by Brea Essex
Right as I reached for the bathroom door, my cell rang. I briefly considered ignoring it, but then I decided I should. It might be Andrei. I hoped he wasn’t calling to cancel.
I breathed a small sigh of relief when I glanced at the screen and saw Cady’s name and picture. Then I rolled my eyes. She sometimes had the worst timing. Well, if I didn’t answer now, she would just keep calling. I slid my finger across the screen. “Yeah?” I said shortly.
I heard giggling on the other end. “Wow, did I catch you in a bad mood or something?” Cady asked.
“No, just busy,” I answered as I paced the room, trying to figure out how to get her off the phone quickly.
“You can’t be that busy. I just saw you at work like an hour ago!”
“Well, I’m a little busy right now, um, with homework.”
“Yeah, right! You think I can’t tell by now when you’re lying? What’d you do after work? C’mon, spill!”
I sat down on my bed. I would have to tell her the truth—otherwise I would never get her off the phone. “Okay, okay! I have a date with this guy tonight.”
“Seriously? I thought we were going to hang out tonight.”
“I never said we were going to hang out tonight,” I reminded her. “Now, I need to go get ready.”
“Wait! What guy?”
“Gotta go, Cady. Call you later!” I touched “end,” cutting off her protests.
I tossed my phone onto my bed and headed for the bathroom I shared with Tanis, grabbing my robe off the back of my desk chair as I went. The bathroom sat between our bedrooms, providing easy access to each other’s room—or more like my room, when she wanted to grill me about something. To my dismay, she stood in front of the mirror brushing her hair.
She glanced at the robe in my hand. “Going somewhere?” she challenged. “You don’t usually take a shower in the middle of the day.”
“I just got off work,” I hedged. She arched a perfect blonde eyebrow at me, and I tried again. “I was at the beach.” Close enough to the truth. I had been near the beach.
“Funny, I don’t see any sand,” she pointed out.
“Fine, I’m going out to dinner!” I admitted. I wasn’t embarrassed to be going out with Andrei, but I didn’t want her to pry right now. Besides, I was considering straightening my hair, which always took forever, and I was starting to feel pressed for time.
“With who?” she wanted to know.
“You don’t know him. I just met him. Can I get in the shower now?” She was starting to irritate me.
“In a minute. Where’d you meet this guy?”
“Again, not telling you.”
“Will you at least tell me why you want to go out with someone you just met?”
“Um, I like him.” I realized I didn’t have an answer for her. It reminded me entirely too much of my conversation with Logan after class the day before. “Now, will you let me get ready?”
“Sure thing.” I was surprised she’d given up on her inquisition. She grabbed her hairbrush and sauntered toward her room without another word.
I exhaled slowly, heading to the door leading to Tanis’s room. I shut and locked it as she disappeared into her room. I locked the door that lead to my own room as well. I pulled a towel out of the linen closet and hung it on the towel hook. I reached into the shower and turned the water on as hot as I could.
When I got out, I wrapped my robe around me, tying the belt tightly. I stood in front of the mirror, contemplating my reflection. I still couldn’t decide whether to let my naturally wavy hair air-dry or put myself through the torture of drying and flat-ironing it. I finally plugged in my straightener and dug the hair dryer out from the cabinet below the sink.
It took a lot of hair products and a lot of heat to make my hair behave. It took me almost an hour to dry and style my hair, and another thirty minutes to apply my makeup. I looked myself over several times, unplugged my dryer and straightener, and headed back to my room to get dressed.
My phone rang again when I got back into my room. I picked it up from where I had dropped it on my bed. I groaned aloud when I saw Tristan’s number. Great. Cady must have called him. I didn’t feel like explaining myself to him, but he would just keep calling until I answered. He was almost as persistent as Cady.
I answered the phone. “Look, Tristan, I don’t have time to talk right now, and I’m not in the mood for a lecture, so can I just call you later?”
“Wow, what a greeting!” His voice came over the line. “I’m not going to lecture you. I’m just…worried.”
“Worried about what?” I asked.
“I always worry about you, Rae. Right now, I’m worried because you’re going out with some guy we’ve never heard about before—and you’re choosing him over your friends.”
“I never told Cady that we would hang out tonight!” I insisted.
“But you did tell me we would study tonight,” he reminded me.
Oops. “I’m so sorry! I forgot. Tomorrow?”
His sigh echoed through the phone. “All right,” he agreed. “But I’m holding you to it. I’m going to call you early, and you had better answer your phone.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I will.”
“One more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Leave your cell on, will you?”
“I always have my cell on,” I reassured him.
“That’s good.” He hesitated. “Just be careful. Call me if anything happens. I can come get you.”
“I promise,” I told him, a little confused. “Now, will you stop worrying?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. You can lecture me all you want,” I promised.
That made him laugh. “All right, talk to you then.”
“Gotta go. Bye!” I clicked off and dropped my phone back on the bed.
I glanced at my bedside clock. The two phone calls, plus Tanis’s interrogation, had seriously delayed me. I still had about twenty minutes left before Andrei would arrive. I slipped into my emerald dress, then went on a hunt for the perfect jewelry. Generally, I would go with silver, but tonight I felt like wearing gold. It went better with emerald green—something about the combination that reminded me of a forest at sunset. I added a necklace, bracelet, and earrings to my ensemble and went to my closet for my cute gold open-toed heels. As I slid them on, I heard the doorbell ring. Genevra answered the door, and I could hear the low murmur of Andrei talking to her.
I waited in my doorway, listening to Genevra and Shane ask Andrei a million questions. They wanted to know where he was taking me, when I would be home, how to get hold of us—I didn’t understand why they felt they needed to grill him. I knew they’d give me a curfew, and I always had my cell phone. I hoped they would still let me go with him, even though I hadn’t exactly asked them, or even told them about him. I figured I would make him wait for a few minutes so I could make a perfect entrance, even though I felt a little vain doing so.
I paused at the head of the staircase. Andrei stood in the foyer with Genevra and Shane. He glanced up at the exact moment I hit the top step. Our eyes met, and I began my descent, silently willing myself not to trip in my heels and tumble down the stairs. I didn’t consider myself a clumsy person, but I had always had a hard time walking in heels.
I watched Andrei as I made my way to the base of the stairway. His eyes lit, and I saw a ghost of the lopsided grin I had noticed earlier. It seemed like an old movie, where the guy can’t take his eyes off the girl entering the room, until I missed the last step and tumbled toward the floor. I closed my eyes and winced, readying for impact and the resulting embarrassment. Opening my eyes suddenly, I realized I hadn’t hit the ground. Andrei had caught me. I gazed up into his sea-blue eyes. His arms were firm around my waist, steadying me. We couldn’t have been more than a hand’s breadth apart.
A clearing throat pulled me from my contemplation of Andrei’s face. I detached myself from the warmth of his arms
and turned to face Genevra’s and Shane’s scrutinizing gazes.
“So, Rae, when were you planning on telling us about your date tonight?” Genevra inquired.
I groaned inwardly. I realized I would have to talk pretty fast to get the green light to go out with Andrei that night. If she treated me like a child in front of him, it might chase him off. Bad enough that I was a little bit younger than him—now I’d look even more immature.
Genevra and I excused ourselves from Andrei and left him in the foyer talking to Shane while we headed into the living room.
She faced me. “All right. Care to explain? Where did you meet this guy? Were you even planning on asking us if you could go out with him tonight?”
“I wasn’t aware I needed permission,” I stated. I didn’t want to be rude to the only family I had, but I wanted my freedom, too.
“What do you mean, you weren’t aware you needed permission? You’re sixteen, Raena! You don’t even know this guy. Your mother trusted Shane and me to take care of you, and you can’t just run off without telling us.”
I could tell she was getting angry, and I needed to calm her down before this escalated into a fight. “I’m sorry. I haven’t had to ask you and Shane permission to go anywhere before. I assumed this would be the same. Besides, he just asked me to dinner this afternoon, and you guys weren’t here when I got home. I asked him to pick me up here so you could meet him, and we could tell you where we were going.”
Apparently my excuses worked, because she seemed pacified. “Okay,” she conceded. “I don’t want to embarrass you in front of this boy, but I do expect some more consideration from you in the future. You may go, but I want you home by ten.”
I opened my mouth to protest—after all, it wasn’t a school night—then closed it again. Arguing with her wouldn’t solve anything. “Okay, ten it is.”
She nodded, a quick, downward slash of her head. “I expect a full report tomorrow.”
“No problem. I’ll be home on time.”
We made our way back to the foyer, where Andrei and Shane were laughing about something. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
Andrei looked at me, mirth dancing in his eyes. “Nothing.” He glanced at Genevra. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “Let’s go.” I reached for the door.
Just then, Nuada waltzed into the foyer and froze. Her back arched, and her fur stood up on end. She bared her teeth and hissed.
“Nuada! Stop it!” I scolded her.
“It’s all right,” Andrei reassured me. “Cats don’t exactly like me.”
“Why’s that?” Genevra asked.
“I don’t know. They just never have.”
He didn’t say anything more on the subject. “Okay, let’s try this again,” I told him. I wanted to get out of the house.
Andrei extended his hand to Shane. “Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Deville.”
Shane grasped his hand. “You as well, Andrei.”
I headed toward the door, which Andrei opened for me. “Remember to be home by ten!” Genevra called after us as the door shut.
Chapter Nine
A glossy black BMW convertible sat in front of my house. Andrei opened the passenger door and waited for me to slide in. “There’s a seat control on the side if you want more leg room.” He closed the door for me.
He went around to the driver’s side and climbed in. I glanced at the state-of-the-art navigation system on the dash. From the looks of it, he had gone home after work. The directions seemed to be coming from somewhere around UC Santa Cruz, the university he had said he attended.
We kept our conversation light during the drive. When we pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, my heart plummeted. I had been so absorbed in the “discussion” with Genevra and the conversation on the way that I had forgotten to ask him if we could go somewhere else. Oh well, I’m going to have to face this place at some point. I sighed heavily.
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Everything okay?”
I took a deep breath. “Well, I wasn’t going to bring this up, but I used to go to Shadowbrook with my mom all the time when we would come to visit Genevra and Shane. I haven’t been here since before she died.”
His face softened. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. Would you rather go somewhere else?”
“No!” I said quickly. “They’re good memories. Besides, I can’t spend the rest of my life not going places just because my mom and I used to go to them. I’ll be fine.” I tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. I hoped Andrei didn’t notice.
We parked and decided to take the cable car up to the restaurant. Andrei opened the car door for me. As we rode up to the restaurant door, we could see lights from Capitola and the nearby town of Soquel glinting below. It was so beautiful out that I almost didn’t want to go inside, but hunger got the best of me. When we reached the door, Andrei held it for me as well. Mom would have liked him, I thought.
We approached the host desk, and I was astonished to find that Andrei had made reservations. I wondered when he’d had the time. “Petrov, for two,” he murmured to the hostess.
“Of course, Mr. Petrov. Right this way.”
The hostess led us to a table in front of the fireplace. Andrei held my chair for me before going around the table and pulling out his own. The hostess dropped my menu in front of me, slowly placed Andrei’s in front of him, and flashed him a huge smile. When she realized she hadn’t impressed him, she flounced away.
Andrei caught hold of my hand from across the table and began to rub his thumb across the back of it. He leaned forward. “I’m glad you agreed to let me take you out tonight, Rae.”
I blushed. “So am I.”
“Order whatever you want,” he told me.
Now, I’m not one of those girls who would order just a salad on a date, pretending I didn’t eat much. I love to eat. But I’m a vegetarian, and unfortunately most restaurants didn’t offer much in the way of vegetarian options. Luckily, this one did.
The waitress came over. I ordered a Diet Pepsi—I’m seriously addicted to diet soda. When the waitress returned with our drinks, I ordered the vegetable coconut curry. In my opinion there couldn’t be a more perfect combination.
We talked a little while we waited for our food and ate slowly when it arrived. Finally the subject I had been dreading came up.
“So you mentioned your mom. Can I ask what happened to her?”
“Cancer,” I said. “She had cancer.”
He frowned. “Wow. Must have been terrible.”
“It was.” I suddenly felt the urge to open up to him. “She was fine, and then all of a sudden, she wasn’t. She just got sicker and sicker, and then she had to go into the hospital. The treatments worked, and she went into remission for a little while and was able to come home. After a couple of months, she relapsed and had to be readmitted to the hospital. She never came back out. I just watched her deteriorate. Then she was gone.”
Tears stood in my eyes, threatening to spill over. I quickly wiped my ring finger along my lower eyelids. I didn’t want to cry in front of this guy, and I certainly didn’t want to ruin my makeup.
He reached over and brushed his hand across my cheek. “I’m sorry, Rae. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you. You know, I had a family member in the hospital recently.”
Suddenly I realized why he had seemed so familiar when I’d seen him in the coffee shop earlier. “Wait! Was the hospital in Las Vegas?”
He seemed surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”
I almost started laughing. He was the golden god-like guy that I had spotted in the hospital cafeteria! “I think I saw you there, just after my mother died. You were in the cafeteria.”
“What a strange coincidence. Why didn’t you come over then?”
“I got distracted by someone else talking to me.”
“I see…” He trailed off. “Why don’t
we talk about something else? Would you like some dessert?”
“No, but thank you.”
“I can’t believe you don’t eat dessert. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a girl turn down sweets before,” he said in mock astonishment.
“Well, I’m not most girls,” I told him, smiling despite our morbid and emotional conversation of a few minutes before.
His eyes turned serious. “No, you are definitely not most girls.”
Andrei motioned for our hovering waitress to bring the check. He already had a credit card out when she arrived. He slipped it into the check holder and handed it back to her. I hadn’t even seen him take the card out. He signed the slip when she returned, then stood and came around the table to pull my chair out for me.
He escorted me out of the restaurant with his hand resting lightly on the small of my back. This time we opted to take the meandering garden path back down to his car, admiring the lights and the waterfall on the side of the path on our way down.
****
Logan
I noticed Rae exiting the restaurant with a blond man I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t help but wonder who he might be.
Rae glanced in my direction, and I quickly turned my head, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. After all, this would make the third time that day I had run into her. I didn’t want her to think I was stalking her.
Why do I keep seeing Raena everywhere? Is it some sort of sign?
I thought about it for a minute, watching her as she walked toward the front door, the strange man’s hand hovering near her waist. I found myself seething over the sight.
I couldn’t figure out why it made me so upset to see her with another man. I was just trying to look out for her, right?
I can’t be jealous. I don’t feel that way about her. I didn’t think I convinced myself.
“What’s wrong, Logan?” my mother asked, her voice cutting into my thoughts.
