Of All The Ways He Loves Me (3 page)

He was looking at me as he said that.

“My secret?
What secret?”

I hadn’t any secrets. Well, no recent ones. There were some I’d kept from my youth. But I’d have to think of what they even were, and besides, Paterson wouldn’t call him about those.

“Our boy has a crush on Nadia.”

“He does?” Mom said this is a
gaspy breath, her hands thrown up on either side.

“
Mmmhmm. He asked if it was okay for him to take her on a date.”

Oh, Gees. Why’d he do that? He’d involved my parents now? Bad enough, he’d committed us to a kiss in front of Evelyn and me
to an evening at the corner table at Frizelli’s. Then again, that wasn’t bad. I loved Frizelli’s and he’d promised me my favorite dish
and
dessert.

“That’s won-der-
ful,” my mom said.

I sagged in place. This was all working against me because now my mom was happy,
more than that, elated. Anytime she used the word
wonderful
you knew she’d gone over the moon.

A
throb started at the back of my head and crawled around between my eyes. I was going to kill Paterson for this, and that would solve everything.

“He’s pulling a joke,” I said. I’d end this now.
Ridiculous of him to keep going on. “He’s only trying to freak out Evelyn.”

“The Fitzpatrick girl?
Why would he do that? He’s such a kind boy.”

The adjectives were piling up in Paterson’s favor, but I
had a few of my own. I was sick and grouchy and inclined to fuss.

“Because she likes him and he can’t stand her. That’s why.”

“Now, dear, perhaps you’ve misjudged …” Mom was going to defend Paterson now. She had that look in her eye.

“I have
not
misjudged. He said …”

“He said,” my father interrupted me.

I turned my head in his direction. He was smiling, which was a bad sign.

“He said, ‘Mr. Asbury, I’ve had feelings for Nadia for six months now and would like to take her on a date, but I wanted to be sure it was okay with you.’”

Six months? Paterson had acted no different in the last six months. He’d made that up.

“And I said t
hat it was very mature and rare nowadays for a boy to ask. That I thought it was fine.”

“That proves nothing,” I said. “He’s putting on a show.”
I stomped my foot, a childish gesture.

“
Nadia, dear.” Dad had that stern look in his eye, the same one that’d forced me to go to the church picnic.

I quieted.

“The best foundation for any relationship is to be friends. Your mother is my wife, but she’s also the person I talk to, the person I know as well as I know myself. If you ask me what she likes to do on Fridays, I can tell you. If you ask me what color she hates to wear, I know that, too. I learned all that by being her friend.”

“But, Dad, this is Paterson.”

He patted my cheek. “Exactly. Don’t be so close-minded that you miss what’s right under your nose.”

“Sweetheart,” my mother crooned. “Your father and I aren’t tell
ing you what to do or how to feel. If you and Paterson are only friends, then you’re only friends. But what if you go on this date and it surprises you?”

What if it did? That thought scared me. What if at the end of the night, I felt differently about him? Then again, what if I didn’t? Maybe that’s what frightened me the most. Paterson not being Paterson to me anymore and me losing the guy who’d been my best friend.

I made no further comment, instead staring at the flowers. Was he sincere with all this? If I really knew him that well and it wasn’t me involved, what would my answer be?

A
lump grew in my throat and creepy-crawlies in my hands. Paterson was incredibly honest. He’d said to me five or six years ago that I could just believe whatever he said, and since then, I’d found that to be true. He was also stubborn, what he set his mind to he generally obtained. However, I’d never seen him go after a girl before, least of all me. He wasn’t inclined to pull pranks either. In fact, he hated pranks.

Nothing
more un-funny
, he’d once said to me,
than a joke at somebody else’s expense.

“Dad?”
I asked, my thoughts moving a particular direction.

My father looked at me, the harshn
ess on his face replaced by a fatherly expression.

“What’s mom’s favorite color?” I asked.

“Sea Foam Green,” he said.

Sky blue.
Paterson liked sky blue. He said it reminded him of the outdoors and summer.

“The one thing she’s said she’ll never order at Peking Palace?”

“Orange chicken.”

Egg drop soup.
Paterson hated eggs and so floating them in broth was out.

“F-flower?”
I pushed the word off my tongue.

“Hibiscus, especially red ones.”

I like those Easter lilies you buy at the grocery store,
Paterson had said.

How very un-guy-like
, I’d replied.

“Why all the questions, dear?” my mom asked.

I bit my lip, worrying the flesh between my teeth. “Just checking. If we’re done, I … I think I need to make a phone call.”

“Of course,” she said.

And my mind full, my heart pattering oddly in my chest, I scooted from the stool and out of the room. Paterson. I had to call Paterson and see if he was really as interested in me as I was beginning to think he was.

What I’d do af
terward was entirely up in the air, but at least I’d find out the truth.

***

“Hey.”

The hum of the p
hone line took over the space left by Nadia’s voice.

“Hey,” Paterson replied.

She was curiously quiet, which meant she was thinking. Probably about the flowers.

“I got the flowers. They’re pretty. Thanks.”

Score one for the interested male. He straightened his legs out on his bed and wriggled a toe out of the hole in his sock.
Ought to throw these away.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

The hum returned. Now, she was trying to get up her nerve to ask him why.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said.

“Sure.”

“
Wh-why are you doing this?”

He suppressed a laugh. Nadia was so predictable sometimes. And upset right now, so he shouldn’t make fun.

“That makes twice you’ve asked me that, you know.”

“Yes, but I was thinking … about you, and it isn’t like
you to joke with me, which makes me think you’re serious and …”

He leaned his head against the scrolled edge of the headboard, the corner of the wood digging into the back of his skull.
“I am serious. Why would you think I wasn’t?”

“Because you haven’t mentioned it before.
We see each other all the time, and you haven’t acted any different or made any moves on me. Not ‘til Evelyn, and that was you covering your butt. I get that.”

“Opportunity,” he said.

Her breaths panted into the phone. She sounded stuffy still.

“When have you known me to not make the most of an opportunity?”

“True,” she replied.

Opportunity knocks, you have to jump in with both feet
, he’d told her more than once. He’d actually gotten that saying from his dad. His dad was all about making the most of opportunities.

“My dad said you called him
,” she stated.

He smiled. That idea had surprised
even himself, but making the call was sort of a release. He and Mr. Asbury had always gotten along, just never really had any major conversations. Her dad had been surprised by his request and friendly.

“I did. I wanted to be sure it was okay,” he said.

“Six months?” she asked. “Why’d you say six months? You promised to be honest with me, but now I can’t figure if you haven’t been or if you’re not being honest now.”

“You remember going to the state fair?” he asked.

She hesitated before answering. “Yeah.”

He loved the state fair.
Greasy food. Endless fried desserts. Animal manure in a dozen scents. Great stuff.

“And we went into the tent with the hog races?”
He prompted her memory.

Oiled hogs wearing bandanas running in circles after each other around a rink.
What’s not to like?

“Uh huh.”

“You had on that pink halter top, the one with the bow in the front.”

Very form-fitting
and accentuating. He’d had the hardest time watching the hogs and not her.

“Y-you remember that?”

“Mmm. I love that top.”

“Y-you do?”

The chuckle from earlier slipped out, and the line fell dead. He let her stew for a moment.

“Why?” she asked a minute later.

“Let’s see. How to say this nicely …”

“Never mind.
I can’t believe you … you noticed them.”

Them?
She might be blind to their growing up, but he wasn’t.

“
I noticed,” he said, “and a lot more that day you tackled me in the grass.”

That’d been about a month later. He’d put up the mower and was working on moving the water hose from its location in the flowerbed when she’d made a flying leap and decked him, and there
she lay atop him laughing. But all he could think was how nicely shaped she was and how they fit together.

“I was playing around,” she said. “We’ve
always
played around.”

“Yes, but now we’
re seventeen, and I can’t help but notice. It’s all really very simple.” Paterson inhaled. He’d make it easy on her and simply state his business. Sometimes with Nadia that’s what it took. She didn’t do guessing games so well. “You’re pretty, and I like you … as a friend … but as a boy, too. I hadn’t thought of kissing you until Evelyn forced it into my thinking, but now I want to in the worst way. I want to date. I want to hold your hand. I want to look in your eyes, say
I love you,
and mean it. I
do
love you, you know.”

He’d told her that before. She’d say
I love you, you idiot
, and he’d reply,
back at ya.

She was
really
quiet now, even her heavy breathing gone.

“You can’t,” she whispered.

“I can’t love you? Why not? You tell me that all the time, and I always respond.”

“But that’s … that’s … just what we say.”

He sighed and slid down in the bed until the pillow puffed around his head. “So it’s meaningless?”

“No.”

“I love you as a friend, Nat. I love you as a sister. I love you as a neighbor, a school mate, and a dozen other things. I simply want to know if I love you as a girl, and maybe I want to know if you can love me in return. I want this, and I’m not joking or playing around. I don’t do that where feelings are concerned anyhow. You know that.”

“Ye
s … Paterson?”

Her voice was shaky, which meant she was on the edge of tears. He wasn’t a huge fan of girls crying, but was fully aware it was something they did. Her
s was probably brought on by her illness as much as this conversation. She’d frightened him being so hot in his arms.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m scared. What if it doesn’t work? What if I … don’t feel anything?”

He smiled, though she couldn’t see it. Hadn’t he known all along that was her issue? She didn’t step outside the box too well.

“What if you let me worry about that and trust me to help you work it out?”

“Trust you.”

“Yes. I’ll do my very best to make you fall in love with me. You only have to go along for the ride.”

***

Paterson was going to try to make me fall in love with him. My blood swishing loudly in my ears, I curled around the pillows on my bed.

Why did things have to change? Because that’s what this was, things changing. He’d said he’
d noticed me, something I’d never thought to hear him say, and now, he wanted to fall in love?

Love.
I wasn’t opposed to love as an expression, not even for myself, but I’d never pictured it being over Paterson. Yet like he’d said, I loved him in a lot of ways, and as I’d realized while talking to my parents, I
knew
him.

How much harder would it actually be to feel something greater than brotherly love or the love of a friend?
Maybe not hard at all.