Life in the Lucky Zone (The Zone #2) (25 page)

I exhaled a thread of air. “Saturday.”

“So we only have a couple more days for fighting before you go.”

“Yup,” I said, forcing lightness into my voice. “But if you think of some important topic while I’m gone, just text me. I’m sure I can take the opposing viewpoint.”

He smirked. “Ha, ha. I’m not gonna text you. You’ll be so busy zipping down the slopes, you won’t have time to text back. And then my ego will be so shattered, I won’t be able to move from the couch. I’ll have to play video games with Nana.”

I laughed. “You’re ridiculous. You know I hate skiing.”

He leaned closer, twining a couple of fingers with mine. “Do I?”

My fingers tingled at his touch. “Yes,” I said, a little breathily. What the heck was going on? I mean, we’d flirted before, but this felt different. More real, somehow. “It’s all my parents’ idea. They’re the big sports nuts, not me.”

Voices sounded behind us as people left the theater building.

Berger dropped my fingers and took a step away. “What about your brother?”

“He likes it too. I like sitting in front of the fire drinking hot chocolate.”

“With peppermint schnapps?”

A hot flush raced across my cheeks as I remembered flattening myself onto Berger on our sofa. I squinted at him. “I thought we’d agreed never to talk about that night again.”

He smiled slowly. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

My heartbeat thudded hard against my ribs. That smile was lethal. I stared at him like I’d never seen him before. Because I hadn’t. Who was this smoldering guy? Where was my happy-go-lucky boy? I swallowed. What had we been talking about? Skiing. Hot chocolate! Right. “Besides, they won’t serve me that in the ski lodge.”

“Hmm. Too bad.” He gazed past me. “There’s Gray. I’d better go.”

I pasted a bright smile on my face. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

He reached out and smoothed back a strand of hair that the wind had stretched across my cheek. “Yup. Tomorrow.” And he left, his tall body striding across the near-empty parking lot toward Gray’s car.

I let out a sigh of relief. Whatever had just happened was too much to take in right now. I had the play to think about.
Yes, the play. Think about the play. Nothing else.

Forty-Eight

Berger

Wiping off one of the tables at The Coffee Bar with a rag, I mentally kicked myself for the hundredth time. Why had I tried to make a move on Lindsey right before Spring Break?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I’d violated the second basic step of Operation Lindsey—be patient. I’d just wanted to kiss her so much. It had been the way she’d laughed and then her sudden nervousness that had drawn me in like we were tied together at the waist.

And so when she’d spent the last two days of that week pretending we were distant acquaintances, it didn’t surprise me at all. It had been too much, too soon.

I moved on to bus another table, glad that my parents had talked me into helping out at the shop this week. A couple of people had quit, leaving them short-handed. And now I was so busy I didn’t have time to miss Lindsey.
Ha, right.
Stop lying to yourself.

Okay, I missed the hell out of her. Because I wanted to be around her all the time. But I had to be more careful when she finally came home. Stay patient. Let her make the first move, no matter how long it took. So in keeping with that, I hadn’t texted her at all. And it was already Tuesday. Four days. A long time to go without one little word. She’d be home on Friday, but I probably wouldn’t get to see her until next Monday at school. Then I could see how she acted around me—find out if I’d screwed things up completely.
Don’t think about that possibility.

“Trey.” My dad walked up to me, wearing his The Coffee Bar apron, even though he rarely worked behind the counter. “I need you to head home.”

I looked around. I really didn’t want to sit around staring at the wall at home while I waited for Gray to come hang out. “I’m supposed to be here for another half an hour. And I have two more tables to clean.”

“Okay, just get the tables and then go home. Ashley has to go somewhere, and we need you home with Nana.”

I blew air out one side of my mouth. I wished they hadn’t given the caregiver Maggie three days off. Even though she probably deserved it. But still. Hanging with Nana wasn’t on the top of my fun list. Sudden guilt burned in my chest.
Man up, Trey.
“Okay. Where’s Ash going?”

Dad smiled at a customer, then looked at me. “I don’t know. The message came through your mom.” He held out the car keys.

I pocketed them. “How are you getting home? Because I—”

“Ashley can pick us up later.”

“—have to work at the Cineplex tonight.”

“We’ll all be home by then. You can use whichever car you want.”

“Ashley will love that.”

He chuckled and then clapped a hand on my shoulder. “See you later.”

“Yeah, later.”

I finished my tables quickly and took everything to the kitchen in back. Time to go see what kind of mood Nana was in.

***

Nana shuffled into the kitchen in her slippers half an hour after I got home. “Hello, dear. Did you work hard this morning?”

Did she really know where I’d been or was she just guessing? Impossible to tell. “I worked, but not too hard. You know me, Nana.”

She chuckled. “Do you think you could make me a cup of tea? I think I’d like that better than milk this afternoon.”

“Sure.” I got up, filled the teapot with water, and turned on the burner. “Did you have a good nap?”

“Yes, but I believe I may have had a nightmare.”

“Oh. About what?”

She sat at the kitchen table. “I don’t rightly remember.” She rubbed her forehead. “I think everything in my garden was dead.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No, not at all.”

“Good thing it was just a dream.”

She stared at me like she didn’t see me.

“Nana?”

“I need to tend to it.”

“Your garden?”

“Yes. That’s why things die, you see. They’re not well tended to.”

What the heck did that mean? Okay, I knew what it
literally
meant, but I wasn’t sure what
she
meant. I took out her favorite cup and saucer with the flowery pattern, then put a tea bag inside to wait for the hot water.
Maybe I should just talk about something different.
“The coffee shop was busy this morning.”

“It always is,” she said, her gaze still distant.

“There was a group of really noisy ladies there.”

She blinked like I finally had her attention. “Oh? How noisy?”

“Very. Shrieks of laughter. I would even say a cackle or two.”

She smiled. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

“You would’ve fit right in.”

“Quite true. I can cackle with the best of them.” She traced the edge of the teacup’s tiny handle. “I’m not fond of coffee, though I remember putting used grounds in the compost pile back when Douglas was alive. He loved coffee.”

This was odd. Nana rarely talked about Grandpa. He’d died when Ashley and I were little, and the only thing I remembered about him was the smell of pipe tobacco.

A hissing, tumbling sound came from the teapot, and I turned off the burner. I didn’t want the water to get to a full boil and burn poor Nana’s lips off. I poured the water into her cup while she stared out the window over the sink. Her eyes held a vague look that usually meant she wasn’t in the present anymore.

After several quiet minutes, she refocused on me. “I’m going to have to work with the compost later today. The garden needs it.”

I smiled. “Sounds good, Nana.”

“I don’t want everything to die.”

“That’s a good plan.”

She dunked her tea bag twice, put it on the saucer, and then sipped her tea. Was she happy? It was just so freaking hard to tell sometimes. I didn’t know what else to do but keep talking and hope something I said took her mind off the bad dream.

Maybe when Gray showed up in another twenty minutes or so, it would cheer her up. Make her think she was taking care of us like she did when we were little. It was worth a shot.

***

It was about twelve thirty that night and I’d just gotten home from the Cineplex when my phone buzzed.

Lindsey: Hi! Drinking hot chocolate sans schnapps.

Finally!
I dropped onto the couch in my room and toed off my sneakers.

Berger: Probably wise

Lindsey: Heh. What’re you doing?

Berger: Nothing. Just got home from work. You having fun?

Lindsey: A little. Ready to come home though.

I wanted to say, “Yes! Come home! I miss you!” But no. Mr. Patience was in charge of this conversation.

Berger: It’s very boring here.

Lindsey: I doubt that.

Berger: Busing tables at coffee shop + cleaning up after people in movie theater = very boring

Lindsey: K, you’re right. Uh-oh. Dad here. More family fun time. haha He says hi

What kind of family fun were they going to have at twelve thirty at night? Oh, wait. She was in an earlier time zone. It was only eleven thirty there.

Berger: Tell him hi back

Lindsey: See you in a few days :D

Can’t wait. Hurry home. Be waiting on your front porch.

Berger: Sounds good. Bye!

It was pretty clear that Mr. Patience and I were going to be wrestling a lot in the next few weeks.
Geez.
It’d better be only weeks. Not months.

Forty-Nine

Lindsey

Rehearsal on Monday afternoon after Spring Break outright stunk. The actors walked around like zombies, Mrs. Mac kept patting her hair for pencils and not finding any, and I couldn’t stop watching Berger in the wings. It was like he’d activated some hidden beacon that only I could sense, and whenever his head was turned away, I took advantage of it.

I stared. And kept thinking about how soft his hair had been that humiliating night I’d run my hands through it. Or how I wanted to straighten his glasses. Or how I wished we could go somewhere and do nothing together. Just talk, and argue, and laugh like we always did.

And then he’d catch my eye and grin with an expression that said,
This really blows, doesn’t it?
And all I wanted to do was grab his hand and leave the auditorium. I’d missed him so much when I was in Colorado.

I mentally shook myself.
Stop it, Lindsey. He’s your lucky boy, not your crush.

It wasn’t like we hadn’t talked since I’d gotten home. We had, and the awkwardness I’d felt around him before I left town was gone. But now, something else had replaced it. Something that I couldn’t quite identify. A sense of waiting. For words or actions or … I just didn’t know what. Which was weird enough that I was doing my best to ignore it.

“Don’t you think so, Lindsey?” Marta asked.

Uh-oh.
Caught not paying attention. I looked up. “What?”

“In this last scene, Beulah should sound sad, and Kara is saying the lines like we’re going to a picnic.”

“I am not,” Kara said.

“Okay, like we’re going to the movies,” Marta said.

“Shut up,” Kara said.

“Hang on,” I said. “Take a couple of deep breaths, and then let’s run through that section one more time.”

Marta frowned, but she inhaled super loudly. I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing. Kara squinted at me, then went through her lines with Marta. I hated to think it, much less say it, but Marta was right. And how the heck was I going to help Kara when I’d promised I’d be nicer to her? She’d think I was being mean. Whatever I tried, I had to include Marta, who already hated me.
Woo-hoo, directing is fun.

“I can see a problem,” I said. “Are y’all willing to try something?”

They wore twin irritated expressions, but they nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “Shut your eyes and take some more deep breaths.”

“Seriously, Lindsey?” Marta asked.

I shrugged. “You want to make this better?”

She glared, then shut her eyes. I couldn’t believe I actually had to do this with them. They should’ve already been doing it on their own. “So remember a time when you were really sad. It doesn’t matter when. Just remember and think about how you felt. Feel how you felt.”

I ignored the sounds of people moving around or talking near us. Instead, I watched Marta and Kara. Slowly their expressions softened, losing the irritation. Marta’s face relaxed, and she lowered her head. But Kara was a different story. She started breathing faster, her skin turning red, her eyelashes fluttering even with closed eyes. She looked like she was about to ugly cry, or even sob. And since that was way more emotion than the scene required, I stopped them.

“Open your eyes,” I said quietly.

They did, looking away from each other like they were embarrassed.

“Do the scene again. Marta, you can start.”

She glanced at me and then launched into her lines. It wasn’t Mike-brilliant, but it was better. Way, way better. Especially Kara. When they were done, they looked at me expectantly. “How did that feel?” I asked.

“Good,” Marta said.

“Sad,” Kara said.

“You were really convincing,” Marta said to Kara.

“Really?” Kara asked. “I didn’t like that. It hurt.”

Welcome to acting.
I wanted to throw my shoulders back and say, “And my work here is done.” Something touched my shoulder. I jerked in my chair, twisting around. It was Mrs. Mac, with a slight smile on her face. She gave me a brief nod and then walked toward center stage.

She must’ve seen what had just happened. It was nice to have her approval, but I still wished I had a part in the stupid play, instead of showing people how to act.