It wasn’t until the morning of Regina’s party that Summer remembered what she had told David. Grandpa’s windfall must have pushed that thought aside. Now she realized that she had told him that Gregg would be her date tonight.
Panic that she couldn’t talk Gregg into it, or that he already had a date, made dialing the phone a bit awkward. After two attempts, she finally had Regina on the line. “I told David I had a date with Gregg. How are we going to talk Gregg into it?”
“That was good thinking,” Regina replied, “to make David think you and Gregg are going together. I think he has a date to go to a movie with Amy McGuire, but I’m not sure.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Don’t get all upset. We’re dealing with Gregg, remember?”
“And?” Summer said, hope entering her tone.
“We can get him to do anything we want. Trust me.”
“How?” Summer demanded.
“Money, of course. Gregg is always broke.”
“But if he has a date…”
“Summer,” Regina groaned in exasperation, “we’re talking about Gregg. He’ll give up a date with Miss America if the price is right.”
A half hour later Gregg called, sounding very miffed.
“Thirty dollars! Gregg, that’s too much,” Summer yelped.
“Take it or leave it,” he returned. “My car needs a new muffler, and I have to placate Amy. You’re getting a real deal.”
“I can’t pay you more than ten dollars tonight, but I’ll have the rest soon. I promise.”
Her mind was racing to solve the dilemma of where she would ever dredge up another twenty dollars, and she was bordering on acute despair when she heard her grandfather’s voice in the background.
Her grandfather was in a generous mood. Instead of giving her the ten dollars she asked for, he gave her the full amount when she explained the reason for the emergency loan. Still, his obvious displeasure with the entire situation was unmistakable.
“You are actually going to pay a boy to take you to a party?”
“It’s not a boy, it’s Gregg,” Summer reasoned. “And it isn’t like it sounds.”
“Times have certainly changed since I was a lad. Why, I can’t imagine your grandmother, bless her soul, ever paying for an escort.”
“This is a unique situation. I just got trapped in a…story, and I’m trying to save face.”
“But who trapped you? Answer me that?”
“Grandpa, you sound like I’m doing something illegal. It’s no big deal. You just don’t understand. And I’m the one who got myself trapped into this.”
“Exactly. You might not be doing anything against the law, but you certainly weren’t very truthful, were you?”
“No.” She gave up trying to make him understand. He did have a valid point, though.
She soaked a long while in the scented bubble bath before she dressed for Regina’s party. She forced the cobweb of excuses from her mind. Her grandfather was right. Since meeting David, Summer had done nothing but lie. And that first little half-truth, that lie, like a tiny snowball on its trek down a steep mountain, had gathered force and grown awesome in size, until it threatened to do terrible damage. Summer had become trapped in one deception after another, and each little white lie had grown just as immense as the innocent snowball. It was time for her to stop. The lies were becoming too easy, and the idea that she would someday be unable to tell the difference, to distinguish truth from deceit, frightened her. Besides, trying to remember what story she had told required stamina. Most of all, even though she had been able to squeeze through one situation after another, she didn’t feel very happy about it—or herself.
If the arrangement hadn’t already been made with Gregg, Summer decided, she would have just gone to Regina’s party alone. So what if Ann gloated. Ann was Ann, and the sooner Summer recognized that fact, the better. But Gregg had already broken his date with Amy to go with her, so Summer would have to go through this one last deception. Tonight would be the last time she would trap herself. No more lies!
When she finished with her bath, she felt just as clean on the inside as she did on the outside, for she had resolved to be herself. All those silly deceptions—they were just walls she had built so that people couldn’t get a glimpse of the real her. If she acted like someone else or told stories about herself that weren’t true, then the rejections could always be excused. “Guess I am growing wise in my old age,” she told Michael. He was sitting on her bed, scratching, while Summer blew her hair dry.
“You look pretty,” Michael praised.
“Thank you, Michael,” she replied. She twirled in front of the mirror and smiled.