Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (25 page)

He nodded in acknowledgement. We stared
quietly at the waterfall for a while again. This time there was no
awkwardness in the silence. It was peaceful and pleasant. I mused
over the idea that Ash had unwittingly engaged the services of my
wedding planner, and then I switched it off. Getting too far ahead
of myself on that tangent—especially if things didn’t turn
out—would absolutely be the makings of Heartbreak Debacle
two-point-o, Nuclear Winter version. To combat the sudden chill, I
concentrated on the feel of his warm hand around mine and the ray
of sunshine glowing warm over top of that.

“So you see yourself being married someday?”
he asked in a hushed tone, his face searching mine as I turned to
the sound of his voice. It felt like maybe he’d been thinking about
that during the entire quiet interval.

There was no thought in my response, just a
straight confession.

“I see you there too,” I nearly whispered,
shyness taking over at the end so that I had to look away, even
though I didn’t want to.

Even from the corner of my eye, I could see
that the happiness my response had elicited from my companion was
enough for me to give myself full permission in constructing a new
tangent-like game in my mind called Romantic Triumph Odyssey. In
this game a Nuclear Winter of heartbreak was melted away with
miracles, sunshine and joy, and things turned out fine and every
day was as sweet as a chocolate covered strawberry. It would be set
up for two-players, and because my partner seemed every bit as
eager to play as I was, this would be a game I would truly
enjoy—and possibly even win, from time to time.

Chapter 21
–
Conspiracy

The uneasy feeling was morphing into
something more serious. As I settled myself into the backseat of
Trevor’s car I began the search for my wallet in earnest. Trying to
dig through a bottomless pit backpack while keeping pace with one’s
Amazon Goth companion in the free-for-all exodus after last bell is
harder than it may appear.

Pulling out of the school parking lot, I
became increasingly anxious as I searched from one compartment to
the next until I had exhausted every possible absentminded wallet
stashing location. In a final act of desperation I turned the
backpack upside down and dumped the contents: books, papers, pens,
candy, flotsam, jetsam and keys, but no wallet.

Exhaling in frustration, I began the
absolute last-ditch procedure: patting down the emptied flattened
backpack in the hope that the shape of my trapped wallet could be
felt, if not seen. No dice. It was gone.

The last time I had it was in the cafeteria.
I’d taken to finding errands to perform so that Trevor and Sam
could have a few moments of ‘couple time’ at lunch. He faithfully
stuck to the business of buying our meals every day—the consequence
of having lost a wager early in our acquaintance regarding my
loyalty to Sam—but sometimes I’d take a leisurely stroll back
through the lunch line to get something else at my own expense. I
felt confident, though, that if I wanted to, I could have turned
these occasions into Ellery and Sam time, all expenses paid. But
that would have defeated the purpose, and robbed me of my private,
self-awarded good citizenship medal.

Today’s excursion had been a banner day for
quarter collecting, a secondary and admittedly self-serving
motivation for my behavior. I’d received three Kentucky quarters in
change when I bought some chocolate milk toward the end of the
break. Just finding one ‘KYQ’ would make my day. Catching three was
like winning the lottery, except on a sad underachiever’s scale.
And subsequently losing my wallet, with my triple prize inside, was
like losing that winning lottery ticket. Who cared about the
four-dollar wallet or the five-dollar bill inside? Well, my
driver’s license and my Shrek and Fiona themed debit card (with the
bazillion dollar limit) were in there too.

Darn it!

“Are you looking for this?” Trevor asked,
holding my wallet up, without looking at me, while he drove.

“Where did you find that?” I demanded—more
peeved than relieved due to the non-coincidental timing of his
question.

He could have returned it to me moments
later in English class after lunch or at any point during the
second half of the day, but he chose to wait until after I’d
panicked and dumped everything out like a two-year old.

Nice.

As I quickly snagged it out of his hand he
offered a patronizing, “You’re welcome.”

I caught a glimpse of his satisfied smile in
the rearview mirror.

“Thanks for finding it…and for making me
sweat it out; that was gallant,” I shot back.

Ever since the whole drowning thing where I
realized that my friends weren’t perfect, or able to read my mind,
I’d taken to voicing my feelings in slightly less guarded ways. It
usually felt very good initially, only to cause second-guessing and
lingering guilt afterwards.

Trevor seemed to get a lot of pleasure from
my discomfort, even if it was self-induced much of the time. My
transition to a more open style of communication only added to his
amusement. He had to be one of the happiest Goths of all time,
thanks to me.

“Gallant Sir Trevor. That has a nice ring to
it,” Sam interjected from the shotgun seat.

She was mostly neutral in the skirmishes
between the Emperor and me. Instead, she made it her business to be
irenic (peace promoting) and find segues to alternate and more
pleasant topics after these recurrent tussles.

“Lovely Lady Samantha has an even nicer
ring,” he rejoined, the well-pleased smile still reflecting in the
mirror.

He pulled her hand, which he was already
holding, up to his lips and kissed the top; stealing a glance at
his beautiful, though darkly disguised lady, before turning his
attention back to the road. She sighed wistfully while smiling
radiantly.

It was ironic, but the scariest looking
people I knew were also the most romantic. Sometimes life around
them was like being in a movie…on the Sci-Fi channel, where I was
the alien orphan, under the care of two mysterious, clandestinely
gorgeous humans. One day the mother ship full of oddball shorties
would come back for me…

Just moments later we pulled into an
uncharacteristic destination: Applebee’s. It was a little early for
a sit down meal, but I assumed that one of the Goths must have been
particularly hungry. As we settled into our booth, quite literally
the only customers in the place, Sam excused herself to get
something she forgot in the car.

Sitting across the table from Trevor, I
realized with apprehension that he was smiling, as though enjoying
some exceptionally funny inside joke. My intuition told me it had
to do with whatever Sam was retrieving from the vehicle.

Sure enough, as she rounded the corner her
face was beaming with a brilliant Sam-style smile (nobody smiled
like Sam) as she toted a medium sized gift bag back to our
booth.

“Okay, El. Don’t be mad,” she began,
scooting into her seat next to Trevor while placing the gift next
to me on my side of the table.

Great.

This was always the opening line to
something guaranteed to be unpleasant, or madness inducing.

“So, Trevor and I felt really horrible about
what happened at Great Wolf…” she began.

Oh really? Then why bring that up
again…ever?

“And we wanted to make it up to you, and be
practical at the same time. Open it up,” she said,
enthusiastically, gesturing toward my present.

I knew I would regret not running away while
I still had the chance. My house was less than five miles away. I
could make it home before nightfall, especially if I ran…

Propriety won out over my instinct to flee
and I moved the bag in front of me. After pulling off the top layer
of decorative tissue, my fingers made contact with what felt like
clothes.

Folded neatly, until I released it from the
bag, was an oversized white cotton tunic with three-quarter length
sleeves. Before I could comment Sam added, “Keep going, there’s
more.”

The next layer felt like a slick synthetic
fabric of some sort. When I pulled it out, I thought I was looking
at a set of lingerie—twilight blue and ruffled. The guilty part of
my mind immediately concluded that they knew about my impossibly
handsome boyfriend. But how?

Now that my expression was even more
befuddled Sam said, “It’s a tankini with hipster bottoms…by Marc
Jacobs, exclusively at Nordstroms,” she added, as if referencing
the designer and the store might clear up my confusion.

Of course, a swimsuit and cover-up seemed
more in line with her opening comment about Great Wolf. Then she
continued, “It’ll make sense when you see the last part. Keep
going. There’s one more thing in there.”

The final item is what gave the bag its
weight. Pushing past a last layer of tissue my fingers came in
contact with a book.

Now that’s more like it.

Pulling it free and then turning it around
to see the title I read, “Conquer Your Fear of Water. An Innovative
Self-Discovery Course In Swimming.”

It was a ‘how to’ book on swimming. This
must have seemed like a kinder gentler option than the “Swimming
For Dummies” guide that they probably really wanted to get for
me.

Trevor’s face was ambiguous; it was in
complete contrast with Sam’s excessive eagerness for whatever this
care package portended for my fears and me.

“Oh, it’s too late guys. I’ve already
‘discovered’ that I’m hopeless.”

I tried to sound as final as possible, but
short of spontaneous combustion, nothing I could do or say was
going to compete with Sam’s zeal for whatever scheme they were
about to hatch on me. Though it wasn’t in the bag, it was obvious
there was more.

“We’ve arranged for you to have private
swimming lessons. You’ll be getting one-on-one time with a
certified swim instructor who teaches this method,” she said while
pointing to the book. “It’s all set up for early evening, right
around dinner, so you’ll have the pool to yourself…starting
tonight. That’s why we’re treating you to an early dinner,” Sam
explained, cringing a bit as she related the heavy news at the
end.

It took me a minute to process the awful
truth of what was looming just a short time from now. My appetite
had done the full three-sixty since we’d arrived. I wasn’t hungry
when we pulled in, just after three o’clock, but the wonderful
aroma of grilled food outside the restaurant changed my mind. Then,
after opening my gift and being informed of my upcoming fate worse
than death, I’d managed to lose that appetite again—possibly
forever.

“That was really sweet of you two, but you
should have asked before you signed me up and spent money. I’m
sorry, but the answer is no.”

I looked around in shock. Whose
authoritative resolved sounding words were coming out of my
mouth?

“I bet she’d change her mind if she saw the
instructor,” Trevor said with a chuckle at the end.

I refused to be baited. Sam took over where
Trevor left off.

“He’s Trevor’s friend from the health club.
You know who he reminds me of El?” she asked, baiting me some
more.

I just stared at the space in between
them.

“Remember that guy at Tinseltown? The one
who was asking about you that day we dressed you up in Goth? What
was his name?” she asked, trying to engage me.

Trevor and I both took the bait on that,
staring intently at her now that she had our full attention.

“Ellery dressed up in Goth? Are you serious?
Do you have pictures?”

He was more serious and less amused than I
thought he’d be. Why would that matter to him? This tangent
diverted my attention for a moment, but then I got back to
concentrating on not getting sucked in. It felt like a trick.
Besides, Ash would flip if I said yes to them so quickly when he’d
begged me to take swimming lessons every day of the first week we
started dating, until I threatened not to love him anymore if he
asked me again. We both knew that was an empty threat, but in the
end I had held him off with a qualified ‘maybe’…as in ‘maybe when
pigs fly’.

“Sure I do. At home. I’ll show you later.
She looked awesome. Kind of a one hit wonder sort of thing, though.
She’s never done it again, though I wish you would,” Sam turned
from speaking to Trevor to addressing me.

“But any way, that guy, the really cute
one…your totally handsome stalker, remember?”

He was all I thought about around the clock,
of course I remembered him.

I just shook my head, feigning
ignorance.

“You don’t remember that boy who came up
asking if we’d seen you? Oh, what was his name?” she asked, getting
impatient at my lack of acknowledgment and her own poor memory.

“Well, any way, the instructor reminds me of
him, a little. Except your swim instructor is really hot. Not my
type,” she qualified, glancing at Trevor with open, up turned
hands, “but you’ll really like him. And he’s very polite and nice.
We interviewed him first, to make sure you’d be comfortable around
him. Believe me, you will be.”

That Sam-style smile was turned all the way
up to blinding.

“You interviewed him?” I asked,
skeptically.

“His name is Raffi,” Trevor said. “He’s my
spotting partner at the gym. He’s big into swimming, but he’s also
into helping people overcome fear of water; very committed to the
cause. I think he almost drowned as a kid or something.”

He was being sincere, but I still felt
wary.

“Trevor introduced me to Raffi so we could
discuss the training program and make sure it was a good fit for
you before getting you involved.”

Leaning closer to me from across the table
she continued, “Ellery, it’s really different. I think it’s going
to be a very good thing for you. It’s not like traditional swimming
lessons. Instead of forcing you to focus on surviving, you spend
time getting comfortable in the water and then take as long as you
need learning swimming skills at your comfort level and pace.”