November 12th
Friday
9:20 PM
Just got in from hanging out with Dawn. It was... interesting. Since her dad wasn't home, we were able to just hang out at her house (while my dad wouldn't care if we hang out here, I don't need him hitting on Dawn and being generally old man creepy) without being hovered over.
Though Carol (who made a huge point of telling me that ALL of Dawn's friends call her that) did keep us full of snacks. And we weren't allowed in Dawn's room. But it could have been worse. Hanging out on the sundeck playing cards for whole wheat crackers isn't the worst way to spend a Friday night. Not when it's with the most gorgeous girl at Vista.
Would I have enjoyed going out to a party? Yeah. But I've been there, done that so many times in my life, being mundane is actually FUN.
"So," Dawn says casually, beating me with a freaking ROYAL FLUSH, "you remember Mary Anne, right?"
I push the crackers toward her, tossing aside my full house. "Your step-sister, right?"
She nods.
"I remember."
"She came up with this crazy idea." Dawn shuffled the cards and starts to deal. "She wants Derek to go out with me to Stoneybrook over Thanksgiving."
"That doesn't sound crazy," I replied.
"Yeah, she wants me to say he's you so she doesn't get caught having an older boyfriend."
I paused. "Okay, yeah, that's crazy. What did you say?"
"I said no! She hasn't talked to me since. I've sent her a dozen emails, and she's always mysteriously out when I call."
"Is that making you consider doing it?" I asked. I grabbed a handful of crackers out of the box and started munching. I held them out to her, but she shook her head.
"Sort of. Not that I would. I mean, what if you end up coming out there sometime? How am I going to explain that? Say you're this other guy I'm dating? You start with one lie and it just turns into another. Mary Anne needs to tell Richard -her father- the truth. But I don't want to go out there and have a horrible weekend because she's mad at me."
"Maybe by then she'll have forgotten about it?"
"Oh, no. Mary Anne may not get angry a lot, but she can hold a grudge."
"So she stores it all up?"
Dawn laughed. "Exactly."
"It looks like to me that you have two options, do what she wants, or don't. Either way you're going to have to deal with the consequences."
"I know... I could just tell Mom and Richard myself that Mary Anne is dating someone. Even though I kind of promised that I wouldn't. I may be angry, but betraying her trust would probably break us in two."
Well, that was a blow to my already guilty conscience. I knew I was betraying Dawn's trust practically every time I went to band practice. But those guys are my friends. Okay, they're George's friends, but after everything, it never seemed like that big of a deal. George never made it out to be a big deal.
"Christian?"
I look up. "Sorry, lost in thought."
"Hopefully you were thinking up a way for me to get out of this mess." Dawn looked a little hopeless.
"Hmmm... maybe if she wants Derek to pretend to be me, I could pretend to be Derek."
Dawn's eyebrows raised. "Go on..."
"I could call up her house, talk to her dad. Say Mr..."
"Spier."
"Mr. Spier, I'm Derek Thompson, you don't know me, but I'm dating your daughter. I'm sixteen, on the honor roll at my school, and I live on the other side of the country. Et cetera."
"That's still betraying her trust!" Dawn exclaimed.
"No, since I never promised to keep it a secret. And I have issues with my identity being forged. But, you know, pretending to be someone else isn't a problem." I smiled.
She thought about it for a moment. "Well... I guess so. It would be sneaky and wrong."
"Yes, but it would get a monkey off your back. We'd have to tell Derek what happened, but at least this way we could find out if her dad wants to kill him and if he should probably STAY in California, or if it's okay."
Dawn looked at her watch. "Well, it's four-thirty here, so it's seven-thirty there, so yeah, he's home." She jumped up and got her cell phone. She dialed the number and handed it to me.
"Maybe I should have thought this through," I said, while it was ringing.
"Just make it up as you go along," she said. "And remember, this was your idea."
A female voice, who probably isn't Mary Anne answered the phone. "Hello?"
"May I please speak with Mr. Spier?"
"Hang on a sec." She set the phone down.
A few minutes later, I heard, "Why is this phone off the hook? Hello?"
"Mr. Spier?"
"This is he."
"Hi, I'm Derek Thompson, I live in Palo City. You don't know me, I'm sixteen years old, I'm on the honor roll at Vista high school, and you might be confused right now, but the reason I'm calling is because I've been dating your daughter since July." I paused and waited for a reaction. Dawn was staring at me like her step-dad is going to crawl through the phone and kill me.
However, he simply replied, "Go on."
"I know that Mary Anne hasn't told you about me, because she's nervous of what you might think of her dating someone who's older, but I couldn't stand the thought of her lying to you, and I wanted to introduce myself."
"Mmhmm." It was short and non-committal.
"And the other reason I'm calling is that I would really like to meet you in person, and see Mary Anne since it's been so long, and I have a break coming up over Thanksgiving, and I was hoping I might be able to visit. I'll pay for everything, that's not a problem. You wouldn't have to spare a cent. I would really like to meet you." I really hoped that Derek could spare the cents, because I was talking out my ass.
"I appreciate your consideration," Mr. Spier said in this slow, concise voice.
The way my gut was twisted in hoping he would let Derek go out there, you'd think I was the one who was really trying to get permission.
"And I think I would like to meet you." He paused. "You eat meat, correct?"
"Yes," I said, hoping to God that Derek does. If not, he'd be forced to.
"Good, we'll be having a turkey."
I blinked a few times, not expecting such a weird response. "Well, thank you, sir."
"Thank you." He hung up the phone. I hit 'end' and looked at Dawn.
"I think it worked. Either way, Mr. Spier knows about Derek, and... we're going to have to tell Derek what we did. Or what I did."
"No, it was we," Dawn said. "Oh man. Do you think we can get Derek to pretend that he was the one who did that?"
"No idea."
"We better go tell him now. Before Mary Anne calls him."
"Umm... yeah. Good idea."
First Dawn called Sunny to ask where Derek lived, giving a brief overview of what happened. "Do you want to come with us?" Dawn asked. The confused look on her face was priceless. She hung up the phone.
"Sunny has declined coming with us because she's doing her biology homework."
"Priorities?" I suggested.
"Not with Sunny. Oh well, I got his address, let's go."
We got bikes (I was on Jeff's) and rode over to Derek's house.
"Derek's... big, right?" I asked.
"I guess."
"I mean, he's not going to kill me for what we did, is he? I may look tough, but I break like a twig."
Dawn laughed. "I don't think he'll kill you."
"I impersonated him. Oh, and why would Mr. Spier ask me about turkey?"
She laughed again, this time much louder. "While I eat white meat on occasion, my mom is pretty much vegetarian strict. She is battling Richard and Mary Anne on having a turkey. If there's one more meat eater, especially a guest, there's no way she can say no. It just cracks me up that Richard, while thinking he was talking to, who he thought was Derek, would bring it up. He must really want that turkey."
I laughed too.
We got to Derek's house and his mom (Total MILF, by the way) let us in and told us that Derek was in the basement.
He was down there playing video games and he looked sort of surprised to see us. Probably because we're just girl's he's dating's step-sister and her boyfriend.
"Hey," Derek said, smiling. "What's up?"
"Ummmm... well, Derek, we did something that you should probably know about," Dawn said. She sounds sort of uncomfortable so I took her hand.
"Is this about me coming out to Stoneybrook for Thanksgiving?" he asked. "Mary Anne said didn't like the idea."
"No, I don't, which is why Christian and I sort of took matters into our own hands."
Derek looked back and forth between the two of us. "What did you guys do?"
"We sort of called Mary Anne's dad," Dawn said.
"And I pretended to be you," I said.
"And he wants to meet you."
"It didn't sound like he wanted to kill you."
"Mary Anne probably isn't even in trouble."
"I hope you eat meat."
Derek stared at us. "So. You lied to her dad."
"Well, what were you going to do?" Dawn snapped.
"And... I'm going to Stoneybrook? As me?"
"Well, what if I visited there one day?" I asked. "Pretend to be some guy who just followed Dawn home?"
"Look," Dawn said, "we just wanted to tell you, so when Mary Anne calls, you'll know what's going on. Especially since you didn't actually call."
"Uh. Thanks?" Derek apparently didn't know what to think. So we left.
"That went... well. I think." Dawn shrugged. "It could have been worse. He could have broken you like a twig."
I scowled for a second and then I laughed. I'm way too lucky to be with a girl like Dawn. I seriously don't deserve her.
I didn't think about the guys in the band or the drugs all day.
I could get used to that.
