“You’re a genius!”
I blushed at the compliment, which I suppose modesty should at least have made me insist was an overstatement. But I was feeling pretty smart at the moment, and anyway, if Greg wanted to call me a genius, it would have been rude to argue.
“Tony is a form of Anthony,” he pondered. “Of course! I never would have thought of that.”
“And his grandparents might refer to him by his proper name,” I added. “Lots of older people do that.”
“Especially if he was named after a relative.” Greg hugged me impulsively.
We were so engrossed in our conversation that we didn’t notice Amber and her father approaching us. They had almost reached the spot we were standing when I happened to glance up and see them there. Both wore enormous smiles.
“Dad, these are my friends, Shelby and Greg.”
Mr. Chapman shook our hands and we all said we were happy to meet each other. He told us he appreciated how kind we’d been to his daughter, standing by her when things were so rough.
“Amber should have told me the problems she was having,” he sighed. “I knew nothing about it until I got a call from the police. Of course, as soon as I heard, I made arrangements to get here as quickly as I could.”
“How long will you be staying?” Greg asked.
“As long as it takes to get this cleared up.” His eyes were misting over. “And then I’m letting my company know that I either get a permanent assignment in Canada or I’m looking for another job.”
“I’m going to be living with my dad, as soon as he gets settled back in Canada.” Amber’s face was glowing with happiness.
“Sometimes a man needs a thing like this to happen,” Mr. Chapman said somberly. “It sure opened my eyes about what’s important.”
“It just goes to show,” Greg commented to me after Amber and her dad had left, “that even the worst situations can bring something good.”
I agreed with him on that. Who knows if Mr. Chapman would ever have made the decision to have his daughter live with him, if the whole robbery thing hadn’t occurred? I was really happy and excited that life was changing for the better for Amber. It seemed to make up for everything she’d had to go through first.
The bell was ringing for afternoon classes then, and we didn’t have time to talk anymore about arrangements to get to Veander. Greg promised he’d come over after dinner so we could make plans.
He arrived just as I’d finished sweeping the kitchen floor, and we went off to my room to talk in privacy.
“Keep your door open a bit,” Mom admonished as we headed down the hallway. I blushed at that, because it sounded as if she didn’t trust us.
“Sorry about that,” I whispered to Greg, wondering if he felt insulted.
“What, about having the door open?” he whispered back. “Don’t apologize for that. Anyway, I was kind of worried you might try to take advantage of me.”
“Yeah, you wish.” I swatted his arm, giggling.
“Oh, I know what you girls are like. You get a guy alone and use him for your own twisted purposes, then you tell all your friends how easy he was.”
It was the closest we’d ever come to talking about that sort of thing, and even though he was joking, I wondered what he really thought about it. I expected the subject of sex would come up sometime and didn’t know how I’d handle it. Greg is like my ideal guy and I’m crazy about him, but this was my first real relationship, and I knew I wasn’t ready to jump into anything like that.
For all that Mom sometimes drives me crazy with her endless talks, I was glad we’d discussed this. She’d made me think hard about how the choices you make when you’re young can affect you all your life.
“Just make sure you don’t do anything that you might end up regretting later,” she’d told me. That had surprised me. I would have thought she’d have said something more dramatic or tried to frighten me with talk of disease and the like. The fact that her whole talk had focused on me and my feelings had sunk in more than any scare tactics would have.
I pushed those thoughts aside and made myself think about Veander.
“Do you think you can get this Saturday off work?” I asked.
“I’ll ask. I think Mr. Broderick will give it to me, though. He’s really reasonable and I’ve never asked for a day off before. In fact, why don’t I call him right now? There’s not much sense in making plans until we know for sure.”
Unlike Betts, I have no phone in my room, though I’ve hinted for one a few times. Well, maybe “hinted” isn’t the right word. I guess the truth is that I’ve pestered my folks about it, but so far they haven’t given in. Greg went to the kitchen to make his call and came back after a few moments.
“No problem.”
“Great! Now, the next question. How do we get there?”
“What about the bus?”
“No good. I checked the schedule the other day. We wouldn’t have time to get there, do what we have to do, and come back the same day.”
“Well, I haven’t had my license very long, so I can guarantee my dad’s not going to give me the car for the day. Especially not for a trip out of town. What about the train?”
“I hadn’t even thought of the train. But you know, that should work. It leaves here around nine in the morning. That would give us time to check things and get the bus back in the afternoon.” I took a deep breath. “There’s another problem though.”
“What’s that?”
“Money. I haven’t saved much from my allowances or what I’ve earned babysitting. And I’m not allowed to touch my bank account because Mom makes the deposits in that and it’s for university.”
“Well, that’s the least of our worries,” he said without hesitating. “I can take care of the cost of the tickets. But are you sure you can get away for the day? I take it that you’re not planning to tell your parents what you’re up to.”
“No way! They’d have a conniption. I’d never be allowed to go.”
“I have to admit that I’m not wild about deceiving your mom and dad, but I understand you feel there’s no choice. You do realize they’re going to have to know about it at some point, don’t you?”
“I know, but I figure by then it will be over with and there won’t be much they can do about it. Well, except maybe ground me for a couple of years or so.”
“They might also decide you shouldn’t be hanging around with me, since I’ll be involved in the whole thing.”
I hadn’t considered that. Even though I was almost sure they wouldn’t actually forbid me from seeing Greg, it would probably change their opinion of him. That was the last thing I wanted to see happen.
Seeing the alarmed expression on my face, Greg said, “It’s your call, Shelby. I’ll go along with your decision.”
I sighed. There wasn’t going to be an easy solution, but Amber was our friend and we had to help her.
“It’ll all work out okay.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt. “Anyway, we’ll worry about the repercussions later.”
In the meantime, I was going to have to come up with a story that would get me out of the house for the whole day on Saturday.