“No. Of course not. I’m just concerned.”
“Well, you know I need you now to help with Mother,” she said.
She was right. Despite how Mother had loosened her grip on us, she was still quite involved with everything we did, especially if it was during the evening. She insisted on first meeting whoever would drive us anywhere and, if not, then taking us there herself and picking us up. And we always had to have a specific destination and purpose. Just hanging out at a mall, like our friends often did, was forbidden. She told us it was the easiest way to get into trouble.
“You must always have a purpose for whatever you do,” she explained. “Loitering, no matter how innocent it might seem, usually leads to something you later regret. There’s truth in some old sayings, like ‘Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.’?”
Now I asked Haylee, “How can I help?”
“I actually got this idea from her. Remember when she was first going with Darren Paul and she volunteered to have him take us to a movie theater when they went to dinner and then pick us up?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s it. We’ll ask her to take us to a movie near where Anthony and I plan to rendezvous. We’ll both go into the movie theater when she drops us off. You’ll stay, of course, and watch the film. That way, if she asks questions about the movie, we’ll have the right answers. Okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “This is still making me nervous.”
She looked away, as though she had to count to ten before looking back at me.
“You won’t even tell me his full name, Haylee,” I added.
“I’ll tell you that night. I promise.”
“When is this supposed to happen?”
“Next Saturday night,” she said.
It was Sunday now. I would have almost a week to toss and turn over it.
“Well? Are you going to help me or not? I think you’d have to agree that I’ve changed, become more mature, and I regret what I did with Jimmy that night, right? Right?” she hammered.
“Yes, Haylee, right, right.”
Could it all have been happening for the reason I feared, just to get me to cooperate with her Internet romance? What choice did I have now? I had let it go on this long without telling Mother.
“Okay, then. We’ll wait until Tuesday to mention it. I’ll read up on the film that’s there, and we’ll talk about it in front of her, so she’ll believe we’re excited about seeing it. You’d better be just as enthusiastic.”
My sister Haylee, I thought, still the conniver, the planner, cleverly constructing her deceit. I would never be as good at it, and maybe in this world that was a weakness after all.
“What’s the movie?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked yet. It’s going to be at the Riverside.”
“The Riverside? That’s almost fifteen miles away, Haylee. We’ve never been to that theater.”
“It has to be that one.”
“Why? Can’t he meet you somewhere closer? We don’t know that area.”
“Stop asking so many questions,” she snapped. “There are reasons. We’ve been talking about it for weeks. You’ll have to trust me about it. You do this for me, and I’ll owe you big-time.”
“I don’t need you to owe me, Haylee.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Will you do it? Or will you keep asking questions until I go on social security?”
“Very funny. Maybe I should go with you for this first meeting with him,” I suggested.
She pulled back as if I had thrown hot soup in her face and grimaced. “Go with me? Meet him together so he can compare us?”