Isabella's Spring Break Crush

by Angela Darling

  “I like him!” Jake remarked as they walked to Grandma’s apartment.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty nice,” agreed Isabella. More than just pretty nice, she thought. But she certainly wasn’t going to tell that to Jake.

  As they approached Grandma Miriam’s, they noticed a woman staring at them through the front window of the town house next door. She had bright red hair and bright red lipstick.

  “Did you have a good time?” Grandma Miriam asked.

  “Yes,” Isabella replied. “Grandma, who is that woman next door? She was staring at us.”

  Grandma Miriam shook her head. “Oh, that’s Lorraine Shelby. She moved in six months ago. She gets involved in everything that goes on around here. Now, why don’t you two shower and change, and I’ll take you out to eat?”

  They quickly obeyed, and she took them to a restaurant on the water. They got a table outside and ordered seafood platters piled with shrimp and fish and clams. As they ate, they watched boats pull up to the dock with fresh fish.

  The air smelled salty and warm, and Isabella loved the feel of it on her skin.

  “Why do we live in Chicago?” she moaned. “It’s so cold there!”

  “That’s what I say!” Grandma said, reaching over to hug her. “Move down here and be closer to me!”

  That night, Isabella was exhausted once again. Her mom had texted her about twenty times, and she answered each one. Then she remembered she had to text Amanda. She sent her a picture she’d taken of Ryan and Jake at the pool.

  He’s so cute! Amanda texted. No cute boys here.

  He’s nice 2, Isabella replied.

  U like him! Amanda said.

  Maybe! Isabella said. So how is the beach?

  She wasn’t ready to admit she had a crush on Ryan. But she was pretty sure that’s what it was. She couldn’t stop thinking about his laugh, his smile. . . .

  Is he thinking about me too? she wondered. And what if he isn’t? What happens when you have a crush on somebody and they don’t like you back?

  She turned off her phone and snuggled under the covers. This spring break was turning out to be a lot more interesting than she’d anticipated!

  chapter 5

  “GUESS WHAT, IZZY,” GRANDMA SAID as she opened up Isabella’s blinds the next morning. “We’re going to a museum this morning with Ryan.”

  Isabella sat up in bed a little faster than she had the day before. “Really?” she asked with a yawn.

  “Rose called me and said Ryan suggested it,” she said. “He said you would like it, Izzy. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Sure,” Isabella said, and she knew she was blushing. It was sweet. Did that mean Ryan liked her back? She thought about texting Amanda. She really needed some advice on this stuff.

  “We’re leaving soon,” Grandma Miriam said. “So please get dressed and I’ll see you downstairs.”

  Isabella sighed. She’d have to text Amanda later. This time, she brushed her hair and put on her lip gloss. Then she looked through her drawers, hoping to find something cute to wear, even though she knew she hadn’t brought anything. She settled for another pair of denim cutoffs and a pink T-shirt with a cupcake on it that she’d had since she was, like, ten.

  Grandma had cereal, toast, and cantaloupe for them for breakfast, and after they brushed their teeth, they drove over to Rose’s to get Ryan. Isabella was in the passenger seat, so Ryan climbed into the back with Jake. Isabella noticed that he had brushed his wavy hair; it wasn’t as messy as it had been yesterday. Did he do that for her?

  Ryan leaned over the front seat, smiling.

  “It’s not a science museum, but it looks like they have cool history stuff there, so I thought maybe both you guys would like it,” he said.

  “It’s one of my favorites,” Grandma Miriam said. “That was a nice suggestion, Ryan.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Isabella said, smiling back at him.

  The museum was all about the history of Florida, including the Tocobaga people who had lived in the area before the settlers came. There were maps and dioramas showing what things had looked like long ago and artifacts from the Tocobaga culture. Isabella’s favorites were the pottery pieces, which had really cool designs carved into them.

  “The pottery is my favorite too,” Grandma Miriam agreed. “I loved doing pottery with my students back when I was an art teacher.”

  “I totally forgot you used to teach art!” Isabella remarked. “That must have been fun.”

  Grandma nodded. “I miss my students sometimes.”

  “You should teach an art class at the clubhouse,” Ryan suggested. “I bet lots of people would come.”

  Grandma Miriam’s face lit up. “What a wonderful idea! I’m surprised I didn’t think of it before.” She gave Ryan a squeeze. “What a smart boy you are, Ryan. No wonder Rose talks about you all the time.”

  Ryan blushed in a way that Isabella thought was absolutely, positively adorable. She was dying to take a picture with her phone, but that would have been too awkward.

  After the museum, Grandma took them to a food truck that sold gourmet tacos. Isabella got one stuffed with chicken, avocados, and mango salsa, and she was secretly pleased when Ryan ordered the same one. During the whole lunch, everyone was talking and laughing like they had known one another forever. Ryan was so easy to talk to! And he seemed to like Isabella as much as she liked him.

  Maybe having a crush isn’t so hard, Isabella was thinking. You like somebody nice; they like you back. Simple!

  “Do you three want to go back to the pool this afternoon?” Grandma asked.

  “Yes!” they all replied at once, and everyone started laughing.

  Grandma drove back to the condo complex and dropped off Ryan. “I’ll change and meet you guys over there,” he said, and Isabella swore he was looking right at her.

  “We won’t be long,” she promised, feeling excited. This was shaping up to be a totally perfect day!

  But when they parked in Grandma’s driveway, there was a surprise waiting for them. Lorraine Shelby, Grandma’s next-door neighbor, was standing outside with two kids who looked like they were Isabella and Ryan’s age. In fact, it looked like they were twins too!

  “That Lorraine is so competitive,” Grandma Miriam muttered under her breath, and Isabella wondered what she meant. When they got out of the car, Lorraine walked over. She was a lot faster than Rose, Isabella saw, and almost as fast as Grandma.

  “Miriam, we’ve been looking for you!” she said. “You know Andrew and Ashley, my beautiful grandchildren. They live right over in Orange Grove, so I said, why not come visit your grandmother for a few days? Even though they just came for a visit last month.” She looked right at Grandma Miriam when she said that, and Isabella could tell that she was bragging.

  Andrew and Ashley stared at her and Jake from under mops of sun-kissed blond hair. Isabella thought they looked a lot more alike than she and Jake did. They also happened to look like fashion models, with perfect features and even more perfect tans. Ashley had a fancy manicure with sparkly gems on her nails and a pedicure to match.

  “So, we’ll see you at the pool later,” Ashley said.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” Isabella replied, but her hopes for a perfect day were fading fast. She, Ryan, and Jake had formed a comfortable trio. What would it mean now that these two perfect twins were in the mix?

  It didn’t take too long to find out. When Jake and Isabella got to the pool, Ashley and Andrew were already there. They had towels, flip-flops, and snacks strewn all over a bunch of lounge chairs. Ryan raised his eyebrows when he saw Isabella, as if to say, “Who are these guys?”

  Isabella gave a shrug, and Jake jumped into the pool, as usual. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” he said.

  The splash made by five kids jumping into the pool was too much for Mr. Stern.

  “You kids watch it!” he yelled, and then he turned up his radio really loud.

  Jake grabbed the beach ball. “Let’s play pool ball! You make
up the rules as you go along.”

  Andrew jumped in front of Jake and took the ball from him. “Steal! Five points!” he yelled. Then he tossed the ball to Isabella. “Heads up!”

  It soared over her head, and he swam up to her, splashing. “You missed!”

  “Hey, quit it!” Isabella cried, splashing him back. Playing pool ball was no fun with Andrew, so she climbed out of the pool and stretched out into the lounge chair next to Ryan’s and closed her eyes.

  “So you’re from Chicago, right?”

  She opened her eyes and saw Andrew was sitting next to her—in Ryan’s chair!

  “Yes,” Isabella replied flatly.

  “That’s cool. I’ve never been there. But it’s in one of my favorite video games, Street Race 9. Did you ever play it?”

  Isabella shook her head. “I’m not really into video games.”

  “No way!” Andrew cried. “That’s crazy.” And then he proceeded to describe all of his favorite games to her.

  Isabella kept glancing over at the pool. Jake, Ryan, and Ashley were playing pool ball the right way, having fun and laughing. She felt a little jealous.

  “Okay, well, I’m going back in the pool,” Isabella interrupted him.

  “Yeah!” Andrew agreed, and he got up when she did.

  Isabella swam over to the deep end. Maybe if she did laps, Andrew would leave her alone. She swam past Ashley and the boys, trying to hear what they were saying.

  “Yeah, I can’t believe they traded him,” Ashley was saying, and Ryan and Jake were nodding. “That was totally lame.”

  She’s talking baseball, Isabella realized. That wasn’t one of her favorite sports. When she swam back past them again, Ashley was still talking. These twins really liked to talk.

  “Snack time!” Jake yelled, and they all piled out of the pool and sat around one of the tables.

  “So, Ryan, I was thinking about that one artifact we saw,” Isabella began, but Andrew butted in.

  “Did you guys go to the history museum? That place is mostly boring, but there are some cool things there. This one time . . .”

  Andrew talked so much that it was impossible to have a conversation with Ryan. Isabella was relieved when four o’clock came around, until Andrew said, “We’ll walk you guys home. We’re neighbors, right?”

  “We should walk Ryan home first,” Isabella said.

  “That’s okay,” Ryan said. “I can walk home by myself. See ya.”

  “Later!” Ashley called after him.

  Jake and Ashley walked ahead of Isabella and Andrew, talking and laughing. Andrew kept asking Isabella questions about Chicago that she found totally annoying.

  “How am I supposed to know the speed limit on the highway there?” she snapped. “I don’t even drive.”

  When they reached Grandma’s town house, Isabella practically ran inside. She showered and changed and then helped Grandma set the table for dinner.

  “I hope you don’t mind my chicken cutlets,” she said, putting down a platter in front of them. “I know it’s not restaurant food.”

  “It’s better than that. It’s Grandma food,” Jake said, and Grandma Miriam beamed at him.

  “So, how was the pool?” she asked.

  “Okay,” Isabella said listlessly.

  Jake turned to Isabella. “He so likes you.”

  She thought he meant Ryan liked her, and she blushed. “He does not.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s so obvious that Andrew likes you.”

  Isabella was shocked. “Oh, I thought you meant—you think so? I thought he was just being obnoxious.”

  “Well, those twins have a lot of . . . personality,” Grandma Miriam said tactfully.

  “I kind of liked it better when it was just the three of us,” Isabella admitted.

  Jake shrugged. “They’re fine. I don’t mind them.”

  They finished dinner, and as they were cleaning up, there was a knock on the door.

  Maybe it’s Ryan, Isabella thought, her heart taking a leap. But when she opened the door, the Shelby twins were standing there. Andrew was holding a bowl of popcorn, and Ashley held a DVD case.

  “It’s movie night!” Andrew said, and the two of them walked past her into the condo.

  Grandma Miriam looked a little perturbed. “Well, I suppose if you want to watch a movie . . .”

  “Gran said you wouldn’t mind,” Ashley said. “She has a headache.”

  “Then of course,” Grandma said. “Make yourselves at home here.”

  Andrew obeyed immediately, flopping down on the couch and planting the popcorn bowl on the coffee table.

  Isabella had an idea. “Um, we should invite Ryan,” she suggested.

  “He’s doing something with his grandmother,” Andrew said quickly.

  “Oh, he didn’t mention that,” Isabella said, but she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Then everyone would know she had a crush on Ryan.

  She sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Andrew, and he scooted over to sit next to her.

  “You’re gonna love this movie,” he said.

  Jake took the DVD case from Ashley. “Awesome!” he said. “I heard the car chases in this are amazing.”

  Jake popped the movie into the DVD player. It was one of those action movies about guys who rob banks. There were a lot of car chases and bullets flying. Not Isabella’s favorite kind of movie, for sure, but the other kids seemed to be having a good time. In fact, Jake had moved next to Ashley on the floor, and they were both making comments the whole time and cracking up.

  A weird thought popped into Isabella’s head. Did Jake have a crush on Ashley? Or did Ashley have a crush on Jake? It was strange imagining her twin having a crush on anybody.

  When the movie ended, everybody got up and stretched. Ashley grabbed the DVD and the empty popcorn bowl, and she and Andrew headed for the front door.

  “Well, thanks for the double date!” she said, and Andrew gave Isabella this huge grin. She was mortified.

  Grandma Miriam, who had been out of the room during the movie, had come in to say good-bye to the twins.

  “There’s only one person old enough in this room to be dating, and that’s me!” she said, and Isabella was grateful. The thought of dating anybody—even Ryan—was pretty scary.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Isabella said when the door had closed behind the Shelby twins.

  “Yeah, great night,” Jake said.

  Grandma Miriam gave Isabella a sympathetic look. Isabella responded with a hug.

  “What’s that for?” Grandma Miriam asked.

  “Just because,” Isabella said, because what she was feeling was hard to put into words.

  It was just nice to have a grandma who understood!

  chapter 6

  “I WONDER WHO’S CALLING SO late,” Grandma Miriam said as the phone rang. “Izzy, can you pick it up? It must be your mother.”

  But the voice on the other end belonged to Ryan.

  “Hey,” he said. “My grandma asked me to call you guys to see if you want to go to dinner with us tomorrow night.”

  Isabella’s heart jumped a little. “That sounds great. Let me ask Grandma Miriam.”

  She quickly asked her grandmother and got back on the phone.

  “She says yes!” Isabella reported. Then she giggled. “So, four thirty, right?”

  “Of course,” Ryan said. “I tried to make it six, but she thought I was crazy.”

  “So, sorry you couldn’t come over for the movie tonight,” Isabella said.

  “What movie?” Ryan asked.

  Isabella wasn’t expecting that. “Um, it’s just that . . . we watched a movie tonight, and we um . . . heard you couldn’t make it.”

  “That’s weird,” Ryan said. “Who told you that?”

  Isabella didn’t want to hurt Ryan’s feelings, and she especially didn’t want him to know that they had been hanging out with the Shelby twins without him.

  “I, um, I forget,” she
said. “It was kind of a dumb movie anyway. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Ryan said, and they both hung up.

  Isabella gave a relieved sigh. The Shelby twins might have ruined everything today, but tomorrow they were going out to dinner with Ryan!

  • • •

  The next morning, Isabella took out every single item of clothing she had brought with her and spread them out on top of her bed. She didn’t have anything to wear for a nice dinner out. Her pink shorts had a stain on the front pocket, and her T-shirts all looked blah and boring. She wanted to look nice for her dinner.

  And not just because it’s with Ryan, she told herself. I don’t want Grandma to be embarrassed if we go somewhere nice!

  She picked up her cell phone and called her mom, who picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey, Bella,” she said. “I’m between patients. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” Isabella replied. “It’s just that . . . I was wondering if I could use that credit card you gave us for emergencies.”

  “Is there an emergency?” Dr. Clark asked, sounding a little panicked.

  “Well, more like a fashion emergency,” Isabella replied. “I just brought a bunch of old clothes with me, and we’re going out to dinner tonight with Rose and her grandson, and . . .”

  “Rose’s grandson is there? How nice. He’s the same age as you and Jake, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Isabella replied. “There’s a bunch of kids here, actually. Anyway, could I use the card to get some clothes?”

  “Hmm. Please put Grandma on the phone,” her mom said.

  Isabella went downstairs and found her grandmother in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

  “Mom wants to talk to you,” Isabella said, handing her the phone.

  Grandma took the phone. “Good morning, love,” she said, and then Isabella could tell she was listening. Grandma got up from the table and walked over by the refrigerator. Isabella’s right foot busily tip-tapped on the floor as she waited to hear the answer.

  Finally, Grandma walked back to her, smiling. “Looks like we’re going shopping,” she said.

  Jake walked into the room. “I am not going to the mall,” he protested.