THURSDAY NIGHT I wore the only glam sundress I had brought with me. At 7:45, I found Zack on the front porch talking with Aunt Iris. She was giggling, batting her eyelashes, and trying to pat her wild red hair into place.
When I stepped onto the porch, Zack turned to me. “Hey.
You look good.”
“Thanks. Where’s your car?”
“At home. I thought we’d leave from my house rather than
. . rather than block in Iris.”
Rather than lose your muffler, I thought.
“Rather than lose your muffler,” Aunt Iris said with a flirty laugh.
Zack blinked. “That, too,” he admitted, then turned and smiled into my eyes. “I’m glad you decided to go tonight.”
I drew back. Even though it was Erika, not you, who wanted me to come.
“Even though it was—”
“Aunt Iris,” I interrupted her.
She tapped me on the hand. “I wouldn’t let that kind of thing bother you.”
Zack glanced from her to me, trying to understand what had just passed between us, then his gaze dropped to my feet and he started smiling again. “I thought you looked taller. I’ll get the car. I didn’t know you’d be wearing fancy girl shoes.”
What did you think I’d wear, Uncle Will’s hip boots?
“William’s hip boots are in his boat,” Aunt Iris said to me with a sad shake of her head. “The police have them now.”
Zack looked bewildered.
I probably looked irritated by his response to my shoes, because he added suddenly, “What I meant to say is that you look really nice tonight, really nice in those shoes. Not that it’s unusual. I mean, you always look nice. But tonight you look. . fancy and nice and—”
“You told me the party was at a restaurant,” I said, feeling my cheeks get pink. “I thought people would dress up. You did.”
To my surprise, his cheeks grew pink.
“Can we just go?” I asked, removing my tall heels to carry them.
“Sure. Yeah. Let’s go.”
“Bye, Aunt Iris.”
“Have a wonderful time, Joanna.”
When we were out of earshot, he asked, “Is your full name Joanna?”
“No. Sometimes Aunt Iris thinks I’m my birth mother.”
We walked in silence to the edge of the O’Neill property.
As we passed through the gate, Zack leaned toward me.
“My dad’s on the terrace. If we stick close to the trees, we won’t have to stop and talk to him.”
“But I want dessert,” I whispered back.
Zack grinned.
“And, anyway, I think he’s nice,” I added.
“So do I,” Zack replied, his smile softening.
We skirted the house. I wanted to keep on walking with him — not go to the party, just walk with him and make him smile again. I reminded myself this was not a date, but a mission, for both him and me.
“How long has your dad been married to Marcy?”
“Two years. He built this house for her.”
“It’s new?” I turned to study it, walking backward a few steps.
“Yeah. Dad’s an architect. She wanted a new but colonial-looking mansion, and that’s what she got.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He shrugged. “I liked the old house where he and I lived the first year we came to Wisteria. This place is too Marcytoo perfect.”
I realized a perfectionist would be a tough stepmother.
“Do you have a mom somewhere?”
“She died from cancer when I was five. Dad and I did great for ten years, then he kind of went off the deep end.”
“Meaning?”
“He fell in love.”
I laughed out loud. “Love’s the deep end?”
“You don’t expect that to happen when your father is fortyeight. I mean, it was unbelievable. He acted like a teenager.”
“I think it’s awesome.”
Obviously, Zack didn’t. “Everything’s different now.”
“And you wanted things to stay the same, just you and him, even though you knew you’d be leaving for college one day.”
Zack didn’t answer right away, just pulled out his keys and opened the passenger door of his car. “Yeah, I’m selfish, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
I got in, and he closed the door. I wondered if his dad had trained him to do these polite little things.
“I’m even worse,” I said, when he got in on the other side.
“I didn’t want my mother to adopt Jack and the twins. I was going to be a freshman in high school. Everything was perfect — for me. I couldn’t understand why she’d want to start all over again with little kids. Talk about acting like a princess!”
Zack looked at me for a long moment, then switched on the ignition. “And how about now?”
“Now I can’t imagine life without them. I think I’m having SpongeBob withdrawal.”
His eyes crinkled. I liked it when his smile made his eyes crinkle.
As we drove to the party, we talked about college and what we hoped it would be like. Finally, we turned into a lot with a sign that read SIMON’S WHARF. “Didn’t we pass this place about fifteen minutes ago?” I asked, recognizing the bouquet of pink balloons attached to the sign.
“We did.”
Zack did not explain why he had driven past the party, and I decided to pretend that all the guys I dated found me so fascinating that they drove past their destinations.
The pink “Happy 17th Birthday” balloons led us up a stairway to the second floor of the restaurant. Zack was carrying a square package wrapped in pink and gold.
“Was I supposed to bring a present?”
“I’ve got us covered,” he said.
I wondered what he had selected and so thoughtfully wrapped in what appeared to be Erika’s favorite color. In the restaurant pink roses wreathed a pink candle at the center of each table. Men in white jackets were setting up a long buffet with pink tapers and flowers. Close to the buffet sat a table of relatives — at least that’s what they looked like: some middle-aged parental types, plus an old man and a youngish woman with a toddler. A DJ was working a soundboard close to a dance floor on the opposite side of the room from the relatives. Erika’s friends were also staying as far from “the relatives” as possible.
At the center of the room was a table with a mound of gifts. I hoped we didn’t have to sit and watch Erika open each one — she had invited maybe sixty of her closest friends.
“Let me get rid of this,” Zack said, moving toward the pile.
It reminded me of an altar, with a portrait-size photograph of Erika sitting on an easel in the center of the offerings.
As Zack placed his gift in the pile, I heard the girl next to me say, “I can’t believe all the people she invited. I can’t believe she invited me.”
“Don’t be naive,” her friend replied. “Erika doesn’t like us any more than she used to. She’s scared, that’s all. We weren’t cool enough to be part of her game, and now she’s afraid that somebody she snubbed is going to snitch. This is bribery, nothing else.”
“It’s expensive bribery.”
“So? Daddy’s paying for it.”
“But does anybody who wasn’t part of the game actually know enough to snitch? Does anyone have proof, anyone have a copy of the riddles she sent?”
At that point Zack returned. He smiled and said hello to the girls, then pulled me away from the information I had come for. I glanced back over my shoulder.
“Sorry. Did you want to talk to them?” he asked.
“No. No thanks.” Not with him around.