The Taming (11 page)

“Do you like my jeans?” I asked, apropos of absolutely nothing.

Evan looked a bit embarrassed. “Uh, Gap?” he asked.

“Old Navy,” I admitted. “The sales bin.”

I could tell by his expression that he didn’t know what I was talking about. His pink-and-blue-striped shirt probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

“I’m thinking that, uh, maybe the cashmere sweater suits you better,” he said. “You strike me as somebody who should be in cashmere, all the time.”

I almost blurted out that the first time I’d ever even felt cashmere was when I’d slipped on this sweater, but I stopped. “This old thing? I’m so glad you like it!” I tried to match his smile. Maybe I could get Lisa to never wear the sweater again. This guy noticed stuff. What other guy would know cobalt blue?

“Thing is, thanks to the play, I’ve had to claw my work hours back at the bakery to practically nothing, which has had a disastrous impact on my current wardrobe,” I said, desperately trying to provide an excuse for my shlumpy clothes.

“You’ve got the lead in the school play
and
you work?”

“Well, like I said, not as much as I used to.” I glanced at my watch. “Crap, it’s almost midnight! How did that happen? Sorry, I’m so sorry, I have to go now. If you don’t mind, that is.”

Evan looked puzzled.

“I loved every single minute and second, but I’ve got a double shift at the bakery tomorrow, starting at 4:30.”

Now he looked stunned. “4:30? Like, a.m.? A double shift? Man!” He shook his head. “Well, I was hoping we could get together tomorrow night, but you’ll just be getting off shift. Next Friday, then?”

Wait, wait. What had just happened? Had he just asked me out
again
?

“I’m sorry … what did you say?”

“Do you want to go out with me next week?” he asked, throwing a million-volt smile at me.

I burst out laughing.

“That’s not the usual reaction I get. Is that a yes or a terrible rejection?”

“A yes!” I practically screamed. Calm down, calm down, calm … “God, yes!”

“Good. But do you have the same schedule next week?”

I nodded.

“Then Friday night it is.”

“Great, okay, super!” I jumped up, ready to dart for the subway. “See you at rehearsal on Monday!”

Evan jumped up too and grabbed my wrist. “No, Katie. Please, I insist. It’s late, I must drive you home. It wouldn’t be right to let you go home at night alone and unprotected.”

“Oh, oh right.” I looked at my wrist—him holding my wrist. It felt so warm and strong and tender, all at once. “Sure, fine. That’d be great, but …”

“I won’t come up,” he promised. “I’ll just see you to the doorman.”

My stomach pitched. My real life kept getting in the way. “No, it’s not like that. No doorman, Evan, it’s not, our apartment is …” He’d find out, everyone knew what those apartments were. “It’s, we got a, it’s city housing.”

Mom had pinned all her hopes on Joey and all her money on “Mommy maintenance,” as she called it. Her clothes, her hair, her spa stuff. She was the
investment
.

“We’ll be moving soon, though.”

“To the lobby, then!” Big smile.

As useless as I was about this stuff, I could tell that Evan was going out of his way to make it easy for me. And for some stupid reason, I was close to tears as a result.

As usual, the streetlights were out in front of our building.

Evan put the car in park, leapt out and around and opened the door for me. I could feel my blood pumping even before he took me in his arms. The crispness of his shirt, the trace of aftershave that made him smell like a walk on the beach.

Not that I ever have.

And he was so strong.

Maybe Evan didn’t play basketball like Josh, but when he held me I knew that he could take on Josh and win. He was even stronger than Nick Kormos. My eyes readjusted and I took him in. God, he was lovely. Evan tightened his grip even more. I gasped, but I don’t know why, I’d never felt safer.

“Good night, Katie,” Evan whispered, and then he lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. Small, sweet, sweet smile. “Thank you for a wonderful evening.”

And then he kissed me on the mouth so gently that I almost fell apart.

Chapter Eighteen

W
e walked hand in hand. It was harder to move through the crowded halls, but she liked it when we walked that way. I could tell she liked being seen with me. I liked it too, but maybe for a different reason. It was like marking my territory.
This
belonged to me. This was
mine—my
girlfriend. Then again, maybe her reasons weren’t so different after all. I knew she liked people—okay, not people, other girls—to know that I was her boyfriend of three weeks.

Up ahead was a group of girls—
the
group of girls. They were the ones everybody looked to for direction, the ones who controlled fashion, who decided what was in and what was out and, more important,
who
was in and who was out. Whether they were strutting the hall like it was a fashion runway, holding court at their table in the cafeteria or strategically posing outside the main doors, they knew they were the nerve centre of the school. All the girls wanted to be them and all the boys wanted to be with them—except for one, me.

It hadn’t taken me more than a couple of days to figure out who they were. It had taken me even less time to decide that they weren’t the group I was going to hang with. Not at this school. Not this time. I could have if I’d wanted to. I
still
could. They were mine for the taking, but I didn’t want any. Funny, but somehow not wanting any of them made them want me even more. They were used to having guys stumble all over them, so I was a source of confusion, frustration and attraction. Human nature—if they wanted me before, now that they couldn’t have me they wanted me even more.

There was a fine line I had to walk when I was around them—I couldn’t ignore them completely or they’d know I was deliberately doing it and thus was really noticing them, but I couldn’t give them too much attention, either. I gave a subtle nod of my head in their direction and most of them flashed me a big smile, which I promptly ignored.

Katie, of course, wasn’t part of their group. She didn’t have the clothes or the money or the attitude. She wouldn’t have been able to play the games they played—hell, I didn’t even think she knew there was a game going on. Another one of the reasons I liked her.

“Hey, Evan,” Brittney sang out as we passed by.

I gave her a disinterested wave.

“Hello … Katie.”

“Hi, Brittney,” Katie replied. “How are you?”

Brittney ignored her, of course. Katie hadn’t picked up either the flirtation in Brittney’s voice or the subtle digs—the hesitation before saying her name, like she didn’t know it, or like Katie was so insignificant that you couldn’t expect somebody as
important
as Brittney to remember her or answer a question.

I knew that they wondered why I was dating Katie instead of one of them. Although at this point I thought Katie probably could have become at least an honorary member in their little group—at least if she dropped Lisa and Travis. They were so far down the social evolutionary scale that they could never be much more than what they were. I’d elevated Katie’s status … or, as my father would say, I had increased her
market value
. I
hated
when I even
thought
like him.

I actually wondered if other people were beginning to see in Katie what I saw. I was giving her confidence, and that confidence was sexy, like an aphrodisiac. She smiled more these days. She was more comfortable in her skin … her beautiful, perfect skin.

We kept walking. I didn’t need to look back to know they were watching us—thinking, wondering, trying to make sense of us as a couple. Maybe they didn’t know why I was with her instead of them, but
I
certainly did.

Dating one of those girls would have involved way too much energy and time—listening to their boring stories about the stupid things that interested them, hearing about their lives and their friends, trying to prop up and feed their egos, having to spend time doing things I didn’t want to do, taking phone calls I didn’t want to take, and, in the end, no matter how hard I tried, it still wouldn’t have filled the gap in their vapid souls. They weren’t looking for a boyfriend, they wanted a mirror to reflect back their own image.

Katie, on the other hand, didn’t make demands. She was just happy that we were together, period. She was thrilled when I asked her anything about what she was doing, and she was so impressed with whatever I had to say about anything. I knew that she had never looked at anyone the way she looked at me.

I spotted Travis and Lisa up ahead but they didn’t see us before they turned down the hall, and I made sure that Katie didn’t see them by pulling her into me for a “spontaneous” kiss. It was a brilliant move on my part, if I do say so myself. On the one hand, it was in full view of the cool girls and raised Katie’s coinage even further, and on the other hand, we avoided bumping into Creepy and Creepier.

Okay, I had to admit that I was sort of getting used to Travis—he was a pretty good director, and he did know how to put on makeup better than most of the girls in the school—but he still unnerved me a bit. Lisa, on the other hand, was somebody I could just do without completely. She didn’t seem to be buying what I was selling. I was starting to think that maybe she wasn’t interested in my “product.” Maybe she was buying from the other side of the counter. Maybe the reason she didn’t like me was because she saw me as competition for Katie. I’d keep my eye on that action. Not that I was worried. Katie was mine against
all
comers, no matter which side of the plate they batted from. I just thought it was best to stay away from Lisa, and keep Katie away from her as much as possible as well. Katie was so much better than that, better than them. Slowly I was weaning her away from them. She wasn’t complaining. Lunches with me on the lawn were so much more enticing then joining them in the cafeteria.

Katie blushed and then flushed hotter than a gas fire as soon as I let her go. I do that to girls. Quick little check to make sure that the Brittney Posse had caught that—yup, mouths still open. I squeezed her. Katie gasped and then gave me a shy little smile. I started to come to the uncomfortable realization that my newest girl might be a virgin. Okay, potentially problematic, but maybe even better in the grand scheme of things.

I led Katie away, still holding onto her hand. We went to the far corner of the cafeteria. There were a number of empty tables. I settled in, taking a seat with my back practically against where the two walls met. If I had a choice I always sat with my back against the wall. Not only did it give you a view of everything that was happening, it also made sure that nobody would come up on you from behind. I knew I wasn’t Wild Bill Hickok, and I wasn’t playing poker, but still …

“Where do you want to start?” Katie asked.

“How about right here.” I opened up her book and flipped to Act IV, scene 3.

She nodded her head. I knew she didn’t like that monologue but she’d have to get to it sooner or later.

“You and Grumio enter and he says,
No, no, forsooth, I dare not for my life!
” I said.

“
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears. What, did he marry me to famish me? Beggars that come unto my father’s door upon entreaty have a present alms. If not, elsewhere they meet with charity. But I, who never knew how to entreat
 …”

It happened again, she transformed in front of me. She was no longer just Katie, but Katherina, the shrew in need of being tamed. She was wild and strong-willed, beautiful and alluring. And mine. And more and more I was seeing that same quality even when she wasn’t on stage.

“
Am starv’d for meat, giddy for lack of sleep, with oaths kept walking, and with brawling fed
 …” She paused.