Never Enough (7 page)

But then he gestured to the checkers game and said, “Armando, he’s my uncle,” so fast I barely caught it.

I glanced over at the old man and smiled. Armando was focused on his game and didn’t look up. I turned my smile back to Marcus. “Do you live with him?”

Marcus tilted his head a little and pulled his eyebrows together like my question didn’t make sense. “Um. No,” he said slowly, but there was an edge to his voice.

I squinted. “So that’s why you like to come here?” I asked.

His hands fumbled over one another on the table, and the motion made
me
nervous. “That’s . . . one reason,” he said. There was clearly more to the story. But it felt like an invisible barrier had gone up between us. This subject was off-limits.

We sat for a little more than an hour before I decided to head out. Mom would be home anytime after five, and
it seemed easier to be there, like normal, than to answer a bunch of questions.

Marcus didn’t offer to walk me home. He told me to take my cup to the counter before I left. “Armando’s old,” he added. Then Marcus reached over and squeezed my hand as I stood to deliver my mug.

It was only a light touch, and he didn’t try to hold it or anything. But my heart skipped all the way to the counter.

When I turned back toward the door, I looked over at Marcus, expecting a smile or a nod or . . . something. But he just stared out the window, lost in thought.

“You want to go to the Arts Club Café again?” Marcus asked first thing the
next day. I thought it was odd that the place had a name, since there didn’t seem to be a sign.

“I don’t have any money,” I told him.

“I’ll get it this time.”

I smiled. It might not be a date, but it felt good to have someone want to hang out with me.

“You can pay me back,” he added, taking a little notch out of my grin.

After school, Marcus and I headed straight to the café, where we talked more about the art on the walls. He used words like “existentialism,” which I planned to Wiki when I got home.

An hour later, we ran out of things to say and I left. I’d told Claire I wouldn’t be home after school, but when I turned the corner toward our house, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Josh Garrison’s blue Civic sat in our driveway.

To anyone else it might have looked like an average car—a decade old with a dent in the back fender. My heart raced with excitement. To me it looked like the pearly gates of heaven welcoming me in, and as I walked toward it, I waited to hear a chorus of “Hallelujah.”

I strode through the front door with a permagrin, expecting to see them on the couch, but there was total silence. I checked the kitchen, but found only a mess of crumbs on the counter. Maybe Claire made him a sandwich and then they went out to the backyard? But the only movement back there was the wind in the trees.

Mom and Dad had sat Claire and me down and talked about dating (not allowed until we’re sixteen) and boys in our rooms (not allowed
ever
.)

So much for that.

I opened the front door again, but this time I slammed it, nice and loud.

A moment later, as expected, Claire’s voice trilled from the upstairs hallway. “Yeah, so that’s the grand tour. Not that exciting. Let’s go watch some TV now, like we planned.”
Claire can be a great liar, but her false words wavered. She came into view with a slightly exaggerated bounce in her step. Josh followed, looking less enthused.

“Oh, you’re home!” I said, feeling like such a fraud. “Hi, Josh,” I added in little more than a whisper.

Josh smiled and I couldn’t help smiling back. His bright blue eyes were like the pictures of water in travel brochures that make everyone want to go on vacation. I blinked and forced myself to stop staring. The whole exchange,
in my very own house
, was making my stomach do jumping jacks toward my throat.

“I’m hungry. Want anything?” I strode for the kitchen, forcing one foot in front of the other.

“I could go for another sandwich,” Josh said, dropping onto the couch beside Claire.

“My mom will be home with pizza soon.” Claire patted him twice on the knee and gave a little head-shake in my direction.

I slipped into the kitchen, letting out a long-held breath.

I wasn’t actually hungry, more like ready to toss my lunch from the idea of Josh being here, but I pulled cupboards open anyway, just to calm myself. It helped, and a few minutes later I walked back into the living room with a plate of crackers and a few cheese slices. I wasn’t
really
disregarding Claire’s instructions. And who cared if I was?

I set it down in front of Josh. “Just a little snack. You know, until dinner.”

I’m pretty sure he smiled at me again, but I focused on the TV to keep my raging anxiety levels in check. In my peripheral vision, Josh leaned forward and helped himself. I inched away and sat on a chair in the corner.

Claire and Josh murmured between themselves, things I couldn’t hear. Then, I couldn’t believe it—Claire leaned forward and helped herself to a cracker and some cheese! It was all I could do to hold back from making a comment about ruining
her
dinner.

Not long after, Claire excused herself to the bathroom upstairs. She was funny about using the main one when guests were over. I kept my eyes drilled into the TV—it would be all I would need to have Josh catch me staring at him—but when I took a quick microglance his way,
he
was staring at
me
! The room suddenly felt warmer. And smaller.

“What?” I blurted, in all my eloquence.

He smiled, and there was something so delectable about those upturned lips. “I was just wondering if it was true? What that paper at school said?”

I coughed, nearly choking on my saliva. “I-I . . . It was from sixth grade,” I said, wanting to find a bucket of ice water to submerge my head into.

“Oh.” He nodded, his grin still in place but faltering just a little.

I glanced toward the stairs, and suddenly Claire was there. A rush of guilt ran hot through my veins.

I concentrated on breathing in and out, and pretended to watch TV again.

When Mom got home, I bolted out of my chair and went to meet her. She had two large boxes with a clear plastic container of salad on top. “Hi, Mom! Let me get the pizza for you. Claire’s boyfriend, Josh, is over,” I said at around three hundred decibels and then mentally kicked myself for it. As if that wasn’t totally obvious. As if Claire shouldn’t be the one to make that statement.
Shut up already, Loann!

Minutes later we were all seated around the table, Josh right between Claire and me. It reminded me so much of our cafeteria lunch that I felt myself flush at the thought of how Josh’s leg had brushed mine.

“So, Josh,” Mom launched in. “It’s nice that Claire could finally bring you home for dinner. You go to Alder Grove High with the girls, right?”

“Yes, Mrs. Rochester,” he said, sitting up a little straighter. “I’m a junior, and on the football team. I’m hoping to get a sports scholarship next year.”

I’d almost forgotten that Josh was in
my
grade and not
Claire’s. We didn’t have any classes together and I usually saw him with other seniors like my sister. Whether he knew it or not, though, he’d just scored major points with Mom by mentioning a scholarship.

Claire scrunched her nose when Mom passed a plate with a slice of pizza toward her, and instead asked for one of the clean plates and reached for the salad. Claire liked pizza, and Mom had ordered her favorite—vegetarian with no onions and extra peppers. The act must be because Josh was around. Though the way he was shoveling back his third piece, I doubted he cared.

“Don’t hog it all, Claire,” Mom said about the salad. In the last couple of years, a power struggle had cropped up between the two of them—who ate better, who dressed better, you name it. I was glad I wasn’t in that particular race.

Claire had only taken one small scoop of salad, but she closed the lid and passed it back to Mom. “Don’t worry,” she said pointedly. “I’m really not that hungry.”

After dinner, I cleared the plates, but kept one eye on Claire and Josh in the living room. Even though they were both smart in school, they sure seemed stupid sometimes. Claire gabbed nonstop in her regular blossomy way about her hair, which I’m sure bored Josh, and he talked about new football plays as though she was an aspiring coach. It was entertaining to watch—them staring into each other’s starry eyes, not hearing a single word out of each other’s mouths.

After cleaning up, I set my homework on the dining room table and settled in, glancing in their direction every few minutes. They didn’t leave the TV.

At nine o’clock, Mom announced the time. Which meant,
Say good-bye to your friend, please, Claire
in Mom-language. Claire took the hint while Mom headed back to the kitchen with her empty wineglass. I watched Claire through my eyelashes as she walked Josh to the door. Neither of them acknowledged me, but I knew I had faded into the background over the last couple of hours, so I wasn’t offended. But then Claire turned and caught me watching.

I darted my eyes back to my homework, but I guess it was too late. The door opened and they took their good-bye outside.

I was interested to see exactly how their good-night kiss worked: Would he just kiss her right away, or stroke her cheek or something so she knew it was coming? Would they both shut their eyes like they do in the movies, or do people always have to shut their eyes when they kiss? I had so many questions. Peeking out the living room window, I didn’t see any sign of them near Josh’s car so I raced upstairs to my window that overlooked the side yard.

I’d missed the beginning. Josh and Claire were already kissing out beside the oak tree and the streetlight gave just enough glow to see them. The jealous irk in my gut soon gave
way. It was mesmerizing to see two such beautiful people kissing in real life. After the weekend I’d spent photographing our yard,
this
new addition made me want to tilt my head to try to frame it. It
would
make a great photo.

I reached across my desk to grab my camera, then pulled it up to my face, bringing Josh and Claire quickly into focus.

Seconds later, I had the shot. And it was perfect.

I placed my camera on the desk gently, then looked up in time to see Josh walking to his car. As Claire headed for the front door, Josh backed his car out of our driveway. When he pulled into the street, he looked up to my bedroom window. I stayed perfectly still, hoping the dark would conceal me. But I knew by the way his eyes lingered, my room wasn’t quite dark enough.

By the next day, I was so psyched at not having to go to drama class that I’d
actually picked up some of Marcus’s confidence about our ability with the set.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him through the hallway. “It’s our first day of stagecraft.”

His eyebrows rose, but I suspected he was holding back a smile. “What’s got you so excited all of a sudden? Been taking your caffeine intravenously today? Or got some brilliant construction ideas?” When I let go of his arm, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

“Well, no. But I’ve been looking over the script and I took a book out of the library on set design. I don’t know, I thought it might spark something.”

Marcus didn’t agree or disagree with this, but when we
walked into the backstage area and I remembered just how haphazard the whole place was, my enthusiasm faltered.

Marcus headed over to a pile of what looked like garbage and started pulling off pieces of drywall and wood. “Why don’t we see if there is anything usable here first?”

Okay.
What was a usable-sized piece?
I moved over to the pile and followed his lead. I held up pieces and asked him if he thought this or that would work for anything, but his answer was always no.

“What are we going to do?” I asked under my breath for probably the hundredth time.

Marcus must have heard me, because this time he replied. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Just don’t give up hope.”

When the bell rang fifty minutes later, we left the place in more of a mess than we’d found it, and even though we’d flipped through my book, the elaborate designs only depressed me more.

Hope. How was I supposed to have hope?

The next couple of days were much the same, except we tidied up a bit and took the odd break to walk the stage in a vain attempt to find inspiration. We headed to the Arts Club after school each day, and I became more and more comfortable being with him, even when neither of us had anything to say. In fact, the quieter it grew, the more comfortable I became. Normally I worried about saying the right thing, but
I didn’t have to worry about the way I acted or what did—or didn’t—come out of my mouth with Marcus.