Isabella's Spring Break Crush

by Angela Darling

  “Grandma, it’s not going to rain,” Isabella said.

  “These aren’t for the rain. They’re for the sun!” she said loudly, thrusting one into Isabella’s hand. Isabella opened it, feeling a little silly, but she had to admit that it worked.

  They took a tour of the orange grove, which was interesting but seemed to take hours. Then they went to the grocery store to pick out cereal for the week and, oddly, Grandma didn’t object when Jake grabbed a big box of chocolate-flavored cereal. Then they went to an Italian restaurant for pizza, and when Jake asked if they could get ice cream for dessert, Grandma Miriam said yes!

  “Really?” Isabella asked.

  “Oh, well, your mom isn’t here,” Grandma said with a wink. “I try to follow her rules, but this week we follow my rules. And I love dessert.”

  Who are you, and what have you done with Grandma Miriam? Isabella wondered.

  They went back to the condo, and Grandma held up a DVD case.

  “It’s movie time!” she said. “I got The Sound of Music! Can you believe nobody else took it out?”

  Jake couldn’t help making a face. “The Sound of Music?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it!” Grandma sounded shocked. “I need to scold your mother about that. Good thing it’s never too late.”

  Isabella had never heard of it either. It turned out to be a musical about a family with a lot of kids who lived in Germany during the Second World War. They had no mom, just a dad and a nanny, and the nanny taught them how to sing. So they gave a concert for the German soldiers and escaped while they were singing.

  Isabella would have thought that a movie set in such a serious time would be sad, but it ended up being really interesting and even fun. Grandma Miriam knew all the words to all the songs and sang along really loudly to each one. She and Jake started giggling, which made her sing even louder.

  By the time the movie was over, Isabella was exhausted. She barely had the energy to shower and get into her pajamas. As she was settling into bed, Grandma Miriam came in to say good night.

  “Did you have a good time today, my beautiful Izzy?” Grandma asked.

  “Yes,” Isabella said, and she meant it. The day had been really fun.

  “Just wait until tomorrow,” Grandma said. “Rose’s grandson, Ryan, will be going to the pool with you. Isn’t that nice?”

  “Um, sure,” Isabella said, but she was lying. They were just starting to have fun with Grandma, and now they would be stuck hanging out with some annoying kid!

  chapter 4

  “RISE AND SHINE, IZZY!”

  Isabella groaned and opened her eyes. Florida sunshine streamed through the window, thanks to Grandma Miriam pulling up the blinds. Her grandmother’s hair was wet, and she wore a white terry-cloth swimsuit cover-up.

  Isabella glanced at the clock.

  “Grandma, it’s only eight o’clock!” she complained, pulling the pillow over her head.

  “Only eight o’clock? I’ve been up for hours,” her grandmother replied. “I already swam my laps and I’ve got breakfast cooking downstairs. So get out of bed, lazybones. Your brother is already dressed.”

  That figures, Isabella thought. She felt like she could sleep for four more hours. Grandma Miriam might have relaxed some of the rules, but it looked like she was still a fan of waking up early.

  Her grandmother left the room, and Isabella sleepily got dressed in a pair of denim shorts and her soccer T-shirt from last season. Looking into the mirror on the white wicker dresser, she could see her sandy hair was a tousled mess, but she didn’t feel like brushing it. She pulled it back into a scrunchie and headed downstairs.

  The delicious smell of bacon hit her nose before she even got into the kitchen, and Isabella suddenly realized how hungry she was.

  “There she is!” said Grandma Miriam with a big smile. “I made pancakes and bacon. Turkey bacon, because it’s better for you.”

  “I don’t care what it is; it smells great,” Jake said. He was already seated at Grandma’s square kitchen table, piling his plate high. Grandma Miriam looked delighted.

  “Oh, I have missed cooking for teenagers,” she said. “The way you eat! It’s wonderful. You’ll both be six feet tall before the summer’s over.”

  Isabella giggled. “I’d have to buy a whole new wardrobe,” she said. “Hey, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”

  She took a seat across from Jake, and Grandma fixed herself a cup of coffee at the counter.

  “So, I can’t wait for you two to meet Ryan,” she said. “He’s such a lovely boy!”

  Isabella rolled her eyes at Jake. He scowled at her and shook his head.

  “Where does he live?” Jake asked.

  “He lives in New York,” Grandma replied.

  “In the city?” asked Isabella. That would be kind of cool.

  “Yes,” Grandma replied, sitting down between them at the table. “He lives in the city with his mother and father. He’s an only child.”

  Isabella thought about that. The twins’ brother, David, was six years older than they were. Mom and Dad had thought they’d have only one child, but they’d changed their minds and then had Jake and Isabella. Mom was an only child, and since she’d been lonely a lot, she wanted David to have a sister or a brother.

  “And,” she always liked to say, “I gave him both!”

  Isabella liked hanging out with Jake. At home they were always running to different activities or hanging out with their friends, so they didn’t spend a ton of time together anymore, not like when they were little kids. But when they were together, it was nice to have someone to talk to, someone who understood her. Jake wasn’t one of those annoying brothers; he was actually pretty nice and funny. When they did hang out, they had fun together. They didn’t need a third wheel.

  Is Ryan lonely? Isabella wondered. She could imagine him as a loner with no friends, and that’s why they had to hang out with him.

  “But we won’t be seeing him until after lunch,” Grandma Miriam continued. “No kids in the pool until one o’clock, I’m afraid.”

  “So what are we doing this morning?” Isabella asked.

  “Well, actually, I thought you two might want to chill out for a little while,” Grandma Miriam said, stunning Isabella once again. “We did have a busy day yesterday.”

  “Seriously?” Isabella asked.

  “Sure, read a book or do whatever it is you do with your phones,” Grandma said. “Unless you want to go out somewhere.”

  “No, that’s okay!” Isabella and Jake said at once. The idea of “chilling out” sounded pretty good to both of them. Isabella read a book and played with an app on her phone, and before she knew it, Grandma was feeding them egg salad sandwiches. Then she and Jake put on their bathing suits and followed Grandma over to Rose’s town house.

  Isabella had put her shorts and T-shirt on over her bathing suit, and the sun was hot on her bare (except for sunscreen) arms and legs. Grandma Miriam led them through the narrow, winding roads of the condo community. All of the town houses looked the same to Isabella, and she wondered how anyone could tell them apart. One summer when they’d come to visit, Isabella had gotten really lost with David when they were riding bikes. David had to use the GPS on his phone to get back.

  Grandma walked faster than both of the twins, and Isabella had a hard time keeping up in her flip-flops. Finally, Grandma turned down the walkway of one of the town houses. Isabella could see that the curtains were closed tightly.

  Rose’s apartment was always dark; that was one thing Isabella remembered. Grandma Miriam would say, “Rose, open the blinds and let some light in!”

  “The heat!” Rose would reply, and then Grandma would say, “That’s what the air-conditioning is for! Turn it up!” But Rose would wave her hand and complain that it was too expensive.

  Grandma knocked on the door, and they waited . . . and waited.

  “She isn’t moving too well these days,” Grandma whispered—although her �
�whisper” was as loud as a normal person’s voice.

  I hope Rose didn’t hear that, Isabella thought.

  Finally, Rose flung open the door.

  “There you are!” she cried. “Oh, so much bigger than last time! They grow so fast!”

  Isabella gave Rose a kiss on the cheek. She always smelled like roses.

  Rose smells like roses. Ha! That’s funny. I never thought of that before, Isabella realized.

  “Come, come meet my Ryan!” said Rose, as she started walking toward the kitchen. “I have some nice lemonade, and I made some muffins. Ryan loves my blueberry muffins.”

  At the word “muffins,” Jake hurried after Rose. Isabella held back a little bit, peeking past her into the kitchen.

  There, sitting at the kitchen table, was possibly the cutest boy she had ever seen. Cuter than any of the boys in middle school—even Colin Hancock, whom all of her friends seemed to have a crush on. His hair was brown and a little bit in his face, and he had the nicest smile she had ever seen.

  For some reason, Isabella was suddenly concerned about how she looked—her faded T-shirt, her messy hair pulled up. It was too late to do anything about that now, but she reached into her pocket and pulled out the tube of lip gloss she always carried with her.

  She quickly turned around and applied the lip gloss. Then she saw Grandma Miriam smiling at her—and then she winked. How. Totally. Embarrassing.

  “Chapped lips,” Isabella said, and Grandma’s grin got bigger. She stepped past Isabella.

  “Ryan, these are my grandchildren Isabella and Jake. They came to visit their old grandma,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Ryan a little shyly.

  “Ryan, stand up when you meet someone!” Rose scolded, shaking her head. “Ugh, the manners on these kids!”

  Ryan turned red, and Isabella knew how he felt. Grandma Miriam wasn’t the only embarrassing grandmother in the world.

  “Hi, Ryan,” said Jake, shaking his hand.

  Isabella gave a little wave. “Hi!”

  “Let’s have some lemonade,” Grandma Miriam suggested. “And some of your famous muffins. Then we can let these kids go have some fun at the pool.”

  Wait, Grandma Miriam was letting them go to the pool by themselves? Isabella and Jake shared a look, and Grandma caught it.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll check up on you every forty-five minutes to make sure you’re reapplying your sunscreen,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

  Isabella shook her head, and she and Jake sat down at the table. Jake took a seat next to Ryan, and Isabella was kind of relieved about that. She suddenly felt shy and weird.

  Is this what it’s like to have a crush? she wondered. Then she brushed the thought away. How could she have a crush on someone she just met?

  “So you’re on spring break too?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah,” Ryan replied. “Well . . .”

  “Ach, tell them. There’s nothing to be ashamed of!” Rose prodded.

  “Well, I thought I’d be on a traveling baseball team, but I didn’t make the draft, so my parents sent me—I mean let me—come down here so I wouldn’t sit at home and, well, sulk, I guess,” he explained.

  “That’s too bad,” Jake said sympathetically. “Maybe you can make it next year. I know baseball is really competitive at our school.”

  Isabella wondered where Jake had learned to be so friendly. Her parents always joked that Jake could make conversation with anyone. Her mother loved to tell how when Jake was a toddler, it used to take them twice as long to do errands because Jake would be stopping to talk to everyone. Why wasn’t she that way? They were twins, after all.

  Ryan nodded at Jake. “It’s crazy! I mean, people hire private coaches and everything. I tried my best, but . . . maybe next year is right.” He seemed to be a little more at ease just talking about it. Jake had that effect on most people, Isabella thought.

  “Now, besides the sunscreen, let’s go over some rules about the pool,” Grandma Miriam said. “No running or shoving each other. But you three are mature enough that I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Stay under the umbrella when you’re not swimming. And watch out for Mr. Stern at the pool. He’s the one with the radio next to his chair, and his skin is orange. He gets cranky when kids are at the pool, so whatever you do, don’t splash him.”

  “He’s orange?” asked Jake.

  “Don’t ask,” said Rose. “He looks terrible.” Then she turned to Ryan. “Do you have sunscreen on? And not that SPF 15 stuff. The stuff I bought you yesterday.”

  “I’m all set, Grandma,” Ryan promised.

  Rose shuffled to the kitchen counter and grabbed a tote bag, which she thrust into Ryan’s hands. “There are chips and fruit and some bottles of water.”

  “Thank you!” the twins said together.

  “No cookies?” asked Grandma.

  “Of course cookies,” replied Rose. “Chocolate chip. I made them special.”

  “Well, I might share those with Jake and Isabella,” Ryan said with a mischievous grin.

  Rose laughed and waved them out. “Be back by four thirty for dinner!”

  “Sure, Grandma,” Ryan said. “We have to leave the pool at four anyway. No kids after four. Remember from yesterday?”

  As soon as they got out of the house, they started laughing. “Man, dinner at four thirty,” said Ryan, shaking his head.

  “It’s crazy,” agreed Jake. “But our grandma gets up at like five a.m., so I guess that’s dinnertime for her.”

  “I know,” said Ryan. “I tried to sleep in this morning, and at seven thirty my grandmother kept poking me and asking if I was sick.”

  “Wow, and I thought Grandma Miriam was bad for waking me up at eight,” Isabella said.

  Ryan grinned. “Lucky!”

  Ryan knew the way to the pool, which was pretty big and almost always empty—except for one man with a fake tan, lying on a lounge chair listening to a radio.

  “That must be Mr. Stern,” Isabella whispered. “He really is orange!”

  “Let’s go over there,” Ryan said, pointing to the opposite side of the pool.

  They set up their stuff on three lounge chairs under a big umbrella. Jake and Ryan quickly peeled off their T-shirts and Isabella did the same. Her bathing suit from last year was a blue one-piece racing suit that was faded on the sides. She suddenly wished she had put on the new suit her mom had bought her.

  “Last one in is a rotten egg!” shouted Jake, and he bounded into the pool.

  Maybe it was a twin thing, but Isabella could never ignore a challenge from her brother. She forgot about her faded bathing suit and ran to the deep end and jumped in one step ahead of Ryan.

  “Gross!” she cried, as she crested the top of the water. “It’s so warm!”

  Ryan laughed. “They keep it at, like, ninety degrees!” he said.

  Isabella started paddling around on her back. It might be warm, but it was still a pool. Ryan swam up next to her.

  “So you guys are twins?” he asked.

  Isabella nodded.

  “Who’s older?” he asked.

  Jake made a face, because he hated when anyone asked this question. Isabella loved it.

  “Me!” she cried. “By nine whole minutes.”

  “That’s because you’re so pushy,” Jake teased, splashing her.

  “You kids stop that splashing!” Mr. Stern yelled from his lounge chair.

  “Yes, sir!” Jake called out politely, but when he turned back to Isabella and Ryan, he was laughing like crazy. He climbed out of the pool and took a beach ball out of the duffel bag he’d brought with him. Then he jumped back into the pool.

  “Let’s play pool ball!” he announced.

  “What’s pool ball?” Ryan asked.

  “You make up the rules as you go,” Jake explained. He tossed up the ball and batted with it both hands. It soared across the pool and landed in the shallow end.

  “Two points!” he cried.

  R
yan swam and grabbed the ball. “My turn!”

  They played pool ball for a while, until Jake yelled, “Pool ball is making me hungry!” Then they climbed out, dried off, and had some of the snacks Rose had packed.

  “We’d better put on our sunblock again, under penalty of death from the grandmas.”

  They had the spray-on kind that comes in a tall can. Isabella and Jake had a routine since they were little kids. After spraying the front of their bodies, Isabella would spray Jake’s back and then Jake would spray Isabella’s. When they were done, Ryan handed his can to Isabella.

  “Hey, could you do my back, please?”

  “Uh, sure,” Isabella said, blushing. It was no big deal, really, spraying somebody’s back. But the whole time, she couldn’t help thinking how cute Ryan’s back was. Was that possible? Could somebody have a cute back? She was almost relieved when she finished.

  “All set,” she said, handing the can back to him. Then she stretched out on a lounge chair.

  “Good idea,” Jake said, and he and Ryan joined her.

  “It feels really good to be out of school,” Ryan said.

  “Definitely,” Isabella agreed.

  “School’s okay,” said Jake. “My history teacher is so funny. He, like, acted out the whole Battle of Gettysburg for us with sound effects and everything.”

  “I like science class best,” Isabella remarked.

  “Me too!” Ryan said. “Biology, mostly, but chemistry’s fun too.”

  “Definitely,” agreed Isabella.

  “If you ever come to New York, you should go to the Hall of Science,” Ryan said. “The exhibits there are amazing.”

  “Well, we have the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago,” Isabella said. “They just had this whole special exhibit where you could see animals from the inside out. It was gross but totally fascinating at the same time.”

  “You guys are geeking out on me,” Jake said, jumping back in the pool.

  The afternoon seemed to fly by to Isabella. They talked, swam, and snacked some more, and before she knew it, it was time to go back to the grandmas. Jake and Isabella walked Ryan back to Rose’s.

  “See you tomorrow,” Ryan said with a wave, and Isabella felt her heart skip a beat. He wants to see me tomorrow!