Loving Emily (3 page)

She looks over in his direction, then back at me. “I’d better go.”

Not yet!
“So I guess I’ll see you at school?”

She nods. We make toe-curling eye contact for a second before I head off, my mind going over every word we said.

I’ll tell you some other time.
Does she mean she’d like there to be another time?
If you’re nice to me.
Should I call her?

I return to the stairs and run up, stopping when I see the stairwell is empty. I check my watch, and my stomach drops into my ankles. I was gone
half an hour.

I am a total, gaping asshole.

“Michael?” I call out, fear pumping through my belly. No sign of him. I start to run, grabbing in my pocket for my cell.

I race down the stairs and through the entry area out the main doors to the valet station. Panting, I arrive and begin to punch in Michael’s number. “Did a guy come here – tall, blond – to pick up a black Mustang?” I ask one of the guys in a Breakers Club jacket. He wears a name tag that says “Jed,” and I’ve seen him around the club before. I hear Michael’s recorded voice, telling me to leave a message.

“Yeah. Maybe ten minutes ago.”

“How could you give him his car? He was wasted!”

“Don’t look at
me
. I didn’t help him.” Jed turns away from me.

I can’t believe I left Michael alone for all that time. I can’t believe they gave Michael his car.

I hand in my valet ticket and wait until my car is brought around. I cringe as I drive down Pacific Coast Highway, expecting at any moment to see police lights and Michael’s Mustang crumpled in the road. But everything’s normal. I even take the most likely route to Michael’s house, to be sure he’s really okay. The house is dark and his car nowhere to be seen. He probably put it in the garage and went to bed.

I’m practically weak with relief. Michael just dodged a bullet.

I drive home thinking about Emily again. I wonder if I should call her tomorrow.

T
he next morning, I wake up in a tangle of sheets. My mouth tastes like the floor of a city bus.
Where’s Michael?
Panic rises in my throat.

Chill. You know he got home fine.

I pull myself out of bed and walk to my bathroom, peeling off my underwear as I go. I fall into my glass enclosed shower and turn on the hot steam. Twenty minutes later, wet hair combed but already curling in weird directions, I’m dressed in my tennis whites. No matter what else is happening, Michael and I play tennis every Sunday at eleven.

Should I call Emily? I think back to the awesomeness of talking to her last night.
If it weren’t my own party, I’d go with you. I’ll tell you some other time. If you’re nice to me.

I drag myself down to the kitchen to see my mother facing an army of caterers, all glitzy young Hollywood types in black jeans and white t-shirts. Every single one, I would bet, is an actor looking for his big break. I wonder if they realize whose house they are in.

Mom sees me and sways over to me in her suspension-bridge shoes.

“Honey, did you have a good time last night?” She tries to run a hand through my hair, but I dodge backwards, acting as if I’m really trying to let a mob of caterers pass by.

“It was okay. What’s the party for?”

‘You remember,” Mom says. “It’s the mother-daughter tea party for Elsie Williams.”

Yeah, I do remember now. It’s a fundraiser for The Elsie Williams School, where my sisters go. Molly and Madison are in the second grade there.

“What time did you get in?” Mom asks. Then, without missing a beat: “Hello? Yes, this is Nadine Mills.” She’s talking into her headset. She taps her foot while she listens and mouths the word “Sorry” to me.

“It’s okay,” I mouth back.

“But I specifically ordered the linens in Fuchsia,” Mom is saying, squinting as if somehow that will help her hear. “No, I can’t hold. I need to speak to a supervisor.”

A caterer is stirring the contents of a round copper pot on the stove. I hear the sizzle of butter and smell something incredible, something sweet and spicy. My stomach growls.

“Morning,” I say to Ro.

Rosario is standing at the gigantic center island, cutting strawberries. Our kitchen is so high-tech, I think you could use some of our appliances to orbit the globe. My mother sure doesn’t use them for cooking, although Ro does.

“Good morning, Ryanito.” She’s wearing one of her long swirly skirts with lots of fabric. I used to hide in her skirts when I was little, while she pretended to look behind doors and in cabinets, saying “Where can Ryan be?” She has lived with our family since I was one month old.

“Thank you for your help. It just takes talking to the right person, doesn’t it?” Mom ends her phone conversation and begins checking a clip board and firing off instructions, while her assistant, the hyper-efficient Brittany, scribbles notes. “The photographer and Cupcake Table begin at 11 sharp, the magician at 11:30. Lunch is at twelve fifteen, no make that twelve thirty.”

My mother’s so thin a Chihuahua could pull her over. She’s worked hard to look that way. She’s in this pair of stiletto heels a lot like the ones she broke her ankle in two years ago.

“I think heaven must be a place where you can wear flat shoes,” I heard her tell Dad one time when I was about ten. “My feet are killing me!”

“Why can’t you wear flat shoes now?” I asked.

“I just can’t.”

Dad winked at me. “According to her, it’s not in her job description.”

“But Mom doesn’t have a job.”

“She’s married to me. That’s a job!” Dad said, laughing.

Though Dad gets along great with Mom, I stopped talking to her years ago. Her body is here on earth, but her mind and soul live in a distant universe. Why should I tell her anything, I think, when a day later, it’ll be forgotten? She doesn’t listen, or maybe she doesn’t care.

Hearing a buzz, Ro looks into a security monitor and punches a button, rolling open the wrought iron security gates at the bottom of the hill.

A giant Rent-a-Party van grinds up the driveway. Mom teeters out to meet it, with me following behind. While I stand at the top of the front steps, she talks to these two bruisers in Rent-a-Party overalls, rapping out instructions, as the huge guys bob their heads up and down.

I see my father in the driveway, preparing to flee. He’s pulled his Mercedes out of our five car garage and is loading his golf clubs into the trunk.

“Hey, Dad.” I look down at him from the steps. “Who’re you playing with?” I played golf once or twice with my father back in the days when I spent time with him.

Mom is making the Rent-a-Party guys move their van closer to a service path that runs along the side of the house. No way will she let them carry folding chairs through the living room.

“There you are,” Dad says. “I thought you’d be sleeping in.” He slams his trunk shut and steps around toward me as he answers my question. “I’m playing with Jared Abernathy. I want him for the lead in
Mystery Moon
.”

Dad’s directing the film, which Michael’s dad, Nat Weston, is producing. They’ve worked together on a bunch of films. Dad used to talk to me a lot about the films he made, but not since the time of Michael’s overdose, three years ago, when I put both my parents and Michael’s in the Ryan Mills Parenting Hall of Shame.

“How about you and I plan a game for next weekend?” Dad says.

I shrug. “Yeah, sure, why not?” I say, but I don’t mean it.

Dad gets in his car and rolls off down our long driveway for his morning of deal-making.

Grabbing my cell, I head up to my bedroom. I punch in Michael’s home phone number and hang up when their voice mail kicks in. I try Michael’s cell. Same thing.

Again, I think about calling Emily. I force myself to pull out the Pacific Prep student directory, which lists her home number. I punch in the first half of the number, then hit “off,” then doodle on a piece of paper and spend a few minutes throwing darts at my dartboard.

C’mon, you wuss.
This time I punch in her entire number and let it just start to ring before I hang up. I can’t do it. I never even talked to her before last night. I’ll look for her at school and casually go over… I hear the theme song from
The Godfather
. My ring tone.

“Hello?” I say.

It sounds like a kid, a boy maybe nine or ten. “Did you just call us?”

Crap.

“I
s Emily there?” I immediately kick myself. Why didn’t I just say it was a wrong number?

“Yeah. Who’s this?’

“Ryan Mills, but I can…”

“Emilyy! It’s Ryan Miills!”

Well, there’s no backing out now, I think, since this kid has just notified all hearing creatures within our galaxy that I’m looking for his big sister. There’s a moment of jumbled up breathing and jostling noises, after which I hear her voice.

“Give me the phone.”

“How much you gonna pay me?” He is cracking up.

Scuffling sounds and then, “Ryan?” It is Emily. “Don’t mind him,” she says. “He never fully recovered from his lobotomy.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” There’s one of those silences where I can tell we are both smiling into our phones. But then it ends, and it seems as if someone should say something.
Something clever.
I clear my throat.

“So what are you doing right now?”
That wasn’t it.

“I’m supposed to be working on a paper, but instead I’m looking at last spring’s yearbook.”

My eyes go straight to my bookshelves across the room. Sure enough, there’s my copy of the yearbook, which up until now I’ve seen no reason to open.

“Is your picture in there?” I’m already crossing my room, reaching for the book. It is thick and glossy-paged. On the front cover are a photo collage of Pacific Prep students, all at least a 7 on the Attractiveness Scale, and the embossed title,
A Myriad of Memories.

“No,” she says quickly. “My picture was left out by accident. A
huge
mistake. Most unfortunate.”

“Ha ha, nice try.” I’ve got the book in front of me and am sprawled on my bed, leafing through the sophomores. I reach the “W’s.” There’s Michael and, one photo over from him is Emily’s class picture. She looks young and cute, with her hair pulled back in a headband.

“Good picture,” I say.

“Not really, but now I get to look at
yours
.”

“Aw, I wanted to see your other photos first.” I leaf back to the index. “You have… wow,
six photos
in the yearbook.”

I gulp a little. I’m willing to bet that the only shot of me in there is my stupid class picture, which every kid gets to have, even if he’s a brain-dead serial killer.

I start looking up Emily’s photos while she tells me about them. She’s in the Honor Society, the Songbirds a cappella singing group, and the Young Historians Club. It turns out she’s also in three Advanced Placement classes, although at least there are no photos for that.

“You’re awesome,” I tell her.

“Thanks. But I’m not.”

Some of the photos are group shots, so we compare notes on the people who we like and don’t like, and then go on to things that annoy us.

“You know what bugs me?” Emily says. “People who say ‘no offense’ right before they’re about to offend you. They go ‘No offense, but …’ and then they say something heinous.”

“I know what you mean. Like ‘No offense, but your face looks like road pizza.’“

“Exactly. It’s so passive aggressive.” She adds teasingly, “By the way, I just calculated that there’s an 87% overlap on the people we like.”

“I guess that proves we have the same taste.”

“Yes.”

A woman’s voice surfaces in the background, talking to Emily.

“Now?” Emily says. “Ryan, my mom says we have to go. But I’m really glad you called.”

“Yeah, same here.”
Glad
is not the word.
Ecstatic,
maybe.
Delirious.

“So, I guess I’ll see you at school?” she says.

“Yeah, uh …. Maybe we could have lunch together one day. “

“I’d like that.”

After we hang up, I bound to the mirror and do a few muscleman poses. I examine my biceps. I have game. I am a beast. Wait until Michael hears I practically have a date with an Incredible Woman.

Michael.
I stop flexing my muscles. What time is it anyway?

I look at my watch, and with a strange, twisting feeling in my stomach see that it’s eleven fifteen. I’ve done it again—forgotten Michael because I was talking to Emily.

I was supposed to meet him at eleven. Why hasn’t he called me?

Feeling strangely off balance, I go downstairs again. The party has started. Mountains of pink and white flowers decorate our entryway. A magician in a tuxedo and top hat waits to begin his show, while Brittany helps the little girls sitting at a low table with colored frostings and sprinkles. Each is decorating her own cupcake.

I end up going through the kitchen and butler’s pantry, past the laundry room, and into Rosario’s quarters. She never locks her door, and I know I’m welcome to hide out there. I practically lived in Rosario’s room back when I was five and six. Nowadays, I only visit when things get really bad. Today, I don’t know exactly why I’m here.

Ro’s living quarters are just a small bedroom and larger sitting room. The sitting room has a sliding door to an outside bricked patio. Ro has a hammock in one corner of the patio, plants, and a couple of shade umbrellas. There are wind chimes and bells that I used to like to listen to when I was little.

I flop into the hammock and call both of Michael’s numbers again and get the voice mail. Michael usually answers his phone, but maybe he lost or forgot it somewhere. I swing back and forth in the hammock, thinking about Emily and how easy she is to talk to and what a stud I am for getting a lunch date with her.

I doze off for a while in the hammock, then check the clock. It’s 12:30. I get Michael’s voice mail again. I’m sure there’s a good explanation, but I’m antsy enough now that I’m even considering calling his parents. Scrolling through the listings in my cell phone, I come across Michael’s mom’s cell number. I haven’t used this number since the Big Rift of three years ago. I call it now.