The Other Boy (19 page)

Maddy jumped, banging her head on the doorjamb, and let out an idiotic little squeak, like a mouse that had been stepped on. “Ow!” she said, holding the side of her head.

He was holding a backpack in his hand. He looked as surprised as she did. “Hey,” he said softly.

Maddy could hardly look at him. God, what did he think of her now? The awful lunch, and then running away
crying
? “Hi,” she managed, staring at his tan toes.

“Um, I was looking for a bucket. I don’t know what I did with the one that was in the tasting room, so—”

Maddy clutched her towel a little tighter. “I’m, um, sorry about, you know, earlier.” He didn’t say anything, just waited. “I mean, running off like that …” He looked at her. “I’m just … under a lot of pressure right now.”

Her voice cracked on the last few words, and she could feel the tears building up
again
.

He reached out for her, like he might try to give her a hug. Maddy stepped away slightly and stood there, feeling miserable and stupid, tasting the tears that were now running down her cheeks to her lips. His voice was urgent and quiet. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but I hope when you get it figured out … you’ll tell me.”

For a long minute, they both just stood there, staring at each other. Maddy wanted to just
say
it—everything that was on her mind, everything that had gone wrong and right all summer long. His eyes were so big and dark, she just wanted to lose herself in them. Finally, she whispered, “Yeah,” and rushed past him, almost knocking him over.
Yet another graceful exit for Ms. Madeline
Sinclaire
. She ran down the path, feeling like she was going to implode.

Later that afternoon, Maddy was kneeling in the bean rows, watching an orb-weaving spider spin a huge web on the garden fence while she piled pinto beans into a basket with both hands. A few feet away, the tomatoes hung plump and red. One looked ripe enough to fall off the vine. It looked scrumptious. Maddy sat back on her heels, plucked the tomato. and bit into it like an apple.

The juice ran down her chin and trickled a pale pink streak onto her tanned bare arm.

A crunch in the grass caught Maddy’s ear, and she looked up to see David crossing the lawn. She inhaled sharply. She couldn’t help admiring the slant of his shoulders and his easy, springy stride. Talking by the shower had been a disaster, but this was it. She could do it. She tried to smooth her hair with the backs of her dirty hands. Maddy focused furiously on the beans. She sensed David approaching but didn’t turn around as he sat down next to the garden plot. Neither of them said anything. Maddy finally managed to look up at him. He was sneaking a glance at her at the same time. She flashed a quick smile that probably looked more like a grimace and turned back to the stake as if picking beans was her calling in life. Was this really the same guy she had hung out with all summer? Had they really eaten ribs together in a parking lot, doubled over laughing and talking endlessly? Her heart pounding, Maddy forced herself to turn around again. She knelt next to the basket and concentrated on picking out leaves.

“So, how’s the garden doing?” David said.

“Great!” It came out a little loud.

“I love it that it never rains in the summer here,” he said. Wow, they were talking about the
weather
?
What the
hell ?

“Me too,” Maddy agreed. She felt a zing like a mini electric shock as their eyes met. She swallowed hard.

She’d never had to search for things to say to David before all of this. They just talked naturally, without thinking. “So … are you glad summer’s almost over?”

He shrugged, a gesture Maddy found unbearably cute. “Yes and no. I like it here more, but I do miss people in the city. How about you? Are you going to be glad to see … your friends?” She caught the tiny pause before “friends.” This was her chance.

“Well, yeah. I’ll be glad to see Morgan and Kirsten, but … um … Brian and I broke up.” She stopped fiddling with the beans and looked right at him. His mouth opened and shut twice before he found his voice.

“Wow. I had no idea.”

“Yeah. It just wasn’t working out. I think we were just growing apart,” she said cautiously. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear the blood in her ears.

David scooted closer on the grass and brushed some dirt off of her nose.

“Hey, you know something? Earlier, when I ran into you by the shower, I really was looking for a bucket. But I was also trying to find
you
.”

Maddy raised her head and met David’s eyes for the first time all day. She took a deep breath. “By the way,”

she said, “I was thinking … you know, after that eggplant dish …” He gave a fake shudder and she smiled ruefully. “Maybe I could use a few cooking lessons … ?”

She faltered, but a grin danced on his lips.

“Tomorrow night. Eight o’clock. Come over to the cottage. After an hour with me, I promise you’ll never make Eggplant Surprise again.”

David!” Maddy called, running breathlessly up the path to the little white cottage. Her long hair was slipping out of its ponytail, and she was wearing an old pair of gray gym shorts and a pink camisole—the first things her hand had touched when her cell phone woke her up half an hour earlier. “David!” she yelled again, trying not to slip on the gravel in her Havaianas.

All of a sudden, she stopped, remembering Fred. He might not appreciate being woken up at seven o’clock, she thought, looking around quickly. His gray pickup was gone. He must already be out.
“David!”
she hollered with renewed vigor, cupping her hands around her mouth.

An upstairs bedroom window flew open and a sleep-tousled head poked out. “Are you nuts, woman?” David demanded.

“The furniture place called a few minutes ago,”

Maddy said from the driveway. “They’re coming to deliver everything in an hour. And Standish is bringing all the wineglasses this morning too!” As soon as she had gotten the news, Maddy had called the rug dealer. She had promised that her son would be over with the rug in a couple hours. Maddy was saving that as a surprise.

David started to draw his head back in. “Just let me get dressed.”

“No, wait! We left all that painting stuff in there—

remember? And I think we should mop the floors and wipe everything off before they move stuff in. So come on!”

“You have way too much energy for this early,” David groaned. “Okay, just wait for me while I take a shower and get something to eat. The front door’s open.” He disappeared.

Maddy pushed open the old screen door and stepped into a small living room. The furnishings were spartan but neat; a plaid sofa with an afghan folded across the top, a matching armchair, a couple of bookcases filled with old books. A grandfather clock ticked solemnly in the corner. Maddy wandered into the kitchen. She could hear water running upstairs. She gazed at the white stove with its gas burners, and the old fridge humming in the corner. She glanced at the clock on the stove. David would have to hurry if they were going to beat the deliverymen.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. This was her second chance. Excitedly, Maddy yanked open the fridge door and pulled out a carton of eggs and a half-full gallon of milk. She opened cabinet doors until she found a bowl, a whisk, and a frying pan. Quickly, she whipped three eggs and a little milk into a deep yellow froth and lit the burner. It felt good to be in control again after the trauma of her last cooking experience.

She cut two thick slices off a loaf of bread on the counter and dropped them into the toaster.

She was stirring the eggs in the pan as David’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Hey,” he said suspiciously.

“What’s going on here?”

Maddy turned around, smiling. His normally curly hair was gleaming wet and still flat against his head. He was wearing a T-shirt that read deadman trail 15k and carrying his Tevas in one hand. He dropped the shoes on the floor and came over to her. Maddy’s palms immediately started sweating. She grinned and held out the pan.

“Breakfast?” she asked, trying to sound smooth and fail-ing miserably. The toaster pinged.

“Wow, I’m impressed,” David said, sitting down at the table. “I love a girl who makes me breakfast.”

Maddy giggled—
like an idiot,
she thought—and scraped the eggs onto a plate, adding the toast on the side.
Please
try to act intelligent, Maddy,
she begged herself. It was hard, when he was so unbelievably cute.

David inhaled the eggs in four bites, piling them on top of the toast and stuffing them into his mouth.

“Mmm. These are great, Mad,” he said with his mouth full. Maddy beamed. He scraped up the last bits with his fork and pushed back from the table. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” He turned and smiled at her as if they were beginning an adventure.

Side by side, they hurried through Jenkins’s field, following the path along the stream until they reached the tasting room. Maddy pushed the big double doors open and together they quickly cleared the room of the remain-ing painting supplies: a big blue tarp, a ladder, some paintbrushes in a bucket of water, a pile of rags. David grabbed a bottle of Windex and some paper towels and went over to the windows while Maddy mopped the floor industri-ously. They were almost done when Maddy heard a diesel engine rumbling from the direction of the house and a screech of brakes. Her eyes met David’s.

“The stuff ’s here!” Maddy squealed. She had to restrain herself from jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

David dumped all the cleaning supplies into a garbage bag to take back to the house. He placed it outside the door and then turned back to Maddy, who was still standing in the middle of the floor. “Come on, Maddy-Mae, let’s go meet them.”

But Maddy didn’t move. She was gazing around the empty space, looking at the gleaming, polished wood floor, the glistening fresh paint, the sparkling windows with the wavy glass throwing little splashes of color all over the walls. David walked over to her. “What is it?” he said, touching her shoulder. She looked up at him.

“I was just thinking of the way this place looked the first day we saw it. Remember?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I do. How could I forget? I had no idea what to make of you. But I could hardly take my eyes off you.”

Maddy blushed and looked down. “I can’t believe how different it looks—we’ve done so much this summer,” she murmured.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” David said, looking down at her, “but this has definitely been one of the most
interesting
summers of my life.”

Maddy lifted her chin. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

The moment was broken by an engine rumble.

Maddy ran to the door. A guy with a clipboard jumped down from a truck parked just outside. “Madeline Sinclaire?” he asked, consulting a sheaf of papers.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Okay, I’ve got a delivery of furniture here. You want to tell the crew where you want things?”

He had barely finished speaking when another, smaller truck arrived with standish & sons painted on the side. The next hour was a blur of workmen in heavy boots, boxes and crates with their lids pried open, piles of packing paper and straw littering the floor, furniture emerging from its wrappings and filling the room. Little by little, stacks of glittering glassware appeared from mountains of cotton padding, covering the long oak table pushed against one wall.

Everything was almost unpacked when Maddy heard a voice by the door. She looked up. A guy about her age was squinting at a piece of paper. “Excuse me, are you Madeline Sinclaire? I have your rug here.”

David looked up from where he was cramming packing paper into a box. “So that’s what you were getting in town, sneaky girl!” he said, straightening up.

Maddy grinned at him. “Wait till you see it.” She motioned to the guy. “Can you just prop it over there?

We’ll unroll it later.”

The guy shrugged. “Sure,” he said and manhandled the heavy column wrapped in brown paper against one wall.

At last, the workmen were gone, stuffing the wrappings and boxes into their trucks and bumping back up the path toward the house and the road. The silence felt good. Maddy took a deep breath and turned to David.

“Want to see the rug now?” she asked.

“Of course. It better be pretty amazing after all this buildup,” he teased. Together they stripped off the paper wrapping and, with a flourish, unfurled the rug on the shiny brown floorboards. David stepped back, his hands on his hips, and gave a low whistle. Maddy waited. She was surprised to find herself a little breathless with anticipation. “Wow,” he finally said. “I’m speechless.” He bent to examine the rug more closely. “This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. How did you even know it would be so perfect in here?”

Maddy beamed. “Thanks.” She walked over to stand next to David in the doorway, and together they gazed at the results of an entire summer of work. The whole place looked utterly fantastic. Two plump sofas covered in tan silk stood in opposite corners, with matching armchairs pulled up near them. Rectangular coffee tables in light maple were positioned at the perfect angle for resting glasses or propping feet. Near the middle of the room, four round bistro tables stood surrounded by elegant little straight chairs. The long oak table domi-nated one entire wall, crystal wineglasses lined up in perfect rows on its surface, looking just as Maddy had pictured them when she saw the table at the store.

The pure Napa light poured from the clean windows, highlighting the mellow patina of the floorboards, the crisper, sleeker wood of the tables and chairs, and the rich texture of the rug. Framed by the big open double doors was that stunning view of the mountain that Dad had shown them the very first day.

David’s voice broke the silence. “Well, Mads, this room is really incredible.”

“I agree,” Maddy said, smiling.

“But I have to say that what really makes it stand out is that.” He pointed to the rug. “It’s, it’s …” He struggled to find words in an unfamiliar vocabulary. “It’s the perfect combination of rustic beauty and modern elegance!” He looked very proud of himself.