“Don’t worry. He won’t see him tonight,” she said as we were going down to breakfast. “Jimmy’s going out with his older brother, who’s home on leave. He’s twenty and in the navy.” Her eyes lit up. “We could probably go with them and have a great time if you’d help me convince Mother. We’ll tell her it’s another house party or something.”
I stared at her, my face clearly saying, Are you serious?
“What?” she asked, as if she had no idea why I would be surprised.
“What? You want me to do something with Jimmy after what he did to Matt and me last night? And what you did?”
“You lived. It was just a little fun, Kaylee. You’ve got to get over it. It didn’t mean anything.”
“It didn’t mean anything? Does having sex mean so little to you now?”
“I meant nobody got hurt.”
“Really? I’m nobody?”
“Oh, please. Don’t be such a child.”
“Find something new to say, Haylee. That’s so worn out that it doesn’t even make my eardrums tremble.” I started away.
“You’d better not look upset this morning. She’ll be all over us, and you’ll be in just as much trouble as me,” she called after me.
I paused to look back at her and shake my head. Then I continued down to the kitchen, feeling as if my insides had been twisted like rubber bands. She was right, of course. I couldn’t show how upset I was, no matter how much I wanted to. As it turned out, it didn’t matter. It was difficult, if not impossible, to reveal any unhappiness. Mother was up early making us breakfast and obviously very happy that she had gone to the Clarks’ dinner party. We sat at the table, almost stunned at the way she was going on about it. It had been a long time since we had seen her this excited about anything. What surprised us the most was how little she interrogated us about our party. It was as if she had forgotten about it.
Melissa Clark had introduced her to her older brother, Darren, who had been divorced for more than a year. Apparently, he had dominated Mother’s attention at the dinner party. What she liked about him, besides his being divorced and therefore sharing the experience, was that he had no children.
“When you get involved with a man who has children from his previous marriage, you’re in for a lot of grief,” she told us.
She was off and running on one of her long diatribes about the dangers of romance, no matter how old you were. She didn’t even pay attention to our reactions. We could have been mannequins for all she seemed to care, but neither of us wanted to interrupt her and start her asking questions about our party. The longer she ignored it, the better we felt.
“Men aren’t as complicated as they’d like you to think they are. Most men are very obvious about their intentions. You’ve just got to be alert and not obvious about how much you’re hoping for something to be nice. They take advantage of that. Desperate women do desperate things, things they often regret their whole lives.
“Now, Darren Paul is a relatively easy-to-read man and quite gentle. By the time the evening was over, I must admit that I felt sorrier for him than I did for myself. Not that I have that much to feel sorry about. Sometimes when you have disappointments in life, it turns out to be more of an advantage than you c
ould have dreamed. As long as you learn from your experiences, good ones and bad, you can look forward to being more successful in the future.
“Anyway, to come to the point, I agreed to go to dinner with Darren tonight. I imagine you have some leftovers from the party?”
I looked at Haylee. She was the expert when it came to lies and rationalizations, not only in coming up with them but also in looking so honest as she rattled them off.
“Oh. Everyone went crazy over your food and devoured it all,” she said quickly.
“All?”
“There wasn’t enough worth saving.”
“I always forget how much teenagers can eat. Well, I’m glad of that. And from what I see, you girls took good care of the house. I’ll get dinner for you done ahead of time. No worries.”
“Maybe you won’t have to,” Haylee quickly interjected.
“Why not?”
“Melanie Rosen asked if we wanted to go to the movies tonight. Her boyfriend is a senior. He has his own car. They could pick us up, and we can get something to eat at the mall.”
Mother looked at me first. I did my best not to look surprised. “Who is Melanie Rosen’s boyfriend?”
“Barry Weiner,” Haylee said quickly, because she knew I had no idea who Melanie was going with this week. “He’s on the basketball team, and he’s the baseball team’s star pitcher.”
“Weiner? I don’t know the Weiners.” Mother’s suspicious eyes returned. They seemed always to rise out of a secret place in her head, the way bubbles rose to the surface of water. “Why would she want you to go along on her date? I’ve heard of third wheels but not fourth.”