Love? Maybe. (8 page)

Jillian and I agree that we shouldn’t force the truffles on the guys. Instead we’ll position ourselves with the chocolates and rely on guys’ general state of always being hungry to do the rest.

“Piper, you just have to be casual about it,” Jillian says. I roll my eyes.

“I got it,” I say. Then slowly, as if I’m writing it down, I add, “be casual.”

“I’ll leave your chocolates in your locker before zero period.” Most of us only take six classes, but Jillian goes to school an hour early to take Latin. She might act like a ditz sometimes, but she’s anything but stupid. “What are you wearing tomorrow?” she asks finally.

“I don’t know. My uniform?”

I can almost hear Jillian’s eyes rolling through the phone. “Wear your gray hoodie with the embroidered flowers all over it and your sandals with the vegetables on them. You know, casual chic.”

I squint at my reflection in the microwave door. I have never in my life uttered the word
chic
in a non-ironic way. “Listen, Jillian. I’ve got to go. I still have to finish my lab write-up for biology.” I start to say good-bye, but Jillian cuts me off with more beauty advice.

“Make sure you do something with your hair after practice.
Don’t just let it air dry.” I make a note to put my hair dryer in my gym bag.

“Gotcha,” I say.

“As for makeup—” I pull the phone away from my mouth.

“Jillian—I’m going to lose you. I’m about to enter a tunnel.”

“Tunnel? What tun—” I click the end button on my phone and place it on the counter. I close my eyes for a second. Talking to Jillian makes me tired. The home phone rings and I shake my head. I pick it up and start talking fast.

“Jillian, listen. I really have work to do.” There’s silence and then the sound of someone clearing his throat. “Hello?”

“Hey there, princess.” I suddenly feel cold all over, like someone just dropped me into a pool of ice water. It’s weird how just three words can unglue you. Seemingly harmless words that, when delivered by the right person, can cut your heart in two. “You there?” I close my eyes and concentrate.
Just focus on the words,
I tell myself.

“Yes,” I say. I say it so softly that I have to repeat it. “Yes, I’m here.” I take a deep breath, willing my heart to slow down. Why after all this time is my father calling? “What do you want?” There’s more silence. My words came out harsher than I intended, but what does he expect after nearly two whole years?

“I just called to see how you are.” My heart starts thumping even harder. I hate my heart for that, like it’s betraying me.
Stop it,
I tell it, but it won’t listen. “Got a birthday coming up.”

“Yeah,” I say softly. “I do.” I remember my birthday two years ago, sitting alone in front of The Paper Lantern, waiting for him to show up.

“Seems like just yesterday you were blowing out the candles on your Cinderella cake.” I close my eyes. Cinderella was when I was six. The silence stretches between us again. Part of me longs for him to fill it, but the rest of me is glad he doesn’t even try. “Listen,” he says finally. “Is your mom around?” And there it is. I glance at the clock over the kitchen table. We couldn’t even make it three minutes.

“She’s at the shop,” I say. He’s quiet again.

“Maybe I’ll call her there,” he says. “It was good to talk to you, princess.” There’s more silence. “Listen,” he begins. And I do. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, hating that little spark of hope that flares up inside of me. There’s a click and the line goes dead. I stand there with the phone in my hand until it starts beeping at me to hang it up. I place it on the counter and walk upstairs. I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling over me. It’s the same ceiling I’ve stared at for eleven years. It’s the ceiling I stared at when my parents used to fight—when Jack left, then came back, then left again. It’s the same one I stared at when Beau and my mom started dating and then got married and then had Dom and Lucy one right after the other. Like they needed to hurry because the clock was ticking. Which I guess it was. He left when Lucy was only two. That’s two
dads that walked out on us, walked out on
me
, in less than ten years.
Yeah Charlie,
I whisper to the ceiling.
Maybe I am cynical, but for a good reason.
Maybe instead of trying to find a potion that helps you fall in love, someone should come up with one that makes you
stay
in love. Then you’d really have something.

I feel a blanket being pulled over me. I open my eyes and see my mother standing beside my bed. I squint at the clock. Almost nine. I must have fallen asleep. My mom pushes my hip and I slide over, giving her room to sit beside me on the bed.

“You okay?” she asks. I can feel the heat behind my eyes. Tears that I refuse to let fall. Not over him. Not again. “Jack called the shop. Said he talked to you.” I nod.

“What did he want?” I ask.

“I don’t really know.” She sighs and looks away from me. “He asked me a lot of questions about you.” She looks back at me. I raise my eyebrow. “He wanted to know if you’re happy.”

“What did you tell him?” I ask, not sure what I would have answered if he’d asked me the same thing.

“I told him I thought you were.” She looks at me for a long moment. “Was I right?” I poke around inside of myself for a minute before deciding.

“I’m pretty happy,” I admit.

She gives me a small smile, then takes a breath. “He also
wants to see you.” I close my eyes. She finds my hand under the blanket and squeezes it. Her fingers are cold against mine. “You don’t have to,” she says. “After all this time, he can’t really enforce visitation.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say. My head says no way; it’s my heart that needs to think about it.

“He gave me his new number,” she says. “I put it on your desk.” I look over at the piece of paper sitting there, tucked under my crystal heart paperweight. It’s small, just part of a piece of paper, but it seems to push some of the air out of the room. “I was worried,” Mom says. “I tried to call the house, but the line was busy.” I think of the phone I dropped on the counter without hanging it up. “You didn’t answer your cell.”

“It’s downstairs,” I say.

“I was worried,” she says again.

“I’m okay,” I say. I look at her. She’s staring at my face. “Really.”

“Pinkie-swear?” she asks. I find her pinkie with mine and squeeze it. “Don’t forget to set your alarm. Charlie came over to tell you he’d be out front at ten after and not to be late.”

“Charlie came over?” I ask, reaching for my clock. I set it for five
A.M
. Yuck.

“Apparently he couldn’t get through on the phone either.” She smiles at me. “He also said good job on the new truffles.” She pulls my door shut as she leaves. I put my clock
back on the bedside table and pull my biology lab book from my backpack. Just then, what my mother said hits me. I leap out of bed and run out into the hall.

“Which truffles?” I ask.

“The new ones. He said he stopped by Jan’s today to see you and he loaded up on free candy.” She shakes her head. “It’s a wonder that man is able to stay in business with everything he’s always giving away.”

I smirk. If there is such a thing as a love potion, Jillian will be pretty excited to know that Charlie ate some of our truffles. “Better get to sleep. Big day tomorrow,” I say, kissing her fast on the cheek. She smiles and shakes her head at me. I trudge into my room and climb into bed. This is exactly why I wouldn’t use magic even if it did exist. There’s too much randomness in the world. I’d probably a) cast the wrong spell on b) the wrong person. Ugh. I completely refuse to get caught up in the insanity of Jillian’s plan. But, I am in this for as long as Claire is. Like Jillian said, she needs it.

I
lean over and tilt my head, trying to get the water out of my ear. I can feel it sloshing around in there. The good news is that our coach still has the same rule from last season. If someone throws up during practice, we get out fifteen minutes early, and if two people lose it, we end practice immediately. The bad news is that this morning, I was the second puker. I let Charlie talk me into drinking some new protein shake his coach recommended. It’s horrible, full of spirulina and kelp. It tasted bad enough going down. It was worse coming back up.

“Nice work, Paisley!” I look over and see Peter (Mr. Row Butt) giving me the thumbs-up. I wave at him weakly. I can still taste the seaweed in my mouth. He walks over to where a girl with long blond hair is leaning down from the bleachers, waiting to talk to him. She giggles at something he says.

“Didn’t take him long,” I mutter, picking up the stack of kickboards. Another of coach’s rules. The pukers get to do cleanup.

“Didn’t take who long to do what?” I look over to where someone is kicking half a dozen pull buoys toward the storage bin.

I feel a flutter in my stomach that isn’t the seaweed. It’s Ben Donovan. “Umm…” I can be so witty under pressure.

Ben looks over to where Peter is still flirting with the blonde. “He’s really broken up about you guys,” he says. I shake my head and hide a smile, both because he’s being so nice to me and because Ben Donovan actually noticed I was going out with Peter.

“He’s brave to hide it so well,” I say.

“Crying on the inside.” Ben Donovan leans over and picks up one of the pull buoys and chucks it at the back of Peter’s head. “Hey, Pete. You owe me breakfast.” Peter smiles over at him and shakes his head. “It’s your fault I urped,” Ben Donovan says.

“Dude, it’s not my fault you didn’t train over break,” Peter says.

Ben Donovan looks over at me. “Does he owe you breakfast, too?” I shrug. “Hey, Pete, you owe Piper here breakfast, too.”

Peter acts like he’s about to make a smart remark at my expense, but he looks over at the blonde who’s still admiring him like he’s Adonis in a Speedo. “You hungry?” he asks her.
She nods, but she seems uncertain. I can’t help rolling my eyes. Another girl who can’t eat in front of guys. I dump the last pile of kickboards in the bin and heft my bag from where I put it against the wall.

Ben Donovan walks toward the locker room and I wonder if any of that was real or just guy talk. He catches the door and turns to look at me. “Meet us in the caff in ten,” he says.

“I have to drop by my locker,” I say, then realize with a smirk that this might be the perfect time to
casually
give him the chocolates.

“Okay, then in twelve.” He winks at me, which makes my heart thud a little harder. “I’ll save you a seat.”

I hurry through my shower and pull on my uniform. I say a silent thanks to Jillian that she had her little fashion meeting with me. It takes me three minutes to blow-dry my hair. I start to put on some of the lipstick I dropped in my bag at the last minute, but decide against it. I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard. I grab my bag and start toward my locker. The halls are still mostly empty, just a few students here and there putting up flyers and wandering around. I twist my combination and pull my locker open, expecting to see my usual messy jumble of books and a couple of boxes of chocolates, but there’s also something else. Hanging from one of the hooks meant to hold jackets is a small brown bag. I pull it down and peer inside.

“A banana,” I say out loud. I pull it out and look at it. It’s perfect. Just this side of green and no spots. Maybe Jillian
thought I’d need something to eat after practice. I unload my backpack and lay the banana carefully on the stack of books inside. Smiling, I grab one of the boxes of chocolates and snap my locker shut. I might as well give them to Ben Donovan now since I know Jillian will ask. But when I start heading toward the caff, I’m suddenly nervous. This morning was the longest conversation I’ve ever had with Ben Donovan. What if I don’t have anything more to say? What if I just sit there like a lump while he mentally kicks himself for inviting such a hopeless girl to have breakfast with him? By the time I round the corner, I feel more like I’m walking to the gallows than to breakfast.

Sitting on the far side of the caff in one of the booths are Peter and Ben Donovan. The blonde girl Peter was talking to is walking toward them, balancing two trays. One has four cups of coffee on it; the other is heaped with plates. I watch her wobble a little, then I hurry to her rescue. She hands me one of the trays with a grateful smile and I walk with her over to where the guys are sitting.

“Hey there,” Ben Donovan says, sliding over to make room for me. The smart remark I had about treating women like servants dies when he smiles at me. I put my tray on the table along with the box of chocolates. Peter introduces the blonde as Susan, who quickly corrects him.

“It’s Sarah,” she says, putting her tray on the table and sitting down.

“Right. Sarah, I meant Sarah.” But Peter is only half
paying attention because he’s already pulling open the box of chocolates.

“Is this what I think it is?” He pulls back the tissue paper and peers inside. “Awesome,” he says. “Can I have one?” he asks, looking up at me. I’m stuck. It’s not like I can say
Um, no actually they are for Ben Donovan and not someone who can’t even pronounce robot.

“Sure,” I say. He grabs two and drops them into his mouth one after the other.

“Dude,” he says, closing his eyes. “You have got to try these.” Ben Donovan takes one. I hold my breath, watching, thinking what if the love potion does work? Then I check myself. This is reality. In reality as I know it, there’s no such thing as magic. I look over at Peter as he starts shoveling forkfuls of pancakes into his mouth. Okay, so in addition to being sort of moronic, he also has terrible manners.

“Piper, these are awesome,” Ben Donovan says, reaching for another truffle. I take a sip of my coffee and smile at him. I needn’t have worried about what to talk about. The next several minutes are devoted to the guys shoving as much food into their mouths as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. I look over at Sarah, who seems too taken with Peter to be bothered by his gluttony. In addition to eating their own breakfasts, they inhale most of mine and Sarah’s. The guys finish off their feast with the rest of my box of chocolates. They offer one to Sarah, who shakes her head primly, as if
she couldn’t possibly
.

“So, Piper,” Peter says, leaning back and looking at me. “Whose heart are you breaking now?”

I roll my eyes at him, but I’m aware that Ben Donovan is looking at me too. “I am currently unattached,” I say, pretending to be much cooler than I feel.

Peter smirks at me, then looks over at Ben Donovan. “Dude, watch out. She’s ruthless.” I feel my cheeks heating up. It’s all I can do to avoid looking over to see his reaction.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” he says. I peek at him out of the corner of my eye and see him smiling at me. Peter just laughs and puts his arm around Sarah, who looks like she’s about to dissolve into a puddle of happiness. Luckily the bell signaling the end of zero period sounds, saving me from having to actually say anything. Sarah stacks the trays and gets up to return them. And of course the guys let her. Someone needs to tell her to stop being so servile.

“Thanks for breakfast, Peter,” I say. He just shrugs. I know money is nothing to him. His family is loaded.

The four of us head out to the hall, where we split off toward our various homerooms. I only make it about a dozen steps away before I hear my name behind me. I turn and look at Ben Donovan, standing there with a grin on his face. I notice that everyone else within earshot has turned and is looking at him too.

“See you around.” He smiles at me then walks away down the hall, parting the crowds in front of him. All eyes are on me. Everyone wants to know who Ben Donovan is going to
“see around.” I feel myself blushing all the way down into my veggie sandals. I walk to my locker, hyperaware that people are still gawking at me. I open my locker, grab my perfect banana and pull out my books. It isn’t until I spot the other box of chocolates that I pause. What if—but I snap my locker shut before I can even finish the thought. If there were magic in the world, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t exist in Atlanta. Seriously.

“And then what did he say?” Jillian asks. General school craziness kept me from talking to Jillian and Claire all day long. I even spent lunchtime in the library getting a head start on my Brit lit midterm paper. I called them to tell them the details as soon as I got home, but Jillian told me to wait—they’d be right over. Luckily Mrs. Bateman is over her cold, so she can watch Dom and Lucy, giving me more time (and some peace and quiet) to actually get my schoolwork done.

I’m nearly through my lab report for biology when they arrive. We grab juice from the fridge (orange, not acai) and head up to my room. We’re barely through the door before Jillian starts firing questions at me. I try to answer, but she’s asking them so fast, I can’t get a word in.

Claire holds up her hand, silencing Jillian. “Tell us everything,” she says.

I start with explaining our coach’s rule about throwing up during practice and end where Ben Donovan told me he’d
see me around. It takes forever to tell them the whole thing because Jillian keeps interrupting to ask random questions, like “What was Ben Donovan wearing?” and “Did he smile when he ate the truffle?” They both seem most interested in whether I think the spell worked or not.

“No,” I say. Then I see the look on Claire’s face and I amend my answer. “I don’t know. Maybe.” The light goes back on in Claire’s eyes. Maybe I’m just being grouchy. Even I have to admit that there’s something going on. I mean, why after nearly two and a half years of high school does Ben Donovan suddenly pick today of all days to notice me? And yet, he noticed me
before
he ate the chocolates. I don’t draw attention to that part, reminding myself that Claire needs this.

“So what about you guys?” I ask. “How did it go with you?” Claire starts laughing immediately and I’m surprised to see Jillian blush a little. “What?” I ask, feeling left out. It takes a minute before Claire can compose herself enough to actually speak.

“So during lunch, we’re sitting in our normal spot near the windows.” I nod. “And suddenly Jillian gets up.” Claire starts laughing again. “Brett and Sam were sitting by themselves over near the coffee bar.” I nod again. “So she just walks right over to them sits down at their table.” I look over at Jillian, who shrugs.

“What did they do?” I ask.

“At first they seemed surprised,” Jillian says.
I’ll bet,
I’m thinking. “But then I put the box of chocolates on the table. That got their attention.”

“So that wasn’t weird? Just walking up and giving them candy?” I ask.

“To a girl, yes. But guys are all about their stomachs.” Remembering the scene at breakfast, I nod.

“Then what happened?” I ask.

Jillian frowns. “That’s when their girlfriends showed up.”

“Ouch,” I say. “What did they say?”

Jillian shrugs. “I got out of there. I didn’t want some big drama.”

“Tell her the rest,” Claire says, still smiling. I look over at Jillian, but she doesn’t say anything. “So then we spent the rest of lunch watching
the girlfriends
feed Brett and Sam Jillian’s chocolates,” Claire says. I look back at Jillian, a little worried that she might be upset about it. The Plan was her idea after all, but she just waves her hand.

“It was a long shot,” she says. I wait for more explanation, but she just looks away. There is definitely something fishy about how Jillian is acting.

“Claire, tell Piper about you,” Jillian says, obviously trying to change my focus. It works. I look over at Claire. I know she was worried about giving the candy to Stuart. If I were Stuart I’d worry. Worry that they were poisoned. But Claire’s not that girl. She’s too nice.

“I dropped them off before rugby practice,” she says. “At first I was just going to give Alex his, but Stuart was right
there and I pretended like it was no big deal, like I had extras so he might as well have them.” She looks down at her hands.

“Was it hard to see him?” I ask softly. She nods, but won’t look up at me. Tears fall onto the pillow she has cradled in her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she says. She pushes the pillow to the floor and hurries out of the room. I hear the bathroom door shut behind her. Jillian and I don’t say anything for a few moments.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I say quietly so Claire won’t overhear.

Jillian looks over at me and for the first time I see doubt in her eyes. “What else can we do?” she asks.

“Wait it out,” I say, but I think of my mother and how long it’s taking her to finally let go of Beau. I sigh. “She needs a distraction.”

“Like what?” Jillian asks.

There I’m at a loss. My phone barks. My mother. I pick it up. “Hello?” I say. It’s loud on her end. Voices and the whir of fans.

“Piper, I’m going to be late again,” she says. “I’ve already talked to Mrs. Bateman. She’s going to get Dom and Lucy ready for bed over there.”