For Always Page 5

  His eyes locked on mine, his gaze dark and angry. I couldn’t move. I had a terrible feeling in the bottom of my stomach. I didn’t understand his strange reaction, like I’d been the one to say something awful. He proceeded to shake his head, and I wondered what he was thinking.

  “Stephanie, nothing happened, except I overreacted. And the incident had to do with poor maintenance, not you.”

  “Can we just stop talking about this? Please?” I hated the high pitch of my voice. Could I sound anymore insecure?

  “Fine.” Jordan gave me a sly look.

  After a few moments of awkward silence, his eyes turned playful once again. He gathered my long hair in his hands and flipped it in front of my face.

  “Hey!” I shrieked, a wave of relief washing over me that he didn’t turn and hightail it away. I felt like I could breathe again and worked to pull my shoulders down from my ears.

  “No more nonsense. You’re not bad luck. Got it?”

  I goaded. “Or what, you’re going to attack me with my hair again?”

  “You want to see what I’m going to do?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Give it all you got!” I challenged totally and completely astounded by how amazing Jordan was. He didn’t run. In truth, he barely flinched. He liked me, liked being with me. It felt strangely wonderful.

  I waited, wondering what he planned, but he didn’t do anything. As we passed a house with thick hedges, his move came swiftly and suddenly. With little effort, Jordan swept me into his arms and threatened to drop me in the bushes.

  Surprised by both the sudden action and how easily he did it, I let out a nervous scream and wrapped my arms tight around his neck. I held on as if my life depended on it and buried my head between his neck and shoulder.

  We both laughed. My chest hurt from laughing so hard. I took a deep breath hoping to calm down so I wouldn’t end up snorting in Jordan’s ear, or coughing in his face.

  He smelled nice. A light spicy scent lingered on the base of his neck. I took another breath, no longer laughing, and met his eyes, trembling in his arms.

  The world seemed to stop.

  No noise.

  No cars.

  No people.

  For a brief moment, we were frozen, paralyzed. His eyes fell first. They moved down to my lips just like yesterday at the locker. I felt the pull, the positive and negative charges forcing their way toward each other. Just inches apart, waiting for that magnetic bond to seal us together, I thought he would kiss me. And then, as suddenly as he scooped me up, my feet were back on the ground.

  What a let-down!

  I knew the attraction was not one-sided. I felt it in his arms, his hesitation, and heavy breathing. It was at that moment I realized I was absolutely and undeniably in love with Jordan.

  Seven

  Minutes after I walked through my front door, the phone rang. I knew it had to be Maria. She probably watched for me from her window. I answered, hoping she wouldn’t bombard me with questions about the last two days of school, but I knew how unlikely that was.

  “How come you’re home so late?” She asked.

  Yep. She was watching.

  “Sorry Mom. Didn’t mean to worry you,” I teased. “I walked.”

  “All the way home?” I heard the amazement in her voice.

  “Yes.” I hoped to keep my answers short and simple.

  “Did I see Jordan outside?” She asked. “Was he looking for me?”

  I knew she felt better. Back to her narcissistic self. I loved her, but I wasn’t immune to her faults. Her main one, the world revolved around her. It only goes to show, Jordan had no other possible reason to be here, other than to see her, at least in Marialand.

  “Yes. You saw Jordan outside.” I hesitated. “And no he wasn’t looking for you. He walked me home.”

  “From school?” she asked incredulously.

  I could tell the new turn of events, Jordan and I becoming friends, or whatever we were becoming, would be problematic for Maria. We had our roles defined years ago. She was the pretty, popular one, the outgoing cheerleader type. I was the quiet bookworm.

  The shock in her voice bothered me. More than I dared admit, even to myself. Did she find me so dull and unattractive that she couldn’t believe someone might take an interest in me? I reminded myself, it wasn’t just anyone taking an interest. And I knew she had a lingering interest in Jordan, even though she declared constantly she was over him. That’s why we couldn’t pass his locker without stopping by.

  “After our eventful ride to school yesterday, we decided it would be best to walk home,” I couldn’t help myself from needling her.

  “Eventful? What happened? And why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  Not satisfied with my nondescript answers, she hung up and came over.

  “I thought you were sick,” I said, moving back, as I opened the front door.

  “I was. I’m feeling better. Plus, I’m bored out of my head. You have all this juicy gossip and you’re holding out on me. Dish.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Maria asked, sounding a little hurt. I could understand if she felt slighted, best friends were by definition obliged to tell each other everything. But I knew once she thought about it objectively, she’d come around.

  “I was afraid you’d tell him,” I said true and to the point.

  “Why?”

  That she even asked, made me wonder what planet she was on. She never kept my secrets. From the third grade on, she told every boy I ever thought was cute that I had a crush on him.

  At the end of last school year Maria noticed I seemed sad and depressed. Despite my assurances that my woes were not boy related, she didn’t believe me, and decided to take matters into her own hands. Maria sent secret admirer notes to me. I didn’t take it seriously which annoyed her to no end. This gave credence to my suspicion that she penned the notes herself.

  I didn’t know at the time, however, that Maria wrote the same types of notes to one of the boys in class, pretending to be me. The icing on the cake, was when she decided to tell him I was his secret admirer and I liked him for years, which wasn’t at all true.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, he told all the other boys in the class. They in turn told the girls. I heard constant scoffing behind my back, and any time I left the classroom I’d return to find doodles of our initials in hearts all over my desk.

  “Do you think Jordan likes you?” she asked.

  “I do.” My gut told me he did. I was almost certain. Almost.

  “I’ll find out.” She reached for her phone.

  I panicked. I knew she was going to do this, and immediately regretted telling her. I didn’t want her involved. In any way.

  “Why not take out an ad in the newspaper. Or better yet, just post it on the Internet. Then everyone can know,” I said sarcastically.

  “If you don’t want me to call him I won’t. But, don’t you want to know?”

  I thought about it. Of course I wanted to know. I couldn’t stand not knowing for certain.

  “Okay. But I can’t be there when you do it,” I said.

  She shook her head like I had something wrong with me. “I’ll call from my house and come over as soon as I hang up.”

  Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and the palms of my hands as I closed the front door. I wiped my hands on my pants, shocked I agreed to this. Did I sniff glue and not know it?

  I ran up the stairs and locked myself in my room. I turned on the radio. Love songs everywhere, songs about being in love, songs about losing love. Love. Love. Love. And more love. I turned it off.

  I looked around. The pink walls held colorful pictures of animals and rainbows, and frilly porcelain dolls my father bought me. My princess bed was adorned with a fancy lace bed spread and canopy. I’d stuffed music boxes in any cranny wide enough to hold them.

  It appeared juvenile, too juvenile. My room looked exactly the way it had when I was ten years old. I needed to make ch
anges. I needed something fresh and hip. I needed to turn my room into a teenage idolatry with pictures and posters hung of the latest hotties filling the television and movie screen, much like Maria’s.

  Frustrated, I picked up a book I’d been reading about a teenage girl who discovered she had psychic powers. I turned to the bookmark and read a paragraph and then I read it again and again. It was hopeless. I couldn’t just sit here and pretend the most important phone call of my life wasn’t taking place. And I wasn’t part of it.

  I decided to hop over the wrought iron banister separating our homes and head in. Germs or no germs, I wanted to hear every word. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Maria. I just couldn’t focus on anything else.

  She hung up as I opened the door to her room. I knew it couldn’t be good.

  She smiled a sad forced smile. “He does like you.”

  “But?” I knew there was a but. It was the loudest silent “but,” I’d ever heard.

  “He’s really uncomfortable with the age thing.”

  “Uh huh.” I wanted to scream. He didn’t seem so uncomfortable with the “age thing” when he asked about Jennifer.

  I felt like my heart was being squeezed through the flattening mechanism of a pasta machine. While he did seem super focused on being a little older than me, I knew a much larger issue loomed between us.

  “I told him age is nothing but a stupid number. But he insisted you’re just too young.”

  Too young. Or immature. Or just plain crazy.

  “It’s okay. Really.” I lied, wishing I could fall into a dark abyss.

  “No, it’s not.” Maria hugged me.

  The good thing about a best friend is they can tell when you’re lying.

  Eight

  Too mortified to face Jordan, I went out of my way to avoid him. I made sure to leave late for the bus stop the next morning, certain he’d have left before I got there, whether in his car or on the bus. To my relief, I waited alone at the bus stop.

  As the bus screeched to a halt I looked down at my watch. If I timed it right, I could walk into the school building immediately after the bell rang, and use the stairwell at the front door to get up to my classroom. That would cut his locker out of my path and eliminate any chance of passing each other in the hall.

  It would be trickier after Thanksgiving, when Maria returned. As long as I made it on time today, I could stall, the way I did this morning. This would ensure Jordan leaves his locker before I have a chance to pass and steal a look.

  And then, it was less than a month before school closed for winter recess and classes changed. I could handle that. And if for some reason I did see him, or Maria dragged me against my will to his locker, I’d just try to act normal. As if I had any idea what constituted normal.

  I made it through the day without running into him, and wondered if he avoided me on purpose. After all he did know where at least two of my classrooms were. There was no sign of him.

  At the bus stop I plugged in my ear buds and listened to my iPod. I couldn’t wait to get home, even though it meant getting ready for Thanksgiving. My mother had some delirious visions for the upcoming holiday weekend. My father’s parents were coming, which would be very emotional for all of us.

  Not that we didn’t still speak to them, but when they moved to Florida two years ago, the visits became nonexistent and phone calls grew infrequent. Grandpa Mike bought a video camera for their computer and we’d been having video conversations for the last two months. That’s why they decided I’d changed and grown too much since they moved. They wanted to visit.

  Mom seemed very anxious about their stay with us and thought a clean, well-organized house could circumvent any awkward or unpleasant scenes. I, on the other hand, seemed to be much more realistic. While I loved my grandparents very much, I wasn’t oblivious to their constant criticism of both my mother and me. Mom took the day off to sanitize and scour away any signs of dust or grime.

  Each time my mind jumped back to Jordan, I attempted to lose myself in distractions: both my music and the impossible list of chores my mother had waiting for me when I walked through the front door. She had been nagging me all week about taking down the curtains and washing them, like she ever did that.

  Still my mind drifted to him. It really bugged me that he didn’t come looking for me. I never had the confidence to say outright I thought a boy really liked me. And yet I knew it to be true with him. He did admit that much. I really thought he’d try to find me at school and reassure me we could still “be friends.” As if.

  I heard a noise, “wha, wha, wha,” much like when an adult speaks in the Charlie Brown cartoons.

  “Excuse me?” I looked up and pulled my ear buds out.

  Chris stood in front of me, a big smile plastered on his face.

  “Hi. Anything good?” he asked.

  “Huh?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “You looked preoccupied, I wondered what you were listening to,” he motioned toward my iPod.

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.

  I felt awkward. As usual, my mind and my tongue failed me from coming back at him with anything remotely interesting.

  I just looked at him. Really looked at him for the first time. I never noticed he had blue eyes before. A sucker for blue eyes, I took a closer look. He was tall. And actually pretty cute. The only problem, he wasn’t Jordan. He didn’t make my heart throb and race, like a forbidden delight.

  The bus pulled up and people started moving forward, pushing their way past each other to get a seat. I hated standing, holding on to the silver pole, but I found myself toward the end of the pack. My chance of getting a seat didn’t look too good.

  “So Lisa is supposed to be saving a couple of seats for us, if you’re not too frightened to come in the back with us,” he challenged.

  I hesitated wondering how he knew they scared me. I didn’t like people being able to read me, especially negative things about me. Still uneasy about this group, I thought I had nothing to lose.

  “Well, sure. If there’s a seat, I mean.”

  “If not, you could always sit on my lap.”

  He took my hand and led me straight to the back of the bus.

  After cooking, cleaning, and scrubbing until I couldn’t move my fingers, my grandparents arrived, late Wednesday evening. We spent a few hours catching up. They told us all about their condo on the golf course, the wonderful community they lived in, and the many activities they’d become involved in since they moved. Around midnight we made certain they were comfortable and said goodnight.

  My mother and I cooked most of the food earlier in the week. The turkey was the only dish that had to be prepared from scratch. The rest only needed to be heated.

  Dinner went well. The only dig Grandma threw in was how in all the years my parents were married, my mother never put together such a plentiful spread of food. I could tell this comment didn’t go over well with my mother. But she handled it like a trooper. She thanked my grandmother, smiled and poured herself another glass of wine.

  The atmosphere after dinner was unexpected. I never knew my grandmother to be sentimental. Mostly she reminded me of a jail warden more than a warm-and-fuzzy-cookie-baking grandparent. She sent Grandpa to go get “them.”

  After a quick trip to the car, he reappeared with two large gift bags. Mother and I looked at each other surprised. We both had summer birthdays, and my grandmother never forgot to send a card. Christmas was still a month away; we hadn’t even begun shopping. We had nothing to give in return. That would never go over well.

  Grandma pulled a large scrapbook from each bag and handed one to each of us. The second I opened mine, I was overcome with a surge of emotions. Pictures from the day I was born, my father holding me. He looked so handsome and happy. The tears came pouring out.

  I traced my fingers over the images of my father. I missed him. Like missing eyes, I could live without him, but I did so impaired. Limericks he wrote on small piece
s of paper were interspersed on the pages. I kept turning the pages, taking my time to examine each picture and remember each detail, and how happy we were all together. I read every caption. And commented on every wonderful piece she added to the book.

  So engrossed in my beautiful gift, I didn’t pay attention to what was in my mother’s book. Hers recaptured their years together, from their early dating until death did they part.

  My grandparents sat beaming at our reaction, commenting on specific pictures or items. My grandfather went into a dissertation on how his life hadn’t been the same since Grandma started working on the scrapbooks, because they were her top priority. Grandma giggled, like a young girl.

  This was the most wonderful evening we shared since my father died, if not ever. I couldn’t help thinking how perfect this night felt, like it was straight out of a holiday movie. Neither my mother nor I anticipated the overabundance of love and warmth that filled our house and hearts this wonderful Thanksgiving.

  Nine

  Grandma wanted to have a nice brunch Friday. She cooked all morning, making waffles and pancakes, using fresh berries to make jam toppings. The scent of bacon crisping wafted through the house, waking me. I thought this must be how people are woken at those quaint, little bed and breakfast type places.

  We were all tired from the emotional overhaul the previous evening. And took our time gathering together around the table and eating the scrumptious meal Grandma prepared. It was wonderful having her with us. I wished she could stay forever.

  Both grandparents told stories about my father as a young boy. I enjoyed listening to these fresh antics, very different from my own memories of him, or Mom’s that I’d heard a million times. Hearing the trouble he got into as a teenager, breaking widows with baseballs for example, made me feel a new connection with him, like adding a link to a chain. With the new knowledge of how often he broke things in the house, I wondered if he’d been awkward and clumsy like me.