Handcuffs (30 page)

I see him. I feel him. I hear him across the room. A hostess in a black vest is seating him and his family at a booth. He looks at me.

“Parker, your father asked you a question,” Mom says.

Dad repeats himself for me. “It’s okay, honey. I just wanted to know what your favorite class was this year.”

“Advanced British lit,” I answer.

“Oh yes, Shakespeare and
Beowulf
and all, right?”

“I guess.”

“I can spell
salamander,
” my brother says.

“That’s a pretty long word for him,” Mom tells Dad.

It turns out my brother has no idea how to spell
salamander,
and on that depressing note, the appetizers arrive. We spend ten minutes trading dipping sauces, and the waitress brings my brother a refill of what appears to be Coke but is really Diet Coke, and when he takes a big drink, because he doesn’t like Diet Coke, he spits it out all over the place.

Mom mops him and the table off with a stack of napkins, and Dad fondly remembers the days when Red Lobster had cloth napkins rather than paper. The food comes.

I see him stand up. A young waitress checks him out, but I don’t feel anything. He didn’t come here to Red Lobster to see her, did he? He stops and says something to her and she smiles. I’m sure it was nothing.

I excuse myself, though I have a bad feeling that all my fried shrimp will be gone when I return. That’s one of the hazards of sitting by Preston.

I slide into an alcove beside him. There are tons of people waiting for tables, but somehow there is just enough space for me to press myself next to him.

“Oh, Prescott, you have made my parents so happy.”

“They like the family dinner thing?”

“They lap it up.”

I could lap you up, I think. Oh my God, where did that come from? I can feel my face getting hot.

“Good, I’m glad they’re happy.” I think about my parents fumbling for something to say, about his parents jumping to spend an hour with him. It all makes me a little depressed.

I start to ask him what he said to the waitress, what was so funny, but I don’t.

He kisses me. I know there’s a family with two young kids and an elderly couple with a full view, but there is nothing in me, no part of me, that cares at all. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if the entire staff of Red Lobster were watching. My heart beats faster as I realize people probably are watching, rolling their eyes or whatever. I’m not completely comfortable with this after all.

“I’ll have to get back soon.” We come up for air, and I open my eyes.

“I know.” He nuzzles my neck a little. I have about a million worries about where this is going and where he’s been, but right now all I can think about is that after everything he still likes me. He wants to be with me. He brought his family to Red Lobster and here we are.

“About the party,” I say.

“I know, Park, I should’ve taken you home.”

“I wanted to tell you why . . . ,” I begin, even though I don’t know why I left, exactly.

“Well, well, well.” All of a sudden Paige is standing right over us. “What’s he doing here?” she asks.

“Eating dinner,” he says. The look he gives my sister is not friendly. She doesn’t notice, maybe because the lighting isn’t so good in Red Lobster. Maybe because she doesn’t care.

“Mom sent me to see if you were sick or climbing out the window. Wait until she hears you were making out with him in the waiting area.”

“You would tell on me?”

“You know what, Princess Parker? I’ve hit rock bottom. I have nothing better to do than tattle on you and Preston.” She gives a little smile, and I don’t know if she’s joking or not. The rock bottom part sounds about right.

“I hate you,” I tell her. I turn back to him. “I hate her.” He nods as if this is reasonable.

“I guess you’d better go, I don’t want you to get grounded again.” Feeling insanely happy that he cares if I am grounded again, I give him a quick hug and follow Paige back to the table. I don’t know why she has to act like such a bitch. It isn’t like I ever really told on her.

“Parker, have you done something new with your hair?” my dad asks.

“No.” There is an awkward silence. Really, I haven’t done anything different. Haven’t even changed the part or anything.

“You look different. I don’t know what it is.”

I’ve lost my virginity, Daddy. That’s the difference.

Why does that pop into my head? What is the matter with me? I glance over at Paige. She raises her water glass at me in a mock salute. Is she going to tell on me or what? The lemon wedge falls off of her glass and she stares at it like she isn’t quite sure where it came from. I don’t think she’s going to say anything, and I feel very relieved. The absence of extra drama will always be a relief, for me.

My brother is trying to color his coloring placemat with a piece of shrimp. Mom watches him for a minute, then sighs and asks for the check. It doesn’t add much in the way of color (the shrimp), but it does give the ocean-view picture a nice glossy sheen.

Dad hands the waitress a credit card. I hold my breath. What if it gets declined? What if it’s declined and we don’t have any way to pay?

She brings back the credit card slip and Dad signs it. When he thinks no one is looking he slides the pen into his pocket.

“I guess it’s time to hit the road,” Dad says. He stands up. Mom fumbles for her purse under the table. Getting five people out of a restaurant can be a ridiculously slow process. As we walk past his table I stare at him but try not to show recognition. His mom looks up and sees me and gives a little half wave. I smile at her and follow my sister out the double doors to the parking lot.

We pile into the Jeep and head home. I stare out the window and remember when I was little and going out to dinner was the highlight of my week. I thought it was so fun to sit between my brother in his high chair and Paige and order grilled cheese or chicken fingers and share a dessert with them. Things have changed and it makes me sad.

My parents go into the kitchen to make after-dinner drinks, exclaiming about how expensive the drinks are at Red Lobster. When did they go from making me feel safe and secure to making me feel so sad and worried?

I leave my parents, and their silly drinks, downstairs and go to my room to call Raye. When she picks up it sounds like she’s been crying. I knew after what she told me that she was most likely staying home tonight.

“I broke up with Ian, again.”

“What? Why?”

“I just got tired of his not being in love with me.”

“What about prom?” I know I often castigate prom, have even been known to call it the most overhyped night of a girl’s life, but Raye seemed really excited about going. She already picked out a strappy little black dress and matching four-inch heels. It was a hot ensemble, not foofy or frilly or sequiny in the least.

I go to the computer and click over to the stupid Social Siren. There’s a little sign that says under construction. Interesting. Marion must be too screwed up worrying about her brother to spew any venom, even about her so-called intervention for Kandace Freemont. I’ve got nothing in my anonymous account from Kyle H. I wasn’t expecting anything, but I checked just in case. It’s kind of a relief to see an empty in-box. I feel pretty vile. I can’t even think how I’m ever going to repay him.

“Parker?” Raye’s voice is quiet. For a second I got so distracted that I forgot I’m still on the phone with her.

“Raye, will you come over and spend the night?” I ask, needing to make things better.

“Do you have any chocolate chip cookies?”

“No.”

Loud sigh. “Okay, Parker, I’ll stop and get some on the way.”

37

I
t seems like hours before she arrives, and I’m lying on my bed trying not to get sleepy. The aftermath of too much family time, I guess.

Raye picked up the kind of cookies you have to bake, so we head down to the kitchen. With the smell of baking and the warmth and the softness of the recessed lighting, our kitchen is probably the most comforting place on earth. I can’t imagine some other family sitting here happily. Of course, I can’t really picture my family sitting here happily either. Not anymore.

Paige comes in and sits down at the table. House rules state that I can’t make her go away. Rules established by yours truly, when Paige and her high school friends thought they
owned
this kitchen, and the living room, and the den, and the telephone, and the big-screen TV, and the computer. We only had one computer back then, if you can imagine.

She helps herself to a cookie. Raye’s eyes meet mine over the plate. She doesn’t have much use for Paige, and neither do I, I guess.

“So are you two going to the prom?” Paige asks. Here we go again. The things Paige thinks are important.

“No, my boyfriend is a junior, like me,” I tell her, in case she forgot. Or doesn’t know. Or gives a damn.

“I was going to go, but I broke up with my boyfriend just a few hours ago.” I don’t suppose I’ve given Raye appropriate sympathy, especially if she’s trying to get it from Paige.

“I went to the prom every single year of high school,” Paige tells us, as if we don’t know. It was probably buying all the prom dresses and jewelry and shit that caused my parents to go into all this debt.

“The guy who took me my sophomore year was such a loser.” Oh great, it’s the loser-date story. I remember this guy. He drove a white pickup truck. “Yeah,” she continues, as if we are showing some interest. “We had to stop by a grocery store on the way to prom to buy contraceptives. Like, here he was in a tuxedo, and I was in that really hot silver dress, do you remember it, Parker? And the people checking us through had to know exactly what we were doing and why.”

“Why didn’t you go through the self-checkout?” Raye asks her.

“I don’t know, I told you that guy was a loser.” Should I tell Paige that it sounds suspiciously like it takes one to know one? No, something else comes out of my mouth. Something that sounds surprisingly friendly, like sisterly gossip.

“Well, at least he didn’t tell you how much he likes to fish.”

“What?” Paige and Raye in stereo, something to remember in my old age.

“Remember that guy Droopy that you set me up with, the one who wouldn’t pay for my movie ticket?”

“What?”

“Josh’s friend, the one who couldn’t stand up straight and who kept staring at my chest?” Raye obviously has no recollection of anything besides Josh’s tonsils on that date, so I launch into the details. Before I get to the attempted kiss, she and Paige are laughing so hard they’re almost crying. I think Raye might actually be crying.

Then Paige says something I don’t know how to interpret.

“When did you grow up, Parker? And why didn’t I notice?”

“I think it was Thursday,” I say, still in the mood to joke around. Except I forgot that they both know what happened on Thursday. And they don’t agree with my whole not-diminishing-the-experience thing. They want the gritty details. It starts with Paige.

“What happened?” she asks. The way she is looking at me, all wide-eyed and attentive, is the same way she always looked at her popular pretty friends. No wonder they liked telling her stuff.

“Yeah, you never really told me, exactly . . . ,” Raye jumps in with Paige, trying to wear down my resistance. She knows I don’t want to talk about this.

“Where are Mom and Dad? Do you think they’re listening?” I stare at the doorway that connects the kitchen to the living room, as if they’re lurking around. I kind of hope they will show up so we can change the subject. No luck.

I sigh, really loudly. I guess I’m going to have to talk about it sometime.

“It was just, you know, not perfect. I thought with him, it would be.”

They both look at me. And nobody says anything.

“I wasn’t frigid,” I say to Paige. It’s a dumb thing to say.

Paige shakes her head. “Parker . . .”

“Of course not.” Raye gives Paige a dirty look. “I’ve seen you with him, you know, kissing or whatever. There’s no way you’re frigid. Why would you even think that?”