“You really know how to flatter a girl,” she muttered. In a louder voice she said, “David, why don’t you bring the posters over tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll get started.”
Regina stayed at the Pizza Paddle helping her father, and Gregg and Summer walked out together. Gregg was nice enough to keep his mouth shut while he drove her home, and Summer was able to make it to her room before she started to cry.
David didn’t call the next morning but appeared at her front door instead, his arms loaded down with poster board and felt-tip markers. Michael was busy playing at the neighbor’s, and Grandpa had gone to the shopping center. David and Summer were all alone in the house, and it was the perfect time to clear the air. The problem was that he was being so cool and aloof.
“David, when we’re finished with the posters, I’d really like to talk to you about something,” Summer finally said.
David frowned and then nodded. “Gregg?”
“And Ann,” Summer added. “Okay?”
“Okay,” David replied. He smiled his first real smile, and Summer beamed in return.
The screen door opened, and Grandpa walked in, loaded down with packages he immediately carried to his room. Summer was disappointed. Not wanting to talk to David in front of her grandfather, she decided to hurry and resolve the problem immediately. “What did you mean by ‘sort of’ dating?” she asked, pretending great concentration on the poster in front of her.
The phone rang before David could reply. He answered it and called to her grandfather. Accepting that she would have to wait until after lunch to have her little talk with him, she stood up and stretched, and then headed for the kitchen to prepare lunch. Once Grandpa had eaten, he would probably take his nap, so the sooner the meal was done, the better. David went into the living room, sat down on the sofa, and began to thumb through the latest TV Guide.
A minute later, Summer pushed open the swinging door that connected the dining room with the kitchen and asked David to clear a spot on the table.
The next time she hurried into the room, she overheard her grandfather. He obviously didn’t realize how loud he was. He was bragging on the phone about her, making outrageous statements about what a fast runner she was, and Summer had to smile. Grandpa loved to brag. David looked up at Summer and winked, and she knew that he, too, was listening to her grandfather’s conversation.
Summer wasn’t gone more than five minutes, but when she came back to the dining room, David looked at her with a frown on his face. He seemed puzzled, Summer thought. Puzzled and irritated.
She returned to the kitchen for the pitcher of lemonade, but she could hear her grandfather talking. She paused and felt the blood drain from her face when she heard her grandfather explain how she had just started running.
Michael came skipping in the back door then, full of chatter. “Summer, I’ve got a rock—”
“Not now, Michael,” she said. Her mind was racing with excuses in case David realized that she had lied to him, but it was a wasted effort. The door swung open and there he stood, glaring at her.
“Hi, David,” Michael said. “I’ve got a rock.”
“Hi, Mike. Summer, I just heard your grandfather say you’ve only been running for about a month.” He sounded surprised.
“Oh, you know Grandpa likes to exaggerate,” she replied, trying to sound blasé. “David, will you take this pitcher into the dining room. I’ll get the chips.”
“He said you started running after Ann Logan’s party, that Regina talked you into it.”
“Michael, go and wash your hands,” Summer stammered. “David, what’s the big deal about when I started to run?”
“The big deal? If it’s true, you lied to me,” David stated.
She tried to look disgusted and marched by David. She put the pitcher on the table and turned around, knowing that he was right behind her. She was stalling, trying to come up with a logical explanation that would appease him and not make her grandfather sound as if he had made the whole thing up.
“Summer, you know how important it is to me that we never, ever lie to each other. How can we build a good relationship if we can’t trust each other?” He looked hurt.
“You’re getting all upset over nothing,” she soothed.
“Just answer one question,” he demanded. “Did you or did you not lie to me?”
“Not exactly,” she hedged.
“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?” he asked sarcastically.
What was the use? she asked herself. She might as well admit the truth. “Oh, all right! Yes, I did lie. But it was a little, insignificant exaggeration, not an outright whopper,” she explained.
“Then it’s true? You really only started running after Ann’s party?”
He sounded incredulous. What did he want, blood? Honestly, he was being so self-righteous! Didn’t he ever tell a fib?
“Look, Summer, just tell me why? I want to understand,” he said. His voice was softer now.
How could she explain? She would die before she admitted that the entire reason was Ann Logan. He was dating her now, wasn’t he? How could he possibly understand? She shook her head. No, she couldn’t tell him. He would never, ever understand. Boys weren’t jealous like girls were—or were they?
“So what else have you lied to me about?”
The quietly stated question infuriated her. She turned around with fire in her eyes. “Nothing! Now, it’s up to you to decide if you believe me or not.”
“Ha!” he snorted.
It was the snort that did it. Summer fairly exploded. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she yelled. “Look, I could have lied and told you that I loved your jokes, but I didn’t. And the anchovies,” she suddenly remembered. “I could have said I loved them!” She ran out of the kitchen and into the dining room.
David was right on her heels. “Oh, yeah? Well some people love my jokes. Ann Logan appreciates them,” he added in a loud voice.
Summer felt as if she had just been stabbed. “And you believe her?”
“Sure,” David said. “She’s an honest person.”
“Anyone who laughs at your stupid jokes is not being honest,” Summer replied.
“So why didn’t you tell me you had a date with Gregg?” he asked, suddenly switching topics.
Summer countered his question with one of her own. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a date with Ann?”
“We don’t have an agreement or anything,” he muttered. “I mean, if you want to date other boys, it’s fine with me.”
“I didn’t have a date with Gregg,” Summer said. There, the truth was out.
David didn’t believe her. “Ha! Ann told me you were seeing Gregg. I didn’t believe her until yesterday. I didn’t think you’d lie about something like—”
“If you say ‘ha’ one more time, I’m going to scream,” she interrupted.
“You two having a difference of opinion?” Grandpa’s voice intruded on the heated argument, and both Summer and David blushed.
“And when I asked you if you wanted to run with me,” David continued, “I seem to remember that you said you liked to jog by yourself early in the morning so you could think things over.”
“What are you, a memory expert?” she snapped. She folded her arms and glared at him.
He was almost out the door when she called out, “I guess you’re going over to Ann’s house.”
“Maybe,” he called back.
“The perfect couple,” she muttered under her breath.
She couldn’t look at her grandfather, still too angry that he had accidentally told David about her exaggeration. Instead, she lifted Michael and put him in his chair. She shoved a sandwich in front of him and said, “Eat!”
Two hours later a phone call to Regina hadn’t made Summer feel any better. When she’d told her friend about the argument with David, Regina had said, “Couldn’t you have lied your way out of it?” Summer had been too miserable to argue or defend herself.
She wa
s sick of lies. And sick of holding back the tears, too. She went up to her room right after dinner and cried until there weren’t any tears left, but the release didn’t make her feel any better, and she punched her pillow to vent some of her anger and frustration. The anger slowly receded, but in its stead, loneliness, aching and desolate, filled the void.
Snuggled in her blankets, she fell asleep with the thought that she wouldn’t have to get up at six tomorrow morning. Who wanted to run in a dumb race, anyway?
Chapter 12
Grandpa was having none of it! “What do you mean you’re not going to run today?” His indignant bellow threatened to wake the entire household.
“I’ve decided I don’t want to be a runner,” Summer muttered into the pillow. She stared at the tiny pink flower pattern on her sheets rather than look at her grandfather. She was afraid she would see his disappointment, and she wasn’t up to coping with that this early in the morning. She just wanted to be left alone, to wallow in her misery.
“You’ve invested too much to quit now. I won’t have it! Do you hear me? Take those covers off your ears, girl, and listen to me. I don’t know what’s got your feathers ruffled, but you can tell me all about it while you do your warm-up exercises. I’m giving you just ten minutes to get down to the basement.”
Well, she wasn’t going to say anything to him! He wouldn’t understand anyway. No one would. Not even Regina. Hadn’t Regina admitted that she, herself, had never really been in love? She was lucky, Summer decided as she reluctantly threw the covers off and began to dress. Loving someone was the pits.
She stomped down the basement steps a few minutes later.
“What is the matter with you?” her grandfather asked. “Your legs cramping up on you again?”
He seemed very concerned, and Summer almost squealed her frustration when she saw him reach for the ever-ready bottle of liniment. “I’m okay,” she snapped. “I just don’t feel like running today.”
“Can’t miss a single day. You’re on a schedule, remember?”
“Grandpa, I want to quit. Can’t you understand that?”
“I won’t hear of it. You’re just out of sorts today. Now, tell me why.” It wasn’t a suggestion but a demand, and his large bulk was blocking her only escape, the stairs. It didn’t look as if she would be going anywhere until she talked to him.
“I saw David with Ann yesterday afternoon. He’s dating her regularly now, I just know it! And it’s all your fault, Grandpa!” She was busy doing her thirty sit-ups and gasped with each word. “If it was anyone else in the whole world, I don’t think I’d care as much. But Ann Logan…”
“How is all this my fault?”
“David heard you tell the truth when you were on the phone, and I lied to him. If you hadn’t said anything—”
“If you hadn’t lied,” her grandfather interrupted. “That’s the heart of it, isn’t it, now?”
“Okay, okay, so I lied. I can’t stand Ann Logan. She’s always telling lies, and it hasn’t hurt her any. And she always takes my boyfriends away,” she lied.
“Jealous,” her grandfather replied in a tone that suggested more than a little disgust. “You’re entirely too young to get serious over a boy, young lady. Plenty of time for that later on.”
She’d known he wouldn’t understand, and she rolled her eyes heavenward in irritation. “Well, I don’t own him, that’s for sure. But I thought he liked being with me. Guess I was wrong. I’m just a lying, boring person,” she added. She was feeling extremely sorry for herself—and she didn’t mind one bit.
“Nonsense! Of course David likes being with you. You’ve just disappointed him. He’ll come around,” her grandfather insisted. He seemed exasperated with the entire conversation.
“No, he doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t have gotten all upset over such a stupid, little thing. He’s not very understanding, now that I think about it.…”
Suddenly Summer wanted to run, to make herself go the limit. To make herself hurt as much on the outside as she was hurting on the inside. Maybe she would just keel over from exhaustion, and the ache deep inside would stop. It was certainly worth a try. At least she would be able to get away from her grandfather and his lecture. “I’m going to run after all.”
“Never doubted it,” her grandfather answered with a grin. “Work off some of that self-pity. Jealousy is a destructive emotion, Summer. Get rid of it.”
Those words kept repeating themselves inside her head as she raced around the circular path that edged the park. She passed the regulars and literally sailed by the jogging Luke. Summer became obsessed with going faster and faster. The pain in her side registered a brief complaint and then subsided. Summer ignored it, her fellow runners, and the beautiful scenery, concentrating with all her might on catching the wind and finding sweet numbness from her pain.
“You taking some new vitamins, Summer?” Luke asked when he caught up with her. They were running side by side, Summer quite effortlessly, while Luke pushed and panted.
“No,” she answered. “Just trying to work off a little hostility.”
“You’re fast. Ever been timed?” he asked when they stopped to rest.
“Not really,” Summer replied. “My grandfather clocked me when I first started, but I was really slow then.”
“You’re sure fast now. How long you been running?” There was admiration in his voice, and a tinge of pride crept into Summer’s spine.
“Just since the start of vacation,” she answered.
“You’re kidding!” He shook his head and laughed. “You’re crazy if you don’t go out for track next year. I think you could set new records.”
Summer really wasn’t interested. “Are you entered in the Regis Run, Luke?”
“Yes, what about you?”
“I’m supposed to run, but I don’t know if I will.”
“You’re out of your mind if you don’t, Summer. I’ve never seen a girl run that fast,” he praised. “You ought to go for it. You could win. Honest.”
“Such optimism.” She chuckled. “You sound just like my grandfather. I’ve never run in a race before, and I don’t know how fast everyone else will be. They might all leave me at the starting gate. I just don’t…”
She could feel herself blushing and closed her eyes. The conflicting emotions were confusing.
“You don’t what?” he asked.
“I don’t want to make a fool of myself and come in last.”
“Last? Not a chance. I don’t think you have any idea how good you are, but take my word for it. Boy, are you going to surprise some people.”
Summer realized he was serious. Now her interest was really piqued. “What do you mean?”
“There’s always a group that enters all the cash races, and they take the top prizes. I call them the pros. But you’re just like a dark horse. No one has ever heard of you. You’re going to stun them.”
“You really think so, Luke? You’re not just saying that to be nice?” She didn’t even listen to his response, for her mind was filled with pictures of David and Ann, and the looks of astonishment on their faces if she did finish in the top ten. Excitement surged through her. Was it just wishful thinking, or was there really a chance?
“It’s a sure thing, Summer. Look, tomorrow I’ll bring a stopwatch and time you. Then you’ll believe me.”
“Sounds good to me,” she replied with a grin.
“Hey, I’m starved. Let’s go get some doughnuts and work on your strategy.”
Luke’s words were like a healing balm to her injured pride. There wasn’t any physical attraction between the two of them, but he was so easy to talk to. Of course, she couldn’t tell him about David. Still, it felt good to have someone take such an interest in her. The ache of losing David was still terribly fresh, just like a raw wound. She analyzed her situation on her way home. She would never be the same, she realized with a little self-pity, but she would survive. But, then, what if she didn’t survive? What if something t
ragic happened to her before David could make amends. That grim thought spiraled into pictures of David kneeling before her casket, weeping and begging for forgiveness after she was dead and gone and it was too late. He’d be sorry then, wouldn’t he?
“And I thought you were my best friend!” The accusation was issued in a high-pitched voice. Regina, hands on her hips, stood on Summer’s front porch, glaring her anger.
Summer was in no mood for guessing games. She didn’t have the faintest idea what Regina was blustering about. Her head was throbbing from Michael’s constant chatter and from the trauma of thinking about David and Ann being together.
“Come on into the kitchen,” she suggested. “I’ve got to do the dishes.”
“I’ll help, you traitor,” Regina muttered, following behind her.
“What are you talking about?”
“Luke,” Regina announced. “That’s who I’m talking about.”
“What about him?” Summer asked. “Why am I a traitor?”
“Have a nice breakfast date?” she asked sarcastically.
“Give me a break. Today has been the pits. Just tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Did you or did you not go out with Luke this morning?” Now Regina sounded hurt, and Summer finally gave her full attention.
“Who told you I had a date with Luke?” She would have laughed then, or at the very least snorted, but the expression on her friend’s face suggested she better not.
“Gregg saw you,” Regina said. “And when he described the guy you were with, I knew it was Luke. David doesn’t have blond hair.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Luke and I just walked over to the doughnut shop after we ran today. And,” Summer continued, “we talked about you some of the time. Where were you, by the way? You were supposed to run today, remember?”
“I know, but I forgot to set my alarm clock,” she said. “You really talked about me?”
She wore a sheepish expression, and Summer smiled.