Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) (11 page)

Either he was staring at the little red dents in her cheek or he
was just staring at her, taking her in, thinking-as she was-that
last night had been some kind of miracle.

"Okay," he said abruptly as he slugged down the last of his
coffee. "We'd better go."

He snatched another cruller from the box and they trooped
out of the kitchen, out the back door and around the house to the
front, where Laura's car was parked. The early morning sun was
gentle, the grass wet with dew. Laura led the way, and Ted took
Erika's hand.

Oh, God, she liked holding his hand. His palm was warm and
smooth and his gait matched hers, and ... man, she had it bad.

Laura didn't object when Ted and Erika both got into the
backseat. If she felt like their chauffeur, well, it was her fault for
bringing them together, putting this whole thing in motion. Erika
glimpsed the reflection of her friend's face in the rear-view mirror and saw that Laura was grinning. Obviously she was too
pleased with herself to mind the seating arrangement.

"How's your father's game?" Ted asked Laura as she eased her
car past the other cars lining the driveway and steered out onto
the empty road.

"He's pretty decent. And he won't bite your head off if you give
him the wrong club."

"I would never give him the wrong club," Ted swore. "I'm the
perfect caddy. Even when I'm half asleep," he murmured, giving
Erika a sly smile.

She made a face. "You slept like a log."

"I felt like a log. That floor was hard."

"It had a thick carpet."

"Easy for you to say. You were on the couch."

"The loveseat, and it was much too short."

"Is this our first fight?" he asked, still smiling as he gave her hand
a squeeze.

"Our first and last," she said solemnly.

He laughed. She did, too.

Too soon, Laura was cruising up the driveway of the
Sommerset Country Club. "How are you going to get home?" she
asked Ted as she slowed to a halt in front of the sprawling brown
clubhouse at its end.

"I'm caddying all day," he said. "One of the other caddies will
give me a lift." He turned to Erika. "Are you free this evening?"

She was pretty sure she was-and if she wasn't, she would
change her plans, whatever they might be. She couldn't think of
anything she'd rather do than spend the evening with Ted. "Call
me," she said.

He pushed open his door, then turned back to her and touched
his lips to hers. Very lightly, very tenderly. There was nothing hot
or demanding in his kiss, nothing pushy or mushy. Just the loveliest kiss she'd ever experienced.

Somewhere through the haze of warmth that had engulfed
her, she heard him thanking Laura for the lift. Then he jogged
toward the clubhouse, tucking the tails of his polo shirt into the
waistband of his khakis. He swung open a door, stepped inside, and
disappeared.

Erika fell back against the seat, her eyes closed and her mind
replaying the sweetness of his mouth on hers as she waited for her
heart to stop galloping like a runaway horse. A long moment
passed, and then she opened her eyes.

"Oh, my God," Laura said, then giggled.

"Oh, my God."

"Are you in love?"

"Of course not," Erika said indignantly, trying her best to act
normal despite the fact that her heart was still beating crazily. She
got out of the car, slammed the door and climbed into the passenger seat next to Laura, who was scrutinizing her like a scientist examining a lab specimen.

"Say thank you, Laura."

"Thank you, Laura," Erika said briskly. "Let's go home."

"Thank you, Laura, for getting me together with Ted," Laura
coached her.

"If you gloat, I'll never speak to you again."

"I'm entitled to gloat," Laura declared as she started the
engine. "I'm your fairy godmother. One wave of my magic wand,
and voila!"

"Yeah," Erika said begrudgingly. "But I'll still never speak to
you again. And don't stare at me like that. I'm not in love."

Laura only grinned and pulled away from the clubhouse. Erika
gazed out the window at the expanse of manicured lawn, glittering with dewdrops beneath the morning sun as if someone had
strewn tiny diamonds among the blades of grass. Beyond the
lawn, pine trees stood like living spires poking into the cloudless
sky. It was a beautiful morning for golf.

It was a beautiful morning for being in love.

Which she wasn't, she swore to herself.

She flicked her tongue over her lips and tasted cinnamon. She
tasted heat. She tasted Ted.

Really. She couldn't possibly be in love with him.

TED HAD EIGHTY DOLLARS IN HIS WALLET when he got
home from the golf course late that afternoon. Gotta love those
generous tippers, he thought with a smile. He'd worked damned
hard today. He'd lugged heavy golf bags around as the day grew
progressively warmer and muggier, made a few discreet suggestions when a duffer he was caddying for asked for the wrong club,
and said, "Yes sir," and "Thank you, sir," at all the right times.
He'd earned those tips, although you never knew if the "sir" you
were yessing and thanking would see things the same way you
did.

But he had four reasonably crisp twenty-dollar bills stashed in
his wallet now. Eighty dollars he could spend on Erika Fredell.
Who liked him. Who had let him kiss her. Who was without a
doubt the coolest, hottest girl he'd ever known.

His father was outside the house as Ted walked up the driveway. He took in the scene-the bucket, the hose, the old, threadbare towels, the can of Turtle Wax. The car shining as brightly as
the late afternoon sun that was mirrored in its polished surfaces.
His father stooped over, wiping the sidewall of one of the tires
with a damp rag.

"Looks great," Ted said.

His father straightened and gave him a stern look. "It's a lot of
work, washing a car all by yourself."

Ted suffered a sharp pang of guilt. "I was caddying all day," he
said, apologizing even though he hadn't done anything wrong.
"If you waited until tomorrow, I could've helped you." His voice
drifted off. He was sure he'd told his parents he would be at the
golf course all day.

"Well." His father dried off his hands. "It got done."

"Weren't any of the others around? Adam or josh?"

His father shrugged. Back when Ted and his brothers and sister were young, they used to draw chores out of a bowl every
Friday. You'd pick a room-if you were lucky, the living room, if
you were unlucky the bathroom or the kitchen-and Saturday
morning, you'd clean that room, top to bottom. Or you'd win
some other chore: mowing the grass, raking the leaves, washing
the car. Ted's father worked damned hard at AT&T, and his
mother had her hands full fixing meals, getting everyone to a
team practice or a dentist appointment or a million other places.
A household with five kids, to say nothing of a barn full of animals, was chaotic. It took a lot of organizing on his parents' part
to keep the family unit functioning.

But now Ted's brothers were older, halfway out of the house.
This meant less chaos, but also fewer people to help when a car
needed washing.

His younger sister could have helped wash the car, though,
couldn't she?

His father must have read his mind. "Nancy took care of the
animals today," he said, gesturing toward the barn. "You never
came home."

All right. Feeding the animals in the morning was usually Ted's
job. But come on. For once, couldn't he get a day off? He'd just received his high school diploma, after all. He deserved a break.

"There was a graduation party at Jennifer's," he reminded his
father, giving the word graduation some extra emphasis, just in
case that important fact about Ted might have slipped the old
man's mind and left him thinking Ted was still the same little boy
he'd been a week ago. He was annoyed, resentful. He wanted to
yell, snap back at his father, abandon the "Yes, sir" obsequiousness he'd engaged in all day.

He would never talk back to his father, even if he was a newly
minted graduate, a man, who ought to be allowed to party a little
and to make some money so he could take out the girl he was
crazy about. He deserved a little slack-but his father deserved
his respect. Ted swallowed his indignation, even if it was big
enough to choke him.

The old man regarded him for a long minute as he dried off
his hands. "So, what are you going to do, caddy for the rest of
your life?"

Ted sensed his father was talking about something other than
caddying, something beyond not doing his chores. Wary, he
attempted a joke. "It's a little hard to caddy in the winter."

"You're not going to college, Ted. You'll need to find a more
substantial job than toting around other people's golf clubs."

"I've got that gas station job."

"Gas station." His father shook his head. "You're a smart kid.
You're talented. You should be doing something better than
pumping gas.

"I'm just putting college off for a year," Ted said, his anger rising back up into his throat. He tried desperately to keep it out of
his voice.

He'd already had this argument with his father, several times.
His parents wanted him to go to college, and he figured he would, eventually. But he'd spent the past twelve years of his life-thirteen,
if you counted kindergarten-trying to sit still in classroom after
classroom, at desk after desk, studying stuff he didn't care about
when all he'd wanted to do was draw and daydream and wrestle.

He needed some time off. Lots of kids did. Taking a year off
between high school and college was so common now, it had its
own name. "I'm taking a gap year."

"Right. And during this gap year, you'll do what? Caddy until
it starts snowing?"

"And work at the gas station. Or I'll find other work," he said.
"You know I will."

Another long, measuring, vaguely disappointed look from
his father. "Well," he finally said, drying his hands one final
time and then tossing the rag into an empty bucket. "The car's
done, anyway."

Ted nodded and strode into the house, trying to tamp down
his fury. By the time he'd made it upstairs and into his bedroom,
the rage burning inside him had cooled to a simmer. He sprawled
out on his bed, an upper bunk just inches from the ceiling, and
groaned.

His father hadn't been that hard on him, really. Ted should
have made arrangements for the animals before he'd left for
Jennifer's party last night. As his parents liked to remind their
children, mopping and scrubbing could wait, but the animals
couldn't. They needed to be fed every day, no matter what.

He'd have to remember to thank his sister for covering for
him.

He gazed at the pine frame of the bunk bed. Over the years,
he'd carved patterns of lines into the soft wood with his thumbnail. At first they'd been random, abstract indentations, but over
time he'd begun to see patterns in the scratches. He'd turned them into pictures. Cartoons. A timeline of his life.

Now they were a touchstone, a reminder that even though he
was a high school graduate he was also the kid who'd etched
those designs into the wood. He stared at the lines and tried to
define what he was feeling. His anger was fading, leaving behind
a vacuum. Uneasiness rushed in to fill it.

It wasn't his father he worried about. It was Erika. She was
going to college. No gap year for her.

She was smart. Scholarly. Academic. All the things he wasn't.

You are smart, Skala, he assured himself. But he didn't have the
grades to prove it or the college acceptance letter or the scholarship money. Someday, that truth was going to smack Erika
between the eyes. She was going to look at him and think, Why
am I with this loser who won't even be going to college?

You're a long way from that moment, he told himself. She
wouldn't be leaving for college for a couple of months. He had
the whole summer to prove to her that he was smart, even if he
wasn't following the expected route. He had until late August to
demonstrate that college wasn't the only path to success, or that
if it was he'd take that path next year.