The Dating Deal (4 page)

Getting only silence, Conner went on, but he didn’t sound accusatory now.  He sounded concerned.  “Megan, don’t get into something you’re going to regret.  You don’t know Trent Ryan, he’s …”

“What?”

“He’s a player.  He leads girls on, and hurts them.”

I bit my lip, touched that he was concerned for me.  It was nice.  

When I didn’t say anything, Conner went on.  “You’re in a fragile state right now.  It’s only been a couple months.  You should give yourself time before you jump into anything.”

Tears started to form in my eyes.   Still, I managed to choke out, “I’m not jumping into anything.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Conner said.  “I heard you’re going to the dance with him.  And the way the two of you were acting in the cafeteria …”

Huh?!  The way we were acting in the cafeteria?  Except for that almost-kiss, we had just sat together, talking.   

“Trent’s a nice guy,” I murmured.

Conner snorted.  “Come on Megan, you can’t really believe that.”  Then he sounded more coaxing.  “Megan, you’ve lived a sheltered life.  You don’t know what normal high school guys are like.  You have no idea.  But Trent Ryan, geez, Megan the guy’s a total player.”

Of course I had heard the rumors about Trent roaming from girl to girl, breaking hearts, but today he had seemed nothing but sweet.  He had come to my rescue not once, but twice.

Sure, Trent refused to admit it, because it didn’t go with his “cool” image, but he was a nice guy.  He just was.  I knew it.  My proof wasn’t only his rescuing me.  There was Wendy to consider, as well.  She worshipped Trent.  And she’d talked about him all summer long, how sweet he was and all the kind things he did.  Obviously, he was a good guy. 

But, of course, I understood what Conner was trying to warn me about.  I knew when it came to a girl’s heart Trent was bad news.  He had a short attention span.  Right when every one of his girlfriends thought she was in love, Trent was off in search of another girl.  I could have saved Conner the trouble of worrying.  All I had to do was explain “The Deal.” 

But I didn’t wanna.

“Conner,” I said softly instead, almost ready to cry because what I was going to tell him was the truth.  And the truth was kind of brutal.  “We’re not together any more.  You don’t have a say in who I choose to date.  And if you think I’m making a mistake, well, you can’t expect me to worry about that.  I mean, I think
you’re
making a mistake dating Laura.  And I didn’t see you ‘give yourself time’ before
you
jumped into anything.”

 Conner was silent for a moment.  Then he sighed with bitter resignation.  “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I stood staring at the phone long after I’d hung up with Conner.  Finally, I wiped away the last of my tears.  At least there had only been a few trickles, not a huge down pour.  Progress, right?  Maybe I was starting to get over him. 

Maybe. 

I gave a sigh as I went back to making Trent’s peanut butter cookies.  “If only it were true,” I muttered.

If only I was over him.  If only I didn’t care when I saw him with Laura.  If only it didn’t break my heart.  If only, if only.  Grrrr!

 Still, I had to admit, “The Deal” was helping—in more ways than one.  Besides getting Aspen off my back, and giving my ex-snake-of-a-boyfriend the desperate need to call me for a change, it also gave me something to do besides cry over our break up.  Look at me!  Here I was just off the phone with Conner, and I wasn’t bawling my eyes out.  I wasn’t.  Instead I was baking cookies.  And I actually found myself humming as I plopped mounds of dough onto the cookie sheet.  Humming!  What an amazing, beautiful thing.  I hadn’t hummed in months.  Not since Conner pulled me aside after seminary, saying, “Megan, we need to talk.”

I’d just set the timer for the cookies when I heard Mom’s car pull into the driveway.  Only moments later, my younger brother, Seth, came bounding through the front door, his never-without-it basketball tucked securely under his arm.  Mom was in tow, having chauffeured him home from practice.

“I heard you’re going to the school dance with Trent Ryan,” Seth said, twirling the basketball on his index finger.

I widened my eyes with surprise.  So, did Mom.

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked at the same moment Mom gushed, “You’re going to the dance?”

“Maybe,” I murmured, still not quite believing it, and amazed Seth knew anything about it.  He was in junior high.  His school was twenty minutes away from mine.

“Where’d you hear about the dance?” I repeated to Seth.

He shrugged.  “At basketball practice.  Our assistant coach goes to Jefferson.”

Jefferson High is my school.  So that cleared things up, sort of.  Only, people were talking about me going to the dance with Trent?  Everyone knew?  Even basketball players?  Yikes!

“Why would Trent Ryan take
you
?” Seth asked bluntly, seeming sincerely (not to mention completely) baffled by the concept.

“Why
wouldn’t
he take her?” Mom said hurriedly. 

She was always doing that these days—jumping in at the first sign of a situation that might, possibly, perhaps make me feel even more pathetic than I already did.  Being dumped isn’t exactly an ego booster.  

“Your sister is a bright, beautiful girl,” Mom professed.  “Any boy would be
lucky
to take her to the dance.”

Seth gave Mom a look that said, “Whatever.”  Then, spinning the ball on his finger again, he said, “But Trent Ryan’s
cool
.  He’s in this awesome, cool band, Baggage.  They rock.”

“Well, your sister’s very musical, too,” Mom said, making it sound as though that solved the whole “Why Megan?” mystery.  But I could tell Seth’s remarks about Trent had her worried.  I could tell she was inwardly shaken, inwardly asking, “Is he Mormon?”  But all she said to Seth was, “This Trent obviously realizes he and Megan have a lot in common.”

My little brother (who’s way taller than me)—who I used to push for hours and hours and hours on our backyard swing, and kill
spiders
for—smirked, playfully.  “They don’t have anything in common, Trent’s
cool
.”

“Hey!”  I grabbed an oven mitt, throwing it at the towering twerp as he ran upstairs. 

Then I turned to Mom.  She looked happy for me, happy that I was asked to the dance, but she looked doubtful as well.

“Is this Trent a Mormon?”

I could tell she pretty much already knew the answer. 

I shook my head, then quietly, so Seth couldn’t hear, explained, “Trent and I made this deal  …”

I told Mom all about class today; about Aspen being a jerk and Trent coming to my rescue, ending the convoluted tale by stressing, “Trent
promised
not to drink.”

Mom still looked dubious.  “I’ll have to talk this over with your dad,” she said, visibly conflicted.  I knew she didn’t want to have to axe my date plans, not when she knew the torture I was under seeing Conner with Laura everyday at school.  But … Trent wasn’t Mormon.

I knew Mom’s dilemma.  It was my dilemma too. 

Still, I went on, pleading my case, and I sounded way more confident about it than I actually felt.  “We’re not going to start dating or anything,” I stressed.  “It’s just one night.  Just a dance.”

Right?

*  *  *  *  *

After baking the cookies, I put them into a zip-lock baggie.  I thought about dropping them off at Trent’s on my way to mutual, but chickened out.  I couldn’t see myself knocking on his door and actually waiting for him to answer.  I knew me, it’d be like eighth grade all over again.  I’d take off running.

I really am a coward.  Like, I couldn’t even go to Wendy’s house that day at the beginning of the school year to thank her for the Winnie the Pooh diary.  I guess because Trent had gotten my heart beating all wild and crazy when he gave me her gift.  It had me feeling guilty, since back then Conner and I had still been together.

That’s why I had been too afraid to go to Wendy’s house.  I was afraid I would run into Trent.  And I was afraid I might actually like him, you know, more than just as an eighth grade crush.  So, I had written Wendy a thank you note instead, mailing it to her along with a silly poem I had entitled, “Wendy.”  I figured she would get a kick out of it.  The poem was cute, just like her.

But now my reasons for not going to Trent’s had nothing to do with guilt.  It was simply fear.  I was afraid to show up at his house, afraid he might think I was a dork.  Or maybe he would worry I was going to start stalking him.  I felt kind of like I was doing that to Conner—stalking him.  I would go out of my way any time I left my house to drive by his.  I don’t even know what I thought I was accomplishing.  Seeing if he was home?  Seeing if Laura’s car was there?  I didn’t know.  The whole thing made me pretty sure I needed psychiatric attention.  Still I did it anyway.  Even now.  Tonight, on my way to mutual.

“So much for being over him,” I muttered, remembering what I’d tried telling myself earlier.  When I got off the phone with Conner today, having only shed a few tears, I’d thought that maybe it was finally happening—maybe I was finally getting over him. 
Still, maybe I am
, I told myself as I drove by his house. 
Only super slowly
. 

“At least today I sort of have a reason for driving by,” I consoled myself. 

I wanted to see if Conner’s car was there.  Prepare myself in case he actually showed up at mutual, not that I expected him to.  His dad was a non-member and Conner had been fairly inactive until he started dating me.  Conner’s mom, Sister Mathews, loved me—I’d gotten her son active again.  But now that we were broken up, Conner had, for the most part, slipped back into inactive status, though occasionally he still showed up for things.

He didn’t show up tonight, though.  Not that it was a joint activity anyway.  It had no impact on me.  But it made me sad that Conner was falling away from the church.

For our class activity we practiced a song we were going to be singing in sacrament meeting Sunday.  It was called, “The Road Home.”  I wrote it myself, even the piano accompaniment.  We had sung it for achievement night, and afterwards Bishop Woodland asked us to sing it in sacrament meeting.

“Your song was so beautiful, it made me cry,” Sister Woodland had said still sniffling.  Actually, a lot of people had told me that.  Everyone, in fact.  I hadn’t realized it was going to affect people so strongly.  But it was nice because the song meant a lot to me.

After we finished practicing tonight, I was excited.  We sounded really good.  Three of us were in honor choir together, and the other three had good voices, even if they claimed they didn’t.  We sounded awesome.  I could hardly wait for Sunday.

As I was gathering my stuff to leave, Audrey Tolley wandered over to me, smiling and looking excited.  “I heard you’re going to the spring dance with Trent Ryan.”

I widened my eyes in surprise.  “You did?” 

I couldn’t get over it—how fast word traveled at our school.  I mean, Audrey and I didn’t run in the same circles (her being popular and everything) and we didn’t have any classes together.  But, then again, even the junior high was talking about Trent and me.  So, I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

Audrey nodded with a smile.  “Trent’s adorable.  I’m jealous.”

“I …”

I was about to tell her not to be.  I was about to explain Trent’s scam to bug Caitlin.  But at the last moment, I decided not to.  Audrey was beautiful and popular.  I could stand to let her be jealous of me for a change.  Besides, I guess “The Deal” was supposed to be a secret.  The only person who knew besides Trent and me was Nina. 

So, with my “I …” still hanging out there, instead of blabbing my secret, I made a quick change of plans, “like your shirt.”

Today I planned to give Trent his cookies after third period, but when class was over, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I would have had to say something like, “Hey, Trent, wait up,” or something like that.  And I couldn’t get the words out.  Instead, I just watched him walk away, feeling like a dork/coward.