Love Storm (11 page)

"It must be," he agreed.

"And it is," I said. "Just think about it."

-
Zack-

I sighed. Why was she telling me all this, anyway? Like I said (and she even agreed)friendship was not a necessary 'part of survival', so why should I go looking for it?

Hmm, I think that once in a while Winter suffers from a decided lack of sanity.

"Gum?"

I looked at her, startled. "Sorry?" I said.

She was holding out a packet of gum. "Would you like a piece?" Her dark chocolate eyes encouraged me to accept.

I shrugged. "Sure. Thanks."

She neatly popped the white rectangle out of the foil package onto my waiting hand. She was already working on a piece of her own by the time I stuck mine into my mouth.

We sat there in silence for a while. I watched Winter discreetly, glancing at her from time to time. She chewed her gum quietly, not opening her mouth once, and I was glad to know she didn't have that highly annoying habit of popping it or chewing it with her mouth wide open. I mean, half the female population at Branner High chews gum to look cool, but honestly now, who really wants to see what you have in your mouth?

"This stuff's good," I commented. "What is it?"

She pulled it out of her pocket again. "Eclipse," she said, sliding it across the table for me to see. "Peppermint. It's my favorite."

I took it in my hands. "You like to chew gum?"

She nodded. "Tastes good. I chew it in class – never been caught before, not even by Mrs. Richards."

I chuckled.

"What?" she said, her brow furrowing just a bit.

"Mrs. Richards has caught
everybody
before. Don't tell me you've never been caught by her."

"I'm serious," she said, looking rather astonished that I didn't believe her. "Never. I've never been caught before."

"You've gotta teach me that super sneaky way of chewing gum you have, then," I said. "I don't chew it often, but every time I do it in class, I get caught, no matter how discreet about it I try to be."

Winter smiled. "It's not hard," she said. "Just don't open your mouth if you don't have to. When you have to talk, even if it's a whisper to your friend, stick in all the way in the back of your mouth on one side, between your upper molar and the inside of your mouth. That's the hardest part of your mouth to see. And don't tilt your head back when you laugh, because if you do, people can see it. Common sense stuff, really."

I nodded. "I'll keep all that in mind," I said, sliding the paper packet back towards her. "Thanks. Eclipse. I'll have to remember that, too."

We were quiet again, each immersed in our own thoughts. The funny thing was, I didn't feel compelled to say anything to patch up the silence, and I'm sure she didn't feel the need to either – it was like we both knew that the other needed the time to think.

Suddenly, the shrill ring of a phone interrupted. I was pretty sure we both jumped a little. I watched as Winter pulled a cell phone out of her back pocket.

"Hello?" She paused. "Oh, hey Martin! What's up?"

I narrowed my eyes. Martin Rifkin?

He was obviously talking at the moment. Her eyes met mine for a second, then darted back down to her soda can.

"Mmhmm," she agreed to whatever he was saying. "Sure, I'd love to. Tomorrow? What time? … Four? Sounds great. The one downtown, right? … Okay. Can you call before you come? … Thanks…. Please, can I treat? I owe – " she broke off. "No, Martin, I'll pay, okay? I
do
owe you… great! …I know, I can't believe you remembered it!" He said something, and she laughed. "Thanks. So I'll talk to you later? Okay, bye."

She hung up, and I pounced, but in a subtle manner. "Who was that?"

"Martin Rifkin," she smiled. "We're going to go see a movie tomorrow."

"Which one?" I asked casually.

"I don't know yet. I guess we'll decide when we get there."

"Oh," I said. "So is it, like, a date or something?"

She shook her head. "No, just a movie between friends, I guess. I'm treating, even though he suggested it. I owe him."

"I see," I said. "How about I fill up your schedule for the rest of the weekend. What are you doing on Sunday?"

Woah. Did that just come out of my mouth?

"Uh, nothing," she replied, looking at me hard. "Maybe I'll go play tennis with the girls… Rebecca, or someone, I don't know. You really shouldn't be asking me out."

"I'm not asking you out. I don't even like you," I said, waving my hand. When she looked at me with her mouth slightly open, I hastily clarified: "No, I mean, I like you. But I don't
like
like you. I
like
like Eva."

Her expression relaxed. "Okay then, as long as that's clear, then it's fine with me. Huh, I'm so thrilled that you
like
me. What an honor," she fluttered her eyelashes.

"Don't flatter yourself," I groaned.

She grinned, showing me she had just been jesting. Man, you really have to pay attention to this girl when she talks. She just jokes around most of the time, but then again, when she's being serious, you really have to listen. "What do you want to do?" she asked me.

"I'm working on that," I said, tapping my temple lightly. "Don't worry about it. We'll just hang out."

I can't believe I just asked Winter to 'hang out', and what's even worse, she just
agreed
. Oh man, Zack, what have you gotten yourself into? She wasn't supposed to
agree
, she was supposed to decline the offer before I made a total fool of myself.

Well, you got yourself into it, I thought grimly. Might as well stick it through.

Chapter Eleven: Busy Weekend

Winter

 
           Saturday.

 
           8am. My alarm went off. I slapped it and wondered vaguely how much more abuse it could endure. Ten minutes later, I was dead to the world yet again, buried deep beneath my warm comforter and cotton sheets. Twenty minutes after
that
, the stupid clock managed to ring again, and I dragged myself out of bed, grumbling the entire time.

 
           9:30am. I got dressed. My oldest pair of running shorts and a red and faded Champion t-shirt were the lucky choices of the day. I called up Rebecca and we headed on down to the school to rally for a while. Amidst good-natured teasing and jesting, a bet arose, of which I graciously accepted the loss of a long set ending in a 4-6, 6-3, 5-7 tiebreaker. I now owed Becks a week's worth of ice-cold Gatorade, lemon-lime flavored.

 
           11:30am. I ended up back at home in one piece, which was a miracle, considering Becks' driving skills. I counted three red-lights and five extremely terrified pedestrians that we zoomed by en route to Storey Road, terrorizing the neighborhood. Lunch consisted of half a cream cheesed bagel, an apple, and a large glass of water. Afterwards, I lazed around for a long while, reading a bit of an assigned book for school, listening to my CDs, sitting in the backyard and writing in my journal, and trying my hand at a sketch of my mother's prized yellow rose bush and failing spectacularly.

 
           3:00pm. While looking at the clock and wondering what else I could do (other than that heinous mountain of homework I had been assigned) I suddenly remembered that Martin was going to pick me up and we were going to go see a movie.

 
           "Stupid, stupid, stupid," I muttered to myself as I slashed through all the clothes in my closet. "How could you forget, Winter?" I stopped. "Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity," I said to my mirror image mounted on the back of my door, a girl standing there barefoot in shorts and a t-shirt with her hair still up in a sweaty ponytail and her red Adidas sweatbands still on her wrists. I shrugged. In that case, I had been insane since I had first started learning to talk. Oh well, why break the habit now?

 
           3:30pm. I was out of the shower; I changed into some
nicer
clothes that would be more acceptable for an afternoon downtown (my trademark jeans and a white tank), and trotted downstairs. A moment later, I was back upstairs and applying a teensy bit of makeup – light coat of mascara, tasteful smidge of eyeliner, and some lip gloss. I stuffed my cell phone, thirty dollars, and pack of Eclipse gum in my back pocket (never leave home without it).

 
           Shoot. Now I was a little on the early side. Did he say four o'clock? I glanced at the time on the microwave. Fifteen more minutes to go. What could I accomplish in fifteen minutes? Not much, judging by what I had accomplished today in the eight hours since I had woken up. I dawdled around for a bit longer, then recalled from some sudden brilliant stroke of memory that I had forgotten to inform my parental units I was going out this afternoon. My mom was gone, out grocery shopping or clothes shopping at the mall with her friends, or
something
.  Whatever it is that moms do on the weekends, she was doing it. I hadn't seen her all day. My dad… hmm, where was he?

 
           Ah, in his office, typing away at his computer and making money for us to spend. How lovely.

 
           "Hi Dad," I popped into his home office, looking around. "You really need to pull open the blinds. It's so dark in here." I did it for him, seeing as he wasn't about to get up from his oh-so-comfy seat.

 
           "Hi," he replied, swiveling around in his office chair to greet me. "What's going on?"

 
           I pulled open one of the mini-blinds, flooding the room with light. "Is it okay if I go out this afternoon? I'm going to go see a movie with my friend."

 
           "Sure," he said. "Right now?"

 
           "Yea, I'm leaving in about ten minutes. I'll be back by –" This caught me. When would I be back? I didn't even know when I'd be home or what we would do after the movie.

 
           "Uh, maybe by seven or eight?" I said. "I'll call if the plans change."

 
           "That's fine," my dad said, returning to his computer. "As long as you're home by curfew, it's fine by me."

 
           I nodded and went back out into the living room. I picked up one of my mother's home furnishing magazines and flipped through it idly. Ah, the Weekends of Winter Bruin. What an interesting show I'd make.

 
           When the doorbell rang, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

 
           "Hey," I said, opening the door.

 
           "Hey Winter," Martin said. He looked nice (as always) – his light brown hair was slightly spiked up, and his khakis and sweater were tasteful but casual. For a split second, I admired the way his grey sweater brought out his eyes.

 
           "Daddy, I'm leaving," I hollered into the empty house. I received no answer but knew he had heard. "Okay, let's go."

 
           We didn't stop talking the whole time we were driving, and I somehow always kept him laughing at something or other. Conversation came naturally, and there was never an awkward moment.

 
           When we reached the theater, I was struck by how many people there were.

 
           "Why are there so many movie-goers today?" I asked Martin as we stood in the long line for tickets, craning our necks over the crowd to read the digital bulletin that announced all of today's movies. I tugged lightly at the sleeve of his sweater and held on for fear of being separated from him in this huge crowd.

 
           "Maybe there's some big one coming out today," he suggested. "Hey, any idea what you want to see?"

 
           "Nope," I said honestly, reading all the names of the movies with bewilderment. I didn't go out to the movies very often. "You choose."

 
           "How about an action one?"

 
           "Sounds good."

 
           We ended up watching some kind of Indiana Jones wannabe movie which had decidedly better graphics than acting. Halfway through the movie we began chatting instead of watching, until some middle-aged lady behind us reprimanded us and asked us politely but firmly to stop. So we paid attention for a little bit… before Martin began resorting to countering his boredom by flicking popcorn at me. I threw Skittles at him, and a particularly wayward grape one hit him straight in the eye. He slapped a hand to his eye and gave me a hurt look. I knew he was just pretending, and whispered mockingly, "Poor baby."

 
           He grabbed my arm and threatened me with a Sprite can held over my head.

 
           I shook my head furiously when I realized I couldn't escape his iron grip, and he gave me a malicious grin.