5:56 PM Eh, mothers. Imagine this: I was putting my room back in order. It felt good. (Weird, I know.) So instead of quitting when I'd made things look okay, I left for the kitchen to grab the furniture polish.
Mom saw me head back down the hall with the spray can and a dust rag. She excused herself from a battle with the garden club over natural vs. chemical pesticides and called my name. I met her halfway. She pushed my hair behind my ears and said, "What's wrong?"
Huh? All week long she'd forced me to work like a slave and yet, when I took the initiative to actually clean something on my own, there she was -- worried. Go figure.
I reminded her, "Uh, you're the one who told me to clean my room."
"Since when do you follow my instructions so thoroughly?"
"Since..." Okay. She had me there.
"Boy trouble?" she asked.
"No." Like I would want to discuss it with my mom in front of the bloom brigade. That is, if there was trouble. Which there was definitely not.
"Are you and Madison fighting then?"
I shook my head.
"You and Craig?"
"Nope."
"This wouldn't have anything to do with Dave Brown?"
I turned toward my room but she stopped me.
"Whatever it is, sulking won't help."
"What makes you think I'm sulking?"
She pointed to the furniture polish.
Can't a girl dust her room without there being some deep, dark meaning behind it?
"Plus," she said, "it's almost six o'clock on a Saturday evening, and you're, well, you're here, which is amazing. But ..." There went the eyebrow. "If there's nothing wrong, and you really have nowhere else to go ..."
I knew something bad was coming.
"Why don't you show the club that website you've been working on? I'm sure they'd all be interested."
Yikes!
"S-s-six o'clock?" I stuttered. "Already? Sorry, Mom, I have to go. Have you seen my phone? Where's my skateboard?"
She pointed to the bookcase, and then to the hall. I made my way across the room, with all the squinty garden club eyes on me. It didn't help when Mom said, "Teenagers," all breathy-like, behind my back. I imagined her eyebrow going up, up, up.
I grabbed my phone and headed for the door, smiling at all the ladies and Mr. Pomeroy in his orange crew socks. He smiled back and winked.
"Ah," he said. "Those were the days."
Right.
***
Once outside, I hopped on my skateboard and pushed off. I had no plan beyond escaping my mother. I thought about going to the coffee shop. Kiersten and I were overdue for a serious session of girl talk. But then I might have to explain the whole 'hiding in the bathroom incident'. I considered checking in with Madison but, despite what my mother might think, there's only so much sulking I could stand. I decided on the library.
I'd just settled in at one of the computer stations and started updating my blog when a shiver crawled up my neck. I turned and found Lily Peterson squinting behind me.
"The library closes early on Saturdays, you know," she said.
***
7:40 PM How I ended up near the fireworks stand, I can't even guess. I swear.
But there I was, at the edge of the SaveMost parking lot, scratching my head and questioning my sanity.
"Hey! Hey Summer! Is that you?" Across the lot, Craig stood with his back to me while Dave Brown held his skateboard up with one hand and waved frantically with the other.
I turned away and pretended not to hear. With luck, I could get away before they were certain of my identity. Luck? Ha. They skated up beside me at the traffic light.
"See?" Dave said. "I told you it was her."
"I presume this means you're cured?" That was Craig.
"What?" I said.
He made a big show of touching my forehead. "Oh Craig, loo-ook. Her face is so red. And she's ... so ... hot."
"That's not funny." The light changed and I took off on my board.
Dave caught up to me first. "He didn't mean anything by it. Did you?" He yelled the last part behind him.
Craig sailed up on his board. "I guess not," he said. "It's just that ..." and then he was past me. Skateboarding is not very conducive to conversation.
I caught up to him again. "Just that what?" I said on my pass.
Then Dave was there again. He jumped off his board and motioned for Craig and me to do the same. I did. Craig flew by.
"Don't worry about him. He's just mad because he got stuck with Brady all afternoon," Dave said.
Stuck with Brady? Last week the three of them were best friends.
"He barely got out of going to the races," he added.
The races? I sprang back on my board to catch up with Craig. I shouted to him on the way, but he ignored me. When I got there, I reached out and yanked his sleeve, forcing both of us off our boards.
He stumbled a step or two before regaining his balance. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"Just getting your attention."
"You got it," he said. The same scowl I'd seen at Brady's house was now aimed at me.
"What's this about the races?"
"If you'd answer your phone once in a while, instead of snuggling up with ..." Craig jerked a thumb back at Dave. "... you might know."
"In the first place, there was no snuggling," I said. "In the second ..." My phone. Dad must have turned it off. I pulled it from my pocket just as Dave drew up to us again. I walked halfway up Mr. Pomeroy's drive, and held my hand out to keep the boys from following. I pushed the buttons to select the voicemail option.
"Sorry I didn't meet you at the coffee shop, but Jacob called and he sounded so --" I could hear Madison sigh. "And when I asked him what time we were getting together tonight, he said he wasn't sure. He might have to go to the races again. Blah blah blah. Something about his cousin and the car. But I got a feeling ..."
"It's me again. Your phone hates me. So anyway, can you come over?"
"Summer. It's Craig. Call me."
"Hey beautiful." That was Brady. "Since you probably don't feel like doing anything tonight I figured you wouldn't mind if I hung out with, with someone else. Talk to you tomorrow. Get better, Okay?"
"It's Craig again. When you, uh, when you wake up, give me a call. I'm with Brady and we're looking for ... Just call me, k?"
"I hear you're free for the evening." A message from Dave. "Meet us at the fireworks stand. Six fifteen."
Great. Dave probably thought I came to meet him on purpose.
"Where are you?" Madison sounded desperate.
I looked out over the yard while I tried to pull my thoughts together. The phone vibrated in my hand before ringing.
"Earth to Summer."
I looked up. Craig and Dave stood at the bottom of the driveway, heads together by Dave's phone, laughing and lighting a bottle rocket.
"It's a wonderful night for explosives."
"Hold on a minute," I said. The rocket squealed over my head. I called Madison but her phone was busy. I dialed Brady's number. "You've reached the voicemail of ... Beep."
Vibrate. Ring. "Hey girl," Craig said. "Let's go."
I turned away from them and went through my options. I didn't usually consider myself an indecisive girl. Put me at the front of the line at the Ice Cream Palace and I won't make everyone behind me wait. Chocolate Kamikaze Crunch, I'll say. I know what I want.
This was different.
W.W.A G.G.D.? I was sure Madison would tell me that a good girlfriend would figure out where her boyfriend was. She'd find a way to get there. She'd do anything to go see him. But was that still a requirement if the boyfriend was at a racetrack? With Jacob – the jerk? Or worse, what if he was with some girl expert on getting boys' motors (excuse me) engines running?
And what about Madison?
"INCOMING!"
I twirled in time to see a bottle rocket speeding straight for my head. I lunged out of the way, and fell on my behind.
Dave ran up and pulled me to standing. "Sorry. It got away from me," he said. "Are you okay?"
"Sure." I stood, dusted off my rear, and started walking down the drive. Dave grabbed my hand again and turned me around.
"I just wanted to ..." he started.
"It's okay. I know. It was just an accident," I said.
"No. I meant ..."
Dave Brown had green eyes.
"About this afternoon," he was saying.
I'd always thought his eyes were brown, like his hair and his name.
"I had ..." he went on, but it was hard to listen.
He did that thing again, the one where he pulled his lips over his teeth, and his eyes looked so deep that I couldn't look away (again). And that's when I realized they're not. Not brown, that is.
"What I mean ... it was ..." he said, or something like that.
His eyes are green, like the shirts he always wears, or like the leaves on nasturtiums. They have a dark ring around the outside, with little flecks of gold sprinkled all through them.
"You know?" he finished, and everything got quiet, except for the birds chirping and the sound of traffic one block over. And Craig whistling on the sidewalk.
That's when I stopped noticing Dave's eyes and started noticing that he was still holding my hand. And I wondered how weird it must look, me staring up at him like that with no clue what he'd been talking about all this time?
"This afternoon?" I said.
"Yeah." He shook his head. "In your room. Maybe we should ..."
"Come on already!" Craig yelled from the street.
"Maybe we should ... get back to Craig before he has a seizure."
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