“He came,” I whispered to Dani. I was sitting on the seat of the toilet with the phone to my ear. My mom was still up watching TV.
“I hope he didn’t ruin your dress.” She made a smirking sound, a cross between a croak and a snicker.
“Oh, please.”
“Is he a hunk or a gunk?”
“Can you hear that?”
“What?” She sounded suspicious.
“It’s only just the sound of my heart melting.” I laughed when I said it, but it felt true enough.
“Oh, Lord Jesus,” she said and groaned. “Well, your heart sounds like a bathroom sink running to me. What’s the scoop?”
“Longish blond hair, good nose, muscles but not gross Schwarzenegger ones. Smells good. Nice kisser.”
Dani squealed. I held the phone away from my ear. “Did you do it?” she asked.
I said nothing. The jealous sound in her voice made me smile extra wide at myself in the steamed-up mirror. I ran a brush through my hair and examined the blackheads on my nose.
“Well, did you?”
“Sure. Just like you said. Right under the giant shrub shaped like Jesus’ head.”
“You did?” I think she almost believed it, not that she’d admit it in a billion years.
“No, we hung out in a flower patch behind an old barn and drank wine. I mean, come on. What do you think? It was our first—”
“Second, if you count the online one.”
“—and anyway,” I said, ignoring her, “I’m not doing it for the very first time in a weed patch, squishing bugs with my bare butt.”
“I thought you said flowers.” She made a got you noise. “Think you’ll do it next time?”
“We haven’t scheduled a next time yet.”
“Oh, but you will, I know it. Now you’ve had a taste of the forbidden fruit, there’s no turning back.”
“What movie is that from?” I said, thinking his kisses tasted more like forbidden Boone’s berries.
“None.” She laughed, a bright, tinny sound. “I’ve been reading one of my mom’s Scottish time-travel romance novels. That’s how bored I am, cooped up in the house all day.”
I knew for a fact she read them all the time. And loved them.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to do it yet,” I said, chewing my cheek and wondering if this was true. “Probably not.”
“When you do do it, make lots of sounds.”
“Why?”
“Men like it.”
“How do you know?”
“I read it in Vogue.”
“I thought you said not to.”
“Only at first, when he tears the flesh of your hymen. Afterward, yes. Double yes.”
I yelped at this.
“Be more realistic come mating season or you’ll sound like a piglet.” Then she cleared her throat in a way that told me something serious was coming up next. “Something happened.”
“Oh, shit,” I said, “not another e-mail.”
“No, maybe something worse, or I don’t know, Lynn. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should tell my dad.”
“You don’t have to tell him the whole story.”
“I saw somebody spying on me through the bat cave window.”
“What?” I nearly yelled.
“Yeah, I was painting my toenails around nine thirty with this new ice-blue polish I swiped from my mom and I heard this sound, this—” She ran her fingernail along the side of the phone so it made a hollow scraping sound. “When I looked up, I could swear I saw the shadow of a head and I screamed. I must of sounded pretty scared ’cause my dad came running down the stairs. When I told him, he ran out there lickety-split with his shotgun.”
“Damn,” I said in a hushed voice. “Did he—”
“No, but he thinks he found footprints. There’s a new flower bed beside the window and the landscaping guys did something up there the morning before so the dirt’s all loose.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I know. Dad called the police and they said they’d have someone circle the neighborhood a few times tonight.”
“Can’t they do anything else?”
“No, it pissed my dad off like nobody’s business. He raved and ranted about how he’s going to blow the guy’s head off. The police can’t do nothing at all unless we catch the guy red-handed or he actually does something.”
“Like—”
“Yeah, tear me a hole I can’t fix.”