We reviewed our notes about possible web hosts and story ideas for the next forty-five minutes. Then, with feet of lead, I followed him out to his reliable Ford Escort. The ride to Mick’s was fraught with danger. I couldn’t let Foster smell my fear or I’d be as good as carnage. He would zero in on any perceived weakness and exploit the soft spot until I turned into one giant bruise.
I decided he must be after my total annihilation with this whole date thing. He probably didn’t want to go halves on the editor-in-chief position. If he broke me, he wouldn’t have to share the job.
I sat up straighter in my seat. Too bad for him. I wasn’t going anywhere. There would be a feature story in this craziness. Maybe not the story he envisioned in his plot to overtake my position, but I’d find the real one. The one that made him sorry he ever messed with Layney Logan.
“What now?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You just did that thing you do whenever you think you’re going to win an argument with me, only we weren’t arguing.”
“What thing do I do?”
“You sit up all straight and thrust your chin out. I wasn’t even talking, so I don’t know what you could be mad at me for.”
“Gee, I don’t know, Foster. Maybe this whole ridiculous dating scheme you came up with? What do you possibly have to gain?”
“What do you have to lose?” He pulled up to the curb in front of the restaurant. “God, you act like it’s some kind of death sentence. I’m probably doing you a favor.”
“Excuse me?”
“Going on a few dates will be good for you. Get you out in the world a little.”
“I don’t need you to decide what’s good for me.”
“I’m just saying that you shouldn’t hold on to the past so much.”
It’s possible that the blood in my veins just came to a complete stop and then started flowing backward. “What are you trying to say?”
I knew exactly what he was trying to say.
“Never mind. It wasn’t important. We’re here. You should go warm up and stretch before the main event. You don’t want to pull a muscle.”
“What. Were. You. Trying. To. Say?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. I wanted to hit the bridge of his nose with a cement block. “Look, it’s just a little…sad…that you haven’t gone out with anyone since…you know.”
The roar of the ocean filled my head. “I can’t believe you went there.” I glared at him and then rolled my eyes. “Oh, wait. It’s you. Yes, I can.”
I undid my seatbelt so I could strangle him. “Do you honestly,
truly
, really believe that you are the reason I don’t date? Of course you do. What am I thinking? That was
four
years ago.”
“I know.”
“We were in the eighth grade.”
“I know. Which is why it’s kind of tragic.”
“I’m not having this discussion with you.” Just because Foster slept with half the female population didn’t mean I was less over him for not turning into a slut. “Besides, I have dated. Just not high school boys.”
“Sure.”
He said “sure” but he obviously didn’t mean “sure.” It would have been nice to wipe that patronizing look off his face. Instead, I had responsibilities to attend. “College guys are more mature than guys my own age, but that’s a discussion for a different day. Right now, I have an interview to go to.”
“It’s a date.”
“It’s an interview.”
“Whatever. I’ll pick you up in an hour.” He sat there looking smug. His broad smile, his relaxed pose—I wanted to kill him. And then revive him so I could kill him again.
“Don’t bother.” I slammed the door shut, closing my jacket in. I couldn’t tug it out, so I had to open the door again. “I mean it; don’t bother.”
“Toodles.” He waved and pulled away after I slammed the door again.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I looked at the caller I.D:
Prince of Darkness
“What?” I barked.
“Don’t forget you aren’t allowed to record the date.”
“It’s an interview, and if he gives me permission, I can.”
“No, you can’t. No notes either. You can doodle all you want after, but during the date, you have to act like a girl.”
Needless to say, I ended the call.
Act like a girl.
He set me up so I’d be as flustered as possible. He wanted me to fail. Otherwise why would he have brought up eighth grade? As far as I’m concerned, eighth grade never happened.
I marched into Mick’s and stopped at the hostess desk.
“Good evening. How may I help you?”
My heart sank. The hostess was one of those women who make you feel uncultured and immature just by looking at her. Her makeup was flawless, her hair sleek and shiny, and somehow even her black skirt and white blouse looked high fashion.
I cleared my throat. “I have reservations at 6:30 in the name of…
Love
.” I tried to force a smile through clenched teeth. Name of Love. Seriously, who could blame me for wanting to send Jimmy Foster through a meat grinder at this point?
She smiled sweetly. “Of course you do. Right this way. Your party has already arrived.”
Great. I’d been hoping for a few minutes to pull myself together.
Mick’s is not a place most high schoolers go unless it’s their mother’s birthday or out-of-town relatives are visiting. Not that it isn’t nice; there’s just something about jazz and white tablecloths that make you feel like you’re twelve again. I clutched my messenger bag tightly in case it knocked over a water glass or candle.
She led me to a corner, thank God, and waited expectantly for my date to stand. Only he didn’t know that’s what she was waiting for. The uncomfortable twelve seconds passed more like ten minutes worth of painful silence. She finally realized neither of us knew what we were doing and pointed to my chair. “Enjoy your dinner.”
My mind tried to process the small details of my date’s face while I struggled to place him. I’d seen him before, but I didn’t know who he was. My biggest fear was that Foster would set me up with twelve trolls. This guy was actually cute. He had a little unfortunate acne, but nothing was glaringly hideous. Sandy brown hair, blue eyes, and he’d worn a nice sweater.
So far so good.
“Hi, I’m Layney.”
“I’m Chuck.”
When he didn’t follow that statement with anything, I realized I was going to have to use my interviewing skills after all. Open-ended questions were going to be my friends. If I relied on yes-or-no answers, we would never get anywhere.
I worked up my cheery smile. “I’m sort of nervous. I’ve never been on a blind date before. Have you?”
“No.”
See what I mean about yes-or-no questions?
Take two. “So what made you decide to do this?”
He shrugged.
Our waiter brought over the dessert menu and coffee. I ordered the tiramisu just in case that really was part of the conditions for the owner picking up the tab.
“Chuck, do you play any sports?”
“Basketball.”
That’s where I’d seen him. “What made you choose basketball over, say, baseball?”
He smiled. “I’m six-four.” And then he blushed.
Shyness I can empathize with. While I wasn’t much on dating, it wasn’t because I was shy. Shyness doesn’t get great stories. I tended to be a little more…aggressive. But I also knew how to set people at ease, make them comfortable enough to spill their guts to me.
Well, okay, sometimes I made people uncomfortable. Just not usually the ones I interviewed.
I broke the elbows-on-the-table rule and rested my chin in my hands. “Okay, let’s get this out right now, then. You’re tall, handsome, and a varsity ball player. And you are obviously not the kind of guy that goes out of his way to get into calendars. Why are you on a blind date with me?” I even batted my eyelashes.
He started to say something, but our food arrived. One tentative bite later and I was hooked on tiramisu. “Oh my God, this is good. Is yours good?”
He nodded. “It’s vanilla ice cream. But yeah, it tastes good.” And then he pushed it away. “God, I’m so stupid.”
“What’s wrong?”
He covered his face in his hands. I checked out the room to make sure nobody was staring at us. If he started crying, I was going to have to take a vow of agoraphobia and spend the rest of my life in my room.
“Chuck?”
He moved his hands out of the way—fortunately, no tears. “I’m sorry. I just feel so stupid. I mean, no wonder she broke up with me.”
“I’m going to need a map or something, Chuck. I’m not following you at all.”
Please don’t cry. Please don’t cry.
Foster would never let it die if I made a boy cry on my first date.
He exhaled and went back to his ice cream. “I’m boring. I can never think of the right things to say, and I order vanilla ice cream, and everything about me is uninteresting.”
Okay, then. Boys got insecure too, I could see. “Your three-pointers are pretty amazing,” I offered.
“That’s the problem. My girlfriend, she thinks—well, she thought—that basketball is all I care about. And it’s not. It’s just the only thing I know I’m good at. She broke up with me, but she doesn’t understand.”
“What doesn’t she understand?”
“She’s all I think about. Not basketball. Not sports. That’s why I agreed to do this. I thought maybe she’d get jealous. But that’s probably dumb too.”
If that wasn’t the sweetest thing ever, I don’t know what is. She was obviously a moron. “Here’s the thing. I’m totally lame at the whole relationship thing because, well, I choose not to have them; but did you ever tell your
girlfriend
what you just told me?”
He shook his head. “Can I try your…whatever that is?”
I pushed my plate to him. I wasn’t going to stand in someone’s way while they tried to break out of their comfort zone.
“This isn’t bad.”
“Vanilla ice cream is good too, though, Chuck. Tell me about your girlfriend.”
Chuck smiled. “She’s amazing. She’s so smart and really pretty. She went to every single home game last year, even when she was sick. God, she was so supportive of me, but I totally blew it. I never even tried to learn about the stuff she liked. I just assumed she was happy doing the stuff I liked.”
When he finally took a breath, I asked him if she was still available.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Then promise me you’ll try to get her back, Chuck.”
“You don’t think it’s too late?”
A girl like me had no business giving relationship advice. The only real boyfriend I’d had turned into hellfire’s answer to John Mayer after we broke up, but I liked Chuck and really wanted him to be happy. “Just because you took too much for granted before, doesn’t mean you can’t learn from your mistakes. Tell her you’re sorry, that she was the best thing that ever happened to you, and that you wished you had appreciated her more when you were together. Then tell her all the mushy stuff about how you feel.”
“Mushy stuff.”
“Yeah, you know,” I mumbled while sweeping my hands in the air. “Like, she’s the only thing you think about, you’re so in love, yada yada yada.”
“Yada yada yada?”
“Oh, don’t actually say that part. Some people get touchy about stuff like that.”
He crinkled his brow. “Are you sure you’re a girl?”
I shrugged. “Most of the time.” Just not your average girl. Hearts and flowery talk gave me hives.
By the time our date ended, I’d helped Chuck write out a script for making up with his girlfriend. We even had Plan B and Plan C, depending on how well she responded—or how well she didn’t. He told me over and over how this was the best date he’d ever been on. I told him he probably shouldn’t share that little nugget with his ex.
We stood in front of the restaurant, and I broke the rules and hugged him goodbye.
My ride home was less than amused.
“That was irresponsible and unethical, Logan.”
“What is your problem?” I’d barely buckled myself in before Foster peeled out into the street.
“A good reporter knows the boundaries of an interview.”
“I thought it was a date.”
His white knuckles looked stark against the black of the steering wheel. “There were signed contracts. I can’t believe you just…”
“Just what? Acted like a girl?”
Foster didn’t say another word to me until he pulled into my driveway. “How was the tiramisu?”
I slid out of my seat. “It was better than I expected.”
CHAPTER THREE
Mr. February
M
ONDAY
morning found me where every weekday morning found me—in the newsroom before school trying to figure out what I’d done to deserve the mess I’d been handed.
Someone had dumped several cases of old textbooks in the middle of our newsroom before I’d gotten there that morning. I guessed we were now the new school storage closet. As I lugged them to the corner and stacked them against a wall, I tried to sort out some of my to-do list.
We still needed to recruit a decent photographer, especially for the calendar. We also still needed to come up with some regular columns and find some investigative stories to report on. Plus we needed to learn web design because not one of those new girls knew any code at all, and I sure as heck didn’t.
Only a few weeks ago, I’d been blissfully unaware of the jam I’d be in. I looked forward to my senior year. Until Mr. Blake called Foster and me to the school a week before class started.
“As you know, the school district—our entire community—is facing some tough economic choices,” Mr. Blake had begun. “There’s no easy way to say this, kids—they’ve cut journalism from the schedule. The local newspaper is shutting down too, which means there will be no
Follower
this year.”
It was the day the music died for me. And not the Madonna version either, thanks.
The local paper used to do our print runs for free. With them out of business, we couldn’t go to print, which is why we opted for a web version. Why we opted for any version at all had more to do with pride and stubbornness. The two things Foster and I had in common.
Trying to resurrect the institution that once was the paper consumed me. So much so that I didn’t realize I was no longer alone in the newsroom until someone cleared her throat.