Patrick pulled up in front of the house just as Aunt Elizabeth turned in to the driveway.
“Would you like to meet my aunt?” It wasn’t until the words escaped that she realized introducing a boy to her aunt might sound more serious to him than giving her a ride home and dropping her off.
“Sure. Sit tight.” He got out, retrieved her backpack from the backseat, and came around to open her door. She held the pack while he unlocked her bike and set it on the sidewalk.
Aunt Elizabeth stood just outside the garage, watching and waiting.
Grace made introductions. “Patrick is a student at Fresno High, Aunt Elizabeth. He moved here from Colorado. He gave me a ride home from work.” Grace couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“I gathered he gave you a ride home.”
Embarrassed, Grace took hold of her bike. Aunt Elizabeth smiled tightly as she shook hands with Patrick. “It’s nice to meet you, Patrick.” She drew back, a faint frown forming. “Moore. Colorado. Are you any relation to Byron Moore?”
“Yeah. He’s my father. You know him?”
“We work in the same building.”
“Small world.”
“Indeed.” An arctic wind had blown in. “Well, thank you for bringing Grace home safely.” She gave Grace a pointed look. “You have things to do.”
What had just happened? Grace thanked Patrick for the ride and watched him drive away. She wheeled her bicycle into the garage as her aunt took a bag of groceries from the backseat of her car. Her face was rigid. “What’s wrong?” What had she done now to annoy her aunt?
“Nothing.” Aunt Elizabeth hit the button to close the garage door as she went through the door to the kitchen. She set the bag of groceries on the counter. The chicken she’d put in the Crock-Pot smelled ready to eat. “I’m going to change my clothes.” She walked past Grace. “Set the table.”
When they sat down to dinner, Aunt Elizabeth said grace and snapped her napkin. Grace knew something was on her mind. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Patrick looks like his father.” She raised her head, her mouth tight. “Concentrate on school.”
Grace opened her locker, switched out her textbooks. When she closed it, she turned and bumped into Patrick Moore. Startled, she took a step back, blushing as he grinned at her. “I’ll walk you to class.” Everyone looked at them as they went down the hallway. Grace could imagine what they were thinking. What’s Patrick Moore doing with her? When she entered class, she made her way to her desk and sat dazed.
Word spread fast. Crystal caught up with her at lunch and wanted to know how long Grace had been going out with Patrick. Grace said she wasn’t. “Yeah, right. Come on! Tell me everything!” Grace insisted there was nothing to tell. Crystal snorted. “I heard he dropped you off after your shift at Mickey D’s.”
Gasping, Grace felt her face go hot. “Who told you that?”
“Someone who saw you.”
High school gossip moved faster than a mudslide, and Grace was mortified to find herself in the middle of it. She refused to answer Crystal’s question, but the girl was a bulldog. “If there’s nothing to tell, why are you blushing? Have you had sex with him yet?”
Yet? “He gave me a ride home. That’s all. He was being nice. It’s not like anything happened.” She headed for civics. Crystal fell into step beside her and gave her the scoop on Patrick Moore, whether Grace wanted to hear it or not. He took Lindsay to homecoming. Remember? Well, they went all the way. Then he dropped her like a hot rock and went out with Kimberly. He wasn’t a make-out artist or a kiss-and-tell guy, but girls talk. Grace had better be careful. Frustrated, Grace finally stopped. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because he was asking about you in the boys’ locker room!”
“How would you know that?”
“Nathan told me.”
Grace didn’t want to grab on to false hope regarding Patrick Moore. And she did very well telling herself that, until he showed up at McDonald’s again on Saturday. He brought his homework with him this time. “I hear you’re good at algebra.” She helped him on her breaks. He gave her another ride home. He talked about his dreams for a scholarship. She asked where he wanted to go to college. UC Santa Cruz, but his dad said it was a party school. Patrick laughed. His dad wanted him to go to UC Berkeley, but Patrick shook his head. “I’m not that smart.” Grace gobbled up every word he said all the way to the front door of her aunt’s house, and then he surprised her again. “Can I call you?”
“Sure.”
He handed her a fancy phone. “Here. Give me your number.”
She tapped in her aunt’s phone number and handed it back to him. He smiled as he tucked it into his pocket, just over his heart.
He called a couple nights later, but Aunt Elizabeth answered the phone before Grace could reach it. She gave Grace an annoyed look. “I’m sorry, Patrick, but Grace can’t talk right now. She’s doing homework.” Grace held out her hand with a pleading look, and her aunt turned her back. “You can see her tomorrow at school.” She hung up.
Grace wanted to cry. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I thought it best. You’re fifteen, and—”
“He just wanted to talk!”
“How do you know what that boy wants?” She looked exasperated.
“Every girl in school would die to have Patrick Moore call!”
“Is that all you care about? How popular he is?”
“No! He’s nice! I like him! He’s smart, too.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s smart. It remains to be seen how he employs his intelligence.” Her eyes darkened. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not trying to ruin your life. I’m trying to teach you some common sense. Don’t base decisions on teenage hormones. Your mother did, and look what happened to her.”
Grace felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. “Nothing I do will ever be good enough for you.” Fighting tears, she pushed back the kitchen chair, gathered her books, and fled to her bedroom. She sat against the headboard and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. It didn’t stop the tears, but she could think again.
Mrs. Spenser, her Sunday school teacher, always said to pray when things got bad. Wiping her face, Grace poured her heart out. Is she ever going to forgive me for what happened to my mother?
The answer came like an arm around her shoulders and a gentle whisper. What troubled Aunt Elizabeth wasn’t Grace’s fault. Be still, and wait. I love you and I am here. I am always here. Wiping away the tears, she picked up her civics textbook and focused on what she had to get done.
Patrick Moore showed up at her locker the next morning. Later that afternoon, he appeared at McDonald’s. “Take a look.” He grinned as he handed over his algebra worksheet. He’d gotten 100 percent and a note from Mr. Edersheim: Good job! Patrick laughed, triumphant. “You’re a better teacher than he is.” He had another assignment. Was she willing to help him again?
A tiny warning bell went off inside Grace’s head. Was algebra Patrick’s only reason for seeking her out? Or was algebra an excuse because he really liked her?