by Jeff Strand
“You should come over,” I say. “You need to see the sincerity in my eyes.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“No, I could use a bike ride. I’m leaving now.”
We hang up.
I have no idea how Blake thinks he can get away with this. None of these lies are going to hold up.
Unless he has a history of bribing people. Oh, wait…
I won’t worry about that for now.
And I won’t worry about losing Audrey. Once she has a moment to think about it (and as mentioned before, the opportunity to see the sincerity in my eyes), she’ll realize that it’s all a big con. I didn’t do anything wrong.
In the end, this is all for the best. If Blake is doing awful things to purposely destroy my relationship with Audrey, Mom won’t let him stay with us. Aunt Mary and Uncle Clark will just have to come back from Antarctica or Middle Earth or wherever their cruise ship is currently docked and collect their miserable excuse for a son.
It’s all going to be fine.
There’s a knock at the door.
It’s too soon for that knock to have come from Audrey, unless she was standing in my yard the whole time we were talking on the phone.
I peek out the window. It’s not Audrey or Blake. It’s Jennifer Render. You don’t know who she is, but if you’ve been paying attention during this chapter, you can probably figure out how she fits into the overall puzzle.
This ain’t good.
19.
Maybe I should pretend I’m not home.
This would be a brilliant idea, except that Jennifer saw me peeking out the window. She smiles and waves.
Okay, clearly, Blake has arranged for Jennifer to be here when Audrey arrives, so Audrey can say, “What is she doing here?” and I can say, “No, no, it’s not what it looks like!” and Jennifer can say, “But I thought you two had broken up!” and Audrey can storm off in tears.
That might be pushing it. That scenario would require Blake to know that I was going to suggest that Audrey come over to my house and then to send Jennifer over at the perfect time. Although, technically, this isn’t the perfect time. Jennifer’s here early enough that I can probably send her on her way before Audrey arrives. Still, Blake being able to coordinate the situation so well puts him into the “omniscient supervillain” category, and I don’t want to give him that much credit.
I should hide. What’s Jennifer going to do? Break down the door? Even if she starts pounding on it and shouting, “I know you’re in there, Rod!” surely she’ll get bored and leave before Audrey gets here, right?
The word surely should be purged from my vocabulary. Nothing is working out the way it should.
I open the door. Jennifer, still smiling, gives her head an alluring tilt. “Hi, Rod.”
“Hi, Jennifer.” I consider pretending that I don’t remember her name, but we have two classes together. Though we’ve never socialized outside of school, I know perfectly well that her name is Jennifer. If I want to get out of this predicament (Fun fact: I do), it’s best for me to stick to the truth.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
I shrug. “Eh.” I can’t say it’s been a great day.
“Just eh?”
“Yeah. Below eh, actually.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I heard your band had a really amazing show Monday night.”
“Yep.”
“I didn’t even know you were in a band.” She giggles. “Are you keeping secrets from me, Rod Conklin?”
Okay, yeah, she’s definitely working for my cousin. “How much did Blake pay you?” I ask.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s Blake?”
“My cousin Blake. There was an incident between us during biology class.”
Jennifer nods. “Oh, yeah. I heard about that. He totally deserved it. He’s lucky you didn’t do worse.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“That was very restrained of you.”
“Blake’s out of control. He’s trying to ruin my relationship with Audrey.”
“You’re in a relationship with Audrey?” Jennifer asks. “I had no idea. Lucky girl.”
“Seriously. He’s the bad guy here, and if you’re on his side, you’re on the wrong side of history.”
“I don’t know him at all.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because it sounds like you’re about to become really popular.” She leans closer to me. “And I want to be on the right side of history.”
This would be a terrible, terrible moment for Audrey to show up, and fortunately, she doesn’t. “Well, I know he paid you, so…”
“Nobody paid me.”
“Bribed you.”
“Nobody bribed me.”
“Blackmailed?” Has Blake really gone that far?
“I’m here because I want to get to know you better. No other reason.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Yeah, wrong.”
“What does that even mean?”
Jennifer’s smile disappears. “I don’t appreciate your attitude.”
“And I don’t appreciate you being Blake’s pawn. So it’s time to leave. Rapidly.”
Jennifer folds her arms in front of her chest. “I’m not going anywhere until you apologize.”
“I apologize. Bye.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“No, Blake is a jerk. I’m the victim of a jerk.”
“Why don’t you like me?”
“I like you fine. But I already have a girlfriend. Now go.”
Should I slam the door in her face? She’s standing a little too close. I don’t want to break her nose. You don’t get to claim you’re the good guy after you break a girl’s nose.
“All right,” says Jennifer. “I’ll leave.”
Jennifer does not leave.
“Now?” I suggest.
“Sure.”
“So…”
“Yes?”
“You haven’t left.”
“Oh.”
“You were supposed to.”
“I’m getting around to it.”
“Get around to it faster.”
“There’s no need to be rude.”
“Apparently, there is a need to be rude.”
“Most guys aren’t in a hurry to send me away.”
“This is an unusual circumstance.”
“May I come in and use your bathroom?”
“No.”
“Rude.”
“Sorry.” I shrug.
“I really, really have to go to the bathroom.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll wet my pants right here on your front porch,” she says.
“You know what? If that’s the way things are heading, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’d prefer you not wet your pants on my porch, but if I have to choose between that and letting you inside, then I’m afraid I have to go with the pants-wetting option. Nothing personal.”
Jennifer glares at me. “Everybody says that you’re a gentleman. I guess they were wrong.”
“Nobody says I’m a gentleman,” I insist.
“Everybody does.”
“No, they don’t. They might say I’m a cool punk rocker, but not a gentleman.”
“Nobody says you’re a cool guy.”
“Nobody?” This news is somewhat distressing.
“Nope.”
“You’re trying to hurt my feelings.”
“I help feelings. I don’t hurt them.”
“You need to go.”
“I agree with you.”
“I know what you’re doing. You’re avoiding leaving so that you’re here when Audrey gets here.”
“Yes. You didn’t know that?”
“How would I know that?”
“Because you’re here because of Blake.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Of course you are.”
“I barely know him. He’s not somebody I’d do favors for.”
“So you’re admitting that you know him a little.”
“Barely.”
“That’s enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To be bribed or blackmailed.”
“You live in a weird world.”
“If you’re not working with Blake, why are you here?”
“I already said. To get to know you better.”
“Right, but now you know that I have a girlfriend and that she’s on the way over, and you’re still standing there. Your reasoning no longer holds up.”
Jennifer puts her hand on her hip. “Maybe I think I can compete with her.”
“I’m not going to comment on that either way, but it’s obviously not why you’re here. Just admit it.”
“Will you let me use your bathroom if I admit it?”
“No.”
“Rude.”
“Am I going to have to call the police?”
“Are you the kind of guy who’d call the police on a girl who wanted to ask him out?”
“I’m moving in that direction.”
“Do you want to go to the movies tonight?”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?” She looks insulted.
“Because I have a girlfriend and you don’t really mean it.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Could you step back a bit?” I ask.
“Sure.”
Jennifer doesn’t step back. I can’t slam the door unless she steps back. Even you wouldn’t sympathize with me if I broke her nose.
“You’re not stepping back,” I say.
“I thought I did.”
“Nope.”
“Pretty sure I did.”
“Nope.”
“My feet look like they’re in a different spot.”
“Nope. Your feet are exactly where they were before.”
“Interesting.”
Audrey could be here any minute. If Jennifer still refuses to leave and continues playing dumb, that might work to my benefit because Audrey would immediately realize that Jennifer isn’t really here to get to know me better. But if Jennifer sees her and hurries away, it could be problematic.
You know what I should do? I should give Audrey a heads-up that Jennifer is standing on my front porch and won’t leave. That way she won’t be ruled by emotion when she gets here.
I tap my cell phone screen.
“Are you playing Candy Crush?” Jennifer asks.
“No.”
“Who are you texting?”
“I’m not texting.”
“Who are you calling?”
“Audrey.”
“Why?”
“To let her know you’re here.”
For a second, I think Jennifer is going to slap my phone out of my hand. (Or at least try. I have a firm grip.) But she doesn’t.
The phone rings a few times then goes to voicemail.
“She didn’t answer?” asks Jennifer.
“No.”
“She must not care about you.”
“She’s riding a bike.”
“So?”
“She might not have noticed that I called. Or she did notice but didn’t want to stop to answer because she’s on her way over here and will see me soon anyway.”
“She can’t talk and ride a bike?”
“She can’t ride a bike and take her cell phone out of her pocket and answer it, no.”
“She sounds unskilled.”
“Please don’t insult my girlfriend.”
“I apologize.”
“You could make it up to me by telling the truth about Blake.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“What’s going on?”
Guess who said that? Correct!
“Oh, hi,” Jennifer says to Audrey. “Do you know Rod, Audrey?”
Audrey gets off her bicycle and lets it fall onto my lawn. “Yes, I do.”
“She knows you know me,” I say. “We were literally just talking about you being my girlfriend.”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” says Jennifer. I’m kind of relieved that she’s lying right to my face. I now know for certain that she’s helping Blake and that I wasn’t simply being rude to a girl who wanted to get to know the lead singer of a punk rock band on the rise.
“Did Blake send you?” Audrey asks.
“Blake who?”
“She knows who Blake is,” I say.
“Did Blake send you?” Audrey asks again.
“Blake Lively? Blake Shelton? William Blake?”
“William Blake has been dead for two hundred years.” (Audrey says this. She knows more than I do about the life and death of English poets and visual artists of the Romantic Age who lived during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.)
“I meant a different William Blake.”
“I’m talking about Blake Montgomery,” Audrey clarifies.
“Don’t know him,” says Jennifer.
“Rod’s cousin.”
“Still don’t know him.”
“I have pictures of you talking to him.”
“No, you don’t.”
Wouldn’t it have been great if this made Jennifer break down and confess? We could’ve wrapped this book up a few chapters earlier.
Audrey steps up onto the porch.
“Anyway,” says Jennifer, “I can see that there’s about to be a spat, so I’m going to head home. If you two work it out, great, but if not, Rod, you know where to find me.”
Jennifer walks away. I hope that Audrey’s angry expression is meant for her, that maybe she’s trying to decide whether or not to leap on her back and tackle her to the ground, but I quickly discover that the expression is all mine.
“So let’s analyze this,” I say. “This is the fifth or sixth similar incident today. That’s already defying credibility. And even if Jennifer wanted to get to know me better for real, she wouldn’t show up at my house unannounced.”
“I don’t know why she was here,” says Audrey, “and I don’t know if she was announced or not.”
“I told you to come over! It was my idea! Why would I invite you over if I knew Jennifer was on her way?”
“To make it easier to break up with me?”
“What?”
“I ride over here, see you with her, scream a little, slap you, and say I never want to see you again. It lets you off the hook.”
“Okay,” I say, “I can’t be in a relationship if we’re not even going to pretend to be on the same plane of reality.”
“I know you say it was all Blake’s doing, and it probably was. But maybe he was just speeding up the process.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How long do you really think we were going to be together?”
“Longer than this!”
“It was never going to work out. You want to tour with a band, and I want to be an astronaut. We’d never see each other.”
I’m so flabbergasted that I want to drop to the floor and roll around in circles and scream, “Gaaahhhhh!” But that’s not how I want Audrey to remember me.
“I…can’t…I…don’t…I…can’t…I…huh?” I say with maximum eloquence.
“I can’t handle this dynamic anymore. Not for a relationship that was doomed from the first moment we met, when I asked
if you knew where the gym was.”
“But I did know where the gym was! And I’ll always give you directions to the gym.”
“I’m sorry, Rod.”
“No. I do not accept this. If we’re destined to break up, I don’t want Blake to get the credit.”
Audrey gives me a hug. Then she wipes a tear from her eye and walks away.
No.
Nooo.
Noooooooooooooooooo!
“I thought we were going to defeat him together!” I shout.
She picks up her bicycle and rides away.
I stand there in shock for…I dunno, three minutes or so? I’m in too much shock to say for certain.
He did it. That wormy little weasel successfully nuked my relationship with Audrey. All I can say is that he’d better not bring home a bowling ball because his nose will be the headpin and I’m ready to bowl a strike.
That would make a great song lyric.
Your nose is the headpin, and I’m gonna bowl a—
No, that’s an awful lyric. I can’t even write songs anymore.
I resist the urge to cry. If I start bawling or even let a single manly tear trickle down my cheek, Blake will pick that moment to come home.
I wanna shed some tears, but I can’t let you see me shedding.
Argh! My lyric-writing days are over! Over!
A car pulls up in front of my house, and Blake gets out. The car has tinted windows, so I can’t see the driver. Maybe it’s somebody I know. Maybe it’s a crime lord. Or maybe it’s an Uber driver.
Blake looks at my scowling face and grins. “How was your day? I guess we have a lot to talk about, huh?”
20.
I said that I was going to have a flashback to how Audrey and I met. It’s too painful for me to do it now and kind of pointless seeing as how we’ve broken up. You probably got the idea that she was new in school and asked me for directions to the gym. Did she really not know where it was, or was it an excuse to talk to me because she’d heard I was in a band? I was going to ask her on our wedding day. Now it’s a mystery for the ages.
Back to Blake. He walks toward the front door. Even though he has to know there’s a strong possibility that I’m going to let out a battle cry and charge at him, he’s not moving like somebody who expects to be attacked. I’ll have to be cautious. He may have a can of mace.
“You suck,” I tell him.
