by Lucy Score
How were they going to start their life-long love affair on opposite ends of the country?
It was a problem she’d solve later. First, she had to convince him to be in a relationship with her right now.
“Do you want to go to the dance with me?” she asked finally.
Davis reached over to where her pencil had left a staccato splatter of lead dots and covered her hand with his. “I really do.”
Zing! “Then maybe no one has to know. My parents never go to the dance and neither do yours. We could show up separately, dance in the corner, maybe throw in a dance or two with other partners so no one’s any the wiser… It would be like a secret date.”
The only thing better than a relationship with Davis was a secret relationship with Davis. They would be like a modern-day version of Romeo and Juliet. Only smarter and with better communication skills… and fewer suicides.
“You’d be willing to do that?” he asked, perking up.
“Yes!” She said it a little too loudly and the neighboring lab table partners turned to stare at them.
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s do this. I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll be your secret date,” Eden whispered. She was so excited she was surprised that she didn’t rocket right off her lab stool and into the stratosphere.
She was going out on a secret date with Davis Gates. Her dream was coming true.
All they had to do was make sure their parents never found out.
3
“I see you making those eyes!” Eden’s mother snapped, elbowing her in the ribs.
“What eyes?” Eden asked innocently, breaking Davis’s gaze from across the sidewalk. They were in One Love Park, Blue Moon’s center, mere hours away from her first dance with her one true major crush. She and her parents were manning the coat donation booth in the freezing December weather while Davis was bundled up, volunteering at the book donation tent twenty feet away.
Her mother shoved a garbage bag of winter wear into her arms.
“You stay away from the Gates family. And that includes their demon spawn,” her mother said, pointing a finger in Eden’s face. Lilly Ann Moody was a kind, generous spirit in all areas of her life except one. As far as she was concerned, the Gates family could rot in hell. The decades-old feud that began who knows when over who knows what had only escalated in recent years with each generation committing to public hatred. “That boy’s mother sabotaged my entry in last year’s casserole contest!” Lilly Ann announced.
Eden and her sister had had to listen to the story on a daily repeat since then.
“Mom, maybe the judges just weren’t a fan of your Tuna Surprise It’s Tofu Casserole,” Eden suggested.
Lilly Ann’s gasp nearly leveled her.
“I’m not getting peaceful vibes from you two,” Eden’s father, Ned, called in a sing-song tone from the opposite side of the tent. He lifted one of the ear flaps on his furry hat. “Do we need to hug it out?”
“Your daughter is mooning over that Gates ruffian,” Lilly Ann announced, neatly tossing Eden under the bus even as she accepted a pink parka from Mrs. Nordemann with a sweet smile.
Eden winced at her father’s shrill, “Over my deceased corpse!”
“I’ve been watching them all afternoon,” Lilly Ann said. “Eden, sweetie, dating that boy is literally the only thing in the world you could do to hurt your family.”
Mrs. Nordemann looked as though she were taking notes.
“Lilly Ann,” Atlantis, Eden’s older sister, cautioned. Atlantis was a cool adult who had called their parents by their first names since preschool. She wore her baby in a paisley sling tied around her chest. “Telling Eden not to do something is basically like begging her to do it under penalty of death.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Lilly Ann demanded, dropping dramatically into the folding metal chair behind the coat collection table, her overstuffed down coat letting out a whoosh of air. “You want me to sit back and just ignore the fact that my own daughter is willing to accept decades of abuse, years of terror?”
Abuse was a bit of a strong word. Sure, the Gates family stole parking spaces right out from under the Moodys, didn’t hold doors for them, and had once even flipped Eden’s parents the middle finger at a junior high band concert. But, to be fair, that was after Lilly Ann had slapped the video camera out of Tilly Nuswing-Gates’s hand during Davis’s bongo solo. Eden’s parents were not innocent victims. They’d done their share of bad things to the Gates family. Eden’s father had stolen the Sunday newspaper off of the Gateses’ front porch for an entire year before he was caught in his pajama pants in their front yard at 4 a.m.
Sheriff Hazel Cardona had been nice enough to give him a warning and a ride home.
While her mother and sister argued their points, Eden’s gaze slid back to the book donation stand. Davis was hefting two reusable totes full of paperbacks, and she wished he wasn’t wearing the heavy gray winter coat so she could admire his biceps as they strained under the load.
“Look at her! She’s practically salivating,” Lilly Ann shrieked.
Her father grabbed her mother’s hands. “We’ll send her away to live with Aunt Martha on the commune,” he suggested. “They’ll labor the Gates out of her there.”
Eden rolled her eyes. Her mother’s sister lived on a commune in Michigan that raised goats and sheep. If she were sent there, there was no hope that she’d turn out remotely normal.
Movement at the book stand caught her attention. Ferguson and Tilly Gates had arrived. Tilly had dirty blonde hair cut in a stylish pixie look. She had tattoos on both wrists and ankles and a degree in environmental conservation. Her husband Ferguson was a handsome man with monogrammed sweaters and a trust fund from a winery family in California. They’d met when Tilly was hitchhiking cross country the summer after she graduated. Together, they’d started the Blue Moon Winery, the first organic winery in upstate New York.
Eden felt the Gateses’ success only added fuel to the feud. Especially after her mother’s garage-based custom incense business failed. While the Gateses wore organic cashmere coats, the Moody family bundled into hand-me-down puffy coats and handknit caps.
Eden tried to catch Davis’s eye, wanting to share a secret wink over the ridiculousness of their parents, but he was talking to his father.
Tilly on the other hand was staring her down like she was a wild animal charging down the woman’s family. Her expression was clear: Stay. Away.
Eden raised a hand and waved awkwardly. “What are you doing?” Lilly Ann hissed. She shoved Eden’s hand down and positioned herself between her daughter and her mortal enemy’s scowl.
“Why don’t you mind your own business, Tilly?” Lilly Ann called across the wide sidewalk.
“Why don’t you keep your daughter from staring at my son like he’s a piece of tofu casserole,” Tilly suggested with a frosty tone.
“As if our Eden would be even remotely interested in your offspring.” Eden’s mother said “offspring” like it was a dirty, four-letter word. “Do you see what she did? She admitted to ruining my casserole!” Lily Ann hissed to her daughters.
“If your daughter knows what’s good for her, she’ll keep her eyes to herself,” Tilly shrilled back.
Mr. Oakleigh, the town busybody and sweater vest connoisseur, bustled up with his wife Amethyst on his heels. They were each lugging bags. “Amethyst, my pearl, why don’t you drop the coats off here with the Moodys while I hand over the Bobbsey Twins collection?” Mr. Oakleigh announced loudly to cover up the yelled insults flying between Eden’s mother and Davis’s.
“Helloooooo,” Amethyst shouted as she dumped her two garbage bags on the table in front of Eden. “It’s so lovely to see you all again!”
Lily Ann bobbed left and right trying to peer around Amethyst’s slim shoulders, but the woman blocked her view. “Isn’t it a wonderful day for HeHa?” Amethyst yelled.
It was twenty-seven degrees, and the freezing r
ain had just started again.
“Just wonderful,” Atlantis agreed.
Eden heard Bruce commenting on the park’s holiday decorations at full volume to the Gateses.
“Well, look at this collection of coats!” Phoebe Pierce towing her husband, John, wandered up to the coat stand. “We’ll be keeping the whole town warm this year, won’t we?” she asked with a pretty smile.
John was warm and farmerly in a worn flannel coat. He had his arm anchored around Phoebe’s waist. None of the couple’s sons were nearby. “How’s everything going, Ned?” John asked. John Pierce was a calming influence, and Eden hoped he’d be able to squelch the argument before it came to blows… like at last year’s Sit-In reenactment.
Eden’s father quit his attempt to moon the Gateses—saving half the town from a view of his practically albino ass cheeks—and shook John’s hand. “Great, John. Real great. How are your boys?”
“Mom! Can I borrow ten bucks?” Jax, the youngest Pierce boy, barreled up. He paused long enough to give Eden a flirtatious wink. He was a few years behind her in school, but the Pierce brothers were a danger to women of all ages.
“What did your father just tell you six minutes ago?” Phoebe sighed.
“He said no,” Jax answered cheerfully.
Phoebe rolled her eyes heavenward. “Why did we have three boys again?” she sighed.
“Because you asked for girls,” John grinned.
Lilly Ann’s forced laughter was too loud. “Oh, John and Phoebe! You’re so funny! No wonder you’re such good friends of ours!”
To Eden’s recollection, John and Phoebe Pierce had never once set foot in the Moody house.
“We’d love to come to dinner next week, Bruce!” Ferguson bellowed at full volume from across the way.
“We’re so honored you would invite us!” Tilly chimed in.
Judging from Mr. Oakleigh’s confused expression, no such invitation had been extended. In feuds as in war, gathering allies was an important part of the battle.
Eden felt a hot rush over her half-frozen skin and realized Davis was finally looking in her direction. She gave him a playful “aren’t they insane” shrug. But he didn’t smile, didn’t acknowledge the family crazy that was spilling over into the HeHa festivities.
Nerves settled like an entire carton of ice cream in Eden’s stomach.
4
“Damnit,” Donovan Cardona, track star, son of Blue Moon’s sheriff, and one of Davis’s best friends, scowled at his lopsided bowtie in the bathroom mirror.
Davis snorted at his friend’s disastrous attempt at neckwear as he carefully adjusted his own borrowed tie. He had a knack for it, he realized, straightening the knot. Though he doubted that skill would ever come in handy.
“Maybe just lose the bowtie?” Davis suggested.
“No.” Donovan was adamant. He’d bet Carter Pierce ten bucks that he could show up to the HeHa dance in a nerdy bowtie and still score a dance with Llewellyn Chang, a notoriously high-maintenance, un-gettable senior, and he was determined to collect. Davis respected that.
He took pity on Donovan and made quick work of the bowtie.
“Thanks, man. So, you finally gonna put the moves on Moody?” Donovan asked, sliding a comb through his blond hair.
Davis skated a guilty glance at the still closed bathroom door. Donovan and their friend Carter Pierce were the only people who knew about his feelings for Eden. And even they didn’t know just how serious his crush was. “Don’t say that name too loud. My parents will have a cow.”
“You’re eighteen. A man,” Donovan insisted. “What are they going to do about it?”
Donovan’s parents didn’t have the golden guilt trip that Davis’s did. His father’s heart attack when he was a kid—a terrifying time for their family—still loomed like an ugly, dark cloud.
When he was being too enthusiastic with his bongo playing. Don’t upset your father.
Every day of his learner’s permit. Are you trying to kill me?
And, of course, after his mother’s fender bender with a lamp post on Patchouli Street. Let’s just not tell your father about this. He doesn’t need any more stress in his life.
“It’s complicated,” Davis sighed.
“I’m just putting it out there. If you let your parents call the shots now, they’ll be calling ‘em for the rest of your life.”
Davis really hoped his friend was full of shit.
“All I’m saying’s you’ve been into this girl for freaking ever,” Donovan continued, slapping on a healthy dose of Old Spice. Anything longer than a semester of school constituted forever at eighteen.
Davis had been peripherally aware of Eden since kindergarten. They’d once eaten an entire glue stick together before the teacher discovered them hidden away in the classroom’s bean bag corner.
In junior high band, he’d been stationed behind the bongos when Eden had saved her friend from dreaded “fart mouth” after Pond Birkbeck had desecrated Layla’s unattended trumpet mouthpiece. He’d applauded her bravery, along with the rest of the band, when Eden and Layla had pummeled Pond to the floor.
But he’d never forget the moment that he became aware aware of Eden Moody.
It was the end of the first day of school his junior year, her sophomore year. Davis had been behind the wheel of his third-hand El Camino fiddling with a Phish CD when he’d heard laughter through his open windows.
Fran, the mohawked bass player for any number of high school garage bands, gripped the armrests of her wheelchair and cackled with glee as Eden Moody gave her an enthusiastic push down the slight hill to the parking lot. Eden hopped on the back of the chair, her magenta highlights glimmering in the afternoon light, a smile brighter than the sun on her face. It wasn’t some major aha moment like his mother was always talking about. It was more of a “yeah, that’s the one” acceptance.
Eden had this sexy rebellious vibe going that the straight and narrow Davis found both terrifying and appealing. She wasn’t worried about fitting in and doing what everyone expected of her. She was strong, exciting, and very, very pretty.
Eden wasn’t like the other girls who were usually more than willing to flirt or date or hit a few bases in the back of his El Camino. Eden was different.
And then he’d remembered who her parents were. And who his parents were.
He hadn’t been able to help himself, talking to her, flirting with her over the past few semesters. He liked her. She was funny and sarcastic and filled with this buzzing energy. He just wanted to be around her.
In deference to his parents, Davis had casually dated other girls. But his heart belonged to Eden. And now, he had this bright sliver of hope that he could both date her and not piss off his parents.
The bathroom door burst open, bouncing off of Donovan’s shoulder. “Are you trying to give your father another heart attack?” Tilly Nuswing-Gates demanded, her mouth painted in an unforgiving frown.
“Geez, Mom!”
Donovan looked left and right for an escape route.
Davis lamented not locking the door. Sometimes he wondered if his father’s heart attack all those years ago had been caused by Tilly scaring the ever-living crap out of him with one of her dramatic entrances. “What seems to be the latest crisis?” he asked, knowing exactly what it was.
She crossed her arms, blocking his escape. “I knew it! I just knew it the way you two were mooning over each other in the park today!”
Guilt settled like a bowling ball in his stomach.
“I think I’ll head over early.” Donovan the Coward squeezed past Tilly and ran for the hills in his perfectly straight bowtie.
“I know that you’re planning to take that… that… that Moody girl to the dance,” his mother sputtered with rage. “And I am telling you that you will do so over your father’s corpse. You will literally kill him.”
“Mom, aren’t you being a little bit dramatic?” His father’s heart attack had happened years ago. Since then, Tilly had bad
gered him into better health. Maybe it was time they stop tiptoeing and started being honest with each other.
“‘A little bit dramatic’? Your father almost died and you insist on doing the one thing that will put him in his grave.”
Tilly should have been a soap opera star. Her dramatic timing was magnificent. “Fine,” Davis conceded. “Then let’s not tell him. Hasn’t this feud gone on long enough? She’s a great girl. She’s smart, she’s funny.”
“I can’t believe you’d even consider going anywhere with her kind. Her parents are hoodlums. Her grandparents are practically circus freaks.”
“Mom!”
“Davis!” His father bellowed from downstairs and Davis winced. News traveled fast in Blue Moon.
“What do you expect?” his mother hissed. “No one keeps secrets here.”
“Davis!” His father sounded like a wounded animal ready to rampage.
“Shit.” Davis followed his mother downstairs and prepared to face the music. He was a pretty low-maintenance son. He didn’t bicker with his parents. There were no real power struggles. He was respectful, courteous. He kept his room clean. Paid for his own gas. He helped out at the winery every weekend without complaint. Maybe they could give him this one thing?
Ferguson’s face was the color of the Harvard beets he was so fond of.
“I just got off of the phone with Enid Macklemore. You know what she told me?”
Davis rocked back on his heels. “I’m guessing it has something to do with the HeHa Dance,” he hedged.
“She said that that mousy little Moody girl asked you to the dance.”
“Ferguson, your blood pressure,” Tilly reminded him.
“Dad, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Not a big deal? She’s planning to humiliate you. It’s all a joke. Even her parents are in on it,” Ferguson shouted.
“Which is why, I’ve arranged for Davis to escort Taneisha next-door,” Tilly said, smoothly inserting herself into the conversation.
Davis whirled around. “Wait. What? And you did what?”
Tilly glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’re picking her up in fifteen minutes.”
