Love Storm

by Ruth Houston

  "Semi-Western," Winter said promptly with a victorious grin.

  "And what forehand grip does Winter Bruin use?" I laughed.

  "The classic Eastern," she said. "Semi-Western is so weird. You have to like…twist your hand almost all the way around." She tried to demonstrate by curling the fingers of her right hand around her left wrist. "Kind of like that, with your base knuckle on the second bevel. It's really weird. I don't know how people play with a grip like that." She wrinkled her nose in that cute way of hers. "And now that we're talking about sports, how's cross country going? Gav told me there was an invitational this past weekend."

  "Yeah," I said. "It was down south at Monterey Bay. I had to drive down there. Took forever."

  "And how did you do?" she asked, eyes serious now.

  I couldn't help but smile. She was the one person in the world who would actually ask a question like that because she really wanted to know the answer, and not just to make small talk. "I did alright, I guess," I said.

  "Okay," she said sarcastically, giving me another look. "I'm not deaf you know. Everyone's been saying how you're our cross country team's star runner, and I always hear your name on the announcements during the sports section, saying how wonderfully you did at your meets. So, I'm going to ask you again: how did you do?"

  I laughed. "I did alright," I repeated. "I came in first, okay, happy now? Tyler Collins was right behind me, and Nathan Eichler was right behind Tyler. So there."

  Winter shook her head. "When did you learn to be modest?" she asked, smiling wryly. "Tyler Collins and Nathan Eichler are seniors. They're fast seniors. And you came in before them –"

  I held up a hand.

  "Okay, okay, two seconds right before them or whatever," she rolled her eyes. "My point is, you can still keep up with them. That's pretty damn impressive." She sat back in her chair now and stretched her legs forward so they were under my chair.

  "Thanks," I said earnestly, placing my forearms on the top of the chair and resting my head on top of my arms so I was looking at her sideways. I yawned. Man I was tired. I watched Winter through half-closed eyes, not wanting to completely shut out the beautiful image sitting in front of me.

  "Are you tired again?" Winter said. "When did you go to bed last night?"

  "Mmmm, like 11," I lied.

  "Are you sure?" she said skeptically.

  "Yeah, pretty sure."

  "Zack," she said warningly.

  "Okay, okay, it was…a little later than 11," I said. She was too good at telling when I was lying.

  "What time?" she insisted.

  I opened my eyes fully and stared her down. "A little later than 11," I repeated.

  "Zack."

  "Winter."

  "Zack."

  She was scowling at me now. "The truth, please. A specific time."

  Shoot, I give in to her way too easily. "Two," I mumbled. It had actually been three thirty in the morning, but there are such things as little white lies.

  "What?!" She was shocked. "Two?! Are you joking? Why did you go to sleep so late?"

  "Couldn't fall asleep," I muttered. That, at least, was the full truth.

  "Jeez," she said. "Promise me you'll go to bed earlier tonight. You can't go to sleep at two in the morning and live through a whole school day. It's just not possible. Promise me you'll go to sleep earlier?"

  "I'll try."

  She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  "Okay, I promise," I said. "Better?"

  "Yes," she said. She seemed about to say something else, but the bell cut her off. She gathered her stuff and I went back to my desk to get my books. I waited for her at the door.

  "Another school day," she sighed dramatically. "When will it end?" She looked heavenward.

  I chuckled. "It's a conspiracy."

  "I know," she groaned. "Seriously."

  "Okay, I'm gonna go now. I told Brock I'd find him so he could take a look at my history notes. He was absent yesterday. But I'll see you later?"

  "Yeah," she said. "Later."

  And we went our separate ways.

  -Winter-

  My mother has recently acquired a new hobby. Unfortunately, it is at my expense. Her new hobby is yelling at me.

  For example: Tuesday evening I walked through the door at 8pm, tired but extremely happy. Our tennis team has just played a match against our school rival and we had won. Rebecca and I had creamed our opponents, 6-2, 6-0, and the whole team had gone out to Round Table to celebrate our Branner victory. Not to mention I had had a nice conversation that morning with Zack during Calculus.

  "Winter, is that you?" my mom called from the kitchen. She came out as I was taking off my shoes at the front door and putting my car keys in the front pocket of my backpack.

  "Yup. Hi mom," I said cheerfully. I was too happy to even realize I should have expected a sense of foreboding. "Guess what?"

  "You're late for dinner?" she suggested sarcastically.

  "Oh…yeah, I'm sorry about that. But guess what? We won against Bellmont!" I laughed. "Isn't that great?"

  "Let me think," my mom said dryly. "You went out afterwards to eat with the team." She didn't look very pleased.

  "Um, yeah," I said, my face falling. "We won. So we went out to celebrate…" I trailed off. "Is something wrong?" Ugh, bad question. From the look on her face the answer was obvious.

  "Yes, something is wrong," she replied crossly. "Why didn't you call us? You had your cell phone, didn't you?" Her voice was rising. "Well, didn't you?"

  I nodded slowly. "It…it was out of batteries," I said. It wasn't a lie. "I forgot to recharge it yesterday."

  "Winter, when are you going to learn responsibility?" she snapped. "What if something had happened? What if you had gotten in a car crash? You wouldn't be able to contact us because you forgot to charge your cell phone."

  "Well I'm sorry," I retorted angrily. "Are you just mad I didn't come home for dinner? Is that it?"

  "Yes, that's part of it," my mom half-shouted. "I make dinner every night and nowadays you're not even home to eat it half the time. You're always out with someone, and I think if you're going to be out you at least owe your father and I a phone call."

  My jaw dropped. "I'm not always out with someone!" I exclaimed. "I'm home for dinner almost every night! It was just today and once last week that I went out with the team! Gosh, mom, I don't think it's fair that you're yelling at me for this," I said bitingly. "I have to do my homework." I hoisted my backpack up on my shoulders and made to go up the stairs.

  "Not so fast, young lady," my mom said.

  "Mom," I said. "I come home victorious from a match against Bellmont and all you can do is shout at me and find fault with everything I do? I don't appreciate that. You didn't used to do this!" I was already halfway up the stairs.

  "Where are you going?" she yelled. "Come back here! I'm not done talking to you!"

  "Yelling at me, you mean," I glowered. "I'm tired of getting yelled at! You did the same thing yesterday and the day before, and the day before that! If it's not disrespect, it's responsibility, or time management, or spending more time at home, or working harder in school! I'm sick of it! If you want me to spend more time at home the least you could do is stop badgering me about everything I do! No one's perfect, okay?" I had gotten to the top now, and looked down at her. "And I try to make you and Daddy happy, you know? I do my chores, I try my best in school, but you don't see any of that! All you see are the bad things!"

  I retreated into my room, fuming, my earlier good mood completely gone. All she could do was nitpick. She couldn't ever be happy for me anymore, could she?

  So that's a taste of my mom's new hobby. It started up at the beginning of the school year and I've had to endure about two months of it now. Maybe she's going through menopause or something. Even my dad has been in on it a little, and he's usually a really easy-going person.

  For the next few days it was a little quieter at home. To my mom's credit, she was right about o
ne thing: time management. What with tennis, my AP classes, and not to mention that stupid Latin class she was making me take at Kirkland College, time seemed to always be short. By the time I got home everyday I was physically tired from tennis, and mentally tired from a boring, monotonous day of school. The classes weren't exactly hard, per se (though my classmates seemed to be struggling a bit), but the copious amounts of homework were time consuming.

  Fact: junior year sucks.

  And there was something else that kept bothering me. I had never gotten an explanation as to why Zack had stopped sending me letters.

  And another thing: why were all these random guys coming up to me and striking up conversations? Wednesday morning Nick Cotter approached me at brunch time – you might remember him as one of the guys who asked me to Morp last year. Nick's not a bad sort, really; he's fairly intelligent and has good taste in girls. I'm not saying he has good taste because he asked me, but looking at his past list of girlfriends, they were all nice girls that I don't mind talking to. He's actually quite the Ideal Boyfriend, who brings flowers and chocolates and whatnot, the kind of boy you would bring home to meet your parents. Nick Cotter is very sweet. Kind of too sweet, in my opinion, but then again, that's just me.

  Anyway, it was a more or less pointless conversation. It went something like this:

  "Hey Winter." He flashed me a smile.

  "Hi Nick. How's it going? We haven't talked in a while." Of course I had to smile back because you really can't not smile when someone seems that happy, though I didn't feel like doing it – I was still trying to forget that yelling match I had had with my mom the previous night.

  "Yeah, I know. It's going pretty good," he nodded. "How's the tennis season going?"

  "Pretty good," I said, "We won against Bellmont yesterday."

  "Awesome," he grinned. Did I mention yet that Nick's also a very standard Californian? "A victory against Bellmont is always good stuff."

  "Yeah…" I trailed off. What was I supposed to say now?

  "'Kay, I gotta run, but it was nice talking to you again," Nick said. "Later."

  "Later," I agreed as he jogged off.

  Like I said, pointless.

  xxxxx

  "Woah," I said softly, amazed, as I entered the Westley household on Friday afternoon.

  Anthony, who had just walked past me, muttered moodily, "Eva's stressed."

  I nodded in agreement. It was the only reason why it looked like a tornado had swept through the kitchen and there were so many delicious aromas wafting through the house. Whenever she was stressed she cooked.

  "Wow," I said nonchalantly as I picked up a piece of focaccia and bit into it. It was delicious – Eva is a good cook. "What's wrong this time?"

  She whirled around from where she was adjusting the temperature on the stove.

  "Winter! God, don't scare me like that," she said under her breath, turning back to the contents of the sauce pan. "Nothing's wrong." Her face was flushed and her hair was in a messy, sweaty ponytail. She had obviously gotten home from basketball practice not too long ago.

  "Tsk tsk Eva, you know lying is a sin," I grinned, stepping up next to her. "Did you just get back from practice?"

  "Yeah. Largo was being a dick."

  I nodded understandingly. Her coach had a reputation for being tough. "What is that?" I pointed at the creamy contents of the pan.

  "Risotto," she said shortly.

  I sighed. "I'm sorry. What's wrong?" I asked again, gently this time.

  "I told you," she snapped. "Nothing's wrong, I'm just making a nice dinner. We're having company tonight. You better not stay."

  I flinched, hurt. "I just came to say hi and to see if you were okay. You haven't been answering my calls. We haven't talked in like a week now."

  "Well I'm fine," she retorted as she started grating some cheese. "Thanks for coming by." She didn't mean it, I could tell.

  "Eva!" I said, exasperated.

  "What?" She rounded on me angrily. "I'm trying to make dinner, okay? I'm kind of busy right now. If you wanna talk, call me later. I really have to finish making all this stuff." Eva gestured to the different dishes she was making, all of them in different degrees of completion. She was busy again, adding the cheese to the risotto.

  I stared at her back, then said quietly, "Okay. I'll call you later. Nine o'clock sound good?"

  "Yeah, whatever," she said impatiently.

  I sighed. "Answer this time, alright?"

  No response.

  I turned and left slowly, looking over my shoulder one last time at my best friend. I shook my head worriedly. What was going on? Maybe Anthony could tell me.

  I trotted upstairs and knocked on his door.

  "Yep," he called. "Come on in."

  "Hey Tony," I smiled, opening the door and poking my head in. "You busy right now?"

  "Uh, well, not really, just working on this huge report that's due tomorrow and stuff. It's okay, what's up?" Crystal blue eyes regarded me curiously from where he was situated in front of his computer.

  "Oh, never mind then," I said. "You're busy. I don't want to bother you."

  He shrugged. "It's alright with me. You sure?"

  "Uhm…." I tilted my head to the side. "Well I'm going to talk to Eva tonight, but if she doesn't tell me what I want to know, can I ask you?"

  "Of course," Anthony said, running a palm over his light brown, spiked hair. "Hey, you alright?"

  I forced a laugh and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for asking though, you're such a sweetie. I swear you get more and more like Tristan every time I talk to you. You got a girlfriend yet?" I teased, bringing the subject away from myself.

  He smirked. "Eh, not yet."

  "Got your eye on anyone though?" I grinned. I automatically relaxed and leaned against the doorway. I loved it when Anthony and I got along. It was true that he could be the moodiest of the Westley children, but random bad moods aside, his personality was so good it was almost to the point that it was saintly – deep down, he was honest, kind-hearted, and definitely more noble and selfless than you would think from a first glance at his punk exterior.

  "Trisha Collins," he replied promptly in answer to my question.

  I laughed again, this time genuinely. "No way – Tyler's little sister, right? She's a sophomore this year? She's really cute."

  "Yeah, tell me about it," he replied, chuckling.

  "Okay, well, I'll leave you to it," I said, drawing back reluctantly.

  "Hey, it was nice seeing you again. You don't come over as often as you used to," Anthony said. "You should come visit more."

  I smiled weakly. "Thanks," I said. "At least I know I'm welcome when you're here, eh?"

  He frowned. "What?"

  "Nothing. I'll see you around." I turned to go.

  "Winter," he called.

  "Yeah?"

  "You sure you're alright?" he asked, looking kind of concerned.

  I bit my lip. "Yeah," I said, giving him my most convincing smile. "I'm good. Thanks Anthony. You rock my world."

  He grinned. "See ya," he waved as I closed his door.

  "Yeah," I sighed softly to myself as I went down the stairs. "I'm good."

  xxxxx

  I called Eva's cell phone at nine that night. She didn't pick up. I called the house phone. Emily picked up.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi Emmy, it's Winter. Is Eva there?"

  "Eva? She's…busy."

  "Busy? What's she doing?"

  "She's being busy."

  "Okay. Can I talk to Tony then?"

  "Nope," she said cheerfully. "Bye."

  She hung up on me. Can you believe that? A little fifth grader hung up on me. What is this world coming to?

  I hit the redial button.

  "Emily Heather Westley, you get Anthony on the phone this minute for me!" I said angrily when it was picked up.

  I heard laughing. "Hey Win, nice to hear from you again."

  I gasped. "Tristan!" I screamed. "What the h
ell are you doing home?! Why didn't you call me earlier? You loser! What the f –"

  He was laughing again, harder this time. "You wanna talk to Anthony, right? Just a sec."

  "No, I want to talk to you so you can tell me why you were being such a loser!" I yelled. Then I broke out laughing too. "Oh my god, I missed you Trist! How've you been? What are you doing home?"

  I could hear a grin in his voice. "Oh you know, just wanted to visit the family…and stuff…And I'm going to visit Kath at Stanford tomorrow."

  I arched an eyebrow. "Oh really? Hey…do you want to fill me in on something?"

  "I'll try my best."

  "What's wrong with Eva? I visited earlier and she was pissed to high heaven."

  "Oh, I don't know," he said lightly. "She's been kind of edgy lately. Don't know what's going on with her."

  "Oh," I said, kind of disappointed. Tristan and Eva were close; I had been hoping he could give me some insight. "Alright. Eva said you guys had company for dinner. What was that all about?"

  "Oh," Tristan said. "Yeah, that. It was nothing important."

  "Are you sure?" I asked. "Eva was breaking out the fancy stuff. Risotto or whatever."

  "Yeah, don't worry about it. Like I said, it was nothing important."

  "Okay…" I trailed off. "All right then. Can I talk to Eva now?"

  "Uh, hold on, let me see if she's available…oh, wait. She's busy right now. In the shower. Should I have her call you back?"

  I sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, have her call me back. Do you have time to visit little ol' me before you go back to San Diego?"

  "Oh, god, I'm sorry, but I'm leaving first thing tomorrow to see Katherine, then I'm driving straight back to school. Unless you want me to come over right now…"

  "Oh," I said, disappointment settling in even deeper now. "No, that's okay. I'm sure you had a long day if you drove up here. But I'll see you the next time you come home, right?"

  "Next time," Tristan promised.

  "Alright, I'll let you get some sleep now."

  "Okay. I'll call you soon, Win."

  "Alright. Night."

  "Bye."

  I hung up, feeling very odd indeed. Why did I get the feeling that the Westleys were keeping something from me?

  xxxxx

  I slammed my binders down on my desk on Monday morning. I was in a Towering Temper, and not to be disturbed.