When we shudder to a stop on the parking pad, a black-haired valet, an older man I think I recognize, pauses, his tan hand outstretched, unsure if he should open the door or send us around to the back.
He leans down and looks in the open window.
“Is Jon Duffy here?” I ask, and he smiles, happy to see someone blond and parkable.
“No, no, Miss Johnson, not yet.”
I flop back, and his smile falters.
“I think he’s here later,” he says, “parking for dinner.”
Somehow I am too late and too soon all at the same time. Valerie looks over at me, and I shrug.
“Thanks.” Valerie waves to the valet, and she circles back through the parking lot.
“Where to?” she asks, scooping her sarong between her knees to shift into second.
“I have no idea,” I say.
“We can’t stop now,” Valerie says, chugging back down the driveway, away from the club. “We just got started.”
I admire her spirit. Not in a glee club kind of way, but in a damn, you’re going to get up and go again kind of way. I don’t know where that comes from. I want to crawl under a rock and die.
“Give me a break,” I say, slumping into my seat, watching the countryside speeding by, at least as fast as this car allows it, and sigh. “I’m just a beginner.”
“What about his house?” Valerie asks optimis-tically.
“Sure.” I nod, ready for the next turn.
She slows. “Do you know where it is?”
“No. Do you?”
“No.”
“But you know everything,” I say.
Valerie rolls her eyes at me.
“You really don’t know where he lives?” she asks.
She’s assuming that Duffy and I had some kind of normal relationship, with dinner dates and long phone calls and good-night kisses at the front door.
I sigh, mentally scolding myself for using the past tense.
“He lives at Big Duff’s house.”
“Which is where?”
I shrug, my shoulders heavy. I was hoping and hoping, and now I am hopeless. No matter how much I want to keep going, to change what has already happened, to say what should have been said, my mother is waiting. There is always that.
“Just take me to the church,” I say.
Valerie nods and cranks a left.
It’s quiet as we pull up in front of the church, the quiet that a summer evening gets when everyone is sitting down to dinner, when the sun hits one last high note, lighting the world up in gold. We sit for a second and soak it in.
I climb out and pull my bag from the backseat.
“There’s always tomorrow,” Valerie sings.
And I laugh a little to make her feel good.
I let the door fall shut, the weight of it taking care of most of the work.
“I’ll see you then,” I say.
Valerie smiles at me and then putters away.
Chapter Fifteen
The church is half decorated. Okay, make that three-quarters, since everything is here but the flowers. They will arrive tomorrow morning, bundles of pink blooms, fresh, right before the ceremony. The white silk bunting, draped across every pew and every polished railing, glows in the kaleidoscope of light that slants in through the stained glass windows lining both sides of the nave.
The altar has a shiny pink satin runner on the steps, and tall, thick candles with Y ’n’ R monograms stand at the ready, waiting to be lit with long, tapered matches. And I missed it all.
Instead of being here, decorating and making my mother happy, I have been making my way through the countryside with the smartest girl in town, foolishly letting myself believe, chasing after a boy who probably doesn’t even want to be found. I tried. I failed. I’m doomed.
I slip down the stairs, heading for the ladies’ room in the church basement to change into my wrinkle-free dress. I hit the first step with a sniff. It smells just the way our church always does, like old ladies. Why do church basements always smell like someone’s grandma? And no, I don’t mean my grandma. She wears Guerlain. This smells more like stale coffee and brittle bones.
I hustle, speed dressing in the cramped stall, and climb up the back stairs that lead directly to the altar, using the secret pathway that my sisters and I discovered during hours of droning services and years of boring after-school religious ed.
I walk silently along the gleaming altar, facing the rows and rows of empty wooden pews that will be filled tomorrow afternoon with misty-eyed ladies and dark-suited gentlemen. Pretty much anyone who ever met my parents will be here to watch Roger and Yorke say I do.
My mother slides in close to me as soon as I reach the aisle, grabs my arm, and takes me aside like a child, maneuvering me into an apse, away from Roger’s manicured family, her fingers tight and white on my shoulder.
“So happy you could grace us with your presence,” she breathes into my ear just as Shane walks through the doors, right on time for the rehearsal, filling my stomach with a mixture of dread and relief.
“Why is he here?” I hiss at my mother, twisting out from under her hold, regretting the words as soon as they leave my lips.
“Roger invited him,” my mother whispers discreetly, hiding her words behind her hand.
I huff, blowing a stray hair away from my face.
It’s not like he needs to be here. He’s just an usher, for God’s sake. Do you really need to rehearse leading great-aunts and real estate agents to their seats? I’m pretty sure you just tuck their fingers safely into the crook of your thick biceps and drag them along to the next available pew. Done. No practice necessary.
“Shush.” She scolds me almost silently over her shoulder, not wanting to draw attention to our disagreement.
“Do not embarrass me, Leah,” she says, her smile thin and dangerous.
She tilts her head, waiting for my acquiescence. I am a dust mite, so tiny, so powerless, her breath could blow me away.
A prism of light, brighter than any of the colors streaming through the stained glass windows on each side of the church, winks at me. It’s Yorke’s huge engagement diamond flashing in the sunlight from across the altar. I nod and take my place in the bridal lineup, avoiding Shane’s eyes.
Reverting to old dance lesson habits, I move through the rehearsal without really trying, my eyes always on Freddie, shadowing her, the same moves, the same expressions, and the same silence.
I always knew I hated Roger.
The cars creep along the drive to the club in the blaze of a summer sunset. Shane and I are last, slowly winding our way from the wedding rehearsal at the church, through town, to the rehearsal dinner. We are the ass end of a parade of luxury vehicles, crawling, one at a time, to unload at the club’s doorstep. The valet is still a small silhouette against the burning backdrop.
My left leg is numb under the pressure of Shane’s state championship spiral grip. I keep my eyes trained on the club, watching for a glimpse of Duffy, seeing Yorke up ahead, getting out of Roger’s red car, seeing the bristle of Roger’s hair by the driver’s door as he gives excessive and intricate instructions to the valet on proper parking procedure.
My eyes are open wide, flicking from side to side, from scene to scene, never really focusing, trying to keep up with my brain as it clips along. A blur of summer smells, sounds, and sights, the ones you can experience only while cruising along in a convertible, blast up against my body. I’m alert, running on all cylinders, hoping to see Duffy somewhere, anywhere. I’m gunning for one more chance.
I’m sure he hasn’t given up on me completely. I’m sure the real reason he hasn’t shown up in so long is because he couldn’t. He has been grounded. Just like Valerie said. He’s still willing. He’s just . . . carless.
I breathe a big sigh of relief and blow the last of the stale church air from my lungs. It’s no wonder I haven’t seen him. He hasn’t had a car. He couldn’t find me. But I think, squinting into the glare of the
silver Benz right in front of us, from what I remember, the boy does have legs.
My fingers tap nervously on the buff leather armrest, tense, each revolution of Shane’s flashy rims bringing me closer and closer to my destiny.
I have a perfect view of the lake, the club, the fairways. Big Duff is out on the course in some very fancy brown and white spectator golf cleats. He is getting into a cart, heading out to the ninth hole with some woman about my mother’s age.
I watch, my eyes hungry and hopeful, as they laugh and she flicks her highlighted hair around, obviously enjoying Big Duff’s jokes. I sink down in my seat, dreading that Duffy might be out there, too, on the rolling green course, driving around like his dad, but in a much larger car, with a much younger girl.
My brain is a little gob of matter that rattles around in my skull when we jerk to a stop, stalling a couple of car lengths from the front door.
Roger’s relatives are tumbling from a gold Cadillac like clowns at the circus. They just keep coming and coming, some with hair just as red and just as big as any real clown. All they need are those big, floppy clown shoes to slow down this processional even more.
I crick my neck, trying to see past them and their big hair.
“I am so hot,” I say, cranking the AC in the open car, tugging at the vent in front of me, redirecting its flow, pulling on my visor to block the setting sun.
“You got that right,” Shane says all low and sexy.
I scowl at him, but I am not really paying attention. I am flopping around impatiently, heavy in my low-slung seat, my eyes skimming over the leather of the dash, dreading the moment the door opens and Duffy is there, standing next to me, and wishing it were right now. Suddenly Shane leans in, taking advantage of the momentary lull, and starts just totally letching all over me. His hands, his eyes, his lips, they’re everywhere, rubbing up against me, pulling on my dress, flicking across my skin.
“Come on,” he says, sliding one hand along my thigh and under the hem of my dress, his breath steaming into my face.
I push him off, anger shooting straight through me from the top of my head down to my toes. I pinch my legs together and lock my knees. This is officially hell on wheels.
“Yorke and Freddie do it,” Shane says with a pout, inching the car forward.
Disgusted, I lift my brows at him.
He shrugs. “Boys talk.”
“Pointing out the sluttiness of my sisters is not the way to get into my pants.”
“What is then?” he asks, dropping the car into park with a lurch as we finally pull up to the base of the curved steps.
“Shane,” I say, kicking the door open with my sandaled foot, leaving a big smudge mark on the soft leather panel, “you’re such an asshole.”
I don’t wait for a valet or for Duffy or for anyone to hold the door open and help me. I want out.
Somebody does appear, though, a red jacket blurring behind me as I stalk off, the light brush of fingertips grazing against mine as I step away and stride up the stairs away from Shane, feeling, or maybe just imagining, a luminous trail of electricity tingling on my skin.
I find him, hours later, standing in the shadows of the old barn that is used as the club’s garage. Full of tractor mowers and golf course equipment, it is hidden away from the main building behind some tall trees at the back of the parking lot.
There’s an old wooden kitchen table on the concrete slab just inside the massive sliding door. The black-haired valet from earlier and a couple of other guys are sitting around in the dim light on mismatched chairs, elbows on the scratched surface, playing gin with a beat-up deck of cards.
A board is nailed to the wall over a workbench behind the table, numbered car keys hanging from tenpenny nails. A red jacket hangs loosely on the back of one of the empty chairs at the table.
The loud clack of my heels across the pavement draws attention away from the game as I walk toward the barn, but at least it drowns out the wild thumping of my heart. I stop short of the doorway when I see Duffy standing outside, partially hidden in the shadow of the roof.
He steps toward me, hands crammed deep into his pockets.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I blurt out.
I have waited for this moment for too long, and it comes out in a rush, before I am ready to say it.
“Tell you what?” he asks, his voice and his eyes as flat as lake water on a cold early morning.
“About Mr. Ridley’s Porsche, about getting caught. About why I never see you anymore,” I whisper.
About everything, I think, as I pause for a second to catch up with my thoughts, the list continuing in my head, a desperate rambling too embarrassing ever to be spoken out loud. I want to know everything. Everything about you. I want to know that you liked me, that you were actually interested in me, that I meant something to you. I want to know that I didn’t screw everything up for us.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your boyfriend?” Duffy asks, lifting his chin toward the parking lot, where Shane and Roger are now stumbling, drunk and loud toward Shane’s car, its white paint gleaming under the glow of a lamppost.
I can see Shane reaching into the open passenger side and digging around. I watch as he stands and then sloppily bumps knuckles with Roger, leaving me feeling queasy and embarrassed. Roger lights what looks like two cigars, and the smoke from the burning embers curls up, chasing away the summer bugs circling the buzzing lamp over their heads.
“That was nothing,” I say, dismissing Shane, but glad to be hidden away under the cover of darkness.
“Then what was I?” Duffy asks.
His eyes glitter green and angry as he steps out of the shadows.
“What were you?” I ask, steam building behind my words. “You were the guy that stopped showing up, that pretended that he liked me and then disappeared. You were the guy that left me waiting and wondering, the guy that never told me what happened. I had to hear it all from Valerie Dickens, the girl that gets most of her information from old library books and the forensics club. At least I didn’t tell Valerie to tell your dad to tell you that I had a boyfriend. That’s so seventh grade.”
“No, you let me see it in action. That’s so much better.”
“I didn’t want that to happen.” I fumble. “That wasn’t my choice.”
“Neither was I apparently,” Duffy says solemnly, his hands out in front of him, stopping my approach, his eyes searing into mine.
He drops his hands, silent, and then turns and slips away, up the slope toward the golf course and into the dark night. He doesn’t look back.
I take a few steps and sag down onto the thick green grass, my shoulders hunched up, a sob stuck in my throat.
“Let him go, Leah.” My mother’s voice splinters down my spine.
I turn, twisting toward her, stunned to find her there, half hidden in the darkness under the trees.
“Broken hearts can always mend,” she says, walking toward me slowly, and I wonder how much she has heard, how much she knows, and why she sounds like an old love song, fuzzy but somehow recognizable.
“What do you know about it?” I say as I stand, not trusting the warmth in her voice, testing it for the edge.
“More than you realize.”
“Sure,” I scoff.
“I do,” she insists. “I just want what’s best for you.”
“Maybe you don’t know what that is,” I say.
I am suffocating and crawling out of my skin, desperate to chase after Duffy, to have him back, to have that part of my life back, right here and right now, but I am nailed to the spot.
“Maybe it’s him,” I say.
“It’s not,” she says simply, as if there were no doubt.
She looks at me, slightly exasperated but with patience.
“Let me live my own life,” I say without thinking.
“I do,” she says softly, taking another step toward me. “And you have a perfect life.”
“No, I don’t.” I shake my head
. I back up, fists clenched at my sides. “I have Freddie’s life and Yorke’s life and yours, too. None of it is really mine. And none of it is perfect. At least not for me.”
She nods along with me, raising an eyebrow, like she wants to pretend to understand what I am talking about. I know she doesn’t.
“Why don’t you want more for me? Why don’t I get anything different, anything that’s just for me?” I ask, years of frustration coming out in a ragged, defiant rush.
She tilts her head, tensing up. “Like what?” she asks, crossing her arms across her chest, a flash of anger flaring in her voice.
“Like him,” I say, plunging forward, ignoring the signs pointing toward disaster. Danger. Beyond here be dragons.
She breathes out and speaks slowly and clearly. “He’s the hired help, Leah. He’s a mistake.”
“Well, then,” I counter, “let me make my own mistakes.”
“You don’t know what you are asking.” She sighs, sounding weary and unexpectedly wise. “You don’t realize the mistakes you can make at your age.”
“Like Yorke?” I ask quietly, bringing up the forbidden topic, feeling suddenly daring and fearless here in the darkness with a broken heart.
“Yes, Leah,” she says heavily, rubbing her forehead, the bracelets making a slow, soft shink, shink, shink as she moves. “Like Yorke.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Where is the pink one?” the pinched-looking photographer mutters as he trips into the bright flower-filled dressing room, white socks peeking out from under his dark, wrinkled suit pants. He is moving at breakneck speed, trying to capture the multitude of candid shots that Yorke wants as a reminder of this blessed event.
“Where’s the pink one?” he says again, almost shouting this time, sounding frantic, adjusting the thick black camera strap around his neck as his eyes stop on each of my sisters, apparently unable to tell us apart.
You would think the fact that one of us is wearing a wedding dress would at least give him a place to start, but he looks lost and flustered, not up to the process of elimination. I hold up my pink bouquet to help him out.
Kiss Crush Collide Page 15
