I thought about the offer. I really did. “I don’t know. I still want to talk to Elise. It’s just . . . I can’t figure out Josh. I can’t figure out guys at all.” I threw up my hands. “And to think I wanted to start dating.”
The phone rang. Mom checked the caller ID. “It’s Josh.”
I took the phone anyway. “Hello?”
“Hello, Cassidy. Look, I’m sorry about our fight. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll go with you to the Tolo.”
I waited for a moment. “Who is this?”
“Very funny. You know it’s Josh.”
“Josh who?”
“I don’t even know what day the Tolo is, but I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.”
“It’s supposed to be a girl-ask-guy thing,” I said. “I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.”
“Good. I’ll see you then.”
“Josh, I’m warning you. I’m going to buy something new to wear for this, so don’t change your mind and decide it doesn’t fit into your logical life plan. Once I go shopping, you’re committed.”
“Fine,” he replied. “Tell me what color you’re wearing, and I’ll get something to match.”
“Fine. I’ll see you at seven o’clock.”
I hung up the phone and noticed Mom staring. “Did Josh just ask you out?”
“Well, not really. He said he’d go to the Tolo with me.”
“Did you ask him out?”
“No. But we’re going now.”
She shook her head. “You know, until this moment I thought I could counsel you about teenage boys. But evidently a lot has changed since I went to high school.”
Chapter 13
I wondered if Josh would treat me differently now that we had an actual date in the works. He did. He didn’t open any doors for me or send me knowing looks. He didn’t even mention our social plans. However, he did act more distant and talked to me less. When I talked to him, he seemed preoccupied. I supposed he regretted the whole Tolo thing and didn’t want to encourage me further by acting interested or, for that matter, polite.
It was an unfair attitude, considering he was the one who’d insisted we go to the dance in the first place. At first I tried to joke around with him. I thought it would put him at ease. It didn’t. After a few days of being given this cool treatment, I ignored him in the car and talked to Elise.
The next Thursday after Josh dropped us off in the morning, Elise kept glancing at me while we walked to our lockers. “Are you and Josh fighting?” she asked.
I sighed and looked down at the books in my arms. I figured it was as good a time as any to end the facade.
“You could tell, huh?”
“What did he do?”
I smiled and she looked at me questioningly. I said, “He told me once that if we ever fought you’d be forced to choose sides. He assumed you’d choose his side.”
Elise let out a snort. “I live with him. I know how impossible he can be. Now, what did he do?”
I fiddled with the pages of my Spanish notebook. “I think he regrets going out with me. It’s like he’s embarrassed to date someone so young. He doesn’t introduce me to his friends. He won’t tell people about us. It makes me feel like a second-class citizen.”
“Men can be such pigs.”
“Then we had a fight about the Tolo. We decided we’d go, but I think he wants to get out of it. He acts so tense. He must want to break up.”
“Pigs, pigs, pigs.”
“I guess I’d better talk to him—you know, tell him if he wants to call everything off, it’s okay.”
Elise put her hand on my arm. “Will you be all right?”
“Sure. There are more fish in the sea—of course I never did like fish, but I won’t be too lonely. I have my friends, my schoolwork . . . and Bob said he’d call me sometime.”
“I can set you up with someone,” Elise said.
I shook my head. “I need time by myself.”
“That’s the last thing you need. Look, there’s a party tomorrow night at Darren Fletcher’s house. The whole football team will be there. You’d have lots of fun.”
“I can’t.”
“If you went with me, you’d feel differently. Give guys a chance to see you in an environment where you don’t have a book in front of your face. I’ll introduce you to some upperclassmen super-studs.”
“No, thanks.” She didn’t look convinced, so I added more forcefully, “I don’t need any more Carparkaphobia stories.”
* * *
I had planned on waiting until after school to talk to Josh, but I saw him at his locker while en route to algebra. I walked over to him. “You can get on with your logical dating plans now. I told Elise we’re breaking up.”
He threw one of his books into his locker. “Great. Anything else happen while I’ve been away?”
“I thought you wanted it this way.”
His gaze flashed to mine. “How come I have no say in what you tell Elise about us?”
“What did you want to say?”
He ignored my question. “Did you tell her you were dumping me for Bob?”
“No. I said you didn’t want to date someone so young.”
“Why? Did you get younger than you where when I decided to date you in the first place?”
“No. You had a change of heart.”
He pulled his physics book from his locker and gripped it tightly. “And Elise believes that?”
“She called you a pig.”
He glared at me again. “Great.”
“She’s not really mad at you.”
“Yeah, just wait until I tell her my side of the story.”
I shifted my books nervously. “What’s your side of the story?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t made it up yet. You can hear about it the way I hear about these things—after the fact and as a surprise. Maybe I found out you two-timed me.”
I tilted my chin down in disbelief. “You’re not going to tell her that.”
He gave me a smile that looked very much like Elise’s wicked one. “You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?”
* * *
It turned out to be a good thing I broke up with Josh when I did. That afternoon as Elise and I walked across the parking lot, Bob caught up to us. After a couple minutes of small talk, he asked, “Are you doing anything tonight, Cassidy?”
I shook my head.
“My parents had planned on going to a dinner theater up on campus tonight, but my Aunt Sophia called this morning. She’s driving up from Colorado and wants to stop here on her way to Seattle. They gave me the tickets because I was never crazy about Aunt Sophia anyway. I don’t mind missing her.”
I smiled politely and waited for him to make sense.
He watched my expression for another moment. “Do you think you could go?”
“To Seattle?” Elise asked.
“To the dinner theater,” he said.
“Sure,” I answered. “What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Three o’clock.” Then he blushed. “You meant what time is the dinner theater, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“Six. I’ll pick you up at a quarter ‘til. Sorry it’s such short notice, but you don’t need to do anything to yourself. You always look nice.”
We’d reached Josh’s car by this time. Bob headed toward his own. “See you later.”
Elise let out a huff of exasperation.
“Bob is nice,” I said.
“This is all Josh’s fault,” she answered.
When we got into the car, Elise glared at her brother.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said pointedly. “Everything is fine with me. I’m having a normal, happy day. How about you?”
“I’ve had better,” he said.
I watched the scenery go by the window and pretended I didn’t know what they were talking about.
* * *