SEVEN
Embarrassed, I tried to explain to Jen why I might have said Paul instead of Jake. “See, subconsciously, I probably just wanted to know if he’s single or not because I just can’t imagine who would date him. I was just curious to know if there’s some poor girl out there who has to suffer through his name-calling all the time.”
Jen burst out with a sharp, short peal of laughter. “Oh, that’s the only reason that you said his name. Just because ‘subconsciously’ you wanted to find out if he’s single or not, just because ‘subconsciously,’ you’re worried about some ‘poor girl’ having to date him. Nice one. Nice try.”
I couldn’t deny that my reasoning had sounded pretty lame, even to my own ears. Just wanting to forget all about it and change the subject, I asked Jen if Jake, not Paul, had indeed not raised a hand when she’d asked for everyone in a relationship to do so.
Giving me a faint eye roll, she said that that was correct. “Jake did not raise a hand at all, and, in fact, he didn’t even raise the hint of a hand, or even a little finger. Meaning, that he claims to be single. As for some ‘poor girl’ having to suffer through being in a relationship with Paul, don’t worry. He didn’t raise a hand or even a single finger, either, meaning that he, too, claims to be single. Like I said before, though, you really can’t tell with two guys who are both hiding something. They could be in a relationship with each other for all we know.”
Since they’d arrived separately, I didn’t think that was very likely, and I told Jen that.
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, maybe. You know who’s a guy who’s for sure not in a relationship with another guy, though?”
Leaning back against my headboard, I gave my eyes a slight roll. “Oh, let me guess? Sean?”
Jen smiled. “Yup. You’re a good guesser. Now, let’s talk a little bit more about him. Do you like the way he looks and everything?”
Like David, Sean was fairly handsome and generally attractive in a “nerdy chic” sort of way. Also, not that I’d had much interaction with him at all, but he seemed nice enough. However, I didn’t feel any kind of a connection with him at all, and I just simply didn’t feel very attracted to him. I told Jen this, and she heaved a sigh.
“Look. You say that now, but let’s just try to go out on a double date or something with David and Sean. Let’s just see if we can try to get to know them a little better. After that, something tells me that you might be singing a different tune. You might be singing a tune called, ‘Now I changed my mind, and I’m actually crushing on Sean pretty hard.’ And the chorus might go something like, ‘Thank you so much, Aunt Jen. You always know what’s best for me in my life.’”
“Well, I don’t know about that, and besides, I want to go out on a date with Paul, not Sean.” Immediately, I realized what I’d said, and I corrected myself. “Jake. I want to go out on a date with Jake, not Sean. I want to go out with Jake.”
Jen snorted. “I’m starting to think you don’t know what you want.”
Funnily enough, I was starting to feel like that, too.
Not wanting to talk about guys anymore, I changed the subject to the show that was on TV, asking Jen if she liked it. Fortunately, it was a new favorite of hers, so she didn’t resist the subject change.
Once the show was over, she piled all our dishes back on the tray and began heading back downstairs with it, saying that she was going to try to “mingle” a little bit if the meeting was over. “I might see if I can set up a double date for us, too.”
“All right. Great. Just make sure that my partner in the double date is Jake, Jen.”
Already out of my room and walking down the hallway, she probably didn’t even hear me.
A short while later, while I was snuggling in bed with Wanted, watching another TV show, I received a text from Jen. You want a Sunday with sum of that blubbery ice creem you brot hom?
Perplexed, I read the text twice, only realizing on the second reading that Jen surely meant blueberry ice cream, not blubbery. Stifling a little laughter, I texted her back that a single-scoop sundae sounded amazing.
Twenty-some minutes later, when Jen hadn’t shown up with my sundae, I figured that she might have gotten sidetracked talking to David or something. Starting to really get tired and wanting to go to sleep, I began typing a text, telling her to never mind about my sundae, because I was about to hit the hay. However, before I could send the text, Jen came in my room bearing two ice cream sundaes in big clear glass sundae dishes. One of the sundaes was much larger than the other, with a base that looked to be composed of multiple scoops of blueberry ice cream, as well as chocolate and vanilla. On top of the ice cream was a banana drizzled with what appeared to be melted peanut butter, with a handful of peanuts and some crushed pretzel pieces on top of that. Sickeningly, at least to me, several nacho cheese-flavored tortilla chips were wedged between the dish and a scoop of ice cream.
The smaller sundae was a little more on the classic side, with a single scoop of blueberry ice cream, a drizzle of blueberry syrup made with blueberries from the farm, and a puff of whipped cream topped with a cherry. It was this sundae that Jen handed to me, frowning.
“Here. Jake made it for you.”
Before I could even ask her how that had come to be, she hopped in bed beside me and began explaining. “See, when I got downstairs, there were maybe only a dozen people or something still hanging around from the meeting, but David and Sean were among those people. So, I had an idea to get to talk to them a little more, and maybe get you involved with Sean a little more, even though you weren’t there. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m about to make ice cream sundaes for me and Chrissy. Do you guys want to help?’ And David said, ‘Oh, sure!’ and Sean opened his mouth to answer, and I know he was going to say the same, but then big, dumb-head Jake walked up, and he was like, ‘Oh, let me help. I’ll make Chrissy’s sundae.’” Indicating that the very memory of this interaction irritated her to no end, Jen paused in her retelling to do an eye-roll for the ages, tipping her head back dramatically while she did so. “Well, what could I do? Be completely rude and say, ‘Well, actually, Jake, we don’t really need your help, so….’ I honestly might have, if Carol hadn’t been around. But I knew she’d probably go off on me about being nice to guests or something, so I just basically shut my mouth. Except that I didn’t shut it completely, though, because I said, ‘All right, Jake. You can come with us to the kitchen.’ But I said it in, like, a not-very-warm sort of way.”
“So, he made my sundae, and David made yours?”
Picking up her spoon, Jen nodded with her expression brightening a bit. “Yeah. David made mine all by himself, and he did a really great job on it. He kept teasing me, saying that in the couple months since he’s been turned, he’s already forgotten what humans like to eat, and how they make sundaes. He kept pulling out all these crazy things from the fridge, like ketchup and mustard, saying stuff like, ‘Now, you wanted extra mustard on your scoops of blueberry ice cream, right?’ He was totally cracking me up. Then when he was getting the can of peanuts out of the cupboard, he pulled out a bag of nacho chips, and he was like, ‘Now, you probably want some of these tucked in the side of your dish, to scoop up the ice cream with, right?’ I think he thought that I’d think that was gross, but I was just like, ‘Now, that’s a great idea.’ Meanwhile, Jake was at the other end of the island, making your own sundae, acting like he didn’t know damn well that I’d wanted Sean to make it.”
Scooping up a bite of ice cream with whipped cream, I couldn’t help but smile a little. “Well, I think it’s kind of sweet that he sort of elbowed Sean out of the way to make my sundae. That must mean that he really likes me as much as I like him…because clearly, he didn’t want to give Sean a chance to move in on me.”
“Yeah, clearly. That’s why once he was done making your sundae, I ripped a sheet of paper from a notepad on the island, and I gave it to Jake, and I was like, ‘Can you please go take this note out to Carol in the dining room for me?’ And he was like, ‘It’s blank.’ And I just stared him down, and I was just like, ‘It’s written in invisible ink.’ And then I just kept on staring him down until he finally grabbed the paper and went out to the dining room with it. That was when I arranged our double date with David and Sean.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. It’s all set for tomorrow afternoon. The four of us are going into Sweetwater to play mini golf.”
Dropping my spoon into my dish, I groaned. “Jen, I really don’t appreciate—”
“You’re welcome, but you really don’t need to thank me. See, when you said my name as your first word when you were a little baby, I knew that was all the thanks I’d ever need to help you do all sorts of different stuff in your life. At that moment, I remember thinking, ‘I’m really gonna help this sweet niece of mine someday. I’m gonna help fix her up on a date to go mini golfing with the boy of her dreams.’ I didn’t know Sean then, obviously, but—”
“But I want to go mini golfing with Paul. Not Sean. I mean…Jake. He’s the one I want to go mini golfing with.”
Disturbed and frustrated that I’d said Paul when I’d meant Jake yet again, I shoveled a big bite of ice cream in my mouth to stop myself from saying anything else idiotic.
In response to what I’d said, Jen scoffed. “You really need to get your guys straight, but speaking of Paul, guess what he was doing when I came downstairs?”
To stop myself from asking what and seeming in any way interested in Paul, I ate another large bite of ice cream, trying to act as disinterested in the conversation as possible.
Jen continued anyway. “Paul was sitting at the dining room table with your dad, and they were both drinking whiskey.” When I said nothing, popping the cherry from my sundae in my mouth instead, Jen went on. “Yup. They were just sitting up to the table, just gettin’ sloshed on whiskey. Just like a couple of drunks.”
Finally, I responded. “You know my dad’s not even remotely a ‘drunk.’”
“Yeah. We don’t know that about Paul, though…and maybe that’s why I get a sketchy vibe from him. Maybe that’s what he’s hiding…the fact that he has a severe alcohol dependency problem.”
“Or, like many vampires, maybe he just enjoys a drink every now and again in social situations, since alcohol is the one ‘human’ thing that isn’t absolutely repulsive to vampires.” Irritated, I realized that I’d just defended Paul for whatever reason, and I began backtracking. “Or, you could be right. Maybe he does have a severe alcohol dependency problem. That would make sense with his name-calling earlier…maybe he was just going into withdrawal and decided to take it out on me. At any rate, I couldn’t care less.”
I went back to eating my ice cream, telling myself that the last thing I’d said to Jen was true. However, after a few bites, I couldn’t stop myself from asking her a question.
“So, were my dad and Paul just drinking silently, or were they talking? And, if they were talking, did you happen to overhear anything they were saying?”
With her jaw clenched, Jen dropped her spoon in her dish, then looked at me with her nostrils flaring. “We’re talking about the wrong guy, Chrissy. Sean is your date for tomorrow, remember?”
“Yeah, but he’s only my date because you set it up that way. If I’d had a choice, I would have chosen to go mini golfing with—”
“Don’t you dare say Paul again.”
Horrified, I realized that my mouth had been forming the letter P.
Suddenly extremely tired, I tried to deny it, just as much to myself as to Jen. “I was going to say Jake. That’s who I wanted to go mini golfing with. Jake. Not some guy who tried to make me feel like a complete nerd and a loser for liking books. Not some guy who implied that I’m a total slob or something just because I still happened to be in my work clothes, which just happened to be covered in ice cream.”
“Hey.” With some spark suddenly flickering in her eyes, Jen set her dish of ice cream aside, looking at me intently. “Will this be your very first date tomorrow?”
I said yes, and she clasped her hands together.
“Oh, this will be even more special than I thought, then. We’ll have to get you looking really fancy…I’ll do your hair in big, bouncy waves how you like, and maybe you can wear that new pink sundress you got last weekend. Maybe with your tan, wedge-heeled sandals? I’ll do your makeup, too; this’ll be really fun.”
I wasn’t too sure about that, but I agreed to let Jen do my hair and makeup, just because I didn’t want to have any kind of an argument about it. Seemingly satisfied, she soon fell silent while we finished our ice cream watching TV. When we were finished, she took our dishes and a sleepy Wanted out of my room so that I could brush my teeth and go to bed.
Despite being extremely tired, I couldn’t fall asleep right away that night. In fact, an hour rolled by before I was finally able to drift off. My sleep wasn’t exactly deep or pleasant, though. I kept having hazy, vaguely disturbing dreams, waking briefly between each one, although I couldn’t really remember what they were about.
I did, however, remember one dream I had around dawn. In it, I was outside in the front yard, looking up at dark, swirling storm clouds covering the sky. After a little while, the clouds kind of floated down to earth, enveloping me in a mist. Stumbling around, I tried to make my way back to the house, colliding with something or someone along the way. Struggling to focus while in this dream, I eventually realized that I’d collided with Paul, who was looking at me with his gray eyes just as dark as the storm clouds that were now swirling all around us. I awoke with a start, knowing that this was not the person I should have been dreaming about.