The Book of Luke (11 page)

But I didn’t point that out. Instead I took a bite of my turkey sandwich. “I guess it beats waiting in line for sloppy joe’s, right?” It wasn’t like I expected Luke to offer an excuse, or even an explanation, for the lunch legion, but that’s exactly what he did.

“Look, I don’t
ask
them to bring me lunch. I don’t force them. They offer. Besides, they like it.”

The sad thing was, Luke was possibly right. Bringing Luke his lunch was probably the highlight of their day. As sad as that was. I know if Billy Stratton had given me a chance to bring him his lunch, I would have donned an apron and hopped to it. Amazing how four years and a little perspective can change things.

“I guess,” I told him, covering my mouth with a napkin so I didn’t spit shredded lettuce all over his dashboard. “And to think I remember the good old days in middle school, when you had to actually wait in line with everyone else.”

“Is that what they were? The good old days?”

“Why, are you saying they weren’t?”

“I’m just saying maybe you and I remember things differently.” Luke dipped a log in the pool of ketchup. “So, are you glad you’re back? Did you miss Branford?”

I didn’t really feel like talking about myself with Luke, but I couldn’t ignore the lesson learned from all those cop shows where the detective creates a rapport with his suspect by talking about himself. If I had to offer Luke a few personal tidbits to earn his trust, then that’s what I’d do.

“I don’t know if ‘glad’ is the right word, but things haven’t changed as much as I was afraid they would.” I glanced over at Luke and watched him take a bite of his potato log. “Well, most things, I mean.”

“It must have been tough, moving in the middle of senior year.”

“It was,” I told him, and it occurred to me that Luke was the first person to acknowledge how hard it was. My parents always acted like it was no big deal because we were just moving back to Branford. TJ didn’t have any problem leaving his old friends and taking up right where he left off in seventh grade. Even Lucy and Josie never acted like they thought it was any big deal, they were just glad I was back.

“I bet you were wondering what we’d all think of you,” Luke went on, like he’d been reading some self-help book on all the things that go through your head when you move.

“Maybe,” I hedged.

“But I guess you aren’t wondering anymore. Everyone seems to be glad you’re back.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

I must have sounded like I was trying to be modest or something, because Luke went on. “You guess so? Come on, who are you kidding? Everyone always liked you.” He dipped another potato log in ketchup. “Well, unless you count Stephanie Potter.”

For a minute I thought Luke was making fun of me, but then he laughed. “I’m just kidding.”

“How do you know Stephanie Potter didn’t like me?” I asked.

“I watch things, remember?” Again, he tapped the side of his head with his index finger.

“That’s right. I forgot.”

I went back to eating my sandwich, but it sort of bothered me that Luke knew about me and Stephanie Potter.

“It bugs you, doesn’t it? You wanted her to like you.”

“No it doesn’t.” I shook my head and a piece of lettuce flung across the car and landed against Luke’s driver’s side window.

“If it helps any, I never really liked Stephanie that much.” Luke reached for the lettuce and flicked it off the window.

“You didn’t?”

“Nope. Didn’t like her at all.”

I didn’t know why, but for some reason that did help.

For the first time since we got to Sam’s, I looked at Luke instead of keeping a safe distance between us, afraid he would try to kiss me or something. There was no way he was kissing me with a mouth full of potato and ketchup. And as I watched him eat his lunch it dawned on me that, as much as I wanted to hate Luke, maybe he wasn’t
all
bad.

“So, maybe you want to do something Saturday night?” Luke asked. At least I think he did. I mean, really, does asking somebody if they
maybe
want to do something count as actually asking anything at all?

Not that it mattered. I couldn’t do something
maybe
anyway. I’d promised my mom’s friends I’d babysit Saturday night so they could go out to dinner. And, while most girls would probably ditch a babysitting job in two seconds flat for a date with Luke Preston, I wasn’t one of them. My mom had written an entire chapter in one of her books on babysitting etiquette and lesson number one was that you don’t cancel on a family once you’ve made a commitment unless life or limb is at stake. A date with a guy didn’t exactly count as either. Even if it was Luke.

“I can’t. I’m babysitting for some family friends.”

“Too bad, Curtis is having a party this weekend. His parents are going out of town.” Luke reached for the radio dial and flipped the station. “Maybe I’ll stop by and see you, say hi.”

Babysitting etiquette number two: no guests allowed.

“That’s not a good idea. I don’t think the Brocks would like it if I had any visitors.” I pointed to his chin. “You have some ketchup there.”

Luke dabbed his finger against his cheek. “Where, here?”

I shook my head.

“Here?” He wiped his sleeve along the other cheek.

I shook my head again.

“Wouldn’t this just be easier if you took that napkin you have folded on your lap and wiped away the ketchup yourself?” Luke suggested.

“But it’s more fun watching you try to find it.”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see.” Luke dipped a potato log into the pool of ketchup and dabbed it on my nose. “Um, you’ve got a little ketchup there,” he mimicked, not sounding anything like me.

I reached for a potato log and swiped it in the dollop of red on my nose. “That’s actually quite good. And convenient.”

Luke took his half-eaten log and dabbed it against my nose. “You’re right. This is very convenient. Maybe the next time the cafeteria has french fries for lunch I’ll suggest you walk around and offer up your nose.”

“Maybe when they have fish sticks I can serve tarter sauce instead.”

Luke made a gagging sound. “Okay, that’s not even funny. It’s just gross.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, picturing it. “It is.”

“So.” Luke continued to eat his potato logs but forgot to wipe the ketchup off his chin. “Why the sudden change?”

“What sudden change?” I asked, finding it difficult to keep my eyes from zooming in on the condiment precariously perched on his chin, waiting for it to fall off into his lap at any moment.

“You went from a nasty greeting in the hall to ignoring me to asking me to a dance? I thought Josie turned you against me.”

I focused on my turkey sandwich in an attempt to keep from staring at Luke’s chin. You’d think I’d be grossed out, but all I could think was that even with ketchup on his chin, Luke still looked pretty hot. “Yeah, well, moving kind of put me in a bad mood. Besides, Josie’s over it now,” I added, just so he’d know there were no reasons why he shouldn’t fall in love with me right then and there.

Luke dipped another potato log in his pool of ketchup, and as he raised it to his mouth, another drop of red landed on his chin. “Do you miss living in Chicago?”

It was a serious question and I wanted to answer him, but all I could do was laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he wanted to know.

I pointed to his chin.

“We’re not going through this again.” This time he reached for my napkin and wiped the condiment off himself. “Maybe next time we get lunch I should order something else. Something that can’t drip.”

“Next time?” I repeated, just to make sure I heard him right. “Will there be a next time?”

Luke squinted his eyes and pretended to examine me before wiping off the ketchup that still clung to my nose. “We’ll see. It depends on what your nose is serving.”

I laughed again, and this time he laughed with me.

If you set aside the fact that Luke was way too cocky, that he could be obnoxious, and that he’d cheated on my best friend, he might actually be cute. No, he was definitely cute. And he might actually be
likeable
.

“Okay, I take back what I said.” Josie bit her lip. “This is weird.”

When Luke dropped me off at the front door, Josie had been waiting for me, pacing back and forth like an expectant father.

Apparently, the parking lot at Sam’s hadn’t been vacant the entire time—or at least not while Luke and I were eating our lunch inside the steamed-up windows. “I told you it would be. If you hate hearing about it, how do you think I feel doing it?”

“I know. It’s that, well, he cheated on me, but I still liked him. I mean, I was planning to sleep with the guy, and now I’m watching one of my best friends hit on him.”

“I wasn’t hitting on him,” I told her for what seemed like the billionth time. “We were just talking.”

“Yeah, well, Matt came back from Sam’s and he couldn’t wait to tell everyone how you and Luke fogged up the car windows.”

“If the windows were all fogged up, how did he even know it was me?”

“But it was you,” Josie stated matter-of-factly. “So what’s your point?”

What
was
my point? “My point is that, yes, I was in the car with Luke, but, no, we were not making out. Look, I was just doing what you guys said I should do. We don’t have to go on with this if you don’t want to,” I offered, almost hoping Josie would take me up on my offer. Okay, I
was
hoping Josie would take me up on my offer.

Josie didn’t even hesitate before shaking her head. “We’re doing the guide. We have to. But here,” she said, taking the brown recycled notebook out of her backpack and holding it out to me.

“You take this. I think you should be writing down everything that happens with Luke. And one more thing—if you really think it’s starting to work, I want an apology for what he did to me.”

I didn’t move to take the notebook from her. “I can stop right now and we can forget about the guide,” I offered again, giving her one last chance to put an end to our plan.

“No, I don’t want to do that. I want an apology.” Josie let out a breath and forced the notebook into my hand. “I’ll get over it. I just wish he wasn’t so freaking hot.”

Yeah, me, too.

I
’d promised my mom’s friends, the Brocks, that I’d babysit for their little girl on Saturday night. There was no way my mother would let me get out of it—being not only an obligation, but that their reason for needing me in the first place was that the Brocks were having dinner with my mom.

Before we moved away, I used to babysit for the Brocks about every other weekend, and more often than not, Lucy or Josie would come with me. Back then there weren’t any other real options for a Friday or Saturday night, except maybe having a sleep-over and trying out new makeup and stuff like that. It wasn’t like I was making a fortune watching a three-year-old for a few hours, but I always offered to split the money with them. Lucy always said no, but sometimes Josie said yes. Now Josie didn’t need the money, and Lucy didn’t seem that thrilled with the idea of hanging out with a six-year-old whose main interests were the new Barbie town house she got for Christmas and the latest
Princess Diaries
movie. Besides, tonight was Curtis Ludlow’s party. Sitting around watching TV while a six-year-old sleeps upstairs or going to a party at Curtis Ludlow’s house? I couldn’t really blame them; I would have made the same choice.

The Brocks’ house is down a long wooded driveway and it’s pretty secluded. You can’t even see it from the street. When you’re in an empty house with a six-year-old whose sole means of self-defense is the magic wand she waves around while reciting magic spells, every noise sounds like something worse than it really is. Tree branch scraping against the gutters? Must be somebody trying to get in through a window. Furnace groaning in the basement? Must be someone just waiting for the right time to come upstairs and dismember a little girl and her babysitter. All the noises used to really freak me out, and more than once I’d ended up calling my dad, convinced there was a deranged madman outside the family room trying to jimmy open the sliding glass doors. After those calls, my father would always drive over and reassure me that there wasn’t some serial killer hiding in the basement, or an escaped mental patient squatting behind the shower curtain waiting to attack me while I was on the toilet reaching for some Charmin.

Even though one part of me knew I was being paranoid, that there was no way someone was outside plotting how to hide my body in a shallow grave in the woods, there was the other part that had been influenced by way too many Friday nights watching cheesy horror movies on TV with Lucy and Josie. So I usually kept on as many lights as possible without making it too obvious that I was hoping a few hundred-watt bulbs would deter a homicidal killer.

After I tucked Sophie in bed and read her a story, I went back to the family room and flipped on the TV. But I wasn’t about to kick back and watch the
E! True Hollywood Story
on the Olsen twins. I had work to do. I had the guide.

I took the brown notebook out of my backpack and prepared to write about turning our lists of tips and suggestions into tangible results. There was only one problem. I’ve never been someone who bought into that whole diary/journal thing. When I was seven my mom bought me a diary for my birthday and I loved holding the little gold key in my hand and coming up with new hiding places. Of course, I was also so good at hiding the key that eventually even I forgot where it was. But by then it barely mattered. I’d completely lost interest. My entries were always more along the lines of “today I had tuna on wheat for lunch” than hidden yearnings. And even though I tried journaling years later when it seemed everyone was filling blank white pages with poetry and sketches of unicorns, my journal started off with “I think my jeans looked good today” and went downhill from there.

But if the guide was going to be turned into my personal journal for the next few months I had to begin somewhere, and my lunch with Luke in the parking lot at Sam’s was as good a place as any to start. Admittedly, there wasn’t a ton to write about, but at least I could explain how my attempts to complete step one were progressing. And they were progressing, if I did say so myself. Ever since Sam’s, Luke was way more friendly, even waiting for me by our lockers yesterday so we could walk to English class together. He didn’t attempt to hold my hand or anything like that, but I didn’t take it personally. I couldn’t expect Luke to change over night, even if it would make my job a lot easier if he did.

It had been almost three years since I last babysat for the Brocks, and I thought that the strange noises and weird rattling in the basement wouldn’t freak me out anymore. And I was right. To a point. I could rationally explain away any creak or squeak in the house, and when I noticed a set of headlights coming up the driveway, instead of freaking out that my killer had borrowed a car, I thought maybe the Brocks had decided to come home early or something. I was even collecting my coat and about to stuff the notebook into my backpack when the doorbell rang. And that’s when I knew something wasn’t right. Nobody rings their own doorbell.

Instinctively I reached for the phone and then stopped, just like those TV shows where they freeze the action right before cutting to a commercial. This was when I used to call my dad, but my dad wasn’t at our house. He was back in Chicago, and that meant I couldn’t call him. My mother’s Babysitting Etiquette Lesson #4: No long-distance phone calls.

I sat there trying to figure out what to do as the bell continued to ring like bad background music in a horror movie. Wasn’t this when you usually see the babysitter get up and go into the kitchen for a butcher knife? That option didn’t really seem like an option at all. In those movies the babysitter always ended up with the knife in her back and the telephone cord wrapped around her neck.

So instead of trying to come up with a weapon, I slid off the couch, crouched down, and tiptoed to the front door, careful not to pass by the front window just in case it was really a serial killer, albeit one polite enough to ring the doorbell.

When I reached the front door, I slowly stood up, easing my eye toward the small circular peephole, the entire time hoping the Brocks just forgot their keys. But when I got there it wasn’t Mrs. Brock. Instead, a single large brown eye was staring back at me, and before I could stop myself I let out a noise that was more strangled poodle yelp than scary movie scream.

“It’s me,” the eye yelled through the door.

This time when I looked through the peephole, the eye had moved back and I could see the head it was attached to.

I unlatched the deadbolt and threw the door open—almost grateful for the familiar face, but also slightly pissed off.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, smoothing some loose hairs back into my ponytail. As if that was the worst of my problems. Who’d notice a few stray hairs when I wasn’t exactly dressed to thrill in sweatpants and a ratty long-sleeved Martha’s Vineyard T-shirt. And instead of smelling like some fabulous perfume, the only thing I reeked of was ChapStick.

“I was just in the neighborhood,” Luke told me, coming in without waiting to be asked. “Your brother told me where you were.”

I watched as Luke took off his coat, made his way to the couch, picked up the remote control, and started flipping through the channels like he’d been here a million times. And maybe he had. Who knew which hot high school girls had been babysitting for the Brocks in my absence?

“Look, you can’t stay,” I warned him, standing in front of the TV to block his view. Had Luke not heard me say that I shouldn’t have uninvited guests? Besides, in addition to looking less than stellar, Luke completely caught me off guard. I needed time to psych myself up for my encounters with Luke. I couldn’t be expected to just wing it. Especially not when I was wearing TJ’s sweatsocks.

“I can’t stay?” Luke looked slightly confused. “Why not?”

“You have to go,” I repeated. “I’m not supposed to have company.”

“Look, there’s nothing to worry about. They’re not going to come home anytime soon; it’s only eight o’clock.”

I made a mental note to add this to the list of annoyances:
Do not think that you know better than I do just because you don’t like what I know.

I was about to tell Luke that this was a non-negotiable issue when I saw it. The guide. Luke was sitting about six inches from my backpack and the notebook that contained a two-page description of our lunch at Sam’s, ketchup-stained chin and all. And that’s when it occurred to me that instead of trying to block the TV with my ass, I should be using this unexpected, and somewhat unwelcome, opportunity to my advantage. The Brocks weren’t due home for at least another hour. Instead of arguing, I should be gathering material for the guide. And maybe running upstairs to see if Mrs. Brock had a little makeup I could borrow.

“Okay, but just for a little while.” I moved away from the TV, deciding to give Luke a half hour, strictly for the benefit of our little experiment. “So, what are you doing here?”

Luke didn’t seem to understand my question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why aren’t you at Curtis’s party with everyone else?”

“You told me you were babysitting.”

“I also said I shouldn’t have visitors while I was babysitting.”

Now Luke looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “Yeah? So?”

“Did you not understand that I meant
you
shouldn’t come over while I was babysitting?” I repeated, realizing I sounded more than a little testy. I immediately softened the tone of my voice. “No big deal. I guess you just didn’t hear me.”

“No, I heard you. I just didn’t think you were serious.”

“Why would I say it if I wasn’t serious.”

Luke considered this for a minute. “I guess I just thought you were saying that to see if I would come over. When I called your house your brother gave me the address like you were already expecting me or something.”

“TJ knows the address because he’s been here a million times, not because I told him to send you over.”

“So you meant it?” Luke still didn’t look like he believed me.

“Yes, I meant it. Why would I say it if I didn’t?”

“Because you guys say things like that all the time, and don’t mean it.”

By “you guys” I assumed he meant “you girls.”

I was about to tell him he obviously knew nothing about “us guys,” when it dawned on me that while I was having this inane conversation with Luke, the rest of our senior class was at Curtis’s party. Which meant that Luke didn’t just call my house to talk to me (score one), he’d also ditched Curtis’s party to come to the Brocks’ and see me (score two). Sure, maybe he thought he had a better chance of getting in my pants in an empty house than at a party, but he was still here. With me. And, from the smell of shaving cream wafting from his direction, he’d shaved. Maybe even showered. So he was trying to impress me. And that meant that my attempt to successfully conclude step one was actually working.

Somehow, I was doing it. And if Luke was on his way to believing that I liked him, if he was on his way to really trusting me, than that meant I should be doing more than blocking the TV so he couldn’t watch
Cops
. I should be moving on to step two.

But first things first. I went over to the couch and removed the backpack and notebook from his reach. Now I just had to get them out of the room.

“Do you want something to drink?” I offered, ever the congenial hostess. My mom would be proud. “I think they’ve got some Sprite in the refrigerator.”

Luke nodded. “Sure.”

I turned to go into the kitchen and became acutely aware of Luke’s eyes following me. All of a sudden I wondered if there was a jiggle scale for rear views, too. Not that my ass was that bad, but gray sweatpants didn’t exactly present my assets in the most flattering light. I turned around and faced the TV, pretending to be captivated by a shirtless, handcuffed guy in a trailer park as I walked the rest of the way backward into the kitchen.

The cabinet where the Brocks kept their glasses was empty, and I was about to open the dishwasher to look for a clean glass when I noticed Sophie’s macaroni-and-cheese–encrusted My Little Pony cup in the sink. There were probably eight adult-size glasses in the dishwasher without cartoon characters, but I didn’t go looking for them. Instead, I washed the remaining chocolate milk out of the plastic cup and filled it with Sprite. Watching Luke Preston drink out of a My Little Pony cup complete with an attached pink Krazy Straw in the shape of a horse’s head was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Cool Luke Preston drinking out of a plastic cup with pastel-colored ponies on the side. He’d be mortified. And I’d have my chance to transition to step two by teaching Luke a thing or two about being gracious, even if what he was gracious about was a six-year-old’s plastic cup.

I couldn’t help grinning as I carried the cup over to Luke.

“Here you go.” I handed him the Sprite and waited for his reaction, a snide comment or eye roll that was meant to tell me there was no way Luke Preston was going to drink out of a My Little Pony cup. Then I’d have to explain that this wasn’t a restaurant, I wasn’t a waitress, and he should just say thank you for the effort and drink the damn Sprite. But Luke didn’t say anything. Instead, he just took the cup and didn’t seem to care as much as I thought he would. Maybe he was just really thirsty.