The Starter Boyfriend (2 page)

“What’s your name, honey?” the mom continued.

“Courtney. Courtney Walsh. But it sounds like you two aren’t exactly ready to place an order yet—”

“Oh, we’re ready, Courtney,” she broke in. “We know what we want, don’t we, Randolph?”

I hugged the pad to my chest, just to give myself something to do. And hopefully to keep the blood from rushing to my ears in embarrassment, so when he finally answered, I could actually hear him.

Instead, footsteps sounded behind me.

A hand touched the small of my back, accompanied by Phillip’s craggy voice. “Courtney, I need you to go through those...orders in the back. I’ll take over from here.”

I nodded, inching backwards, then threw a look over at Mrs. Schiff, one I hoped conveyed more professionalism than mortification. “Nice talking with you.”

Then I turned to hightail it to the back room, where I leaned my head against a wall, blew out a sigh and did a closed-eye cringe. Sure, I hoped to go to Homecoming or Prom before I graduated. But with a guy I actually knew and wanted to get to know better. One who felt the same about me. Not just because I scored high marks with his mother.

Relaxing my face, I took a couple quiet steps toward the curtain and peeked out. Phillip had his back to me, but I had an unobstructed view of Randy’s face, set in a scowl, and his mother’s head bent over the catalogue. But my gaze didn’t stay on them very long, for its heart’s desire was pulling it to the very front of the store, to the window display.

To safety and certainty.

No matter how many guys I got to know, no matter how many life experiences I had? The happier I was with my boy Tux.

Chapter 2

The wedding groomsmen wandered in late and shoulder-bumping rowdy. Phillip and I had to dig deep for all new resources of patience, which grew more difficult as the clock ticked on. Finally, at about six, we managed to get them all fitted and back out the door.

Randy Schiff had a tux on order now, too, although who his date was going to be was anybody’s guess. I was only certain who it wasn’t: me.

“I think I owe you hazard pay for today,” Phillip said as he watched me turn my key in the front door lock. Cars whooshed by in the street behind us, and a truck’s brakes gave a short squeal. “Having to deal with crazy people.”

“Oh, it’s just part of the job,” I replied, basically on auto-pilot. I’d flipped the switch on my sales clerk brain, moving to thoughts of a leisurely bubble bath.

“Well, I appreciate you going the extra mile, and you will see it reflected in your next paycheck.”

I smiled a thank-you.

“You know, I took the liberty of checking out the website on that college you told me about. We’re not talking chump change.”

He knew I had my heart set on attending St. Ansgar’s College in Oregon. Not only was it my parents’ alma mater, but it was the site of my best little kid Christmas ever, the time we’d visited and I’d made snow angels and snowmen under twinkling colored lights while being serenaded by a church choir. My parents had looked on, holding hands, giving me some of life’s perfect moments.

It turned out the old Maroon and Gold heralded a top-notch business department—exactly what I wanted to study. I’d been working with my guidance counselor to make sure I’d have a competitive package when the time came to apply, and so far, so good. Still, there was a major obstacle blocking my way, and it wasn’t the tuition like I let Phillip think.

It was my dad.

“Yeah, it’s way expensive,” I said and blinked a few times as if in shock. “Anyway, see you tomorrow.”

He lifted a hand in a half-hearted farewell and turned away, a slight limp bringing what looked like a bounce to his linebacker physique.

Veering toward the back parking lot, I yanked my phone out of my backpack and pressed number two on my speed dial. Felicia Hernandez—Flea—and I had been tight since finding ourselves huddled outside our coach’s closed office door during freshman hell week, both having been summoned, both convinced we were about to get cut. When in fact, Coach had just wanted to get to know us both better. It was amazing how fast panic could bond people.

I considered her my best friend, and even though I knew I on was shaky ground with a lot of the players for taking a pass on beer and wine coolers and Jell-O shots, I liked to believe she still had my back.

Flea answered on the first ring. “Courtney!”

“Hey, babycakes,” I said, using our team’s pet name for each other. Then, making a beeline toward my gecko green VW Beetle, I blurted out the torrid tale of Randy Schiff and his mom.

“Let me get this straight,” she said after making all kinds of you-have-
got
-to-be-kidding-me noises. “His
mother
asked you to be his date?”

“I know, right?”

“That’s hilarious! What did you say?”

“Nothing, really. He basically turned beet red, and I left the room.” I opened the car door, got hit with a blast of trapped Indian summer heat, then made the decision to finish the conversation outside.

“So possibly, you
are
Randy’s date?”

“Definitely not his date.”

“But it’s over with Jacy?”

I wasn’t sure which of the coiffed girls at school Jacy was, but could say with absolute certainty that when Randy left Tux Everlasting, his status was single. “Unless they get back together or something.”

“So he
could
ask you, Courtney.”

Rolling my eyes, I leaned against my car. Flea really wasn’t getting how high-soaring, over-the-fence-and-gone these odds were. “If you mean because I’m female and single and go to S.B. High, then yes, he could ask me. But that’s about it.”

“Still,” she said, making a murmuring noise, “you
so
have to tell this to the girls tonight.”

I shuddered like someone had just chucked a cold beer at me. “Tonight?”

“Don’t tell me you’re working. Or you can’t go because you have to work in the morning. You’re always working, Courtney! Have some fun, too.”

She was right about the “always working.” The job with Phillip cut me a wide berth of excuses when needed. Problem was, I couldn’t get out of an event I didn’t know was happening. “What do you mean, tonight?”

She drew a shaky breath. “You—you didn’t hear? Saffron’s party?”

My throat went thick. Third baseman Saffron Willis was a senior who’d only recently started hanging around with juniors like Flea, Madison and me. She’d claimed to want to intensify team camaraderie for her final softball season, but neither Flea nor I missed the fact that since her boyfriend (now ex) and all his friends had graduated, she was basically friendless. Madison Argo, our third Musketeer since freshman year, took Saffron at face value—but ever since Madison had gotten a boyfriend herself, she didn’t think about much else. (Yeah, she’d become one of
those
girls.)

Still, I didn’t have much problem with Madison. It was Saffron who made my teeth grit because she had this tendency to hang on Flea. I couldn’t shake the thought that she was only putting up with Madison and me because we were a package deal.

For now.

“Big party,” Flea’s words rushed out. “Parents gone and everything.”

“Great,” I managed, trying to hide my throbbing panic that this party slight was not only intentional, but personal. Not because it was my fault that Saffron had had to shave her head last spring—she’d taken that remarkably well—and not just because I thought maybe she wanted to steal my best friend. But because of my other fear, that my Just Say No stance was labeling me un-party-worthy. Un-friend-worthy. Your basic leachy loser.

“I’m
sure
Saffron is expecting you,” Flea said, her voice knife-cutting into my daymare. “And will be royally pissed if you don’t show, you know?”

I uttered a sound that I hoped she took the right way. Whatever
right
was these days. Ever since Madison’s boyfriend had turned twenty-one and become the team’s ready alcohol supplier, I’d felt about as connected to my friends as a benched player during a ninth inning. They didn’t get that I didn’t want to drink; I didn’t get why they did.

“You
are
coming tonight, right, Courtney? I mean, it’s been a long time since you’ve shown up at anything...and well, it’d just be good, you know?”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. What I was hearing from Flea was that I’d missed too many parties, and was in danger of no longer being missed.

Not that I’d already
been
cut out. There was still time, if I got my butt in gear.

“Sure, Flea, I’ll be there,” I said, with probably too much pep.

She must have been satisfied because she started talking about running into her ex at the mall. I feigned outrage and all the heated emotions I knew she wanted to hear, while still trying to get my head around this party. That I hadn’t been invited to. But definitely had to attend.

I couldn’t help wondering how far I might have already sunk in people’s eyes, and how far I might have to go to make sure I stayed alive in my own life.

* * *

The scent of sausage and peppers met me at the front door of our townhouse, luring me toward the kitchen. At the stove, my father’s fiancée, Jennifer Ronay, stood shaking oregano into her fry pan concoction.

“
Ciao, Bella
!” she cried upon seeing me, flashing a smile so bright I considered UV protection.

“Smells great,” I said, sticking with our native English.

See, Jennifer didn’t actually speak any another languages. She was all about creating the right atmosphere. The aroma and greeting told me tonight’s fare was
Italiano
. Grilled fish meant plastic leis and fruit punch served in coconut shells. Tacos were served to the strains of mariachi music. And speaking of music, when she announced she felt like dancing, you wanted to dive into a doorway and hold on before she let “Brick House” loose.

All of which made her a bizarre choice for my dad, William P. Walsh, D.D.S., who was a skillful dentist, but didn’t know a pepper flake from a frosted one. Getting him to pitch in with housework was like, uh, pulling teeth. My mom had once told me that he’d been raised by doting aunts to believe that men should bring home the bacon and women should fry it up in the pan.

Which was maybe one of the major reasons why she left. Or maybe why he put up with her for so long.

All I knew was in my last month of eighth grade, Myra Walsh took her martini shaker and hit the road. Leaving her car in the garage with a dented front fender and keys in the ignition, and a me a note that started with “Sorry, Courtney,” and ended with “Take care of your father.” Plus a bunch of crap in the middle, and which had smacked on so many levels, including the obvious: who was going to take care of me?

Soon I’d stopped my sniveling to learn about washer spin cycles, fat content in ground beef and toilet bowl cleansers. Not because my mother had told me to. (
Definitely
not because she’d told me to.) Because my father looked so depleted, so vacant, like he’d just come back from a war with post traumatic stress syndrome, and housework was the only way I could think to help.

Aside from the obvious that I was all he had left—and he was all I had left—I soon discovered focusing on him and the house kept me too busy for other things, like mother rage and self-pity. Plus, I figured it was temporary, that I was building a bridge to whatever came next.

The thing was, that bridge never connected with new land. My mom stayed away, and my dad and I just kept meandering forward, one step in front of the other. Making me wonder—and then worry— how I was going to be able to leave him and get a life of my own.

Enter Jennifer, a pharmaceutical rep who made sales calls at his office, and for some God-knows-why reason, asked him out. Before I knew it, my nerdy dad had a
girlfriend
.

Flea and the girls initially snubbed Jennifer when my dad brought her to a ballgame, thinking I hated her. Which I’d understood and almost appreciated. They mostly resented their step-parents, and who could argue that Jennifer’s braless boobs cheered as wildly as her big voice, and all that macking on my dad between innings was just plain gross?

What the girls didn’t see was Jennifer showing up at our place, groceries in hand. Helping me make dinner while asking questions whose answers she seemed to genuinely want to hear. The next thing I’d know, my dad would be leaning against the counter, uncorking a bottle of wine for them, joining in.

The energy in our house was suddenly crazy good. Jennifer was like a friend to me, and yet, my father’s partner. When they’d announced their engagement, I might have gone a little overboard with excitement. Okay, I know I did. I gave Jennifer high-fives on everything, from lettering style of the wedding invitations to the pigs-in-a-blanket hors d’oeuvres to the maid of honor dress she picked out for me: long and satiny, in pole dancer pink, and with a big-ass bow in the back.

Whatever.

I’d thought my enthusiasm was greasing the skids to the altar—only to have her suddenly call the whole thing off for my father’s
lack
of interest. Which, really, was just my bumbling dad being my bumbling dad. I’d made him get his butt in gear and apologize, and soon they had a new wedding date—two weeks from tomorrow.

I was trying to keep a lower profile this time, keep out of the way, more determined than ever to see their “I Do’s” happen. Jennifer was not only a godsend for him, but she was my ticket to ride. With her at the helm, I’d be able to untie my apron strings after graduation and fly off to Oregon—or Timbuktu—with a clear conscience that I was leaving him in loving, capable hands. And not feel like the second Walsh female in five years to abandon him.

Just because half my gene pool came from my mother did not mean I had to act like her daughter.

“I hope it tastes as good as it smells,” Jennifer replied now in plain old English. “I
might
have gone a little wild with the garlic and peppers tonight, but you know, you only live once, huh?” She tapped a toe and did a full spin, hands over her head. Which fell short of embarrassing since there was no one else in the room to see.