"Why? Jealous?"
He hadn't even thought of that.
"Don't worry." Kevin laughed. "She's all yours. I was just talking to her. I don't want to cornhusk her."
Dion grinned. "Oh, you want her friend, huh?"
"For what? I already have a dog." Kevin snorted.
"Come on. We're late and it's getting crowded. Let's grab some grub."
The two of them pushed their way through the crowd toward the cafeteria.
Dion was standing in line next to Kevin, trying to overhear the sexually explicit conversation of the two jocks in the next line over, when he felt a light feminine tap on his shoulder. A shiver of goosebumps surfed down his arm. He turned around. As he'd hoped, as he'd feared, he found himself face to face with Penelope. This close, he could see the clear smoothness of her skin, the natural redness of her lips. She nodded at him, smiled, but there was a trace of worry in her brow, a subtle hint of concern in her eyes. "What happened with Mr. Holbrook?" she asked.
"Are you in trouble?"
Dion studied her face. Did she care? Was she interested? His palms were sweaty and he wiped them on his jeans, but his voice betrayed none of his anxious excitement. "He said I should be in an advanced mythology class, but since there was none, he wanted me to take independent study."
The worry turned to alarm. "Are you going to?"
She was interested.
"No." He smiled.
A flush of redness spread over her cheeks. "It's just that ... I mean, I, uh--"
Kevin stuck his head between them. "She likes you, okay? God, just come out and say it. I'm tired of this. I have to listen to you two beat around the bush for an hour and a half, and then I'll have to listen to him analyze it for the next week. She likes you. You like her. You both like each other. Does that about cover it?"
Now both of them were red, embarrassed. They stood awkwardly silent, not looking at each other, neither of them knowing what to say.
"Would you like to sit with us?" Kevin asked, usurping Dion's obvious next line. "Yes, thank you," he answered himself.
Penelope looked doubtfully at Dion, then shifted her gaze toward one of the tables. "I'm supposed to eat with--"
"Bring her along," Kevin said. He motioned for the two of them to move forward in line. "And move up. You're blocking traffic. Jeez, do I have to do everything for you?"
Dion and Penelope looked at Kevin, then at each other, and laughed.
After paying for her lunch, Penelope went to get Vella, who was brown-bagging it, and the girls joined Dion and Kevin at a table near Senior Corner. It was Kevin who initiated the conversation at first, who expertly drew all of them into the discussion, but what began as a four-way dialogue was soon dominated by Dion and Penelope, who addressed most of their words to each other, involving Kevin and Vella only peripherally.
Dion drank his Coke quickly but hardly touched his hamburger as he kept his eyes and attention fastened on Penelope. He had expected the conversation to be stilted and awkward, filled with favorite food-favorite music favorite movie questions, and there was some of that, but for the most part the conversation flowed naturally, organically, not seeming the least bit forced or false. The two of them did not run out of things to talk about, as he'd feared, but found that each question, each answer, each observation, each reminiscence, opened up entirely new topics and fields for discussion. Neither of them mentioned what Kevin had brought up in line, and for that reason there was an underlying tension in their talk, a tension that maintained a steady rush of intoxicating adrenaline coursing through Dion's veins.
Lunch ended far too soon.
The bell rang, and Kevin stood up, throwing his wrappers in the metal trash bin next to the table, waving goodbye, and heading off to his sixth-period class. Vella threw away her trash too and waited a respectable distance away for her friend. Around them the flow of people began streaming toward the classrooms.
Penelope looked at Dion, glanced away. "So what are you doing after school?" she asked, not meeting his eyes.
"Why?"
"Well, I thought maybe we could study together. I mean, I'm having a little trouble in Mythology, especially keeping all those Titans and Olympians straight." She smiled. "Since you're the big expert, I thought you could help me out."
She was not having any trouble, and he knew it, but he decided to play along. "Okay," he said.
"We could meet in the library ..." She thought for a moment. "Or you could come over to my house. It's not as quiet there, but it's a lot more comfortable."
"Sure," he said. "I'd like that."
"Do you have a car?"
He shook his head, embarrassed. "No."
"That's okay. Neither do I. The bus takes me straight home, though, and you can ride with me. I'm sure I can get one of my--I can get" my mother to drive you home."
"Come on!" Vella called from the sidelines. "We'll be late!"
Dion smiled. "You'll be late."
"We'll both be late." ., "So where do you want to meet?"
"Outside the library, after school."
"I'll be there," he said.
"I'll see you then."
He waved good-bye and watched her hurry over to Vella. The two girls sprinted across the grassy expanse toward the lockers.
He was still staring at the spot where they'd disappeared into the building when the bell rang.
The conversation on the bus ride was not as relaxed and easy as it had been at lunch. Kevin and Vella weren't there, which put extra pressure on the two of them, and the tension which had been nascent earlier was now full blown and firmly in the forefront, the considerable effort involved in arranging this supposedly casual meeting making it nearly impossible to maintain the illusion that they were classmates simply studying together. Their talk was hesitant, their words infrequent, their discussion consisting of awkwardly worded questions and quick-to-the point answers. Nevertheless, the natural affinity they shared won out over this more superficial unease, and by the time the bus brakes hissed to a stop in front of the winery gates, the two of them were, if not talking as though they were old friends, at, least not acting as though they were terrified of each other.
They stepped off the bus, which pulled slowly away with a rattle of loose gravel. Penelope used a key to open a small black box attached to a low pole next to the gate, and she quickly punched in a series of numbers on the tiny console. She closed the front of the box, and the giant gates opened with a low whirring noise. She smiled at him. "Come on."
Dion followed her through the iron gates and up the winding paved driveway. The single lane was flanked near the entrance by a line of trees which acted as a natural fence and which disappeared almost immediately, giving way to a field of staked grape vines, laid out in parallel rows and spreading over what appeared to be acres of flat farmland. On the far side of the huge vineyard, he could see Penelope's house arid the adjacent structures of the winery.
He whistled. "Wow," he said.
Penelope giggled.
"I've never seen anything like this," he admitted. He stared at the tall Ionic columns which made up the peristyle separating the winery from the parking lot. Beyond it were three neo-Classic buildings arranged in staggered order. Concessions had been made to modernity--as they drew closer he could see metal heating/air-conditioning units, reflective window glass, clearly marked service doors--but from afar the complex looked like nothing so much as an ancient Greek hilltop city. The plantation style house, while set slightly apart from the winery and distinctly American, also contained complementary echoes of ancient architecture and did not dispel the impression.
Dion thought of the small house he and his mother rented, realized that he had never even imagined living in a place this big or this opulent.