The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates (3 page)

Shannon’s shudder of horror seemed pretty real this time. “Ugh, yes. How long ago was that?”

“Five years. You guys had just moved here, and you didn’t have any friends yet except for me, and Mom thought it would be a good idea for me to have a big party so you could meet people, remember?”

“Yes, and Aunt June came.”

“And Aunt June came,” I confirmed. “She thought she could add some life to the party by making us all sit around while she told us stories.”

“You know, some of her stories are funny,” Shannon said.

“What about the one where she described in full detail about her do-it-yourself ingrown toenail surgery?”

“Oh, my ears!” she wailed, rolling over and clutching at her ears. “Don’t remind me!”

I held up my old backpack and dumped out the leftover debris from the previous spring into a trash sack. “My toes hurt just thinking about it.”

Three

              The next morning, I drove to school in a haze of sleepiness. A thick fog hung low over the road, but it would burn off in no time. The weather man had promised us another sunny day, of course. I wouldn’t have used the word sunny, though. Sunny was supposed to infer peaceful, beautiful weather. What we got was angry heat. The kind that fried the hair right off your arms.

Finn still had not come by to look at my car, but fortunately I hadn’t had a repeat of the stalling-out-nightmare from the previous week. Maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe Oscar was fine after all. I chose to believe that.

              I was sitting behind a row of cars at a stop light in front of St. John High School when I noticed the vehicle behind me. A red Chevy pickup truck, shiny and new. It
looked
like the same one that I had stalled in front of the previous week, but I couldn’t be sure.

              “Don’t worry. It’s not the same truck. It’s not the same truck.” I drummed on the cracked steering wheel and stared at the red truck through my
rear view
mirror. A glare across its windshield prevented me from seeing the driver’s face. “And if it is, there’s no reason for you to freak out because you’re never going to meet the driver.”

              Every other car in line turned right into the student parking lot. I turned on my blinker as well, and to my horror, so did the red Chevy.

              “Oh crap.”

              I pulled into the parking lot and squeezed in between two cars. There were no other spaces in the row. The plan was to shut off the engine and dash inside before the owner of the Chevy could see who I was.

              The plan half worked. I bolted out of the car as soon as the engine whined to a stop, but I forgot to take off my seat belt first. An involuntary grunt stumbled through my teeth as the nylon bit into my stomach. Quickly I ripped off my seat belt and again tried to exit the car. This time the long shoulder strap on my bag caught on the parking brake. I was jerked off of my feet and almost went sprawling onto the black asphalt. Somehow I managed to catch myself on the door, which screeched open even wider, and skinned my bare knee on the asphalt in the process.

And then it got worse.

              The Chevy had parked in the spot right behind me, and the driver had gotten out long before I managed to stand up straight, my knee stinging in the hot wind. There was no way that he wouldn’t recognize my car if it was the same person.

              Of course it was the same person. The driver was a boy about my age with dark hair and dark skin. He didn’t look Hispanic, but he definitely wasn’t black, either. He was tall with tousled black hair and a cheerful face. He was good looking enough that my face flushed red when I realized that he was grinning at me. And of course, the embarrassment of blushing made me blush even more.

              I gave him a half smile when he noticed me looking at him, then turned and started power-walking toward the glass doors that led into the cafeteria.

              “Hey! Stop. Wait!”

I ignored him, head down. My book bag thumped against the backs of my knees with every step.

He was faster than I’d given him credit for. I’d nearly made it to the double doors when he caught up to me. He put a cool hand on my elbow and I had to stop.

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” he asked. He had a warm voice at odds with his cold touch, a voice that seemed
right
on the edge of laughter.

“Oh,” I said, thinking fast. “No, I heard you.”

I looked up at him, excuse at the ready, and then stopped. He had seemed good looking at a distance, but up close he was devastating. His eyes were so dark that they were like black pools, iris indiscernible from pupil.

“Are you okay?” he asked. The laughter in his voice was a little less now.

“Uh, yeah.” I flushed and turned away, silently cursing myself for staring. I went to the cafeteria doors and felt his hand slip off of my elbow. His hand had been cold, but the place where he’d touched me was burning.

I pushed through the doors and my ears were instantly barraged with the echoing chatter of hundreds of students. I spotted Shannon and Finn at our usual table across the room and started walking toward them.

              “You stalled out at a stop light last week, didn’t you?” said the new boy suddenly. He was taking very long strides in an effort to keep up with me. 

              I glanced up at him, confused as to what point he was trying to make. “Yeah. Sorry. Oscar’s kind of finicky like that.”

              “Who’s Oscar?”

              We were almost to my table and Shannon had spotted me. She had been talking to Margo, who usually didn’t sit with us, but had been distracted by the sight of the boy walking next to me. Her eyebrows furrowed.

              I ignored the warning signs that Shannon was building up her drama-arsenal and focused instead on not making a fool of myself in front of this beautiful boy that was inexplicably still walking with me. “Oscar’s my car,” I said, staring again. So much for not making a fool of myself. “Listen, do I kno
w
–ow!” I stopped mid question when I knocked into the corner of the table and fell right into Finn’s lap. Finn barely caught me just before I slipped off of his lap and into the floor, which I was immensely grateful for.

              I forced myself to check the boy’s reaction, but he wasn’t laughing. He just looked relieved that Finn had caught me.

              And was it just me, or did he have his hand extended as if to catch me, too?

              “Apple?” Finn asked, holding the bright green fruit in front of my face. I took it, still distracted by the boy that seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

              “Listen Em,” Finn said. “Are you setting up camp on my lap or something? Cause the least you could do is distribute your weight evenly across both legs.”

              “Sorry.” I slid into the empty seat next to Finn,  and he picked up his book again.

              The handsome boy sat across from me, staring just as much as I was. This only served to make me flush even redder.

              “Emily,” Shannon said. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

              I glanced at Shannon, at a loss. I didn’t even know the guy’s name. “Uh, this is Shannon and her brother Finnegan,” I said. Then I noticed Margo on Shannon’s other side looking at me expectantly. “And Margo?” I hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question, but since when did Margo eat with us?

              “Finn,” Finn corrected from behind his book. He was staring over the top of it at our new acquaintance, eyebrows furrowed in much the same way as Shannon’s had been. Margo smiled and gave a muted, “Hi.”

              “You must be Ethan,” Shannon said. She extended her hand to the boy, all smiles.

              “How’d you know?”

              Shannon shrugged. “Oh you know. Small town.”

              Finn turned to give me a questioning look behind his book. I shrugged, honestly not knowing how else to respond. I had no idea why this beautiful boy was following me around like a lost puppy.

              “Yeah,” Ethan said. The laughter was back in his voice. “I heard small towns were lousy with gossip.”

              “First time amongst common folk then?” Shannon’s words were rude, but the way in which she said it just made it sound so sweet and charming. Now it was her turn to be stared at. Why couldn’t I be charming like that? Or at least coherent?

              “Lived in Dallas my whole life.” He smiled at me. “Sorry, I don’t mean to barge in on you guys like this. I just saw Emily?” He said my name like a question, so I nodded. “She looked just as lost as me. I figured I’d found another new student to use as a crutch. Guess I was wrong.” He grinned and sat up to look around the cafeteria over the heads of the other students. “So how does breakfast work here? I’m starving.”

              He looked at me first, but I couldn’t get out any intelligible words. So instead I just pointed at the entrance to the food line. He smiled at me as if he and I had just shared a private joke, and then got up to wait in line.

              “Wow, Em, you work fast, don’t you?” Shannon said as soon as Ethan was out of earshot. “I’m proud of you.”

              “What?” I sputtered. “What’s that supposed to mean? Who the hell is that guy?”

              Finn sighed and returned his attention to his battered copy of
The Princess Bride
.

              “That’s Ethan Cavanagh, remember? I told you he was a new guy at school and Margo said he was cute. And he is, I’d like to point out. Very cute.”

              Margo nodded her assent to this, her blond curls bobbing, but said nothing.

              “You never told me about him.” I took a large bite of my apple. “And what do you mean ‘I work fast’?”

              “I mean he’s been a student here for five minutes and he’s already fixated on you.” She nudged Finn’s elbow. “Didn’t you see how he stared at her?”

              “I don’t like him,” Finn said.

              “What?”

              “I don’t like him.”

              “And why not?” Shannon sounded offended.

              “He works too fast.”             

              “I thought I was the one who worked too fast,” I said.

              “No offense, Em, but that was not your proudest moment. You couldn’t even walk in a straight line.
He
was the one working his magic on
you
.”

              I frowned to hide my smile. I think Finn noticed.

              “What’s so funny?” Ethan sat down across from me again, laden with an overflowing bowl of biscuits and gravy and a carton of milk.

              I forced the involuntary smirk off of my face.
              “Oh nothing,” Shannon said. “Emily’s just being Emily.”

              I glared at Shannon as Finn picked up his book with a resigned sigh.

              The rest of breakfast passed with little incident. Between Shannon, Margo, and Ethan, the conversation didn’t lag even a little. I eventually found my voice and was even able to make Ethan laugh once without flushing. Finn didn’t join in on the conversation, but that was normal. I’d have been concerned if he
had
put his book down.

After breakfast, Shannon finally got me on my own when we veered away from the others to find our lockers at the other end of the building.

“So that was strange,” Shannon said with a meaningful look. I ignored it. “We don’t get many visitors at breakfast.”

“You bring people to breakfast all the time. And lunch too,” I reminded her. “What about Margo?”

“Margo’s different. She’s not the handsome new guy that seems to have eyes only for you.”

My face grew hot. “Shut up, he does not.”

“Of course he does.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t press the subject.”

“Sorry, sorry.” She pulled out her schedule and began to study it. “What kind of classes do you have? Margo and I haven’t got anything in common.”

              “
Spanish
III, Art, Chemistry, Music Appreciation,” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Calculus, Government, and Literature.”

              “Ick,” she said. “I’ve got Calculus and Chemistry with you, but my
Spanish
class is last period.”

              “Too bad.”

“
Sí
,” she sighed. “Okay, well I’ve got to get to Civics. I think Charlie’s in there with me. I ran into him this morning before you brought your boyfriend over.”

“I thought we were dropping this subject!” I found my locker and yanked it open a little too hard. The door clanged against the neighboring locker and Jenny Black glared at me.

“Fine, fine,” she said with a grin, and disappeared down the hall to find her own locker. Jenny slammed her locker shut and turned on her heal without saying a word. I rolled my eyes. She’d always hated me.

The day dragged by much as I had expected it would. I practically slept through
Spanish
and Music Appreciation, but stared in horror at Mr. Yarsden as he began going through the material for that night’s Calculus homework. If there was anything I was absolutely terrible at, it was math. I did all right with Algebra, and Mom had assured me that Calculus was just one simple little step up from that. I had news for Mom: Calculus was
anything
but simple.

Ethan was in that class with us too, and I couldn’t help but watch him as he chatted with his neighbor, Nick Parker, in a manner that could only be described as breezy. I had never actually seen anyone be breezy. Ever. I didn’t think it was possible for a teenager to be breezy. But there he was, all light and airy and cheerful like a fluttering curtain on a cool day.

Shannon noticed me watching him and I saw a spark of intuition alight in her green eyes. If I had the guts to try passing a note to her, I would send her one that strictly forbade her from meddling
at all
in my friendship with Ethan. Because that’s all it was. Friendship.
Barely
. I mean come on! I barely knew the guy! I’d only met him that morning!