Invisible (10 page)

Scott sheepishly handed her his camera. “Sorry about that, ma'am. Difference of opinion.”

And just like that, he was completely redeemed in her eyes.

“Oh, I understand. William had this friend,
Jennifer
.” She pursed her lips in distaste. “I never did like that woman. She wore the most atrocious perfume, really cloying stuff. Eau de desperation, I used to say to William. Then I came home one day and the pillows reeked of it.” She shrugged. “Ah, well. It was for the best in the end.”

I turned to Scott, but he didn't look like he knew how to respond to that either.

“Uh, let's take that picture,” I covered gamely, even though the last thing I wanted was to stand anywhere near Scott. I did it for Mrs. Blake. I followed her every instruction and let Scott drape his arm around my waist. I even smiled nicely for the camera.

My brittle grin was still frozen in place when my mom entered the memoir section . . . and caught sight of her little girl entangled in the arms of an unknown boy.

If this was karmic retribution for one small fib, I'd never lie to a sweet old lady ever again.

“U
h, hey, Mom.”

I couldn't come up with anything else to say. Although, there aren't all that many options when your mom stumbles upon you hugging a green-eyed hottie in a bookstore while your boss is instructing you to “snuggle closer.”

Maybe something along the lines of,
This really isn't what it looks like
would have been better. But then I'd have to explain what exactly I meant by
that,
and Mrs. Blake's feelings would be hurt. I racked my brain for a way to gracefully extract myself from the situation.

“Oh, Susan, how wonderful to see you! I take it you've already met Janie's boyfriend.”

Oh, hell.

“I can't say I have,” my mom replied, glancing pointedly at the arm Scott still had wrapped around my waist.

I found myself too stunned to move. Unfortunately, Scott was not similarly affected.

“Scott Fraser. It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Smith.”

My mom shook his extended hand and then looked at me as if she expected me to yell,
Psych!
Even my mother acted like it was impossible for me to have a boyfriend. She clearly found it inconceivable that any guy could be interested in this one of her daughters
that
way.

Which was doing wonders for my self-esteem. Oh, wait. Not so much.

“Hi, Scott. It's nice to finally put a face to the name. I've heard so much about you.”

I inwardly winced at my mom's words. Scott and I both knew that if I had said anything about him at home . . . it wasn't complimentary. Well, at least I wasn't the only liar in my family. “You'll have to come over for dinner sometime.”

“Mom, that's un—”

“—believably generous of you,” Scott cut me off. “I'd love to get to know Jane's whole family. Hear all the embarrassing stories.”

That last part was said with a grin that looked awfully self-satisfied to me.

“Well, this week is crazy, but . . . how about on Monday? Are you free then, Scott?”

Any of those excuses would have worked.

“That sounds wonderful. I'll be looking forward to it.”

“Wonderful! Then it's settled.”

Apparently, I didn't get a say in whether or not
my
fake boyfriend was invited to dinner. Then again, that was probably because only Scott and I knew the whole thing was a sham.

But just because he wanted to tinker with my life didn't mean I had to play along.

“You know, Scott might not have time for dinner at our house. He has a pretty hectic weekend scheduled.”

My mom gave me a long, hard look. “Is there anything more important than family time?”

It wasn't actually a question.

“Of course not, it's just . . .”

“Jane is worried that I won't have enough time to work on the school paper.” Scott effortlessly pulled me into the crook of his arm, which felt oddly comforting given that
he
was the one responsible for this latest set of complications. “It'll be fine, sweetie.”

Sweetie? This was definitely hell.

“Oh, I'm sure
you
will be fine,” I gritted out. “I just think that we need to discuss boundaries for
the article
. Make sure it doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.”

He grinned. “Interesting, whereas I think more digging is in order to get the full scoop.”

The subtext of all of this went completely unnoticed by my mom and Mrs. Blake.

“Jane, we need to get going. I have to pick up some things from the grocery store for dinner. Scott, it was nice to meet you, and we'll see you Monday night.”

“Absolutely. I'll see you later, Jane.”

The jerk had the nerve to wink at me. I had to bite my tongue to keep from growling back.

“Sure thing, Scott.”

Then I was propelled out of the bookstore and into the supermarket, where my mom simultaneously purchased veggies for our stir-fry and interrogated me about Scott. It wasn't easy fielding her questions since I didn't have the answers to most of them. I didn't even know the most basic information about him. Stuff like what his parents did professionally and whether or not he had siblings.

It didn't get any less stressful when she moved to the more personal questions either—like how long I had been hiding this secret relationship from everyone.

Talk about a minefield.

I think I covered pretty well. I said that we had started a
thing
together a few days ago, and I wanted to keep it low-key until we knew each other better. I said that I didn't want her to get all excited over nothing if it didn't pan out.

But maybe I should have stuck with
no comment.
Maybe that way she wouldn't have gotten all teary-eyed in the frozen food section over how quickly her little girl was growing up and putting on makeup to impress her new boyfriend.

Of course I couldn't say,
Oh no, Mom, that's just to hide the black eye I got from a psychopathic football player.

So I loaded up the grocery cart while she wiped at her watery eyes and welcomed me into “womanhood.” I hated lying to her, but I didn't know how to take it back. Not without mortifying one or both of us.

I just hoped she wouldn't make too big a deal out of it, which was why I begged her to keep it to herself.

 

She barely managed to pass Elle the stir-fry before she dropped the bomb.

Yeah, that went over about as well as a case of head lice at an elementary school.

“You've got a
what?
” Elle demanded, nearly spewing apple juice in her surprise. “Yeah, right!”

“I do!” I insisted, even though . . . I didn't. But I hated the way they assumed I was pranking them about this when I've never lied to them before. I mean,
come on!
It isn't like I was born with an extreme social disorder or a case of leprosy. It was ridiculous the way my family acted like I had just announced,
Well, tomorrow is the coming of the Messiah.

My dad looked pained. “So . . . does this mean we need to have the talk?”

I knew exactly what talk he was referring to, and I definitely didn't want to have it. Not over dinner, not with him, not ever.

“Nope. I'm fine, Dad. Really, they cover all of that in school these days.”

Elle snorted before she heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Don't worry, Dad. I'll make sure she knows all about STDs and contraception.”

What I
actually
needed someone to explain was how my sister could imagine that I would appreciate her discussing that stuff with me, because
that
was beyond me.

I focused on spearing a piece of red pepper with my fork. “No explanations necessary.”

My mom and dad traded looks. “You haven't already . . .”

“NO!” I could feel my cheeks heating up in embarrassment. “Can we please drop this?”

“See, Mom! If she's not mature enough to have this conversation, then she definitely isn't ready for sex.”

I glared at Elle. “Not wanting to discuss my sex life
over dinner
doesn't mean I'm not mature enough to . . . do it.”

“Aw, she said, ‘do it.' Isn't that precious?”

“Shut up,
Lane
.”

Her jaw stiffened. “It's not my fault you're not ready to be in a
meaningful, lasting relationship.
”

Translation: You'll never be ready to have what Jeff and I had together.

That had me so annoyed I barely noticed when my fork slid from my fingers to my plate with a clatter. “Okay, enough. Scott and I have just started spending time together. We're not exactly searching for the cheapest hotel room we can rent by the hour. And I promise that if we do have sex, I'll be as safe as possible. Not that it's any of your business, but I'm carrying a condom around with me as we speak.”

Technically, that wasn't a lie, since the condom Sam gave me was still in my backpack upstairs. I just didn't plan on using it with Scott—or anyone else, for that matter. My dad shot my mom one wild-eyed look, but he didn't comment, probably because he didn't want to say anything that would send me looking for one of those cheap hotel rooms.

I'm not sure what shocked the family more: the announcement that I had a boyfriend or a condom.

“Can I be excused? I've lost my appetite.”

My parents nodded their permission, probably because as soon as I left the room they could begin discussing these latest developments. Not that I had any interest in eavesdropping. If I heard my mom sniffle over her little girl reaching womanhood one more time, I was going to lose it.

So I bolted for my room, cranked up my music, and flipped open the ancient family laptop to see who was online. I was hoping to find Kenzie on Skype, but she must have been focused on her homework or out on a date with Logan—either way, she wasn't online. A week ago, I probably would have started in on my homework like a good girl. Then again, a week ago I also wasn't getting lectured about safe sex over the dinner table.

I decided to waste some time on Facebook. There was nobody I particularly wanted to message, but I thought it might be a good way to unwind from the awkwardness of my family dinner. Or at least I
did
until I began wading through a slew of pointless status updates, most of which were painfully long quotes from random people and pictures of food.

Still, it wasn't like I had anything better to do.

I was still clicking through photographs of Kenzie and Logan together, when Scott logged on. I would never have voluntarily friended him if Mr. Elliot hadn't required everyone in the journalism class to add each other. He claimed it would foster a sense of solidarity. All it had actually accomplished was a shared sense of outrage at the total breach of privacy. Not that anyone was about to confront Mr. Elliot on it.

After spending the past two days with Scott and his stupid camera tailing me, he should have been the last person I wanted to contact. Except he was also the one who had let this whole fake-boyfriend thing get so out of hand.

Which is why I skipped all preliminaries and got right to the point.

Jane:
What were you thinking?

Scott:
Care to specify?

Jane:
Dinner! Really. You thought that was a GOOD idea?

I have a much easier time expressing my frustration with people when I can type it—partly because it's less likely I'll get punched in the face.

Scott:
You're a relatively good model when you follow directions. So I'm using you for my portfolio.

Jane:
Portfolio? What are you talking about? What does that have to do with dinner?

Scott:
I'm looking forward to a family shoot.

Of course, if Scott Fraser agreed to something, there was always something in it for him. In this case, that something was the elusive holy grail of photography: a perfect shot.

Jane:
You do realize there is more to life than photography, right?

Scott:
Do you have a point, or are you just wasting more of my time?

I glared at his words for a moment before I responded with a little more force on the keyboard than was necessary, strictly speaking.

Jane:
Yes, I have a point! You need to come down with an illness.

Scott:
Do I now?

I could practically sense his smirk spreading.

Jane:
Yes, something nasty but not fatal.

Scott:
So you don't actually want me dead. Good to know.

Jane:
No, just disfigured and pox-ridden, please.

Scott:
When exactly did you want this unfortunate illness to strike?

That was an easy question to answer.

Jane:
BEFORE THE DINNER!

I took a deep breath and then continued typing.

Jane:
You don't understand: They're already grilling me about you. Where you are from. What your parents do. If you have ever held down a job. It's insane. Run while you still can!

Scott:
I'm from LA via a bunch of other places. Dad is a journalist. Mom is in social work. Mainly I've worked waiter/dishwasher/barista-type jobs. A few gigs as a wedding photographer. You want to know more, you have to ask me yourself.

Wow, that was a lot more information than I had ever expected to get out of him.

Jane:
You really don't want to do this.

Scott:
Consider it done.

Jane:
Fine. But you'll regret it.

Talk about the understatement of the century. Five minutes with my sister making passive-aggressive comments, my dad obsessing over my condom, and my mom choking up over my life changes, and Scott would never come within twenty-five feet of me again.

Scott:
You're boring me. What's the plan for tomorrow?

I didn't know whether to laugh or glare at the words on the screen. The guy was so blunt and rude and . . . interesting. Even though I hated half of what came out of his mouth, I never knew what he was going to say. At least he wasn't predictable.

Jane:
I'm having lunch with my friends. I plan on checking out the auditions for the play after school, though. Hopefully, I'll find a story there.