Wrong About the Guy(31)

“You talk about her that way all the time!”

Luke laughed, and Mom turned her glare on him.

“Don’t pretend she doesn’t drive you nuts just because you want to inflict her on me,” I added.

“She’s a very good grandmother. And a very good mother, in her way—”

“Her crazy way.”

“She comes through when we need her, which is the best thing you can say about family.”

“Okay, fine, but I don’t need her this time. I don’t need anyone to stay with me. I’m almost eighteen.”

“Bad things happen when teenagers are left alone.”

“Not with me!” I said. “When have I ever done anything wrong? I’m the best-behaved teen in the entire world.”

“You can be a little mouthy,” Mom pointed out.

“Everyone needs a hobby. Seriously. You know I wouldn’t do anything dangerous.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Luke said, his eyes briefly meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “It’s the crazies who stalk me. It’s not that hard to find out where I live and I don’t like to think of you all alone at night.”

“We have the best security system in the world,” I said. “And what could Grandma do if someone attacked us? Lecture them to death about the dangers of gluten?”

“We’ll just both feel better knowing she’s there with you,” he said.

I gave up. If they were in agreement, I wouldn’t win this one.


My birthday was a couple of weeks later. I turned down my mother’s offer to throw me a party in favor of a visit to a day spa in Malibu with Heather. We asked for a “couples massage” so we could be in the same room, and we giggled a lot whenever we glanced over at each other.

On our drive home, we stopped to get coffee at a Starbucks right off the Pacific Coast Highway. I glanced around the room as we got in line. “Oh my God! There’s Aaron!”

“I want to meet him!” Heather said, squinting in the direction I was pointing. “Is that him in the red shirt? Who’s he with?”

“His stepmother. Hold on—don’t lose our place in line. I’ll bring him over.”

Aaron and Crystal were sitting at a small table near a window. I called out to them and Aaron jumped to his feet and came running to meet me. He threw his arms around me.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you following me?”

“Of course I am.”

“Next time, show up sooner.” He lowered his voice. “The she-wolf dragged me out on the pretense of needing caffeine. Turned out what she really wanted was to ream me out for being too messy to live with.”

“Are you?”

He shrugged. “I’m not unmessy. But it’s not like she cleans—we have people who do that for her. She just likes to yell at me.”

I squeezed his arm consolingly. “I want you to meet my friend,” I said, but Crystal beckoned to me so I went to greet her first. We exchanged an air kiss and I asked after Mia. She said, “She’s fine,” then abruptly stood up. “It’s getting late, Aaron. I have yoga in an hour. We have to leave now.” She headed toward the door. Aaron rolled his eyes at me behind her back and followed her to the exit.

I rejoined Heather in the line.

“Why didn’t you bring him over?” she asked plaintively.

“I was going to, but his stepmother said they had to leave. I promise you’ll meet him soon.”

“He looked really cute.”

“He’s even better up close.”


That week, the speech therapist told Mom that Jacob’s language delay and some of his behaviors “could potentially be consistent with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder.” Mom had taken notes at the appointment, and she carefully read that last bit out loud for me and Luke that night, so she could get the wording right.

Luke said, “‘Consistent with’? What does that even mean?”

“It means he’s autistic,” Mom said.

“She didn’t say that!” He sounded annoyed so I quickly jumped in.

“I think it means he could be autistic. But not that he definitely is.”

“Right,” Luke said. “This woman who sees him for less than two hours a week said there’s a possibility that he has a disorder that would just happen to significantly increase the number of hours we pay her each week—”

“She’s not like that,” Mom said. “And she admitted she’s not a diagnostician.”

“Which means she really doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Luke shook his head. “All I see is a kid who’s just like his dad—I was shy and hated talking to strangers when I was little. That’s all that’s going on here.” He got to his feet. “You take a toddler who marches to his own drummer, and people go and slap a label on him. It’s ridiculous.”

“We can’t just ignore this,” Mom said. “A developmental pediatrician could give us a definite diagnosis.”

Luke shrugged irritably. “You really want to start hauling a two-year-old around to unnecessary doctor appointments?”

“He’s almost three.”