My Cheating Heart

by Ann Steinke

  But soon we had to start heading back home so that I could go to work. We pulled ourselves away from the beach and climbed into Lou’s truck. As we were tooling along the main street of Morro Bay, Lou suddenly yelped. “Get down quick! Scott’s coming.”

  I didn’t believe it at first, but then I recognized his Jeep approaching. I ducked out of view just barely before Lou said, “He’s waving. I’ll try to get by—Oh no! He’s backing up. He’s gonna think it’s weird if I don’t talk to him.” The tone of his voice changed suddenly. “Hi, Scott! What are you doing up here?”

  I could hear Scott’s voice faintly. “Running an errand for Dad,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, you know. Just checking out the girls,” Lou joked.

  Scott chuckled. “Don’t let Ter hear about this. She looks like the jealous type.”

  Lou laughed. “We’d better move, Amigo. We’re blocking traffic.”

  “Yeah—see you later,” Scott said. Then after a moment I heard the sound of an engine fade away in the distance.

  Lou let out a long breath. “The coast is clear,” he said.

  I crawled back up to the seat. My legs had cramped up, and my nerves felt like over-tightened guitar strings.

  I looked out the rear window and sighed. “I don’t see how we can keep this up,” I said. “What if we get caught the next time?”

  Lou shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head.

  For the rest of the drive home, Lou and I examined every single car we saw to see if it looked familiar. We hardly even talked because we were both too busy swivelling our heads every which way, peering into cars to see if we knew the driver. I was beginning to feel like an escaped convict on the run.

  Once we got to our usual parking spot a block away from my house, we were both still shaken by the close call with Scott. With the tension between us so high, our kisses were hotter and more urgent than ever before. Lou held me so tightly, I couldn’t breathe. We broke apart, gasping for air. After a moment, he leaned his forehead against mine and sighed. “What are we going to do, Krista?” he said desperately. “I want you, not Teresa. She’s great, but she’s just not for me.”

  “And I want to be with you,” I whispered. “But if we tell Scott and Ter about us, they’ll flip out.”

  “Or hate us forever,” Lou said darkly.

  He was right, I knew. Ter would never forgive me. And I didn’t expect her to. When I thought about what my friendship with her meant to me, I was filled with dread. Nothing—maybe not even Lou—could ever replace the years I shared with Ter.

  “Well,” I said, breaking the silence. “I’m going to be late for work if I don’t get going.” I kissed Lou one more time and ran home.

  For three weeks, I ached to be alone again with Lou. But because of our work schedules and the upcoming coffeehouse gig, we couldn’t find the time to sneak away together. A couple of times I stopped by the Quick Stop when I knew Lou was working, and we had to content ourselves with just looking at each other. He stopped by Taco Bell one night, too, but the light chitchat that passed between us wasn’t enough to satisfy my need to kiss him and be held by him.

  The coffeehouse was packed the Saturday night of our show. We could feel the energy in the room as soon as the stage lights came on and we started playing. All four of us were perfectly in sync, and we gave a great performance.

  As soon as the curtains closed over us, Mr. Kingston came to see us backstage. “There’s a guy out front who wants to talk to you,” he said. His face gave away nothing, and I couldn’t tell if he was happy with our performance or disappointed.

  The four of us exchanged puzzled looks. Then we cleared away our equipment from the stage and went to find the man Mr. Kingston had told us about.

  As it turned out, the man who wanted to see us was the manager of a brand-new condominium complex. He pulled us aside at the back of the coffeehouse and bought us Cokes.

  “We’ve built a complex for singles,” he said. “And we’re looking for a band to play for a couple of hours at our open house for potential buyers.”

  I saw a grin spread across Scott’s face.

  “I like how you guys sound,” the man went on. “And I like your name—High Pressure. Of course, you’re a little younger than I had in mind, but I’m offering you the job anyway. We’ll pay you two hundred dollars to play from two to five. Are you interested?”

  Ter, Lou, and I all looked at Scott with wide eyes. He scanned our faces, then cocked his head in a gesture that seemed to say, “Should we do it?”

  All three of us nodded.

  “Okay,” Scott said to the man.

  The man shook hands with all of us. Then he gave us the address, and the four of us went backstage to take our instruments out to our cars.

  “We’re on our way!” Scott yelled, punching a fist into the air.

  “We have to go celebrate this,” Lou said. “Let’s go have some Mexican food.”

  We chose a restaurant near the beach, and all the way there we repeated everything the manager had said over and over again. “I like how you guys sound.” “You’re a little younger than I had in mind. . . .” His words had meant everything to us, and we laughed as we relived the emotions we’d felt when he offered us the job.

  The four of us squeezed into a booth at the restaurant. Ter was plastered against Lou’s side, and Scott had his arm around me. It would have been easier for me if I hadn’t had to sit directly across from Lou. It took so much effort not to look at him. I had to turn sideways, so that I was facing Scott and Ter more. But even then, I could still see Lou out of the corner of my eye.

  Throughout the meal, Ter played with Lou’s hand and gazed at him adoringly. I tried looking everywhere but at their entwined fingers, but somehow my eyes kept wandering back.

  Then someone’s foot nudged mine under the table, and I noticed Lou had a smirk on his face. He wasn’t looking at me, but I knew it was his foot that had touched me. I was about to nudge him back playfully when he suddenly stomped on my toes. I jumped, and Lou put a hand over his mouth to hide his grin.

  Scott frowned at me. “You sure are jumpy tonight, Krista. You’re all over this booth. What’s the matter?”

  “Yeah,” Ter said. “You’re acting really strange. If I didn’t know you any better, I’d think you were doing drugs.”

  I swallowed and grabbed my glass to take a sip. My mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Of course I’m acting different,” I said. “I’m part of a band that’s being paid money to play.” I looked at Ter as if she should have realized that. “It’s pretty exciting, you know.”

  Ter nodded, but she still looked suspicious.

  Scott squeezed me around the shoulders and grinned. “Well, get used to it,” he said. “This is only the beginning.”

  His words echoed in my head. This is only the beginning. Scott looked into the future and saw the four of us together just the way we were. I assumed Ter did too.

  I looked at Lou across the table from me. I wondered what he was thinking. I was thinking that he and I would have to be first-class creeps to crush the happiness Scott and Ter seemed to be feeling tonight.

  Ter called after we’d both been taken home that night. I had already gone to bed, so I was surprised when the phone rang. “Krista, remember when I asked you to observe Lou and me when we’re together?” she asked. “You know, to see if it looked like he liked me as much as I like him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, tonight I felt like . . . like he really isn’t interested in me. I mean, he’s nice to me. But he’s always nice. I just don’t think that he likes me the way I like him. So what do you think?”

  I was thankful that Ter couldn’t see my face, because I’m sure guilt was written all over it. I knew I had to choose my words with care.

  “Ter, do you remember last year when you wrote me about how Jojo had a crush on Tim Spencer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And remember how you t
old her that maybe she just had to accept that things weren’t going to click between them?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want it to be like that with Lou and me,” Ter cried. “I want him to like me.” Her voice was filled with grief, and I closed me eyes, trying to hold the tears in.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said in a soothing voice.

  “Well, I’ll just have to try harder to get him to like me,” Ter said with determination. “I’ll see you tomorrow”

  “Yeah.” I hung up and stared into the darkness for a long time before falling asleep.

  So far, Lou and I had only had two dates. Since both Ter and Scott worked Monday nights, we tried for a third date the following Monday. I’d found a note from Lou in my locker saying he’d pick me up at six at our usual drop-off point a block away from my house.

  As I waited for Lou, I wondered how many more dates we would have before we figured out what to do about Scott and Ter. So far, neither Lou nor I had expressed how we felt about each other. I hadn’t told him that I loved him, and he hadn’t told me that he loved me. I was pretty sure I loved him. Did he love me?

  I resisted the urge to rip out one of the neighbor’s shasta daisies and perform the he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not ritual on it. I was afraid to face the answer. Because no matter how it turned out, somebody was going to get hurt.

  Lou arrived on time, and we began discussing how we would spend the evening. There weren’t any movies we were interested in. It was too chilly for the beach. And we couldn’t go to any of the malls because someone might recognize us. Then Lou mentioned that there was an art exhibit by Chicanos going on at Cal Poly, the local college, so we decided to drive up there to see it. I found it interesting, especially with Lou’s explanations of the different photographs and sculptures. And I was already familiar with some of Chicano history, because I had picked up a lot from Ter over the years.

  Lou and I came across a painting depicting several members of a gang. They stood on a street corner, wearing baggy pants and sullen expressions. “This is an example of what my father was trying to get us away from when we moved up here from the barrio—” Lou suddenly stopped speaking, and his grip on my hand tightened.

  Then I heard a girl’s voice behind me. “Hi, you two,” she said.

  I turned around and saw Cathy and Kevin. I had known that Kevin was interested in Cathy, but I hadn’t known they were actually dating. Of course, I’d been so obsessed with my own life lately, it wasn’t surprising I’d lost touch with other people.

  Lou dropped my hand, and I inched away from him, but I’m sure Cathy and Kevin had already seen us holding hands and standing close together.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound normal. Cathy looked at me with a questioning expression. “I didn’t know you guys were interested in art,” I said to them.

  “We were going to see a movie, but there’s nothing good in the theaters,” Kevin explained. His expression gave away nothing of his thoughts, but I was sure he was curious about what Lou and I were doing together.

  “And since we have so many Chicanos in the area,” Cathy went on with a shy glance at Lou, “I suggested we come see the exhibit.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling awkward and self-conscious.

  “Well, we’re about done here and we have to get going,” Lou said suddenly. “See you.”

  We left quickly and headed straight for his truck without saying a word. Lou started driving back toward Pismo, and I watched the road silently. I noticed he didn’t take a direct route home. Instead he took the long way, passing farms and vineyards. In the dusk the distant mountains looked blue and misty.

  After several minutes, Lou spoke. “We have to talk about this,” he said.

  I nodded. “I know.” My voice came out choked, and I sounded as if I were on the verge of tears.

  Lou drove a little farther, then turned off on a side road that led up into the hills, past horse ranches. There was a winery on top of a small hill, and its parking lot was empty. Lou pulled in and parked in a spot overlooking miles and miles of rolling hills.

  “We can’t go on like this,” Lou said, turning to look at me. “We have to make some kind of decision.”

  “I know,” I answered, looking down into my lap.

  “So, do we tell Scott and Ter about us? Or . . .” He paused, then said the words I dreaded. “Or give each other up?”

  I shivered at the thought of losing him. But I knew he was right. We had to make a decision. The constant tension caused by our sneaking around was becoming impossible to bear. “If we tell Scott and Ter—” I began.

  “We lose our best friends,” Lou said, finishing my sentence.

  I swallowed back an obstruction in my throat. My eyes burned. My head ached. Ter had never done anything to hurt me. To hurt her after all our years of friendship seemed too awful to contemplate.

  Lou shifted in his seat. “Well, I guess if we’re not in, uh, love with each other yet, we could go back to the way we were.” If Lou loved me, this would have been the time for him to say so. But he hadn’t. He had spoken slowly and deliberately as if he didn’t like telling me that he hadn’t fallen in love with me the way he’d thought he might.

  I closed my eyes. A dull ache seemed to be filling my whole body. At that moment, I knew I loved him, but I wasn’t brave enough to put my heart out in full view and tell him so.

  “Yeah” was all I could get past the lump in my throat.

  Lou didn’t say anything. He just stared straight ahead, his body upright and rigid. Finally he reached for the ignition and started the truck.

  “That’s it then,” he said in a strained voice. “I guess you can go on dating Scott, and I’ll—” He didn’t finish the thought, but I guessed he was trying to tell me that he’d go on dating Ter. I was happy for her. But I wanted to die.

  We drove in total silence back to my neighborhood. For the last time Lou parked down the road from my house. He turned toward me, but I couldn’t see his face in the darkness. He probably couldn’t see mine either, and I was thankful for that. Tears burned my eyes, and I knew they would start falling any second.

  “Well, that’s that, I guess,” Lou said.

  “Yeah.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Umhm.”

  Lou put his hands on the steering wheel.

  He can’t wait for me to get out of here, I thought. I jumped out of the truck, slammed the door shut behind me, and raced home.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I lived through the next week feeling as if someone had shot my brain full of Novocain. I went through every school day looking like a model student, appearing attentive to the teachers in class. I sat up straight at my desk and looked directly ahead of me, my focus never wavering. But I had no idea what my teachers were saying.

  My mother complained that we never had time for our cooking lessons because I was always practicing for the band, and when I was home I was practicing my violin. She was right. I had gone over the score for The Nutcracker so much, I was beginning to hate it. But playing music I hated was far better than being alone with my thoughts.

  I managed to get through the band’s practice sessions by concentrating on my music to the exclusion of everything else. I started to play really well as a result, and Scott noticed the improvement.

  “Krista, you’re really turning into a great musician,” he said to me one day.

  “Thanks,” I said and forced a smile.

  “I knew you had it in you the first time I heard you play,” he went on. He nodded his head toward Lou and Ter. “If these two ever quit, you and I can make a career together.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Ter objected. “Don’t write us off so quickly.”

  He grinned at her. “Well, I guess you’re not a bad musician, either,” he said. “But Lou, there, seems to be in a trance these days.”

  Lou looked over at us and shrugged.

  “What do you mean?” Ter asked, rising to Lou’s defense.

  �
��Oh, nothing,” Scott said. “I was just kidding.” He bent over his amp and began fiddling with some dials.

  But I knew Scott wasn’t kidding. Lou had been doing a decent job of playing the drums, but he did lack zip. I wondered if he was sorry he’d broken up with me. Or was he just tired of being with Ter? Or was it possible that he didn’t want to be with the band anymore?

  I’d been careful not to bring up Lou in conversations I had with Ter. And oddly, she hadn’t said anything about him either. It wasn’t like Ter to keep her thoughts to herself, and it was odd that she had suddenly stopped talking to me about him. I wondered for one horrible moment if Cathy and Kevin had told her they’d seen us at the exhibit. But I knew Ter would’ve just asked me about it if she had heard something. She would never suspect any wrongdoing.

  Scott came by work one Sunday night, and hung around until I got off work at ten.

  “My parents have agreed to let me major in music at the college of my choice,” he announced jubilantly when I joined him outside the restaurant.

  “That’s great,” I said, truly happy for him.

  “You know what this means?” he asked, smiling.

  “No. What?”

  “You and I should pick the same college.”

  “Huh? Why?” I asked.

  He gave me a look that told me he thought the reasons were obvious. “Because if we’re going to keep playing together, you and I have to go to the same college.”

  I tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t seem too insensitive. Finally I just gave up and said honestly, “Scott, what about my career as a storyteller?”

  He frowned. “Krista, you won’t have to do that if we can make a career together,” he said. “I guess you’re not as gung ho about being a musician as I thought.”

  “But, Scott, I told you. I really want to be a storyteller,” I said. “And I’ve already chosen the colleges I’m going to apply to. I’m majoring in English, remember? So I can be a teacher?” I tried to make eye contact with him as I spoke, but he was looking down at the pavement.