Tempest (11 page)

“Then you’re lucky.”

She pointed to the plunger next to the toilet. “Maybe you should use that?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Have you done this before?”

“Many times. Have you?”

I shrugged. “Sure, every day.”

She laughed as I attempted to plunge the toilet. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for our longest 2007 conversation thus far, but at least it was something.

Holly reached over me and lifted the top off the tank, leaning it against the wall. Then she stuck her hand right in—nothing squeamish about this girl. “See this little thingy? I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s supposed to be up and that’s why it won’t flush.”

She moved her hand from the tank and the toilet flushed immediately.

“Nice!” I said.

She pulled her mask down and smiled. “Do you think it’s safe to breathe?”

I snatched the bottle of disinfectant from the cleaning cart and started spraying every inch of the toilet. “It will be in a minute.”

Holly grabbed another pair of gloves and a sponge and helped me clean. When the two of us walked out of the bathroom, we ran right into Jana.

“Diving into boy’s bathrooms with the new guy. I’m impressed,” she teased.

“You should be. We were doing really nasty things,” Holly said.

She walked away, leaving me standing next to Jana, who was dressed in a leotard and covered up to her elbows in chalk. “She’s probably not going to go out with you. Just so you know.”

“We were just cleaning a toilet, I swear.”

Jana laughed under her breath. “I know. But somebody needed to fill you in before you get too attached.”

Too late.

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“Nope. What about you, do you have a girlfriend?” Jana asked.

“Um … kind of … well, no, not really.”

Toby walked up and stuck his head between the two of us. “Mike’s taking off early tonight and he’ll be gone all weekend. I’m thinking we should do something?”

“Poker night,” Jana suggested with a devious grin.

“Exactly. Are you in, Jackson? You’re the key holder now, so we kind of need you here.”

“You want me to risk the job I just started so you can play poker and screw around?”

Toby laughed quietly. “All right, what do you want?”

I nodded toward Holly. “I’ll agree if you convince her to come, but you can’t use me as an excuse.”

“Are you moving in on my woman?”

“Toby, it’s called unrequited love. Give it up, man,” Jana said, patting his head like a little dog.

“I’m just curious, that’s all. Plus, we had a moment,” I said.

Jana rolled her eyes. “They cleaned a toilet together.”

“Romantic,” Toby said.

“Jackson!” Mike called. “Need you to clean up the preschool floor. One of the kids got sick.”

Great.
It was nice to know that the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of private school education was being put to good use.

As soon as I finished removing the vomit from a stack of mats, Toby came over to me. “Okay, it’s a deal.”

“How did you do it?”

He grinned. “I can’t reveal my methods, but it involves touching, lots of sweat, and possibly exploring the range of motion of her joints.”

I punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You wish.”

*   *   *

Toby and Jana took off before Mike left and returned about ten minutes after his car had cleared the parking lot. I was mopping the front lobby when the door opened and they walked in with their arms full. Two more guys followed behind them and I dropped the mop to the floor with a loud clang as soon as I saw the dark-haired guy with black glasses.

“Adam!”

Uh-oh
 …

He stopped and turned to face me. “Do I know you?”

Oh, crap, think of something, quick.

“The county Science Fair last year, weren’t you in it?” I said lamely.

“Yeah, me and about a thousand other people.”

All four of them stared. I forced out another lame cover-up. “Your project was really cool. The whole…”

“Theory of relativity,” he finished for me.

“Exactly.”

Toby rolled his eyes. “Okay, we got another science geek. You better not be able to count cards like Silverman.”

Holly bounded over to us, stopping in front of the guy next to Adam. That’s when I realized who it was. David Newman. Holly’s future boyfriend.

He smiled and handed her the brown paper sack he was holding. “That’ll be seven dollars. And I should add that I had to wait twenty minutes for them to make a fresh batch of guacamole.”

She placed a few bills in his hand. “I love you, David.”

“She never says that to me,” Toby said.

Holly leaned closer to Toby. “That’s because you don’t want me to. Admit it. Those three words frighten you.”

I can totally relate.

He laughed and moved his face even closer to hers. She backed up immediately. “Maybe, but
makin’
love doesn’t frighten me.”

David laughed and Holly shoved him out of her way, then walked off with Jana, muttering, “Juveniles.”

“Real smooth, Toby,” David said.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never made a game out of shaking her hard exterior,” Toby said to David.

“I refuse to respond to that,” David said, but he was laughing.

“But you’ve thought about kissing her?”

I shot a glance at Adam, who, like me, was listening in silence.

“Not really,” David answered.

“Well, I have,” Toby said, unashamed. “Mostly when I’ve wanted to shut her up.”

They all laughed loud enough for Holly and Jana to dart their eyes in our direction.

I went back to mopping while the game started at the table they’d set up on the gymnastics floor. When it was obvious I didn’t have any more work to do, Toby called me over.

“Aren’t you going to play?” he asked.

“Sure, I could use a little extra cash.” I sat down next to Adam and across from Holly.

I really wanted to talk to him. But right now I needed to be cool. Get into character and be the mysterious new guy.

David dealt out the cards. “Jackson, where did you go before you dropped out? Was it in Jersey?”

I nodded and said the name of another high school.

“That’s why we’ve never seen you,” Jana said.

“You’re all juniors?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“So, why did you quit school?” Toby asked.

Jana elbowed him in the side, but I waved her off.

“I just got sick of it. My dad wanted me to work.”

“I can’t wait to be done,” Holly said, throwing two cards in the discard pile and picking up new ones. “AP English bites. I knew it would be tough, but a new novel every other week and a five-page paper every other day is a bit much.”

“What are you reading?” I asked Holly.

“We just finished
A Tale of Two Cities
.”

Aha, a door just swung open.

Toby and Adam both groaned.

“Couldn’t stand Dickens,” Adam said.

David threw his cards into the pile. “Really? Mr. Perfect GPA? I’m surprised.”

“Literature is very different from math and science,” Adam said.

“So, you didn’t like it either?” I asked Holly.

“I did, but I’m not having any luck writing the paper. I started, then I got stuck.”

“All you need to say is, ‘
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
’ the end,” Toby said with a very bad British accent. “Who’s in this round?”

“I got nothing,” Jana said, throwing down her cards.

David did the same.

“Toby, I’m starting to see why you have so much trouble with women,” Holly teased. “Obviously you can’t see the romance in a story like that. Unrequited love and personal sacrifice with nothing in return.”

He turned his eyes on her. “You’re incredibly sexy when you speak ze language of literature.”

Holly shook her head and looked at me. “See what I mean? He has no clue.”

I threw another chip onto the pile. “Enlighten us, then, since you’re such a wise woman. Save some other poor girls from our unromantic ways.”

She fumbled the cards in her hands and nearly dropped one. “Um … I’m probably not the best person to ask. Jana, what do you think?”

Jana perked up in her chair. “Okay, I’ll take a stab. Well, Toby’s not sharing common interests. Maybe that’s the problem. Holly loves to read, so her future man should, too. Personally, I’m into punk and ska music, so I’m going to look for someone who shares my love of bands nobody’s heard of.”

“All right, you haven’t tripped me up so far. That can’t be everything,” I said.

“I couldn’t date a guy who didn’t at least appreciate sports. Gymnastics takes up more than half my life, so that’s a given.”

“Well, what about Toby? He’s a gymnast.”

Jana raised her eyebrows at me. “He’s also my cousin.”

How did I not know that?
“Okay, that won’t work.”

“Ya think?” Toby said, shaking his head. “Come on, Holly, give us a little peek inside your head.”

Yes, please do.
The truth was … I didn’t know seventeen-year-old Holly very well at all.

“I don’t know what I want. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday, but for now I’ll settle for school, work, and saving money for college,” Holly said.

“Borrrrr-ing,” Jana sang.

Holly threw a handful of popcorn across the table at her. “Fine, Jana, I want a guy who has read beyond the first few words of a Charles Dickens novel and can quote beautiful lines of prose while ballroom dancing to … hmm…”

Jana rested her chin on her hands and sighed. “What about ‘Come Away with Me’ by Norah Jones? It would have to be a waltz.”

“This is a dude, right?” David asked.

Toby snorted back laughter. “You’ve got to be kidding, Flynn. You are the
last
girl who I’d guess would fall for that shit.”

“It’s not shit if it’s genuine,” Jana said.

“Exactly,” Holly answered. Then she tossed her cards down on the table. “Full house.”

“Damn,” Adam muttered.

Everyone folded and I turned my eyes on Jana. “Do you think she’s bluffing?”

Jana looked bewildered. “Bluffing? She’s already shown her cards.”

“No, I mean about the perfect guy. Mr. Shakespeare-quoting, tango-dancing lover.”

Holly leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Waltz, not tango, and I’m not bluffing. But he has to be straight.”

“Yeah, have fun finding
that
guy,” David said.

“Maybe he’s sitting right across from you,” I said.

A flicker of nerves crossed her face, but she replaced it quickly with a confident smirk. “No way.”

I grabbed the deck and started shuffling. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Besides, it’s not like I want such a high-maintenance girl.”

“I am
not
high-maintenance.”

David grabbed a soda from the pile of cans on the floor. “Holly, you’ve got some fantasy guy waltzing around in tights, whispering
Romeo and Juliet
in your ear. That’s as high-maintenance as it gets. For guys our age, you’re lucky if you can get us to stop spitting and scratching our balls when you’re around.”

Holly smiled and pinched his cheek. “You’re such a charmer, David. And I never said anything about tights.”

Toby groaned. “Well, the rest is bad enough. Who’s filling your heads with this shit? That’s why we can’t get a date.”

“It’s women writing romance novels starring men that would never exist. It sets unrealistic expectations,” Adam said.

Holly nodded. “Nicely put, Adam. That could be true, but we can’t help what we want.”

Jana nudged me in the shoulder. “I believe Jackson was going to give it a try, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, right,” Holly muttered, reaching across the table and taking the deck from my hands. “Are we playing poker or not?”

Toby’s eyes darted between the two of us, then he pointed a finger at Holly. “You’re scared he might charm you. Just admit it.”

“This I’ve got to see,” David said.

Holly put on her competitive poker face. “Fine, do your thing, Jackson.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s all right, I’m not really in the mood for dancing. Besides, you’ve already got this whole all-men-are-created-equal mentality. It’s obvious you don’t have a very open mind.”

I kept reminding myself to keep it light, annoy her if I had to. Fawning never works with any halfway intelligent girl.

The flicker of anger hit her eyes and I fought back the urge to smile. “Okay, if you’re right and you have the qualities of my imaginary perfect guy, I’ll agree to go out with you.”

I scoffed at her. “What makes you think I want to go out with you? I’m not seeing what I get out of this.”

Her cheeks turned pink and she dropped her eyes to the table, but raised them quickly. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I’ll buy you dinner tomorrow night and I’ll clean the bathrooms after I get done working. But you have to agree to something if
I’m
right.”

“Jackson, I’d take her up on that bathroom deal. After three birthday parties and classes all morning, it’s gonna be bad,” Toby admitted.

“And if I’m right, you have to come in early and help me with those three birthday parties of screaming kids and cake and wrapping paper up to your elbows,” Holly added.

“Deal,” I said.

“This is so much more entertaining than getting drunk,” David said.

“We can do that later,” Toby added.

“I’ll pick the music,” Adam said, pulling an iPod out of his pocket.

“No, let’s see what Holly has,” I said to her with a smile.

She forked over her iPod and I flipped through her playlist quickly, hoping I could find the perfect song. I did. After choosing “You Don’t Know Me” by Jann Arden, I handed it back to Holly, who passed it to Jana.

I stood up from the table while Jana turned the music on by plugging the iPod into the stereo. I held my hand out to Holly.

She rolled her eyes. “A kid from Jersey who cleans bathrooms knows how to waltz?”

I nodded. “The question is, do you?”

I wasn’t lying to her. I’d learned from attending way too many fancy parties and from choosing folk and ballroom dancing in my first semester of college because it was the easiest course that filled my applied arts requirement.