After gathering their belongings and hiking back up the rocky hill, Christy enjoyed the warmth of Rick’s car.
He didn’t say much as they drove up the coast to Carlsbad. She wanted him to hold her hand and put on some soothing music, but he seemed deep in thought.
The moisture from the ocean mist had turned Rick’s dark hair wavy and thick, making him look all the more rugged, like a mountain climber. She liked his hair this way and wondered if she should say something.
“We need to talk before we go to dinner,” Rick said. “I want you to tell me everything you’re feeling. There’s too much that’s going unsaid between us, and I want to clear everything up, okay?”
Christy nodded as he glanced at her. They parked in a paved area on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Rick turned off the engine of his Mustang and leaned against the window so he could face Christy.
She couldn’t tell from his expression if he was angry or just serious.
“We’ve known each other about a year,” Rick began. “From the first time I met you, I knew you weren’t like a lot of other girls. I don’t know how you did it, but you got inside my head, and I thought about you all the time. Somebody told me you already had a boyfriend, but then I took a chance and asked you to homecoming, remember?”
Christy smiled. “Yes. I was so embarrassed to have to tell you I couldn’t date until I was sixteen—a whole nine months away.”
“And do you remember what I told you that day?” Rick’s voice matched his soft expression.
Christy felt her heart turn into a marshmallow as she looked into Rick’s eyes. “You told me that for a girl like me, you could wait that long.”
“I meant it, Christy.” Rick reached over and took her hand. “I’ve waited a long time to have you as my girlfriend. And now every time I try to hold you or kiss you, you pull away. Do you realize that ever since that night when you toilet-papered my house and jumped out of the bushes—man, you sure scared me—you’ve been running away from me? Why? I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. I only want to be close to you.”
He looked as if his heart had turned to marshmallow too. She had never realized Rick cared this deeply about her.
“I need to know why you won’t let me hold you and kiss you. What’s wrong with a guy showing his girlfriend how much he cares?”
How could Christy answer that? He made it sound so natural and innocent. How could she explain to him that she wanted to feel close to him too, but that his kissing overpowered her? How could he understand her promise to Alissa to do nothing more than light kissing with a guy?
“I want you to open up to me, Christy. Tell me what you’re thinking,” Rick pleaded, squeezing her hand.
Christy decided to try a question. “This may sound really stupid, Rick, but what is your standard? Do you know what I mean? How far would you go with a girl?”
Rick looked surprised. “What are you getting at, Christy? You think I’m trying to take advantage of you?”
“No, not really.” Christy felt embarrassed trying to talk about this with Rick. “I guess I kind of have a standard of not doing anything more than light kissing. And today on the beach, the way I started to feel when you were kissing me was, well, it felt like more than light kissing.”
Rick’s smile spread across his face. “So I made you feel sick to your stomach again?”
Christy remembered how she had said that the night they parked at a place overlooking Escondido to admire the lights of city. It seemed to make Rick proud that he had such power over her.
“No, it’s not that you make me sick to my stomach. I don’t know how to explain it.” Christy gathered courage to speak her mind. “You see, I love holding hands with you, and when you hug me, I feel warm and protected. Those things feel safe. The reason I keep pulling away, I guess, is because I don’t want to go beyond that and get into a situation I can’t get out of.” The tangled kites came to her mind, but she decided to let her statement stand without adding the example.
“Okay.” Rick readjusted his position and acted as if their heart-to-heart discussion had come to an end. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Hold hands, hug, and kiss lightly.”
The way he said it sounded as if he was making fun of her.
Starting the car, he added with a grin, “For now, that is.”
Christy didn’t know if her openness had given her a victory or had merely postponed a defeat. At any rate she felt better, more settled and at ease with Rick, now that he knew where she drew the line and how she felt about things.
The Mexican restaurant was just beginning to seat guests for dinner. The hostess took them to a plush booth with high wooden backs covered in antique brocade fabric.
A man wearing an embroidered white shirt and a wide orange sash around the waist of his black pants brought them a basket of tortilla chips and filled their water glasses. “Buenas noches,” he said.
“Yeah, lots of nachos to you too.” Rick scanned the menu. “You have to have the tostada.”
“Oh, I do, do I? And who says I have to have a tostada?” Christy asked, her voice light and sassy.
“I do,” Rick retorted, equally sassy. “Trust me. You want the tostada.”
He slid to the edge of the booth. “I’ll be right back. If the waiter comes, order me an iced tea and a number four combination.”
Rick disappeared. The waiter appeared. Christy obediently ordered an iced tea and a number four for Rick. She hesitated, then gave in to Rick’s directive and ordered a tostada and iced tea for herself.
Does this guy have power over me, or what?
Rick returned, all smiles. “You ordered the tostada, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What?” Rick looked startled that she would make such a comment. “You think I’m too demanding or something?”
Christy smiled. “Or something.”
He shrugged and reached across the table to hold her hand. “Must be that magnetic force I seem to have over you.”
He barely touched his fingers to her hand and made an electrical buzzing sound. “Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt! Oh no, we’re making a magnetic connection!” Meshing his fingers through hers, he said, “I can’t seem to break loose! Oh no!” He twisted and jerked their linked hands back and forth as if an electrical current had permanently bonded them.
“Stop it,” Christy said, smiling at his antics but inwardly feeling crushed that she had opened up her heart to him in the car, and now he was making fun of her for explaining why she had pulled away from him.
Rick relaxed their hands. “Do you know you have the softest hands of any girl I’ve ever known?”
Rick used his free hand to dip a tortilla chip into the ceramic saucer of salsa and said, “So, what do you want to do tomorrow? You have any great ideas, or should we keep working our way down my list?”
“Would you like to come over for dinner after church?” Christy asked, reaching for a chip.
“I’m not going to church. Didn’t I already tell you? My brother and I have a racquetball match at ten o’clock. I could be to your house by one-thirty, though.”
It had been so long since Rick had been in church that Christy couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen him there. It had to be sometime back in June, before he went to Europe. Each week it was a different excuse. She didn’t want to sound like she was scolding him for not going to church anymore, so she said nothing and made a mental note to make sure he went with her next week.
The waiter approached their table with a steaming platter, which he placed in front of Rick. Then with a particularly toothy grin, the waiter said, “Y señorita, your tostada.”
He set before her a plate heaped with a mountain of shredded lettuce, capped with a snow peak of sour cream. Something thick and silvery circled the lettuce just below the sour cream, catching the light and glimmering at her.
“What’s this?” She looked first at the waiter and then at Rick.
They both grinned like schoolboys with frogs in their pockets.
“Surprise!” Rick said, removing the silver ID bracelet from the lettuce mountain. “Let me put it on you.”
He wiped off the sour cream with his napkin and placed the bracelet on Christy’s right wrist, fastening the lock to make certain it was secure.
The waiter left them alone, and Rick, still grinning, said, “Do you like it?”
Christy looked at the wide silver bracelet now circling the wrist where for so many months she had worn Todd’s bracelet. This one was thick and heavy. She held it toward the light and read the inscription in fancy scroll. It said: RICK.
“Now there’s no doubt who your boyfriend is,” Rick said proudly. “You like it, don’t you?”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all. It’s really nice. Thank you.”
“I knew you’d like it better than the other one. A more than fair trade, I’d say.” Rick picked up his fork and attacked the huge platter of food before him.
That comment hit Christy hard. It didn’t just make her angry; it made her furious. Why was Rick so competitive and jealous that he had to replace Todd’s bracelet with a bigger and better one, with his own name in bold letters on it?
She moved her tostada mountain around on her plate but didn’t eat much of it. Rick barely spoke at all but scarfed down his dinner, using the tortilla chips to scoop up his refried beans and rice.
Finally Christy concluded within herself that replacing the ID bracelet was a guy kind of thing. It apparently made Rick feel more macho, like he had marked his territory, and as he said, everyone would know that he was her boyfriend. Besides, being labeled as Rick’s girlfriend wasn’t a bad thing at all.
They left the restaurant hand in hand, the bracelet wedged between his hand and hers. It took only ten minutes to drive across the freeway to the Cinema Center, where Rick led her to the box office. Without asking her opinion, he bought two tickets for a movie that was starting in five minutes.
“Good timing, huh?” Rick asked as they stepped out of line and headed for the door to turn in their tickets.
Christy hung back, reading the sign over the ticket window.
“Come on,” Rick called to her.
She hurried to catch up, but just before he handed the tickets to the guy at the door, she pulled Rick’s arm, drawing him off to the side.
“Rick,” she said quietly, “that movie is rated R.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re with me. It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s going to ask you how old you are. Come on, we’re going to miss the show.”
“Rick,” she said, letting her irritation show, “I can’t watch that movie. I have an agreement with my parents that I won’t go to R-rated movies.”
“You’re kidding.” He laughed as if she were making a joke.
Christy stood her ground. “I’m serious, Rick.”
People were watching their standoff.
“That does it!” Rick threw his hands up in the air. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the parking lot.
Humiliated, Christy followed him to the car, feeling like a puppy with its tail between its legs.
As soon as they reached his car, where there wasn’t an audience, Rick started to yell at her. “Why didn’t you tell me your little rule before we got here? Why did you have to wait until we were at the door and make me feel like dirt in front of all those people? You are so full of rules, Christy. You’re driving me crazy! You can’t date until you’re sixteen, and then you have unrealistic curfews and get put on restriction for nothing. It’s a major effort for you to even find the time to go out with me, and when you do, you have all these rules, as if I’m some kind of monster you have to keep caged up! And now you won’t even go to a stupid movie because it violates your perfect standards.”
Rick kicked a tire and turned his fierce eyes on Christy. “You’re being a baby. That’s what you’re doing. I know you, Christy. I’ve watched you for more than a year, and I know you’re not a wimp, but you’re wimping out on me.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “So you’d better decide if you’re ready to grow up and experience a real dating relationship or else …”
Christy couldn’t contain her fiery emotions any longer. “Or else what? You’ll dump me and find some other girl who’ll do whatever you want? Is that what you were going to say? Go ahead. Say it.”
Rick backed down, breathing heavily through his nose. “That’s not what I want, and you know it. I want to go out with you.”
Christy’s feelings were at an all-time high intensity, and she unleashed them. “You want to go out with me? Are you sure? You want me to be your girlfriend? Because if you do, then this is me! I have standards and rules and restrictions and everything else you just complained about. That is me, and if you want to date me, then you get the whole package, rules and all! I’m not going to change for you or any other guy.”
Her whole body was shaking, but she mimicked his tough-guy stance by folding her arms and returning the hard look he had been giving her.
Rick unfolded his arms and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked down at the pavement and shuffled some pebbles while he appeared to calm down.
Christy calmed down too. She had amazed herself with the words that had spewed out of her mouth, but she didn’t regret one of them. For the first time ever with Rick, she felt like he was no longer in control.
“I was right,” Rick said, looking at her sheepishly. “You’re not a wimp. I shouldn’t have blown up like that. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Christy said automatically. She wasn’t sure why she said it because she really wasn’t sorry for anything she said. She was sorry they had gone through such a scene though.
Rick opened up his arms, inviting Christy to receive his hug. She willingly stepped into his embrace.
As he held her tightly, he said, “I do want to date you, just the way you are. I don’t ever want you to change. You are one of a kind, Killer, and that’s the way I want you to stay. I can learn to make a few adjustments, and maybe you can make a few too.”
They held each other long enough to feel calmed and restored. Christy lifted her head. “Do you still want to see a movie? There’s one playing that’s rated G.”
“What, that animated one? Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m serious. Come on. It’ll be fun,” Christy urged.
Rick slowly gave in and walked back to the ticket booth with his arm around her shoulders. “I can see me telling my brother tomorrow on the racquetball court that I took my girlfriend to see a cartoon.” Leaning down to speak to the girl in the ticket booth, he said, “Could we trade these two adult tickets for two tickets to the kiddie show?”
With the exchanged tickets in his hand, Rick led Christy to the door once more. Then, as if to make sure the guy collecting the tickets knew who was in control, Rick said, “I mean it, Christy. If I fall asleep in this one, you owe me a refund.”