“Thank you,” I tell him as he walks away, whistling.
Half a minute later, Porter pulls me into a dark corner of the hallway, checks around the corner, and kisses the bejesus out of me. “That’s me, destroying all your other plans,” he says wickedly. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he sounds jealous. Then he walks away, leaving me all hot and bothered.
I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.
Tuesday night at the Achebe house comes. Grace’s family lives in a swank part of town, in an adobe-style house with a perfectly manicured lawn. When my dad and I ring the doorbell, my pulse rockets. Why oh why have I been using Grace as a cover for my time with Porter? That was so stupid, and now that everyone is meeting, I feel like we’re going to get caught—which is the last thing I want to happen, for obvious reasons. And because I don’t want to mess up what I have going with Grace. She’s the first decent friend I’ve had in a while.
Footfalls sound on the other side of the door. I think I might vomit.
The door swings open to reveal a willowy woman with long ebony curls and dark skin. Her smile is warm and inviting. “You must be Bailey.” Not Grace’s tiny voice, but definitely her British accent.
I say hello and start to introduce my dad when a broad-shouldered man appears behind her, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “This is her?” he says in a big, booming voice full of cheer. He smiles big and wide. “Hello, Bailey girl. Look at that hair of yours. It’s like an old-fashioned Hollywood star. Which one? Not Marilyn Monroe.”
“Lana Turner,” I provide.
He makes an impressed face. “Lana Turner,” he says slowly, with a cool African sway to his words. “Well, well, Miss Turner. I am Hakeem Achebe. And this is my wife, Rita.”
“Pete Rydell,” my dad says, shaking his hand. “We’re both fond of Grace.”
I see Grace poke her head down the stairs in the distance, smiling but gritting her teeth at the same time. She’s nervous we’re going to get caught in a lie too. Crap!
“We’re fond of Grace as well,” Mr. Achebe says jovially. “We think we’ll keep her.”
My dad laughs. I can already see him planning to hit up Mr. Achebe for board game night—but I really want this conversation to be as short as possible, so I hope he doesn’t.
“She’s gone on a lot about working with Bailey in that dreadful Hotbox,” her mom says with a smile.
“I hear complaints about that too,” my dad says. “But I’m glad they’ve been spending more time together outside work.”
Double crap! Please don’t bring up the fake story I concocted about Grace and me “wrestling” in the grass, Dad. Would he do that? Surely not. I glance at Grace. She backs up one step on the stairs. Don’t you dare abandon me! Just in case, I prepare to flee the scene. Where I’ll run, I don’t know. Maybe I could pretend to faint.
“Well, tonight, it’s work before play,” Grace’s father says, pointing the dish towel in my direction. “We have much preparation to do in the kitchen before dinner. Miss Turner, are you up for the task?”
Oh, thank God. Mr. Achebe: my new hero.
Grace’s mom asks my dad to stay for dinner, but he declines, and when he tells me to have a good time, I cannot get inside the Achebe house fast enough.
Grace’s dad makes a Nigerian rice dish called Jollof for dinner—it’s pretty delicious—along with steak and grilled vegetables. He puts me and Grace in charge of skewering the vegetables. She was totally right: He tells the worst jokes. But he tells them with so much glee, it’s hard not to laugh a little. She gives me a look like I told you so.
We spend the rest of the night listening to music out by their backyard pool. It’s mostly 1970s and ’80s bands, I think, her parents’ music collection. Grace takes off her shoes and tries to get me to dance. When I refuse, her dad won’t take no for an answer. So we dance to a ska song by The Specials, “A Message to You Rudy.” And it’s silly and fun, and I’m a terrible dancer. Grace laughs at me and then joins in with her mom.
When everyone’s exhausted, her parents go back inside to clean up, and Grace and I end the night cooling our heels in the shallow end of the pool, trading stories about growing up on opposite sides of the country and her childhood in England. She then tells me about Taran, her boyfriend, who is in Mumbai visiting his aunt and uncle for the summer. Grace and Taran have been seeing each other for an entire year and are already planning to apply to the same colleges in the fall. I’m a little surprised, because she doesn’t really talk about him all that much at work. I want to ask her more about their relationship, but I’m afraid. Maybe things aren’t as good as she claims they are. I wish I could see this Taran guy in person and judge for myself.
“When is Taran supposed to come back to California?” I ask, lying next to her by the edge of the pool with my legs dangling from the knees down in the chlorine-laced water.
Her tiny voice answers, “I’m not sure.”
That doesn’t sound good. I don’t want to have to figure out a way to inflict deadly force against a boy on another continent, but if push comes to shove, for Grace, I will. I scooch a little closer and we lean our heads together, staring up at the stars, until my dad comes to pick me up.
I underestimated just how much wrangling had to go into my one true date with Porter, because over a week goes by and we can’t manage another. Turns out that when you combine my sneaking-out requirement with our job schedules, Porter’s surf shop obligations, and any other time spent on family duties, you get very little to work with.
And sometimes when you least expect it, you’re just walking along, minding your own business, and the universe leaves you a winning lottery ticket right in the middle of the sidewalk. . . .
Friday and Saturday nights in the middle of the summer, the Cave closes at its usual time, six p.m., and then reopens from eight until ten p.m. for people to purchase tickets to the ghost tour. It’s basically three groups of people who pay twice the normal ticket price to tour the museum afterhours with cheap flashlights while listening to fake ghost stories. It’s a total rip-off. And I know this because the ghost tour guides are Pangborn and Porter, and they’re the ones who wrote most of the ghost tour script last summer.
It was mostly Pangborn, Porter admits. He was extremely stoned when he wrote it. He’s also extremely stoned when he’s giving the tours, and everyone loves him camping it up, especially with his shocking white hair that practically glows in the dark. I work the Hotbox alone, since it’s a limited ticket engagement. Once we sell out, I get to put up the AT SPOOK CAPACITY sign in the window and go inside the break room to read magazines until ten, waiting for the tours to finish.
Last night was my first ghost tour, and Porter had to rush home afterward, which sucked, because we never got to spend any time alone.
Tonight’s a different story.
It’s Saturday, and my dad and Wanda are spending the night in San Francisco. They’re coming back first thing in the morning, Dad informed me a hundred times, like I was worried he was going to hop a train and never be seen again. But I think now that he’s met Grace’s parents, he feels better about those stupid hickeys that neither of us has ever, ever acknowledged again. So after the ghost tour winds up, Porter and I plan to do the unthinkable: We might go on a—wait for it—second date, and on that date, we may be going out to catch a movie.