Now I was glad I hadn't had anything to drink; my empty stomach was the only thing that kept
me from puking all over her.
"I will, Mrs. Norton," he said. "And thanks for the Coke." He looked over to the Princesses. "It was great to meet you girls."
"You too," said Princess One. Princess Two just sighed.
Everyone walked us to the door and waited while I reached intothe closet and grabbed Connor's
jacket. "Well, bye," I said.
Even with an antique breakfront the size of the
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Titanic against one wall, the entryway is pretty big, but with everyone huddled around us I
practically had to step outside to have enough room to put the jacket on.
"Bye, Lucy," said the Princesses.
"Good-bye, kids," said my dad. "Have fun."
Mara just waved and smiled at us, like a contestant in a beauty contest. When we were in the car
with the doors closed, Connor turned to me before putting the key in the ignition.
"Wow," he said, "you have an awesome family."
I was about to tell him my "family" is about as awesome as the Mansons, but as I opened my
mouth to explain what a farce he'd just witnessed, he leaned toward me. "Good to see you, Red,"
he said.
And right then, facing the mighty power of Connor's delicious kisses, the lecture I'd been about
to deliver on the duplicitous nature of pure evil was lost forever.
As Connor and I drove to the restaurant, I started to feel nervous. Technically, this was our first
date. True, we'd gone out before. But we hadn't been alone. What if we didn't have anything to
talk about over dinner? What if we just sat there, staring at each other across the table in total
silence? But then Connor started talking, explaining that he was driving his dad's car because a
warning light had suddenly lit up on the dashboard of his SUV. When he finished the story, he
popped in a CD, cranked the volume, and dropped a hand onto my knee. A minute
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later, he took my hand and ran his thumb across the back of it.
My terror that we'd pass the night in silence ebbed, replaced by the most powerful sensation of
disbelief I'd ever experienced. Was this really happening to me? More than anything, I wished I
could show a preview of this moment to my desperate, lonely, first-semester self.
Connor found a space right in front of the restaurant, a Japanese place called Osaka, and before
we got out of the car, we started kissing. I would have been perfectly happy if we hadn't made it
to dinner, but after a couple of minutes, Connor pulled away.
"I'm starving, Red." He pulled the keys out of the ignition and popped open his door. "Lez eat!"
Suffering from my usual post-kissing-Connor confusion, I took a little longer to extricate myself
from the car than he did. By the time I'd unbuckled my seat belt and maneuvered onto the
sidewalk, Connor was standing by the door of the restaurant, holding it open for me.
Inside Osaka there were regular tables and, toward the back, low tables at which people sat on
pillows with their legs crossed Indian style.
"Good evening," said the hostess, walking toward us carrying two menus. "Would you prefer to sit Western or Japanese style?" When she said "Japanese style" she gestured toward one of the low tables.
"Western," I practically shouted. She nodded, and Connor and I followed her to a regular table
against the
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wall. I sat down normally, grateful to have a tablecloth between the world and my thong.
"God, I love sushi," I said. "I don't think I've had it since we left San Francisco. My dad and I used to eat it practically every other night."
"Oh, yeah? That's cool, Red," he said. I looked down the menu. Yellowtail. Shrimp. Tuna. I
hadn't even realized how much I missed my regular sushi infusions until this minute.
"Ready?" asked the waitress. She flipped open her pad and held her pen ready.
"Take it away, Red," said Connor.
"Um, I'll have two pieces of yellowtail, an unagi, a shrimp, and the special hand roll," I said. She nodded, getting it all down. Then she turned to Connor.
"Wow, Red," he said. "You're daring. I'll have the steak teriyaki." He snapped his menu shut and handed it to her.
"Have you ever tried sushi?" I asked him as soon as the waitress had gone.
"Raw fish? No way," he said. He made a cross with his chopsticks as if to ward off vampires. I
was about to ask him why not, when the thought occurred to me that perhaps I should change the
subject rather than continuing to call his attention to the fact that I was about to eat food he
apparently found as revolting as the undead.
"Sorry you had to go through that whole scene back at my house," I said. I wanted him to know
what Mara
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and the Princesses were really like. "They never act that way."
Before I could explain what I meant, Connor slipped his fingers through mine. "Don't worry
about it, Red. Your family's nice. And your mom's so cool. I can see where you get your great
legs." He smiled and squeezed my hand.
"She's not my mother," I practically shouted. The idea that someone could think Mara was my
mother made me sick to my stomach. "She's my stepmother." Even the word itself had come to
have something black and spidery about it. I took my hand from Connor's and wiped my now-
sweaty fingers on my napkin, which, though Mara was absent, I'd put on my lap as soon as we
sat down.
"Gotcha," said Connor. I was glad he didn't start asking a million questions about my family. I
mean, I guess my boyfriend needs to know that his girlfriend lives with her dad and her wicked
stepmother because her mother is dead. But I wasn't exactly anxious to bring up a subject that
would undoubtedly be a huge downer.
Connor took a sip of his water and so did I. As soon as I put the glass back on the table, a waiter
magically appeared at my elbow and refilled it.
"Thanks," I said. He nodded and slipped away.
"Hey, did you watch the game last night?" Connor asked, chewing on some ice.
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"The Knicks or the--"
"No, the Syracuse game."
"Yeah," I said. "I felt like they just folded in the fourth quarter. Everybody's been saying they have this unstoppable offense, but I thought they were totally lame."
"Totally," he agreed, taking some ice out of his glass with a fork. "Did you watch all the way to the end? Did you see how they missed that last shot?"
I nodded and made a face. "It was tragic," I agreed.
As we discussed the game and who we thought would make it to the NCAA finals, I started to
get a strange feeling about the conversation. It was as if basketball was this tiny island of talk
Connor and I were standing on, and if we tried to step off it, we'd drown in a sea of silence. By
the time our food came, I was sure we couldn't possibly have any more basketball-related items
to discuss, but then Connor got onto the subject of the Glen Lake team, and how this year they
were better than they'd ever been.
Unfortunately, I couldn't really focus on what he was saying, only it wasn't because I didn't know
most of the people he was talking about. The second I leaned forward to take my first bite of
sushi, the strap of my dress slipped off my shoulder, almost taking the entire right side of the top
with it. I dropped the piece of yellowtail I'd been about to taste and grabbed at my dress, firmly