Page 36 of Absorbed

“Aww…thanks. Too bad I can’t. I have to go to my dad’s. Wanna come with me?”

“I’ve gotta stick around here. Help my parents cook and clean up and stuff. You sure you can’t get out of it?”

“My stepmom has been guilt-tripping me since Dad got me the car. But I hate being alone there.”

“Sucks. It’d be nice to…hang out, you know?”

Stacey exhaled. “Yeah. Sucks.”

“Cable Guycame out. Wanna go tomorrow night?” Gabe sounded hopeful.

Shit,Stacey thought. She’d promised him she’d go as soon as it released, and totally forgot. It had already been a couple of weeks. But now she had a date with Jessie to watch the meteor shower. No way would she tell Gabe about that. “I’m sorry! A group of us are going to seeIndependence Daytomorrow.” Her voice faltered on the word ‘tomorrow.’ She spoke faster to avoid tripping on any more of the words.“It’s a work thing. Maybe we could seeCable GuySaturday?”

Only a little white lie.Stacey chewed her fingernail.

“Fun for you.” His disappointment weighed heavily through the phone. “I close Saturday.”

“Then we’ll go Sunday. We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah.” Gabe exhaled. “Gotta go. Call me later?”

“Sure,” Stacey replied. “Bye.” But Gabe had already dropped the line.

Stacey flopped back on the bed and let the phone roll from her hand. She stared at the ceiling, her head and heart spinning as fast as the fan above her. She’d never lied to Gabe before. She grabbed the roots of her hair with both hands and tugged, groaning, then dragged her hands down her face. She always chose Gabe over everyone else.

But now she had Jessie. All she could think was how she wanted to be kissed by him again. Gabe might never want to kiss her the way Jessie did.

Stacey’s feelings about Gabe and Jessie swirled like bold colors on a blank, wet page. When she thought of Gabe, she envisioned her watercolor brush tip thoughtfully easing dark green and steel gray rivers on the page with ribbons of vivid magenta running through them. With Jessie it felt more like wild splatters of bold yellow and navy blue and bright orange.

The combination of the two felt uncomfortable, like looking at Ms. Moreno’s abstract roses. Like all her emotions were colliding into one big, undecipherable blob where the colors ran together into a muddy mess.

There was a tap on her bedroom door. Stacey blinked and the watercolor vision was gone. “Come in.” She turned her head to the side, glaring at the door as it opened.

“Doodle Bug, you need to hit the road soon.” Her mom leaned into the room, holding the door handle and door frame for support. “There’s gonna be a lot of traffic. You said Jackie wanted you there by two.”

“Ugh… I know…”

“Well, I’m leaving for Aunt Susie’s. Later I’ll be at that barbecue I told you about, so I won’t be here when you get home.”

“Who’s having a barbecue?”

“A guy I know from work.”

“Like…he’s a stylist? Or you cut his hair,” Stacey sneered, “and he invited you over for the Fourth of July?”

“It’s not like that. There’s a big group of us. Drive safe, okay? And don’t wait up.”

The door closed before Stacey could respond. She looked at the digital clock on her nightstand. 11:45. With a two-hour drive ahead of her, and considering she was still unshowered, she was definitely going to be late.Whatever. This party is for their friends, anyway.

Stacey scratched beneath Murphy’s chin. “I’ve gotta get through today at Dad’s, Murph. But my date with Jessie tomorrow will be the real celebration!”

She went to her closet to find something patriotic to put on.

More than three hours later, Stacey climbed out of her old Honda parallel parked between a brand-new Range Rover and a vintage Rolls Royce, and realized she should have worn something a little nicer. She tugged at the hem of her denim skirt and pulled up on her red spaghetti strap tank to cover her cleavage, looking down quickly to make sure the laces of her white Converse were tied. She locked her car, then laughed at the absurd thought of someone breaking into the Silver Bullet in this neighborhood.

The street in front of her dad’s house was jam-packed with cars, so Stacey had to walk a block and a half past perfectly manicured lawns and trimmed hedges before making her way up the long, steep driveway. Nothing in Marina Vista resembled the trailer parks and brown lawns of Mesa Valley. Each mini-mansion she passed was bigger than three of the houses Stacey lived in with her mom.

Lining her dad’s driveway were rows of freshly planted flowers in shades of red, white, and deep purple.Couldn’t they just hang up a flag?The driveway was so crammed with cars, at the top Stacey had to slide sideways between her dad’s navy BMW and her stepmother’s silver Mercedes.

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