In begrudging prep for the wedding, I'd also allowed my sister to “do something about that rat's nest.” She'd hooked me up with a stylist friend of hers, who'd tamed my Winehouse-level bouffant into something sleeker—a razor-length bob that fell to my chin. I felt older and more comfortable in my slightly altered skin, less like a person who liked to hide in her hair. I felt, at last and fully, like I'd expected to on my eighteenth birthday. Like a woman.
“Damn girl…” Mr. Dempsey said affably, immediately biting his lip after the fact. “I'm sorry. That's no way to talk to a student.”
“Former student,” I corrected. “Don't forget, I'm outta here. No senior year for this lady. I'm early enrolling in UT.” I hoped he couldn't see the moisture collecting in little pools below my armpits, or beneath and between my breasts. I opened my mouth wider, to keep from panting. “I'm just darting in to grab my official transcript, or some shit. Who knew college had so much red tape?”
Dempsey laughed. I realized, as he tossed his hair back, that I'd never learned his first name.
“Hell, we're gonna miss you around here, kiddo!” We both laughed at that. “Well, I will, anyways. Hey, how's your summer going?” He'd fallen into a slow lope beside me. We were only a short jog from the counselor's office and I had somewhere to be, but it was so nice to see a familiar face that I decided to let it slide. We'd mosey.
“It's alright. Trying to get ahead on the reading list. Tutoring some middle-schoolers for extra cash. Hanging out with my sister when I can.” The words sounded lame on my tongue, so I finished this litany with a roll of my eyes. He laughed again, and I remembered I had once thought Carson and Dempsey could make a good couple. Suddenly, I was less sure.
“My mom's getting married.”
“Oh, wow! When?”
“Umm. Today.” Now it was my turn to laugh. In the back of Landon's best friend's pick-up, my borrowed dress was currently bunched up in a white dry-cleaner's bag, waiting for me to slither into its silky clutches and become Maid of Honor. The dreaded L and his thug-y friends were out in the parking lot right now, waiting for me. It hadn't been my idea of a thrill to hitch a ride to the ceremony with the Hulk (a.k.a. my step-brother-to-be), but my mother had insisted it would be good bonding time for the pair of us, who had so far done very little to create a harmonious picture for our parents. Also, Carson—that scheming B—had complained of car trouble.
“Like, right now? You're going to your mother's wedding?” Mr. Dempsey rolled his eyes, and stretched his pale arms over his head. He wasn't much taller than me, a fact I found comforting. “Woof. You like the guy?”
I conjured the Pastor, who'd looked a little more than halfway handsome in our kitchen that morning. He'd elected to wear his Purple Heart, over a rented dark blue suit. His thin, greying hair was pressed back, and he'd shaved. Watching Landon pin the boutonniere on his father, I thought I could once again glimpse a little bit of the man he used to be. The man from the photos.
Still, this seemed like far more information than Mr. Dempsey required. “He's kind of a nut,” I sighed. “Runs a storefront church downtown. That's where they're getting married, actually.”
“Huh.”
“But he makes her happy,” I polished the words with a practiced smile. This was my line of defense, from now until the day I'd leave the house: he makes her happy. And he really did seem to. Anya had been more normal these past few weeks than I'd ever seen her. No signs of an episode to speak of.
“Look at you. So mature.” By now, we'd reached the front door of the office. An abbreviated staff clicked around inside, answering phones, checking e-mails. The wardrobe for summer school administrators seemed to be way more permissive than the school's dress code the other nine months of the year. I spied the jiggling, bare arms of the office secretary, Ms. Dove, as she struggled with the copy machine.
Beyond Mr. Dempsey's tiny fro, I could see some of my caravan, lurking beyond the school's front doors—Landon, Denny, and the tall hot stick figure Landon had brought as a date. Landon's friend Denny had admitted that he was an alum of Lee High—and it was easy enough to imagine him skulking around, teasing the likes of me with the other meatheads. In true jock form, he appeared to be busy chucking tiny pebbles at the school's upper windows. Denny's smile had a cruelty to it, but to watch Landon throwing stones was like watching a little boy playing a game. He was all smiles. Meanwhile, his pouty-mouthed girlfriend—the one from the photographs—leaned against the brick wall and scrolled through her iPhone, looking bored.
“That's your crew, huh?” the AV teacher asked, his voice lower than I remembered it ever being as his eyes swiveled in the direction of my own. I snapped back to attention. I really did have to run. We'd be late to the ceremony if it took forever for me to get a copy of my transcript.
“My stepbrother-to-be and some friends, yeah,” I sighed and rolled my eyes. “They really liked high school, if you know what I mean.” Mr. Dempsey smirked. He glanced back at the gang, his eyes narrowing in Denny's direction.
“That little shit looks familiar, actually. Demon-something?”
“Denny? I dunno him so well, he's a friend of Landon's.”
Landon. His name still felt strange on my tongue. After the incident in his room, I'd barely spoken to my stepbrother. I was starting to think we would just always be like this, smoothing over the events of one crazy night as if it had never happened. It made me sad, but at the same time I wished I could forget our whole initial attraction. It would be easier to just be sorta cordial frenemies.
“Well I'd hoped one of those strapping young fellas out there was for you,” Mr. Dempsey ventured. He smiled at me shyly. This was something I was just beginning to realize, that very summer—how everything a man said could seem so flirty, if you were listening right.
“You know, I'm going stag.” I bit my lip. Over his shoulder, I could see Landon and his Kardashian-doppelganger fall into an easy kiss. He put his hand in her hair. She thrust her tiny waist against him. An idea rang through my mind like a bell.
“This is really weird,” I started. “But—you're not doing anything right now, are you? Do you want to be my date to the wedding? I mean, since I was never your student. And I'm definitely eighteen now.”
I blushed. So did Dempsey. It had been impulsive to ask—impulsive, like those ice cubes, sliding down my spine. But at least if I'd ruined this relationship, I wouldn't run the risk of seeing Dempsey every single holiday for the foreseeable future. What did I really have to lose?
“Let me get my blazer,” the AV teacher was saying. Suddenly, I felt light fingertips around my sweaty waist. He looked straight into my eyes. And I have to admit: there was a sexiness to him, some intriguing, adult pull. His face was unlined, and wholesome as an apple. And hell, for all I knew, he was a student-teacher probably in his early twenties.
“I'll meet you at the car,” I said, raising an eyebrow. Wait till Carson sees me. “And thanks. You're really doing me a solid.” I almost felt like my favorite self again—the bawdy, theatrical, fearless self I'd been working so hard to hide from the Pastor and Landon. I rose to my tiptoes and kissed him lightly on his stubbled cheek, before ducking into the office.
Chapter Thirteen
Landon
July 23rd
“Oh no, don't change it!” cried the old guy, drumming his fingers against the back of my headrest. Zora was fiddling with the radio, and she'd just breezed by some 90s band I barely recognized from back in the day. I snuck a look at my lady, in shotgun. She looked testy, at best, to be taking orders from a stranger in scruffy cords, and chose to ignore the suggestion, finally landing on my least-favorite trigger tune: Steal my Sunshine. I thought to catch Doll's eye in the rearview mirror, but caught myself in the nick of time. She probably didn't remember, anyways.