Chapter 7

As if I hadn’t suffered enough, this horribly embarrassing scene played in my head again and again the next few days. What a nightmare! Grace didn’t help by breaking out into uncontrollable laughing fits when I told her. Fortunately, I didn’t see Holden for several days. He was probably home nursing his leg.

Thursday evening, I was curled up with Grace on the couch, laptop on my knees and a bag of pretzels between us. With a sigh of relief, I mentally wrote The End at the bottom of the journal article, clicked “Save” one last time, and closed the document. Now I was ready for summer break. I opened Facebook. A small 1 on the “Friend Requests” icon stood out. When I clicked on it I read the message: Holden Crane has sent you a friend request. As if Mark Zuckerberg wanted to personally mock me. My eyes widened with horror.

“What’s the matter?” Grace asked when she saw me turn white. I turned the screen toward her without saying a word, letting her see for herself. As soon as she saw Holden’s friend request, she started laughing so hard she choked on some pretzel pieces.

Rolling my eyes, I patted her back until she stopped coughing.

“Maybe . . . ,” she began but burst into another laughing fit. It took some time before she could continue. “Maybe that’s his thing.” 

“Very funny,” I replied drily and turned the screen back to me so the joker couldn’t see it.

“Show me!” she protested, grabbing the laptop and turning it back toward her. Her mouth twitched dangerously in the corners until—despite all her efforts to hold it in—she burst out laughing again.

“Or he just wanted to wait . . . until the air had cleared.” Grace laughed hysterically at her own joke.

“Final warning,” I threatened. “Stop it or I’ll slap you.”

“OK, OK,” she gave in, rubbing the tears out of her eyes while still giggling. “Are you going to accept it?”

“Are you nuts? “I wouldn’t even be able to look at him without remembering how embarrassing that was.”

“Let’s see,” Grace said, overly serious, and grabbed the computer from my lap.

“No! What are you doing?” I lunged for my laptop, which we pulled back and forth in a tug-of-war until I finally wrested it from her. The little 1 was gone from the screen.

Grace who was looking at the TV with a broad grin.

“You didn’t!” I frantically clicked on my profile. Annie Blazon and Holden Crane have become friends.

“I’ll kill you!” I screamed at Grace. She saw I was about to pounce on her, so she dropped to the floor. I straddled her belly, pressing her arms down with my knees while she struggled wildly with her legs to throw me off.

“Stop it . . . ,” she pleaded as I mercilessly tickled her. “Stop it . . . please . . . I’m going to . . . pee myself!”

“Would serve you right,” I shot back, thoroughly working over her ribs. The first high bing from my computer released Grace. I jumped up to look. Holden had sent a message. I sat down again, computer on my lap. Grace took off silently, only to come back a few moments later in a different pair of pants. I looked at her with raised eyebrows, feeling the corners of my mouth turning upward.

“Did you really . . .?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Grace said in a regal tone, extending her chin. It was my turn to laugh out loud.

“Show me,” she demanded as she sidled up to me. “What’s he saying?”

“Hi,” I said.

She frowned. “Just hi?”

“Yup.”

“Well, send back a hi.”

“No!”

“Why not?” she asked in disbelief. “He’s into you, if you haven’t already figured that out! Why are you being like this? Don’t you like him?”

“I do,” I admitted. “But it’s so embarrassing. I’m just glad I haven’t run into him since the drugstore. I hope he stays away a bit longer. Or changes schools and moves away altogether.”

“Um,” Grace hesitated. “I ran into him today, at the grocery store.”

“Really. I thought he . . .” I stopped. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I talked to him,” she conceded.

“About me?”

Grace raised her hands defensively. “I couldn’t help it. He asked about you.”

“What?! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just did.” She sounded guilty.

“What did you talk about?”

“He asked how you were doing. I told him you’re good . . .”

“What else?”

“I may have told him to get in touch with you.”

“Are you nuts? You know how embarrassed I am!” I moved a bit away and glowered at her.

“Don’t be such a buzzkill.”

“You’re impossible, Grace!” I shot up from the couch and stomped off.

I barely crawled out of bed the next morning. I snorted. Hiding in my room wouldn’t make things better. Sooner or later I’d have to confront my demons. Get it over with. Fast. Like tearing off a Band-Aid. And, I had to discuss the journal article with my prof. I threw the covers aside with a sigh, leapt to my feet, showered for a long time, blow-dried my hair, and hid my embarrassed self behind a lot of mascara and a touch of lip gloss.

Sometime around noon, resolve took over. Just do it! I told myself and decided to grab a bite at Finagle a Bagel on Cambridge Street. Grace had become addicted to their whole-wheat bagel with tuna and onion. I’d noticed Holden there a few times, and this was the real reason I went with Grace. Even if it meant living with her tuna and onion breath for the rest of the day.

I’d barely opened the door when a blonde pushed past me mumbling a lukewarm “Sorry.”

She said “Sorry” again when she turned to her girlfriends who were waiting for her. “I’m totally running behind today. Have you ordered?” She looked around. “Oh, there’s Holden. Give me a sec to say hi to him.”

I turned. Oh yeah. There he stood. Propped up on crutches, with his friends. It was about to get interesting. I was only a few steps in from the door, so I decided to hang back for the time being.

The blonde went straight for him, spread her arms out, and wrapped them around him. To my horror, I saw him returning the intimate hug and kissing her on the cheek.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, pointing at the cast on his leg. “You’ve got to take better care of yourself, Holdie.”

Holdie? I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. They were more than just casual friends. Watching them, something strange wound itself around my chest, constricting it. I swallowed strenuously. I inadvertently took a step back and left the shop. Well, I’d really been wrong.

Thanks a lot, Grace! Without her, I’d have never gotten so deep into this Holden business. I’d made such a big deal out of him sending me a friend request and messaging me. Who didn’t have hundreds of Facebook friends they’d never exchanged a word with? Did I really think Holden was into me just because he looked at me once or twice at a party?

I’d lost my appetite, so I headed straight home. I was going to take a bath, but Grace was hogging the bathroom to do her hair.

After about forty minutes, I knocked. “Are you just about done? I need to get in.”

Grace opened the door and looked at me astonished. “Just come in,” she said, looking me over. “What’s with you?”

“Nothing. I need to get into the bath,” I answered testily.

I didn’t usually mind, but just then I couldn’t bear it that Grace had taken over the bathroom for her makeup, hair styling, and eyebrow-plucking marathon. Bullshit superficiality!

“OK,” Grace quietly said, leaving the bathroom with half-done hair. But not without giving me another once over. Were her eyes moist?

Although I’d started to regret it, I was still too angry to apologize. But I wasn’t even angry at her. I was angry at myself, at Holden, at the whole frigging world. I locked the door, filled the bathtub, and sank into the water. My grandma always said, “Nothing is so bad that a hot bath won’t make it better.” I breathed in deeply, leaned back, and stared out the window. The sky was unusually dark for this time of day. A storm was brewing. Gray-green clouds were looming. The air was bristling. As if it were waiting for the right moment, the tension unleashed, and a gust of wind set the leaves dancing in the trees. The sky opened, letting loose lightning, thunder, hail, and sheets of rain. As I watched the apocalypse outside, I began to feel better—the storm also released my internal tension.

Thunderstorms sent Grace into a state of panic, so I got out of the tub, dried off, put on my jogging pants and an old T-shirt, then knocked on her door.

There was a subdued squeak, “Yes?”

She was lying in bed with the covers pulled over her head.

“Oh, Grace,” I pitied her and slipped under the covers with her. She held on to me. “Sorry about just now,” I said.

“Never mind,” she whispered. Grace didn’t crawl out from under her covers until well after the storm had passed, and bits of blue sky peeked through the dark clouds. “What was the matter?” she asked.

I sighed. “I saw Holden with someone else.”

“Really?” She looked truly surprised.

I nodded. “They hugged, and he kissed her on the cheek.”

Grace sat up, frowning. She thought for a moment, grabbed her laptop, opened Holden’s Facebook page, and scrolled down his friend list. “Tell me when you recognize her.”

“Why bother?”

“I checked him out. Do you seriously think I’d set you up with someone without knowing if he had a girlfriend and wasn’t really into you?”

“No one posts everything on Facebook,” I objected. “Maybe they just got together. Or it’s an ex he’s not quite over yet.”

She gave me a questioning look, then pointed at the screen. “Do you honestly think this is my only source? I have informers everywhere.” Grace gave me a conspiratorial grin. “Say when you recognize her.”

We scrolled together through the list with Grace paying painstaking attention to make sure I really looked at every face. At least every female face.

“Stop. Wait. Back.”

“Her?”

“Yes, I think that’s her. Click on her profile. Enlarge the photo a bit . . . yup, that’s her.”

Grace clicked through to search her profile. Suddenly, she laughed out loud.

“What?” I asked.

“There,” she pointed at the blonde’s “Family” tab with the small note Holden Crane, Cousin.

“She’s his cousin!” Grace laughed, slapping her thigh.

“You’ve got a big mouth for someone who was hiding under her covers a moment ago.” I grumbled even though I felt relieved by this turn of events.

“No more excuses. Get to it and message him back.”

I pulled up the left corner of my mouth. “D’you think?”

“Yesss!”

I shut my eyes and face-palmed as I let our last encounter run through my head for what probably was the thousandth time.

“Oh, come on.” Grace sounded encouraging and irritated all at once. “Stop obsessing. You’ll laugh about it in a few weeks.” She grinned. “Imagine how cool it’ll be to tell your grandkids that story someday. It’s a pretty funny first-meeting story!”

“You’ve got a point.”

We went to sit in the living room. Me with a strained facial expression and the laptop on my knees, Grace with half-curled hair and a Pizza Pop in her hand.

My eyes were on the Messenger chat window from which Holden’s Hi stared at me. I took a deep breath and typed back Hi.

Not ten seconds later he was online. Three dots in the box jolted me.

Hi. How are you? ;-)

A winking smiley?!

Good. How’s your leg?

Getting better every day. But I’m stuck with this cast for another three weeks.

Will you be able to play baseball again?

My doc says it’s healing well. It’s a clean break. When the cast is off, I’ll start PT to rebuild my muscles. Coach isn’t happy, but what can I do?

Health comes first.

Grace moaned. “Get to the point!”

I got up with the laptop, went into my room, and shut the door behind me.

“Oh, come on!” Grace came running after me but stopped outside the door.

Ever since I’d walked in on her with some stubble-beard between her legs, which probably embarrassed me more than her, we had an agreement that closed doors would only be opened after a clear invitation.

“Annie!” she scolded me one last time before stomping off in a huff. I made myself comfortable on my bed.

I was hoping you’d . . .

Holden had written in the meantime. I was startled.

What?

Maybe come to my games more often.

My face flushed. Oh my God, he’s flirting with me!

Seconds passed. I should have already written an answer, but my fingers were hovering indecisively over the keyboard. I was relieved when I saw the three dots. I held my breath.

I mean, if I hadn’t gotten hurt, would you come more often?

I could almost hear the doubt in his words. Was he thinking he’d pushed too far?

Yes.

In the moment I typed my answer, I knew it to be true.

For me?

I swallowed. Did he want to make sure or was he continuing to flirt?

Yes.

I won’t be able to play until next season. You’ll have to find some other way to stalk me. ;-)

I laughed. Yup, he was flirting, and I was slowly catching the mood, too.

What were you thinking of?

Over dinner, maybe. You eat, don’t you?

Every once in a while.

I couldn’t help grinning.

Are you planning to eat something tomorrow?

I think so, yes. :-)

This should be when I say I’ll pick you up at seven but with the cast I can’t drive, so restaurants are out. Do you want to come over here and we’ll order in?

To his place?

Don’t worry, my intentions are honorable. I’m not a serial killer either, should you have concerns.

Eerie. I was a little disturbed by the words serial killer coming up during the first conversation with someone I hardly knew. But the speed with which he’d brought it up probably meant he was afraid I’d say no.

Isn’t that exactly what a serial killer would say?

Probably yes. But look at it this way: How fast would I be on one leg? I couldn’t catch you even if I wanted to.

Catch me? Now you’re frightening me.

What about you? You haven’t said a single word about your intentions yet. Your chances of catching me are better for sure.

I grinned. He was digging himself a hole and trying to be funny all the time. I had rattled him. And I liked that.

Intentions? I thought this was about dinner.

Of course! Just about dinner.

When should I be there?

I was surprised by how fast I agreed.

How’s 7?

He sent his address, and I decided to stop the chat. I didn’t want to draw out our flirtation too long.

Good. I’ll be at your place at 7.

OK.

I had the feeling he would have liked to have chatted a bit more.

Till tomorrow, Holden. :-)

He had earned this smiley.

See ya, Annie. Sleep tight. ;-)

You, too.

I closed the chat window and closed the laptop.

“Annie.” Grace knocked gently.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been standing out there the whole time.”

“Not the whole time,” the muffled answer came through the door.

“Well, come in, you wacko.”

Grace burst into my room with a grin and hopped on the bed. “Well?” she asked, all excited.

“I’ve got a date!”

“Really? Wow, that was fast. When?”

“Tomorrow night. He invited me to his place.”

Grace’s disapproving look stopped me.

“Because of his leg,” I explained right away. “He can’t drive and . . .”

“Do you think that’s a good idea? Can’t he come here?”

“He can’t drive.”

“Well, I can pick him up.”

I frowned. “Really? Wouldn’t that be somehow weird?”

“Better somehow weird than chopped in pieces in a freezer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for that image.” But that and the serial killer mentions persuaded me. “OK. So, I won’t have him here yet. How about Emmets?”

Emmets Irish Pub was a cozy place on Beacon Street. The beer was good, the food decent, and the prices unbeatable.

“Why ask me?”

“Well, you have a car.”

“Do you want me to come along? On your date?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Or you lend me your car.”

Her eyes took on a serious look. Grace shared almost everything with me—just not her almost new Audi A3. It was sacred. “OK, I’ll drive,” she finally said.

I quickly reopened the chat window and messaged Holden to let him know the change in plans.

The next night, at seven o’clock sharp, Grace, the Audi, and I were outside Holden’s door. He crutched down the stairs of the red-brick building, one step at a time, his eyes smiling even before his lips did when he saw me.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” I’d somehow pictured our first encounter turning into shades of humiliation. But it wasn’t embarrassing at all. I was just happy to see him. Judging by the broad grin on Holden’s face, he felt the same. I exhaled with relief.

“Any way I can help you?”

“I’m fine. I can manage on my own if you just hold the door open.”

I opened the passenger door as wide as I could.

“Thank you.” He was so close to me that I could smell the scent of his skin. He smelled good. Very good. And, wow, his eyes were blue. I mean, I’d already seen from afar his eyes were blue, but just how freaking blue they were only hit me then. I swallowed.

“Hi, Grace,” he said, not taking his eyes off me.

I’d almost forgotten she was here, too.

“Hi, Holden,” Grace said, adding an unnecessary “Watch you don’t scratch it getting in, OK?”

Holden grinned, landed on the passenger seat, and heaved in his casted left leg, then his right leg. He stashed his crutches beside him. They extended from the foot space to the headrest. I stood beside him the whole time, fumbling pointlessly while trying to somehow help him. Finally, I got into the back and Grace drove off.

Holden turned to me. “I should have been holding the door for you. Next time, OK?”

“Next time?” I repeated sardonically. “Let’s see how tonight goes first.”

Grace slipped me a broad grin in the rearview mirror.

“Challenge accepted,” Holden said.

When we arrived, he awkwardly got out of the car. While he hurried ahead as well as he could to hold the pub door open, I took Grace by the wrist.

“Please be nice,” I pled with her in a whisper.

She glanced at me dismissively.

“This time . . . I think it’s different this time.”

“You’re really into him, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Yes, I think so.”

Grace smiled. “OK. I’ll be nice to him. Promise.”

Emmets was packed to the rafters, like always. The typical mix of brouhaha and beer fog hit us at the door. I’d thought ahead and reserved a table where it wasn’t so loud.

“What would you like? I’ll get it,” Grace offered as soon as we’d fought our way through to the far corner. This was one of those pubs where you ordered at the bar, and since Grace was the one with the impeccable fake ID, it was up to her. After a quick glance at the menu, I decided on a Caesar salad and a Foster’s. Holden also asked for a Foster’s—his with a cheeseburger. Grace disappeared toward the bar, and we were alone.

“Here we are,” I said, suddenly feeling lost. I stared at my hands and began to pick at the napkin.

Holden cleared his throat. “You’re just finishing your sophomore year, aren’t you?” he asked.

I looked up, realizing that after the first excitement, he was nervous, too.

“Yes. In my junior year, I’ll start focusing on my major. Biochemistry. That’s always been my thing. I won the National Junior Scientist Competition in eleventh grade. That got me the scholarship to Harvard. And biochem seems to be the best choice for me. It should give me a decent chance of landing a job.”

Whoa. Hold back a bit! Did he ask for the full biography?

My inner voice has always been my harshest critic. Great, I was blushing. I smiled artificially, put on my enough-about-me-let’s-hear-about-you face, and asked, “What about you?”

“A scholarship? Not bad. I’ll probably work for ten years just to get rid of my loan.” He cocked his mouth into a crooked grin. “My major is mechanical engineering.”

“And? Do you like it?”

He frowned. “It’s OK. I’m not as passionate about it as it seems you are about biochemistry, but I think it’s something I could keep doing. Where I’ll get a job is the question. I don’t want to leave Boston. I’m going to be a senior, so I’ve got to figure it out.”

“Right, you’re from here,” I said. Holden’s voice and Boston accent were so pleasant that my initial nervousness turned into genuine interest after a few words. I wanted to get to know this good-looking guy with the blue eyes and crooked smile sitting across from me.

“Yeah. From Winthrop. Where are you from?”

“Lakewood. A hick town south of Seattle.” I smiled. “You’ve probably never heard of it.”

“The West Coast, wow.” He nodded, impressed. “You’re a long way from home.”

I snorted quietly at the thought. “This is home now,” I said, keeping my answer simple.

Holden frowned, as if he meant to ask what was buried in my words. He was about to speak when something bumped against the table.

“Ugh! You just about have to blow the bartender to get a beer here.” Grace plopped the drinks on the table and wiped the spilled beer from the back of her hand.

I sat back with a start. I’d leaned so far across the table toward Holden that I was sitting on the edge of my chair. “And, as you can hear, Grace is from Obscenia.”

Holden laughed.

“Westchester, New York,” she corrected, raising her glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Grace being there made everything really relaxed. More like a good time with friends than a date. Except that I felt like I might fall in love with one of them. Even though I would have gotten along well with Holden after overcoming the initial awkwardness, I preferred things this way. Classical dates were never my thing. I always found the what-are-you-doing-I’m-doing-this ping-pong strained and unnatural. Now I was enjoying myself. And I was still able to ask about things that interested me.

Holden was just finishing up a short anecdote about his housemate Kyle, who had the weird habit of hanging up his underwear to dry in the hallway, which was especially awkward when Holden’s grandmother visited. The way he imitated Kyle’s voice and his grandma’s facial expression was so hilarious that Grace and I almost fell from the chair laughing.

“So, what did he say?” I gasped for air.

“He told her he’d just washed them and, to prove it, held one of his Calvin-Klein boxer shorts right under her nose.”

We laughed so loud people started to stare at us.

“That was the one and only time Grandma visited me,” Holden said, while I was wiping the tears out of my eyes.

“Oh man, you’ve got to introduce us,” Grace giggled. “How do you know him?”

“The apartment belongs to his dad, he was looking for a housemate, I answered his ad, one thing led to another.”

“So, you don’t know him from school?” I asked.

“No. Kyle . . . to be honest, I’m not sure what he does all day. He was enrolled at Northeastern at some point, but he hasn’t gone there for a while. His dad is loaded, so Kyle is worming his way through life.”

I laughed, giving Grace a push. “Sounds like your type.”

“Ha ha,” she feigned, suddenly looking all serious. “Very funny. Grace spreads her legs for every loser.”

I was stumped. “It was just a joke. Come on!”

She smiled, but I could tell she was still in a huff. While Holden and I continued to talk, she mostly stayed silent. Suddenly, she leaned back, stretched her arms over her head, and yawned. I gave her a short, questioning look before turning back to Holden’s story. A couple of minutes later, Grace leaned back again and opened her mouth so wide you could see all the way down her throat.

“What are you doing?” I hissed as Holden briefly looked away.

“I’m trying to yawn,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Checking his empathy,” she mumbled.

I was only able to muster an annoyed, questioning look as my answer.

“I want to see if his mirror neurons will activate . . . ,” she said.

“What?” I hissed.

“Mir-ror neu-rons,” she repeated as if I were a moron.

“I got it, but why the hell are you acting like this?” I answered with my teeth clenched, almost like a ventriloquist.

Holden raised his eyebrows and stared at us.

Grace smiled and typed in her phone before trying to feign another yawn.

“Stop it!” I cuffed her under the table.

Grace opened her eyes wide and tried to signal that she’d sent me a message.

At that moment, Holden grabbed my phone and read aloud from the Wikipedia entry Grace had sent. “A mirror neuron, or cubelli neuron, is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron ‘mirrors’ the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.”

He quickly looked up, a quizzical expression on his face. Then he continued. “This researcher argued that mirror neurons are the neural basis of the human capacity for emotions such as empathy.” Holden gave Grace an amused look. “That’s what the yawning is all about,” he observed.

I looked at Grace with disbelief and pocketed my phone. I didn’t quite know what to make of Holden just snatching it away from me like that.

“Damn it, you promised to behave yourself, Grace!” I hissed when we had gotten into the car after a few hours at Emmets. Holden wanted to manage on his own again and was distracted handling his crutches and the door. “What was with that yawning stuff?”

“Wait a minute,” she said, raising her right index finger. “I only promised to be nice to him. Nothing was ever said about behaving myself.”

I swallowed the curse on my tongue because Holden awkwardly maneuvered into the passenger seat. Grace cranked up the music, making conversation impossible. I was glad to get to his place.

“Wait, let me help you,” I said, quickly getting out and helping him onto his crutches.

“Thanks.” He smiled, and turned to Grace, who was watching us with eagle eyes. “Thanks for driving, Grace. And . . . everything else.” Then he turned to me. “Will you walk me to the door?”

“Sure,” I said and gave Grace, who was still staring at us, an admonishing look. When we’d arrived on the top step of the outside stairs, I helped Holden open his door. The moment of departure had arrived. My mouth was suddenly dry. Would he kiss me now? In front of Grace? While I was still deciding whether I wanted that or not, Holden took a small step backward. OK. No kiss. Not coming from him in any case. Even though I wasn’t sure if I really wanted one yet, I was a little disappointed.

How would his lips feel?

Damn, why didn’t I simply accept his invitation? We’d have been all alone. Undisturbed.

“Are you going to stay in Boston through the summer?” he suddenly asked me.

“Yes, I am.”

He smiled sincerely. “That was a pleasant evening,” he said after a long moment in which he looked at me without saying a word. “But . . .”

“But?”

He grinned, frowning. “Do you think the next time only the two of us could meet?”

I laughed. “Yes. Definitely yes.”