Glimpse (3 page)

He put his arm around her waist and helped her down from the stage.  On the way out, he grabbed a to-go cup of coffee the bartender handed him.  “Thanks again, Tom.”

Out in the parking lot his mom squinted her eyes in the early afternoon sun. “Jesus, it’s bright out here!  What time did you say it was again?”

“It’s one in the afternoon, Mom. You called while I was at lunch.”

She giggled. “And how embarrassing was that for you?”

“Pretty freaking embarrassing.”

Avery opened the passenger side door to Jason’s pickup and helped his mom in, buckling her seat belt. “I thought we agreed that you were only going to do this sort of thing after work with co-workers who can legally drive you home.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, honey!  I’m so sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking.  What an idiot I am.”

He got into the truck and wiped the tears from his mom’s face with his shirtsleeve. “It’s okay. You’ve just gotta be more careful.  If Dad finds out about this…well you know that won’t be good.”

They sat in silence on the way home. His mom dozed off. He pulled into the driveway, getting as close to the garage as he could and hopped out, punching in the code for the door.  As soon as it started opening he went around to his mom’s side and helped her out of the truck. He got her into the garage as quickly as possible.  He didn’t think any of the neighbors had seen them, this time anyway.

After he got his mom out of her shoes and into bed, and a large glass of water on the bedside table, he jogged out to the truck and headed back to school.

What had Zellie thought of him, leaving school in the middle of the day?  He was sure that Claire had filled her in on why his mom needed him. She was wasted in Claire’s parents’ place of business, after all.

To distract himself, Avery thought of Zellie in church the day before, knocking that big hat off of Mrs. Hobby’s head.  Hilarious.  Classic Zellie. She was always acting like a goof and looking beautiful doing it.  He’d tried to get in on the joke with her, smile at her during communion, but she had just made the weirdest face and turned away from him.  Then, during the sermon she was leaning forward and it seemed like she was looking his way, but she must have been looking past him. 

She was so confusing, more so than any other girl he knew.  Not that he had vast experience to draw on or anything. For the most part, he’d just been on group outings to the movies, stuff like that.  No other girl made him as nervous or as unsure of himself as Zellie did. 

Many things came easily for him. Grades, sports, friendships, and he probably could’ve had his pick of a few really cool girls, but none of them…shook him up like her. When they were younger and he had more of a grip on his feelings, Avery had been able to push down whatever it was about Zellie that mesmerized him.  The past couple of years, though, he could not keep his eyes off of her. Could not keep himself from wondering what it would take to make her happy. Could not stop himself from imagining and staring and being so into her. It was probably going to kill him.

After parking Jason’s pickup where it was that morning, Avery jogged into the school, careful to avoid the office.  He hadn’t exactly told Mr. Landry that he was going to pick up his mom.

“Zellie, I was thinking about taking a trip over to Bend on Saturday to get some decorations for your party.  Do you want to come with me or do you trust me to pick them out myself?” Dad said, as he scooped a large helping of green beans onto his plate already piled high with fried chicken and rice.

I took the green bean bowl from him and flicked a few onto my plate. “I’d like to go.  Can Claire come too?”

“And Melody?”  Melody chimed in.

“It would be fine if Claire came with us.  Melody, I seem to remember you have math tutoring with Mrs. Kent.”

“Dad!  That is so not fair.  I’m totally getting a C- in math and do not need help.  Please, I really wanna go.”

Dad stabbed a forkful of beans.  “Perhaps you could see if Mrs. Kent would move tutoring to Friday evening?  Then you could come with us.”

Melody kicked the table leg. “Well, that won’t work either because I’m supposed to go to Britney’s slumber party on Friday.  Can’t I skip tutoring just this one time?”

“Not the first time, sweetie,” Mom said.

Melody pushed back from the table and ran into the bedroom that we shared.

Dad chuckled.  “That’s about how I thought that would go.”

“Yup,” I answered, grinning.

“Be nice you two.  You know she doesn’t like it when you all do things without her.”  Mom went to the bedroom to comfort her.

“What do you think Zel, leave around 10?  Tell Claire we’ll pick her up.”

“Sounds good.  Could I maybe also look for a dress to wear?” I really didn’t want to spend my sweet sixteen birthday wearing hand-me-downs or churchy clothes.  If I was ever going to have any chance of getting Avery to talk to me, I had to a least attempt to look hot.  “I’m sure I can find something good on sale,” I added.

Dad gave me a wink.  “I don’t see why not.  You’re only sixteen once!”

After Claire had agreed to go to Bend, the rest of the school week raced by and for once I had something to look forward to on the weekend besides church.

On Friday afternoon I stood out in front of the school waiting for Mom to pick me up and take me to my dentist appointment like I was an 8-year-old. I couldn’t wait to take Driver’s Ed in the summer, driving was going to be, well, freedom.

It was a windy spring day and my hair was blowing all over the place, creating a whirlwind around my head. Annoyed, I grabbed my unruly mass of hair in both hands and slicked it back, rolling a ponytail holder from my wrist onto the loose, messy twist I’d made at the base of my skull.

“You missed a chunk.” Avery reached over and tucked the hair behind my ear.

I froze, paralyzed.  Avery had just touched me.  I felt myself go tomato red and shiver at the same time.  Was I awake?  I traced the path of his fingers across my cheekbone, re-tucking the hair behind my ear, stalling.  “Oh,” I said brilliantly.

He stood next to me, straddling his bike; like it was something we did everyday.  Like he had spoken to me once in the past five years.  Like he acknowledged my presence. His beautiful long fingers had a firm grip on the handle bars.

“So that practice test in English totally sucked, don’t you think?” he said.

A hundred images flashed through my mind.  His full lips, his hair curling over his ears, the sliver of skin that had given me goose bumps.  I had to pull myself together!  I had to speak.  I had to not go catatonic.  “Yeah,” I managed to say.  “It completely sucked. Way sucked. Can’t imagine how much the real test is going to totally…suck.”  I completely, way, and totally needed to cease talking for the rest of my miserable existence.

“Totally,” he agreed, giving me a crinkly-eyed smile.

We loitered in awkward silence for what seemed like forever.  I finally turned towards him to espouse some more of my wisdom, when a strong gust of wind blew past us, unleashing my crazy hair from my ponytail, and blowing it right into his face.  I rushed to smooth it back again, but Avery grasped my wrist. 

“It’s cool.  It’s not bothering me.” He rubbed his thumb up along the inside my palm. “Your hair is really soft. It’s nice.”

“Oh!” I said brilliantly again. “Uh, thanks.  Yours is too.”  Shut up.  Shut up now.  Pray like you’ve never prayed before that an angel seamstress will come down from heaven and sew your mouth shut!

He let go of my wrist, but the warmth from his hand lingered.  I resisted putting my arm to my nose, curious if I could smell him on my skin. 

He ran his hands through his hair. “So, your party is next week.  That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” I said, attempting to be nonchalant.  As if.  “Claire and I are going to Bend with my dad to get decorations and stuff tomorrow.”

“Sweet, Bend’s cool.”

“Yeah!” I. Am. So. Super. Excited!  Holy Christ on a cracker why couldn’t I say one intelligent thing?

“Well, uh, all righty.” He looked at the watch he had hooked to his backpack.  “Um, I gotta get over to my dad’s office.  Have fun in Bend. I’ll see you in church…and then y’know in school on Monday.”

“Yeah!  I’ll see you on Sunday and Monday!”  The embarrassment was becoming debilitating. 

I watched as he rode away, not sure of what just happened or of anything that I had said. Was I already at the dentist, because I sure as hell felt like I was on laughing gas? This would’ve been another opportune moment to have a cell phone.  I had to call Claire as soon as I got home.  There was so much to analyze.  There was
something
to analyze!

Avery rode his bike down Cascade Ave. How many times had he just said “cool?”  Ugh.  Too many.  Well, at least she’d talked to him. Sort of. He was having a hard time actually remembering what they’d talked about in between all the times he’d said cool.
I am such a massive dork.

This was all Jason’s fault.  Avery had been perfectly fine admiring Zellie from afar, checking her out on the sly during youth group. Every day he looked forward to 6th period  Humanities, the one class where they had a reverse alphabetical seating chart and he sat behind her, allowing him to fantasize about gently sweeping her hair to the side and kissing her neck. 

Staring and wanting and longing were things he was comfortable with, but Jason said he was acting like a little girl. When he had threatened to tell Zellie that Avery was in love with her if he didn’t at least say hi to her before her birthday party, Avery could’ve killed him. But, he had to admit, it had gone better than he thought it would.

Oh God, he couldn’t believe he’d touched her.  Twice.  Where did that impulse come from?  Fear of exposure had made him brave. He wished he could have held onto to her wrist forever. She hadn’t pulled away from him either, so that was saying something.  Ugh.  What was that saying?  That she was being polite?  That she’d wanted him to touch her?  He hadn’t really given her a choice.  It seemed like it was okay with her.  It was okay.  Everything was cool.  Ugh!

Skidding to a stop on the sidewalk in front of his dad’s insurance office, he hopped off his bike and propped it up against the building.  Every day after school when he didn’t have practice or a game he had to help his dad at work. He did the crappy jobs, like emptying the trash and cleaning out the coffee pot, while his friends got to hang out at each other’s houses and play video games.

The cow bell clanked as Avery walked through the glass door that read “Adams Insurance” in curly old fashioned script.

His dad looked up from his desk, near the back wall of the small storefront.  “Did you lock up your bike or leave it out there so that anyone walking by could take it for a spin?”

Avery flung his backpack down on the floor next to the old black leather sofa that used to be in their living room at home. It now occupied the “waiting area” in his dad’s office, even though it was only about five feet from his desk.  “No one’s gonna take it, Dad.”  Avery flopped onto the sofa, slouching down low so that his dad had to look over the stack of files on his desk to see him.

“This may be a small town, but that doesn’t mean that bad things don’t happen.  If that were the case, I’d be out of a job.  Go lock it up.” He finished filling out a stack of forms he had been working on and tossed them into his “out” box.

Avery rose from the couch with incredible slowness, as if moving at a more reasonable pace would kill him.

“All right Mr. Wiseass, instead of locking up your bike why don’t you go pick up our suits from the dry cleaners.”  His dad shifted forward in his chair and pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his khakis.

Avery froze in mid-sloth. “Why are our suits at the dry cleaners?  Did someone die?”

“No, someone did not die.  I thought we should look nice for Zellie Wells’ birthday party next weekend. Plus, it’s been awhile since we’ve had our suits cleaned.” He flipped a twenty toward his son. It floated in the space between them for a split second and then fell at Avery’s feet.

He bent down and picked it up, cramming it into his jeans pocket.  “Why do I have to wear a suit, anyways? I’m going to look like a total dork.  Jason’s dad isn’t going to make him—”

“Jason’s dad doesn’t make him do anything and that’s why Jason is a spoiled brat.  You are wearing a suit because you’re going to be in church and because I’m wearing a suit.  End of discussion.  You better get over there. They close early on Fridays.”

Avery grabbed his backpack and slung it over his left shoulder. “How am I supposed to carry two suits on my bike?”

“You’ll think of something.”  He pulled a stack of papers from his “in” box and began filling them out.

Avery made it to the dry cleaners just before closing and was now trying for the third time to ride his bike home without destroying the suits or himself.  Steadying the bike with one hand and holding the suits up as high as he could with the other he attempted to pedal. The stupid plastic dry cleaning bags kept getting wrapped up in the spokes of his back wheel, throwing him off balance and shredding the bottoms of the bags. 

“Damn it!”  He threw the suits to the ground, sprang from his bike and walked away from the whole mess, leaving his bike and the suits lying in the middle of the empty residential street.

He sat down on the curb. He could not wait until he turned sixteen in July, no more running errands on his lousy bike!

“I couldn’t help but notice what a total jackass you were making of yourself. Wanna use my phone to call your mom?”

Claire was standing above him holding out her red glittery cell phone.

“Thanks. That would be really cool.” Avery cringed at his words. He took the phone from Claire and dialed the number to Clear Cuts, the hair salon where his mom worked. “Yeah, hi, Juanita, it’s Avery, can I talk to my mom please.”

“Oh, hi, sweetie!” Juanita said, her high pitched fake southern accent dripping with honey. “Let me get her…Becky, that adorable little son of yours is on the phone.  Here she comes, sugar.”