All You Never Wanted (17 page)

“Two pages into Chapter Eight—‘The Art of Persuasion.’ ”

“You’re joking.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Have you read it? Don’t answer that.” Xander balls up his napkin and pops it at her. “Maybe it’s Salvatore’s door we need to show up at.”

“Sure. Just a quick drive out to Oregon.”

“Seattle. You know what? I just realized something. I like your ears.”

Alex doesn’t know whether to burst out laughing or kick Xander in the shin or cover her ears. Which happen to stick out a little bit. No doubt that’s why Xander had commented on them in the first place.

Instead, she reaches across the table. Suddenly she wants to touch him—she craves the contact—but then, at the last second,
she’s too shy. So she gives a tiny pinch to Xander’s nose. Which immediately feels clownish, or worse, grandmotherly. So what if she could pounce him (in an extremely ungrandmotherish way) right here in this restaurant.

But it’s Xander who pounces. Capturing her hand and binding all of her fingers together into a bouquet. He bites the tips, and the teeth-on-skin catapults Alex back into his sleeping bag. All zipped up and warm and private. The energy of that impulse hookup is matched by the energy of now. Staring at each other across the table.

“You’re loony,” she says.

“Takes one to know one.” The way he’s looking at her makes her feel soft, soft, soft. Yes, like putty. Yes, guilty.

She drops her eyes to her watch and its near-invisible hands. “Oh my God. Is it almost six already?”

“So?”

“So I’m hosting my friend’s birthday party at my house. It starts in the next hour or so. Meantime, I’ve blown off this whole day. Joshua’s picking up birthday cakes.”

“Oh, right. Joshua. The mystery boyfriend. He’s really busting a gut to talk to you, I noticed.”

“For your information, he texted me twenty minutes ago.”

Xander smirks. “Joshua have any idea that you’re here with me?”

She looks away. “I’m not getting the good girlfriend prize. I know that. Joshua thinks I went to see a basketball game for one of my tutoring kids. But the thing is—he wants me to be out. Doing stuff. I’ve had a hard time with driving lately.”

“A hard time with driving lately,” Xander repeats. Sounding it out so that it’s absurd. “Whatever that means.”

Thankfully, she’s saved by the food. It arrives on brown earthenware ovals. So heady with flavor and heat and spice that she could weep. Talk stops. She picks up her fork.
You​can​do​this
. Yes, she can. Today, she can.

They feast in silence for a while. Amazing. Heaven in every bite.

Don’t​eat please​more​please don’t​yes
.

“Gussman’s likely got home security,” Xander mentions. “But we can squeeze past that. We’ve got the skillz. I’m spelling that with a
z
, by the way.”

She bursts out laughing. “You’re a dog with a bone. But no way. I’m not going to hunt down Chuck Gussman.”

“Why not?”

She doesn’t really have an answer. “Um. I do all my psycho-stalking by phone.”

“What do you think Gussman would do if we showed?” Xander grins. “Taser us with one of his meteorological instruments of doom? I bet if you called him and politely told him you were standing right outside on his doormat, then he’d—”

“Stop!” She presses her hands to her ears. “Not an option!” She’s grateful that Xander lets it go. She doesn’t need to absorb any additional stress.

A youngish couple have come in. Table for two. Lucia sits them catty-corner. They’re infatuated with each other. Maybe newlyweds? Newly something. They’re twining themselves around whatever piece of the other they can get. Leg loosely
chained to leg. Fingers laced into fingers and sharing each other’s air. Alex watches uneasily. She and Xander could be that. They’ve already been that.

There’s no going back from what she’s done with Xander. It’s not the kind of thing that can be pretended away. The minute she’s home, she’ll tell Joshua that everything has changed.

The falling sun through the diner’s windows outlines the couple’s bodies. Behind them, the city is lit up in toy pinks and purples. But that’s what this whole day has felt like with Xander. Illuminated in something sharper and more colorful. Reminding her what it’s like to be hyper-alive in the moment. And yet it’s all a bit unreal, too.

It’s time to snap back into real.

After dinner, she’ll drive Xander home. Say goodbye and happy summer and all that. Then she needs to get back to Camelot. She’s got a night to organize. Party preparations and veto power on whatever childish insanity Thea’s plotting. She can’t afford to spend another hour off the radar. For God’s sake, she’s got a boyfriend. And she won’t duck and dodge. She won’t pull a Thea. She needs to stare right down the barrel of the truth. To tell Joshua about what happened this morning with Xander. She feels horrible enough that she’s done this to him at all.

Every second that she sits here with Xander is a betrayal.

But the food has fortified her. She feels stronger than she has in weeks.

She finds the platinum hands of her platinum watch face again. Wonders if she’ll ever stop hoping it might offer her a better answer.

Brandon the Whale was in the catbird seat. Which was: balanced on the tippy edge of the porch roof. I saw him right as I pulled in. And almost fell over laughing. “Oh, very nice. I couldn’t have picked it better myself.” I pushed my sunglasses up to the top of my forehead—a move I’d officially stolen from Palmer—for a better look. “He’s the perfect amount of tacky for Camelot!”

Joshua was sitting below. Slouched like a cowboy on the porch’s rocking chair while polishing off Lulette’s sweet-potato salad straight from the serving bowl.

“Glad you ’preciate.” He saluted with his fork.

“But how’d you drag him up there?” The whale’s position out on the lip of the porch roof was precarious. So weebly-wobbly, all you’d have to do is cup your hands and yell “Tim-barrr!” and down he’d crash. It kind of gave me a heart attack just looking.

“I got my ways,” drawled Joshua.

“Truly. Awesome.”

“Arthur’s gardener team doesn’t agree. They were both poking around here and are El Pissed.”

“Why?”

“I could tell you if I knew Spanish. I think they were trying to convey that the roof’s too thin or something. I just talked over ’em.”

My approving smile embarrassed me. I didn’t love this scenario—Josh talking over Jorge-and-Ramon. Joshua had learned
a few tricks dealing with drunk bowlers at Ten Pin late on a Friday night. But Jorge-and-Ramon weren’t people you needed to strong-arm. “So … did you come to an agreement?”

“I said Brandon was for our party and he’d come down tomorrow. So don’t crawl up my ass about it.”

Was Joshua referring to me crawling, or to Jorge-and-Ramon? Unpleasant any way you looked at it. So I looked again at Brandon, and I couldn’t repress a couple of hops. Also, it wasn’t lost on me that Joshua hadn’t said “the birthday party” or “Alex’s party.” He’d said “our party.” He didn’t envision this thing as belonging to Alex or Jess. In his mind, it belonged to us.

He set down the empty bowl. Belched pseudo-manfully. “Those gardeners don’t have Arthur’s cell phone, do they?”

“Nah.” Of course they did. But even if they ratted on Joshua and Mom or Arthur called me in a snit, I’d know what to say. Damage control would take less than a minute. Okay, maybe five. But I’d figure out something, because I always did.

“Thea-dora, baby.” Joshua was looking me up and down. “Where’s the rest of your clothes?”

“Oh! Just a sec.” I’d gotten out of the car in my bikini.

Now I reached over to the passenger seat and shook out the wedding dress, using as little of my fingertips as possible to touch the fabric. I didn’t want to goop it up. And considering all the tanning oil I’d slathered on myself, that wouldn’t be too hard. I could feel Joshua’s eyes roaming my body. Taking time with certain areas. I let him. I liked it. “Did you pick up the cakes?”

“Yup. Two nine-inch, with regular ‘Happy Birthday’ messages—I didn’t feel inspired to add any jokes. You think Alex’ll care?”

“She’s not even here. That’s how interested she is in this party.”

“True.” Embers of anger sparked and died in Joshua’s eyes. But not so fast I didn’t see. “Anyway. They’re in the basement freezer. You know, that one that could hold a dozen corpses.”

“And the kegs?”

“Downstairs bathroom, off Arthur’s man cave.”

“Great. You’re on top of everything.”

He smiled. I hadn’t meant it as an innuendo, but he was receiving it that way. So I smiled back, but I felt a little slimy. That wasn’t exactly the kind of cheap line I would have normally thrown out. And yet I sensed that not to own it somehow would have disappointed him.

“That’s some expensive import beer he’s got on tap,” Joshua mentioned. “It’s likely most of the party’ll head down there. So unless you lock it up, the good stuff might be tapped inside the first half hour.”

“Arthur’ll just replace. He’s got private accounts with German and Austrian distributors.”

“What’s wrong with American beer?”

“Yeah, no kidding. I think Arthur’s family might be descended from Nazis.”

“For real?” Joshua looked at me sharply. “That’s wild.”

I hadn’t meant “for real” any more than I’d meant Joshua to think I was thinking about him on top of me. And now I was in the same position—where to back off this idea would be somehow to disappoint him.

I nodded. “It’s kind of an unspoken thing … but yeah.”

Joshua looked around. As if a stray Nazi might be lurking. “It would explain some of those cars.”

“He’s got a model of a Benz that’s known as Hitler’s limousine.”

“I know which one. I wouldn’t be caught dead in that car.”

“Me, either. And there’s a black-and-white photo on Arthur’s night table of this man—maybe his grandfather. And I swear he’s wearing some kind of Nazi uniform.”

That was true. But it wasn’t an SS uniform. Just a regular military one.

“Alex never said anything about that.” Joshua’s attention was laser-like. Unlike my cops story, he wanted to believe this one. I tried to ignore the neon flashes in my head. Flashes signaling that this story was too creepy. But I could also feel the bloom underneath. The desert cactus flower of the lie. Beautiful and dangerous.

“She probably never told you about the hate crimes here, too,” I went on. “Like when they spray-painted a bunch of swastikas on our door.” That had really happened. But not to this house. It had been years ago. They’d caught the kid. A troubled teen, the son of a neighbor. Arthur himself had told the story.

Joshua looked doubtful. “That’s just random acts of skinheads against rich people.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “It was before we lived here. I only heard about it from Lulette. Major damage, though. It took hours to repaint. Right here, see? Where it looks fresh-painted?”

“There’s something really dark about that guy. I always tell Alex. Greedy rich guys like him are why this country’s in so much trouble.”

“This is just between us, right? I like Arthur. Besides, everyone has skeletons in their closet.”

Joshua nodded. “Be careful, Thea. A guy like Arthur’s made plenty of enemies.”

“I know,” I said. “Some days this whole house feels like enemy territory.”

“Not when I’m here, I hope.” As Joshua leaned forward and set down the empty bowl on the porch floor. Stretching his arms. Every muscle flexed for me. “I’ll protect you.”

“My hero,” I said. “Thanks again for bringing the vice to the party, Joshua. You’re awesome. I owe ya.”

“Just keep on flattering me. That’s the way to do it. And I haven’t brought all the vice. Nothing’s really happened. Yet.”

Our eyes locked and it was real. Every particle of me was rising up, sweet and light as angel food cake. I could have floated to him. This was real, and here it was. Joshua had pushed the door of possibility wide open.

And then I saw Alex. Looking up at me. Those sad fawn eyes. What was I doing? What was I even thinking?

I stepped back. Suddenly horribly aware of my bikini. My sun-pinked skin. “I’ll come back downstairs and fix some dinner,” I said. Breezy. Casual. No more Gia, no more vamp. “I bet all you’ve had today with that sweet-potato salad is bowling-alley chicken nuggets, am I right?”

“You sound like your sister.” His voice was mildly chiding. He’d stepped back from it, too. But his eyes were trained like a sharpshooter on my butt as I scurried past him into the house.

Safe inside my bathroom, I showered long. My second of the day. Multiple slippery pumps of jasmine body wash and beachy
handfuls of salt scrub and creamy puffs of shaving cream. Attending to every detail of myself under the microscope of my own eye. Scrupulous enjoyment. Tonight wasn’t about Joshua, it was about me.

I wondered if tightrope walkers and ballet dancers felt like this about their bodies before they got ready to perform.

Because this was also a performance. My most important live act of the year, where I bloomed in spite of my sister’s shadow.

In my bedroom, I slipped into my favorite bra and matching boyshorts. Ivory lace trim and tiny raised black polka dots. I felt so cute and bouncy. Yes, this night deserved lace and black polka dots. This night was tricks and treats. It was almost seven and dusk was pulling in around itself. Plenty of time.

I blew out my hair. Taking as long as I could before my arm felt like it’d fall off from the weight plus the effort of the dryer and the roller brush. Trying to get it like at the Marc DuBerry salon, failing a touch but not too badly. It was too early to do my makeup, and I wanted to save that till last minute so it’d be unsmeary. I moved my cosmetics bag into Mom and Arthur’s bathroom and clicked the mirror to the “Garden” setting and its light-bath of violet.

When the marriage between Mom and our father was starting to really flounder, my parents bowed to the last-ditch effort of a weekly “date night.” I was eleven, and Alex twelve. We didn’t know the whole story, but we wanted date night to work. And so we’d stand near her, too many people in the already tiny bathroom, while she got ready. Everyone daubing on perfume and powder.