She didn’t have a quick response to that so she did what she always did when she was flustered: she reached for her phone.
“She bought new lip gloss, too,” Will said, his fingers flying over the touchscreen. “Like three of them.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You are such a stalker.”
“Which means she’s probably gonna kiss him,” Will said, ignoring her. “I heard her talking to Bailey about it.”
“Liar.”
He shrugged. “Just saying what I heard.”
“You’re such a loser.”
“Because I don’t have three kinds of lip gloss?”
She groaned and stomped back into her room.
I followed her. “Hey.”
She sat down at her desk-makeup table-area-that-made-her-look-like-a-hoarder. “What?” she barked.
“He’s your brother,” I said. “He’s supposed to tease you. And he’s probably a little jealous that you are older and that you’re going on a date and the only girls he ever talks to are his sisters.”
She almost smiled. “Maybe. But he’s still annoying.”
I sat down on the edge of her bed. Her room was packed floor to ceiling with books and clothes and makeup and charging cables and other things I couldn’t identify. Her room had slowly morphed from a little girl’s to a teenager’s, with most of the stuffed animals disappearing, replaced by the clothes and the books and the make-up and the electronics.
“I’m sorry I forgot about your date,” I told her. “Or wasn’t listening or whatever happened.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s really not. But you look terrific and I’m glad you’re going and Andy seems like a nice kid.”
“He’s cool,” she said, trying to maintain her teen aloofness without giving too much away.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll bet he is. Do you need money?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”
“Do you need birth control?”
“Mom!”
“Look, at some point, we’re going to have to have that conversation.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be tonight,” she said, still fussing with her makeup. “We’re going to a basketball game, not a hotel room.”
“You’re going to a hotel room?” Jake yelled from the living room. “What?”
“Ignore him,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s more nervous than you are.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“No? Then why is your shirt on backwards?”
Her hands flew to her chest, frantically searching for the exposed tag.
“Gotcha,” I said, smiling.
She sighed. “Ha ha. Funny.”
I stood from her bed and put my hands on her shoulders, careful not to muss her hair. “Anyway. I hope you have fun tonight. And I hope you’ll tell me a little about it when you get home.”
“There won’t be much to tell,” she said, setting her lipgloss down. “It’s a Prism basketball game. We’ll lose by fifty.”
“Still,” I said. “I’ll want to hear about it.”
“Okay,” she said. “But not when Will’s around.”
I patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll tie him up and throw him down in the basement while you’re gone. I’ll be all ready to go when you get home.”
“He’ll still manage to hear us,” she said.
“Carrots,” I said. “I’ll shove carrots in his ears after I tie him up.”
We both smiled. Then I heard Jake in the kitchen talking, along with an unfamiliar voice. “I think your date is here.”
Her shoulders rose and she sat up straight. “He’s early. Oh my God. I’m not ready.”
I patted her shoulder. “Good to see you aren’t nervous.”
THIRTY
“Andy, what are your plans?” Jake said, cornering poor Andy on the sofa in the living room.
“Well, I thought we were going to go to the basketball game.” He was perched on the sofa like a deer might sit; ready to take flight at the earliest opportunity.
“And then?”
“Uh, come home?”
Jake waved a hand in the air. “No, no. I mean in life.”
I put a hand on Jake’s shoulder and smiled at Andy. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel button-down shirt and his dark hair was mussed just enough to tell me he’d purposely styled it that way. The smell of Axe body spray clung to him and I was pretty sure he’d shaved for the first time ever that day, considering the number of nicks lining his neck.
“Hi, Andy,” I said. “Please excuse Jake. He hit his head on a pipe earlier and he’s not quite himself.”
“I did not,” Jake said, frowning at me.
Andy looked confused. “Uh, okay.” Then he looked at Jake. “If you mean what do I want to do, I think I want to be an engineer.”
Jake folded his arms across his chest. I couldn’t tell if he was irritated or impressed by Andy’s career choice. “What kind?”
“Civil,” Andy said. Jake’s impression didn’t change so he added, “Kind of like city planning and stuff.”
“You know what they make?” Jake asked. Andy stared at him and he continued. “Not nearly enough. Barely enough to live on. And if—”
“Could you go down to the basement and find the St. Patrick’s Day decorations?” I asked him, gently nudging him toward the kitchen.
“The what? Andy and I are having a conversation.”
“They’re in a big, green tub. In the very back of the workroom. I need to go through them for something.” I smiled sweetly at him. “Thank you.”
He started to say something, then frowned again. He gave Andy a dirty look and then reluctantly trudged off for the basement.
“Don’t mind him,” I told Andy after I heard the basement door close. “Em is almost ready.”
“Okay.”
I waited for him to relax but he sat there, statue-like. “So. Are you a basketball fan?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “But our team is pretty bad.”
“That’s what Em said.”
“Are you gonna kiss her?” a voice called down from the top of the stairs.
“Grace!” I yelled. “Get in your room and close your door.”
Giggles echoed down the stairs, followed by footsteps above us and then the sound of a door closing.
I smiled at Andy. “You told me you have a sibling, right?”
He nodded. “Yes. A younger sister.”
“Then you know how...interesting...they can be.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Interesting.”
Emily walked out of her room and smiled nervously. “Hi.”
Andy jumped to attention, nearly leaping off of the sofa. “Hi.”
All we needed was a blinking neon sign that said AWKWARD above them and the scene would’ve been complete.
“Do you have your I.D.?” she asked him. “Bailey just texted me and said you have to have an I.D. to get in or they will totally hassle you.”
“I have mine, yeah,” he said.
“Why are they hassling people?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “Bailey said it’s because of Amanda Pendleton.”
“Amanda?” I said, not understanding. “She doesn’t even go to Prism.”
“Yeah, but everyone is all freaked out about her,” she said. “So I guess Prism hired a security guard or something? To check I.D.s? I don’t know.”
It sounded like something Prism would do.
“Yeah, I heard that,” Andy said. “I think they’re doing it at Moose River, too. Like they think by checking I.D.s, they’ll figure out what happened to her.”
“Exactly,” Em said. “Everyone thinks she was kidnapped and like the kidnapper will bring an I.D. that says ‘kidnapper’ on it.”
Andy laughed and Emily beamed and visions of white wedding dresses and enormous floral arrangements and tacky wedding cakes flashed through my head. I quickly erased them. First date, I reminded myself. First date.