Boyfriend From Hell (Falling Angels Saga) (14 page)

The evening with my mother had a double effect—I was happy to see her smiling once again. I needed that. And spending time with her helped ease the love ache burning in the pit of my stomach. I needed that, too.

Over the next several days, Suze and I ate together and laughed together, friends once again. But there was an obvious strain in our relationship. We both knew it. We were strangers pretending to be friends. I’m sure we were quite convincing to the outside world. We went through our daily routine as if nothing had changed. But something fundamental had shifted between us. It was as if there were an elephant in the room, and neither of us was willing to acknowledge its presence.

On Saturday afternoon, I persuaded Suze to lift my punishment for a few hours so that I wouldn’t disappoint Maudrina. An afternoon out was just what the doctor ordered.

I arrived at her house just after four. As soon as I started up the walkway, a cacophony of happy barking greeted me, coming from inside the house. I stepped up to the door, and a giddy Maudrina yanked it open before I could ring the bell.

“I thought it might be you. Welcome,” she said, swinging the door wide. The toy poodle, Piddles, came barreling out, crashing into my legs, yapping and bouncing into the air as if he’d been waiting all his life to meet me. He was followed by the slower moving Sam, the boxer. He was obviously an older dog, but no less affectionate. Sam stepped up to me and nuzzled my hand onto his head.

“He insists everyone pet him. Not now, Sam! She just got here,” Maudrina called, cheerfully chastising him.  

Sam ignored her, continuing to nuzzle. The doggy odor drifted off him like a fog greeting me with open arms.

“Somebody needs a bath,” I said, as I innocently scratched Sam’s head.

“He does?” asked Maudrina with a nervous lilt. “I mean, I know
I
smell him, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s give them bubble baths. It’ll be fun.”

“A bath?” she asked, her eyes reflecting uncertainty.

Was I making fun of her and her dogs?

“A
bubble
bath. It’ll be fun,” I repeated. I smiled brightly and watched as the uncertainty drained away.

“Okay,” she replied after a moment. “Let’s do it.” She stooped to Sam. “You’re going to get a bubble bath.” He licked her face. He obviously had no idea what was to come.

We went to the drug store and bought a bottle of Mr. Bubble. When I was a kid I loved Mr. Bubble.  I used to go through the stuff so fast, my mother once asked if I was drinking it. No. But I had to admit, I liked lots and lots of bubbles in my baths. I was a bubble nut. No doubt about it.

Maudrina wasn’t big on bubble baths. That was probably because she was raised by a single parent—her father, who owned a salvage yard for old cars.  He wasn’t the girly-girl type, and Maudrina’s upbringing and home furnishings reflected it.

  When we got back to her house, I poured almost half the bottle of Mr. Bubble into the filling tub.

“That’s an awful lot,” Maudrina commented.

“I know,” I replied with a knowing smile.

A slow wave of tiny bubbles began percolating in the tub. As more water sloshed in, the bubble wave grew until you could hardly see any water at all. All you could see was bubbles.

“Looks like fun,” Maudrina said with a big grin.

The dogs looked on curiously, not realizing this growing fount of bubbles was just for them.

Finally, we turned off the water. Sam came over and nuzzled my hand. I petted him, running my fingers gently across the top of his head.

“Sam like water?” I asked.

“Sometimes. He likes when we turn the hose on in the summer. But I don’t know about this.”

“How do you think we should do it?”

“I think we’re going to need both of us to lift him. But if he bolts, we’ll never get him in.”

She was right. Sam was about a hundred pounds of stinky dog. No way we could wrestle him into the tub if he didn’t want to go.

Okay, new plan. I looked at Piddles. “Piddles like water?”

“Sometimes. Just like Sam. But one thing that might help is Sam doesn’t want Piddles to have anything he doesn’t have.” A conspiratorial smile spread across both our faces. “Here, Pids,” Muadrina cooed. She knelt and Piddles raced over, leaping into her arms.

“Hold him tight,” I called.

She dangled Piddles over the mountain of bubbles. He began squirming in her grasp.  Quickly, I scooped up a handful of the bubbles and petted them into his fur.

“Good boy,” I said softly. “Good Piddles.” I continued massaging the bubbles in. The squirming subsided. Maudrina gently lowered the toy poodle into the bath as I massaged and cooed.

“Yip,”
he barked contentedly. “
Yip, yip
.” He was starting to enjoy himself.

“Woof!”

Sam’s booming bark echoed off the bathroom walls. He wasn’t exactly pleased with all the attention Piddles was getting. He wanted some, too. He stood on his hind legs, his front paws lopping over the side of the tub. “
Woof, woof!”
He was itching to join in the fun.

“Sammy wanna bubble bath?”  I called. He looked at me, his tongue lolling as he tried climbing into the tub.

I stopped massaging Piddles, moved to Sam, grabbed his hind quarters, and in one quick motion, shoved him over the edge and in.

Sploosh!
Sam joyously sloshed into the tub, sending a surge of bubbles and water everywhere. Maudrina and I were both soaked, but the dogs seemed to be enjoying themselves. We smiled at each other, our eyes shining. Mission accomplished.

#

By Tuesday morning I had to accept that something was seriously wrong. Guy was gone. It was as if he’d been plucked from the face of the earth. He wasn’t in school. He hadn’t returned any of my texts or calls. I looked for him everywhere and had Matt and Erin keeping their eyes peeled on Guy patrol. No one had seen him.

“Maybe there’s been a family emergency and he had to leave town,” Erin said as we ate lunch. She ate, I picked.

“But that doesn’t explain why he won’t return my calls or texts.”

“Maybe he lost his phone.”

I didn’t want to say what had been lurking in the back of my mind for several days now. It was too selfish. But I wondered—
had I been dumped
?

Of course, being dumped wouldn’t explain why he wasn’t in school. I mean, no boy would be absent for a whole week just to avoid a girl…. Okay, no boy’s parents would
allow
him to avoid school for an entire week over a girl.

But maybe Guy’s parents didn’t know he wasn’t in school. Guy was a bad boy, an expert at intercepting school correspondence.  

The ache in my stomach spread to my head. I wanted to see him so badly; I was making myself sick.

#

When I awoke on Valentine’s Day, my legs and arms felt as though someone had pumped them full of cement during the night. It took every ounce of strength I had to drag myself out of bed. If not for a calc exam, I could have lain there feeling sorry for myself all day.

When I got downstairs, I saw the Valentine’s Day card propped up against a glass of orange juice on the kitchen counter. My head began swimming with possibilities. As much as I hoped for a Valentine’s Day miracle, I knew who it was from before I picked it up. Suze.

You will always be my valentine
, was the sentiment inside. There was a time in my life when this would have been enough to get me through the one day of the year when not having a boyfriend was so painfully obvious. As I read the card, tears formed in my eyes. They were not tears of joy.

When I opened the door to Matt’s car, I noticed the corner of a red package sticking out of his backpack on the rear seat.

“Is that candy from Cerreta’s?” I asked, climbing in.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said without looking at me.

A slash of the old jealousy I promised I’d gotten past stabbed into me. I have never known Matt to buy a girl a gift for Valentine’s Day.”

“That’s very thoughtful.”

“Yeah well, you know how important Valentine’s Day is for you girls,” he replied matter of factly.

He still wasn’t looking at me. He was concentrating on the road, something I usually had to remind him to do. He knew I was hurting over Guy having gone missing, and he was trying to play down Valentine’s Day.

I’d brought the mix tape I made of all the songs that reminded me of Guy to school with me. I’d been compiling it since that first kiss in the back of the little yellow school bus. It was supposed to be his special Valentine’s gift. Beneath the pain in my gut, there was a tiny oasis of hope that maybe, just maybe, Guy would appear today.

When he didn’t show up in the stairwell, to keep my heart from sinking any lower, I started coming up with all sorts of rationalizations. I told myself he would never miss Valentine’s Day.
He must be sick, or worse, injured, and he can’t get to me.

With a fresh rationalization on my mind, I went to the school office to see if I could get the low-down on where he might be. I didn’t even know where he lived.

“Yes?” Mrs. Cleveland, the no-nonsense school secretary, looked up at me over her glasses. Or should I say, looked down her nose at me.

“Um, I was checking up on a friend. Guy Matson.”

“What about him?” Those were her words, but her tone was clearly saying:
Guy Matson is none of your business.

“I haven’t seen him for a few days.”

“He’s been absent.”

“Yes, I know. I was wondering if he was okay.”

“Sorry. Student records are confidential.” Her head went back down, as if that were enough to get rid of me.

“Right, right. I know that,” I said. I didn’t move. Her head came back up, annoyance coloring her face.

“Then, what is it you want?”

“I was just wondering if he was sick, or if it was a family emergency or something.”

“Student records are confidential.” This time she said it as if talking to an idiot. Her head did not go back down. Instead, she glared at me.

“I know, but I’m worried about him.”

“I’m sure he isn’t going to die, young lady.”

“So, he
is
sick?”  I asked, my voice rising with hope. Her glare took on a knowing expression. Her eyes widened. “I know, I know. Student records are confidential.” She did not respond. She continued glaring until I turned tail and left.

#

Guy wasn’t the only person who had gone missing from my life. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Armando since the night at the restaurant. February gave way to March. I knew my mother was still seeing him, but always outside the house. Just a few weeks ago, he’d stop by at the drop of a hat. But no more. It was as if I had the plague.

Whenever I mentioned his name, I got a civil response. Oh, he’s fine, or He asked about you, too, or It’s easier for me to meet him at a restaurant than for him to come all the way over here.

I knew there was more to it than that. I also knew the giddy girl talk that once existed between us had been reduced to polite, civil conversation. That elephant was still in the room. The only way I was ever going to get it out and get things back to normal was to deal with the problem head-on.

I had one more apology to make.

Wednesday afternoon Suze called to tell me she had to stay late at the office. It was tax time again, which meant she probably wouldn’t be home till after midnight. It was the perfect opportunity for me to slip out, shoot over to Armando’s gallery, and apologize without her knowing about it. I smiled to myself as I imagined the conversation between them after my apology:

“Guess who was just here?”

“Who?”

“Megan. She made the most beautiful apology.”

“She did?”

“What a lucky woman you are to have such a thoughtful daughter. You do know the only reason she was cruel to me that night is she was thinking of you.”

Okay, maybe I was piling it on a bit with the
lucky woman
and
thinking of you
parts. But I was certain once I apologized, things between Suze and me would get back to normal.  

I took the bus. Daytime temperatures in March can push up into the eighties, leaving balmy evenings, almost like the tropics. The sun was going down when I arrived at Seaborn Street. The glow of the setting sun, glinting off tony shop windows, rimmed the street with an aura of muddy, orange light, like a dirty halo.

Daylight faded as I exited the bus. It’s amazing just how quickly the sun actually sets. Watching a sunset seems to be a leisurely activity, but in reality, it happens in a matter of minutes. By the time I was a block from the gallery, shadows of impending night were already creeping up around me.

As I approached, I noticed Armando’s old Volvo parked out front.
Good. He’s still here.

Then someone emerged from the gallery. A woman. Señora Marisol. She was wearing an expensive-looking dark coat that dropped to just above her ankles. Her graying hair flowed freely.

I froze. I was about twenty meters from the gallery, but I couldn’t take another step. Seeing her there sent goose bumps dancing up my arms. A few moments later, Armando came out behind her. He said something in her ear and she laughed.

He peered up and down the street, but I was already gone. Instinctively, I had ducked into a shadow, where I could observe them, but they couldn’t see me.

He locked up the gallery, then walked around and opened the car door for her. She climbed in, no longer the old crone, but an elegant, aging woman. He smiled at her as he shut the door. Then he walked around to the driver’s side, climbed in, and drove away. I stared after them until the car was out of sight.

My skin was tingling. A churn started in the pit of my stomach. The old suspicions returned like wildfire consuming my thoughts.

I knew it. Something was not right about Armando. Was he cheating with Señora Marisol?

I know it sounded ridiculous, but I had to find out. I took off on a dead run. I had a good idea where they were headed.