Enthusiasm (17 page)

There was no talking to Ashleigh about it, of course—I knew I’d just get an earful about Ned. But Sam, when I consulted her, sided with Mom.

“Why does Seth have to call you on the phone about the homework and stuff?” she asked. “If all he wants is information, he could just as easily e-mail you. With the phone, he can get you to give him one-on-one, person-to-person alone time—even if he can’t actually get you alone in person. I don’t know, Julie. Unless you do something definite to discourage him, I bet he’ll make a move soon.”

As usual, Samantha was right.

Seth sent me a text message one Thursday afternoon:
can u meet me at java jail 2 discuss page proofs?

I should have guessed what was going on when he paid for my latte and insisted with extra-nervous pompousness that half my
which
s should have been
that
s, but it wasn’t until he had put away all his papers and turned the subject to the movie playing at the Cinepalace that I realized what he had in mind.

“Well, if you haven’t seen it either, you want to go see it now?” asked Seth.

“I—I can’t—I have to—my mom needs me to help her in the shop,” I garbled, taken by surprise.

“Then what about tomorrow night?”

A movie alone with Seth—on a Friday night! What would that mean—what would that make us? What would people think if they saw us?

“I promised Ashleigh,” I began, meaning to finish the sentence, “that I’d go see it with her.” But I realized in time that I’d already told Seth all about her reaction to the movie, which she’d seen with Emily Mehan the previous weekend, while I was at my Dad’s. “. . . that I’d hang out with her and help her with her dance routine,” I finished lamely.

Seth got a stubborn look in his face, centered mostly around the jaw. “What about Saturday night, then?” he said.

Saturday night—even worse. I caved. “I’ll call my mom and see if I can help her tomorrow instead,” I said.

His jaw relaxed and he gave me a proud smile, as if he had beaten me by seven points on an English test and I had praised him for it.

Have you ever been to the movies with a boy you most certainly don’t Like? A boy whose hands you can almost feel thinking (as if they had their own separate little brains) about creeping over to your shoulder or reaching for your hands? He leans closer to whisper some sardonic comment to show he’s superior to the movie. You nod abruptly, trying to fend him off with your famously pointy chin. His shoulder brushes yours, and you feel him trembling a little under his pose. You draw away to the other side of your seat, pushing against the armrest until it digs into your waist.

I escaped to the ladies’ halfway through and put in a rescue call to Ashleigh. “Help,” I whispered. “I seem to be on some sort of horrible date or something with Seth Young. Can you meet me accidentally at the Cinepalace in an hour, when the movie gets out?”

“A what? A
date
? With
who
? What?”

“Can’t talk now—I’ve got to get back to my seat—please, it’s important—Cinepalace, one hour.”

Seth seemed relieved when I came back; I think he was afraid I’d walked out on him altogether. But he bristled when we ran into Ashleigh and the Gerard twins on our way out of the theater, just as he was reaching for my arm.

“Julie! There you are!” cried Ashleigh. “Where were you? We’ve been trying to call you.”

“Where does it look like she was?” said Seth. “We went to see the movie.”

“Oh, hi, Seth,” said Ashleigh, as if she’d only just noticed him.

“How did you like the movie?” said a twin.

“What are you doing out? I thought you were grounded,” I answered. Unsure which one was Yolanda, I directed my question to the space between them.

The one on the left answered. “I got a ninety on my math test from Mr. Klamp, so my mom let me out for the evening. Kind of like bail, or is it parole? We’re going to the Java Jail to celebrate. Want to come?”

“We already spent hours there,” said Seth. He turned to me, shutting them out with his shoulder. “Shall we go to Bennie’s Burgers?” he suggested.

“Yeah, Bennie’s, that sounds great,” said Ashleigh. Ignoring Seth’s irritated look, she took me by the arm and charged off down the street.

“What do you expect, the way you encourage him?” said Yvette later, when we were back at Ashleigh’s. Seth had made an attempt to outwait my friends at the restaurant, but after Ashleigh had shown that she was prepared to out-outwait him, he had given up and gone home.

“I don’t encourage him—what do you mean?” I objected.

“You’re always replying to his messages right away and letting him sit next to you in the Nettle’s class.”

“But what am I supposed to do, without being totally rude? And how do you know where he sits? You’re not even
in
that class.”

Yvette just smiled.

“Well, I am, and she’s right—he
is
always sitting next to you,” said Yolanda. “Why don’t you like him back, anyway? He seems like a pretty nice guy, and he’s cute too. Not crisp-cute, like Adam or Ravi, but sort of cutish-cute. He’s got that artistic, romantic thing going on. He’s got a nice nose. He looked really good that time at Halloween when he was a pirate. You really don’t like him? I would, if he liked
me
like he likes
you
.”

“Landa, your standards are so low,” said her sister. “You think everybody’s kind of cute, even when they’re igsome. You should be slapping them yourself, so I don’t have to.”

“I don’t know that Seth is igsome, exactly,” I said. “I just don’t Like him.”

“The point isn’t whether he’s igsome,” said Ashleigh. “The point is that Julie’s affections are Otherwise Engaged.”

“Oh, right, I forgot, you’re going out with Ned, right?” said Yolanda. “But I bet you could still go out with Seth too, if you wanted. How’s Ned going to find out? He doesn’t exactly get out much.”

That raised Ashleigh’s fighting spirit. “Yolanda! How can you suggest such a thing?” she flashed out. “Julie would never be so false—she would never treat anyone with such disloyalty, especially not a noble being like Ned! Her love, like her nature, is pure and true!”

“But I keep telling you, I’m not going out with Ned,” I protested feebly. I didn’t press the point, though. For one thing, it was useless—I knew I would never change Ashleigh’s mind. And her passionate words distracted me, filling me with guilt. Never false—incapable of disloyalty—my nature pure and true. This—from the girl whose hoped-for boyfriend I couldn’t get out of my mind! Ashleigh’s words would be far, far more fitting if she applied them to herself. How would I ever deserve my loyal friend’s praise?

Chapter 15

Holiday cheer
~
The baby’s birthday
~
Sweet Sixteen and Never Been Kissed
~
my First Kiss.

T
he Christmas vacation arrived in a flurry of exams and term papers. The winter issue of
Sailing to Byzantium
went to the printer. Seth dropped off the disk; I used my last English paper as an excuse not to go with him. I rushed through my essay, repeating ideas from the previous one, but Ms. Nettleton didn’t notice.

Yolanda’s sentence ended, but she got regrounded for cutting physics to hang out with Adam.

Ashleigh and I exchanged our yearly Hanumas/Chrisukka presents. She gave me a CD of songs popular in nineteenth-century parlors—“What Jane Austen’s heroines would have listened to instead of musicals,” she explained. I made her a magic kit from unsold odds and ends in my mother’s shop: a bouquet of colorful scarves, a wand cut down from a broken walking stick, a stuffed rabbit. I was particularly proud of the top hat, which I fitted out with a false bottom and a hinged trapdoor on top. I hoped the gift would spark a new craze—but no. “How Jane Austen’s characters would love this!” cried Ashleigh. “Perfect for those long evenings at Pemberley. Hey, what do you think about doing a musical version of
Pride and Prejudice
? Wouldn’t this hat look great on Darcy?”

The other major holiday of the season is, of course, my birthday: December 17. It fell early in the vacation, as it usually does. With his strict attention to his parental rights, my father insists on my spending alternate birthdays at each house; this year was his turn.

I awoke to the sound of footsteps on the ceiling of my basement bedroom. The Irresistible Accountant was in the kitchen directly overhead, stomping and crashing breakfast into life. I buried my head in the pillow, but sleep had fled, so I put on my bathrobe and slippers and went upstairs.

Amy handed me a plate of winter-squash frittata, herbed home fries, and sliced citrus salad. “There you are, sweetie,” she said. “Happy birthday.” Then she burst into tears and ran out of the room.

As I stared after her, my father gestured at my plate with his fork. “Aren’t you going to eat your breakfast?” he asked. “Go on, eat it. You’ll hurt Amy’s feelings.”

I took a halfhearted bite. “What’s the matter with her? Is my birthday such a tragedy it makes a grown woman cry?”

Dad gave me a look of grave reproach. “How can you be so thoughtless? Don’t you know what day it is today?” he said.

“Um, December 17th?”

“Yes, to you it’s December 17th—but to Amy, it’s the baby’s birthday.”

“What baby’s birthday? She doesn’t have a baby.”

“That’s why she’s so upset,” said my father patiently. “The baby was due on December 17th. If she hadn’t had the miscarriage, today would be his birthday.”

I did some arithmetic. “How can that possibly be?” I said. “She had the miscarriage in October. She didn’t even look pregnant. The baby can’t have been due for months and months.”

“Not that miscarriage, Julie,” said my father with a touch of irritation, as if I had missed a very easy question on a quiz. “That was only the latest one. You don’t know how hard things have been for Amy. I’m talking about the first miscarriage, the one four years ago, when Amy and I first got together. After we lost that baby, she was devastated. Don’t you remember? She’s been very, very brave, but when we lost the new baby again two months ago, it opened the wound all over again for her. You’ll be kind to her today, won’t you? I know you will. It’s a very sad day for her, and she’s feeling very vulnerable.”

With these words, my father finished his frittata, put on his coat, and went off to work.

I stared blankly at the elaborate eggs congealing on my plate. After a while, I noticed that my brain had continued to do arithmetic all by itself. The sum it produced horrified me. If my father was telling the truth—and there was no reason to think he wasn’t—then Amy had already been pregnant for months before my father left my mother. All those weeks when my parents went together to marriage counseling, all those weeks when he swore to her—and me!—that he would start fresh: all of it lies. He had known all along he would leave. He hadn’t meant a word of it.

Of course, I had no illusions that my father had succeeded in the new start he had promised to make. How could I? He had left us, hadn’t he? But it was another thing to learn that he hadn’t even tried.