“What kind of talk?”
“You know,” said Marianne, looking at him significantly. She mouthed the word “sex.”
Patrick’s mouth fell open. “Is that what she was getting at?”
“So she was tactful after all?” Marianne was totally shocked. “Or are you lying?”
“She talked about you, but nothing like that.”
Marianne stabbed at her food with her fork. She’d been too embarrassed to tell Patrick anything about her parents’ reaction, and here she was spilling it on accident. She should have trusted Mom more.
“Why would your mom have a sex talk with me,” he asked. “Did you tell her—”
“No!” Marianne looked at him in horror. She shook her head in defeat. “My dad saw your truck outside the morning you came home early. They freaked.”
Patrick bit his lip. “Do they hate me now?”
“No. I told them nothing happened, they just don’t believe me,” said Marianne. “Mom even got a birds and bees book to torture me with. I mean, frick! You’d think I was thirteen years old. I told her—”
“So you lied to them?” he asked, cutting her off.
“What? Did you want me to lay it all out?” She gawked at him. “Maybe we should take photos next time to—”
“Marianne!”
“Well?”
“No,” he laughed. “I don’t want you to lay it all out. I just don’t like you having to lie for me.”
“I lied for me,” she said. “I mean, you should have heard her. She even printed out pictures of gonorrhea off the internet.”
He wrinkled his nose.
“Overprotective twit,” she mumbled.
“She just loves you,” he said. “She said that you were her gold. And that it would break her heart if anything happened to you.”
“Laid it on thick, did she?”
“It was sweet.” Patrick smiled, then exhaled and turned away.
“What?”
“Ah, just parents.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I kind of hoped I’d left that whole scene behind. It’s good for me, though. Keeps me in check.”
Right. Apparently, Mom wasn’t the only one who thought of Marianne as a thirteen-year-old. She stiffened up and put her half-finished plate down on the table. “Yeah, it would really suck to date an actual grownup.”
Patrick frowned at her. “I didn’t mean anything like that.”
Maybe not, but she still wanted him to explain. “That’s what you said.”
“That’s not what I said, and that’s not what I meant.” He kicked her lightly on the leg. “Stop fighting with me. I wanted to take you out tonight.”
Never mind the explanations. Marianne smiled big. “Well, in that case...”
Patrick winked at her. “Have you ever been Frisbee golfing?”
“Have I ever been what?”
“You’ll like it, I promise. Go get ready.” He glanced down at her plate. “Are you done?”
She nodded. “I’ll meet you back here in ten.”
Marianne went home and found her parents in the backyard. She hung on the frame and stuck her head out the door. “I’m going out.”
“Is that an apology?” asked Mom.
Dad fixed his eyes on Mom and said, “Sophie,” under his breath.
Mom crossed her legs and looked away.
“Take your cell phone,” said Dad to Marianne.
Mom gave him a dirty look. “That almost sounds like you’re telling her what to do, Jimmy.”
Dad returned Mom’s look and then gave Marianne a forced smile. “Would you mind taking your phone so you can call if you need anything?”
Mom laughed once. “Oh, is that how this is going to work?” she said. “We have no say in anything, but she gets to call us to rescue her?”
“Yes,” said Dad in a quiet, hard voice. “That’s how it works.” This was a big fight, Marianne could tell. Dad usually kept his opinion to himself where parenting technique was concerned.
Mom exhaled and fixed her eyes on Marianne. “You’d better hope it’s him that answers when you get your one phone call.”
Marianne looked at Dad, and he shrugged slightly.
“What the hell!” said Mom. “You think I can’t see you?” She stood up quickly.
Whoa.
“Sophie, come on...” said Dad.
She rounded on him. “What?”
“Just hold on.” He looked around her to Marianne. “You can go now, Mary.”
“There you go again!” shouted Mom. “Don’t act like I’m the crazy one here. She just listens to you because you give her whatever she wants!”
“Can’t you see the difference here?” Dad was getting angry now.
Schnykies. Marianne backed away from the door and fled to her room. She grabbed her jacket and purse and changed her shoes. She felt bad for Mom—it wasn’t fun to get ganged up on—but not bad enough to go make up with her. The lady needed to chill out. She put her hair up in a ponytail and went to the bathroom to take care of some egg roll business. Patrick could force her to eat, but he couldn’t make her keep it down.
Marianne had the faucet running to provide cover noise and was head down over the toilet, smack dab in the middle of things, when the door clicked open beside her. “Mary?” called Mom.
Crap! Marianne jerked backward and tossed her toothbrush in the sink with a loud clatter. When the hell would Mom learn to knock first?
Mom opened the door in time to see Marianne getting up off her knees. “Honey, are you sick?”
“Um, yeah,” breathed Marianne. She wiped her eyes and tried to sound fatigued. She leaned forward quickly and flushed the toilet. “I mean, no. I thought I was going to be sick, but I’m fine now. False alarm.”
Mom put her hand on Marianne’s shoulder. “Can I get you something?” She was acting pretty friendly, so she must have come in to say sorry. Sickness by itself wouldn’t have transformed her so quickly.
“I’ll take some water,” said Marianne.
“Okay, sweetie,” she said. “You should get in bed.”
“No, it’s okay. I feel better now.”
“But...” Mom snapped her mouth shut. No doubt, she was hearing Dad’s recent lecture playing in her head. “I’ll get you some water.”
Mom walked away, and Marianne brushed her teeth. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! If Mom ever caught her again, she’d know that something was up. It would hurt her, and that would suck. She had to time her eating patterns better from now on. Get more control. If she’d been less hungry before, she wouldn’t have gone overboard when Patrick forced that plate into her hands. Besides, she didn’t even like puking; it was gross and dangerous. If she lived alone, it would be one thing... Yeah, better timing was the answer. Stay hungry, but not so much that she might fall into another binge. That could work.
She picked up her stuff from off the ground and walked into the living room. She rounded the corner to the front hall and saw Mom answering the door for Patrick.
He smiled at both of them. “Hi.”
“Hi,” said Marianne. “I’m ready. Let’s go,” she said quickly.
“Mary, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Mom. She still looked worried.
“Nah, it’s cool,” mumbled Marianne. “Ready?” she asked Patrick brightly.
Patrick looked at Mom, confused.
“She’s sick again,” said Mom. “I think she should stay in bed.”
Marianne froze on the spot and held her breath. She wasn’t prepared for this... Patrick was going to know everything in about ten seconds and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Patrick creased his forehead. “You’re sick?”
Yes and no. Marianne just stood there. She didn’t respond at all. She couldn’t think of one blessed way to lie her way out of this. He’d never buy the sick story. Not this time.
Mom nodded at Patrick. “I found her in the bathroom throwing up,” said Mom. “You wouldn’t want to take her out like that
, right?”
Patrick stared at Marianne. She saw the exact moment when his brain clicked it all into place. She saw his lips part slightly and his slow exhale. His gaze flicked down over her body, but he didn’t speak.
Mom was watching her, but Marianne didn’t care. She let the grief show unhidden on her face. She shook her head a fraction of an inch, though she didn’t know what she meant by it. It may have been a denial; it may have been her pleading with him to not be angry.
Patrick put his hand behind his neck and cleared his throat. “I don’t think you’re sick, Marianne.”
No! Marianne’s knees did a little spasm. She was either going to bolt in the other direction or collapse. He wouldn’t out her to Mom. He couldn’t.
He didn’t. Patrick looked at Mom, then back again. “I think your dinner just didn’t agree with you.”
“Yeah,” said Marianne. She was impressed with how much volume she managed. “That has to be it.”
“Because you feel a lot better, right?” asked Patrick.
“Yeah, I feel fine.” Marianne was so grateful that he was covering for her, she’d have gone along with anything he said.
“Good.” He smiled at her. “So, um... you still want to go, right?”
Conniving bastard. He was just trying to get her alone so he could interrogate her. She should have known. She didn’t want to go anywhere with him.
... or maybe she did, deep down.
Patrick saw the indecision on her face and gave her a hard look while Mom wasn’t looking. Marianne responded to the order instinctively, though not without a surge of resentment. “Yeah, I want to go.”
“Mary,” whined Mom.
“I’ll be home early,” she said. “And Patrick will bring me home right away if I get sick again. Okay?”
“Whatever,” said Mom, tight-lipped.
Marianne smiled at her and walked out the door with Patrick. They crossed the yard toward his truck in silence. Marianne didn’t want to be alone with him, and yet she did. She had to clear this up; it was nothing, and he needed to know that.
They got in the truck, and Patrick started the engine. “I don’t think either of us wants to go Frisbee golfing anymore.” He looked at her when he spoke, but only in brief spurts. “Do you want to get a coffee or something?”
“Sure.” Marianne forced a little smile onto her face. “No calories in coffee.”
Patrick looked at her like her head had been cut off.
She wrinkled her nose. “Bad joke?”
He nodded enthusiastically.
“Too soon?”
“Yes, Marianne,” he moaned. “Way too soon.” He reached over and pulled her toward him by the arm.
She scooted to the middle seat and buckled herself in. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Coffee sounds perfect,” she said. “But let’s just drive through. I don’t want to sit in public.”
Patrick pulled away from the curb and drove out of the neighborhood. “So, um... go ahead.”
Oh. Marianne thought she might throw up again just from the nerves. She shifted her face on his jacket to look at him. “I’m sorry for all the times I lied to you.”
“Is that over now?” He didn’t look down at her.
“Yes,” she said quietly. She kind of hoped she was telling the truth.
“Okay so...” He paused. “Is it... How... Gah, I don’t even know what to do right now.”
“It’s okay,” said Marianne, sitting up and pleading with her eyes. But he wasn’t looking at her. How long until he could look at her normally again? “It’s okay. It’s not what you think.”
Patrick drove like a super stiff robot. He glanced down a few times, always with that same panicked, tight-jawed expression. “I don’t know anything about this,” he said when they were a few blocks away from home, “but I want you to give me all the details. Can you do that?” He wasn’t being sarcastic. He was really asking.
“Yes. It’s really—”
“Don’t tell me it’s no big deal,” said Patrick.
“But what if that’s the truth?” she asked.
“If that’s the truth, you’re going to need to sell it good. And I probably still won’t believe you.”
“Okay.” Marianne sighed and started wringing her hands. “We can talk about this, but just... don’t get too serious on me, okay? You have to make a joke out of everything I say, okay?”
He stared forward at the traffic. “Any other rules before you start?”
“Yes,” she said. “You have to believe everything I say.”
“Lies and all?”
“I’m not going to lie,” she snapped.
“I know; that was a joke,” he said, smiling. Almost. “See how obedient I am?”
“Well, that wasn’t very funny.”
“The jokes have to be funny, too?” He shook his head, not smiling anymore. “You ask a lot.”
“So do you.”
He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He stopped at a red light and looked at her, gesturing toward his mouth, “I’ve got nothing funny for that one,” he whispered.
Marianne laughed. “Okay,” she cleared her throat. “Here we go... See I hardly ever do it—and even when I do, it’s not like all crazy and dramatic like how you’re thinking it is.”
His jaw tightened again, and he smiled. “Was I supposed to understand that sentence?”
“I don’t have an eating disorder,” she said seriously.
“So...” He searched for the right words. “It’s just a fun hobby, then.”
“It just a nothing. It’s nothing to me. I only do it because I’m an idiot.” She looked out the windshield as they started driving again, taking a deep breath. This was so hard to explain. “It’s just a cheat. But it’s not a problem. I don’t have to do it. I just do.”
“Because you’re an idiot.”
“Yes.” Marianne smiled and punched him on the arm. “Now you’re getting it.”
He scowled at her. “Leave the jokes to me, such as they are.”
Marianne slumped down and let all the air out of her lungs. “Okay, forget the jokes. Just listen, okay?” She picked at her nail polish. “It started because I ate way too much this one night. I was all depressed that I’d blown my diet, so I just thought, ‘Hey, get rid of it,’ And I did.”
Patrick turned to pull into the coffee shop drive-through. “When was this?”
“Uh...” Marianne spoke slowly and unwillingly, but she’d promised to tell the truth. “The day you moved in.”
Patrick nodded slowly.
“Oh, don’t read anything into it,” said Marianne. “It didn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Much,” he said.
“At all,” said Marianne. “So I cheated that one night, and then—”
“Black coffee?” he asked, with an edge to his voice at the word black.
Marianne nodded without letting any contempt show on her face. Was this an omen of what Patrick was going to be like from now on? Overprotective and assuming? She could just see him at her next birthday, forming a cake out of lettuce leaves and putting candles on it. He wouldn’t want to tempt her to purge, of course.
Marianne waited to talk until they had their coffees and were parked in a spot facing the busy street. “Anyway... I cheated that one night, and then I did it a few times after just because it’s so easy. Bam. The mistake is gone. See?”
“How many times?”
“But you see how it’s not psycho, right? Just cheating.”
“How many times?”
Marianne blew her bangs out of her eyes. “I don’t know... six times?”
Patrick leveled his eyes on her. “Six?”
She counted back in her head to make sure. “Yeah, I don’t remember exactly. But probably six times.” Even Marianne was surprised by her count. It had seemed like more.
“That’s a lot of cheating for two months, don’t you think?”
She drew out her words so he wouldn�
�t miss any. “I don’t have an eating disorder.”
“How do you know?”
Marianne looked out the windshield. “Say what you want, but I’m the one who’s me. I’m in my brain. I know why I do things, and I don’t do them because of some psycho compulsion.”
“But if you were psycho, you wouldn’t really know it, would you?”
She gave him a dirty look. “Do you want me to tear your face off? Is that what you want?”
He smiled. “I don’t think you’re psycho. But just because it didn’t start as anything psycho, as you put it, doesn’t mean that it can’t catch you.”
Marianne let her face show him what an idiot she thought he was. “You don’t just stumble your way into an eating disorder.”
“No?”
“Noooo.”
He crossed his arms. “Well, then how do you get one?”
Marianne sputtered a few times before answering. “You... you get traumatized when you’re little, and then you just start blacking out and doing crazy stuff for no reason.”
“Wow,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “You really sound like an expert on this subject.”
“Fine. I have no idea what causes an eating disorder.” She pointed down at her palm like it was a book. “But I looked it up online. I don’t have bulimia.”
Patrick gawked at her. “And here I thought I was the uneducated one. I have so many problems with that statement that I don’t know where to start.”
Marianne turned away. “Start at the beginning, smartass.”
“Well, I’ll just pass by the fact that you’re trusting the internet with your life—”
“I’m not going to die from fake bulimia!”
“I know.” Patrick picked up his coffee and swirled it around. “You’re going to die from real anorexia.”
Marianne rolled her eyes. “Oh, geez... that’s what Sally said, too. You guys are so far off.”
Patrick’s mouth fell open. “You talked to Sally about this?”
Uh-oh. “She brought it up.” Way to cast blame, Marianne.
Patrick shifted in his seat. “So have I.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I asked you specifically about this at the beach. Remember?”
Marianne felt super guilty then. He was right to look at her the way he was. Marianne nodded at her coffee. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She looked up at him. “But... there was nothing to tell you. There’s still nothing.”
Marianne Page 28
