It's All About Us

by Shelley Adina

  “No, never. You?”

  I nodded. “I love it. I haven’t been doing it very long. Haven’t traded out my longboard or anything, but it’s so much fun.” I scanned the sets as they rolled in. Half a dozen guys in black neoprene suits waited in the line. If I’d had my stuff, I’d have been out there with them. Three-foot waves and not much traffic? Perfect.

  “Yeah?” Callum’s easy smile bewitched me. Again. I keep saying that, don’t I? But it was true. “Little Surfer Girl, huh?”

  I glanced at him. “You listen to the Beach Boys? My mom has all their records in vinyl. She never has time to listen to them now, though, even if she did set up the turntable.”

  “Nah. My dad had a CD in this morning. Some kind of remix.” He looked out at the waves, where the first guy in line had popped to his feet and taken off. “Doesn’t look too hard. Kinda like skateboarding.”

  I made a mock-choking sound of disbelief in my throat. “Surfing isn’t as easy as that guy makes it look. On a skateboard, you don’t have to deal with an ocean that has a mind of its own, not to mention sandbars and rocks.”

  Another sidelong glance at me. “So when am I going to see you out there?”

  “As soon as I get my board and suit from my dad’s, if you want.”

  I could think of nothing I’d rather do than spend a day on the waves with Callum. We’d have to do it quickly, though. Indian summer couldn’t last forever, and while I’d done it down south, I’d bet that winter surfing up here was a lot colder.

  “Maybe after this Benefactors’ Day gig, we can all rent the stuff and you can teach us.”

  My nice little vision lurched to a halt, as if someone had hit Pause on the remote. “Us?”

  “Yeah. Make a day of it. We talked about this before—you, me, Vanessa, Brett, all you girls on the committee. The ones we hang out with.”

  “Oh. Sure we could, but I was thinking it could be just you and me the first time. It’s easier to learn without an audience.”

  “Did I tell you Vanessa and Brett made it official?”

  Whoa. Newsflash.

  Poor Carly.

  “Really?”

  “They came for dinner last night, and you couldn’t peel them off each other. I called to invite you, but you didn’t pick up.”

  “Brett and Vanessa? I thought he was just friends with her, like you are.”

  “Yeah, so did I. But I guess Vanessa had a change of heart. And he’s not going to say no.”

  That was a funny way to put it, but I didn’t care. Vanessa was off the market, and my relationship with Callum had just become a couple degrees more secure. Especially since he’d invited me to do something with his family twice in one day. The fact that I couldn’t go didn’t change the fact that he’d wanted me to.

  So the surf lesson wasn’t going to be private. I could live with that. Everything else was perfect.

  We didn’t say much as we walked, hand in hand, for at least a mile down the beach. It was great to be with someone you could just be quiet with, you know? No pressure. No performance. Just an appreciation of the wind, and the skittering antics of the sandpipers, and the bright colors of pebbles worn to roundness.

  At the same time, though, silence like that makes you think. And I was thinking about what Kaz had said about talking to Callum about this sex thing. The farther we walked, and the more I got used to the feel of his hand around mine, the more I wondered if maybe Kaz was right. After all, this involved just two people. How come I was going to everyone else for advice instead of being honest with the one I cared about?

  “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  “Sure.” He squeezed my hand and tugged me closer to the water line. The fog finally lifted enough for the sun to glow through a thin membrane of cloud, so I took that as a good sign.

  “I’ve been wondering . . . I mean, I’ve heard that you’ve had a lot of girlfriends.”

  He glanced at me, puzzled yet smiling. “Yeah? You’re the only one around right now.”

  I smiled back, both at the reassurance and at the way he accepted “girlfriend.” “I know, but rumor has it you go through them pretty fast.”

  Now the smile lessened and the puzzled look increased. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Are you worried?”

  “No . . .” Oh, just spit it out, Lissa. Guys hate when girls beat around the bush. “But I wondered if this thing about making love would make a difference. Between us, I mean.”

  No smile, all puzzled. “What thing?”

  “You know. Remember, I told you I’d made a commitment about not having sex before I was married?”

  “Yeah. But I thought you said we could work around that.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. What exactly does that mean?”

  The smile had come back, at least. But I couldn’t tell if it was a smiling-at-Lissa smile or plain old amusement at a silly question. A flush crept into my face.

  “You want me to tell you about the birds and the bees?” he joked.

  Okay, feeling small and very dumb. “No, I want you to tell me what you want from me.”

  “I don’t want anything more than you want to give.” Now, that was better. Something inside that had been coiled up with embarrassment began to relax. “When you’re ready for it, I will be, too.” He stopped walking and ran both hands up my arms. “You’ve gotta know that I want you. I want to spend the night—I told you that already. Does that answer your question?”

  “Sort of,” I mumbled. When had I ever thought I was even a little bit experienced? I should be handling this better. The girl was the one who said how far things went, right? Then how come I was doing the asking?

  “What brought this on?”

  I shrugged. “I was talking with a friend of mine and he said I should go to the source. So that’s what I’m doing.”

  “He did, huh? Anybody I know?”

  “No. An old friend from Santa Barbara.”

  “You’re talking about me with old boyfriends?” His tone was so casual, as though it wasn’t a big deal. That should have warned me right there.

  “He was never a boyfriend. I’ve known him forever. He’s the one who taught me to surf.”

  “So you’re talking with him about our love life and he told you to ask me? Next time you talk to him, tell him I sure appreciate that.”

  Moments too late, it dawned on me that Callum could get upset. He’d picked up the pace and, worse, dropped my hand and jammed both of his into the pockets of his thick gray hoodie.

  “What’s the matter?” I demanded, slipping my hand under his arm to slow him down. “I didn’t go into details. Mostly because there aren’t any. I was just asking. I kept it general.”

  “It’s hard to keep that general.”

  “Well, I did. Callum, stop. He doesn’t know anything.”

  “How long will that last?” he wanted to know. “You talk to everybody.”

  “I do not.” At this pace, we’d be back at the car in a few minutes.

  “What about Vanessa?”

  “She’s your friend.”

  “And that Chinese girl?”

  “Her name is Gillian. And she’s my friend.”

  “Great. So you’re gossiping about me to three people. So far. Who’s next? The paparazzi?”

  “No.” My throat ached and the wind had whipped tears from my eyes. “I don’t gossip. And I never, ever talk to the rags.”

  Finally, at the car, he looked me full in the face. “What do you call it, then? What we do is between us, Lissa. It’s nobody else’s business.”

  “I was just—”

  He opened my door from his side and I fell into the passenger seat as if my legs could hardly hold me up.

  “I hate people talking about me.” He gunned the engine and backed out of the parking spot with barely a look at what might be behind him. “I hate them watching me. I hate that I can hardly walk home after school without a backup escape route. I told you before how I felt about it. It’s h
ard enough with everybody else, but I thought with you at least I’d have someone to talk to that I could trust.”

  “You can trust me.” I could hardly get the words out through my misery. “I didn’t think talking to my friends and yours was so wrong.”

  “It’s wrong for me. Yack yack, behind my back. It makes me sick.”

  Did he mean I made him sick, too? I didn’t have the guts to ask. I wanted to cry, and at the same time, I didn’t want him to see me do it. So I just stayed quiet, blinking back tears and trying to hold it together until we got back to San Francisco.

  How could such a harmless thing as talking over my options with my friends—and his—make him so mad? These were people he knew, not some reporter from the Enquirer. How could you not talk over something as important as your commitment to God versus your commitment to your guy? How did a person figure these things out otherwise? Ask their parents? Look it up online?

  I talked over most things with Mom and Dad, but their time was scarce and getting them focused on my stuff was harder than you’d think. Other than when they got calls from the headmistress, of course. That focused them pretty quick.

  As we climbed the last hill that would take us to the Spencer drive, I reached a calm enough place that I could speak without crying.

  “Thanks for taking me to the beach.”

  No reply. He stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel as though we were in an F-18 and about to fly through those gates on one wingtip. I gulped. Was this how a relationship ended? With one mistake and cold silence?

  I picked up my stuff from the floor and pushed my door open as the car rolled to a stop. “I guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

  He hesitated a moment, then nodded. I sucked an ounce of hope out of that. A nod was good. I could build on that.

  Of course, it also meant I was back at ground zero, having to start over, building something I had thought was already standing.

  THERE’S NO TORTURE quite so fine as having to make people think you still belong to someone when you’re not sure yourself.

  I told Gillian what a wonderful time we’d had at the beach, hoping she wouldn’t ask why I’d come back to school without having dinner with Callum first. And when she popped a DVD into her Mac with its seventeen-inch screen, I didn’t complain when it was Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. I was just thankful that for two hours I didn’t have to talk about Callum.

  Monday morning I went to the dining room at the last possible minute and snagged a yogurt, then timed it so I got to math class after I saw Callum and Brett go in.

  And I got my reward. He smiled at me.

  I smiled back as though we’d spent the last twelve hours in romantic bliss and slid into my seat feeling as though the sun had come out and a gospel choir had just swung into the “Hallelujah Chorus” in the back of the room.

  I’d never say another word about our relationship to anyone again. From now on, we’d have a total cone of silence over us, and what happened inside would stay inside. Wild horses wouldn’t drag our secrets out of me, so that—

  “Lissa!” Vanessa grabbed my arm and hustled me into the nearest empty room. “We have to talk.”

  I looked around at the maps and the diagrams of the earth’s crust. The Earth Sciences classroom.

  “What’s up?”

  She threw her arms around me in a victory hug. “You are so amazing for getting Angelina for us!”

  Grinning, I hugged her back. “No problem. She’ll fly in, do our gig, and fly out again. My mom’s taking care of it. We can send the donation later.”

  “Utterly cool. I love it when people take things off my plate and just deal with them. Not that I wouldn’t delegate getting her a limo and stuff. But now I don’t have to.”

  I glanced around. “So is that why you dragged me in here?”

  “No, silly. That was just props in person for a job well done. I dragged you in here to tell you something massive.”

  “You and Brett.”

  She blinked at me. “You just found out about that?”

  “Callum told me yesterday.”

  She waved it off. “Oh, yeah. We’ve been together for a while now. Totally meant to be. Which is kind of a nice segue to what I want to tell you.”

  I couldn’t imagine what she and Brett had to do with me, unless she was going to propose a double date or something corny like that. “What?”

  “Well, you know his family has this sublime winery up in Napa.”

  A number of restaurants, some prime chunks of San Francisco real estate. A trust fund. A winery did not surprise me a bit. “Okay.”

  “We’ve been dying to get some time alone, away from this dive, so we decided to go up for a getaway. We’re leaving after class on Friday.”

  Wait a second. “But what about the ball?”

  “What about it? We’ll only be gone Friday night. We’re totally skipping the guest tours and parental stuff, but I’ll be back by three or so on Saturday to start getting ready. You should see my dress. No one will have anything like it.”

  No one would have anything like my silver-and-white waterfall dress, either.

  “I can’t wait to see it,” I said. “Well, I need to go. Have a great time at the vineyard.”

  “No, wait.” She put a hand on my wrist. “I haven’t told you yet. I was thinking about what you said the other night in my room.”

  “Vanessa, I’d rather we didn’t—”

  “And here’s the plan. I know how hard it is to get time alone with your man. Callum’s living at home. You have a roommate. You never get any privacy, because wherever you go, people are always watching.”

  “Well—”

  “Believe me, I know. I can never wear the same thing twice when I go out. The paparazzi are a total pain.”

  “But—”

  “So here’s the thing. It’s perfect. I don’t have a roommate this term, and I’ll be gone Friday night. I’ll leave my spare key with you, and you and Callum can use my room!”

  Her eyes sparkled as if she’d just given me the best present ever.

  I didn’t know what to say. “Wow, um, that’s very generous of you—but I don’t think—”

  With a wave of her hand, she shut me up. No loss. My brain and my mouth refused to connect, mostly because this was so out there on so many levels I didn’t know where to start.

  “Don’t worry about Callum. He’ll totally go for it. Even if a girl gets that far with him, it’s hard for him to take her home. Nine times out of ten, if he thinks the coast is clear, somebody shows up and totally spoils the moment. But this way, you’re guaranteed no interruptions.” She grinned. “Even if I forget my hair dryer, I promise I won’t come back.”

  Now was not the time to break the news that Callum was mad at me and my whole Benefactors’ Day weekend was in jeopardy.

  “But guys aren’t allowed in the girls’ dorm,” I said, sounding lame even to myself. Girls like Vanessa paid no attention to rules. She’d just think I was a little teacher’s pet for caring. But after the concealed alcohol episode, I did care. I didn’t want to get expelled and sent somewhere that meant I’d never see Callum again.

  Again the airy wave of the hand Vanessa used to dispense with objections. Like a magic wand. She ignored them, thus they had no reality. “Pfft. I’m on the ground floor. Callum can come in the window. Easy. No one needs to know he was there.”

  Except me. And Vanessa. And, undoubtedly, Brett Loyola. And how would Callum handle that? How would he feel about being set up for a romantic rendezvous? Would he see it as his lifelong friend trying to help, or as totally aggro interference that would break us up for good?

  As I followed Vanessa out the door, I came to the only conclusion I could.

  I had to ask him. I had to risk it. I had to do something to mend this chasm between us, and if that meant making him an offer he couldn’t refuse, then I’d do it.

  Spending the rest of the school year as another one of Callum’s exes would be i
nfinitely worse.

  LMansfieldCan we talk?

  CMcCloudOK.

  LMansfieldGrab a sandwich and meet me on side lawn?

  CMcCloudWhat’s up?

  LMansfieldA surprise.

  CMcCloudGood or bad?

  LMansfieldIt’s good to be bad.

  Chapter 22

  THE CHICKEN SALAD and avocado sandwich felt like paste in my mouth as I watched Callum cross the lawn. I took a quick swallow of Odwalla pomegranate juice and hoped I didn’t have tarragon in my teeth as I smiled up at him from my seat on the grass.

  “Hey.” He sprawled next to me and investigated the contents of his own sandwich.

  No smile, no kiss. I may as well have been one of the guys.

  I visualized the two of us whirling onto the dance floor and took courage.

  “I’m sorry I made you mad yesterday,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “What won’t?”

  “Me talking to people about us.”

  He looked a little lost, as if this hadn’t been what he was expecting. “Oh. Okay. That’s good.”

  “What did you think I was going to say?”

  He shrugged and took an enormous bite of his sandwich. He’d picked the roast beef. Typical. “Nothing. Stuff at home stinks. I’m kinda stressed about it.”

  I went straight into Concerned Girlfriend mode. “Want to talk about it? Can I help?”

  He shook his head and frowned, as though that was the last solution he’d pick. “Talking about it wrecks my mood. So.” He brightened a little. “What’s all this about being good to be bad?”

  “Promise you won’t be mad.”

  “Okay.”

  “Vanessa came to me with this totally illegal plan. You’ll laugh.”

  “Probably. She comes up with some whacked ideas. And they usually are illegal.”

  “She and Brett are going to Napa Friday night. And she’s leaving her room key with me in case I want to use it.”

  He finished his sandwich and glanced at me. “What for? You need a quiet place to study?”

  Yes, that was so my image. Me, giving up a Friday night to hit the books.

  “No.” With one finger, I smoothed a stray lock of hair away from his chin. “I was thinking more of having some privacy with you.”