by Chris Cannon
Her face brightened. “Sure. That sounds good.”
As we walked to homeroom, I rolled one question around in my brain. Am I a total sucker?
By lunchtime that afternoon I was questioning my sanity. Why had I asked her to go to what would be a boring and uncomfortable family event? I’m sure Nina had filled her in on my aunt’s strange ways, but knowing about it didn’t make it less awkward.
“Any ground rules I should know about your mom’s birthday party?” Lisa asked West. He knew that Lisa was clued into his mom’s issues, but I wasn’t sure if his parents knew that anyone besides family was aware of the situation.
“We’re using the bathroom next door at Nina’s house since my dad is still remodeling ours and it’s a mess.”
West said this with complete sincerity. He’d been lying to cover up for his mom’s hoarding for so long it must be second nature.
“I can deal with that,” Lisa said, like she believed him.
Chapter Nineteen
Lisa
As I was getting ready for my date with Matt…wait…not a date…a fake date…just hanging out with a friend…that’s how I needed to think about it. Anyway, as I was trying not to stab myself in the eye with my mascara wand, I ran down the list of items my mom had brought home from the store for my not-a-date. We had cheese popcorn, caramel popcorn, regular popcorn, iced tea, and lemonade. Sometimes my mom liked to go overboard in the preparedness department. Regular popcorn would’ve been fine.
I checked my cell. Matt was due to pick me up in fifteen minutes. Why hadn’t I gotten ready earlier? I had, but the getting ready portion of the day had included a marathon session of laundry followed by me trying on four different tops before switching back to the first one I’d planned on wearing. Not sure why I was nervous. This wasn’t a date…wasn’t a date…wasn’t a date. Maybe if I chanted that in my head I’d believe it. My body ignored the message as butterflies fluttered around in my stomach.
I wasn’t excited about Matt. I was excited about cake and then Harry Potter. Yes. That was it. West wasn’t the only one who was good at lying.
A knock sounded on the front door. I ran to answer it, yanked open the door with a smile on my face, and then I froze. Talk about an unwelcome surprise. It wasn’t Matt. It was Gavin, the sperm donor. “What the hell are you doing here?” may not have been the most polite greeting, but those are the words that flew out of my mouth, and I didn’t regret them.
Gavin took a step back. “So…this is a bad time?”
Matt pulled up to the curb and parked. He came toward me smiling, and then he saw the look on my face. “What’s wrong?” He looked at Gavin like he was trying to figure the situation out.
“Mom,” I yelled. “You have an unwelcome guest.”
Mom came to the door and frowned when she saw who was on our doorstep. “Gavin, what are you doing here?”
“I got your message,” he said, “so I thought I’d stop by.”
“You thought wrong,” I said.
“Lisa, why don’t you and Matt go to your party.” Mom put her hand on my shoulder. “I can handle this.”
I glanced at Gavin and then back at her. “We’ll wait in the truck until he leaves.”
Gavin laughed like I was joking, but I wasn’t. I followed Matt to his truck and climbed in when he opened the door. Once he was in the driver’s seat, he said, “Sperm donor?”
“Yep.”
“And he just dropped by like he thought that was okay.”
“Yep.”
“Seems like a dick.”
“Yep.” I sat and watched as Gavin spoke to my mom. No way were we leaving until he was gone. Even then I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave her alone. Tony was working tonight. I didn’t like the idea of her being in the house by herself now that Gavin knew where we lived.
“Your mom looks like she’s handling the situation pretty good,” Matt said. “But I’d be happy to punch the guy.”
“I’d be happy for you to punch him, too, but my mother would not approve.”
“Too bad.”
I sat and watched for a few more minutes until Gavin turned and headed for his car. Once he pulled away, I hopped out and headed back up to the front door. Matt followed. My mom stepped back to let us both inside.
“What was that about?” I asked.
She sighed. “I called and left a message, but instead of returning my call he decided to drop by.”
“Why would he think we’d be all right with that?”
“I guess my message was too nice.” She sat on the couch. “I think I might still hate him. And that’s not healthy.”
“Sounds normal to me.” I sat next to her and waited to see what else she’d say.
“I told him he should call tomorrow and we could set up a time to meet that works for all of us.”
“Umm…I hate that idea.”
She laughed. “Me too, but if we don’t set something up he’ll keep dropping by. He says he has something he needs to say and he wants to give you something.”
“He can take whatever it is and shove it up his—”
“Lisa,” my mom warned before I could finish my heartfelt sentence.
“Fine.”
“You two should go to your party,” she said. “I’m going to read and have a glass of wine.”
“You sure?”
She nodded.
“Okay.”
Matt and I headed out to the car. “And you thought West’s was going to be the awkward part of the day.”
Matt laughed. “Just wait.”
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting at a picnic table in West’s backyard, eating cake and wishing I’d stayed home. West’s dad looked like he had zero desire to be at his own wife’s party. His mom looked like she was listening to voices the rest of us couldn’t hear. Everyone else seemed to be working at pretending everything was normal and we were all having a good time.
I leaned close to Matt. “You’re right. This is bad.”
“Told you,” he said. “The good news is we only need to stay about twenty minutes longer. Then we can go binge watch Harry Potter.”
“Best news I’ve heard all day.”
Twenty minutes later, West’s dad started cleaning up everyone’s plates whether they were done with them or not. “Thank you all for coming.”
There were choruses of “Thanks for inviting us” and “Happy Birthday” and then everyone dispersed like they were fleeing for their lives.
“What the heck was that about?” I asked Matt as we walked back to his truck.
“My uncle can only do about an hour of being social and then he’s done.”
“That’s funny but sad,” I said.
Matt started the truck. “We’re all used to it.”
“Your dad isn’t like that, is he?”
“No. He’s not a people person and he’d rather work with plants, but he can carry on a conversation.”
When we made it back to my house, we walked through the living room into the kitchen, looking for my mom. She was sitting on the back patio. She glanced up from her book when we came outside. “That was fast.”
“Not fast enough,” I said.
“I warned you,” Matt muttered.
“Anyway,” I said, ignoring his jab, “we’re going to set up the Harry Potter movie marathon downstairs.”
“Have fun.”
I couldn’t wait to see what he thought of the basement. The entrance was off the kitchen, through a small pantry. “It has its own secret door.”
“That’s weird.” Matt walked through what was little more than a closet and followed me down the stairs. Once he could see the room, he started laughing. “Help, I’m trapped in a bookworm’s secret lair.”
“I think of it as Nerd-girl Nirvana.” My mom and I had hung the Hogwarts house banners on the wall behind the couch. A set of Harry Potter hardback books were displayed on a shelf between Tardis and Dalek bookends. A copy of the Marauder’s Map hung on the back wall
next to a pair of lightsabers. A slightly crooked floor-to-ceiling bookshelf took up the rest of the wall space.
Matt pointed at the bookshelf. “Is it supposed to lean like that?”
“It took my mom and me six hours to put that beast together. When something is advertised as ‘some assembly required’ it’s a big fat lie. We had two wooden slats and half a dozen screws left over when we were done. It was straight when we finished. Since then, it’s started to drift.”
Matt rubbed his chin. “I wonder if those slats were meant to stabilize it.”
“Probably,” I said. “But there wasn’t a chance in hell that we were going to take it apart and start over.”
He nodded. “If I need help building something I won’t call you.”
Chapter Twenty
Matt
Lisa picked up the TV remote and said, “Have a seat and I’ll get this started.”
“I already saw the first one,” I reminded her. Seeing her this excited was entertaining, but there was no way I was sitting through all of the Harry Potter movies.
She clutched the remote control to her heart. “Even though it goes against my nerd-girl instincts, I guess we can start with the second one.” She pulled up the movie on her DVR. “Before we start, do you want popcorn and a drink?”
We’d just eaten cake at the birthday party from hell. “I’m good. Maybe later.”
She came and sat next to me on the couch. Just like the furniture upstairs, it was small, so there wasn’t a lot of room between us. Once she hit play, she kept her eyes glued to the screen. I watched her almost more than I did the movie. She really was cute. If this were a real date, I’d put my arm around her, but since it wasn’t, I kept my arm planted by my side. Twice, I almost put my arm around her shoulders out of instinct, but I stopped myself. What was I thinking? This was Lisa. Not a real date. That might be easier to remember if she didn’t smell good and have curves in all the right places.
When the movie ended, she turned to me with a huge grin on her face. “What did you think?”
“It was pretty good,” I said. “The flying car was cool and I liked the whomping willow. If they were real, my dad could sell those like crazy.”
“You could plant them as a security system,” she said. “Do you want something to drink now?”
“Yeah.” And I needed to get out of there before I gave in and pulled her close. “I might need to get out of the basement for a little bit. It’s starting to close in on me.”
“One of the benefits of being short is you never feel claustrophobic in small spaces.” She stood. “We can go sit outside on the patio.”
“Sounds good.” I followed her upstairs, trying to ignore the way her jeans emphasized her curves. This wasn’t a date. I needed to remember that.
We walked back into the weird pantry and through the next doorway into the kitchen. “It’s almost like someone wanted to keep the basement hidden.”
“Maybe the guy who built the house wanted it as his secret underground hideaway.” She grabbed two glasses from the cabinet above the dishwasher. “Is lemonade okay?”
“Sure.” I walked over to the sliding glass patio doors and flipped the latch. I tried to slide the door open, but it only moved about an inch before coming to an arm-jarring stop. I checked the track. What looked like a broom handle kept the door from opening. “Is this your high tech security system?”
“Not as fun as a whomping willow, but it works.”
I picked up the broom handle. Now what? I glanced around.
“Just stand it up in the track,” Lisa said.
“Has it ever fallen over and locked you out?” I asked.
“No, but now that you mentioned it you probably jinxed us so set it on the kitchen table instead.”
Once we were outside, I took a deep breath of fresh air.
“I swear you’re part plant,” Lisa said. “You always look so relieved when you come outside.”
“As long as the weather is nice, outside is always better than inside,” I said.
“Personally, I prefer air conditioning and a bug-free zone.”
“You do realize you’re a lot bigger than any bug. And they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”
“Yeah, that argument never made much sense to me. Spiders may be small but they have venom and fangs and they’re just creepy.”
I laughed. “I bet you love when all those Halloween spider decorations are on sale at Crazy Crafts.”
“I hate those things. Some kid spilled a bag of rubber spiders all over the store. I kept finding them. One time I bent down to pick one up, and it crawled up my finger. I was not amused.”
“Did you scream?”
“Loudly. After that, I had a stomp-first-and-then-check-for-signs-of-life policy.”
I tried not to laugh but I couldn’t help it. “I don’t suppose any cameras in the store recorded security footage of that event?”
“No, thank goodness.” She sipped her lemonade.
And she looked cute doing it. What is wrong with me? It was a good thing I wasn’t sitting right next to her any longer. Out here, sitting on opposite sides of the patio table, it was easier to remember that I wasn’t supposed to put a move on her.
“So, should we plan anything interesting for our second week of fake dating?” I asked.
The corners of her mouth turned down. “I hadn’t really thought about it and I don’t like feeling that there’s a countdown until this experiment fails.”
“Trey has noticed you,” I said. “So you’re doing better than I am.”
Lisa wiped condensation off of her glass. “What is it about Jane? Why do you like her?”
Huh. How could I explain my crush? “She’s quirky and funny and she always does something unexpected.”
“So you want someone who is unpredictable?”
“I guess.” Why do I want Jane? “She also always makes me laugh.”
Lisa narrowed her eyes. “The fact that she’s a cute blonde doesn’t hurt, either, does it?”
“No. What about you? Why Trey?”
She shrugged. “He’s cute and funny and I feel like I don’t have to act a certain way around him. I can be whoever I want to be because he doesn’t have any expectations.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Right. Do you think he’ll be cool with your Harry Potter obsession, or your love of all things books?”
She squirmed in her chair. “You don’t think he’d be okay with that?”
“With his hair and the ripped jeans, he’s trying really hard to be cool, so I don’t know if he’d be into the whole nerd-girl vibe you have going on.” She looked upset. Time to backpedal. “I think it’s cute, but he may be too cool to deal with it.”
“It’s not like I’m nerdy all the time,” she protested.
I sipped my lemonade to keep from laughing.
“What?”
“You wear Harry Potter socks.”
“Not every day.”
“How many pairs do you own?” I asked.
She looked off to the side like she was thinking. “I may or may not own fourteen pairs of ultra-cool, super hip, devastatingly sexy Harry Potter socks.”
“Well, if you’re trying to attract Mr. Cool, you might want to stick with regular socks for a while.”
“I shouldn’t have to change what I do to date someone,” she said.
“If the guy you want to date is shallow enough and cares that much about being cool, then you probably would have to suppress some of your nerdiness.”
“You’re being awful judgmental when you don’t even know the guy.” Lisa crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m just calling it like I see it. Anyone who spends that much time on his hair is way too concerned with appearances.”
“It’s not like you walk out of the house with bedhead,” she countered.
I reached up and ran my hand through my hair. “This is air dried, rarely brushed, and it’s good enough.”
Ch
apter Twenty-One
Lisa
“Not everyone can have naturally wavy hair that falls into place,” I said.
“That’s not the point. The point is, he probably spends more time on his hair than you do.”
I paused in confusion. “So are you saying you think he spends too much time on his hair or I need to spend more time on my appearance?”
“The first one,” Matt said.
If I wasn’t trying to date Trey, would Matt be so annoyed by him? Who knew? He probably wasn’t wrong about the socks, though. I could tone my nerdiness down a little bit until Trey and I knew each other better. Everyone acted on their best behavior in the beginning of relationships…right?
Here I was thinking about a fantasy relationship rather than paying attention to the friend I was spending time with. “Let’s stop talking about Trey and Jane and just have fun as friends, okay?”
He nodded, but he seemed annoyed.
“I work tomorrow,” I said to get the conversational ball rolling again.
“Me too. I’m supposed to be done by noon but my dad doesn’t really pay attention to the clock, just what needs to be done.”
“Is it weird working for your dad?” I loved my mom but I couldn’t imagine working with her.
“No. I mean, there’s no way to call in sick and play hooky since I live with my boss, but other than that, it’s good.”
Talking about his dad made me think of my dad. “I can’t believe Gavin stopped by like that today.”
“Maybe your mom should set up an appointment for him to visit so you can get it over with.”
“You might be right.”
“Do you know what you want to say to him?”
I drew a line in the condensation my glass had left on the table. “I used to have this whole speech prepared. Things I’d say to him to make him regret missing out on being part of our family. Then I grew up and realized he opted out…he made his choice. Now I don’t want to say much of anything to him except to tell him to go to hell.”
“Sounds about right.” He finished off his lemonade. We talked about less serious things and then he left. Maybe we’d watch the rest of the Harry Potter movies another day.
