Parallel Parking (9 page)

He shuffled again, and Holly picked a ten. Sean had a seven. “We’re tied at a game each,” he said. “One more round.”

Holly chose another card. A queen. Almost unbeatable.

Sean chose and showed his hand. An ace. “Ooh, tough loss. But don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit.”

He settled himself in front of her. The crowd around them was quiet. Someone giggled nervously. Even Sean seemed struck by
shyness suddenly.

He moved her hair out of the way.

She sat up straight. “I’m waiting….”

“I like to take my time,” Sean said. He shook out his wrists as if getting ready to perform surgery. A few more people laughed.

Holly glanced around at the faces, gleaming in the watery light from the pool. The shadows made it look like a scene from
an arty movie. Everyone was watching her and Sean, waiting to see them kiss. It was weird.

“Okay,” Sean said.

“Okay.”

“You ready?”

“Ready.”

“Pucker up now,” Sean said. “But not too tight, because I’m going in for the kill.”

That broke the tension, and everybody laughed. Sean leaned forward and kissed Holly gently on the lips. She closed her eyes.
He put his arms around her and pressed harder. She forgot about all the people watching. Then someone snickered, and she remembered
them again. Sean flicked his tongue into her mouth but didn’t linger there. She opened her eyes. He pulled away, then gave
her one last quick closed-lip kiss.

A few people clapped facetiously. “Way to go, Benedetto,” a guy said.

“I was hoping for a little more skin,” another guy said.

“What did
you
think?” Sean asked Holly.

“I liked it,” Holly said, very quietly.

“She liked it—hey, Mikey!” Ben yelled.

“Woo-hoo!” More laughter and applause.

Holly suddenly felt as if she were at her own wedding and her groom had just slipped the garter off her leg. What a strange
thing to have happen on a first date. But not bad. She was looking forward to the sequel a little later in the evening.

“We’ll pick up where we left off later, in the car,” Sean said. “Without the peanut gallery. Then you’ll see some championship
kissing.”

“I’m sure I will,” Holly said. The laser focus of Sean’s attention, and everyone else’s, made her feel calm and glowing, like
a queen.

To:     mad4u

From: your daily horoscope

HERE IS TODAY’S HOROSCOPE: VIRGO: You are entering a period of self-delusion so powerful that when you look in the mirror,
you see Angelina Jolie.

S
ean is friends with Ben Dykstra?” Mads asked.

“And he kissed you in front of everybody?”

“Only because I lost the bet,” Holly said.

Mads’ head was reeling. It was Saturday morning and Holly had called to report on her date with Sean, just as Mads had requested.
Mads wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this. She’d been half-hoping to hear that Sean had ignored Holly all night
and left without even driving
her home. But that was not what happened.

She still couldn’t quite believe that Sean had asked Holly out—and that Holly had agreed to go. Every time she thought about
that, a sharp pain flashed through her gut, so she pushed the thought away. It wouldn’t last, she told herself. It would be
over soon, and then she could forget about it.

But this—the party, the bet, the TV stars, the kiss—brought the pain in her gut back. And sharpened it. What was that bitter,
metallic taste in her mouth?

It should have been me at the party
, Mads thought. But she couldn’t say it. Holly was her friend. Mads should be happy for her.

“Then what happened?” Mads forced herself to ask.

“Shayna got pushed into the pool, and everybody went swimming in their clothes. Well, some people were in their underwear.
Quintana started that.”

“Are you kidding me? You and Sean and Ben Dykstra went swimming in your underwear? Together?”
I should have been there. I want to be there right now
.

“It wasn’t as great as it sounds,” Holly said. “The water was really cold, and there weren’t enough towels to dry off with….”

Don’t patronize me
. “What kind of underwear does Sean wear?” Mads had to know. If she was going to sit there and
politely listen to Holly describe the fulfillment of all Mads’ dreams as if it were about as special as Pizza Day in the cafeteria
… she was going to get some dirt out of it.

“Boxer,” Holly said. “Black.”

“Wow.” Sean in his dripping wet underwear. Mads wanted to scream. Why couldn’t
she
be Holly? Holly was acting so cool, like it was no big deal. Which drove Mads crazy.
Keep it together
, she told herself.

“So then what happened?”

“Well, the party broke up after a while, and Sean drove me home.”

Mads waited for more, but Holly didn’t volunteer it.

“Yeah?” Mads prompted.

“That’s about it,” Holly said.

“Holly, remember, you promised to tell me every detail,” Mads said. “Did he kiss you?”

Holly was quiet for an awfully long time. That metal taste in Mads’ mouth grew stronger. She reached for a pack of gum.

“He just kissed me good night, that’s all,” Holly said.

Liar
.

“God, Holly, it sounds so great,” Mads said. She nearly bit her tongue off in frustration. “So do you like him?”

“He’s okay,” Holly said. “I need more time to get to know him, I guess.”

Oof
. That pain again. Right through the gut.

More time. To get to know Sean. What a terrible hardship
.

“Are you sure you’re okay with all this?” Holly asked.

“Yes. Sure. Of course.” Mads chomped on her gum.
Holly is my friend
, she told herself.
I can’t be petty. I can’t be selfish. I have Stephen
.

And she has Sean
.

But I have Stephen. And he’s a great guy
.

But he wasn’t Sean.

Why was Holly even asking if it was okay? She knew it wasn’t. She should have known, anyway.

If she was my friend—really my friend—she’d know how much this is killing me
.

“Are you going out with him again?” Mads asked.

“Yeah, to the movies, next weekend,” Holly said. “He wants to see that snowboarding movie. I said I’d go.”

“Oh. Sounds like fun.” Mads was seething with jealousy.
Don’t let her hear it
, Mads told herself.
Keep it out of your voice
.

“I’ll give you the full report,” Holly said. “But it probably won’t be very exciting. Just a movie about a bunch of guys bumming
around in the snow.”

“Yeah, you’ll be bored stiff,” Mads said. “And I mean
b-o-a-r-d
stiff. Ha-ha.”
See how cool I am? I can still make a joke while my heart is cracking in half
.

“Good one, Mads,” Holly said. “Call me later.” “I will.”

Mads hung up the phone. Then she buried her head in her pillow and screamed.

“Okay, Madison, one more time.” Mitchell’s mustache, adorned with a small dot of mustard, twitched in frustration. It was
a slight twitch, but Mads caught it. The feelings of her car-mates were expressed less subtly.

“O-o-h-h-h,” Autumn sighed. “Mads, why do you have to be such a total lame-o?”

“Really, it feels like we’ve been practicing parallel parking forever,” Siobhan said. “You’re always the last one to catch
on.”

“She’ll get it,” Martin said. “She mastered the three-point turn, didn’t she?”

“It took her the whole lesson,” Autumn said. “The rest of us never even got a chance to try it.”

“And when we finally did, at the next lesson, it took us each about two seconds to figure it out,” Siobhan said. “Except for
Mads.”

It was true. Mads was not a natural driver. Especially with people watching her. Any people. It made her nervous. And when
she was nervous, she always screwed up.

On top of that, she felt shaky. All the time. If she let
her mind wander for a second, a terrible image popped in. Holly and Sean, kissing. She pushed it away, but it kept coming
back. She had to guard against it at all times. It made concentration difficult.

“I can offer you private tutoring,” Mitchell said. “Then you won’t take up so much of everyone else’s time. I only charge
fifty dollars an hour.”

Mads knew her father would never want to pay fifty dollars an hour for lessons she was supposed to be getting for free. “I
can do it this time, I swear,” she said. “Set up the cones again.”

Mitchell had set up cones to show her where to put the car. He was trying out a new method on her. He told her to aim the
car at one cone, then stop; back up to the next cone, stop, and so on. Mads crushed all the cones every time. The last time
she’d ended up with the car half-parked on the sidewalk.

“Forget the cones,” Mitchell snapped. “That’s not working. How about this.” He opened the trunk of the car and pulled out
two crash test dummies. He stood in front of the car; then, nervously, as if he’d just realized what kind of danger he was
in, stepped off to one side. Mads sat behind the wheel, window rolled down. Mitchell shook one of the dummies.

“This is your mother. Okay?” He shook the other
dummy. “And this is your father. If you don’t parallel park correctly, you will run over these dummies. Your mother and father.
They will die. Do you understand?”

Mads felt like crying. Why was he doing this to her? Threatening to kill her parents only made her more nervous.

He set up the dummies, one in front of the car, one behind. They represented the space Mads had to park between. Then he got
back into the teacher’s seat.

“Okay. Pull up alongside your mother. Then back up, turning the steering wheel toward the sidewalk, without hitting the sidewalk
or running over your father back there. Got it?”

Mads nodded. Her hands were shaking. She didn’t want to be responsible for her parents’ vehicular manslaughter, even if it
was only pretend.

Mads pulled up alongside the mother dummy, then backed up slowly, turning in toward the sidewalk. But she was too far away
from the curb, so she pulled forward again and ran over her mother.

“Do we have to sit here and watch this?” Siobhan said. “I’ve got better things to do.”

“Really,” Autumn said. “I’m afraid Mads’ bad driving is going to rub off on me. We spend so much time watching her screw up,
it’s making an imprint on my brain. How
will I ever pass the driving test this way? Do you
know
what I got for my birthday? A BMW convertible! Do you really think I want to tootle around in it with my dad sitting next
to me? No, I do not! I want to go speeding through town with a carful of my friends and honk at cute boys! And if I don’t
get my driver’s license, I’ll never be able to do that. Mads, why are you doing this to me? Why are you trying to ruin my
life?”

“Quiet back there,” Mitchell said. “Or I’ll fail all of you. Mads, one more time.”

Mads banged her head on the steering wheel. This was her third parallel parking lesson. Her mother had tried to teach her—hopeless.
Lina tried to explain it to her, but it only confused her. She’d had trouble with everything else, sure, but she’d eventually
figured it all out. All except for this. What was it about parallel parking? Why was it so hard for her?

She tried to park again. By the time she was finished the dummies were completely mangled and the car was about two feet from
the curb.

“Again,” Mitchell said wearily. “We’ve got ten more minutes of class time left today. Might as well use it. You won’t pass
this class if you can’t parallel park.”

Mads was freaking out. At this rate she’d never get her driver’s license.

QUIZ: ARE YOU A GOOD DRIVER OR A FLAKE?

Take this written driving quiz to test your knowledge of the road.

Pay attention now!

1. Which of the following are dangerous to do while driving?
   

   a
   talking on a cell phone
   

   b
   putting on makeup
   

   c
   checking out hotties
   

   d
   all of the above
   

   e
   huh?
   

2. You are driving on the freeway. The vehicle in front of you is a large truck. You should:
   

   a
   speed up and pass him.
   

   b
   slow down.
   

   c
   keep one car length behind him.
   

   d
   do that hand signal to make him honk his horn.
   

   e
   what?
   

3. You must notify the DMV within 5 days if you:
   

   a
   lose your driver’s license.
   

   b
   move to a new address.
   

   c
   dye your hair purple.
   

   d
   break up with your boyfriend.
   

   e
   I don’t understand the question.