“Hey, sorry I’m late,” he said. And then he hugged me. Ew. I didn’t even know the guy. He had those squatty fingers that look like a row of wrestlers standing on a mat. I felt them pressing into my back. His cologne wrapped around me.
“Where’s my mom?” I didn’t say, Where’s Lila? It was childish, but I wanted him to know who got there first.
“She hurt her… like, her wrist or hand or something. I guess the dog yanked—”
“Dog?”
“The German shepherd.”
“We got a dog?”
“Nah, he’s mine.”
Lila didn’t like dogs. Dogs jumped up on your dresses and snagged your silk blouses and did disgusting stuff like poop and pee and need you at the wrong times, kind of like kids.
I felt a little rise of hope, though. If I had to have Jake in my life, at least he came with a dog. We’d never had one with a dog before. Kevin-someone had a cat, and Papa Chesterton had horses, but that was the grand total of pets.
“Baggage?” he asked.
“Probably lots.”
“I’ll get a cart.”
“It was a joke. You know, lots of baggage, haha?”
“Oh, hey. Yeah.” He chuckled.
God.
I wanted to turn around and go home. The IT optimism I had when I was packing seemed stupid now. This was my life. We made our way through the airport to the parking garage. Somehow, he’d taken my bag and was carrying it. There was a corridor of awkward silence between us.
“I’m over here.”
I followed. I realized as we were walking that I didn’t really know anything about the guy. Lila usually spilled way too many details, but she’d been weirdly quiet about him. For all I knew, he might be a nice teacher. He could work in computer sales. Maybe he was a film producer, or a screenwriter, or a chef.
He pointed his keys in the general direction of the row of cars in the lot. A bleep-bleep chirped. I tried to figure out where it was coming from.
Then I saw it. A yellow Lamborghini.
He wasn’t a teacher.
Even when we lived with Papa Chesterton in Hidden Hills, we didn’t see many of those. The doors lifted like the wings of a praying mantis. I got in. I held my bag of candy on my lap. Back in the Milk Duds factory, those little chewy nuggets never imagined they’d end up here.
Neither did I.
Once he got out of the parking lot, Jake Antonetti hit the accelerator, and I held on.
And I held on and I held on. I held on until that rainy night in August.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Exhibit 10: Aerial photo of Sea Cliff Drive, east/west
Exhibit 11: Aerial photo of Sea Cliff Drive, north/south
I’d been to the Sea Cliff house only twice before, for a few days over Thanksgiving break and for a week at Christmas. I know that seems strange. People who live in one house their whole lives—like my friend Cora, for example—can’t imagine it.
“How does it feel like home?” she asked.
“Home is where your family is,” I answered, but this was a lie. I only said it because I knew the moving thing worried her. Honestly, the idea of home was confusing. If it meant what was most familiar, then home was there, in that dorm. With her and Lizzie, and our other friends, Hailey and Gia, and even Mrs. Chen. Home was Meredith’s house, where we’d go and watch TV and Ellen would make us popcorn, and Meredith’s sister and dad would come in and we’d throw pillows at them. Home was Edwina’s, even if she told me to get my feet off the furniture, and said stuff like Do you think I’m the maid? I’m not the maid, and asked me if I’d met any new boys since Daniel. Samuel, but whatever.
If home was what you knew and what knew you, then home was the big evergreen out my window, and rainy, rainy days, where the needles would drip, and windy, stormy ones, where the boughs would bend and shake. Home was the curve of the Montlake Cut and the houses that followed its south bank. Home was Coach Dave, and the crew team. Yeah. Definitely them. Home was my favorite teachers: Terrence Oglio, English; Jayne Fiori, art. Or maybe, home was a longing for a place I’d never been.
It was hard to get attached, after all the houses. Papa Chesterton’s mansion in Hidden Hills, the Spanish colonial a few blocks from the beach in Santa Monica. When Lila wanted to “escape pretension” (meaning her Papa Chesterton money was running low), there had been the smaller redwood-and-glass contemporary in Topanga Canyon. She sold that one a little over a year ago to rent the one on Sea Cliff Drive. Our family has a long history in San Francisco, which is why she moved there, Lila said. Edwina was raised in the city too. She told me a million times about her beautiful great-grandmother Ella, who survived the 1906 earthquake and fire. The story was, Ella fled with only her baby and her wedding photo, her cruel husband trapped in the blaze. Whether it felt like home or not, now that I was in that car with Jake, I couldn’t wait to get there. Or maybe I just wanted to get out of that car. Jake wasn’t much of a conversationalist, though I admit I wasn’t exactly helping. I stared out the window as we drove down 101, turned onto busy Octavia Boulevard, and then finally headed down Fell, where I started to recognize things—the Painted Ladies (the row of Victorian houses on all the postcards), Golden Gate Park, with its big glass conservatory.
“You like the car?” Jake finally said.
“Yeah. It’s nice.” It sounded brattier then I meant. But then again, he was fishing for compliments, so yuck.
“Aventador,” he said. I had no idea what that meant. It sounded like a character in one of Hoodean’s video games. Maybe Jake was showing off his flair for languages. C’est la vie, carpe diem, aventa dor.
“I’ll let you drive it if you promise not to crash into a tree.”
“I don’t even have my permit yet. And Lila doesn’t want me to drive until I’m older.”
“You’re kidding me. The minute I turned fifteen, boom. No one took you to get it? All these years?” He was ready to be pissed at Lila or Edwina on my behalf, which, honestly, was kind of nice.
“It hasn’t been years. I’m only fifteen now.”
He seemed truly confused. He gave me that Whaa? look.
“Well, basically sixteen. My birthday’s tomorrow.”
He raised his eyebrows at me like this was surprising information, but I couldn’t imagine Lila not mentioning either of these things. And then, I swear to God, his eyes went straight to my boobs, but maybe I was wrong, or just feeling uncomfortable in that small space. “Wow, well, you look a lot older.”
This was news to me. I tried to sneak a glance at myself in his side mirror to see if he was right. It was hard to tell. I was used to myself. Maybe I did look a little older.
It was quiet for a while. And then, “So, you like school?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your favorite subject?”
“All.”
“All, huh?” He chuckled like I was a real go-getter.
After this, we ran out of conversation topics. Jake tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove. I could tell I was making him nervous. I noticed the giant diamond ring on his right hand. It was one of those big, clunky kinds that look like college rings but aren’t. Every time we hit a red light, he exhaled as if the world were against him.