Finding X

Chapter Five

            Connie and Mom were talking in low voices on my way out of the house. They were in the kitchen, the door half closed. I needed to pass it to get to the front door and as I did, I was able to catch a fragment of their conversation amidst the sound of cutting and peeling of most likely tonight’s dinner.

            It was Connie’s voice. She sounded distressed and almost on the verge of tears. Wow. What a depression she must be in. The sound of her miserable only hardened my iron will to give her a wonderful Valentine’s Day. And patch up her and Max’s argument. “Mom, he’s never around. He has to know but he never gives me a chance to tell him.”

            That stopped me in my tracks. I stood by the door and listened it. I know. It’s terrible of me but hey, she was going to tell me anyway, in the car. But Ryan had been there and now I was too afraid to ask her after that awful shopping trip.

            “Honey,” I heard Mom say. “He’ll know soon enough. I had this same problem when your father and I were first married. He’d work and work and never have time for me.”

            “Dad?” Connie sounded incredulous.

            Mom laughed. “Believe it or not. But then it all changed. Don’t worry, honey.”

            Mom’s always been great with the pep talks. But then it got silent, as if they knew someone was at the door. I was afraid to move, in case they might hear me. They sounded frighteningly close to the door and Mom had ears like a fox. So I just stood there, afraid to breath, and prayed no one would come out.

            Finally they started talking again. I moved very quietly to the front door and then called, “Mom, I’m going out!”

            She came to the door, a peeler in one hand, a potato in the other. “Where to, honey?”

            I hesitated. I guess there was no reason not to tell her where I was going. Max was family now, after all. “To Max’s.”

            Connie called from the kitchen, “He probably won’t be home.”

            Mom looked in at her and sighed. “Okay, Stacey,” she said, turning back to me.  “Be back by seven,” she waved her peeler at me. “We’re eating then.”

            I was slightly weirded out by both of their attitudes, how they were suddenly linked together, how they had a mutual understanding for one another. They seemed to be exchanging brain waves, like Ryan and I. But I never knew Mom to be the brain-wave-sending type.

            “Okey-dokey,” I said. “Lock me out, huh?” I shut the door behind me and hopped down the front steps, to where my loyal bike was chained up, waiting for me.

           

            I was surprised when I rode up the drive. His huge truck was parked there, taking up most of the space. He was home. That was rather . . . shocking. I leaned the bike against the railing and used my key to open the door.

            “Max!” I called into the house and shut the door behind me.

            He came out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. Max was tall and in perfect shape. He had dark mop of hair and was clean-shaven. His nose was slightly large, Connie’s favorite aspect of his face. She always said that it, “helps define his features”. He had large dark eyes that must’ve been beautiful if they weren’t always covered with his  hair. I often found myself involuntarily rating boys’ cuteness. I determined, when I first met him, that he was, out of one-to-ten, a seven. Right now, his face was distressed, so distressed that I immediately got worried. “What happened?”