Page 32 of The Friend Game

There’s a knocking on my front door and my heart leaps in my chest. Maybe it’s Luke, come to make my daydreams a reality. I hurriedly set the toilet brush back in its container, strip my gloves, and check my reflection as I wash my hands. I frown at the wisps of hair escaping my braid, butthere’s no time to fix it, the quiet knocking has intensified into a banging. A thrill runs through me as I rush to the door. It has to be Luke. Who else would bang on my door like this? He’s here and he’s desperate to see me. Desperate to tell me that he decided he couldn’t wait to take me out so he went before the elders and deacons and demanded they release him from the contract he signed—

I yank open the door, already a little lightheaded at the prospect of Luke sweeping me off to a romantic lunch, and my eyes land on…nothing. There’s no one there. Then I hear giggles and look down. Ellie is standing there with none other than Mia Stone. They’re wearing matching tie-dye shirts, pigtails, and mischievous grins.

“I told you Miss Garza lived in my backyard!” Ellie proclaims proudly.

Mia looks up at me with wide eyes. “Why do you live in Ellie’s backyard, Miss Garza?” she asks. “Why don’t you live in a normal-sized house?”

I blink down at them, trying to reorient my brain around the fact that my fantasy of Luke being at my door to take me out has been replaced with the reality of two little girls asking questions about the financial discrepancies between their parents and the rest of America. Is it my job as her art teacher to inform her that whatever gargantuan mansion she lives in is not a normal-sized house?

Ellie saves me from having to give them a lesson on the different economic classes in America by announcing, “Miss Garza is my aunt and my daddy said she lives in our backyard because her ex-boyfriend is a butthead.”

I’m torn between embarrassment, the thought that I should correct her language, and being touched that my brother-in-law called someone a butthead in defense of me. He’s a regular Elle Woods.

“Ellie!” Jill’s voice cuts in as she rushes towards us looking harried. “Watch your language. Butthead is not a nice word. I’m sorry, Hannah,” she sighs. “I’m supposed to drive the girls to their first flag football practice at the school, but Max’s mom called desperate to talk about Thanksgiving plans, and then I couldn’t get her off the phone.” She eyes her watch and sighs. “So now I’m going to be late to my hair appointment, since the school is on the opposite side of town from my salon.”

“No, Mommy, you don’t have to be late. Aunt Hannah will drive us,” Ellie offers for me. “She’s a better driver than you anyway.”

Jill laughs. “Oh is that so?”

“Yes,” Ellie replies solemnly, “because she turns the music all the way up.”

Jill looks at me, and I just shrug. “That’s true. I do.”

“Well, Ellie, when you need to be fitted for a hearing aid in a few years, I’ll know who to blame.”

“We have the windows down, mommy,” Ellie explains, “so all the sound goes out of the car. Our ears are fine.”

“I’m not sure you know how sound works,” Jill replies dryly. “But honestly, I’m so behind right now I don’t care. If your aunt is willing to take the two of you, then it’s fine with me.”

Ellie and Mia both turn wide-eyed hopeful gazes on me. “Pleaassseee,” Ellie begs, clasping her hands together and bouncing up and down. She’s hard to resist this niece of mine. Plus, I may be terrified of her mother, but I actually enjoyed having Mia in art class this last week. She’s fun and a little zany. Driving the two of them won’t be hard.

“With a cherry on top,” Mia adds, her unblinking eyes fixed on me like a sad little puppy who just wants one bite of your dinner.

“Fine,” I say with a sigh, “but I’m holding you to that cherry, Mia Stone.”

I guess I’ll figure out how to ask Luke about Caroline later.

***

True confession: I love driving Ellie around probably as much as she likes me driving her around. There’s just something so freeing abouthaving a kid in the backseat. I can listen to whatever music I want and no one can judge me for being too old. If I want to let it go, both literally and musically, then we will get ourFrozenon. If I want to blast some boy band songs, it’s cool, I have young fans with me. Or if, like today, I feel like listening to songs from when I was a teen, I can deem that as educational rather than living in the past. Like art, music education is an under appreciated discipline.

Mia, Ellie, and I have the windows rolled all the way down and are blasting a mixed CD I made when I was seventeen. It’s a pretty amazing CD, if I do say so myself, containing a wide variety of rap (which I mostly skip due to the young ears in back), pop, country, and even some oldies my friends and I used to love. The last notes of “Thunder”by Imagine Dragons fade out as we turn into the school parking lot, and the next song, my favorite on the CD thanks to a mini obsession I used to have with the movieBenny and Joon, starts to play.

Ellie and I start singing along, and Mia, who apparently doesn’t have a cool aunt like me and therefore doesn’t know the words, starts bobbing her head, hooked by the sick beat (like I said, I’m very cool and say all the cool things). When the line about getting drunk comes, I do what I always do when Ellie or Liam are in the car and turn the music down and belt out my own lyrics, “When I getdrums, oh I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who plays drums next to you!”

It’s as I’m turning the music all the way back up that I see him. Luke. He’s standing by his bright yellow car, staring at me, the corner of his mouth tipped up in a smile. Oh my goodness gracious! I slam on the brakes and sink down in my seat.

Why? Why am I always doing embarrassing things in front of him?

And why, oh why does he always have to look so good when I’m doing those embarrassing things?

He’s wearing black athletic shorts and a bicep hugging red t-shirt. A pair of Ray-Bans shade his eyes from the bright sun and a backwards baseball cap sits on his head.

I love a good backwards baseball cap.

“Aunt Hannah,” Ellie shouts over the music, “why did you stop here? This isn’t a parking spot.”

“There are no lines,” Mia pipes up as I hurry to shut off the blaring music. “You’re supposed to park between the two yellow lines, Miss Garza.”

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