The Book of Luke (16 page)

“Yeah. That’s the rumor.” I started to walk away and Luke fell into step next to me.

“I’m going to be up there with Owen and Matt. We’ll have to make sure we meet up, do a few runs together.”

“We could do that,” I told him, feeling the upper hand shift in my favor. “I better go meet Lucy, she’s waiting for me.”

“Okay.” Luke turned to go, but then stopped and looked back at me. “You know, you’re different from Josie.”

“Oh yeah, how’s that?” I asked, enjoying my regained position of power. I was waiting for Luke to tell me that I was a sparkling conversationalist, that I was an amazing kisser, and that he found me fascinating.

Instead, he grinned and told me, “You’re taller.”

And as much as I wanted to tell him he was an asshole, I couldn’t help but laugh. And neither could he.

H
ow do you sum up four days of skiing with a guy who looked better in ski pants than I did, a gondola ride that had me making out at an elevation of 3,840 feet, two hours in a hot tub that left me with pruned fingers, sore lips, and an untied bikini top, and a huge slope-side log cabin that had me sharing a bedroom with two friends who thought I was hating every minute of it?

I had no idea. But that was my job.

When Mrs. Holden dropped me off at home after our three-hour ride back from Vermont, the house was dark and it was obvious nobody was around to greet me. TJ wasn’t coming back from Chicago until tomorrow night, and my mom had probably gone over to the Brocks’ house or to the movies.

“Do you want to come back with us and have dinner?” Mrs.

Holden offered, obviously feeling bad for the forgotten latchkey kid getting out of her backseat.

“Thanks, but I’ll be okay. My mom will probably be home soon and I’m tired.”

As I was about to close the car door, Josie grabbed my arm. “Don’t go to bed without writing in the notebook first,” she whispered. “We don’t want you to forget any of the details.”

The details. How could I forget the details when they were all I kept thinking about? How Luke reached around my waist to keep me from falling when our gondola jerked forward unexpectedly. How he offered to carry my skies over to the racks when I told him my arms were tired. The look he gave me before we said good night at Josie’s house. No, there was no risk of me forgetting the details. It was the big picture I had trouble with. Because in the big picture, things were going according to plan. Luke was becoming perfect boyfriend material and he had no idea that I was the one manipulating him like a seasoned puppeteer. He was Pinocchio to my Gepetto.

So when I got up to my room and pulled the notebook out of my desk drawer, I didn’t know what to write. It wasn’t that I’d need to lie to prove that everything was working out the way we wanted, because the truth was, it couldn’t be going better. The problem was, if I wrote about what really happened, if I didn’t leave out the details, it wouldn’t be the story Josie and Lucy—and every other girl reading the guide—was expecting. They say the devil is in the details, and in my case that was certainly true.

Because the details were fast becoming the most interesting part about Luke and me.

I’d taken a shower, done a load of laundry, and spent a half hour sitting on my bed trying to forget the fact that I dreaded picking up that damn notebook. Finally, after staring at the empty page for twenty minutes, I started writing.

Here’s what I wrote:

Friday Night—Arrived at Josie’s house. Luke called my cell phone (has memorized number, good sign) and made plans to meet me at the mountain in the morning. ‘A’ for effort and planning. Project Luke progressing nicely. Interested to see if he can pull off four days of this.

Here’s what I
didn’t
write:

The week before winter break officially started, I’d undergone meticulous preparation, including a deep-conditioning treatment (to avoid aforementioned static cling and flyaways), a deep-cleansing mud mask (to eliminate aforementioned blackheads on chin), a double application of Crest Whitestrips, and a generous daily slathering of Neutrogena self-tanning mousse. Gave Luke a Post-it with my cell phone number on it. Figured it would stick to the inside of his coat pocket and he couldn’t forget it.

Here’s what I wrote:

Saturday Morning—Luke waiting for me by the lift ticket line (keeping promises as promised, our boy is learning!). He looked good in navy blue ski pants, red jacket, and mirrored sunglasses. Owen asked Luke where he was planning to ski, and before answering Luke looked at me. Told him to go ahead and ski Skye Peak with his friends. Made plans to meet us for lunch at K-1 lodge before heading over to the lift.

Here’s what I
didn’t
write:

Josie was color coordinated from the tips of her purple Rossignols to the fuzzy lavender headband covering her ears. If she looked like the perfect snow bunny, my black puffy ski pants and rental skis made me look like fashion roadkill. Seeing my reflection in Luke’s mirrored sunglasses didn’t do much to help my ego. Nor did the fact that Luke was obviously an amazing skier and I was trying to remember what I learned in ski school when I was six. The idea of resorting to the snowplow in front of Luke was about as appealing as being carried down the mountain on a stretcher if I attempted to join him on the black diamonds. It seemed safer to just meet him for lunch, where I knew I couldn’t hurt myself and end up in the first aid station.

Here’s what I wrote:

Saturday Afternoon—Luke met me at K-1 lodge for lunch, saved table with enough seats for all of us (thinking of others, chalk one up for the boy). Offered to carry my cafeteria tray and even put extra ketchup packets on the table for everyone’s use. Forgot the napkins and straws. Will work on that. Made plans to meet back at the lodge at end of day. Showed up on time. ‘A’ for punctuality.

Here’s what I
didn’t
write:

Extra ketchup packets! I knew nobody else got it, but I did. It was Luke’s little way of paying homage to our inside joke. And I thought it was cute. After that I even offered him a few of my french fries. I figured he’d earned them.

By three o’clock, when the guys were supposed to meet us at the lodge, Josie, Lucy, and I had already been sitting around for a half hour, our boots unbuckled and our coats off, ready to call it quits.

“I think I have frostbite. Remind me again why my mom insists we come up here?” Josie asked, rubbing her toes.

“Perhaps it has something to do with that sweet little chalet you have on the mountain?” I suggested, even though the chalet was anything but little.

“I think she does it to torture me.” Josie wiggled her toes at us, trying to get the blood going again.

“Hey, who wants to make one last run?” Luke asked, coming toward us with Matt and Owen trailing behind.

Nobody volunteered.

“Come on, anybody?” Luke tried again.

Owen pulled out the chair next to Lucy and sat down. Matt was already taking off his coat.

My thighs were burning, my lips were chapped, and the only run I wanted to make was to the cafeteria line to get a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream.

“I’ll go,” I offered halfheartedly, hoping Luke would see it was just the two of us and decide to call it a day.

Instead he reached for my hand and pulled me up off my seat. “Come on.”

“Can I run to the bathroom first?” I asked, thinking perhaps I should try to shake out my hat head or, at the very least, blow my running nose.

“We don’t have time if we’re going to catch the last gondola.”

Josie and Lucy watched for my answer, probably thinking my bathroom request was precipitated by a full bladder when it was really a result of my desire to look hot for Luke. “Okay,” I told Luke. “Let’s go.”

The lift line was empty, so we had our very own gondola to the top of the mountain. I fished around in my coat pocket for the tube of Burt’s Bees lip balm I’d made a point to remember.

“Want some?” I held the tube out for Luke.

He shook his head. “That’s okay.”

“You’re a really good skier. I guess you’ve been skiing a long time.”

“Don’t you remember that ski trip our freshman year?”

I vaguely remembered a day trip we all took to Jiminy Peak. “I guess so. Why?”

“You don’t remember how I could barely stop and went plowing into Mr. Wesley, who went plowing into Nurse Kelly, who went plowing into the entire ski lift line and proceeded to knock everyone down like dominoes?”

“Come on, I think I would have remembered that.”

“Nah, you probably wouldn’t. You were going out with Owen.”

“So?”

“So? So I wasn’t exactly on your radar then. Remember?”

The funny thing is, he was right. I could remember Owen exactly, including the navy blue ski jacket he wore, with the red piping down the sides, and how his goggles left an impression in his hair. But Luke bowling over an entire lift line? Not one bit.

“All set?” I asked, holding on to the metal handrail to keep from being jostled around as the gondola made its way into the lift shed.

Luke stood up next to me. “Almost,” he told me, before leaning over and kissing me. “I decided I needed some of your lip stuff after all.”

Here’s what I wrote:

Saturday Night—Luke, Owen, and Matt show up at Josie’s. Five minutes late. Luke says his watch is slow. Decide to believe him but tell him to get new battery when he gets home.

Here’s what I
didn’t
write:

Two words—hot tub.

I’d made it through a day of skiing without causing any serious damage, unless you counted the blister on my pinkie toe, a little windburn and sunburn on my cheeks, and what felt like a bruise along the entire right side of my leg. But skiing was nothing compared to the test waiting for me that night. A test that included a hundred and sixty jets with wave-massage motion, contoured seating, and minimal skin coverage.

Underneath my jeans and top I had on my favorite bikini—favorite because it made me look like I had bigger boobs than I did without making me look like I’d stuffed a roll of Bounty in the cups. The plan was for Josie and Lucy to take Matt and Owen downstairs to the game room so Luke and I could be alone on the deck. Alone and half-naked, that is. Because essentially that’s what hanging out in a hot tub meant. I’d never seen Luke without his shirt off (unless you counted our trip to Block Island freshman year, which I didn’t). But I knew he was going to look good. And so I wanted to look better than good. I wanted to look killer. I knew the whole point was to not really care what Luke thought of me, but somewhere along the way that had changed. It was Stephanie Potter syndrome all over again. I could see caring from an objective “Is our plan working?” point of view, but this was different. I didn’t know if it started when he took me to Friendly’s or when he helped me up after my wipeout on our last run down the mountain, but I cared. Probably more than I should have. Make that
definitely
more than I should have.

Josie’s parents were gone by 6:30, and around 7:00 the doorbell rang and Owen, Luke, and Matt stood outside on the front steps, waiting for us to answer the door.

“Ready?” Lucy and Josie looked at me and waited for my answer.

I took a deep breath, adjusted my bikini top, and nodded. “Ready.”

“Wow, this place is huge.” Owen craned his neck as he followed the wall of windows up toward the roofline and the second-floor loft.

“The pool table’s downstairs,” Lucy told him. “And there’s air hockey, too.”

“Cool, show me the way.” Owen followed Lucy down the hallway and she seemed more than eager to lead the way. She probably couldn’t wait to kick his ass at air hockey—which I knew she would.

It took less than ten minutes for the six of us to pair off, and before you could say “take off your clothes and climb into six hundred gallons of bubbling water,” Luke and I were in the hot tub.