My Stupid Girl (15 page)

“I’ll stay,” I said determinedly. I wasn’t
leaving them alone in a room together with a bunch of adorable toddlers. I
walked over to Rachel and cleared my throat.

“Can I, um, help with anything?” I said to
her back. She turned around and I just about dropped dead. Standing in front of
me was the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life. Don’t get me
wrong, Lucy was the most amazing, breathtaking person I had ever known. But
that was the point, I knew her. Lucy was flawed, but confident and that is what
made her so beautiful. This girl had no flaws on her that I could tell. 

“Hi," she said giving me a little
scowl, looking me up and down. I said nothing to her, I don’t think. I can't
remember.

“Yes, count the kids and take out all the
white construction paper we need." She turned around and went back to
taking out the paint. I could have taken out the paint in about 3 seconds but
for some reason she was still working on it. I counted seventeen children,
counted out seventeen pieces of white paper and put them down on the counter. I
didn’t say anything, just stood behind her, hoping with all my might that she
didn’t turn around and talk to me again. She took out some spongy paint brushes
and lined them up in a neat row next to the paper. Then she started organizing
the clutter that was all around her. A beautiful neat freak…I instantly felt
like I was cheating on Lucy. 

“Ok, kids. Before we do anything I want you
guys to meet a friend of mine.” I looked over with the deer in the head lights
look. “This is David.” Lucy pointed to me. “You all need to go up to him at
some point before class is finished and tell him your names.” All the kids
looked over at me and waved.

“Oh, you're, David.” I turned around and
Rachel was standing right next to me. I backed up a few inches. “So, you're
Lucy’s little pet?” she said with sweet innocence.

“Umm,” I stammered.

“So, she talked you into coming?” She was
talking while combing her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her
face. Her dark hair looked like a chocolate fountain as it fell on her
shoulders. It was long, like Lucy’s. But Rachel’s was thick and very straight.
She wasn’t much shorter than me, maybe an inch because she had high heels on. I
was just under 6 feet and her eyes were right at my eye level. She wore a tight
yellow dress, which was crazy because it was cold outside. She had on high
brown boots that went up to her knees.

“I guess,” I said, wondering if this whole
thing was pre-planned. 

“Well, I'm glad you’re here.” She smiled at
me with big white teeth and walked gracefully over to Mike and grabbed his
hand. They must be dating now, I decided. I peeked over at Lucy to see what her
reaction was and to my satisfaction she looked like she could not have cared
less.

“What are some of the animals that you
think Noah brought onto the boat that God asked him to make?” Lucy asked them.
She had her right arm up in the air, signaling that she wanted them to raise
their hands. A sea of little fingers and pudgy hands went up. Lucy pointed to a
little girl who started laughing before she even said anything. That didn’t
make any sense until she yelled “chickens.” Lucy started to squat, she put her
fists on her ribs and put her elbows out like a chicken and she clucked. I had
the feeling that Lucy had done this before. It was really cute.

“Good one, what else do you think that he
put on the boat?” Once again, the hands went up in the air. 

“A alligator," a little boy said. Lucy
got down on her knees and put her arms out in front of her face like a big pair
of jaws and snapped them shut. They all laughed again. I looked over and Mike
was also laughing, while Rachel was rolling her eyes. The kids abandoned
raising their hands and started yelling out different animals.

“Flamingos." Lucy stood on one leg.

“Lions.” Lucy roared as loud as she could.

“Kangaroos." Lucy started hopping
around the room.

“Elephants.” Lucy looked absolutely
ridiculous. She squeezed her lips together and blew as hard as she could. A
perfect elephant noise came out. Her face was bright red with puffed out
cheeks. Her eyes were closed tight. I've never seen so many kids in one area so
entertained by one person. They laughed and cheered. I felt my heart swelling
in my chest. I pictured her with little kids of her own and what an amazing
mother she was going to be. She clapped her hands, taking all of us out of our
dreamy state. 

“Everyone sit down quietly and wait for
your turn to get your hands painted.” Rachel came over to where I was, and put
an apron on me. As she was tying the strings behind me, her face was right next
to my ear. I turned a color of red that hasn’t been invented yet and in the
corner of my eye I saw Lucy give me an incredulous look, I made eye contact
with her and gave her an honest shoulder shrug. I was here helping her, I
wasn’t doing anything wrong. 

“David," Rachel said, grabbing my arm
and pulling me to a bucket of warm soapy water that was on the counter. “Once
I'm done painting their hands, they are going to come straight to you. Make
sure their hands are completely clean and dry before you let them go play, ok?”
She said it like she was explaining something to someone who was very dense. 

“I don’t know, can you say it again, I
don’t think I get it,” I said, as I patted my hair down in front of my eye. She
was extremely close to me, I could smell the coffee on her breath. 

“Oh, you're funny,” she said, rolling her
eyes again and walking back to the table full of rowdy kids, all jumping up and
down on their bottoms from being wound up by Lucy. One by one I helped each
squirmy toddler dunk their little hands in the water and then dried them off.
It wasn’t so bad. Each kid had something to say about my lip rings or eye brow
ring, my favorite being: “I want to pierce my eyeball, Mr. David!” 

I got a name each time I picked someone up
and they were all ridiculous biblical names like Malachi, Elijah, Ezra, Hannah.
The list went on and on. They all sounded the same after a while. After half an
hour, all the kids were playing with Mike and Lucy while Rachel and I were
cleaning up. I couldn’t wait till my friends found out about this. I would
surely be moving on from the name Ice Queen that I had picked up since I had
helped Lucy, to something like “Preacher Boy” or “Choir Kid.”  

“Thank you, David,” Rachel said, as we
finished putting all the supplies away.

“Yeah, it’s ok,” I said quickly, not
looking at her, but making a point to look over at Lucy.

“Ok, everyone, what are we going to tell
our parents that we learned today in Kids Church?” Lucy asked the question to
the whole class. There was a jumble of noise that was a mixture of words. 

“Noah.”

“Animals.”

“Elephants!”

“Good! Now, have an amazing day and
remember that God wants us to be nice to our parents,” Lucy said, winking to
the group. Like clockwork, the parents started filing in, taking the artwork
from Rachel and saying thank you to Lucy. I helped clean the class room,
Cloroxed all the toys and the table. All four of us made sure the toys were put
away and everyone had their kids.  

“Thank you," Lucy said to me after the
room was empty and cleaned for the next class to come in.

“It was actually kind of fun.” I said,
smiling at her. 

“Yeah, kids are amazing.” She had a gleam
in her eye. “I want about five of them.” 

“That’s a lot of kids.” 

“Barefoot and pregnant. That’s what I long
for!” She punched my shoulder and smiled her sweet smile. 

“So, now what?” I asked her, slightly
panicked again.

“Anything you want,” she said, gathering
all her things together. That’s when a girl with short black hair walked in. 

“Hey, Lucy, we are all going to Firestones
for lunch. You two want to come?” Lucy looked up at me and then back at her.

“Let me talk to David, then I'll let you
know, ok Christina?” The young girl gave me a fleeting look then left the room
to join everyone else. When Lucy looked up at me she laughed through her nose.

“What?” I said sourly

“The look on your face was priceless just
now,” she said, still laughing. “We don’t have to go David, it's ok, I see
these people all the time.” She clicked the light off and led me out of the
room. I felt torn. I didn’t want to go with them to lunch, there was no
question about that but I didn’t want to make Lucy choose between me and her
friends.

“I don’t care, we can go,” I said, trying
to sound convincing.

“Really?” 

“Yeah, honestly Lucy, I just want to hang
out with you,” I said, reaching down and touching her nose.” She, unlike Rachel
was a good five inches shorter than me. 

“Ahem.” We heard a deep girl's voice
pretend to clear her throat. I took my hand quickly away from Lucy's face and
patted down my hair.

“Hi, I'm Evelyn.” A tall skinny girl with
black curly hair and blue eyes reached her hand out towards me. I took it and
shook it like a good boy. 

“Hi. David," I said, realizing that
everyone most likely already knew who I was.  

“So, are you guys coming to lunch with us?”
she asked, with an air of getting down to business. I looked up and saw the
girl who first asked us to go to lunch, Christina and Rachel standing behind
her, all with their arms crossed.    

“We are," Lucy said. She sounded
reserved.

“Good, we will save you seats.” She flipped
her hair around without giving me another glance and the three of them walked
away like three supermodels on the cat walk. Lucy looked up at me and winked,
then put her warm hand in mine. She wasn’t shy about me around her friends,
which was a nice surprise. I had convinced myself that I was going to be left
in the corner of the church, forgotten. Now I thought about it: the way Lucy
took care of me the day before when I was sick, and the way she was with all of
those children...I should be ashamed of how I was feeling. 

“Who are those three girls?” I asked her as
we stepped outside into the snow. I was beginning to regret that I didn’t have
more than this white shirt on under my jacket. 

“Oh, you looked like you got to know,
Rachel.” She sounded jealous, which was fantastic. I poked her side. She
slapped at it, but held on to my hand tighter still.     

  “She seems nice,” I said, not really
knowing what to say about her. Lucy sneered her lip up like Elvis and huffed. I
laughed at that. “I’m assuming you don’t like her?”

“Just be careful, David," was all she
said. She looked down at the ground.

“Be careful?” 

“Yes,” Lucy began, "she is very nice
and she acts like a really good Christian, but underneath, she is a very angry,
bitter person," she said quietly. 

“You sound like you're upset that she is
dating Mike.” My heart sank a little. Lucy stopped abruptly and turned to face
me. 

“You're kidding, right?” Her voice was
harsh. I just shrugged. 

“You're serious. I can't believe that you
don’t realize that I don’t care about him, that I..” she trailed off.

“You what?” I asked.

“You have no clue that I like you, do you?”
She blushed furiously and dropped my hand. 

“You like me?” 

“Well, yeah. Isn’t it obvious?” she said,
not looking up at me. I put my hand under her chin and lifted her face up
towards me.

“A little, but I’m glad you said it.” I
bent down and kissed her forehead again, like I had the night before.

“Get a room!” Lucy and I jumped, but her
eyes were already glaring before I even knew who it was. I turned around and
saw a pink BMW with three beautiful girls sitting in it looking at us with
drama in their eyes. Rachel was driving, Evelyn was in the front passenger seat
and Christina sat in the back.

“I like them," I said, waving.

“Oh shut up," Lucy said, slapping my
arm. As we walked back to her car, I had a little bit more spring in my step
and even waved back to a few people who waved at me.

9. TEAMS?

Lunch wasn’t so bad. There were tons of people
there, all of whom knew Lucy. We sat at a big table right inside a noisy
restaurant that had eight of the largest TVs I’d ever seen, all of them tuned
to a different sport. This restaurant was renowned for steak sandwiches; they
were big and ridiculous. Their signature sandwich featured a hoagie bun that
tasted like it was baked in an oven made of barbeque sauce, and contained
enough meat to feed a starving African child for a week. Lucy wanted to share
one with me because she said she could “never finish one on her own.” I could
finish one by myself, no problem, but I shared with her. It was becoming
painfully apparent that I would wrestle an alligator for Lucy if she asked me. 

She ate most of it.

I didn’t say much. I answered questions
that were directed at me but contributed nothing to the ongoing conversation. I
was actually surprised by these people. They didn’t really all look the same,
like I had always thought. Now that I paid attention to each one, they were
pretty different from each other. I had thought this whole time that Lucy was a
preppy Christian girl but after getting to know her, and meeting the other
people at her church, I realized that I was painfully wrong. I was more of a
stereotype than I always thought she was. She wasn’t really preppy; she was
more of a hippie chick. All of Lucy’s beauty was natural. Her waist-length hair
was almost always down. I suspected she didn’t wear much makeup – only when the
occasion called for it, not because she was simply going to be seen. She didn’t
wear makeup like I did, or like the supermodel sitting right next to me. She
didn’t wear much jewelry, either. I noticed that the other girls all had
earrings, necklaces, and sparkly things in their hair. I had never seen Lucy
wear anything like that except for a little pearl ring on her left ring finger.
Lucy didn’t seem like she was concerned with a lot of things that I assumed
most girls were concerned with. 

Rachel got a side salad with fat free
dressing, ate three fries, then complained about pigging out. Lucy ate most of
my sandwich and shared the fries with me, and then asked me if I wanted to
“share” a milkshake. I ordered one for each of us. The nice part about it was
that Lucy had the best body out of all of the girls. Lucy was still slim, but
like Betty Page; the girl filled out her jeans. It was natural and made her
stand out without even trying. 

There was one girl at the table with pitch
black hair, up in a kind of 50s do. She wore bright red lipstick and pink
cheeks. Her lightweight sweater was straight out of the 70s. Finishing off the
look were bell bottoms and bright red Dock Martins. She looked rad. Again, not
at all what I expected a popular religious girl to look like. The boy next to
her wore skinny jeans, a big thick hooded shirt, short spiky hair, and glasses.
Next to him was a girl who looked like she belonged in Chess club, in fact I
recognized her from school and was almost certain that she was in the Chess
club. She was quiet and seemed completely comfortable being among people who
looked nothing like her, just like retro girl and skater boy. 

Then sat Mike, Rachel, Christina and
Evelyn. Evelyn was right next to me at the table. She wore a look that said she
already knew what I knew and anything that I might someday know. She was the
littlest of the three, almost too skinny. She had a thin face and eyes that
stood out. They were a pretty blue, almost pale blue, like the sky right after
a freak sun shower. She flicked her food around on her plate, not eating any of
it and not talking to anyone. She was obviously not one for conversation. I was
actually relieved she was sitting next to me. I didn’t really have to try.

To my bewilderment, Rachel kept casting
sweet looks over at me then putting her arms around Mike. I could tell by the
way Mike kept looking over at Lucy and me that Lucy was the one he would rather
be sitting with. I felt kind of bad for the guy. 

Wait, no. No I didn’t.

Despite the stunning woman on his arm, I
couldn’t help wondering about Mike. How it would feel to have Lucy break up
with you? I wasn’t technically dating Lucy, but the thought of not being with
her was paralyzing. It was just slightly more paralyzing than being with her.

Every once in a while, Lucy would put her
hand on mine or play with the back of my hair. I flinched a couple of times,
but for the most part it didn’t bother me that much. She never touched the hair
around my face, though, which was a relief. She knew I didn’t want her to touch
it and never questioned me on it. That was one of the many things that I was
beginning to really appreciate about her. That and the Betty Page look. And the
thick long hair. And the lack of weird sparkly things. And the ability to put
away a solid meal without whining about calories. So many things to admire.

“So, David,” Rachel leaned in towards me. I
cringed. “Tonight we are going bowling at Lauren Lane Bowling Alley; would you
like to come with us?” 

“Bowling?” I repeated, like an idiot.

“Yes, David. It’s this game were you roll a
ball down a lane and try to hit some pins at the end.” She smiled wickedly.
Everyone laughed, even Lucy.

“I’ve heard the natives speak of it, but I
have never played.” I pulled my hand away from Lucy’s for laughing at me.

“You’ve never gone bowling?” Mike snorted
into his drink.

“Shut up Mike!” Lucy’s voice was a little
harsh. I let her touch my hand again.

“So, do you want to come?” Rachel repeated
the question, staring straight at me. I felt Lucy lean in, her lips brushing my
ears.

“David, you don’t have to go.”

“Are you going?” I asked, under my breath.

“I haven’t given it much thought; I was
just happy to be hanging out with you.” She smiled that smile as she answered
me. I heard a few snickers from the group when she said that. I sighed, put on
my big boy underwear, and turned my attention away from those deep eyes.  I
looked directly at Rachel.

“Can I invite some friends?” I asked.

“Like who?” Her voice was casually
interested, but I noticed her lips turning down just a little bit. Ha! I was
going to see this through. I wasn’t doing another social outing with this group
where I was the only one who felt out of place.

“My friends,” I replied simply, enjoy
vagueness.

“Yes, that’s a great idea!” Lucy sounded
enthusiastic. Rachel smiled and nodded at Lucy’s words. I suspected she wasn’t
as excited as Lucy was, but whatever. Battle won. I smiled gratefully at Lucy
and laughed to myself at the thought of my guys at a bowling alley. 

* * *

“David, I don’t mind just hanging out with
you and going to bed early. It’s been a long weekend.” She spoke softly as we
drove into her driveway.

“You don’t want me to go?” I asked her,
making sure to turn on the sad face.

“No,” she laughed, “it’s not that. I just,
I don’t want you to feel like you have to hang out with these people to get me
to like you.” She was straightforward, another thing I liked.

“Honestly, I kind of want to see my friends
bowl with a bunch of church folk.” I smiled at her. She cut off the engine in
the car and looked at me, holding my eyes and thinking. Then she laughed and
leaned over to hug me. She held on to my neck and didn’t let go for a whole
minute. After my initial shock, I reciprocated whole heartedly.

“I kind of want to see that, too.” She
whispered in my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “But for now, can we please
take a nap?” 

The mention of sleep was like a slap of
cold water. Yes. I needed sleep, a lot. A nap sounded amazing. I couldn’t
remember the last time I’d actually slept. The last two days were whirlwinds.
The idea of a nap with Lucy was its own kind of awesome, but my brain instantly
went into a downward spiral of how badly it could go here, at her house. Dads
are not huge fans of that kind of thing, I’ve heard.

“Are your parents home?” I looked nervously
at the house.

“They go to the later service at church.
They won’t be home till after two if they don’t go out to lunch afterwards.”
She was explaining lightly, not at all concerned. Which didn’t actually make me
feel less nervous.

“Oh.” I was torn, glad they weren’t there
because I got to spend some time with Lucy, but I didn’t know what would happen
if they came home and saw me napping with their daughter. One thing I had
noticed about Lucy was that she wasn’t 100% awesome at thinking things through.
But I followed her anyway. My other options were to sleep in the car, which
would get cold really quickly, or drive somewhere else to sleep. Which seemed silly
with the nice girl walking up to the incredible house, expecting me to follow
her.

She opened the front door and a warm, clean
smell met me. Tall ceilings and a big stairway to the second story loomed in
front of us. Each wall was painted with a different, bright color and decorated
with beautiful art work. 

“My mom painted that,” Lucy said when she
noticed me staring at one painting. 

“Wow, that’s cool.” I turned around to
fully look Lucy in the face.

“What?” She touched her face nervously.

“Nothing, I was just saying that I liked
it.” My voice was innocent.

“You gave me a funny look,” she insisted. I
looked down at the ground for a second to gather my courage and then up at her
again. 

“I was just thinking that you are
absolutely amazing.” It took all of my might to say what I was thinking, but I
did it. She smiled at me and put her head to one side like she did whenever she
was about to say something profound.

“Are you talking about me or you?” She made
a point to make it sound as cheesy as it was, and making fun of what I had said
to her the night before. I pulled her in for another hug, a better version of
the car-hug she’d sprung on me earlier. We stood there for a moment, her head
resting on my chest and my nose close to her hair. How do girls make their hair
smell so good?

“Let’s watch a movie and fall asleep,” she
started pulling me into the beautiful living room but I broke away. 

“First, I’m going to invite my friends to
the alley tonight.” I backed away from the living room and pulled my cell phone
out. I walked down the hallway, back toward the front door as I dialed Johnny’s
phone number. Lucy stayed in the living room, plopping down on an oversized
couch and flipping on a huge TV.

“Hello?”

“Johnny!” I said happily.

“David?” He sounded confused.

“Yeah dude, what’s up?” I could not contain
my joy. 

“Seriously, who is this? I don’t recognize
this number and it sounds like I’m talking to a fairy princess.”

“Harsh man,” I said, realizing he was
messing with me.

“Wow, what’s wrong? You okay?” He sounded
concerned all of a sudden. I guess I didn’t really call to chat all that much.

“Nothing’s wrong. My grandma got me a cell
phone.” 

“Ah, cool. So what’s up man, did you get
sick?” For a second I wondered if Lucy had been keeping them updated without
telling me, then remembered that a bunch of people had gotten food poisoning
that same night. 

“Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous. Did you?”

“I was throwing up for about twelve hours,”
Johnny admitted with a groan. “I couldn’t go out of town with my family to go
see my sister.”

“I totally forgot about that,” I admitted,
ruefully. I needed to pay more attention to random details. “But, I have
something for us to do tonight.” I switched to super-excited cheerleader voice
for that bit.

“Yeah, like what?”

“Bowling!”

“Bowling…” He let that hang in the air for
a minute, not appreciating my carefully crafted sarcasm.

“Not really bowling so much as a night full
of making people uncomfortable.” I chuckled at the mental image.

“Nice, who will we be freaking out?” He was
already on board. I knew that’d get him.

“Lucy’s friends from church asked me to
bowling with them tonight,” I admitted.

“Ha! Hey, Isaiah.” I heard Johnny turn away
from the phone, not even answering me. “The Christians want us to go bowling
tonight.” I heard several voices laughing, like all the guys were there.

“Dude, how did that happen?” He asked
between fits of laughter.

“At lunch.” I said quietly. I should have
thought this through before I called. I was not counting on everyone being together
on the other end of the line.

“What were you doing out to lunch with
them-- Oh man, it’s Sunday! Please don’t tell me you went to church with Lucy
today?” Johnny was passing the news along to everyone before I even had time to
reply. I heard shouts of amazement from the group. 

“Do you want to come or not?” I asked,
wishing I’d come up with a game plan before I called him. I was definitely
going to have a new nickname, now.

“Heck yeah man. Laurel Lanes?”

“Yeah.  4:30.” I hung up the phone with an
irritable snap, and then smiled. I loved those guys; they were all jerks and
completely moronic, but they were great. I knew that they would rise to the
occasion and pull out all the stops for me. It was going to be a fun night,
even with a new nickname to deal with. I looked around at the many paintings
again, took a deep breath, and headed back down the hallway.

I walked back to the living room were Lucy
was curled up on the couch, an old black and white movie on the big flat screen
TV. 

“This is one of my favorite movies.” She
patted a spot next to her.

“Cool. What is it?” I chose a spot on the
same couch, but not way too close, just in case her parents walked in.

“Arsenic and Old Lace. It’s a classic.” She
smiled serenely, and turned back to the film. 

Honestly, I could have cared less what we
watched. I was happy to be hanging out with her, finally alone. The movie ended
up being pretty funny, though. It was about two old ladies who seemed sweet and
normal but weren’t. They lived with their crazy brother who thought he was
Teddy Roosevelt. Other stuff happened but I don’t remember much of it. She
scooted over to sit right next to me, without taking her eyes from the movie. I
laid my arm out, hand up, hoping that Lucy would hold it. She didn’t, but she
did take the back of her fingernails and lightly scratch my forearm. 

Ok, I have never had anyone do this before.
Most people probably have a parent or someone tickle their forearms before they
hit driving age, but it was a first for me. It was the coolest feeling, like my
whole body relaxed all at once. I could have sunk into the couch and died.
Literally died and gone to heaven. Apparently, it wears out whoever is doing
it, too. I noticed Lucy’s eyes getting heavier.