Practical Magic (Practical Magic #2)(28)
This summer has not been working out as Antonia hoped. She can already tell that tonight is another totally lost cause. Her mother hurried her so they could be on time for this dinner, and Antonia was in such a rush that she grabbed her clothes from her dresser drawer without looking. And now, what she thought was a black T-shirt has turned out to be a horrible olive-green thing she ordinarily wouldn’t be caught dead in. Usually the waiters here wink at Antonia and bring her extra baskets of rolls and garlic bread. This evening not one of them has even noticed she’s alive, except for a creepy busboy who asked if she wanted a ginger ale or a Coke.
“This is so typical of Aunt Gillian,” she tells her mother when they’ve been waiting for what seems like an eternity. “It’s so inconsiderate.”
Sally, who is not completely sure that Gillian wouldn’t encourage Kylie to hop a freight train or hitchhike to Virginia Beach for no particular reason other than a good time, has been drinking wine, something she rarely does.
“Well, to hell with them both,” she says now.
“Mother!” Antonia says, shocked.
“Let’s order,” Sally suggests to Gideon. “Let’s get two pepperoni pizzas.”
“You don’t eat meat,” Antonia reminds her.
“Then I’ll have another glass of Chianti,” Sally says. “And some stuffed mushrooms. Maybe some pasta.”
Antonia turns to signal the waiter but immediately turns back. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s broken into a sweat. Her biology teacher, Mr. Frye, is at one of the small tables in the back, having a beer and discussing the virtues of eggplant rollatini with the waiter. Antonia is crazy about Mr. Frye. He is so brilliant that Antonia considered flunking Biology I just so she could take it again, until she found out he’d be teaching Biology II in the fall. It doesn’t matter that he’s way too old for her; he’s so incredibly handsome that if all the guys in the senior class were rolled up together and tied with a big bow they still wouldn’t come close. Mr. Frye goes running every day at dusk and always circles the reservoir on the far side of the high school three times. Antonia tries to make certain to be there just as the sun is going down, but he never seems to notice her. He never even waves.
Naturally she has to meet up with him on the one evening when she hasn’t bothered with makeup and is wearing this horrible olive-green thing, which, she now realizes, doesn’t belong to her. She’s ludicrous. Even that stupid Gideon Barnes is staring at her shirt.
“What are you staring at?” Antonia asks so savagely that Gideon pulls his head back, as if he expected to be smacked. “What is your problem?” she cries when Gideon continues to stare. God, she can’t stand him. He looks like a pigeon when he blinks, and he often makes a weird sound in his throat, as though he’s about to spit.
“I think that’s my shirt,” Gideon says apologetically, and in fact, it is. He got it on a trip to St. Croix last Christmas, and left it at the Owens house last week, which is how it got thrown in with the wash. Antonia would be completely and utterly mortified to know that I’M A VIRGIN is printed across her back in black letters.
Sally calls for a waiter and orders two pizzas—plain, no pepperoni—three orders of stuffed mushrooms, an order of crostini, some garlic bread, and two insalatas.
“Great,” Gideon says, since he’s starving as usual. “By the way,” he tells Antonia, “you don’t have to give me the shirt back until tomorrow.”
“Gee, thanks.” Antonia can’t take much more of this. “Like I wanted it in the first place.”
She dares to look over her shoulder. Mr. Frye is watching the ceiling fan as though it were the most fascinating thing on earth. Antonia assumes this has to do with some sort of scientific study of speed or light, but in fact it’s directly related to the experiences of Ben Frye’s youth, when he went out to San Francisco to visit a friend and stayed for nearly ten years, during which time he worked for a rather well-known maker of LSD. Such was his introduction to science. It is also the reason why there are times when he has to slow the world down. That’s when he stops and stares, at things like ceiling fans and raindrops on window glass. That’s when he wonders what on earth he’s been doing with his life.
Now, as he watches the fan spin around, he is thinking about the woman he saw earlier that day, in Sally Owens’s backyard. He backed off, the way he always does, but it won’t happen a second time. If he ever sees her again he’s going to go right up to her and ask her to marry him, that’s what he’ll do. He’s sick of letting fate roll right past him. For years, he’s been a lot like this restaurant fan, spinning around and getting noplace. What, when it comes right down to it, is the difference between him and a mayfly, which lives a whole damned adult existence in twenty-four hours? The way Ben sees it, he’s just about passing by hour nineteen right now, given the statistics for a man’s longevity. If five more hours is what he’s got left, he might as well live, he might as well say to hell with it and, for once, just go out and do as he pleases.
Ben Frye is considering all this, as well as deciding whether or not to order a cappuccino, since it will mean he’ll be up half the night, when Gillian walks through the door. She’s wearing Antonia’s best white shirt and a pair of old blue jeans and she has the most beautiful smile on her face. Her smile could knock a dove right out of a tree. It could turn a grown man’s head so completely he might spill his beer and never even notice that a pool was spreading across the tablecloth and onto the floor.