Sean glances up from his guitar, meets my eyes, looks away and then right back again. He waves and smiles, as if he sees me in here all the time.
If only I could be so cool. My face is on fire, my heart is pulsating through my shirt, and my mom looks like her head’s going to explode as she plots to save me.
Chip gets up from his table and walks my way. I like to think I’m pretty good at eye-talking and what happens next is an example: I give Chip a hard, piercing look as I think, You crazy mixed-up bastard, for the love of Adam Levine, DO NOT even come over here ’cause you don’t want to know what kind of scene I’d cause in front of your family.
He stops in his tracks, looking torn, then veers right and strolls toward the bathroom instead.
“Are you going to be okay, hon?”
“Really Mom, I’m fine. Boys. Can’t live with ’em, can’t file a restraining order.”
We both laugh. Then to change the subject from anything Chip related, I tell her about Sean. But first I make her promise not to look his way so he doesn’t know we’re talking about him. We talk in hushed voices behind our menus—me trying to downplay my excitement about tonight and Mom getting all keyed up asking if I should change into something cuter.
Chip stops to talk to Sean who’s now strumming “American Pie.” I didn’t even think they knew each other. The waitress steps up to our table and distracts me from trying to lip read. As she walks away with our order, I try to chill out. I just need to act like it’s not a big deal to be with my mom eating Japanese, that I’m comfortable enough with who I am, and Sean isn’t the kind of guy who would hate on me for that.
My Aunt Jen uses the phrase “Fake it ’til you make it,” and I just might need to adopt it as my new mantra. If I keep acting confident and cool, maybe it’ll start to stick. I flip my hair behind my shoulder and sit taller.
Then, in honor of worst-case scenarios, Sean taps his mic and says, “This next song is for Bree from Chip.”
“Is this really happening?” I ask my mom.
“Yes, it sounds like it.” She smiles and pats my arm. “Did I ever tell you about the time when I was eighteen and was serenaded at a New Kids on the Block concert in the late eighties?”
“Yes, at least a hundred times by you and Aunt Jen. But it was pretty embarrassing, so go ahead and tell me again.” Her eyes light up as she tries to assuage me with a story of her falling off a stool on stage at a sold-out concert while her favorite boy-bander sang “Please Don’t Go Girl.”
While Mom’s reliving the most exciting and mortifying moment of her teendom, Sean’s voice fills the room and I recognize the song right away. It’s the old Maroon 5 song, “She Will Be Loved.”
Well played, Chip. He knows I love this song. No way he doesn’t remember that it was the song playing the last time we spoke.
Chip and I were supposed to go to the State Capitol the day I found out about Mom and Dad. Up until the divorce bomb dropped, I thought the Fourth might be the night I’d lose my virginity. It wasn’t. I avoided Chip’s calls all day, crawled into bed around six, and fell asleep with Pippa, my stuffed dog.
The next morning Chip showed up at my house all pissed. We went for a drive and I didn’t want to cry if I started talking about my parents, so I said nothing.
The whole convo with Mom had me pushing a big mess of emotion deep into the corner pocket of my stomach, the place where stuff goes when it starts to feel like too much. I let it tangle into a wiry ball. And just as soon as it starts to feel heavy or like it’s scraping the walls of my stomach with its spindly claws, I ball it back up, like aluminum foil.
As I sifted through different excuses for standing him up, Chip jerked the wheel right, pulled over, and turned the music down. “She Will Be Loved,” the soundtrack to our first kiss back in May, was on.
Chip put the car in park and said, “So?”
I didn’t answer.
“Bree? You’re going to sit there like nothing’s wrong?”
I stared ahead as if the answers would appear through the dirty mist on his windshield.
“You don’t have anything to say to me?” His hands gripped the wheel so tight that purple-blue veins bulged from his skin.
When I finally opened my mouth it came out in a whisper. “I guess I was sick.” Which was kind of true because I’d been trying to talk myself into getting the whole sex thing over with and it was giving me a stomachache. And with Mom telling me about the divorce, it got worse. I must’ve used the library bathroom at least three times.
Chip said, “Bullshit. If you were sick, you would’ve texted or called.” He went into a rant about me being a liar who’d obviously been hanging out with someone else.
Then I got mad right back at him. For calling me a liar, for trying to fight with me. For not being able to read my mind.
“You’re such a jerk. You have NO IDEA what I’m going through. What I went through last night. I said I was sick, so that means I was sick. Do you hear me? Sick!”
Chip reached across my seat and I flinched. He opened the glove box and threw a box of condoms onto my lap.