Crazy in Love (18 page)

As soon as I get home, I dial Alicia. When she doesn’t answer her cell, I try her dorm. But she doesn’t answer there either. What good is a best friend who isn’t even there when you need her?

I consider calling Nicole, but I know better. She’d go straight to Star. Cassie has a date, so I can’t call her. I’m not sure this is something I can talk about with The Girls anyway.

There’s a knock at my door, and Mom sticks her head in.

She’s wearing a light blue flannel nightie that looks very momish and somehow makes me feel better. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah. Why?” These words are out before I think about them. They are my automatic responses to most questions posed by my rents. I think about taking them back, though, because I’m not entirely sure that everything is all right.

She smiles and tiptoes into my room as if I’m still asleep, and she might wake me. “You were making funny noises in here. Groans. Grunts.”

I make a mental note that I’m too young to start making such sounds. “I was trying to get hold of Alicia.”

She tiptoes a few more steps and sits on the corner of my bed. “It’s pretty late. Must have been important.”

You can talk to your mom!
Plain Jane
says.

Get real!
M.J.
counters.
Your mother probably hasn’t had sex since you were born.

“You seem to be spending a lot of time with this Jackson guy.” Mom smoothes out nonexistent wrinkles in my bedspread. “You must like him a lot.”

“He’s pretty likable,” I agree, not sure where we’re going with this. Not sure where I want to go. She’s met Jackson a few times when he’s come by for me. Dad’s even met him once. Sandy sleeps so much that she’s missed him every time he’s come by. But Jackson will get to meet Sandy at her game.

Mom smiles at me. She’s not wearing any makeup, and it strikes me that she looks good this way. Or maybe it’s just the bad lighting in here. “I want you to know that if there’s anything you want to know . . . about boys, men . . . well, you can ask me anything.”

“I know.” I probably do believe this. I just can’t quite imagine myself taking her up on the offer.

“And sex.” She goes back to smoothing bedspread wrinkles. “You know how your father and I feel about sex.”

“Okay. Promise you won’t put yourself, my father, and sex in the same sentence ever again.”

We both laugh nervously. But I know she’s trying hard to be a mother here. So I try to help. “I know. Like, don’t do it, right?” This is exactly what I would tell my daughters if I were the mother.

She smiles at me and doesn’t look away. “I probably would have put it differently, like how beautiful the act of love is when there’s commitment and safety and love and marriage. But it would have boiled down to the same thing, I guess.” She stands up, then leans down and kisses my forehead. “Night, Mary Jane.”

I take a long bubble bath and fall back into bed. And when I finally drift off to sleep, I’m too tired to dream and too tired to listen to the voices in my head.

Jackson calls me as I’m driving Fred to the mall for Twisted Pretzel duty Saturday morning. I’m relieved when he acts as if nothing weird happened last night.

“I better meet you at Roy Dale,” he says after we’ve talked lovey-dovey mushy for a few minutes. “Dad’s doing inventory. I can only get away a couple of hours. I’ll be there before the game starts, but I’ll have to leave early. Dad says we’ll be at it all night. And get this. He loves inventory.”

“Was your dad genetically engineered from the same lab as Pretzel Boss? Just asking.”

“Yep. They were running a sale on them that year.”

“You’re going to love Sandy, you know,” I tell him before he hangs up.

“No doubt. I’m a softie when it comes to Ettermeyer women. That and those round chocolate mints with the candy coating. You know, like they give you after dinner at fancy restaurants?”

“You sweet talker. See you later.”

I’m almost late to Sandy’s game because Pretzel Boss mutated into Pretzel Nazi and threw a fit that I’d dare break ranks before my shift ended, even though Robbie was already there to take over.

I run inside Roy Dale and hear balls bouncing and crowd noise coming from the gym. I’m relieved to see Sandy out on the floor with her whole team, still warming up. She’s holding a ball and looking all around until her gaze stops on me. Then she drops the ball and lumbers up to me.

“Hi, kiddo!” I shout, meeting her halfway on the sidelines.

She lunges at me and throws her arms around my neck. "Marwyjan!”

I squeeze her back. That’s when I see Jackson waving at me from the bleachers. “Sandy, there’s somebody I want you to meet.”

She releases me. “Okay.”

I take her hand and lead her over to Jackson, who’s already on the sidelines walking toward us. “It’s a boy,” I whisper.

“Okay.”

We meet Jackson on what would be the fifty-yard line if we were on a football field instead of a basketball court. He’s wearing jeans and a black sweater, and I hope everybody in the gym can tell he’s mine all mine. “Sandy,” I say, nodding to Jackson, “this is Jackson House. Jackson, I’d like you to meet my sister, the Dragon, Sandy Ettermeyer.”

Jackson reaches out and shakes hands with Sandy. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for quite a while. I’m really looking forward to seeing you play, Sandy. I’ve heard a lot about you and the Dragons.”

Sandy gives him her cutest smile, which is so darn cute I can hardly stand it. “Purple,” she says, holding her shorts out like she’s going to curtsy.

“I love that color,” Jackson claims.

Sandy grins again, then turns to me. “Does
this
boy make you sick, Marwyjan?”

“Not so much,” I answer.

To his credit, Jackson doesn’t so much as guffaw.

From the bleachers comes a piercing whistle that could only originate from Red. I spot her behind the Dragon benches, sitting next to Alex. She waves us over. Jackson and I have already talked about Red and Alex. He remembers Alex from school. We make our way over to them, and I do the introductions.

Red says “Hi” to Jackson, then hops off the bleachers to give Sandy a big hug. “I’ve missed you, sugar!”

“I missed you, too.” Sandy touches Red’s purple jogging suit. “You like purple! I like purple!”

“Yep,” Red agrees. “Purple rules!”

“I’ve missed you, too, Red,” I say, grinning at her. She looks great. Her hair is longer than I remembered. I think she’s put on a couple of pounds, but they’re in the right places.

“Good to see you, Mary Jane,” Red says. She turns back to Sandy. “You know, Sandy, Chris says you’ve gotten to be a really good player.”

“Uh-huh,” Sandy agrees.

I love this about my sister. There’s not an ounce of conceit in her answer. She just happens to agree with Chris and doesn’t pretend anything else.

The buzzer sounds, and Sandy joins her team.

Jackson and I scoot in next to Alex. Red is already on her feet, yelling, “Go, Dragons!”

“You Ettermeyer women just keep getting better and better, ” Jackson says. “Now I see why you talk about Sandy the way you do. She’s really something. I can tell that, and I’ve only known her two minutes.”

I lock arms with him and lean in as close as I can. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more in love with Jackson House.

Chris scores from the opening jump, and Red goes crazy. Alex knows exactly what to say to calm her down. There’s something in the way he says “Red.” It calms me down, too. Red and Alex could rent themselves out as the Zoloft alternatives. Just being around them makes me less anxious. With some couples, I always feel in the way, no matter how nice they are. I can’t shake the feeling that they’re just waiting until they’re alone again. But Red and Alex make everybody feel like family.

It’s a great first half, with lots of up-and-down action, and the four of us spend more time on our feet than we do keeping the bleachers warm.

At halftime, we lead 22 to 14. Jackson and I make an appearance and chat up my rents because I can’t see my way out of it. He talks to Mom as if they’ve known each other for ages, and she doesn’t stop talking, even when I try to make our getaway. She keeps filling him in on the whole Dragon team. Dad says “Hello” when we walk up to their bleacher and “Nice to see you again” when we leave.

Jackson has to take off at the start of fourth quarter. He gives me a kiss, right in front of the Dragons, the rents, and everybody, and hollers good-bye to Sandy, who leaves the bench and runs over to give him a hug.

“He’s nice,” Red says after he’s gone.

“
I
think so,” I agree. “He’s my boyfriend,” I add, grinning like when we were ten.

“I noticed.”

I don’t think I realized how much I’ve missed Red. I always thought of her as more Alicia’s friend than mine because they were in the same class. But Red couldn’t have been cooler to me in high school. And if I really needed help, I always knew I could count on her.

She trades places with Alex so she and I can sit next to each other. I watch the way Alex watches her as she moves past him on the bleachers. His hands are raised slightly, ready to catch her if she trips. He touches her arm as she sits down. If there really is a look of love, that boy has it for Red.

“So how long have you and Jackson been going out?” Red asks.

I give her the highlights in between bursts of cheers for both teams. Sandy gets fouled and has to shoot two shots from the “mistake line.” She misses them both. But when the second one hits the rim, her team cheers for her. Chris rushes over and gives her a hug, then gets a rebound and scores.

“Chris is crazy about Sandy, you know,” Red confides.

“Yeah?” I glance at Alex, and the way he grins tells me he already knows this bit of information.

“Tell her about the phone call,” Alex urges.

Red sits down. “Okay. So Alex and I are making popcorn. But we hear Chris talking back in Dad’s den. And we don’t mean to eavesdrop—”

“Yeah, right,” Alex interrupts.

She punches his arm. “So we hear him talking about basketball and figure out he’s called Sandy.”

“Since he’d asked Red to write down Sandy’s number for him that morning,” Alex chimes in.

“I never knew he called her.” I wonder if Mom knew, if Sandy told her, why Sandy didn’t tell me.

“You might have been on pretzel patrol,” Red suggests. “Anyway, we hear Chris ask Sandy if he could kiss her.”

“No way!” I can’t stand that this happened and I didn’t know anything about it.

“Yep,” Red continues. “He even said ‘please.’”

“What did Sandy say?”

“We couldn’t hear her part of the conversation,” Alex explains. “But we figured our boy got shut down in a nice way.”

Red picks it up from there. “Because there’s a little silence. And then, without missing a beat, Chris asks her if she likes Bugs Bunny or Spider-Man best.”

That makes me laugh. It’s the kind of nontransition Sandy would make, too.

“Chris didn’t even seem upset or let down or anything,” Alex continues.

“Still,” Red muses, “I wish I had a recording of that call. I sure would like to know what Sandy said.”

The rest of the game, I keep one eye on Sandy and Chris and the other on Alex and Red. Sandy doesn’t treat Chris any differently from the other players. I think I catch Chris staring at Sandy a couple of times, but neither of them appears nervous when they’re standing close together. I make a mental note to ask my sister about Chris’s phone call when we get home.

Watching Alex and Red tells another story. They hold hands and laugh at shared jokes. The voices in my head do a running commentary on the couple:

I try to put the thought out of my head. But the whole world has turned into couples for me. And as I gaze around at the couples seated in the gym, the one question on my mind is whether or not these couples are doing
it.

I want to talk to Red, but I can’t. Not with Alex around. She’s only home on weekends. I can’t ask her to give me time that she could be spending with Alex.

But I need to talk. I still haven’t been able to get Alicia on the phone. And anyway, Red’s the one I want to talk to now. I want her to tell me how Alex and she can stay in love for so many years.

With less than a minute to play, I break down and ask, “Red? Do you think Alex could spare you for an hour after the game? I hate to ask. But I need to talk.”

She smiles at me, then turns and says something to Alex.

He grins over at me. “Not a problem.”

The buzzer sounds, and it’s another victory for the Dragons.

We congratulate Sandy and Chris and the players on both sides. Then Alex, Red, and I make our way to the parking lot. Alex walks with us to Fred.

“Thanks, Alex. I appreciate you loaning me Red. I’ll get her back ASAP. Promise.”

“Hey, the good Lord wants us to share, right?” He frowns at Fred. “Just bring her back in one piece?” He kisses Red quickly, but she keeps hold of his hand and pulls him back. Then they exchange a real kiss.

M.J.
is screaming in my head,
They are totally doing it!

When they’re done, Alex looks like a little boy who’s just been caught stealing cookies.

“So you guys are still in love, huh?” I observe.

Red turns to me, hands on hips. “We hold these truths to be self-evident!”

“What she said,” Alex agrees.

I laugh hard, because history-loving Red has always used this line from the Declaration of Independence instead of “Duh,” like the rest of us.