“Bertie’s not your dog?” I asked, feeling my eyebrows fly up.
“Why are you walking his dog?” my dad asked.
“Andie’s a dog walker,” Clark said, then a moment later, and in the silence that followed, he seemed to read the room. “Was that supposed to be a secret?” he asked, leaning closer to me, his voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s my summer job,” I said to my dad, crossing and then uncrossing my arms.
“Since when?”
“A week and a half ago.”
“But you have no experience with dogs,” my dad said, still staring at me.
“I got trained,” I said quickly to Clark, “before I started.”
“You do a great job with Bertie,” Clark assured me. “She really does,” he added to my dad.
“Help me understand this,” my dad said, turning back to Clark. It didn’t seem like this positive report of my job performance had cleared anything up for him. “You’re not in school. But you’ll be going to college, I assume.”
“No, um . . . ,” Clark said, glancing once at me before putting his hands in his pockets, then taking them out again. “I . . . well, I’m a writer. So I’ve been mostly focusing on that. I’m not sure college fits into my plans at the moment.”
“A writer,” my dad repeated, his voice flat. I was trying very hard not to look quite as thrown by all this as I felt. Clearly, the downside of having a theoretical crush on someone you knew nothing about was the crashing realization that you actually knew nothing about them.
“Yeah,” Clark said with a low, nervous laugh. “I write fantasy novels.”
“Wait, what?” I asked. All of this was moving too quickly, and I really felt like it would have been better to find this stuff out while sitting across from Clark in a restaurant somewhere, or while driving there in his car—not in front of my dad.
“Another thing I was going to mention later,” Clark said with another quick smile. I could see, though, that his cheeks were starting to get pink.
“Fantasy novels?” my dad repeated, his voice skeptical.
“Yeah,” Clark said with a shrug, his cheeks still flushed. “I mean, I’ve only written two so far, but . . .”
“And this is what you do,” my dad said, still sounding unimpressed. “Rather than going to college.”
“Well,” Clark said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “It is kind of a full-time job, especially after A Murder of Crows was published. . . .”
“Wait . . .” My dad stared at Clark like he was trying to understand what was happening. “I’ve heard of that. Wasn’t it a bestseller? Wasn’t it a movie?”
Clark nodded. “Two,” he said, then cleared his throat. “It was supposed to be a trilogy, but I’m a little bit behind on my newest book.” I suddenly flashed back to the old man waiting on line in the library with his thick paperback, complaining about the author who hadn’t finished his series. What had that writer’s name been? Wasn’t it something McCallister?
I blinked at him, trying to figure this out. I had assumed Clark was my age, or close to it, though I was now starting to question everything. Because people who were my age, or close to it, didn’t write bestselling fantasy books. They didn’t have movies based on their books with huge movie stars in them. How was this even possible?
“I published the first one when I was fourteen,” Clark said, clearly reading the confusion on both our faces. He gave an embarrassed shrug. “Homeschooled kids have a lot of time on their hands.”
“Well,” my dad said. He looked as overwhelmed as I currently felt. “I should let you two get going. Andie, be home by . . .” He trailed off, looking at me blankly.
I stared back at him, silently panicking as I weighed my options as quickly as possible. I normally never had a curfew. But if I said something like midnight or one, what if Clark thought I expected to spend all that time with him? I didn’t know how to tell him that I had plans after our dinner without being really insulting. But then again, what if the date went really well and I wanted to stay out with him until late?
“Just don’t stay out too late,” my dad finally said, maybe, amazingly, understanding some of my thought process.
I nodded, feeling relief start to course through me. “Will do.” I looked at Clark, more than ready to stop standing in this foyer. “Ready to go?” Clark nodded harder than people normally do, letting me believe that he was probably feeling the same way. “See you later,” I said to my dad as I took a step toward the door.
“Oh,” my dad said, like he just remembered something. “I meant to tell you not to answer any calls from numbers you don’t know. Peter thinks one of the interns might have ‘misplaced’ our cell numbers, and reporters might be calling for quotes.”
Now it was Clark’s turn to look nonplussed. “Reporters?” he asked. He looked at my dad and snapped his fingers. “You’re . . . I saw you on CNN,” he said. “I thought you looked familiar! Senator—”
“Congressman Walker,” my dad interrupted. Then he added, “At least, I used to be.”
I could see it in Clark’s face, the dawning realization of just why my dad looked familiar and why he’d been on CNN in the first place. “Oh, right,” he said, his voice quiet. “Sorry—I didn’t . . .” He looked at me, and I looked down at my sandals. “I didn’t realize,” he said quietly, now looking more embarrassed than ever.
“I was going to mention it later,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry, but have you two met before?” My dad looked between us and then let out a big belly laugh.
Clark and I glanced at each other, and I felt my face get hot. It was bad enough for both of us to probably be thinking that without my dad coming out and saying it.
“Well, you two have fun,” my dad said, starting to head back toward his study, a laugh still lingering in his voice.
I turned to Clark when he was gone. “Should we go?”
“Let’s,” Clark said immediately.
• • •
Twenty minutes later I set my menu aside and looked across the table at Clark at the Boxcar Cantina. It was a Mexican place in town that Tom loved, and so Palmer was always insisting we go there after his opening nights and for his birthday. It was small, and a little bit dark, with candles in brightly colored glass holders on all the tables and a roving mariachi band Palmer always tipped extra so they’d play mariachi “Happy Birthday” for Tom. It had been Clark’s pick—he’d asked as we drove over if it was okay with me—and when we’d arrived, I’d been surprised and impressed when he gave his name to the hostess, who walked us to a table, holding our laminated menus.
Now that we were no longer in his kitchen, Clark seemed a lot less nervous—holding the car door open for me, making small talk, taking charge of things in a way I appreciated, since we were on the kind of date I usually didn’t go on.
“So,” Clark said, setting his own menu aside and smiling at me. “Congress, huh?”
I raised an eyebrow back at him. “Bestselling fantasy novels?”
He laughed, still sounding a little embarrassed. “Maybe we should start over,” he said, holding out his hand across the table to me. “Clark Bruce McCallister.”
I smiled at that. “Alexandra Molly Walker.” I reached across the table and took his hand. His palm was cool against mine, and as his fingers closed around my hand, I felt something run through me. It wasn’t a spark, or a shiver, or anything I’d heard described in cheesy love songs. It was more like when someone touches you on a spot near where you’re ticklish, that kind of heightened awareness. Like I’d never known there were so many nerve endings in my fingers. I pulled my hand back quickly, even though something in me was telling me to leave it there and also see what would happen if I touched his arm.