Slamming my locker door shut, I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
As I started to walk away, I heard him say, “You don’t remember the University of Maine agricultural outreach program in Guatemala? Three summers ago? We were both there with our parents.”
The confusion in his voice sounded real. And so did his command of the details. No way Missy would have known al that. No way Piper would have remembered it from our few neighborly conversations. I turned around. He actual y looked hurt.
I was about to risk further discussion, when Riley—one of the most popular senior guys and a star athlete—walked by and grabbed his arm. If this guy was friends with Riley, I definitely wasn’t his type. Assuming this wasn’t a joke, of course.
Before I could say anything, Riley started to drag him down the hal way. “Come on, Chase. We’l be late for practice.”
Chapter Three
“Do you remember a guy named Chase? From one of our summer trips?” I asked as casual y as possible over dinner that night. I kept my eyes down and played with the pasta on my plate to avoid contact with my parents’ perceptive eyes. I wasn’t used to being coy with them; I’d never had anything of interest to hide. But saying the question aloud made me feel oddly exposed.
“Chase?” my mom asked.
I didn’t look up from my plate, but I swore I heard something like alarm in my mom’s usual y serene voice. Normal y, she was irritatingly unflappable, the tougher of the two. And infuriatingly beautiful, by the way, despite an avowed aversion to makeup or anything that resembled
“fashion.” Only in the past two years had a few lines appeared on her total y natural face and a few grays in her chocolaty-colored hair. Of al their peers and friends, only my dad rivaled her in looks; it was annoying having such attractive parents.
“Yeah, Chase.”
“That doesn’t sound familiar,” she said.
My dad piped in, almost too casual y. “I don’t remember a ‘Chase’ either. Why do you ask?”
“Because he introduced himself to me at school today. He’s new. He said he remembered me from the Guatemala trip.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my dad shoot a look at my mom. “Now that I think of it, the name does ring a bel . Chase, you said?”
“Yes.”
“Huh, I seem to recal a nice-looking couple and their son. I think the parents were ethnobiologists. Chase is their last name, if I’m not mistaken.”
I groaned. “Now I real y feel like an idiot.”
“What do you mean?”
“When this Chase guy came up to me, I drew a complete blank.”
“Wel , it was three years ago, and that team was unusual y big. In fact, it was one of our biggest and busiest projects, so I’m not surprised that you don’t remember him,” my mom quickly interjected.
“Your mom’s right, El ie,” my dad said as he got up from the table and started clearing plates.
“It’s just real y strange that I have no memory of him at al , especial y since there usual y aren’t any kids my age on the trips. Do you remember his first name?” I asked.
“Michael, I think,” my dad answered. He cleared his throat and turned on the water in the sink. “Did this Michael—if that’s even the right name—
say why his family moved to Til inghast?”
“We didn’t get that far in the conversation. I felt embarrassed about not knowing who he was, even though he claimed we’d met, so I was a little rude. Real y rude, actual y.” I groaned again. “I feel awful now.”
“Don’t worry about it, dearest. You can always apologize.”
“True.” I stood up and began helping my dad with the dishes. As I handed him a rinsed plate for loading, my fingers brushed up against his arm, and it occurred to me that—for al the flashes I got when I touched people—I never got one when I touched my parents. But my thoughts quickly returned to Michael. “To answer your question, I bet his parents are working at the university. I mean, where else would they be working in Til inghast as ethnobiologists?” Although Til inghast used to have a bustling mil inery industry back in the eighteen hundreds, it was now sort of a one-horse town in terms of employment. Nearly everyone served the university in some capacity or other—whether as professors or as store-owners or something in between.
“But I don’t think I saw their names on the roster of visiting professors. Did you see any Chases on the list, Hannah?” he asked my mom.
“No, Daniel, I didn’t.” She answered quietly, staying seated instead of getting up to help us clean the kitchen as she usual y did.
Why was she acting so strange? I wondered. Was it real y that weird that I’d asked about a boy? I kind of wished I’d never brought it up. Then again, maybe my parents were just being their normal awkward selves; they always seemed to be acting the role of parents, uncertainly searching around for the right line. I always chalked it up to their being academics through and through—not real y entirely in this world.
“Oh, wel , you’re probably right, El ie. I’m sure the university brought them here. We’l probably run into Michael’s parents in the hal s before long,”
my dad said.
“I’m sure we’l run into the whole family soon enough,” my mom echoed, final y rising from the table. “It’s a smal town, after al .”
As I continued to rinse off plates and pass them to my dad, I cringed inwardly thinking about my exchange with Michael. On one hand, I felt relieved that his claims to know me weren’t a hoax, but on the other, I knew I’d have to apologize next week.
The phone rang. My dad picked it up and made some smal talk before handing it to me. “It’s Ruth, dearest.”
Before I could even say hel o, Ruth launched in. “Where were you? I cal ed your cel , I texted you—nothing. I final y just went home. Not cool, El ie.”
“What do you mean?” I was genuinely mystified.
“The Daily Grind? After school?”
In my haze over Michael, I had forgotten about our plans to meet at the coffee shop. I wandered into the family room, so my parents couldn’t overhear our conversation. “Oh Ruth, I’m so sorry. It total y slipped my mind. Can you forgive me?” I felt terrible. Ruth’s early experience losing her mother made her worry about people’s welfare, among other things.
“Of course. Don’t be ridiculous. But you had me worried. You never forget things. What’s going on with you?”
“Can I chalk it up to jet lag? We got back less than a week ago.” I scrambled for an explanation, any explanation.
“Yes, but please promise to keep your cel on. Okay?”
It annoyed Ruth to no end that I routinely failed to turn on my phone. No one ever cal ed me on it except Ruth and, in emergencies, my parents. “I promise.”
“Now, you’re not going to forget our plans to go to the movies tomorrow night, are you?”
I laughed in relief at the mock scolding in Ruth’s voice. “Of course not. Would I miss Audrey Tatou’s latest?” We both adored foreign movies, though for very different reasons, and went nearly every weekend. Ruth loved how different cultures told stories, while I was drawn to the exotic settings. Ruth could never understand why I didn’t get my fil of that over the summers. No amount of explaining on my part could make her understand that farming in rural Kenya or Guatemala bore absolutely no resemblance to the Parisian café culture.
“Good. I’l see you at seven at the Odeon.”
Chapter Four
On Monday, I expected to pass Michael in the hal ways and get the cold shoulder, at best. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he told me off for my rudeness; he would’ve been justified. I certainly didn’t anticipate—or deserve—seeing Michael waiting for me with a friendly smile on his face.
But there he was.
Michael stood against the wal near my locker so casual y that, once again, I thought maybe he wasn’t waiting there for me. After al , he could have any number of reasons for being there. But then he waved and smiled at me. A fierce blush spread across my pale cheeks when I realized he was waiting for me. How did he know where my locker was?