“Oh my God. I thought of that, but then I tried to talk myself out of it. But what if you’re right? I called Damien right after work yesterday. Ten after six. He was just on his way out and he sounded really out of breath. He said he’d call me right back but I haven’t heard anything. And I’ve texted him twice since then. Oh my God. It all makes sense, though. What if one of his parents fell down the stairs or had a heart attack or something? And then he had to rush home? Maybe he’s at Middleford General right now? Should I text him again? No, wait. You can’t use cell phones in a hospital, right? Because of the heart monitors. Elyse, do you think I should call his parents’ house to make sure everything’s okay?”
“I’m sure everything’s fine, Dina,” I said. “And if it isn’t, then he’s probably just too busy to call right now.”
“You’re right,” she said, clearly unconvinced but seeming like she wanted to believe me. “I’ll just wait. He’ll get in touch if he needs me, right?”
“Of course he will.”
She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and flipped it open, just to make sure it was still working, then put it away before walking toward the card aisle to help an old lady with a cane. While I was ringing through the old lady’s anniversary card, I saw Dina check her phone again. Suddenly, I thought of the perfect way to distract her.
“I have something to tell you,” I said as soon as the store was quiet again. “You’re not going to believe it, but guess who my new driving instructor and neighbor is . . .”
“You’re kidding!” Dina said once I’d told her the whole story. “That’s such a coincidence. He seemed so nice. Is he a good teacher?” she asked.
“The worst.” I told her my parallel parking horror story from the night before. She was appropriately sympathetic. I was just about to tell her the stuff I’d found out about him moving here to take care of his grandfather (which I knew she’d go gaga over), but Dina’s back pocket started buzzing. “It’s Damien,” she said. She slid out her phone, flipped it open, and read the text message.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” She scrolled through his message a second time. “That’s a relief,” she added, but she sounded disappointed. “He was at a keg party with some friends, got drunk, crashed there, and just woke up. He forgot I called.”
She started pressing buttons.
“Please tell me you’re not texting him back this second.” She looked up. “The guy didn’t even apologize for taking sixteen hours to get back to you. It didn’t even cross his mind that you might have been upset or worried.”
She paused, lowering the phone. “You think I should wait?”
“Yes!” I said. “And, anyway, you just answered your phone while I was talking to you and rudely interrupted my story about pen-buying guy—I mean, Patrick.” She looked up. “I was going to tell you how he was asking about you in the car.” It wasn’t that I was intending to be dishonest with her . . . but the lie just kind of slipped out.
“No way,” she said. “He wasn’t! What did he want to know?”
“Well . . .” I stalled for time while I tried to think up something that sounded vague enough not to get me busted, but specific enough to seem true. “He wanted to know how long you’d been working here and, um—what your hobbies were.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you’d been working for Mr. Goodman since the summer, and that you were really into supporting important causes in your spare time. And it turns out he’s all about helping people and putting others first, too.” I soothed my conscience by adding that last part, because he’d definitely said something about helping his grandfather out around the house, anyway. She flipped the phone shut. “I also mentioned the panda party,” I went on, improvising.
“What did he say?”
“Not much, but I think it’s just because he’s too nice to ask for an invitation. I’m pretty sure he’d say yes if you asked him yourself.”
“Really? Is he single?”
“I don’t know.” He hadn’t mentioned a girlfriend but, then again, we’d only spent an hour together, and in the last twenty minutes, I’d been too mad to talk to him. It was possible he had a girlfriend, either here or else back in Toronto.
“Can you find out?”
“We have another lesson this afternoon. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Oh my God,” Dina said. “Maybe this is, like, fate. I mean, he walks into the store and we meet, and then he ends up being your neighbor and your driving instructor, so I’ve totally got an in.” She slid her phone into her back pocket.
Mission accomplished. “So you’re not texting Damien back now?”
“No.” She smiled, then added defiantly, “I’m busy at work. He can wait a while, right?”
I stepped out from behind the cash so she could take over. “Dina, as far as I’m concerned, that jerkwad can wait forever.”
“Elyse!” she said, covering Cupid’s ears with her hands. “Watch your language in front of the baby!” But she was smiling, so there was no question in my mind that I’d done the right thing. Even if I’d had to tell a few small, white lies, the ends totally justified the means.
Or, at least, that’s what I thought until three thirty, when Patrick walked into the store. I was stuck with a customer who wanted to know every little difference between the four brands of white copier paper we carried, but Dina waved him over. By the time I managed to get my butt over to the cash, they were already talking pandas. Things were about to get kind of complicated.
“So I think it’s important,” Dina was saying. “If we can raise just five hundred dollars we’ll make a small but real difference in helping to preserve the population of giant pandas. And, like I’m sure Elyse told you, the whole theme is going to be black and white, so it’ll be really fun.” Patrick shot me a strange look but, to his credit, didn’t mention that this was the first he’d heard about a panda party. “Elyse is going to be baking some snacks. And, trust me, you don’t want to miss her cheesecake. So, if you’re free . . .” She trailed off.
“Yeah,” he said, giving me the weird look again. “I think I might be.”
“Cool.” Her eyes lit up. “Hang on. Just let me ring this up and then I’ll tell you all about Oreo—the panda we’re adopting. I can even show you a picture. Talk about cute!” Patrick politely stepped aside as the paper guy piled six packages of EverTree brand copier stock on the cash.
“What are you doing here so early?” I asked while Dina rang up the purchase and bagged the paper. My irritation about the driving lesson was still pretty fresh. “I’m not done until four. And you can’t just hang out here. Sometimes Mr. Goodman stops in on weekends.”
“Who said I was hanging out? I’m shopping.” He picked up a Beanie Baby rabbit and shook its head, flopping its ears around.
“Oh yeah? For a bunny?”
“Nah,” he said, setting the Beanie Baby down. “No bunnies today. I need a pen.”
“You just got one yesterday.”
“Yeah. About that?” He ran his fingers through his curls. “It’s a little too sploodgy.”
“Sploodgy?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Yeah. Like, when you press down on the tip, the ink sploodges out. Do you have anything that writes really crisply?”
“Right,” I said, trying to keep the mocking tone out of my voice. “Something crisp, not sploodgy. Follow me.”
Patrick took ages in the pen aisle, doodling with different pens on the scraps of notepaper Mr. Goodman left out for that reason. “This one is pretty good,” he said finally, holding up a WriteSmart ballpoint. “But do you have it in black?” I searched through the bin and thrust a black pen toward him.
“Here.”
“Whoa,” he said, jumping back a bit. “Getting hostile with the writing instruments there. You’re not still mad about that parallel parking thing, are you?” he asked, taking the pen from me carefully, like I might have laced it with explosives.
“Mad? Why would I be mad?” I shot back.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe because I was kind of a jerk about it.” That took me off guard. He tucked his new pen behind his ear. “I’ve been thinking about it, and look, I knew you weren’t going to hit those cars. But that doesn’t mean you felt ready, I guess. Like you said, we probably should have practiced in a parking lot or something first. I’m sorry. Okay? I won’t do anything like that again.”
“Okay,” I said, my anger melting away so suddenly that I didn’t know what to say or do next. Why had I been so pissed off in the first place? I already almost couldn’t remember. “Um. Anyway,” I stuttered. “I’ve got stuff to finish shelving, but Dina can ring that up for you at the cash.”
“Okay. But, wait.” He stopped me. “Can you help me with one more thing first?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to buy a valentine.” Now it was his turn to look embarrassed.
“For your girlfriend?” Maybe I could get the dirt Dina was looking for.
“Not exactly.” His cheeks went kind of red, making his freckles stand out. “Not yet, anyway. Just this girl I met.” I glanced ever-so-quickly in Dina’s direction to see if he’d follow my gaze, but he was busy staring at the floor.
“Well,” I started, “we have a big selection.” I led him over to the valentine section, which was marked by an absolutely giant, obscenely sparkly heart-shaped sign hanging from the ceiling. LOVE IS IN THE AIR. “This is where the romance happens.” I pointed to the sign, rolling my eyes. “In my personal opinion, almost everything in this section is nauseating, but a lot of girls like this kind of thing.”
I picked up a card with Tweetie bird on the front. I opened it and read: “I’m lucky to have a tweetheart like you, who’s caring and loving and wonderful, too.” I stuffed it back in the slot. “Tweetheart isn’t even a real word.”
I picked up another with a pastel-colored painting of a couple dancing on the front. The woman was in a flowing red gown. “My dear, my heart, my lady in red. When I’m with you, I feel inspir-ed. Happy Valentine’s.” I closed the card and made a face. “Really? Since when has the word ‘red’ rhymed with the word ‘inspired’? Since never. But that’s what you’ll find in half these cards. It’s like the companies can’t afford to hire poets who know how to rhyme anymore. Sad.”
Patrick was smiling. “Well, what about this one? Girls would think this is cute, right?” He handed me a card with a picture of a baby riding a motorcycle.
“Baby, you get my engine going.” I handed it back. “Okay, first of all. Gross. Not cute. And, second, the joke card is a huge cop-out. It’s like you’re saying, ‘I really like you, but I’m too much of a chicken to actually come out and say it, so I’m giving you this picture of a baby in a motorcycle helmet instead.’ Again, kinda sad.”
“You know you’re not the world’s greatest salesperson, right?” he teased, putting the card back.
“Hey,” I retorted. “I’m trying to do you a favor here.” I picked out a card with a simple red heart on the front, set against a silver backdrop. “This is the least bad one we have.” I handed it to him and watched him open it.
“It’s blank,” he observed.
“Exactly,” I said. “If you like someone, you should care enough to write your own message. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.”
He flipped the card over to check the price, then put it back. “I’ll think about that one,” he said.
Dina had finished with the paper guy and was holding the picture of Oreo, the panda, in the air to get Patrick’s attention. He gave her a little wave to let her know he’d be there in a sec.
“On the other hand, though,” I added quickly. “Some girls are really into the corny stuff.” I hoped he’d get my drift. “We just got this adorable one with puppies wearing floppy hats. Dina, for example, loves it.” That was an understatement. She’d practically melted into a puddle of goo the first time she’d seen it. “I can show it to you tomorrow. But right now you’d better go meet the bear,” I said.
“Right,” he answered, “and pay for this.” He slid the nonsploodgy pen out from behind his ear and turned to go.
“Hey!” I called, getting his attention. He stopped. “Do me a favor, okay? Don’t promise Dina you’ll go to her party unless you really mean it.”
“Why wouldn’t I mean it?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I thought of the girl he wanted to buy a valentine for—his “not exactly girlfriend.” If it wasn’t Dina he was talking about, I didn’t want him leading her on. She was way too sensitive for that kind of thing. “It just means a lot to her, okay? So if you say you’re going, then show up.”
“Oh, I’ll be there,” he said. “Black-and-white snacks? Endangered species bingo? Are you kidding me? It’s gonna be awesome. Ever since you told me all about it yesterday, I’ve been counting down the days.”
I gave him my best apologetic look. “About that . . .” I started, but he seemed to have already let the subject drop.
“Don’t worry,” he continued. “I’m going. Wouldn’t miss it. It’s gonna be total panda-monium.” I rolled my eyes at his stupid joke, but there was something in his tone that put me at ease. There was no question in my mind: Patrick might be annoying, but he was mostly a decent guy. I could tell that he meant what he said.
Chapter 6
True to his word, Patrick didn’t push me as hard in our driving lesson that afternoon. In fact, there was no parallel parking at all. He did make me drive one exit on the highway (something that made my pulse race even faster than parking), but even that wasn’t completely disastrous. I must have checked my blind spot ten times, but somehow I managed to merge before the dotted lines on the road ran out.
It also kind of helped that, as soon as we got in the car, Patrick took a CD out of the glove box and slid it into the player. “Surely Sarah,” he said as the music started. It was kind of mellow, with a lot of guitar and hardly any drums. “Do you know them?”
I shook my head. When I’d been dating Matt, he’d taken me to a few heavy metal concerts. The singers were always dressed in black. They wore silver chains hanging from their pockets, jumped up and down, and shouted a lot. For some reason, I’d felt like I had to pretend that I thought it was totally hardcore and awesome. But I was really more into classic rock. Stuff like Van Morrison and the Doors, which my uncle Tom (who played the bass in an amateur, old-guy rock band) had introduced me to. Besides that, the only thing I really listened to (and not by choice) was the soft rock, seventy-percent-Céline-Dion radio station my mom always had on.
“You should give them a try,” Patrick said, turning up the volume. “I think you’d really like them.” To my surprise, I did like them. The melody was pretty, and kind of catchy and, without even realizing what I was doing, I released my death grip on the steering wheel and started drumming my fingers along to the music. By the time we were done with the lesson, I was so relaxed that I actually made the left-hand turn onto our street (across two lanes of traffic) without any cars honking their horns at me from behind for taking too long.
It would have been a not-so-bad lesson all around, actually, if Patrick hadn’t wanted me to practice backing into his grandfather’s driveway. “It’s pretty easy. Line the rear bumper up with the edge of the driveway,” he instructed.
I’ll admit: I knew my wheels were crooked, but I was hungry. My mom always made a roast chicken after she grocery shopped on Saturdays, and I could practically taste it already, so I didn’t bother pulling forward to fix them. Twisting my body around to see over my shoulder, I hit the gas pedal and came into the driveway at a 45-degree angle, landing the front wheels in the garden between our houses and slamming on the brakes with the back bumper sitting about two feet from Patrick’s garage. It maybe wouldn’t have mattered, except for the crunching sound we heard as I backed up. An innocent shrub in Patrick’s side of the front garden had obviously paid the price f
or my impatience.
“Oh God,” I said, getting out of the car to examine the flattened collection of twigs. “I’m so sorry. I’ll buy your grandfather a new one as soon as the garden center opens, I promise.”
Patrick drew in a breath as he crouched down and gently lifted one of the crushed branches. He let it drop into the snow again. “Thanks, but I don’t think this one can be replaced. It’s a blossoming Japanese cherry bush. They’re kind of rare.”
I felt like I was going to cry. Leave it to me to run over the most rare and beautiful bush on the entire block. “Well, maybe I can order one off the internet, or something. Somebody must import them. I’ll find one. I swear. I told you I sucked at backing in.” I looked at the mangled mass of twigs again and sighed. This clearly wasn’t Patrick’s fault. “God, I’m an idiot. I knew I didn’t have the right angle. I should have pulled forward and straightened out the wheels, but I was in a rush. I’m really, really sorry.”
Patrick stood up, a smile breaking across his face as he laid a hand on my coat sleeve. “Elyse, relax. I was kidding,” he confessed. “But, by the way, you’re right. You just needed to pull forward a bit to straighten your wheels. Besides that, you were doing great. It’s not a blossoming Japanese cherry bush.” I froze, then pulled my arm away. “It’s some kind of super weed. We have them all over the backyard, too. They smell like feet and get these wicked spikes on them in the summer. You can run it over again if you want.”
I stared at him in shock. I couldn’t believe he’d done that to me. How was it possible for somebody to be so nice at times and so aggravating at others?
“Oh man,” he said, catching my look. “You’re mad at me again.” He pulled his hat down over his eyes, then pulled it up a little, peeking out at me, trying to be cute. “You hate me. Again. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that, you looked so serious. I had to tease you. Okay. I’m the one who’s an idiot.”
Rhymes with Cupid Page 5
