Everything You Want (7 page)

Nine

“Well, how was it?”
Tiff asks the second I walk into our dorm room Sunday evening.

“Fine,” I say. “You know, the turkey thing—”

“I mean
Gabe
,” she says. “ You didn’t e-mail me about your date like you promised you would. So how
was
it?”

I’m over reminding her it was an interview for the
IDS
, not a date. Tiffany’s made up her mind I had a date with Gabe Parker, and there’s no point in trying to change it. I set my duffel on my desk chair and start unpacking my stuff.

“
Emma
!”

“We had coffee together,” I say. “I told him about winning. He was very nice.” No
way
am I going to tell her the truth about how I felt when I was with him, how the whole time I was home he kept creeping into my mind.

“And cute?” Tiffany leers at me. “
Very
cute? Didn’t I tell you?”

“Cute?” I say. “Yeah. I guess. So, how was your break?”

“Good,” she says. “Except I ate too much.”

“What, you went up to a size 2?”

“Don’t try to sidetrack me, Emma,” she says. “Did you
like
him?”

“Gabe?” I shrug. “Sure. I liked him. I said he was nice.”

“Arrgh.” Tiff throws herself backward onto her bunk, but I know she’s only temporarily deterred. She’ll grill Matt next time she sees him, then go at me again.

Which is exactly what happens. “Matt said Gabe told him he thought you were really cool,” she says, the next day.

She’s a terrible liar. Gabe Parker might have said I was nice, or funny—just to be polite. Maybe he actually did think I was nice or funny. But cool? Absolutely no way. So why do Tiff’s words give me this scary little twist in my heart?

“He
did
,” she says. “Really.”

I ignore her.

Thank God finals are looming. In the next few weeks, everyone, Tiffany included, is studying nonstop and I’m beginning to think we may make it to Christmas break without any further discussion of my social life—or lack thereof. Then after my very last class, I come back to the dorm and there’s Gramps in my room, chatting with Tiffany.

“First road trip!” he says. “Brought the Chieftain down so you could check it out. She rides pretty darn smooth and, man oh man, wait till you see the interior.”

“Look,” Tiffany says. “You can see it out the window.”

I peer out. There it is, a large tan-and-brown-striped vehicle dwarfing the cars in the parking lot. “Wow,” I say weakly. “You made the right choice with the Chieftain, Gramps. Definitely.”

He beams.

“We’ve been dying for you to get back,” Tiffany says. “Dutch says we can drive it over to the Phi Delt house to show Matt, and then he’ll take us all out to dinner.”

Characters in books are always blanching when something shocks them, and I’m pretty sure blanching is exactly what I do now at the prospect of a cruise over to the Phi Delt house in the Winnebago, followed by dinner—which I strongly suspect will include Gabe Parker, if Tiffany has anything to do with it. I’m certainly speechless, scrambling to come up with some excuse for why this plan is impossible. But if Tiffany and Gramps are a challenge one at a time, together they’re a force of nature. It’s fruitless to argue with them. Still, I feel like a zombie following them down the hall and out to the parking lot.

Gramps is wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, with a silver and turquoise bolo tie; his cowboy boots, of course, and his awful Harley jacket—black leather, with fringe on the sleeves and an eagle in flight painted in full color on the back. He has a springy step, just like Dad’s. Tiff and I have to hurry to keep up with him.

He hops up the steps of the Winnebago and opens the door. He grins, gesturing us in like a
maître d’
.

“Oh! It’s just like a playhouse,” Tiffany says, glancing into the living area. She plops down in the white leather passenger seat and swivels it around a few times.

If either she or Gramps notices I’m a reluctant participant in this adventure, neither of them mentions it. Gramps starts up the engine and they chatter away in the front seat like old friends. I strap myself, prone, on one of the leather couches—and suddenly remember touring the Lisa Marie, Elvis’ personal airplane, on a family trip to Graceland years ago. He was terrified of flying, the tour guide told us, and there were heavy, gold-plated seat belts that buckled across his bed. We thought it was hilarious at the time, but now I think of Elvis strapped into that bed high in the sky in the dead of night, and I know exactly how he felt.

Of course, Tiffany—Miss Manners—called to let Matt know we’re coming. He and Gabe are out in the yard throwing a football, waiting for us, when we pull up. I could
kill
her right now. I swear to God, I’d give back every penny of the lottery money never to see Gabe Parker again, let alone try to act like it’s the most normal thing in the world to be buzzing over to the Phi Delt house in a recreational vehicle with my
grandfather
.

Just in case I thought what I felt about him the first time was a fluke:
not
. I practically groan out loud when I see him. Jesus. He’s wearing baggy khakis and a black sweater with a white T-shirt showing at the collar, James Dean style. He waves, and I wave back in spite of myself. Then I panic as he and Matt jog toward the Winnebago. What am I going to
say
to him?

Tiff grabs my arm and yanks me out the door and down the metal stairs, letting go only to throw her arms around Matt as if she hasn’t seen him for a year.

“Hey, Emma!” Gabe says.

“Hey!” I say back.

Then we freeze: wax models in the Museum of Awkward Social Moments.

Gramps stands in the doorway of the Chieftain, king of the road.

“This is my boyfriend, Matt,” Tiff tells him.

Gramps steps down, and the two of them shake hands.

“And this is Gabe Parker.” Tiffany beams. “He’s doing the story on Emma for the
Indiana Daily Student
I told you about. You know, about winning the money.”

“Well, how about that!” Gramps gives him a wink. “After we take a look at the Chieftain, I’ll tell you some stories about Emma you can use. She’s a crackerjack skier. Probably won a hundred medals, skiing. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.”

“No kidding!” Gabe says.

He smiles at me. That
smile
.

Could it be real? Could he be impressed that I’m a ski racer? Could he actually be glad to
see
me? This thought throws me into such a state of agitation that I cannot say a single word in response. I can’t even look at him. He’s a nice person, I tell myself. He was nice at the Daily Grind, and he’s just being nice now—which only makes me feel worse about being struck dumb in his presence, because on top of everything else I’m afraid he’s going to think I’m a stuck-up snob. Let me die right now, I think. Before Gramps decides to tell him how I loved to run around naked in Jules’ dress-up wig when I was two.

And then, as if things aren’t already as bad as they can get, a bus stops next to where we’re parked, and Josh Morgan gets off of it.

“Hey.” Dutch turns to me. “There’s that boyfriend of yours. What’s his name? Jake?”

I definitely blanch this time. No doubt about it. “Not Jake, Josh,” I say through clenched teeth. “And he is
not
my boyfriend. He never was my boyfriend. He was just a—
friend
.
And he’s not even that anymore.”

But Gramps is already heading for him, grinning.

“Mr. Hammond?” Josh says.

“You guys
know
each other?” Tiffany asks.

“We went to high school together,” I say. “That’s all.”

Gramps returns, Josh in tow with that deer-in-the-headlights expression.

“Hey, Emma,” he says.

“Hey,” I say back, repeating what appears to be the only exchange I can manage with a person of the male species.

I feel Tiff’s eyes on me, beady with curiosity. I feel Gabe looking at me, too. Until Gramps-the-Oblivious invites all of us to come aboard the Chieftain for a tour. Josh takes a half-step back, then I actually
see
him remember there’s no arguing with Gramps once he makes up his mind. I see the resignation settle in, see him gird himself and decide there’s really no option but to follow the rest of us up the steps.

Inside, I’m crushed against Gabe in the miniscule space just behind the cab. His solid arm against my shoulder makes me feel faint. Meanwhile, Gramps blathers on about the chassis and wheel base, the rear axle ratio, and how much horsepower the engine has. He pushes a button and a faux cabinet slides back to reveal a TV screen. “Mobile theater unit,” he says. “And look here.” He pushes another button and the wall behind one of the leather couches moves about a foot outward. “Extender. Isn’t that something?”

“Cool,” Josh says.

Encouraged, Gramps moves on to show off the ingeniously built cabinets in the galley kitchen and the way the built-in table can be neatly transformed into a single bed. I pray he won’t tromp us all back to the bedroom with its “elegant brocade bedspread and matching pillow shams,” but of course he does.

He does not—thank you, Jesus!—make some joke about picking up “gals.”

“So what’s your first big trip?” Josh asks.

Up to Michigan with us at Christmas, Gramps tells him. Then Florida. West, in the spring.

“That sounds
so
fun.” Tiffany cuddles up to Matt. “We should get one of these when we get married. Pile all our kids in and go—anywhere we want.”

“Absolutely!” Matt says “Yeah. Sure. We should!” But he looks freaked out at the prospect, though I can’t tell if it’s the idea of buying an RV that freaks him out, or being married with a bunch of kids to drive around in it.

Meanwhile, Gabe hasn’t said a word. In fact, he seems ominously quiet. He can’t possibly be jealous of Josh. But maybe he hates his guts, and finding out I used to be friends with him is the third strike in the relationship we’d never have had anyway—the first two being how I look and who I am. More likely, Matt just “forgot” to mention that I’d be coming along with Tiffany and the person with the Winnebago—and now here he is, stuck in said Winnebago with
me
.

I wonder if he’s written the
IDS
story and when it will run, but I’m afraid to ask him because I’m living in dread of the moment I’ll open up the paper and see it there. Still, I should say
something
to him—if for no other reason than to be polite. But I just stand there, mute as a goldfish. Worse, I can’t quit looking at Josh—his floppy blond hair like a skateboarder’s, his long, lanky body—and thinking of him stretched out on the sofa in Mom’s studio and me curled up in the armchair, talking about ... everything.

Oh, what a surprise: both Josh and Gabe beg off coming to dinner with us. Matt does, too. Finals, they say. A boatload of studying to do. So it’s just Gramps, Tiffany, and me at the Pizzeria. The two of them have a bang-up time, laughing and telling stories, but I’m so stressed out by then that all I can do is eat: a whole stromboli, an order of breadsticks, and two pieces of the pepperoni pizza that Gramps and Tiffany are sharing.

“Your grandfather is the cutest thing,” Tiff says when he drops us back at the dorm and heads for home. “I swear, if he weren’t fifty years older than me, I might’ve just stayed in that Winnebago and run off with him! Speaking of which—”

“What?” I say.

“Gabe?” she prompts.

“You might run away with Gabe instead?”

“Ha, ha,” she says. “You know what I mean, Emma. I
told
you, Gabe told Matt he really liked you after you guys had coffee together. So why didn’t you even talk to him?”

“He didn’t talk to
me
,” I say. “If he’s so crazy about me, how do you explain that?”

“He’s shy,” Tiffany says.

I roll my eyes.

“He is. Really. Why would he have come out if he didn’t like you? Didn’t you see the way he waved at you? Not to mention how he
ran
over to the RV the second we pulled up.”

“He was being polite, that’s all.”

“Uh-uh,” Tiffany says. “I know when boys are being polite. He was glad to see you.” She arches an eyebrow. “
Also
… ”

“Also?” I echo.

“Yes, also. As in, do you think Gabe might have been a
little
taken aback by the fact that Josh Morgan and your
grandfather
seemed to be the best of friends? I mean,
I
was totally flabbergasted myself. So was Matt. Emma, I can’t believe you never even mentioned you knew one of his fraternity brothers so well.”

“I don’t really know him that well,” I say. Which is not exactly a lie.