Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (10 page)

Sitting there in English day after day,
watching them unfold into each other, I hoped with everything I had
that he could deserve her.

As it turned out, my worries on that score
were completed unjustified. He was a perfect gentleman, opening
doors and pulling out chairs, with courtesy that extended even to
me sometimes. He was very sharp and well spoken, and a bit
reserved, but not shy. He just didn’t need to hear himself talk. I
really liked that. He listened intently to everything we said,
which was sometimes revealed in his disconcertingly perfect recall.
He had a quiet assurance about him that I appreciated, too. It was
at odds with my assumption that everyone who chose to look like
they did must be gripped by some insidious insecurity. Instead, I
was forced to reevaluate my own insecurities and assumptions…like
the assumption that I would never be drawn to Goths, male or
female.

Trevor and Samantha eased into a
relationship over the course of a month or so. To my extreme
relief, Sam did not dump me for Trevor. In fact she insisted that I
accompany her whenever he was to be present with us. I was worried
that watching them up close would be painful for me, but I was
surprised, and relieved again, to find that I was genuinely pleased
for them and felt no self-pity at all. I guess it’s because I liked
them both so much. They were similar in many respects. Their
temperaments were well matched; they were the two most confident,
cool, and secretly good-looking people I had ever known in real
life.

Upon close observation, I could see that,
similar to Sam, Trevor was a very attractive person under all the
strange layers. Why on earth would anybody want to cover that up?
But again, it was something they shared. As time passed, though,
their biggest common interest turned out to be each other. This was
a huge disappointment to the rest of the G3, but they knew better
than to be jealous. Jealousy is easily identified and would surely
cut off any access to acquaintance with Trevor. So they each
switched into a friendly, however hopeful, “wait and see” mode. It
was obvious to me that they were going to be waiting for a long
time.

Another aspect of Trevor that I found
endearing, though sometimes uncomfortable, was that he did not use
my shyness as an excuse to ignore me, but instead he seemed to go
out of his way to engage me, though this consisted mostly of good
natured teasing. It seemed like he enjoyed the challenge of
conversing with me, and any way he must have sensed that this would
please Sam, which it did. And, of course, because I’m strange in my
own way, he seemed to find me to be highly amusing much of the
time. So his attentions to me had the double effect of pleasing his
lady and entertaining himself. Meanwhile, two birds lay dead
somewhere, victims of death by stoning.

Sam had been regularly picking me up for
school until one day a different car pulled in as I dithered on the
porch, debating about what to do. It was Trevor, I finally
realized, and he was alone.

Awkward.

As if there was truly no way he could be
there for me, I approached him on the driver’s side, like maybe he
needed directions to somewhere. This made him smile for some
reason. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there holding my
books looking pathetic. He didn’t make me squirm for long.

“Hi Ellery. Nice house,” he
complimented.

“Th-Thanks,” I replied, a little
stiffly.

“So I’m the new chauffeur, and you’re the
first stop.”

There was a rogue’s smile on his face.

Relief.

Sam must have put this new arrangement in
place.

“Oh, that’s very kind of you. But you
shouldn’t go to any trouble on my account.”

Good grief! I sounded like a character from
a Jane Austen novel. Where did that come from?

Get in the car and shut up before he
reconsiders!

“It’s no trouble. Get in,” he commanded and
I obeyed.

Something about me getting into the back
seat directly behind him was amusing to Trevor, making him laugh. I
mustered my courage and explained, “You’re the one who said
chauffer,” but it still came out a little too tentatively.

He liked that and laughed even louder. He
gave me a long look in the rear view mirror and I, of course, lost
the staring match quickly and had to look away first. We pulled out
and headed away from my neighborhood.

I understood now why he picked me up first.
Since Sam lived closer to school than I did, he would have had to
back track if he’d retrieved Sam first and then come for me. I
didn’t know where he lived, but I assumed it was farther out than
either of us, and so I would be the logical first stop.

I realized with relief that it was a good
thing that my mom and Hoyt were already gone for the day. I really
didn’t want to have to explain Trevor to them, though it might be
interesting to try. I’d love to know what my security detail was
making of this right now. Though things were changing, and I was
mostly over my melancholy now, Mom still gave me a wide berth in
relation to restrictions of any nature, in the hope that I would
venture out. But this was untested since until recently there had
been no reason or circumstance to explore the limits. Riding away
with Trevor would definitely qualify as “exploring the limits.”

It was quiet for a while. Without looking up
at me in the mirror he cut into the silence and asked, “So, Ellery,
I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me sometime.”

My jaw dropped open with an embarrassingly
loud pop. Did I need to have my hearing checked? Or maybe my brain?
Was I back to having delusions again?

No, I quickly decided. Apparently I was just
the victim of a cruel joke. If he was just messing with me, that
was cruel. If he was serious and I had to say no to someone like
him (and I definitely had to say no) then that was cruel too. Plus
I was wrong about the passenger routing for this trip. This was why
I was the first stop. I had no idea how to act or what to say. So I
just shut down. I closed my eyes, like I would do on roller
coasters, and waited for it to be over. After a while I had to
peek, though.

He was finding me amusing again with a huge
smile that I could see for myself because he had actually turned
around to look at me, taking advantage of a red light.

“Are you okay?” he asked with too much
pleasure and not enough concern.

I took a deep breath and confessed, “No,” my
eyes closing tight, again.

“You just don’t like me that way?” he
pressed.

I wasn’t sure what the right answer was
supposed to be. “I…uh….I like you fine,” I confessed.

I was shocked and angry with myself that my
admiration for him had been so obviously plain—it hadn’t been to
me. Until this moment I hadn’t considered myself in contention with
Rachel, Corey, or Splash. And I knew I would never, ever be in
contention with Sam, on purpose or otherwise. It was time for some
major damage control.

“But I thought you were really into Sam.
What happened? Did you two break up?”

Like I wouldn’t know if that had happened, I
corrected myself, too late.

His smile was mischievous now as the light
turned green and he refocused on traffic again. Answering my
observation and not my question he said, “Oh, I am…but I’ve been
thinking that there’s something about you…” he chuckled and then
continued, “and I’d like to figure out what it is.”

I didn’t like that, so now I went on the
offensive.

“It’s called being backwards and lame,
Trevor, and you know it. I am soooo not your type—unless
backstabbing and selfish is your type. Why are you messing with me
like this?”

Where was this angry courage coming from? I
prayed it stayed with me through the next passenger stop. And then
I froze with fright. What if he wasn’t getting Sam next after all?
What if the next stop was school and we showed up together and
somebody saw us?

I was feeling desperate. I wondered how
badly it would hurt to jump out of a moving car. I started to pay
anxious attention to where we were now, hoping for another red
light. It was a tremendous relief to see the familiar sight of
Sam’s neighborhood coming up.

Trevor didn’t answer my question about his
motivations so I took some more offensive steps.

“You know what, Trevor? It doesn’t matter
why you’re messing with me. Just don’t mess with Sam, okay? She’s
the best friend I’ve ever had and I’m not about to go behind her
back. She means too much to me and….well, I thought…she meant a lot
to you too.”

I said all this while monitoring our too
slow progress down the street from my window in the back.

I gambled with a look up into the mirror and
there was this satisfied look on his face that seemed wrong for the
moment. I thought he should look worried…but then, I couldn’t
imagine what that would look like. The car bumped unevenly from
side to side as we slowly pulled up and in to her driveway.

She was too cool to be waiting outside, but
thankfully she had been close to the door and stepped right out
once we had pulled in. As Sam approached I realized I was feeling
all guilty and this must have clearly shown because Trevor was
chuckling again as he examined me through the mirror. It’s funny
how you can go from admiring someone to despising them so quickly.
I felt disappointed. I really wanted to admire him. Now I was going
to feel negative and stressed out all the time because he was
always everywhere I wanted to be these days.

As Sam approached the car I could see her
assessing the seating arrangement with some amusement, and a touch
of …smugness? She surprised me by passing up the shotgun seat in
front and joining me in the back seat.

Why should I be surprised? I asked
myself.

She was always very good to me, better than
I deserved. And at least for the moment, Trevor hadn’t changed that
about her. But what if she got wind of our recent conversation
still floating like smog inside the car?

“Are you satisfied, now?” she asked as she
situated her things next to mine.

There was a smile in her voice but my eyes
were closed, my head turned completely away trying to will off the
inappropriately nocent (guilty) expression from my face.

Thinking she was talking to me, I was about
to answer, though I don’t know what, when Trevor turned around
stretching out his very thick right arm across the bench seat,
fingers drumming, as he backed out of the drive and said, “Yeah,
you were right…and I’m very…satisfied.”

There was definitely a smile in his voice;
it matched the one on his face, which I snapped around to look
at.

Oh no!

“What were you right about?!?”

My desperate overtone embarrassed me as I
looked back and forth between them.

“Trevor wanted to know want kind of friend
you are to me, which, just so you know, was never in any doubt. But
since he can’t seem to resist a wager, I thought we’d profit from
your good qualities. He’ll be buying our lunches for the rest of
the year,” she said, all smugness now as she turned and said that
last part directly to him.

“It’ll be my pleasure. Hey, it’s better than
paying for an emergency room visit,” he laughed out loud and
continued, “Seriously, she looked like she was going to have a
heart attack.”

I was still in despising mode.

“Well I’m glad I amuse you. But I doubt I’ll
be hungry for lunch today.”

Or any day.

I wanted to be mad, but mostly I just felt
relieved. Sam reached over and patted my hand. I pulled it away
like a baby.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked in an
incredulous but solicitous way.

I was back to staring out my side of the car
and said, “No…just…no more tests, okay?”

Because I can dish it out with anonymous
security personnel, but I’m nowhere near big enough to take it…

Chapter 11
–
Instructor

Samantha was out of town for the weekend. It
was a Saturday afternoon in October and I was feeling adventurous
so I accepted my mom’s invitation to accompany her to her favorite
grocery store, Kroger. With my social life on hold until Monday, it
seemed like a good option.

One of my pet peeves was to hear people
refer to it as ‘Krogers’. Did these same folks also go shopping at
Targets or Wal-Marts?

I hadn’t been “Krogering” in forever. I
think maybe the last time I had, the cashier presented me with a
small round “I’ve been Krogering” happy-face sticker, which I’d
accepted with interest and pleasure. This I would then affix to my
hand, or the cart, or my mom’s butt if she wasn’t looking.

Mom was usually a solo shopper. It was kind
of her thing that she enjoyed doing all alone. Even when I went
with her it was like watching her on hidden camera. She would
forget that I was standing there and become deeply preoccupied with
her decision-making and bargain hunting.

Sometimes I felt really sad that I had never
known either of my grandmas. But I was confident that my mom’s
shopping technique must surely be reminiscent of her own mother or
grandmother’s purchasing style and economic frame of reference, and
so in this way I enjoyed a connection to my female ancestry after
all.

Instead of just buying the brands that were
consistently good, she would switch around every week and purchase
the items that were on sale. Even twenty-five cents would be a deal
breaker—disqualifying Jiff Peanut Butter in favor of Skippy Peanut
Butter for the week. Because even though my mom was a “Choosy Mom”,
she didn’t always choose Jiff. It seemed to me that the pricing
manager at corporate headquarters was doing the choosing for her,
and by extension, Hoyt and me.

Five minutes into the first aisle, with
twenty more to go—aisles, not minutes—I remembered why this was
something I never did with her. And that I had misinterpreted my
own mood. Accepting her offer to accompany wasn’t adventurous; it
was masochistic. I decided to take my leave and head for the
magazine and book aisle. On my way there I passed the customer
service desk which was flanked on either side by wide cork backed
bulletin board material which was pricked with numerous
advertisements and notifications. Beside offers for kittens and
babysitters and motor homes there was a posting that caught my
eye—something that had been on my mind recently.