop with him. Heath with Kara hadn’t exactly been the same Heath whom everyone at Waverly knew and loved—or hated. He’d been so sweet with Kara, so affectionate. But apparently, what with the urine-throwing story and the baby blanket outing, there was still enough of the old Heath around to turn his girlfriend off.

Brandon stared at the crumpled pairs of Heath’s Calvin Klein boxer shorts that had collected around his bed, thinking about how five minutes ago he’d been ready to throw one in Heath’s face. This was Heath Ferro, after all, who thought of no one but himself—and his penis, which Brandon suspected he had named Bruno, after overhearing him talking in the shower. But Heath now looked like someone completely different.

Brandon sighed and closed his laptop. He leaned back on his bed, resting against the wall. “Maybe she just means that she doesn’t want to go out with anyone right now,” he offered, unable to watch Heath genuinely in pain.

Heath gave a half-smile—like he was trying to believe Brandon—but then his face clouded over immediately. “She didn’t say she didn’t want a boyfriend.” Heath rubbed his hands over his face. His voice was muffled. “She said I wasn’t boyfriend material.”

“Boyfriend material?” Brandon scratched his head. That didn’t sound like anything a girl would actually say—especially not Kara.

“But that’s bull,” Heath continued. “I’m a great boyfriend. I mean, I
could
be a great boyfriend. Sure I’m not an artist like Easy or any of these other fuckers—” His voice raised two octaves and then broke.

“I think wanting to be a better boyfriend is the right instinct,” Brandon said, grabbing a tissue from the Kleenex box on his nightstand and wondering if it would embarrass Heath if he handed it to him. But he totally needed to blow his nose. “Did you say that to her?”

Heath shook his head no. “I didn’t know what to say,” he admitted.

“It’s okay to tell people what you’re feeling,” Brandon counseled him. He put the tissue away, deciding Heath wasn’t ready for that kind of gesture. “Especially someone like Kara. You don’t always have to be on all the time.”

“People like me best when I’m on,” Heath said, letting his head drop into his hands. “They always expect a show from me when I’m around. So that’s what I give them.”

“Yeah, well.” Brandon would have given his left testicle to have Heath stop putting on a show all the fucking time. He picked up the Nike squash shirt by the foot of his bed—the only item on the floor that belonged to him—and tossed it into his wicker Pottery Barn hamper in one fluid motion. “But you’ve got to mix it up. Like anything else, you’ve got to do it in moderation. It makes it funnier, don’t you see?” Brandon couldn’t believe the words escaping his lips. But there was something about this heart-to-heart that was making him feel better too.

“Yeah, but she laughed at all my jokes,” Heath complained. Finally, he stood up and peeled off his wet Waverly sweatshirt, letting it fall in a heap on his side of the room. “I thought we were getting along so well.”

“Too much laughing makes you cry,” Brandon said, repeating something he’d heard on a much-circulated clip of
Dr. Phil
on YouTube. “Kara’s sensitive,” he went on. “I mean, everyone has a sensitive side. Even you.” He didn’t exactly know where he was going with this, but he wanted Heath to admit that he had a sensitive side. A step in the right direction.

“What would you do?” Heath asked earnestly. “Just forget her?”

“What’s your instinct?” Brandon asked.

“I just … like her so much,” Hearh said, deflated. The air seemed to run out of him. “I really have no idea. I really …” Heath’s words faded and the sun outside the window dipped below the clouds, casting a gray pallor over the silent room. The first glistening of tears appeared in the corners of Heath’s eyes, and Brandon reached across the room and handed him a tissue. Heath took it gratefully.

“Then … prove to her that you’re more than she thinks you are.” Brandon coughed, turning back to his computer for a second. He pulled up his e-mail again and held down the delete button, watching his attempt at a retaliatory e-mail disappear from the screen. “And I’ll help you any way I can,” he said, meaning it. “But no blankie jokes.”

‘“Kay,” Heath spoke up. He held his pinky up in the air.

Brandon reached out and wrapped his own pinky around his roommate’s. The somewhat ridiculous gesture made him feel more manly than he ever had in his life.

Jenny turned the dial on the Mustang’s sound system, looking for a good radio station. Now that they’d crossed the state line it was impossible to find one that wasn’t talk radio or static. The dark night enveloped the car as Tinsley gripped the wheel, concentrating on the road, the headlights casting wide arcs on the empty highway. The dashboard lights were bright red and purple, and Jenny felt like she was in some kind of high-tech space ship.

She had a Latin test tomorrow, and the flash cards that she’d barely written out, let alone had enough time to flip through, were in her pocket. But none of that mattered now. They were on their way to rescue Callie. Jenny still hadn’t processed all that Callie had done for her—or why—but Callie had suddenly become like a family member in desperate need of help.

“Give it up,” Tinsley snapped, waking Jenny out of her reverie. She flopped back in her leather seat, defeated. A tractor-trailer passed them on the left, rattling Seb’s car. A light rain started to fall as they zipped across Route 90 toward Boston. “Try a CD or something.” Without taking her eyes off the road, Tinsley expertly slid a Pall Mall out of her half-crushed pack, lit it, and cracked the window, the smell of smoke still clouding the inside of the car.

“Okay, okay. Calm down.” Jenny randomly selected a CD and jammed it into the player. The first strains of the Raves kicked in and Tinsley turned up the volume, tapping her free hand on the steering wheel.

“I saw these guys at a house party when they were first starting out,” Tinsley bragged.

“Really?” Jenny asked flatly. Why did Tinsley think every little experience she’d had was of vast interest to everyone else? And why was she always the first to do this, or the first to know that, like have a new brand of clothing, or see a band before it became cool? “I actually hung out with them a lot when they were recording their last album. I was even on a track with them,” Jenny bragged right back.
Take that, Tinsley.

“Cool.” Tinsley’s voice was indifferent, like she couldn’t even be bothered to be skeptical about Jenny’s story. It irritated Jenny even more.
It’s true!
she wanted to shout.

She stared down at the Mapquest directions in her lap, holding the page up to her face in an effort to read it in the dark. It was so much easier when you lived in a place where the subway—or a taxi—could take you exactly where you wanted to go. Even when you were walking, you always knew where you were, because the streets were on a grid. “Do you think we’re still going the right way?”

Tinsley snorted. “Well, you’re the navigator, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to read directions in the dark,” Jenny shot back. Tinsley had screamed at her when she tried to turn on the overhead light earlier.

“See if there’s a flashlight in the glove box, then.”

Did she have to be a constant bitch?
Jenny flipped open the glove box, revealing a compartment stuffed to the brim with junk.

“So that’s how he keeps his car so neat,” Jenny breathed as random objects tumbled out. She picked up two identical tubes and squinted at them, trying to read the labels.

“What’s that?” Tinsley asked curiously, alternately looking at the road and glancing down at Jenny’s feet. The metallic
S
on a silver chain hanging from the rearview mirror swayed as they turned with the road.

“Hair gel. Two tubes.” Jenny giggled, holding up a half-empty tube with a picture of a man in a pompadour on it. “I guess he never wants to get stuck without it.”

“God, I can smell it over here,” Tinsley complained. “Put it away.”

Jenny tossed the tubes back into the glove compartment, still searching for a flashlight. She tugged out a slightly crushed white box that was in the way, squinting to read the embossed words, H.
CHUTE
STATIONERS
. Okay, since she was already snooping … She lifted the lid to find a picture of Seb with his arms around an older woman, the two of them standing on an expansive, sun-dappled green lawn.

“Severed finger?” Tinsley asked. She took a final drag on her cigarette and tossed the butt out the cracked window.

“I think it’s a picture of Seb and his mom.” Jenny freed the silver picture frame from its resting place. She almost dropped it when an electronic whir sounded and a female voice said, “I’m proud of you, honey. We miss you.”

A moment of silence fell on the car while both girls struggled with their urge to laugh. “It talks,” Tinsley snickered.

“It’s a talking picture frame.” Jenny stared down at the picture again, thinking how Rufus would totally do something so sweet and corny, although he’d probably have to record a much crazier statement, like “My little petunia bottom, you know you’re the sprinkles on my banana chocolate chip muffin. Keep on truckin’.” Seb’s mom’s recording seemed sweetly normal to her. “That’s really cute.”

“Or not,” Tinsley said dryly, sounding bored. She hit replay on the CD deck with her middle finger—that had to be for Jenny’s benefit—and the song they’d just heard started over again.

Jenny replaced the frame in its box and fit the lid back on top, nestling the package back in the glove compartment. The rain had thickened into snow, and flakes kissed the windshield, flashing momentarily and then melting into tiny paw prints. The trees out the window grew sparser and sparser and then suddenly the shadow of thick forests appeared on both sides. Jenny couldn’t help but wonder if Tinsley was driving her into some remote section of the woods to kill her, leaving her body to be found in the spring after the snow melted.

“The tires are gripping the road for shit,” Tinsley complained with a yawn, wishing she’d thought to stop for coffee back where there were rest stops, before they’d descended into the dark wilderness of wherever the fuck they were. “I wish he would’ve spent a little more money on tires and a little less on hair gel.” The road really wasn’t that bad, but she could tell from the way Jenny kept looking at the map every five seconds that she was a nervous passenger. It would be good to put a little fear back into her. She’d been acting too high and mighty these last few weeks, and just because Tinsley had deigned to allow her to come along didn’t mean they were BFFs.

Tinsley glanced at the clock. They weren’t even halfway there. After the terrible day—days—she’d been having, the last place she wanted to be was sitting in a dark car with little Jenny Humphrey, the source of at least half her problems. But Callie needed her. The Cinephiles snub still stung, and it felt good to be needed. She wasn’t going to let Callie down, even if she had to drive all night with her annoyingly perky little sophomore boyfriend-stealing tagalong.

Tinsley glanced in the rearview mirror, moving into the right lane to let a speeding Escalade pass on the left. The black vehicle moved like a shadow through the wintry night, spraying a mist of rain and snow up on the windshield as it passed by. Jenny tilted her head against the foggy passenger window and seemed to doze off. Tinsley was actually a little impressed that she’d wanted to come along. Her request had caught Tinsley off guard, and while the idea of spending six hours in the car with Jenny was about as pleasant as the idea of having a manicure with dirty nail files and buffers, she was sort of glad Jenny had insisted on coming. Tinsley hated to drive at night, especially alone, though she’d never have admitted it to Jenny.

The snow fell faster and faster, coming at them like confetti, reminding her of the street parades in Johannesburg that Cheido would take her to. She wished she were somewhere warm, away from the perpetual cold that seemed to grip Waverly at this time of year. They were climbing north, headed into colder terrain yet, she knew. She turned up the heat, brushing the eight ball Seb had installed in place of the gear shift. The hot air blew on Tinsley’s face and her eyelids felt heavy. The road flashed by in streaks of black asphalt and yellow paint. She thought of Callie, trapped in the middle of snowy Maine, at the weird three-step place her mom had sent her to. She pressed the accelerator, trying to bridge the distance between them, hoping to make Maine before daybreak.

“Maybe we could play a game or something,” Little Miss Lamephrey suggested perkily, raising her head.

Tinsley reached out and turned up the volume on the stereo. “Shut up,” she sighed, her eyes on the road.

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