Getting Lost with Boys

by Hailey Abbott

  Cordelia let out a big laugh. Paul rarely made jokes like that. It must be the sun beating through the windshield. Cordelia reached into her backpack, which was on the floor beneath her. She tried to ignore that she had three days’ worth of stubble to hack into later and focused on what she was looking for. Her prized possession—her Treo. The thing was made for multitaskers and organizing addicts like Cordelia. With this gadget, she could e-mail Paul directions to Yosemite, call her mom and tell her to order a pizza—no, wait, a nice garden salad—for dinner, and access all her important documents, lists, and other items that proved she was one of the most anal-retentive people on Earth.

  She was about to go on the Internet and Google “symptoms of sunstroke” when the Treo started to buzz. She had a voice mail message. Cordelia glanced over at Paul, who seemed to be staring down the road and acting normal, so she thought it was safe to listen to it. What she heard was the familiar, deliriously upbeat voice of Molly Packer.

  “Hey, it’s me! I’m so happy you’re coming! Do me a favor. Look in my closet at home for my jean skirt. Not the long James skirt, the Joie. It’s a mini with a pleat in the front. Could you bring it when you come? Oh, and my yellow slingbacks, the ones from Marc Jacobs, bring those too. No, wait a minute, never mind, I just found them under my bed. It’s the pink Jimmy Choos I need. And would you look in my dresser and see if you can find my white Juicy halter top? And anything else you can find that’s really summer sexy. You won’t believe this complex where we’ll be living. It’s a serious scene, especially around the pool. And there’s a clubhouse where—”

  Cordelia didn’t need to hear any more. She cut off the message and tossed the Treo back into her JanSport.

  Paul gave Cordelia a curious look. “What’s wrong? Bad news?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, just a message from my sister,” she grumbled. “She has me on high fashion alert.”

  He chuckled a bit, and then got all serious. “If you just close your eyes and breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, the stress will just melt away.”

  Easy for him to say, Cordelia thought. Sometimes when Paul said stuff like that, it sounded a little condescending. But she just tried to shake it off and change the subject.

  “I’m almost prepared for my poli-sci class,” she said enthusiastically. Cordelia had known she wanted to be a lawyer ever since her gigantic crush on Dylan McDermott on The Practice.

  Paul smirked. “More prepared than they are to butt heads with the debate team captain.”

  “Co-captain,” Cordelia corrected. She shared the title with Alexis Dunbar, of course.

  “I bet Molly is excited to have you there.”

  Cordelia shrugged. “I guess.”

  Paul pulled a packet of Listerine breath strips out of his cargo shorts pocket and placed one on his tongue. Chills proceeded to ravage Cordelia’s body. “I get the feeling you’re not too thrilled with the idea of spending two months with your sister,” he said.

  Cordelia wondered if it was too soon in their relationship to bring up family problems. She wasn’t even sure whether or not Molly constituted a “problem.” Molly was just…Molly.

  “We’re very different,” she said finally. “Molly’s more…” She tried to think of the right expression, something that wouldn’t make her sound like a jerk.

  “Well, she’s a little flaky.”

  Paul took his eyes off the road just long enough to give her a look of total disbelief. “You have a sister who’s flaky?”

  She wasn’t surprised by his reaction. People always had a hard time believing they were sisters. Actually, there were times when Cordelia was absolutely certain that some mix-up happened at the hospital nursery and that she really belonged to Monica Geller from Friends. “Molly kind of lives for the moment, and she doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions. Not that she’s a bad person,” Cordelia added hastily. “She’s really sweet and generous. But sometimes…well, she can be, I dunno, clueless.”

  “Then it’s good she’ll have you to look after her this summer,” Paul said.

  Cordelia frowned. “Oh, joy of joys.”

  “Hey, maybe this will get your spirits up. I burned you a CD to take with you to Eureka.”

  Oh my God, how incredibly sweet! Cordelia thought.

  “It’s in the glove compartment. Go ahead and put it on.”

  A moment later, the sound of rain falling, birds cooing, and leaves rustling filled the car. Okay, it’s not the Black Eyed Peas, but that’s cool.

  “This is great, thanks.” Cordelia leaned over and kissed Paul on the cheek. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her close for a soft yet quick peck on the lips. Then she sat back in her seat, closed her eyes, and tried to appreciate the “music.” But instead of tuning out, her thoughts went back to Molly.

  Cordelia could see her sister now, lying on the roof of her building, lathered in baby oil, getting a tan. Molly really was striking, with her light blond hair, green eyes, and a body that would make Halle Berry give up being hot. While Molly had always been a boy magnet and popular, Cordelia had found herself in the bookworm, activities-geek role, which is why she thought being with Paul was the biggest stroke of luck in her life. Paul looked like the kind of guy Molly would go after, and here he was, holding Cordelia’s hand.

  It was just like her mom had predicted a few years ago. She used to say, “There will be boyfriends and dates and good times for you, too, Cordy. You’ll catch up.”

  But then Cordelia had usually responded pretty negatively. One of her favorite comebacks to comments like that had been, “I don’t want to catch up. I don’t want to be like Molly.”

  In fact, sometimes Cordelia thought that her need for structure and planning and organization was all in reaction to Molly’s fly-by-the-seat-of-her-Urban-Outfitters-panties persona. And to this day, Molly still tried to snap her out of it and get Cordelia to let her guard down. Cordelia wondered, Why do I put up so much of a fight?

  Paul’s voice broke into her reverie. “Wasn’t that amazing?”

  “What?” Then she realized he had to be talking about the Sounds of Nature CD she hadn’t been listening to. “Oh, right, yes, it was fantastic.”

  “Awesome, you can play it on the flight to Eureka.”

  Suddenly, Cordelia’s palms began to sweat. You’re not even on a plane right now, dork. Calm down! she told herself.

  “You okay?” Paul asked when he noticed how pale she had gotten.

  Cordelia hated confessing this irrational fear of hers, but she couldn’t see any way of getting out of it. She was practically hyperventilating right now and they were only talking about flying. “Don’t laugh, but I’m afraid of planes. Well, not planes, really. Flying. Actually, not flying. It’s more a fear of crashing. Crashing and dying.”

  Paul tried to swallow a laugh. “That’s okay. Lots of people hate flying.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s a drag. Trust me, I’d rather not spend a million hours on a bus.”

  Cordelia looked around and immediately recognized the San Diego streets. The reality of their imminent separation hit her, and she felt terrible. Gorge-yourself-on-Taco-Bell terrible. But she wouldn’t give in to temptation. No, she would stay strong for the greater good of this relationship, or at least until Paul left and he couldn’t catch her sneaking one little, tiny gordita….

  “You know I’d really love it if you’d come and visit me for a weekend. How about it?”

  Cordelia was psyched. “Absolutely! And maybe you could come to Eureka?”

  “Sure. Let me find out what kind of schedule I’ll have.”

  She smiled and gazed out the window again, feeling giddy that Paul had suggested that they make plans to see each other! They were cruising alongside the coast now, and between houses she caught glimpses of the beach. She couldn’t help but feel just a little mournful about not asking him to stop there earlier today. Maybe they could have lain out on the sand and baked under the sun until
they couldn’t bear the heat one minute more. Then they might have raced into the water, jumped into a wave, the sensation of cold water hitting their hot skin. She would have absolutely loved that. Oh, and her boyfriend would have been shirtless….

  Paul’s strained voice caught her attention. “I can’t believe those people.”

  “Huh?”

  “On the beach, just lying there. Don’t they have any idea what the sun is doing to their health? I mean, we’ve put this enormous hole in the ozone and now everyone’s, like, mindlessly singeing their skin cells, waiting to get cancer. I bet these guys are the ones causing all the smog and pollution to begin with.”

  Well, that’s pretty extreme, Cordelia thought. There were such things as sunscreen and umbrellas to create shade. And was it necessary for Paul to get so perturbed about total strangers, who were doing nothing but sun-bathing?

  “Sorry, it’s just the public unawareness that bothers me. I didn’t mean to go off like that. You must think I’m really weird,” Paul said nervously.

  She put her hand on Paul’s knee and gave it a tender squeeze. “That’s okay. I’m weird too.”

  And he only knows the half of it.

  Chapter Two

  Cordelia stood at the front door of her rambling white ranch house and stared at the steps where she and Paul had said good-bye. They had this silly tradition that always made her giggle. She’d stand on the top of the stairs and Paul would stand at the bottom so they could be around the same height when they hugged and kissed. A few minutes ago, Paul had his hands on her tiny waist, and Cordelia could feel him breathing heavily when his mouth was on hers.

  When he drove away, she felt an instantaneous aching in her stomach, which she assumed was caused by Paul’s departure. But now that she’d been standing there for a while thinking about it, she realized that she was still bothered by what she’d done earlier that morning. Why had she run out on such a big moment with Paul? If things between them were so perfect—just the way she had dreamed they would be—then something had to be the matter with her.

  “Cordy, is that you?” Her mother’s voice floated out from the back of the house. “Honey, I need your help in the kitchen.”

  Cordelia dragged her backpack behind her through the foyer and then the den, which her parents had redecorated right before her birthday. Her mom liked every room in the house to have a theme—the master bedroom was called “Jungle” because it was covered in animal prints, and the guest bathroom was called “Sunlight” because everything in it was the same shade of yellow. Her mom and dad never went into Molly’s space, and why would they? It was dubbed “The VIP Room,” after all.

  As for Cordelia’s bedroom, it had the most unspectacular theme ever. Her father called it “The Library” because he couldn’t build enough shelves for all the books on Cordelia’s summer reading list. She had to resort to using her Elfa closet organizing system to hold both her clothes and her prized first edition Chronicles of Narnia collection. Molly had nearly cried when Cordelia got rid of a stack of old jeans in order to make room for classic children’s literature.

  When Cordelia finally appeared in the kitchen, her mother was unloading groceries from several large paper bags that were placed neatly on the counter. This room was named “Spice,” so the palette here consisted of earth tones. There were lots of dried flowers and herbs accenting tabletops and walls. Scented candles sat on the windowsill near the sink, and baskets of fresh California fruit were scattered around to make the room feel warm and welcoming. But Cordelia’s favorite part of the kitchen was, strangely, the inside of the cabinets. Mrs. Packer had compartmentalized and organized every drawer and shelf, labeled a place for every jar and can, and separated the different kinds of utensils into categories like “daily use” and “infrequent use.”

  It was no mystery who Cordelia got her type-A gene from.

  “Could you put away all the perishables while I unload the rest?” her mom asked.

  Cordelia took a carton of orange juice from her and stuck it in the refrigerator. Then she grabbed the eggs and 2 percent milk as her mother stacked up cans of tomato paste and jars of dill pickles, her father’s favorite. She and her mom got into a natural rhythm with the unpacking, each of them knowing exactly where all the items went. Cordelia quickly glanced at her mom as she stretched on her tiptoes to reach a cabinet that was too high up. The only physical resemblance she shared with her mother was their height, or lack of it. Everything else was pure Molly—the eyes, the hair, and the smile. If her mom ever decided to invest in some stilts, she’d be the spitting image of her older, VIP daughter.

  “You won’t believe who I ran into at the farmers market,” her mom said excitedly.

  Cordelia rolled her eyes. Her mom had a tendency to create drama when none was necessary, just like someone else she knew.

  “I don’t know. Who?”

  Her mom scrubbed her hands furiously in the sink.

  “Guess.”

  Cordelia’s mind ran over relatives who hadn’t been around lately. “Aunt Ella.”

  “No.”

  “Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He called you a girly-man!”

  Her mom laughed and snapped a hand towel at Cordelia’s rear end. “No, smart mouth.”

  “Well, just tell me, then!”

  Her mother beamed. “Jake!”

  “Jake,” Cordelia repeated. “Jake who?”

  “Jacob Stein. Remember? Molly’s old boyfriend.”

  Normally, at this point, Cordelia would still be clueless. Molly had so many boyfriends, she’d never been able to keep them straight. Unfortunately, Cordelia remembered Jacob Stein as much as she wished she could forget him.

  “Maybe you should wash your hands again.”

  “Oh, Cordy, stop it,” her mother chided her. “He’s a nice boy. And he adores Molly.”

  “They all adore Molly,” Cordelia said. She took a sack of peaches from the bag and began arranging them in another wicker basket.

  “Yes, well, your father and I always liked him. Maybe it was because he never acted like we were parents, you know? He actually talked to us.”

  Yeah, he’d talk to anyone who would listen to him. He never shut up; that was the problem, she thought.

  “And even though he could have showered more often, he had lovely manners,” her mother continued.

  Cordelia shook her head wearily. Her mom had definitely passed down her naïve streak to Molly. Neither of them realized that Jacob Stein was the king of kissing ass. He was always laying it on thick and trying to score points with Molly and her folks. Cordelia couldn’t believe that she was the only person who really saw through his act—and he knew it, which is why they had fought like crazy when no one else was around.

  “Manners? Mom, did you not eat dinner with him every night for five months? The guy wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His sleeve!”

  “You’re exaggerating. He only did that once.”

  Cordelia crossed her arms and gave her mother a hard stare.

  “Okay, maybe more than once,” her mom reconsidered. “Anyway, Jake and I had a nice long talk at the market.”

  “About Molly, I suppose.”

  “Well, of course, he asked about her. But he asked about you, too.”

  “I’m so thrilled.”

  Her mother ignored the sarcasm. “I asked him about school. He told me that he went to UNLV last year, but he’s not going back.”

  Now, that was interesting. Jake had been such a know-it-all, and talked as if he was an authority on every subject, but Cordelia had a strong feeling he was just full of it. Maybe he flunked out or something.

  “Well, what happened?”

  “He didn’t get into that. He just said he didn’t like the atmosphere.”

  Well, that makes sense, too, Cordelia thought. Jake had struck her as the kind of person who had trouble committing to a goal. He was always bragging about his plans to form some sort of revolutionary alt-rock band with his friends, or hit
chhike across the country with only the clothes on his back. But each time Cordelia asked him about his progress, there never seemed to be any.

  “And he said there wasn’t a good music scene in Las Vegas.”

  Cordelia rolled her eyes. She remembered that Jake had been a pseudo-intellectual snob about music. He only liked obscure indie bands that no one else had ever heard of, and if any of them became successful, he’d bash them for “selling out.”

  Actually, he had an opinion about everything, and it drove Cordelia up a wall.

  “He wants to transfer to a college in Seattle,” her mother added.

  Cordelia took the last avocado from the bag and put it on the windowsill to ripen. “That’s great, Mom. I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Hang on, I haven’t told you the big news yet. In another minute, you’re going to thank me.”

  “For what?”

  “I told Jake that you’re going up to Eureka to spend the summer with Molly. And how’s this for a coincidence? He’s thinking of driving up north to look at that college in Seattle!”

  Cordelia was suddenly aware of that familiar churning sensation in her stomach. She was afraid to ask the next question.

  “And…what does that have to do with me?”

  “He offered to give you a ride!”

  Cordelia did everything in her power not to grab her mother and shake some sense into her. “What?”

  “He said the timing is perfect, and it would be right on his way. Isn’t that nice?”

  “Nice?” she shrieked. “Mom, I don’t want to be stuck in a car with Jake Stein all the way to Eureka!”

  “So you’d rather spend the time on a bus?” Her mother pursed her lips. “With total strangers.”

  Okay, that’s one point for Mom, she thought. Her mother was right—traveling with Jake couldn’t possibly be as bad as being stuck on a dirty old bus with a crying baby or a mentally unstable person with a bad case of B.O. Her parents wanted to give Cordelia a ride, but their work schedules were incredibly tight. Her father was working on an important ad campaign for Burt’s Bees and her mom was organizing a gala event for the Red Cross. They just couldn’t get any time off now.