My Life Next Door(21)
“Corona Borealis.”
“And over there?”
“Scorpius.”
“You really are an astrophysicist. What about that one over there?”
“Norma.”
A bark of laughter. “Honestly?”
“You’re the one who had a tarantula named Agnes. Yes, truly.”
He rolls onto his side to look at me. “How’d you find out about Agnes?”
“George.”
“Of course. George tells all.”
“I love George,” I say.
Okay, now his face is close to mine. If I were to raise my head and tilt over just a bit…But I will not, because there’s no way I’m going to be the one who does that. I never have been, and I’m not starting now. Instead I just look at Jase, wondering if he’ll lean any nearer. Then I see the sweep of headlights pulling into our circular drive.
I jump up. “I’ve got to get home. I’ve got to get home now.” My voice is high, panicky. My mother always checks my room before she goes to sleep. I run over to the chain fence, bang through the gate, then feel Jase’s hands at my waist, lifting me up so I’m nearly to the top of our tall slippery one, close enough to throw one leg over.
“Easy. You’ll make it. Don’t worry.” His voice is low, soothing. Probably his calm-the-nervous-animal voice.
I drop down on the other side and am running for the trellis.
“Samantha!”
I turn, though I can only see the top of his head over the fence.
“Watch out for the hammer. It’s still on the grass. Thanks for the race.”
I nod, give a quick wave, and run.
Chapter Ten
“Samantha! Samantha.” Tracy comes hurtling into my bedroom. “Where’s your navy blue halter top?”
“In my drawer, Trace. Whyever do you ask?” I respond sweetly. Tracy’s packing to leave for Martha’s Vineyard—half an hour before Flip’s picking her up. Typical. She regards it as the right of the first born to co-opt any articles of my clothing she fancies, as long as they’re not actually on my back at the time.
“I’m taking it, okay? Just for the summer—you can have it back in the fall, promise.” She yanks open my bureau drawer, scrabbling through clothes, pulling out not only the blue top but a few white ones.
“Right, because fall is when I’ll really need the halter tops. Put those back.”
“Come on! I need more white shirts—we’ll be playing tons of tennis.”
“I hear they may even have stores on the Vineyard these days.”
Tracy rolls her eyes and shoves the shirts back in, whirling to return to her room. Last year she taught tennis at the B&T, and I’m suddenly conscious that it will be weird without her there too, not just at home. My sister is, for all intents and purposes, already gone.
“I’ll miss you,” I say as she whips dresses off hangers, shoving them helter-skelter into a suitcase of Mom’s, not at all bothered by the prominent GCR monogram.
“I’ll send you postcards.” She opens up a pillowcase, striding into the bathroom. I watch as she sweeps the hair straightener, curling iron, and electric toothbrush off the counter into the sack. “I hope you won’t really miss me, Samantha. It’s the summer before your senior year. Forget Mom. Bust loose. Enjoy life.” She waves her birth control compact at me for emphasis.
Ugh. I so don’t need a visual aid for my sister’s sex life.
Shoving the compact into the pillowcase, she knots the end. Then her shoulders sag, her face suddenly vulnerable. “I’m afraid I’m getting in too deep with Flip. Spending the whole summer with him…Maybe not smart.”
“I like Flip,” I say.
“Yeah, I like Flip too,” she says shortly, “but I only want to like Flip till the end of August. He’s going to college in Florida. I’m headed to Vermont.”
“Planes, trains, automobiles…” I suggest.
“I hate that messy long-distance stuff, Samantha. Plus, then you wonder whether he’s got some girl on campus that you don’t know about and you’re making a fool of yourself.”
“Have some trust, Trace. Flip seems pretty devoted.”
She sighs. “I know. He brought me a magazine and a Froz-Fruit at the beach the other day. It was so sweet. That was when I realized I might be getting in too deep.”
Ooops.
“Can’t you just see how it all goes?”
Tracy’s smile is rueful. “I seem to remember that when you were dating Charley you had some sort of timetable for every move you’d let him make.”
“Charley needed a timetable or he’d have tried for sex in his dad’s Prius in our driveway before our first date.”