Love? Maybe.

by Heather Hepler

  chapter nineteen

  I’m washing dishes when Jan’s car pulls up in front of our house. I look out the window over the sink. There’s someone in the front seat with him, but I can’t figure out who until he opens the door and the overhead light goes on. It’s Jillian. Jan climbs out and walks around the back of the car toward the Wishmans’. Jillian climbs out of the passenger side. I figure she’s going in with Jan, but I’m wrong. She walks up our sidewalk and knocks on the front door. I dry my hands on a towel as I walk to the door. I sling the towel over my shoulder and pull the door open.

  She smiles slightly at me then looks away. “Want to come in?” I ask.

  “Can you come out?” she asks. I walk through the kitchen, tossing the dish towel on the counter. I tell my mother, who’s sitting in the living room with Dom and Lucy, that I’m going for a walk. I walk out front and pull the door shut behind me. Jillian and I head down the sidewalk and toward the park at the end of our street. “I’m sorry,” Jillian says.

  “For what?” I ask.

  She sighs. “Let’s see. For The Plan. For the stupid love potion. For pushing you to go out with Ben Donovan—”

  “We just call him Ben now,” I say.

  She smiles at me. “Mostly I’m sorry about all the mess with Charlie.”

  I walk over to one of the swings and sit down in it. Jillian sits in the one next to me, facing the other direction. I push off a little, making myself drift back and forth slowly. “So, you like Charlie, huh?” I’m not sure what else to say. Jillian grabs the chain on my swing and twists me to look at her.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” I nod. She smiles and then starts laughing. She’s laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes.

  “I’m not sure I see what—”

  “I know,” she gasps. “That’s the worst part of it. You don’t see—” She takes a deep breath and looks back at me. “I don’t like Charlie. First, he’s, well, he’s Charlie, and second, you saw me with Jeremy. I love nerds and Jeremy is about the nerdiest nerd of them all. You know what he bought me for Valentine’s Day?” I shake my head. “A star!” She starts laughing again. “One of those!” She points wildly toward the sky above us.

  “Which one?” I ask, smiling.

  “I know!” she says. Soon we’re both laughing so hard that our swings are going back and forth without us having to push ourselves. “Wait, it gets better. I have a certificate.” She sees my face. “It has a picture of my star on it. Well, at least I think it’s my star. It’s sort of blurry—”

  “And far away.” She starts laughing again, which only makes me laugh harder. I push off and swing back and forth, a little higher. Jillian swings too and for a moment our swings chase each other back and forth, then we get out of rhythm and we rush past each other.

  “Jan said he talked to you,” Jillian says. I look over at her, but the swinging is giving me vertigo, so I have to look away. “He’s over at Charlie’s talking to Frank now.”

  “About what?” I ask. “Getting some help?”

  “Yeah,” Jillian says. “He was telling Charlie about all sorts of things this afternoon. Apparently there are a lot more broken people around than I thought.”

  “I hope Frank listens,” I say.

  “Jan can be pretty persuasive,” Jillian says.

  “Pfft, Jan has nothing on you. Look how you got me and Claire to go along with The Plan,” I say. “And that whole love potion thing you did for Claire? That was genius.”

  Jillian drags her sneakers in the dirt, slowing herself down. I do the same and we slowly drift together again. “I did that for you,” Jillian says.

  “Me?”

  She laughs. “For such a smart girl, you sure can be stupid sometimes.”

  “That’s what your boyfriend tells me,” I say, thinking of Jeremy asking me if I’d taken my stupid pills.

  “Look, I knew Claire would be fine. She just had to figure out what a loser Stuart was, which she did. And I knew she would be on to bigger and better things, which she is. It’s you I’ve always been worried about.” She looks up at the stars just starting to push their way through the clouds above us. “I just thought maybe you could use a little magic in your life. I thought maybe it would give you a little hope.”

  “Make me believe?” I ask. She looks at me and nods. I look back at the stars above us. “So which one do you think it is?” I ask.

  Jillian laughs and looks up too. “That one,” she says, pointing straight up. “The twinkly one.”

  “It’s a good star,” I say. We both lean back, hanging from our hands and letting our heads fall back so we can look way up. When you do that, it looks like the whole world is full of stars. Just millions and millions of points of light, twinkling for anyone to see. Anyone who takes the time to notice.

  Suddenly Jillian grabs my hand and turns me toward her. “Thank you,” she says.

  “For what?” I ask, standing up

  “For putting up with me. I know I’m too loud and too opinionated and too—”

  I lift my hand. “You are,” I say, “but you’re also an awesome friend.” Jillian stands up too and throws her arms around me.

  “You know,” I say as we start back toward my house, “having your own star is pretty awesome.” She smiles at me. “It’s like your own personal wishing star,” I say.

  “I’ll share it,” Jillian says. “You can make wishes on it anytime you want.” I smile, but there’s an ache in my chest. Suddenly I miss Charlie more than ever.

  Jan’s car is still there when we get back. We walk through the front door, shivering. We hear my mother laughing. We peek around the corner into the living room. Jan and my mom are sitting on the couch and he’s telling her the shark story that I’ve heard a thousand times. The one about how he almost got eaten when he was out surfing. Each time he tells it, I swear the shark grows about a foot. She sees me and waves. I smile and shake my head. Jillian follows me into the kitchen. I fill up the kettle and turn the flame on under it to heat up water for tea.

  “Is this one of the other things that I didn’t see?” I ask.

  “What?” Jillian asks.

  I roll my eyes. “My mother is going to start dating Jan, isn’t she?” Jillian laughs. I pull mugs out of the cabinet and set them on the counter. We hear my mother laughing again. “That is a good surprise,” I say. We sit and drink tea, listening to Jan and my mother laughing until Jillian finally tells them that it’s past her bedtime.

  “It’s pretty bad when we have to be the grown-ups,” I say. Jan just smiles at me and shakes his head. We all walk out on the porch. Jillian hugs me again.

  “See you tomorrow,” she says. She walks to the car and slides into the passenger’s seat. My mother walks Jan all the way to the car.

  “Keep it PG—there are minors present,” Jillian says from the front seat. Jan and my mother just laugh. He walks around his car and climbs in. Mom walks back toward me, smiling the whole way. We head inside. She walks around humming and shutting off all the lights downstairs. I follow her upstairs. She kisses me lightly on the forehead before checking on the kids. She doesn’t stop humming softly to herself the whole time. I head into my room and drop onto my bed. I don’t hear her go into her room. I don’t hear anything on the roof. I take a deep breath, letting myself sink into my pillow.

  The sunlight is way too bright and morning is way too early. I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt as horrible as I do at this very moment. I lie down and then the room starts spinning, so I have to sit up, but then I get weak, so I have to lie down again. Mom called school and then my coach to tell them I wasn’t going to be in classes or the meet. The office said they’d send my books home with Jillian and Claire, just so I didn’t fall too far behind. It’s awesome that they care so much.

  I spend the entire day on the couch. It stinks to be all alone when you’re sick, but at least it’s quiet. I made my mom go to work. It’s the day before Valentine’s Day, the single busiest day of the ent
ire year. I try to watch television, but all the moving colors make me feel dizzy. The food commercials are the worst. Just seeing someone breaking a chocolate chip cookie in half so we can all see the melty chocolate chips makes me feel nauseated. I lie back and pull the fleece blanket from my bed over my legs. I keep alternating between shivering like I’m out in a snowstorm and feeling like I’m a baked potato that’s been left in the oven for too long. It’s after three, so school’s out and the swim meet’s started. It’s Beau’s weekend to have the kids, so at least it will be quiet here.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next time I look at the clock it’s nearly five. There’s a knock at the door. Maybe it’s just the UPS guy. I close my eyes, willing him to go away. I try to sleep, reasoning that if I sleep, maybe when I wake up it will stop feeling like I lost a bet with a semi truck. But the knocking starts again. “Go away!”

  “Piper! It’s me.” I sigh. Beau. I push myself back up and walk to the door. I pull it open and lean against the doorjamb. “Mom’s not here. She went into the shop.” I look past him to his truck. “Where are the kids?” I ask.

  “Stacy’s playing hide-and-seek with them back at the house,” he says.

  I nod. “I have to sit down,” I say, worried that if I don’t sit down, I’m going to fall down. Beau follows me inside and over to the couch. I drop onto it and close my eyes again. Big mistake. I push myself back to sitting. “I’m okay,” I say, then laugh.

  Beau laughs weakly too. “If this is okay, I’d hate to see you not okay. Listen, I was just worried about you here. All alone.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “What’s in the bag?” I ask, gesturing toward the paper sack sitting at his feet. He picks it up.

  “Maybe things for when you’re feeling a little better.” He pulls out a big bottle of ginger ale and a bag of cheese Goldfish. “I know you like these,” he says, placing them on the table. “Tell me what I can do,” he says.

  “Nothing. Really. I just need to rest,” I say. I lie back down on the couch. Beau pulls a blanket over me.

  “Piper,” he says. “I know this isn’t the best time—” I look over at him. He’s looking down at his hands, which are folded in his lap. “I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes…”

  I raise my hand. “We all have,” I say. The cynical part of me wonders if it’s Reconcile with Your Estranged Daughter Month or something.

  “I’d like it if you’d let me take you to dinner sometime. Or the movies. Just us.” I smile at him. “When you’re feeling better.”

  “I’d like that,” I say, and with those three words, I make up my mind about Jack too. Everyone deserves a second chance. “Now go. I’m sure Stacy’s awesome, but you know how Lucy is. She’s impossible to find and she always has the best hiding places.” Beau smiles and I wonder if he’s thinking of the time that we lost her for almost an hour because she hid herself in the back of my closet and fell asleep.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Beau asks. I nod. He’s reluctant to go.

  “I promise,” I say. He squeezes my hand and stands up. I watch him walk to the door and pull it shut behind him. It clicks locked. I take a deep breath. Sleep. Please. Sleep.

  My phone moos from where I left it on the kitchen counter. I look at the clock. It’s now after six. The phone keeps mooing at me. I’m guessing my mother. If I don’t answer it, she’ll freak and probably have the police here to check on me. I get up and walk toward the kitchen, keeping a hand on something solid at all times. I pick up my phone and look at it. Claire. I start to say hello, but she’s already talking and not to me.

  “Hello?” I ask.

  “Oh,” she says too loud in my ear. “Piper, how are you feeling?”

  I hear a rustling noise and then Jillian’s voice. “Just let us in,” she says. “We knocked, but you must have been asleep. You didn’t hear us.” I walk to the door. I pull it open, but I don’t wait for them to come in, I just head back to the couch.

  Claire comes in first. “Oh no,” she says. “You look like—” Jillian elbows her. “Poor baby,” Claire says, coming over to sit by me.

  “Careful,” I say. “I’ve got the plague.” Jillian puts a stack of books on the table. I groan. It’s a big stack, and big stack equals lots of homework. But then she puts something else on top. A brown paper bag. “What is it?” I ask. I look over at Jillian, who doesn’t say anything. “Don’t pretend you didn’t look.” She reaches in, pulls out something white, and unfolds it. She turns the T-shirt toward me. I laugh a little even though it hurts to do so. It says I heart you, but instead of the regular Valentine’s Day heart, it’s a picture of an actual heart, all veiny and squishy looking. “Ugh,” I say. “Put it away.” The picture of the heart makes me feel all throw-upy again. Jillian puts the bag with the T-shirt in it in the kitchen where I can’t see it. “Aren’t you going to tell her?” Claire asks.

  “Which part?” Jillian asks, walking back over to where Claire is clearly about to come out of her skin with excitement. Claire makes big eyes at her. “Okay, we caught the guy putting the stuff in your locker.” I raise my eyebrows. “It was Jeremy.”

  “What?” I ask. “Why? Don’t tell me he’s my secret Valentine.”

  Jillian shakes her head. “He was just the messenger.”

  “But he’s not talking,” Claire says. She smiles and makes big eyes at me, suggesting that he did, in fact, talk, but that they aren’t going to tell me what he said.

  “Well, it’s for sure not Ben,” I say. I tell them about talking to him at Jan’s. I’m too tired to try and pry whatever Claire is hiding out of her. One question does occur to me. “How did Jeremy get my combination?” I ask.

  Jillian shrugs. “He works in the office during fourth period. He has access to all kinds of stuff.” I close my eyes and lean my head against the back of the couch.

  “Tell her the rest,” Claire says.

  “There’s more?” I ask.

  Jillian nods. “So we went to the swim meet after school.” I nod.

  “Just tell her,” Claire says. Apparently she’s too impatient to let Jillian tell the story. “Charlie started a fight with Ben Donovan and got kicked off the pool deck.” I sit up fast. Bad move. I lean back again.

  “We just call him Ben now,” Jillian says.

  “We do?” Claire asks. I make Jeremy’s hurry-up gesture with my hand.

  “Well, he didn’t actually hit him or anything, but there was some yelling. Mostly Charlie. And then Charlie pushed Ben Donovan into the pool.”

  I shake my head. “Boys and sports.”

  Jillian snorts. “It wasn’t about swimming, Piper. It was about you!”

  “What?” I ask. Claire and Jillian both start nodding.

  “Charlie freaked when he saw Ben Donovan. I mean, Ben. He yelled at him for making you cry.”

  “What?” I ask. “He didn’t—” Then it dawns on me. “Oh,” I say. I explain that Charlie saw me talking to Ben and then while he was inside I called my dad. Claire makes me stop and tell them that story. Then I tell them how the next time Charlie saw me, I was crying. “But not about Ben. About my dad.”

  “Wow,” Jillian says. “Poor Ben.” She smirks when she says it. “First he gets dumped by you and then he gets shoved in the pool by Charlie. Ouch.” Jillian and Claire stay for a while longer, trying to cheer me up by telling me more Montrose gossip.

  Claire looks at here watch. “We should go,” she says. She looks sheepish when she says it. “I’m sort of going to the movies with Alex.” I raise my eyebrows at her, but she swats my leg. “Just as friends,” she says.

  “Does Alex know that?” I ask.

  “I don’t think Claire knows that,” Jillian says. “But yeah, we should go. I told Jan I’d come by the shop to help him and Jeremy get set up for tomorrow. It’s going to be huge.” They let themselves out with promises not to call and check on me later. I tell them I need to sleep.

  Mom comes home about seven and clucks around me for a while. Jan comes
by soon after and basically drives me nuts too. He keeps hovering over me, asking if I want anything—another pillow, a glass of water, a cool cloth. Seeing them together makes me happy, but their combined parental energy is making me nuts. “Don’t you two have somewhere else to be?” I ask. “Dinner? A movie?” I finally convince them to go out to dinner. I push myself off the couch and walk them both to the door, telling them that I will be locking it behind them and they will not be allowed back until eleven, at least. I push the door shut behind them and lean against it, afraid to walk back to the couch or rather afraid to try and walk back to the couch and end up just falling on my face. There’s another knock before I even make it away from the door.

  “Go away,” I say. “I told you not until after eleven.”