Signs Point to Yes (13 page)

“And now,” Jane said, tapping on her laptop with a pencil to mimic a drumroll, “the real reason I'm terrified of college is that I think I'll fail.”

“I don't think I realized you were terrified of college. I don't think Mom realizes that, either. I think she thinks you think—”

“Oh God, how we Connellys like to complicate things,” Jane muttered.

“She thinks you're lazy. At least that's what I got out of it.”

“I'm not lazy.” Jane frowned. “Well, I am lazy, but it's not laziness that's keeping me from wanting to go to college. Maybe a little, but not about the work—about the getting there. The applications and the SATs. It's all really scary. It all seems like so much effort when I don't even know if it'll work out.”

Margo nodded.

“And I have no clue what I'm going to do with my life, and I don't want Mom and Dad to waste their money so I can get straight Cs while getting a degree in English or whatever.”

“I mean, they don't have to waste their money. You could go where Mom works on the cheap and live at home.”

Jane gave her sister a withering look.

“Right. That sounds awful. But you would still have to live at home even if you didn't go to college.”

“I could find a full-time job and get an apartment.”

“Yeah, right,” Margo said, laughing. “Do you realize how much money you're talking about there? Rent, utilities, groceries. If you left home, there's no way Mom and Dad would still pay your cell-phone bill or your car insurance. You'd have so much money going out every month in bills you'd have to work three minimum-wage jobs just to stay afloat. It's not really that easy, Jane.”

Jane deflated. “I know. But is it so bad that somehow that sounds easier than college? Like, what if I can't handle the workload?”

“You definitely won't be able to handle the workload of three jobs, either,” Margo said.

“Everything is the worst.”

“No, it's not. There's a plan in there somewhere. I'm sure of it. Maybe you could go to college close to home, but at a school where Mom doesn't work.”

“What am I even going to take classes in?”

“Everything? Lots of people go to college undecided. Start out with a broad list. There must be something you like. Something you wouldn't mind pursuing.”

Jane nodded. “You make it sound easier than it is in my head.”

“Well, that's something.”

“But it still fills me with this…” Jane paused, grasping for the right word. “Dread.”

Margo sighed. “I'm sorry about that.”

“I just want to find another way to do this, something that sounds doable to me. Something that doesn't make me wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.”

“Well, you could get a roommate,” she said.

“I could,” Jane said.

“You could get as many roommates as you needed so you wouldn't have to work three jobs. You'll find a way if this is what you really want.”

Jane was on the verge of tears. “Thanks, Margo.”

“I didn't mean to discourage you. I guess I don't understand. What you're talking about terrifies me. It terrifies most people our age. But you're braver than the rest of us. I wanted to make sure you weren't discarding the idea outright just because of the way Mom has presented it.”

Jane knew that was a huge compliment, coming from her sister.

“All right. I'll think about it. But don't go telling Mom I said I'd think about it.”

“She really does want what's best for you, even if she's not great at showing it.”

“Maybe if she backed off a little, I'd be able to have some thoughts of my own.”

Margo leaned over and gave her sister a longer-than-usual hug.

It wasn't until much later that night that Jane decided to at least look through the brochures. She felt better after talking to Margo, less panicked about the idea of going to college, but she still wasn't sure if it was really for her.

She flipped from one booklet to another, looking closely at a brochure for a small college in Virginia. She scanned the happy faces in a classroom full of students and smiled back at them. She read the caption beneath the photo:
Professor Mateo Rodriguez leads a first-year writing course.

Jane bolted upright and stared at the face of the professor. The longer she stared, the more he looked like Teo.

Her Teo.

Could Connie have changed the father's name on Teo's birth certificate and then given her son the father's real name?

Jane's eyes crossed trying to figure that one out.

She leaped over to her laptop and started searching for
Mateo Rodriguez
, trying to find a link between him and Consuelo Garcia.

She'd heard of a couple of creepy sites that would show you where people lived, but she'd been hesitant to try any of them out before this. Now that she had a concrete name and a picture that bore a striking resemblance to Teo, though, she couldn't stop herself.

She typed in the name
Mateo Rodriguez
and selected Virginia as his location. There were a few hits. She looked at each one for a long time. If she wanted pictures or exact addresses, she'd have to pay, but she was learning enough with the free information.

After some further searching, she found a Mateo Rodriguez who'd gone to high school with Connie.

But when she went to the website for the small college in Virginia, she couldn't find him on any of the faculty lists.

Jane cast a wider net, searching for Mateo Rodriguez in English departments across the country. But it was getting late and she wasn't having any luck.

After some thought, she made a new e-mail address—something less fandom-related than [email protected]—and composed an e-mail message to the English department, asking if she could find out where her favorite professor was now located, if that was okay. She would really appreciate a reference from him for grad school.

Lying isn't wrong if you're doing it to help someone else
, she told herself.

She was about to turn off her light and go to sleep when she heard the water in the bathroom running and then the sound of bare feet padding past her bedroom. Margo was still awake.

Jane heaved herself out of bed and down the hall, knocking lightly on Margo's door.

“Come in.”

“Hey,” Jane said, leaning against the doorjamb.

Margo sat on her bed with her laptop open in front of her. She patted the spot next to her.

“What's up? Bad dream where Mom was chasing you with college applications while breathing fire?”

Jane laughed. “No, nothing like that. I need some advice. But it would mean that I have to tell you a big secret.”

“Another big secret? Bigger than being afraid of college?”

“Yeah, and this one isn't my secret.”

“Whose secret is it?”

“Teo's.”

“You sure you want to betray his trust?”

“Well, that's the thing. He doesn't know that I know, and I could really use someone to talk to about it.”

“All right. What is it?”

“Teo's been looking for his dad, and he doesn't know that I know, but I might have found him.”

“Seriously?” Margo asked.

Jane filled her sister in on the research she'd been doing, showed her the college brochure with the picture of Mateo Rodriguez and told her about the e-mail she'd just sent.

“Jane, this is a really big deal.”

“I know.”

“Do you think it's a good idea to keep looking?”

“I'm so close.”

“I don't know, Janie. It doesn't feel like any of your business.” Margo wasn't sure she could come up with any other way to say it, but she really wasn't sure Jane should get involved.

Jane sighed. “I know, but I want to help. He's been so great this summer and…” She paused, unsure of how to explain the next part. “He tried to kiss me the other night at the party.”

“No way! Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because there were bigger things going on. And it was sort of embarrassing for him, because he missed. Like, he leaned over and fell off his chair.”

Margo shuddered. “I just got a serious case of secondhand embarrassment.”

Jane nodded and scrunched up her nose. “But something is happening between us. And I want to give this to him. This news.”

Margo was torn. “Fine, but just be careful.”

“I will be,” Jane said, standing up and walking to the door. “Thanks for not telling me not to do it, though.”

Margo nodded and smiled and hoped this wouldn't come back to bite her sister in the ass.

 

Chapter 14

Jane's smile was the first thing Teo noticed when he got home from work on Monday afternoon. He was relieved that she wasn't annoyed with him and that even though he'd barely left her side on Saturday night, she would still smile when she saw him.

He hadn't worn out his welcome.

Or completely and entirely humiliated himself with the missed kiss.

“Hiya,” she said. She was cleaning up crumbs on the kitchen table, and the sun was streaming through the window in such a way that it threw her profile into sharp relief. Teo had this weird feeling like they were playing house, but he shook it off.

“Hey,” he said, picking his way through the crumbs on the floor to stand next to her.

“Welcome to the madhouse.”

“You have a…” He paused to pick a Cheerio from her hair.

“Yeah, it's been one of those days. I had this brilliant idea to let the girls make their own edible necklaces, and it kind of ended with a whole lot of mess.”

“I'll help.” Teo turned around and got the broom and dustpan out of the closet.

“Thanks,” she said. “I owe you one.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah,” she said in the same tone as his.

“You were really nice to Drunk Teo on Saturday night. You could have left him, abandoned on the edge of the beach, to fend for himself. But you didn't. And therefore, since you helped me clean up my mess, I'll help you clean up yours.”

“You really weren't a mess on Saturday,” Jane said, shrugging. “You were actually kind of, um…”

Teo looked over at her from where he was sweeping.

“You were kind of adorable,” she said, hiding her eyes behind her hand.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Huh,” Teo said, concentrating on his sweeping for a minute, staring at the floor. “So I have to ask.”

“Yeah?” Jane said.

“Where exactly are my sisters? What did you do with them? I feel like they should be here helping you clean.”

“Oh. Them. They were helping me, but that's how the floor got so messy, so I released them from their duties and they're in the basement.”

“Makes sense.”

“They really were making the whole process harder.”

Teo leaned on the broom handle. “I can totally imagine that.”

Jane opened her mouth and then closed it, turning back to intently scraping smashed Twizzlers off the table.

For the rest of the week following the party, Jane always seemed to have something on the tip of her tongue—something she wanted to say but couldn't for whatever reason.

Teo almost asked her about it several times. But how do you even ask a question like that? He couldn't begin to get the phrasing right, never mind actually say the words “Is there something you want to tell me?”

On Saturday afternoon when Jane texted to see if Teo was around and if he wanted to take a walk, he felt a crackle in the air, like something was about to change. He was ready.

He waited for Jane on his front steps, and she came around the corner a minute later.

“Hey,” Teo said. “It's nice to see you off duty.”

Jane laughed. “It's nice to see you off duty, too.”

“We do seem to spend a lot of time at each other's places of employment.”

They walked for a few minutes without saying much. Their hands brushed a few times, and Teo thought about twining his fingers with hers more than once, but he wanted to hear what Jane had to say before he did anything like that.

“So is this a social visit or something else?” he asked.

“Ah, well, I guess it depends on how you look at it,” Jane said. “I was kind of waiting for today, when I knew we could hang out without the girls around, to talk to you.”

She pulled a folded-up piece of glossy paper out of her back pocket and handed it to Teo.

“What is this? Is this a college brochure?” Teo asked, holding it like it was some kind of rare, ancient artifact.

“Yes.”

“Why would you bring a college brochure on our walk?” he asked.

“Well…”

“Is this where you're going to school?” Teo asked. He mentally prepared to be excited for Jane, even though the college was in northern Virginia, nowhere near any school Teo was planning to apply to. He would miss her.

“No, it's not where I'm going to school. The jury's still out on that,” Jane said.

“About where to go or…?” Teo trailed off.

“About if I even want to go,” Jane muttered.

They had walked to the elementary school playground without really meaning to, so they took a seat on the merry-go-round.

“Why wouldn't you go to college?” Teo asked, genuinely flummoxed by the idea. He'd been dreaming about escaping to college his entire life.

“I don't know. It's a long story.”

“I've got time,” Teo said, leaning against one of the bars.

“But that's not what we're here to talk about,” Jane said, perking up. “And I didn't bring this brochure to show you the school. I wanted to show you this picture.” Jane's hands were visibly shaking when she took the pamphlet from Teo and opened it up, pointing at a small picture in one corner.