I stared at the front door.
Another knock.
I turned to Tyler, who wore a semi-confused expression, then I went back to staring at that big, brown wooden door, wondering if it was too late for me to run upstairs and crawl out the skylight.
Knocking.
“One of you get that!” called Mel.
I was able to unthaw myself just enough for my legs to retreat the rest of my body to the couch. I sat down, ramrod-straight, and folded my hands on my lap.
“I’ll get it,” Tyler said, then hollered, “come in!”
The front door creaked opened.
I crossed my legs, uncrossed them, then snagged whatever magazine was closest to me.
“Hey, man,” Tyler said as he greeted the new guest. I glanced up quickly, but they were behind the open door. My eyes didn’t need confirmation, though. I knew it. I felt it.
“Hey. Good to see you,” the visitor replied and I heard him slap Tyler on the shoulder as he entered the house. I stared blankly at the upside-down magazine in my hands.
The cousins chatted briefly by the door then Tyler kind of snorted. “Oh, I believe you two know each other.”
I peeked over the magazine just in time to see Tyler step to the side.
Upon seeing me, Henry Edward Knightly, III, turned from white to green to red faster than a strobe light. I thanked my lucky stars that I’d had twenty seconds of preparation. He took less than five to return to his normal color. “Spring,” he said after a few rapid blinks, his expression already more composed than mine. “Hey there.”
“Hi,” I replied, feeling the hair at the nape of my neck stiffen. Should I stand? Should I stay seated? What’s the precedent?
“This is a surprise.” He strolled toward me, hands in his pockets, armed with that illustrious confidence.
“Yeah, for me, too,” I said, leveling my chin, my fingers crinkling the edges of the magazine.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to hug him in greeting, bump his fist or what. Our relationship was never defined. And we hadn’t exactly left each other in the best of circumstances. And yet, after three months, it felt as if no time had passed.
For a frightening moment, all those things I’d planned on saying to him the first day we were back after Christmas came rushing forward. The feelings came back, too, or the memory of them, at least. The excitement I’d felt, and the nervousness of stepping into the great unknown. And then the startling disappointment.
“How’ve you been?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said, bouncing my knee. “Great, in fact. You?” Dang, was I always this flustered around him? I don’t remember that.
Henry didn’t answer right away, but I could see a smile tugging the side of his mouth. I had no idea what that was about. “Fine, thank you,” he finally said.
The guys sat on the couch. Henry was looking at me, and my neck felt hot, so I focused on my nails. Why had I let Mel paint them the color of an eggplant?
For the next sixty seconds, there was nothing but the clearing of throats and muted fake coughs. I stared over his shoulder toward the stairs, mentally begging Mel to join us and break the tension.
“Your date tonight,” Henry said to his cousin. “Is she—”
“It’s Mel,” I answered for Tyler. Henry’s face was blank. Of course he didn’t remember her. “My friend who looks like a young Sandra Bullock. You know her.”
“Sure.” He nodded, but his face showed no recollection of the name or description.
“Speaking of Mel,” Tyler said. “We should get going.” He stepped over Henry’s long legs and headed for the stairs.
“So,” Knightly said after a few moments of silence, “you’re here for the whole Spring Break week?”
“Yes.” I re-crossed my legs and set down the magazine. “Must be nice for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Dart left school. Every week is spring break for you.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Oh?”
“And you’re living in some castle now,” I added.
“Who told you that?”
“Who do you think told me?”
He leaned back and draped one arm along the back of the couch. “Ahh, Lilah.” He lifted a crooked smile. “You must’ve hated that.” His grin expanded, quite unapologetically.
It suddenly dawned on me that he was wearing glasses. Black horn-rimmed specs, probably Armani or something similarly Italian. That wasn’t the only change I noticed. His hair was longer, curlier, a little messy. And did he look more toned, too? Svelte and chiseled. Probably from playing cricket or riding horses, or whatever people do who live in castles. He obviously hadn’t been living off a steady diet of college crap like I had.
“Must be nice,” I repeated. “Not taking classes this semester.”
His brows knitted together. “Dart’s not,” he said. “I am.”
I returned his puzzled expression. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m very much in school.”
“Where?”
“Most of my classes are in the Neukom,” he replied. “It’s on the other side of campus by—”
“At Stanford?”
“Why would you think… Oh. I guess you heard what Lilah’s been saying about that, too?” He rubbed his chin. “I don’t know where she gets her information.”
I shrugged, still a bit stupefied.
“So, all this time, you thought I…?” He pressed his lips together and straightened his glasses.
When he didn’t finish his thought, I pointed at his new eyewear. “What’s the deal with those?”
“I’ve been busy,” he explained. “They’re easier. I got out of the habit of wearing contacts.”
“And where’s all that stuff you put in your hair?”
He raked his fingers through the top of his uncharacteristically tousled curls. “Fell out of that habit, too. What was it you once called it? My Ronald Reagan Complex. Republican narcissism run amuck?”
I laughed. “I can’t believe you remembered that verbatim.”
“A portrayal like that isn’t easily forgettable. I’m so glad I chose not to wear a three-piece suit tonight.” He dusted off the lapel of his camelhair, cashmere/wool jacket. “I would never live it down. And you…” He broke off, his gaze sliding to the braids hanging over my shoulder.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “It’s just…it’s been a while.”
Done talking, he leaned back and steepled his fingers.
He was doing it again. In a matter of five minutes, Henry Knightly was pushing my buttons, making comments that were deliberately confusing. Barring the glasses and curlier hair, he hadn’t changed one iota.
A coffee table book was on his lap now. He was flipping through it, keenly studying the glossy photos of Canadian wildlife, but it was obvious he wasn’t reading. I could see a smile twitching the corner of his mouth. Finally he let loose the chuckle he’d been holding back.
“What’s so funny?”
He closed the book and leaned forward. “Spring Honeycutt. We’ve gone to the same school for seven months, and I just drove seven hundred miles—”
“For a date with me.”
He ran his fist over his smiling mouth. “That’s not exactly what I was thinking,” he said. “But it is nice to see you.”
Nice to see me. Was it nice to see him? Was nice causing my mouth to go dry and making me wonder what might have happened back in my bedroom the night before vacation if Alex hadn’t shown up?
Henry stood and strolled to the bay window, staring out the hill covered with pines. “So, how are we going to handle this?”
“Handle what?”
“Tonight. It’s our first date.” He turned to me, making my pulse skip.
“It’s a basketball game, Knightly,” I said after a swallow. “That’s all.”
Henry blinked at me and slid his hands in his pockets. “Right, Honeycutt.” He nodded, curtly. “That’s all this is.”
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes until, thankfully, Mel and Tyler came downstairs. Mel stared at Henry like she was seeing a mirage. “Ty just said it was you, but I…”
“Hey,” Henry said to her. “Good to see you again.”
She blinked. “Yeah.” She blinked once more then glanced at me. “Weird, huh?”
Again, Mel and her classic lacking of tact.
“Why don’t you two drive together?” Tyler suggested, his arm around Mel. “We have a lot more catching up to do.”
Mel shot me a questioning look as we grabbed our purses from the banister while Henry acquiesced to the proposed travel arrangements. Our foursome headed out the front door.
“Didn’t you come on a motorcycle?” I asked.
A little notch sliced into the skin between Henry’s eyebrows and he pointed to a black, ragtop Jeep parked at the far end of the driveway.
“Yours?” Though I didn’t really have to ask; it was parked crooked.
He nodded, spinning a silver ring of keys around his index finger, catching them in his hand.
“Was the Lamborghini store closed?” I teased. “Poor you.”
“Have you missed making fun of me?”
“You’re just hard to recognize without a Viper wrapped around you.”
He lifted a distant smile. “Yeah, I really miss that car.”
“Where is it?” I asked, climbing in the passenger side. Henry was right behind me, closing my door once I was in. “Aren’t you two connected like twins?”
He slid in the driver’s seat, twisted the key in the ignition and revved the engine. “The Viper was a loaner,” he said, adjusting the mirror. “You didn’t know that?”
“No,” I replied, surprised. “I assumed it was yours.”
“Only for six months.” He shifted into reverse and backed out of the driveway. “One of my father’s companies has a vested interest in sponsoring a racer.” We were tailing Mel’s Jetta out of the subdivision. “The Viper was a sort of lend/trade-out constituent as part of the negotiations, but only for the first two quarters of their fiscal year.”
“I hope what you just said made sense to you.”
He chuckled. “The forecast shows no rain tonight, but would you like the top up?” I shook my head, wrangling with my braids as they danced around my face. Henry reached into the backseat and grabbed a blue baseball cap with three gold letters scripted across the front. He handed it to me.
“Cal?” I screeched, making the word sound like swearing. “Stanford’s sworn enemy? I’m not wearing that.” I tossed the hat at his chest like it was a live grenade. “Do you want us to get struck by lightning?”
“There’s another back there. The Giants. Very benign.”
“My hair is fine, Knightly.”
He flipped up the visor and slid that offensive blue cap on his head, turning to me with a grin. I rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh at his childlike expression. Pushing my buttons…
“Cardinals killed the Bears last fall,” I said, flicking the bill over his eyes.
“I know, I was at the game. And, yes, Spring, I was sitting on the Stanford side.”
“Then why do you have a Berkeley hat?
“My sister is looking at it as a possibility for next year. She’s much more open-minded than I am.”
Henry’s sister. I remembered hearing about her from Alex. “Is she here too, on vacation?”
He turned on the blinker as we idled at a red light. “No, it’s just me. We’ve got family in Scappoose, about thirty miles away. I spend vacations with them when I can.”
The inside of Henry’s Jeep was a little untidier than I would’ve expected, especially after sharing a bathroom with him for a week back in November. As he drove us at a very conservative sixty-five miles per hour south to Portland, I took the liberty of rummaging around. Assorted road maps, empty water bottles, that Giants cap, two Duke sweatshirts, a polo mallet (I think), and wedged in the small door pocket on the passenger’s side was a paperback.
“What are you doing with this?” I fanned the pages of the worn book under his nose.
He glanced at me but said nothing.
“I thought you only read odes to the sixth amendment, or the memoirs of Lee Iacocca and Rush Limbaugh.”
“I like stories,” he said. “That particular book is for emergencies only, in case I break down on the freeway and have nothing to do till Triple A comes. But, tell me.” His face warped serious. “What is a pimpernel, exactly?”
I stared down at the book on my lap. My favorite book in the world. “It’s a flower,” I explained, running my fingers over the cover, “and a metaphor.”
“After the way you talked about it that night, I wondered what I would think. If I would see what you see.” He cut me a glance. “French bourgeois and all.”
I flipped to my favorite chapter—Richmond—remembering the first time I’d read it, smiling a little dreamily. “What do you think so far?”
“Interesting,” he offered, then concentrated on the road.
“That’s it?” I said over the noise of traffic.
He lowerd his visor and squinted at me, puzzled.
“You can’t possibly create a respectable judgment about a story until you’ve finished.” I sandwiched the book between my hands protectively. “When did you start reading it?”
“January.”
“You’ve been reading it for three months?” I accused, flabbergasted. “How far have you gotten?”
Henry tapped his chin. “Let’s see, I just finished Richmond, so I am approximately two-thirds of the way.” He glanced to me. “My third time through.”
