Satellite: The Satellite Trilogy, Part I (6 page)

“Well, don’t do me any favors.” Her tone didn’t quite match her words.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m still going to make you pay for it.” I said, stifling a smile.

Some of the tension left her shoulders, though she still looked uncertain. “OK. Let me know how much I owe you.”

“I’ve already gotten an estimate. The damages come to four thousand and twenty-one dollars.”

“You’re lying!” she yelled indignantly, struggling to put her eyes back in their sockets.

I was all-out grinning now. “Yeah, but I had you.”

Unexpectedly, she punched my arm, and I detected a momentary crack in her resistance. “Not funny,” she said, looking past me to the building. “I’ve got to get in there. Thanks for doing this. Seriously. Let me know what I owe you, and I’ll take care of it right away.”

She started to jog away, but I didn’t want her to go yet. “Have dinner with me!” I yelled across the lot, not exactly sure what I was doing.

She was almost to the glass doors, but she stopped and turned. “What?”

“Have dinner with me!” I yelled again, like she’d want anything to do with a carpenter who was more than a little rough around the edges. I couldn’t even ask a girl out properly. Clearly, I had lost my mind.

“I don’t even know you!”

“Get to know me during dinner.” A million things were going through my mind, with
imbecile
gracing the top of the list.

“I have to go,” she said, shaking her head. “You have my number. Call me with the costs.”

When she disappeared into the building, it took everything I had not to follow her inside. She may have been onto something with the stalker thing.

The next day, I waited outside of Physics. Without the luxury of time, I had to get right to the point.

“Have dinner with me,” I blurted out when she passed by.

“Did you hit your head in the accident?” she asked pointedly, then continued walking.

Probably.
“Maybe. So, how about it?” I doggedly followed her down the hall.

“You have lost your mind,” she said, and then she left me staring like a fool into the Communications classroom while she settled in her seat. I could have used that class right about then.

On Wednesday, I proved my persistence once more. Well, my stalker tendencies, anyway. “Have dinner with me,” I said, cutting her off in the hallway.

“Why won’t you let it go?” she asked, exasperated.

Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because I want you to see that I’m not a complete jerk. Take your pick.
“Come on, I’m not that bad, am I?” I mockingly smelled my armpits.

She looked at me with a mix of curiosity and disgust, like I was a new species of rodent she’d never seen.

I folded my hands together in supplication. “Pleeeaaase?” I gave her what I thought was a persuasive expression, but it’s more likely that I appeared to be in pain.

She blushed. “I have to warn you, I’m probably the most uninteresting person you’ll ever meet.”

The first bell rang loudly, but that wasn’t why my heart skipped a beat. “Is that a yes?” I blurted out.

She paused for so long that I thought I was going to explode.

“When?” she finally said.

“Friday,” I answered, before she even finished. Nothing like coming across as desperate.

She shook her head. “Can’t. I have to work.”

“Saturday, then?”

“Fine.” She was probably only agreeing so I would leave her alone. “Pick me up at six.”

A sudden thought seized me.
Crap! Crap, crap, crap!
“All right,” was all I could say.

“Do you have my address?”

I swallowed, hoping to relieve my dry mouth. “It was with your insurance information.”

“Oh, OK. I guess I’ll see you then.”

When she disappeared around the corner, I raced to Calculus, receiving a slew of funny looks along the way. I yelled an apology to Coach Neal after almost knocking him down.

Again…crap!
Why had I picked Saturday?
The foundation pour was going to take all day. Even if things ran smoothly, which they never did, we wouldn’t be done until five thirty. But Tate had said yes. To
me
. No way was I going to change plans and risk her coming to her senses.

Just as I figured, my dad was not understanding about my date. The Cliffs Notes’ version was this: when given a choice between making money and spending it…well, one guess which side of the fence he was on.

When Saturday came, we were surprisingly moving ahead of schedule, and by three o’clock I was sure I’d be out of there on time. That was, of course, before the last concrete load showed up an hour late. I had to bite my tongue to keep from sounding like my father.

It was six forty-five when I finally left the site. I saw the old man in my rearview mirror shooting curses at me because I took off before helping the guys roll up the tools and equipment. I clenched my teeth at his one-fingered gesture. (It was not a thumbs up.)

I anxiously dialed Tate’s number to explain, mentally noting that apologizing to her was becoming the norm. When no one answered, I felt terrible. Certainly she realized a guy like me would never stand up a girl like her? I was lucky enough to get a
yes
in the first place. Though covered in mud, I opted out of a shower and instead went straight to her house. Tate’s mom answered the door. Her resemblance to Tate was striking, but, unlike her daughter, she looked warmly at me and didn’t try to flee.

“Mrs. Jacoby?” I offered my hand out of habit, but retracted it quickly when I remembered the cracked dirt around my knuckles. “Sorry,” I said, unable to shake her hand properly. “I’m Grant Bradley. Is Tatum here?”

“Oh. Hi, Grant. Tate said you were suppose to meet at six.”

“Yes, ma’am, we were. I was held up at work. I tried to call, but no one answered.”

“We were out back and must not have heard the phone. Tate took her brother out to dinner.”

I could picture it already, once again trying to explain myself back into Tate’s good graces. “Do you know where they went?”

“Juju’s Arcade,” she said.

Fifteen minutes later I was inside the arcade, questioning my decision to not stop for a shower. The mud had woven a nice home into my arm and leg hairs. I effectively separated a few clumps from my white shorts, but not nearly enough to make a difference.

The place was wall-to-wall animals disguised as kids. A pack bolted by and almost took me down. I was surprised to see that kids weren’t hanging from the ceiling—they were certainly everywhere else. How I was going to find Tate in this asylum was beyond me. And I had no idea what her brother looked like.

My plan of attack was to start at the tables and hope that Tate would be sitting at one while her brother played. People stared as I passed by, which was no surprise. I was caked with mud. If I ever found Tate, I was going to leave quite an impression. Not the impression I was going for, but an impression nonetheless. The evening was not going the way I had hoped. At all.

With no luck at the tables, I scanned the play area. Hello, sensory overload. Between the squealing kids, blinking lights, and the loud ringing from who-knows-what, concentrating on any one thing was impossible. I had almost given up when I heard her name.

“You can’t get me, Tate!” The voice belonged to a brown-haired boy who was all arms and legs. He stood on the blue cushion bordering the ball pit.

I grabbed the netting and stared through it. Tate popped out of the colorful balls and grabbed the boy. He fell onto her and giggled hysterically when she tickled him.

“My turn!” he shrieked.

Tate ran like she was in quicksand and clutched the net to balance herself on the padded edge.

The boy flew after her. “You’re mine!” he yelled.

“You’ll never take me alive!” she said playfully, jumping back into the pit. She was amazing to watch. The girls I knew would never play like this; they were too wrapped up in trivial matters, nonsense like what they were going to wear to an upcoming party—things that would never matter in a month.

When her brother caught her, she pulled him into a bear hug. He squirmed to wrangle himself free.

And then she saw me.

Her arms fell off her brother, and her smile melted. “Hey, Fish, give me a sec, OK?” she said, pushing herself upright.

“Where ya going?” he asked.

“I just have to take care of something.”

Disappointment replaced the boy’s excitement.

Even though Tate was burning her glare into me, she caught her little brother’s discouragement. She turned back to him and said in an upbeat voice, “I’ll be back before you know it. Then it’s death by tickling!”

He screamed with delight and cannonballed into the center of the pit.

Tate climbed awkwardly through the net opening and stomped in her pink socks over to me. She pushed her finger into my chest so hard that dust puffed off my shirt. “You! You have a lot of nerve,” she hissed in a lowered voice.

“Tatum, let me explain—”

“So is this how you do it, then? You go through life being an ass and then just apologize?”

“No, it’s not like that. I—”

“Don’t even!” She whispered her yell and pushed her finger into my chest again. “Others may let you get away with that awful behavior, but I was raised better. I don’t know why I agreed to go out with you in the first place.”

At least she saw it my way. I didn’t know why she’d agreed, either. Certainly one of the rich boys from school wouldn’t have been late if they had gotten the chance to take her out.

“Tatum, just listen, please! I got stuck at work.”

“And I guess you’ve never heard of a phone?”

“We were in the middle of a concrete pour. I called as soon as we were finished.”

“It would have taken two seconds to call.”

“Conversations with you seem to last a bit longer than that.” I cringed when I realized that my statement, at that particular moment, wasn’t the smartest thing to come out of my mouth.

“We’re done here.” She stormed away, climbed the steps, and jumped back into the pit.

“Tatum, come on! Give me another chance!” I pleaded through the netting.

She completely ignored me. With nothing to lose, I pulled off my mud-caked boots and jumped into the pit, losing my balance. After nearly falling on Tate, I managed to get down on my knees.

“Tatum, come on! Look, I’m literally begging you. Please, please, please forgive me!”

“Knock it off, Grant. You’re doing that stalker thing again and scaring my brother.”

“Please, Tatum. Please!” I mockingly begged. My attempt at humor was ridiculous, but my options were limited.

“Tate, what’s wrong with him?” Fischer loudly whispered. Shoot, he did look frightened.

She kept her eyes on me when she answered. “Fish, you remember your hamster that couldn’t figure out how to run in his wheel and Mom said he was a little slow?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Grant’s kind of like that hamster.”

I smirked. She was so bad at being mean.

The boy’s eyes turned to baseballs. “Ohhh!”

“Let’s go, Fish,” she said.

“But I want to stay!”

“Fine, but we’re finding somewhere else to play. It’s too crowded in here.”

In a desperate move to stop her, I swung my arms around her waist. She squealed and fell onto me, throwing my balance off. We fell into the middle of the pit, buried in plastic balls.

She tried to push away from me, but I tightened my grip. I chewed on my lower lip, but couldn’t hide my amusement, which made her even more angry.

“Let me go! What is wrong with you?” she yelled, pushing against my chest.

I easily overpowered her, pulling her against me until my mouth was at her ear.

“Come on, just one more chance?” I whispered in what I hoped was a convincing voice. Still, I prepared for a slap to my face. When there was no blow, I pushed away to see her expression. Not having a lot of experience with girls, I could only guess, but her cheeks didn’t seem to be flushed from anger.

It took a full five seconds (I was counting) before she responded. “You can buy Fish and me dinner. That’s all I’m agreeing to.”

“Deal.”

When I forced myself to let her go, she pushed off me and we climbed out of the pit. I was able to get my boots on without leaving too much dried mud behind, and the three of us stood quietly in line to order a pizza.

It was Fischer who spoke first. “Tate, why is he so dirty?” he whispered, obviously not wanting me to hear.

“Apparently no one told him it’s polite to shower before taking a girl to dinner,” Tate answered indiscreetly. “Do you think we should make him eat outside?”

“No, I think he should eat with us,” Fischer whispered. I was starting to like this kid. I had no doubt Tate would have made me eat outside, though I can’t say that I would’ve blamed her.

Fischer distanced himself from me as if I smelled bad (probably true), using Tate as a shield. I knelt down and peeked around Tate’s legs to talk to him. “How old are you?”

“Six,” he answered shyly.

Knowing nothing about kids, I took my best stab. “Do you like construction stuff?”

He barely nodded, but from the size of his eyes, I knew I had him.

“Yeah? What’s your favorite machine?” I asked.

“I like the diggers.”

The kid liked heavy machinery. I could work with that. “Do you like the ones with the big buckets on the front?”

“Yeah,” he answered so quietly I almost missed it.

“Ah, the skid loaders.” I nodded sagely. “My dad’s company has one of those. I’m sure I could work something out if you ever wanted to drive one.”

“Really?” He was finally coming around from behind Tate’s legs.

“Oh yeah, totally. We could even let your sister give it a try.”

When I glanced up, Tate was giving me a speculative look.

“But she’s a girl,” Fischer stated, perplexed.

“I think she can hold her own,” I answered, still watching her.

Just when I thought I was finally going to get a positive reaction out of her, Tate turned her attention to Fischer and the moment passed. “Watch it, Fish. This girl had you schooled back there.”

“No way! I totally had you,” Fischer argued.