Heather called her parents and told them she’d sent in her application. I wanted to call mine but had to wait: it was five in the morning in London.
Heather was very quiet on the drive to Aaron’s, so I asked her if she was okay.
“Yeah,” she said, staring out the window. “It just felt so weird. I thought more would happen at the end. But we all just sort of sat there and then George left.”
I glanced over at her. “Be happy. We’re about to see Aaron.”
“Fun.” She didn’t sound as enthusiastic as I’d expected, but I understood her dim mood; it was sobering sending off the application. It should have felt like the start of something, but instead it felt like something had ended. “Where do you think he was going?” she said after a moment. “George? Do you think he, like, had a date?”
“Nah,” I said. Then: “I mean, maybe. I don’t know. He did keep checking his phone, which isn’t like him.”
“Has he ever mentioned a girlfriend?”
“Never.”
“Do you think he’d tell you if he was going on a date?”
“Probably not.” We were both silent for a moment and then I said, “I bet it wasn’t a date.”
We reached the Marquands’ front gate, and I punched the call button on the keypad. No one responded. “That’s weird,” I said after an entire minute had gone by and I’d pressed it a few more times. “He said he’d be here.”
“Try texting him,” she suggested, so I did.
No response to that either. Since the gate was tall and solid—designed to block prying eyes—I couldn’t tell if there were any lights on in the house or any movement around it.
“Do you have their home number?” Heather asked.
“No. I’ll try his cell but he’s not answering my texts.” I let it ring a few times, and then to my surprise and relief, he actually did pick up, but the first thing he said was “I can’t talk.”
“We’re in front of your house,” I said. “Can you come out?”
“Wait a sec,” he said. “No, wait . . . Don’t wait.”
It sounded like a joke, so I laughed, but he didn’t.
“Just . . . go home,” he said in a strained voice. “I’ll come over when I can. If I can.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, but he had already hung up.
“What’s wrong?” Heather asked.
I stared at my phone, bewildered. “I have no idea.”
Heather and I decided to ditch our plans, since Aaron had said he’d meet us back at the house and I felt too worried now to just go out without him. Instead we picked up sandwiches and chips at Whole Foods and brought them back to my house, where we ate them in front of the TV—Grandma was watching The Stoned Housewives of Dippity-Do or whatever it was, and Heather wanted to watch it, too. Before it was over, her parents called to say they’d like her to come home soon, since it was a school night. “I’d argue with them if there was a reason to,” she said as she packed up her laptop, “but since we’re not really celebrating—”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Go.”
“You have to let me know what’s going on with Aaron as soon as you find out. And also whether George went on a date.”
“I’ll pass on any information I get.”
Poor Heather. She looked pretty deflated as she dragged herself out to her car. No wonder: she had made herself look so pretty for Aaron and then he’d totally flaked on us. What was going on with him?
I called Mom around eleven—it was still early in London, but I figured Jacob would have woken her up by then. “Is everything okay?” she said.
“Stop worrying every time I call you. I just wanted you to know I submitted my application to Elton. The deed is done.”
“Wow,” she said. “Congratulations!”
“How’s it going there?”
“Meh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Remember how I told you Jacob liked Bob? The male babysitter we got through the hotel? He was amazing and was making my life so much easier—but then he had some kind of family emergency and now he can’t come anymore. We’ve tried two other people since then. One of them was really young and she quit after the first day because Jacob wouldn’t stop crying. She was in tears when I came back to the hotel. I mean, literally in tears. She and Jacob were both crying in different corners of the room. . . . It was ridiculous.”
“What about the other one?”
“More competent, but I get this weird vibe from her. Like she hates Jacob.”
“Seriously?” I pictured my wavy-haired little beauty of a brother. “How could anyone hate him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. It’s possible I’m really as insane as Luke keeps telling me I am. It’s just . . . she babysat twice and both times I felt like she couldn’t even bring herself to smile at him. That he was just like this difficulty she had to deal with to get paid. I don’t want Jacob to be with people who feel that way. So I don’t want to use her anymore. But I also don’t want to leave him with another stranger. So it’s been me all day for the last couple of days, with no breaks. Luke’s already left for the set today—it’s going to be a long, lonely day here for me.”
“I have a great idea: Grandma should fly out and help you. That would solve all our problems!”
She gave a weary laugh. “Nice try. She’s all yours. Luke has tomorrow off, and he said he’ll take Jacob and I should go get a massage.”
“You should get ten massages.”
“You deserve one, too,” she said. “Sending in your college application . . . that’s amazing.”
“Save the praise for when I get into college,” I said. “But I’ll take the massage. Can I schedule one with Margo?”
“Sure,” she said. “Enjoy yourself now because when we get home, you are going to be spending a lot of quality time with your little brother.”
It was almost midnight. I had given up on hearing from Aaron and was getting ready for bed when I finally got a text.
I need a place to crash. Can I come there?
Like for the night? What’s going on??
No response.
About fifteen minutes later, the monitor in the upstairs hallway buzzed, and I opened the front gate, then crept downstairs to let him in. I was glad Grandma was a sound sleeper and already in bed.
Aaron looked . . . weird. Disheveled and tense and not at all like his usual cheerful, polished self. Even while he bent down to kiss my cheek, his eyes were darting around nervously, and as he stood back up he kept thrusting his fingers through his hair and tugging hard at the ends. He was dressed in gray sweatpants, a T-shirt in a slightly different gray, and flip-flops. “Can I come in?” he asked, blinking rapidly. “And sleep here?”
“Yes and sure, but you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on.”
Aaron sat down heavily at the table, hunching his shoulders with his head thrust forward.
“What is it?” I asked, sitting across from him. “What’s going on?”
He looked at me. Then he looked away and ran his fingers through his hair again. “You guessed, right?” he said.
“Guessed what?”
“You know. What’s been going on . . .” He shifted in his chair. “At the Halloween party, I could tell you had guessed. I was going to just tell you everything that night—it would have been a relief to have someone to talk to—but then I got the sense you didn’t really want to hear about it and I got that. I mean, why would you?”
At the Halloween party? Wait—was this all about being in love with me? “I’m so confused,” I said.
“Crystal,” he said. “Me and Crystal.”
“Did she kick you out? Was it because you’re so messy?”
He stared at me like I was an idiot. “No,” he said. “Jesus, Ellie, really? You didn’t know? I thought . . . I mean, you saw us at that Starbucks. . . .”
“Oh, wait,” I said slowly. “Oh, Aaron. Oh my God. You and Crystal? As in . . . you and Crystal?”
He dropped his head into his hands.
“Oh my God.” I was stunned. “Oh my God.” Then, “But you hate her.”
“Yeah, no,” he said, raising his head again with the ghost of his usual grin. “Not so much.”
“You kept complaining,” I said. “About how she was driving you crazy and how she and your dad—” I stopped. “Your dad,” I said. Then, “Oh, Aaron.”
“Shh,” he said, even though I wasn’t talking anymore. “Don’t. It’s his fault. In a way.” He rose suddenly to his feet and started pacing around the table, his hands twitching at his sides. “I mean, he was totally ignoring her. She’s like the most amazing, beautiful woman in the entire world, and he was never home and even when he was, he barely talked to her. She came to me crying one night. I’d thought she was so . . .” He ran his fingers through his hair again, searching for the word. “You know. Cold. Cut off. Almost inhuman.” He shook his head vehemently. “But she’s not like that, I swear. She’d just been hurt. That’s why she seemed like that. She was trying to defend herself against how mean he could be. And it’s so hard with a baby. I felt so bad for her. I just wanted to help her not be lonely.”
“Sounds like you succeeded.”
His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. “I guess.” He sank back into his chair and held his hands up in supplication. “You just have to know that she’s actually incredibly sensitive and caring and emotional. The way she seems—that’s just a mask.”
“Maybe.” I was skeptical. “But no matter what, she’s married to your father. That’s . . . weird.” It was a lot worse than weird, but I settled on the gentlest word I could think of.
“She’s closer to my age than to his, you know.”
“And that makes it okay?”
He said helplessly, “We were alone together so much. It wasn’t like we planned it. Things just happened.”
I could picture it: the beautiful young woman, bored and lonely and feeling like motherhood is draining her of her sex appeal, stuck at home with nothing to do because her famous husband is always at work or out schmoozing . . . and then along comes this incredibly handsome, dynamic stepson and the place is alive again and he makes her laugh and he’s there, and day after day they see each other and they eat dinner alone together and the baby’s off with the babysitter and she starts to look forward to their evenings together, when it’s just the two of them, and sometimes their hands touch when they’re passing food . . .
So much made sense now. Like that time I ran into them at Starbucks—they had probably snuck out to be alone together. No wonder she had acted so weird and couldn’t wait to get away: she was probably freaked out that I’d seen them, afraid I’d guess what was going on.
But all I’d seen was a kid being dragged out to a coffee shop by his stepmother. It hadn’t occurred to me for a second to look at it any other way. Which maybe meant I was incredibly naive.
And the way she had acted so cold to me—almost rude . . . she probably felt like I was some kind of rival. Aaron had flirted shamelessly with me in public—so much so that even I thought he was in love with me. Crystal must have known that he was trying to mislead everyone, but maybe it still bugged her to see the two of us walking around together, openly teasing each other and holding hands, when she had to keep her distance and be all stepmotherly.
“I get it,” I said. “Really. And I’m not judging you, but I still feel bad for your father.”
“You should have seen him half an hour ago,” Aaron said. “You wouldn’t have felt bad for him. You would have been terrified of him. I know I was.”
“Did he find out? Is that what was going on tonight?”
He nodded, sinking down low in his chair and staring at his own knees. “Crystal told him. It was crazy. I—you know how I had plans with you tonight? She was upset. She’s sort of jealous of you—”
“I can’t imagine why,” I said. “It’s not like you were all over me at the Halloween party or anything. It’s not like you bent me over backward and gave me a steamy kiss in front of the entire guest list. Oh, wait, my bad, it was exactly like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew my dad wanted us to go out, and I thought that if he saw us together a lot, he’d assume we were and . . .” He trailed off.
“It’s great,” I said. “I can take being someone’s beard off my bucket list.”
“Are you mad at me?” He sat up so he could reach across the table and touch my arm. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I honestly thought you knew what was going on.”
“You’re just lucky I didn’t buy into all the flirting. I could have been really hurt right now.”
“You’re not, though, right?” he asked, studying my face anxiously. “You’re not heartbroken or angry or anything, are you?” I rolled my eyes and he gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Right. No. Good.”
“But I might have been.” I didn’t want to let him off the hook too easily. It was only luck that had kept him from hurting me—I had completely misread the situation.
“But you aren’t.”
“But I might have been.” I let it drop. “So why did Crystal tell your dad tonight?”
“God knows. She’d been a wreck all week, kept saying she was sick of hiding things, that she couldn’t stand to sneak around anymore.”
“Did you feel the same way?”
“Not really. I mean, I didn’t like sneaking around either, but it’s not like we could run off together. I’m eighteen. She has a baby. Realistically . . .” He stopped.
Yeah, it was absurd.
“Anyway, she’d had a lot of wine tonight, and got mad at my dad about something and started going on about how he was never home and I was more of a husband to her than he was and then he was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ and then . . .” He flinched. “And then she told him exactly what she was talking about. While I just stood there like an idiot, not knowing what to say or do until he turned on me and scared the hell out of me.”
“He threw you out?”
“Sort of—he told me to get out of his sight.”
“What happens now?”
“Hold on. Text.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “Crystal,” he said. “But my dad could be looking over her shoulder, for all I know. I’d better be careful.” His thumbs started moving over the screen.
“A little late for careful,” I said as I watched him. “Don’t you feel bad for him? At all?”
He put down his phone. “If he had been a decent husband, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Don’t pretend this is all his fault and you’re some kind of innocent bystander.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Michael’s Luke’s best friend. He’s like my uncle.”
He held his hands out and said simply, “I do love him, you know. He’s my dad. It kills me that I’ve hurt him this much. But I don’t know what to do about it.”
I relented. He was my friend and he was in pain. “You can stay here until you figure it out.”
“Don’t tell Luke or your mom, okay? You can say my dad and I had a fight, but don’t tell them about Crystal and me. Please?”
I wasn’t crazy about hiding things from them, but I also wanted to respect Michael’s privacy and let him decide whether or not he wanted to tell his friends, so I agreed.