Yoo ;] Been a while since I've updated ANYTHING :) But I knew that this would be the first story that I'd be updating 'cause I like this story ^^… so yeaah. x]
[Chapter 8]
[The Perfect Summer]
: : UnreachableRomance : :
(… still May's POV…)
Recap : :
"Is something wrong?" asked the man. "You don't like it?"
"It's very pretty," I answered. Well it was pretty in a gaudy way. The blossoms were fresh, the blue bow was jaunty and the colors harmonized. It was just so... big. "Thanks for arranging the flowers," I said as I peered through the foliage at the florist.
"Here, let me open the door for you," said the florist. The bouquet was too wide for the door, so I walked sideways out of the shop.
Well... embarrassment, here I come.
……………………
I had to pass the ice-cream place on my way to Bay Hospital and for a place with a tacky name – there sure were a lot of people. There was also a gang of boys that I had seen on the beach congregated in front of the entrance. There was also Chelsea and Steve. Surprise, surprise. Seeing Chelsea was not a problem for me. But Steve – that was a different thing.
I'm not going to let anyone tease me, I told myself severely. I would show them. I'm going to remember that I was May Maple and no one else. Maybe I was doing the wrong thing by even accepting this horrendous bouquet, but that's just the way I am. Feeling confident, I held the bunch of flowers tightly and strolled past.
"Hey, look what's coming!" I heard a boy's voice exclaim, and there was a hoot of laughter from the crowd.
"What is it?" asked another boy.
"It has a skirt and legs and feet. It must be half-human," said another. I had the sudden urge to drop the flowers and run off home, never coming out to see anyone again. But I couldn't. And in a way, I didn't want to either.
"Yeah, and the legs aren't bad!" I recognized Steve's voice. I was trying to avoid him ever since that kiss incident, but this time I didn't care if he saw me. I'd show him. That wolf.
I lowered my bouquet and taking a breath, peeped over the blossoms. "Hi."
Steve arched a brow and Chelsea did a double take. Her mouth was wide open. I bit my lip and saw Steve grin at me. That annoying grin that he had flashed me after he had kissed me the other day. I felt my face flush in spite of myself.
"What do you think you're doing, hiding behind that?" Steve asked.
"I'm taking this to Drew, at the hospital," I said coolly. "Is that all right with you?"
"You call that thing a bouquet?" asked Steve, smirking.
"No, I don't call it a bouquet," I answered pertly. "I call it a camouflage."
This time everyone laughed at Steve. Score one for me, I thought. The door of 'Wonder Ice' opened and Dana, followed by a sun-tanned muscled-bound meathead, walked out. She shriveled her perfect little nose at me. But this time I would not let Dana make me feel like some Miss Muffet. "Hi, Dana," I said. "Look at the flowers I'm taking to Drew. Did you see anything so enormous in all your life?"
"Wow!" exclaimed the meathead with a friendly laugh. "I'll bet he'll be surprised."
I giggled despite of everything. "Not half as much as I was when I saw it."
"You mean you're taking Drew flowers after he took someone else to the dance?" Dana asked, flicking her hair and looking at me with her cold eyes. "Seriously?"
And meow to you too, Dana, I thought, but I smiled at her. "Why not? He could hardly break a date he had made before he met me, could he?"
The girl looked surprised. "No… I suppose not…" she trailed off.
Score two for me, I thought and smiled sweetly. "Drew told me all about it."
Dana blinked. "Oh."
That takes care of that. Good-bye, Miss Muffet. Good-bye forever. "And now if you gentlemen will step aside, I'll be on my way," I said to the crowd of boys.
The boys parted and I saw Chelsea walked out to me. "May!" she hissed in horror. "Are you… you're not-"
"Yes," I answered calmly. "I am."
"Why didn't you get it delivered?" she whispered to me once she reached my side.
"Because they won't deliver anything under five dollars," I answered. "And being me, I didn't find out until it was too late."
"Do you want me to go with you?" asked Chelsea.
"Its okay, Chels," I answered. Actually I would have been grateful for Chelsea's company but I made up my mind to see this thing through and I was going to see it through without any help from anyone. "I can peek through this, you know. I don't need someone to guide me. But thanks anyway for the moral support."
"Say, I'll walk with you," offered a boy with wet tendrils of dirty blonde hair and a surfboard clutched onto his hand.
"No, thanks," I answered and smiled at the crowd. "Bye now."
"Funny, I've never noticed her before," I heard the surfer remark as I walked away from the crowd.
A delicious feeling of satisfaction flowed through me as I proceeded behind my flowers towards the hospital. I had been myself, May Maple, and no one else. It hadn't been easy, but it had worked! People turned to stare at me, cars tooted at me, but I didn't care. I only smiled and went on my way, past the shops, down a shaded street, and up the stairs of Bay Hospital.
Inside, everyone – doctors, nurses, visitors – stopped to stare at me and to smile as if highly amused. But I just returned the smiles, relieved that my ordeal was nearly ended. I propelled my bouquet across the lobby to the information desk where, free of it at last, I set the flowers down on the counter. "I would like to leave this for Drew Hayden," I told the woman behind the counter.
The attendant, obviously trying to suppress a smile, flipped through a file of cards. "Oh I'm sorry, but Mr. Hayden was discharged this morning," she informed me.
"So soon?" I groaned in dismay, wanting to shout in frustration.
"Yes, we don't keep them long nowadays," explained the attendant, glancing at the card again. "But you can reach him at 17 Poppy Lane."
My confidence wavered. "17 Poppy Lane," I repeated blankly. From the map that I had studied earlier, that was only three blocks away. There was nothing to do now but go ahead and deliver the flowers to his house. If I didn't, Drew would hear about them from that crowd at the ice-cream shop and wonder why he never received them. Stifling a sudden urge to just scream in agony at my luck, I picked up the flowers once more. Here we go again; I thought and advanced behind my bouquet across the lobby, out of the hospital and down the street toward Poppy Lane.
When I reached Drew's block, a stocky little girl about eight years old, with grubby dark green hair and sun-flecked hazel eyes, who had been roller-skating aimlessly up and down the sidewalk, darted up to me.
"Why are you carrying that for?" she demanded.
"Because," I answered, not bothering to really explain everything to her.
"Because why?" persisted the girl.
"I'm taking them to a sick friend," I told her at last.
"Oh, my brother had his appendix taken out. He just came out from the hospital today!" the girl exclaimed, beaming and showing her two missing front teeth.
I lowered my bouquet for a better look at her. There was a resemblance in the face features and although her eyes weren't emerald green like Drew's, I could tell that they derived from the same family.
"Oh!" exclaimed Drew's little sister. "I'll bet you're taking those flowers to my brother!"
I had nothing left to do but admit. "Yeah," I answered, with a breathless smile. "I am."
The girl's face lit up with excitement. "Wow!" she exclaimed and darted off, her skates going ching-chung against the cement. At number seventeen, which was a huge red-bricked mansion with a big garden in front and plants shaped like different animals; the girl turned and clomped up the marble porch steps. "Hey Mom!" she yelled as she threw open the big wooden front door. "Come quick! Somebody's bringing flowers to Drew and it's a girl!"
I squelched an urge to fling my flowers into the gutter and run. But it was too late for that. With my cheeks flaming, I marched bravely up the steps of Drew's mansion of a house and reached the front door just as Mrs. Hayden appeared. There I was, face to face with Drew's mother. From behind my floral screen I wanted to faint, disappear in a puff of smoke, drop dead, anything to get out of this awful situation. Instead I stared, as if stricken, over the spikes of gladiolas at this unknown person, Drew's mother.
She was a woman in her mid-thirties with bright green eyes and matching soft-looking chartreuse hair. She was dressed very smartly, in a black tweed dress, tan stockings despite of the hot weather and black high-heels. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking whether she was going to a formal occasion. So different compared to the carefree, dirty and pink-faced little girl.
Mrs. Hayden smiled at me, revealing her pearly teeth as she stepped closer to me so that I could smell her expensive perfume. "What lovely flowers!" she exclaimed, her voice warm and friendly. "And how thoughtful of you to bring them to Drew."
"I-I meant him to have them at the hospital," I said shyly. Now, I'm not a shy person, but the whole aroma of these rich people made me twitter. "I didn't know he would leave so soon."
"They don't keep patients long in hospitals after operation these days," Mrs. Hayden explained. "Here, let me take the flowers."
Gratefully, I surrendered my burden.
"Drew's taking a nap right now," Mrs. Hayden went on, as if receiving a gaudy floral piece from a strange girl were not at all unusual. "But won't you come in?"
"Well, no – thank you," I said uncertainly. "I think I had better be going home. My-my aunt is expecting me."
Mrs. Hayden smiled warmly at me across the flowers. "You must be May Maple."
"Um, yes, I am," I admitted and wondered what Drew had said about me to his family.
"Drew speaks about you often," Mrs. Hayden remarked. "You must come over and have dinner with us sometime."
"I-I'd love to," I stammered, not sure whether to be pleased or embarrassed of this sudden offer.
"Boy, does Drew like you!" the little sister exclaimed to me. "He always spends about an hour in the bathroom checking on how he looks before he goes to see you!"
"Jayni!" Mrs. Hayden exclaimed with a laugh.
"Well he does," persisted Jayni. "He says-"
"Jayni!" Mrs. Hayden's voice held a warning.
I felt my face flush even redder. "Um, please tell Drew that we all miss him," I said and turned to leave.
"Thank you so much for the flowers, May," Mrs. Hayden called over to me. "It was thoughtful of you to bring them to Drew and I know he'll be pleased."
"I hope so," I replied, more at ease with this woman. It was as though she understood how difficult it was to be seventeen. "Bye, Mrs. Hayden."
"Good-bye, May."
"See ya!" called Jayni as I walked down the marble steps. "Gosh, Mom, did you ever see such a big bunch of flowers?"
I walked sedately down the street and around corner from Poppy Lane, but I didn't feel at all sedate. I wanted to run and skip and shout. My nightmare was over! I hadn't acted like Miss Muffet when the gang from the beach had tried to tease me. Mrs. Hayden had been friendly and had not laughed at me and, best of all; I learned that Drew liked me enough to talk about me to his family. Maybe I had, in my usual way, done all the wrong things, but everything had turned out all right. And Drew actually cared how he looked like when he came to see me!
"Hi, Aunt Vicki," I greeted my aunt cheerfully as I walked into the house.
My Aunt looked up from sewing a bunch of sequins on a plain yellow blouse and smiled at me. "Did you have a nice day?"
"Mm-hmm. Good and bad. Mostly good though," I told her as I sat beside her on the couch and flipped on the television. A man with dark blue hair came on, advertising about some detergent. He kind of reminded me of my Dad. I wonder what Dad would think if he found out that his little girl was going about town, delivering flowers to a boy. I wouldn't bet on his being pleased though.
The telephone rang and I got up from the couch. "I'll get it," I said and walked over the small table where the phone lay, picking up the receiver. "Hello?" I spoke blithely, for once not at all caring who was on the other end.
"Hey there." It was Drew. He was calling so soon!
"Oh hi!" I answered eagerly. It was nice to hear his voice once more.
"Do you give everyone flowers that big or am I the lucky few?" he asked and I could feel his infamous smirk. Does he always have to be such an arrogant… freak?!
"It's the thought that counts," I snapped. His mother was so friendly and warm but the son had to be such a pain.
"I was just kidding," Drew answered with a small chuckle. "They're pretty, don't worry."
"I'm glad you like them," I replied monotonously.
"Are you still mad?" he asked in a teasing voice. "Okay, I have the bouquet here in my hands right now. Does that make you feel better?"
I smiled and restrained myself from laughing. "You're let off this time," I told him.
"Of course I am," Drew replied, his big ego visible. "I am the charming hot guy, now aren't I?"
Ugh, he was just so annoying. "Yeah, sure," I said sarcastically, and then added in a serious tone, "Are you… mad at me for that… thing last week?"
"Hmm…" he pretended to think to himself. "Maybe."
"C'mon, I'm serious!" I exclaimed.
"Don't trip," he said, in a more serious manner. "I guess I was sorta mad. But… well… it was because I wished it was me instead of Steve." He practically whispered out the last words but I caught them.
"Oh," was all I can say. I could feel myself blush and my neck turned hot.
Drew cleared his throat at the other end. "Um, yeah," he said his confidence not so visible anymore. "Don't let it get to your head."
"What?" I practically shrieked. He just ruined the moment! "Why would I even want to kiss you?!"
"Because I'm a hot jerk and you can't help but love me?" Drew suggested.
"I-I hate you!" I screamed loudly enough for even my Aunt to turn her head to see what was going on. "Oh yes, I hate you, Drew Hayden. Sooo much!"
"Replace the hate with love and you might get a true sentence," Drew replied, not at all wavered by my shrieks. "Anyway, I just called to say thanks."
"Well you're not welcome," I snapped.
Drew chuckled. "Whatever you say, princess," he paused and there was a sound of someone shouting something. "My Mom's calling me for dinner. See you soon."
"Bye," I mumbled and hung up the phone.
After a moment of staring at the phone, I smiled to myself. Drew had wanted to kiss me. That was all that mattered.
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If Drew was sorta OOC, sorry! :-) In about two more chapters, this story's gonna be finished! I'm so excited, haha. :D Hope you liked the chapter. Review please!
- Suzie :o))