The Dating Deal (6 page)

I sighed, kinda sad.  Tomorrow it would all be over.  Tomorrow night at the stroke of twelve, no more ball.  No more Prince.  The spell would be broken.  I’d be a pumpkin again.

“Oh well,” I sighed.

It had been fun getting such devoted attention from Trent.  But, despite the fact I’d miss his fake-but-oh-so-realistic-affection, and the tormented state it put Conner in—even with that—I’d be relieved when the dance was over.  Trent did strange, mystical things to my heart.  And he could break it so easily, even with my knowledge that we were only putting on a show.  Because the thing was—it didn’t always feel like a show.  Not to me.  As I said, he was a good actor and I was a sap.

“Only one more day to get through,” I told myself.  “I can hold it together for that.”

But just then, there was an announcement over the intercom. “Due to circumstances beyond our control, the spring dance has been rescheduled for two weeks from Saturday.”

I groaned.  Two weeks!  No!  My heart couldn’t take it.  It couldn’t!  It was already wavering.  Two weeks and it would be pudding.

Besides, Trent wouldn’t last.  He couldn’t.  I’d seen him dump girls in shorter time.  Plenty of them.  And he’d been interested in those girls for real.  How could I possibly hold his attention for that long when all of this was only pretend?

I was doomed.

Right after class, I spotted Raven at her locker.  All week long, she had been giving me dirty looks.  And all week long, I’d been ignoring them because I didn’t know what to say or do.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not into drama scenes.  And having to say, “Hey, calm down, I’m not after your boyfriend,” seemed kind of drama-ish.

I’d thought about writing her a note.  One I could mail to her or leave in her locker.  One that would spare me a face-to-face confrontation.  But I thought the direct approach might work better.  Since every time I tried to write her a note, I’d end up staring at a blank page for an hour.  Because that was it, when it came to dealing with this kind of stuff, my mind was a blank.  What was I supposed to do?  I had exactly no clue, but I needed Brian.  And I sure didn’t need another enemy.  So, I knew I needed to do something.

And suddenly, here was Raven, right in front of me, at her locker.  It was like a neon sign flashing, “Time for that something.” 

So, I took a deep breath and walked over to her and I started talking before I could talk myself out of it or actually
think
about what I was doing.

“Hey, Raven,” I said hastily, getting right to the point, “I think there’s some sort of misunderstanding between us.”

Raven put her hands on her hips, saying nothing, but looking ultra-menacing.  I took a step back.  Suddenly, I knew I’d made a big mistake.  Shoulda gone with the note thing.  I knew it!

“I, uh … that is, Brian and I, we’re just practicing for the duet together.  That’s it.  Nothing more.  I mean, I’m not trying to steal him away or anything.”

“Right,” she said, but it sounded more like she was saying, “Yes you are.”

“Seriously,” I said.  “I don’t want any problems.  I just really want to win the competition—”

“And my boyfriend,” she interjected.  “You think I’m stupid?”

Dumbstruck, I shook my head.

“Look, just because Brian and I are having troubles right now, you think you can make up some lame excuse about a stupid duet and wiggle in between us?  Well, it won’t work.  Just keep your lame excuses and your stupid cookies to yourself, or I’ll
give
you a problem.”

Whoa!

I watched her storm away, choking on the fact that she’d just threatened me.

“That went well,” I muttered.

“What went well?”

I whipped around to find Trent standing behind me. 

“Uh, nothing.”

He grinned, like I was a cute little kid.  “Anyway, did you hear that announcement about the dance?  That they’ve moved it to the eighth?”

“Yeah,” I said, knowing this was the part where he backed out.  Commitment: everyone knew he choked on it.  I mean, the guy dumped our
Homecoming
Queen
before a month passed.  And she’d even let him ditch the home coming dance.  The guy had issues.  “It’s okay if you don’t want to go through with it,” I told him.  “I understand.”

He furrowed his brow.  “Are you backing out?”

“No.  I just thought—no, I’m not backing out.”

He smiled.  “Good.  I’ll see ya Sunday.”

 His words hit me like a bolt of lightning.  But he was gone, swallowed up into the crowded hall of students. 
I’ll see ya Sunday?
 
See ya Sunday!!!!
  He really
was
coming to church?

*  *  *  *  *

After school, I had to make up a test I’d missed last week in calculus.  When I got to Mr. Bank’s class, he wasn’t there yet.  But a group of students were waiting in his classroom.  One of them was Conner.

“Hey,” he smiled when he saw me come in and my heart kind of melted. 

I took the closest seat I could grab, because suddenly my legs were shaky.  This was how I got when I chanced to see Conner unexpectedly, I was a mess. 

Conner came over and took a seat beside me. 

“Here to take a make-up test?”

I nodded, wondering who helped him study for calculus now.  Laura?  I didn’t think she was even in calculus.  But maybe he went to the tutor lab.  It was weird, and sort of painful, not knowing what was going on in his life.

“You’ll love this,” Conner said with a grin.  He started telling me a funny story about his five year-old brother, Dillon.  How he’s been preparing for a talk in primary on the “Holy Goat.”

I listened with a dull pain.  It hurt to be sitting with him, talking with him, yet unable to touch him.  When would I get used to it?  When would the pain go away?

The door opened and I turned, expecting it to be Mr. Banks, but it wasn’t.  It was Laura.  She glared at me, then turned her gaze to Conner.  “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Conner furrowed his brow.  “Sure.”

He got up and followed her out of the class.  He didn’t come back.

Sunday, before sacrament meeting, I kept looking around for Trent.  But I didn’t really, truly expect him to show.  No way.  Trent Ryan here at church?  The image was impossible to conjure up.  Despite my discovering what a nice guy he was, Trent had a sort of bad-boy reputation.  And though I knew better than to believe most of the rumors I heard around school, I knew some of them were grounded in at least a little bit of reality.  After all, Trent was a partier.

Besides, I was fairly certain he was only teasing me Friday when he said he would come.  Only, he had looked completely serious. 

But this was Trent Ryan we were talking about. 
Trent Ryan
.  He didn’t go to school dances, and he didn’t go to church.

But then again, he was taking me to the dance, wasn’t he?  Realizing that made me smile.  Why was he breaking one of his rules for me?  Just then my heart caught in my throat, because right in the middle of the opening hymn,
in walked Trent
. 

He was wearing a suit and looking adorable, and standing beside him was Wendy.  They both took seats in the folding chairs back in the overflow.  Trent saw me and waved.  Then he pointed me out to Wendy and her face lit up as she waved to me too—very enthusiastically.  I waved back, so excited to see them both at church, I didn’t even think to be nervous about the fact that they were going to hear me sing.

I sat through the announcements, and then listened to the talks with more attention than I ever paid in my entire life, trying to hear them as Trent would, as a non-member.  What would he think of terms like “eternal mate” and “temple marriage”?  Would he think we were nuts for believing families can be together forever? 

When the Bishop announced that it was now time for a special musical number by the Laurels, I shot up as though waking from a dream. 
Oh yeah
, I thought with alarm,
I’m singing
.  It was shocking that I had been able to forget about that.  I’m a good singer.  I sing all the time.  But that reassurance had never stopped me from being nervous.  I was amazed that Trent’s showing up at church had occupied so much of my brain that I didn’t have room in it to worry about my performance.  What did
that
say?

We Laurels stood around the piano and Sister Woodland played the intro and then we were singing.  Normally I would stare at the wall ahead, hoping I appeared as though I was looking out into the congregation.  But today I looked at Wendy.  Her beaming face didn’t make me nervous.  Her happy smile filled me with confidence.  When it was time to sing my solo, I sang it to her. 

When the meeting was over, Trent brought Wendy over to me.  She gave me a big hug.  “You sing beautifully,” she said, hugging me again.  “Look, I brought your Wendy poem.”  She showed me the silly poem I had written her at the beginning of the school year.  “I keep it on my wall, over my bed,” she said.  “Can you autograph it for me?”

I laughed.  “Sure.” 

She gave me a purple pen and I wrote, “To my favorite camper, Wendy.  Love, Piglet (Megan Turner).”  I should maybe explain that.  My camp name was Piglet.  

I’m sure I could have come up with something more eloquent to write to Wendy if I’d had more time (like an hour) but Trent was standing there gazing at me sorta enamored like and that was turning my brain sort of mushy.  So I felt I was lucky to eek out even that tiny morsel of wit, since at the moment I was finding it difficult to remember the spelling of my own name.

Wendy read my message and laughed. 

“Thanks Piglet,” she said. 

“You should be in a band,” Trent said, and that was the first time I actually dared look at him since I waved when he first came in.  He stared into my eyes.  “I knew you could write songs,” he said, and then added quickly, “uh, because Wendy told me.  But I had no idea you could sing like that.”

“She’s a Madrigal at school,” Nina piped in.

Trent looked at her quizzically.  “A what?”

Nina dropped her jaw, faking injury.  “You don’t know about Madrigals?  It’s the honor choir at our school and it’s a great
honor
to be in it.”

Nina was in it too.  I probably should have pointed that out, but instead I just swooned at the way Trent was gazing at me. 

He didn’t seem to know what to do with the Madrigals information, though.  Finally, he seemed to simply dismiss it.  “Anyway, you’re a good singer,” he said.

That meant so much to me, not just because I had a huge, stupid, monster crush on him, but also because he himself was a singer. 

“Thanks,” I whispered.

We stood looking at each other.  To me it was a magical moment full of unsaid feelings of deep affection.  But maybe for him it was just an awkward pause in the conversation. 

When he spoke, he surprised me by asking, “So, there’s Sunday school classes now?”

I widened my eyes with surprise.  “Yeah.  Do you want to stay?”

“Yeah.  I was kind of interested,” he said.  “But could I go into Wendy’s class with her?  She’s kind of shy.”

“Sure,” I said, maybe a little too eagerly.  I was just so stunned and thrilled he was going to stay.  I led them over to Sister Springsteed, the Valiant 10 teacher, introducing them with pride.

“Well,” Sister Springsteed beamed, “we’re thrilled to have you with us.  Come on and I’ll introduce you to the class.”  She led them off to the adventure of primary, and I watched them go, glad they were in such capable hands. I hadn’t thought to warn Trent that he was in for another two hours of church.  But Sister Springsteed was fun and spiritual.  She would make class meaningful, and I knew Wendy would like sharing time with all the singing.  So, I skipped off to Sunday school floating on a cloud of happiness.

But when I got to class, Conner was there, looking solemn.  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”