“Yes, you should.” No subtlety here.
“Greg's apparently real close to Celia. She told me after church how much he's talked to her about you. He says you're just the kind of girl he's been looking for.”
Me.
Me.
“What kind of girl would
that
be?”
“Don't sound so surprised, Jackie.” Katherine balled up the tissue in her hand. “A girl who's pretty and smart and not stuck on herself. Someone who cares about people. Celia says that, for all Greg's success, he's very much the same way.”
My mind blitzed a dozen questions at once. “I saw you talking after church. Miss Jessie was with you; did she hear this, too?”
Katherine sat on my bed, patting the spot beside her. I took it, not thinking that this was how my mama and I used to talk about dating. Not thinking that at all. “I'm sorry,” Katherine said. “I don't want you to feel strange, three women gossiping about you. Celia wouldn't tell anyone else, I'm sure, but Miss Jessie's close to both of us.”
I nodded, not really caring. Miss Jessie I trusted completely. My fascination lay in the wordsâ
you're just the kind of girl he's been looking for.
Even after kissing Greg, even though I knew he liked me, it was so hard to believe.
“The thing is . . .” I traced the stitching on my bedspread with a finger. “What does it matter? He's leaving.”
She laid her hand over mine and squeezed. “I know.” I felt my throat grow tight again. “You can at least see him when LuvRush comes to Lexington. I'll take you.”
“What if Daddy doesn't let me go?”
She smiled with secret knowledge. “Don't worry. He'll let you go.”
I looked at her face and saw her resolve to fight for me. Katherine most certainly could twist Daddy around her finger. I'd have no worries about the concert. I managed a wan smile back.
“Do you know when it is?” she asked.
I shook my head. “We talked about his schedule today. Greg promised to call his manager and get the whole thing for me. He'll give it to me tomorrow.” I eyed her askance. “I
will
be able to see him tomorrow.”
Katherine raised her eyebrows. “I've managed it for you every day up till now, haven't I?”
“You've
done that?” I gave her a dubious look. “When you heard me talkin' to Daddy today after lunch, you ditched us and went to play with Clarissa.”
“That's because I won't get in the way of you and your daddy. But that doesn't keep me from speaking my mind when you're not around.” She wagged her head in a gesture of self-satisfaction.
I did not know what to say. Had Katherine been fighting for me even after I turned against her Friday night?
Well. Good for her. I'd take her up on the help for one more day. “Will you make sure Daddy lets us go out to supper tomorrow night?”
“I don't know,” she teased. “Actually, we were thinking of going out.”
I pushed her arm. “Fine. You'll just have to find another baby-sitter.”
We smiled at each other.
I glanced away at my clock radio. “Oh, it's nine o'clock! I have to put Clarissa to bed.”
“And I should be getting home. But not until I've talked to your daddy about you and Greg.” She touched my hair, then rose. “Thank you, Jackie. For talking to me.”
I nodded, wanting to say,
Don't forget your promise.
Don't ever forget.
J
ackie, somebody's waitin' for you!” Nicole announced in a singsong voice after the last bell. She rushed up to my locker, her eyes bright. “I just went out the door, and there's Greg, standin' on the steps! He asked if I'd find you.”
Whoa. Waiting to walk me home from school. As if talk hadn't run like a rabbit around the halls all day. I'd heard nothing but “Jackie, tell me!” and “Jackie, is it true?” hour after hour. First, practically everybody in our high school wanted to know about what happened at our house Friday night. I said as little as possible about that. Then they wanted to know about the guy from Greece who'd helped save the lives of me and my family. Was I really going out with him?
Yes, it's true, I said again and again, affecting nonchalance.
“But what're you goin' to do when he leaves?” the girls all wondered. Why did everybody have to ask that question?
The boys, of course, also heard the talk. “So, Jackie,” Billy Sullivan teased, “you like those foreign types, I hear.” Billy's groupies hung on his every word, hoping for a reaction. I did not disappoint.
“He's better than anything I could find here.” I had stuck my nose in the air and pushed him aside, tingling with satisfaction at the guffaws of his friends.
“Well, get out there!” Nicole cried now. “Get your books and go.” “I'm goin', I'm goin'.”
I chose my books in a hurry and banged my locker shut. Nicole stuck by me like glue, her messenger status affording her the right to escort me to Greg. We passed Derek in the hallway, loping along at his usual pace, and I barely noticed until he said hello. “Oh, hi!” I managed, blithely patting his arm as we sailed by. Out the corner of my eye I saw his gaze fall to where my fingers had touched.
Nicole and I reached the propped-open front door of our building. I took a deep breath and stepped outside.
A small entourage of girls surrounded Greg. For a second I nearly panicked, thinking surely someone had recognized him. Instead I heard only questions about his bruised faceâdid it still hurt? Was that the first fight he'd ever been in? For heaven's sake. Greg's mere appearance caused enough excitement. Imagine if they knew who he was.
“Hi.” He dazzled me with a smile that sent my heart tumbling.
“Hi.”
My friends shuffled back as Greg moved to my side. He wore designer jeans and a shirt of ice blue that sheened in the sunlight. “Let me take your backpack.” I handed it to him wordlessly and he shrugged it on. Then he turned and said goodbye to the girls, who ogled his every move. As we hit the steps, he took my hand.
I did not dare look back. I didn't have to. The envy of my friends practically reached out and plucked the shirt right off my back.
“Grandma will be coming to pick us up,” I told him when I could find my tongue. Thinking was it just last week that I'd met him in the dime store? It seemed more like a lifetime ago. “I'll need to tell her I'm walking. She can take my books.”
Moments later we stood at Grandma's car, Robert sliding into the backseat with the experience of a casted athlete. Greg set my backpack on the floor. Clarissa ran up, flushed and excited, Alma Sue at her side. “See?” she cried to Alma Sue, “that's my sister's boyfriend that I told you about. And he's a famous singer in a rock band!”
“Ah, good,” Greg muttered. I could have strangled my sister. Alma Sue's eyes widened, then turned suspicious as she peered from Clarissa to Greg. She smacked both hands on her hips and cocked her head at him. “I don't believe you,” she taunted Clarissa, still eyeing Greg as if he were some specimen under glass.
“Well, it's true!”
“Clarissa, be quiet!” I turned her around and pushed her toward the car. “Grandma's waiting, now get in!” She flounced inside and banged shut the door. I leaned down through the open window and shot Grandma an exasperated look. She raised her eyebrows back at me in an
oh-boy
expression.
“I'll wait for you to get home,” she said.
“Well, I still don't believe it,” Alma Sue practically sneered at me as Grandma drove off.
Every nerve in my spine tingled as I faced the little brat. I wasn't quite sure which made me madder, that she'd act so disrespectfully to me or that she was calling my sister a liar. “I'm glad you don't, Alma Sue,” I announced, “because if you did it just might prove you had a brain in your head.”
Alma Sue scrunched her face, apparently trying to decide whether I'd agreed with her or laid her flat. I opened my mouth to say more, but Greg firmly caught my arm. “Jackie. Let's go.”
I turned away, still huffing. We'd walked a block before my anger cooled and I could stop to remember I was parading through Bradley-ville hand in hand with Greg.
“She'll tell everybody, you know.”
He shrugged. “We are lucky it happens only now.”
Greg was right. What harm could it do now, when we had only one more night?
Apparently Katherine had worked her magic behind the scenes while I was at school. By the time I arrived home, Grandma had ensconced herself on the couch with Clarissa, clearly prepared to stay so that Greg could come inside. And when I called Daddy, he said we could go out for supper again. For the next hour I happily shared Greg with my familyâClarissa on the computer and even Robert in his bedroom, showing Greg his softball trophies.
If only Greg lived here,
I kept saying to myself,
if only, if only.
But then, he wouldn't be Greg.
He pulled a copy of the LuvRush concert schedule from his pocket, with his e-mail address at the bottom. I looked at the schedule. Saturday, August 22 was circled for Lexington. August 22. I closed my eyes.
Three months.
Greg pointed at his e-mail address. “You will write me every day? I will buy a cell phone, too. I'll call you when I can, but after concerts it's too late. An e-mail you can write anytime.”
“Yes, I'll write you. But I have to learn how to do the e-mails.”
“Come, I will show you. We can write one now and send it to me.”
We kicked a pouting Clarissa off the computer. “Come on, Clarissa,” Grandma urged, “it's their turn now. Besides, I'd rather play a game with you.” They went off to Clarissa's room while Greg taught me what I needed to know.
“Okay, now. You want what for your password?”
I thought a moment. “Willy Ray.”
He grinned. “Good. Type it as one word, no spaces.”
I did as I was told. Greg showed me how to get into the e-mail system and all its features, explaining that when I received an e-mail I could instantly see who'd sent it and at what time.
“Now you will write what?” Greg wondered aloud as we stared at the waiting cursor, his fingers perched on the keys. “I know.” He typed as I leaned in close, my chin on his shoulder.
Dear Greg, Will you kiss me tonight?
“Don't type
that!”
I gave him a playful punch. “What if someone reads it?”
“Nobody will read it but me. That is why you have a password.” He demonstrated how to send it. “There. Done.”
“Well, if you send me e-mails like that, I'm really gonna need my password. I can just imagine my family gobblin' that stuff up.”
“âGobblin'?”
“Eatin' it up. You know, enjoyin' it.”
“Oh.” He stole a quick kiss.
Once Greg left, I tried my best to concentrate on doing my homework. Two hours later, as soon as Daddy got home with the car, I picked Greg up to go out to supper, this time to a quiet little café in Albertsvilleâone of the few restaurants open on a Monday. We sat in a corner booth, holding hands and talking far more than eating, sans any Charlottes. He had brought me the LuvRush CD. I told him I'd play it until it wore right through. After our meal we drove to our vista point off Route 622 and parked and watched the sun set, dreading the moment when my 9:30 school-night curfew would force us back to Bradleyville.
I can remember that hour with Greg so clearly. The way he gently brushed hair off my forehead while I told him about Mama's cancer and her death. The way he hugged me as he said again that he didn't want to leave. “Hung Up on You” even played on the radio, and Greg sang along with his own voice, the words meant for me.
“Why?” I blurted when the song finished, wanting to hear what he'd said to Celia and more. That I was the kind of girl he'd been looking for. That he wouldn't forget me when he'd gone.
“Because you are beautiful.” His eyes radiated sincerity. “Because you are you.”
“You're gonna meet hundreds of beautiful girls,” I said. “They're gonna fall all over you, and you'll be able to have anyone you want. You'll forget me.”
“No, I won't.” He gripped my hands. “You don't understand if you think this. I feel things deep inside, Jackie; that is why I write songs. I will work hard on the tour. I will sing. Fans are important, but I don't give my heart to girls who only watch me sing. They don't know me. They don't know who I am on the inside. I need a . . .” He touched his tongue to his lower lip, seeking the word. “Something. When you dial the phone, you get it.”
“A conversation?”
“No.” He bounced our hands in frustration against the console. “A . . . connection! I need a connection to someone, like I have a connection to my family. When I am lonely, I think of them. Now when I am lonely, I will think of you.”
I studied his face, still unable to grasp that Greg could ever be lonely when surrounded by fans.
“Will you think of me?” he asked.
What a question. “Greg,” I said, “I don't know when there'll be a minute that I
won't
think of you. You don't know how much I'm gonna miss you.”
“Yes, I do. I will miss you as much. More. I love you, Jackie.”
The words sounded in my ears, and I could only bask in them, letting them warm me like the sun. Greg watched me almost anxiously, as if afraid he'd said too much. Imagine that. I hadn't known two people could fall in love in less than a week. But after all my dreams of love, if this wasn't the real thing, I didn't need it anyway. I didn't need anything more than what I felt at that moment. “I love you, too, Greg.”
He breathed deeply and slid his arms around me. Just held on. Part of me soaked in every sensationâthe texture of his shirt against my palms, his smell, the night crickets, the thickness of his hair between my fingers. And part of me hovered, looking down on myself, thinking,
This cannot be real.