Chapter 10
MY GIRL
I called Layla the next night, too.
And the night after that.
More often than not, I wouldn’t even say hello at her greeting, and simply launch into conversation, picking up where we’d left off the night before.
By the third night of this, she called me out. “Trip,” she laughed. “Why didn’t you think to ask me about it today?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, stalling for the right way to explain. “We’re... different at school.”
There was a slight pause on her end before she finally capitulated. “I know what you mean.”
It was cool that we were on the same page about that. She knew damn well what our deal was. It was like we had five different relationships going on: School Us, Work Us, Tuesday Us, Weekend Us, and Phone Us. I was really digging Phone Us. As much as I enjoyed having her all to myself on Tuesdays, the safety of a phone line providing some distance between us allowed me to be myself.
It seemed Layla and I spent every spare moment of that week on the phone. Talking about all that personal resume stuff, the list of unique things that made a human being who they were.
How I couldn’t stop listening to the new Black Crowes album.
How she was adamant that Teddy Ruxpin was the Scariest Toy in the World.
How I thought The Godfather was the greatest movie ever made.
How she had seen every episode of The Brady Bunch.
More than once.
And was proud of it.
We would debate everything under the sun: Hockey vs. baseball, New York pizza vs. Chicago deep dish, “Moonlighting” vs. “Remington Steele.”
But for everything we talked about, her favorite subject was always books.
My God did that girl consume books. I never knew anyone who read as much as she did. I’d ask her what she was reading, and she’d offer up a different title practically every day.
She’d tell me all about her favorites; I’d play her some new songs.
We’d trade funny stories from our childhood. We’d talk about our day.
We never discussed Cooper Benedict. She never asked about Tess Valletti.
Not that there’d be much to tell. The only time Tess called me all week was because she needed a ride to go pick up her car from the shop. I took her out for a quick bite to eat afterward, but she didn’t even kiss me goodnight. I wondered if she could sense that I had another girl on my mind the entire time.
Because I did. Constantly.
The third week of our Shakespeare thing, we figured we’d better start doing some actual work. We filmed some practice scenes, but quickly put a halt to the show once Layla’s brother Bruce came home earlier than expected from freshman football practice. Rather than embarrass ourselves in front of an audience, we decided to focus on the technical process instead. Layla had been overly concerned with the editing procedure anyway, so Bruce’s arrival gave us the excuse to switch gears. Between the three of us, we MacGyvered a way to edit our film via a complicated system involving the camera, two VCRs, and a shit-ton of cables.
And then, to reward ourselves, we abandoned the project altogether in order to bake some chocolate chip cookies. It was about that time that Mr. Warren came home. He insisted I stay for dinner, took one look at what was doing in the oven, then promptly decided we should eat dessert first.
I liked the guy immediately.
* * *
Two days later was Layla’s birthday.
She’d been completely freaked out about taking her driving test, and I spent most of the week chilling her out.
I was freaked out for a completely different reason.
The thing was, I wanted to do something special for her, but I didn’t know what. Send her flowers? Bake her a cake? Something else? As much as I wanted to do something to knock her socks off, I kept coming back to the fact that it was Benedict’s show, not mine.
In the end, I opted for a twin-pack of Twinkies and a card.
Oh, but the card was a killer. I made sure to pick one that had daisies on it because daisies were her favorite flower. There was a baby duck sitting in the middle of the garden, which inspired me to customize the image with some ice cubes cut from a magazine ad.
But even better than the picture on the front was the words I’d written inside. I worked my ass off trying to strike the right note, going through about five different drafts in my notebook before settling on the final text. Check it out:
Layla-
Thanks for making this town feel like home to me.
I don’t think I could’ve made it here if it wasn’t for your smiling face every day.
Happy birthday to the coolest chick I know.
Yours,
Trip
Pretty good, right?
I also bought her this mini Rubik’s Cube keychain that I wrapped up myself in metallic pink paper. But at the last minute, I decided to stash it in my desk drawer until I knew for certain that she’d passed her driving test. If she didn’t, a keychain would’ve been the worst gift I could give her. It was bad enough that New Jerseyans had to wait until seventeen to get their license as it was. It would suck to fail the test and have to wait an extra two weeks on top of it.
I went to play hockey right after school, so it wasn’t until almost closing that I stopped by the mall to see her. The store was empty, and she was looking pretty bored at the front register—chin in her hands, staring at the air in front of her face.
“Hey you,” I said, jogging her out of her trance. She aimed a huge elated grin toward me which did weird things to my stomach.
“Who, me?” she asked, feigning innocence.
“Yeah, you.” I met her at the register, propping an elbow on its surface. “Of course you. You see any other birthday girls around here?”
She leaned over the counter toward me, smiling ear to ear. “I knew you’d come.” Her enthusiastic greeting made me feel like I made the right call showing up like this.
“So...” I asked, tentatively. “You got some good news to share?”
She ducked behind the counter for a second before coming up with a set of keys which she jangled in front of my face in answer.
I held up my hand for a high-five as I commended, “Awesome! You passed! I knew you would.”
She couldn’t hide the grin on her face as she replied, “Thanks. Even aced parallel parking.”
“Thatta girl.”
“Now I just need a car of my own. I’m thinking Ferrari.”
“Sure, why not?” I snickered. She was obviously only kidding, but with our piddly hourly salary from Totally Videos, she’d be lucky enough to save up for any car within this century. “Oh, hey. I got you something.” I reached into my jacket pocket to pull out the card, but suddenly thought better of it.
Okay, fine. I wimped out.
Tossing the Twinkies onto the counter, I teased, “I baked you a cake.”
She exaggerated her reaction when she clasped her hands together and said, “Oh, Trip! You shouldn’t have.”
“Ha! Don’t pretend like Twinkies aren’t your favorite. I slaved over a hot stove all day to make those for you.”
“Oh, I’ll bet.”
She promptly opened the cellophane wrapper and handed one to me.
“Aw, Lay, you don’t have to share. I bought those for you.”
She smirked and cocked her head to the side. “You don’t expect me to polish off an entire birthday cake by myself, do you?”
I reluctantly took her offering and chuckled as I clinked it to hers in a toast.
“So,” she said, tearing off a miniscule piece of cake and popping it into her mouth. “You had nothing better to do with your night off than come in here and feed me junk food?”
I snickered through my mouthful of Twinkie. “I just thought it would suck that you had to work on your birthday. Does it?”
She gave a shrug, met my eyes, and replied, “Well, it did... until now.”
Holy shit.
It wasn’t often that Layla blatantly flirted with me. Teasing? Busting my chops? Sure, yeah, all the time. But outright flirting?
I almost couldn’t take it.
I drummed my fingers against the counter before saying, “Hey, look. I gotta go, but I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay?”
“Yep. I’ll be there.”
I stood there debating the wisdom of what I was about to do, but my hand moved on its own before my brain could tell it not to. Layla froze in place as my fingers slipped around her neck and rested on the soft skin of her nape. I chanced a glimpse at her eyes, and saw her pupils dilate as I leaned across the counter and pulled her face closer to mine.
And then...
at the last possible second...
I totally fucking choked and kissed her cheek.
My lips rested against her skin as my eyes closed in anguish, cursing myself for holding out. Even still, her sweet summery scent assaulted my senses, tainting the oxygen that was fighting to make its way into my lungs. What was it about this girl that had me second-guessing every instinct I’ve ever possessed?
I pulled back, stunned by the recent turn of events, and stammered out, “H-happy birthday, Layla.” I managed to regain some semblance of cool enough to grin casually as I added, “See you tomorrow.”
And then I got the hell out of there.
* * *
Friday nights at Totally Videos were always a madhouse. Lay and I were wiped by the time we punched out. But little did she know, our night was just beginning.
We locked up and settled into my truck, Layla letting out with a big, stretching yawn. Girls are so goddamn sexy when they yawn. Sultry half-lidded eyes, sleepy just-fucked look on their faces... Yeah. You’re right. Let’s go to bed.
She was flipping through the radio stations as my truck barreled down the road, ferrying us through the crisp, promising, autumn night as if we had miles of open road ahead of us and all the time in the world. There was a small part of me that wanted to carry out that fantasy, empty us onto Route 80 and drive as fast and as far as I could, just the two of us, away from everything and everyone we’d ever known.
But in reality, I had a specific destination in mind. And once I turned down Trestle Ave., I was pretty sure Layla knew it, too. The jig was up.
“Where are we going?”
I pasted a smile on my face and said, “Don’t worry about it. Just shut up and let me drive.”
Fact was, we were headed for The Barrens, and I was pretty sure she’d already figured it out. The place was nothing more than a desolate field in a bad neighborhood, but it served as the perfect hangout. Supposedly, it flooded frequently, as did most of the land that bordered the river. But on dry days when the roads were passable, you could cross the tracks with your buddies and some beers and make a night of it.
Rymer’d told me that it was a popular makeout place, a fact which I was quite sure wasn’t lost on Layla. She didn’t protest, however, and merely bit her lip as I pulled into the dirt lot behind a rusted-out shipping container and parked next to Lisa’s LeBaron.
“Wait,” Layla said. “That’s Lisa’s car.”
“Yes.”
“And Coop’s Audi.”
“Very observant, Lay.”
She deflated a bit before trying to explain. “Oh, I just thought...”
“Thought what?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head down at her lap. “It’s not important.”
Did she... Did she think I brought her here to... hook up? And she looked disappointed that we weren’t?
No fucking way. No fucking way was that possible.
I couldn’t contain the shit-eating grin that spread across my face at the revelation. I practically launched out of the car to open her door, escorting her around the cargo container to “the patio,” a cracked slab of concrete in the middle of the field.
Our friends were all sitting calmly around a small fire, but they perked up once they saw the guest of honor arrive. Lisa had arranged the impromptu surprise party, and coordinated with me to get Layla there.
Mission accomplished.
Lisa jumped up to run over. “Happy birthday!” she squealed, throwing a sparkly pink hat and feather boa on her best friend.
While those two yukked it up, I went over by the guys to say hello. The usual suspects were all lounged out in lawn chairs—Rymer, Sargento, Benedict... and Pickford Redy.
Lisa settled herself down in the chair next to Pick’s, and the way she was looking at him all googly-eyed told me that they were either an item or were about to be.
Huh. Interesting.
“Hey, Pick,” I said, shaking his hand. “What are you up to?”
“Not much, man. How you been?”
“Good.”
I took a seat across from him as Rymer handed me a can of Meister Bräu. “Drink ‘em while they’re cold, dude.”
“How much of a head start do you guys have on me?” I asked.
“This is the second case.”
“Shit. I’d better catch up.” I was only busting balls. After all, I brought Layla there and if I had any chance of bringing her home, I figured I’d better stay sober. Then again, I guessed it made more sense to assume Benedict would be the one to take the honors.
“Check you guys out!” Layla said animatedly as she made the rounds to kiss the guys hello. “Beer in actual cans? What, is the Pope coming to this party or what?
“You didn’t even see your cake yet!” Lisa gushed.
“You got me a cake?”
“Bitch, I made you a cake.” Lisa pulled the foil off a pan of brownies, proudly proclaiming, “Ta-da!”
“Get out of here!” Layla exclaimed. “Thank you, guys. Really. This is so cool.”
Her vibrant face was glowing from more than just the firelight as she sat down in the last unoccupied chair next to Lisa, two people away from me.
Kind of the perfect metaphor that Cooper Benedict was sitting between us.
Lisa lit the candles and held the pan toward Layla who didn’t wait for anyone to sing before blowing them out.
Amidst the swirling smoke, I asked, “Whadja wish for?”
Her eyes met mine briefly as she offered a mischievous smile. “Won’t come true if I tell, right?”
Just then, everyone’s attentions were diverted toward Rymer as he shotgunned his Budweiser, prompting Sarge to reprimand him. “Dude. Take it easy. We’ve got a game tomorrow.”
Rymer tossed the empty can over his shoulder. “Look. If Coach won’t let me get laid during the season, drinking’s all I have to look forward to.”
Layla’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean ‘won’t let you get laid’?”
Coop smirked. “Coach has made it pretty clear he’d rather we save all that aggression for the field.”
She was entirely skeptical, probably because she’d been screwing Benedict this whole time. “You never told me that!”
Pick piped in with, “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I play basketball!”
I laughed and added, “And that’s why I play hockey!”
We high-fived as Layla said, “Holy crap, I can’t even imagine.”
I bet you can’t.
I pounced on the setup she’d just provided as I raised my eyebrows at her. “You just heard me say that I play hockey, right?”
Everyone cracked up, but the thing was, I was entirely serious. It’s amazing what you can get away with under the guise of joking around.