Sass & Serendipity (16 page)

Daphne frowned. “No. Why?”

“It’s just …” He broke off and shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just weird that you would ask me advice on dating and stuff. You’ve had more success in that arena than I have.”

“I’m just trying to understand a guy’s point of view.”

“A guy’s view, huh?” He chuckled, only he didn’t seem to be laughing at her. Instead, he stared right past her, out the
front window. He looked almost sad. “You sure you want to know what I think?” he said, finding her gaze again.

Daphne nodded.

“Okay.” He lowered the bag of Funyuns and sat up straight. “Here’s the thing: guys are just as confused about what to do as girls are. They … We … are never really sure what’s expected of us.”

“So … if a guy isn’t making a move, it could mean he’s being polite and proper … or it could mean that he’s afraid the girl doesn’t feel the same way? That he’s afraid of making a big mistake?”

“Bingo,” he said, making a finger gun with his right hand. “That’s it exactly.”

“Huh.” Daphne stared at the nearby wall. Luke was such a gentleman, she’d assumed he was waiting a respectable amount of time before revealing his true feelings. But maybe he was just scared? She’d never considered that before. It was kind of sweet to think so. And it made her feel a little better.

“So what, exactly, are girls supposed to do?” she asked Mule. “How can we let guys know that it’s okay?”

“Any help is really appreciated. We like it when girls drop hints. You know, like neon signs, T-shirts with logos giving detailed instructions, heart-shaped tattoos with our names in them.”

Daphne’s eyes widened.

“Kidding,” he said. Mule’s lopsided grin faded and he stared thoughtfully into his bag of snacks. “Seriously, though, guys are so scared of doing the wrong thing they usually just do nothing. They can be pretty sure a girl likes them
and then five seconds later talk themselves out of it. And being shot down is the worst feeling ever. They’d rather play it safe and wait until they’re totally one-hundred-percent sure she won’t run off screaming.”

Daphne considered this. Mule was right. It was girls like Lynette—girls who made it undeniably clear that they were interested—who landed guys so effortlessly. Perhaps Luke just didn’t want to offend Daphne by coming on too strong and was simply looking for a clear sign of what she wanted. She thought she’d already let him know with her hallway waves and phone calls and invitations to go bowling, but those might not have been obvious enough. And she’d been so swoony when he kissed her in the pharmacy that she hadn’t visibly reacted to it. Poor guy! She’d even turned down his suggestion that she go to Tracy’s party. She’d thought she was being patient and smart, that it was a test of Fate she had to endure to be with him. But what if
he’d
been the one testing her, to see if she liked him?

Walt’s words at the bowling alley echoed in her head.
You shouldn’t waste your time.… You’ll see
.…

She shifted to face Mule again. “So how long will a guy wait for a girl? I mean, what if, through no fault of her own, it’s sometimes hard for her to get away and see him?”

Mule scrunched up his nose. “You mean like Romeo and Juliet?”

Daphne laughed. “Yeah. Kind of like that. How long until the guy just gives up on her?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I guess most guys would think that if a girl was really into him, she’d find a way to be with him.”

Daphne took a deep breath. She could feel herself filling with a shaky resolve. No more waiting patiently. She had to do something to let Luke know she wanted him. Something romantic, but not too bold. Something within her range of skills. Something that no guy their age could refuse—other than sex.

She glanced over at Mule, who was still digging into the bag of Funyuns as if his body depended on the stuff. That gave her an idea.

“Stupid, pea-brained, pampered cretin!” Gabby stalked across the dewy grass to the rhythm of the words. “Stupid, lazy, thoughtless caveman!”

A few more muttered syllables and she reached the Applewhite house. She hesitated for a couple of seconds before mounting the porch steps. At least Mr. Applewhite’s Lexus and Mrs. Applewhite’s Mercedes coupe were gone. Only the prodigal son was home. The stupid coddled Neanderthal.

Gabby strode up to the front door and pounded on it with her fist. Then she rang the doorbell. After fifteen seconds passed with no response, she rang it again. She also pounded again, mainly because it felt good.

Eventually she heard some muffled thuds and Prentiss opened the door. He stood in front of her looking sleepy and surprised. His hair was all flattened against his head, except for two or three layers in the back that stood straight out like a rooster’s crest, and his face was puffy and inert. The only thing he had on was a pair of shorts—or maybe they were
boxers. Gabby didn’t want to keep glancing at them to find out.

“Hey,” he said, blinking in the sunlight. He reached across his bare chest to scratch his left shoulder and Gabby forced her gaze back up to his eyes. “Sorry it took a while. I was sleeping.”

“Yes, well,
I
have to go to school,” she said. “Only I can’t get my car out of the driveway.”

Prentiss squinted in the direction of their house. “Really? It won’t start?”

“It starts fine. But it appears that
someone
has blocked me in with their Mustang.”

She patiently waited the two seconds for him to process this.

“Oh. Right. I’m sorry. I’m still not used to y’all living here.”

“Yes, well … we do. Unfortunately.”

She wasn’t sure if he heard her. He stepped away from the doorway for a moment and returned wearing a brown leather jacket and flip-flops.

“Don’t worry. I’ll move it out of your way in a jiffy,” he said, smiling at her. He tossed a wad of keys into the air and caught them with his right hand.

Gabby scowled. How dare he make it sound as if he were doing her a favor. If it weren’t for him, she could have left six minutes ago.

He shut the door and headed down the same dewy path she’d traveled on the way up to the house.

“Gonna be a nice one,” he said, grinning up at the sky. His pleasantness irked her. She’d expected him to be
horrified and extra-apologetic at the way he’d inconvenienced her. Instead, he was acting as if they were on a friendly stroll, picking dandelions and looking for pictures in the clouds.

But of course he would act this way. Because he was do-no-wrong boy. Prince Prentiss of Barton had his own traffic rules and everything.

“So how are you guys liking the place?” he asked.

“It’s fine.”

“That new paint working out for you?”

Damn, that boy was proud of the paint. “Yes.”

“I always knew there was potential for that little place,” he said, nodding along in agreement with himself. “I always told my mom that—”

“Look,” she interrupted. “I’m tired—as are you, I’m sure, considering you just woke up and all, no doubt after a hard night—and I’m really not in the mood for conversation. Plus, I have a hugely important physics test in exactly”—she paused to check her watch—“thirty-five minutes. So could you please just move the car?”

Prentiss gaped at her with that blank, openmouthed expression she’d come to know so well. Then he shook his head and chuckled slightly. “You know,” he said, staring off toward the peach-colored haze in the eastern sky, “I don’t understand it.”

“Understand what?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

“How someone as pretty as you can be so darn grouchy all the time.”

He met her eyes again. She expected to see irritation, but instead, there was still a warmth to his gaze, only sadder and
more distant. It was a look of pity. Prentiss Applewhite had the nerve to pity her?

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

What made it even more horrible was that up close, without his trademark dazzling smile and with his morning hair lying flat instead of in bristles, Prentiss looked like Sonny. Same blue eyes. Same worried wave in the eyebrows. Same indentation in his broad lower lip, like a tiny basin or fingerhold.

Gabby was so stunned by the realization that she came to a sudden halt, as if hit by a freeze ray. All she could do was stand there and gape after Prentiss as he climbed into his car and reparked it farther up the driveway. Once he was done he carefully shut the door, wiped some dirt off the front left fender, and headed into the house without looking back.

God, she loathed that guy! She disliked him so much, it made her stupid. She hated how clueless and cheerful he was all the time, as if he had nothing to hide. She hated the way he smiled as if he had no worries at all.

But most of all, right at that second, she hated the way his calling her pretty had set off a tiny jet of warmth inside her, like those sparks that spray up when you poke the dying coals of a fire. A familiar warmth. The same warmth stirred up years ago, by Sonny.

Prentiss R. Applewhite could be even more dangerous than Gabby had originally feared.

Daphne stood in the nook at the end of a row of lockers and watched the passing stream of students. It was strange looking out at the crowd without them seeing her—like being
invisible. But then … it had always been a little bit like this. These were her friends and neighbors, people she’d known her whole life, and yet she had to admit, she sometimes didn’t feel like she was one of them.

None of them truly saw her for who she was. Or if they did catch a glimpse, they sure didn’t like it. The boys called her a tease when she wouldn’t let them do more than kiss her. The girls called her a snob when she wouldn’t use crude language or text topless pics of herself to the basketball team to celebrate a big win. And they’d all made fun of her when she cried at the end of
Romeo and Juliet
in freshman English. Even her own mom and sister didn’t get her. Her dad did—he was an old-fashioned romantic, too—but he lived in San Antonio. That meant Luke was the only person in all of Barton who really understood and accepted the real Daphne. And this was why she was wedged up against the cinder-block wall waiting for him.

After talking with Mule, she’d realized she had to be more forward with Luke so he would know exactly how she felt about him. She wouldn’t resort to Lynette-like tactics, but she could at least do her best to spend more time with him and drop little hints here and there. Then he would feel secure enough to ask her out. And then their fairy-tale romance could finally begin.

Daphne’s left butt cheek was starting to go numb. She shifted her body as much as her narrow surroundings would allow and glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. Where was he? She would definitely end up being late for Ms. Manbeck’s class, but this was the only place and time where
she knew she’d run into him. She leaned forward slightly and scanned the nearby throng.

There was Walt Lively, the boy-king of the sophomore class, swaggering down the hallway as if he’d just inherited the place. There was Lee Bradley, who’d given her her first kiss at an eighth-grade dance—and then lied to everyone that she’d let him put his hands down her skirt. There was Todd Carothers, so pale and blond, as if he’d been faded along with his tight jeans. She’d always thought he was sweet until she heard him laughing about the time he ran over a stray dog with his pickup.

How could she have liked those guys? How could she have gotten it so wrong? Meeting Luke was like … waking up from a long sleep. All her life she’d been plodding along, thinking she was content, and then … 
wham!
Suddenly her world was filled with color and music and all possibilities of magic. Like stepping out of Kansas and into Oz.

And there he was.

The second Daphne spied Luke’s tidy haircut coming down the corridor, a tiny ember flared in her chest and spread through her limbs. By the time he approached her alcove, she felt cooked medium-rare.

“Luke!” she said, stepping forward to merge into the rush of students.

His upper body snapped sideways as if startled. But as soon as he spied her, his shoulders relaxed and his mouth boinged into a smile. “Oh, hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much. I was wondering if you wanted to come over tonight and have dinner with us?”

“Dinner?” For some reason he looked confused.

“Yeah. Say, around six-thirty or so?”

“Really? What about your parents? Is it okay with them?”

“Well, my dad …” She paused. “They’re both out of town. But I’ll cook us up something. Then we can take a walk and I can show you around our new place. It’s really pretty.”
And then you’ll realize how I feel about you, and see that there’s no reason to be afraid
, she added silently.

Eventually his features flattened into an easy grin. “Um … sure. Okay,” he said.

“Great!”

They reached his classroom and stopped. “So …,” Luke said, glancing around at the thinning traffic. “Should I, you know, bring anything?”

“Nope. Just you! I’ll text you the directions on how to get there.”

“Okay. See ya, Daffodil.” The bell rang as he backed into his room.

Daphne waited until he disappeared before turning around. Then she bounced up the stairs, breezed down the hall, and glided into her classroom.

“How very nice of you to join us, Miss Rivera” was Ms. Manbeck’s drone of a greeting. “That makes three tardies. You owe me a detention.”

“Okay,” Daphne said, fluttering into her seat. She was vaguely aware of the other students’ snickers and stares—and Ms. Manbeck’s twitchy look of disapproval. But it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was Luke, and that in eight hours’ time he would be at her front door. And then everything would be perfect.

Gabby knew something was wrong the second she stepped through the front door of their rental home and a noxious odor hit her nostrils. This wasn’t the new-paint or new-carpet fumes, which had (finally) subsided to a slight reek. Instead, this was the eye-watering stink of a recent mishap.

“Daff?” she called out.

No answer.

She sniffed her way through the house and finally tracked the smell to the kitchen trash can. Buried under the strata of old napkins, a plastic grocery sack, and several pages of that day’s newspaper lay a blackened and slightly misshapen saucepan. She pulled it out and ran her fingers over the sullied surface. It was still warm.

“What the …?”

Gabby gritted her teeth, her cheeks burning hotter than the pan’s molten exterior. The saucepan had been a Christmas present to her mom—part of a six-piece cookware set Gabby had found at Target. Although it had been on sale, it hadn’t been cheap. In fact, Gabby could calculate the precise number of hours she’d had to work and a very close approximation of annoying customers and Pinkwater grumblings she’d had to endure to purchase it.

“That little …!” There were no words bad enough. No names left to call Daphne. The day had sucked already once Prentiss made Gabby feel stupid with his “pretty” compliment—or put-down, actually. It had sucked even worse when she messed up a whole section on her physics test and scored only an 88—possibly because of Prentiss’s mind trip. Then
the suckiness had reached new heights when Ms. Coogan, her former history teacher, didn’t have that letter of recommendation ready, like she’d said she would.

And now this.

Things would never change. Daphne would forever be undoing Gabby’s hard work and Gabby would forever be swabbing up the messes.

How was it that they were related? It was as if they weren’t even the same species. Daphne was one of those spoiled, fluffy cats that snoozed in a windowsill all day, able to preen and daydream through life. Meanwhile, Gabby was a work animal—an ox or a hunting dog, or maybe one of those sad-looking carriage horses—pushing herself day and night out of sheer instinct and loyalty.

Even as she thought this, she sprayed the glass cooktop with grease cutter and wiped it over and over with a cloth until the surface squeaked clean.

It isn’t fair
, the squeaks seemed to say.
It isn’t fair
.…