~Chapter 3~

No one noticed anything strange at school and when I got to looking around; I didn't see the weird girl. It was almost second period when people started to talk about what had happened.

I was sitting in my Economics class, second period, when people started talking about it.

"Hey Marie, did you hear about that almost accident this morning on Main Street?" She whispered it across the aisle while Mrs. Engle lectured.

This was the only class I had with Rachael and thank goodness that I had it with someone I could talk to. Economics was just not my forte.

"I was actually there when it happened. The car almost hit my car right before it spun out." I tried to talk as quietly as possible so that no one else would hear me.

No such luck.

It was like my voice had traveled over the loud speaker and half the class turned to look in my direction.

The rest of the day went about in the same way once people heard that I was there. The table we chose to sit at was so full of people by the end of lunch that I was almost late to class trying to work my way through the throng of people.

I guess news traveled quickly in small towns and even faster in small schools.

All the way through Chemistry people asked me questions about the accident and the same through my Fine Art Appreciation class during sixth.

When I walked into my last class I scanned the room but much to my surprise I didn't see the weird girl. I wondered if she had even come to school after the accident.

"So, how has your day been going? I hear you have become quite popular." Amanda said the last as an apology.

"I hate being the center of attention. It was bad enough that I was the new girl. Now I'm the new girl who saw the almost horrible accident." I didn't mean for that much acid to creep into my voice, but Amanda didn't seem to notice. I think she empathized.

"Trust me I understand. When we first moved here it was the same way. We were only in eighth grade then, but I guess my brother is a bit of a girl magnet." The understatement of the century. "Anyway, so every girl tried to be my best friend thinking that they could get to him through me. And since every girl was trying to vie for his attention, most of the guys hated him."

"I'm sorry. That must have been horrible." I could only imagine.

Miss Mowery walked into class and pulled out her book of Macbeth. She started reading lines from the first act that we hadn't finished yesterday.

We started whispering so that no one would hear us.

"It honestly didn't last more than a few weeks. See, Adam isn't really much into dating. He thinks girls our age are too shallow or something. Either way, after about two weeks of endless girls hitting on him and people finding out that he didn't have someone back home be was waiting on, the girls kind of backed off."

"He isn't like-"

"No. He is not. I think a lot of people, especially the girls, wanted to think that he was since he wasn't interested in them. But no. He definitely likes girls. Just hasn't found one that he likes."

"Well what about Stephanie. I mean she is gorgeous." I didn't even finish my sentence before I saw her shaking her head.

"Adam doesn't really like her that way. Although she is diluted enough in her thinking to think that he does. He is just too nice to tell her like it is. It makes me so angry though that she is going behind his back saying that he is taking her to the Valentine's Day Dance. He isn't even going."

Without realizing that I had been looking forward to it, my heart dropped when I heard he wasn't going.

"Oh, so that's who she was talking about yesterday at lunch. I guess it all makes sense now."

"Is there something you two ladies would like to share with the rest of the class?" Miss Mowery was standing not even two seats away and was staring at us, along with the rest of the class.

"Well, Amanda told me before class started that she didn't really understand the play and I told her that I could help her understand." I didn't normally lie so well, but today is seemed natural.

"So you have studied Macbeth or do you just like to read?"

"We studied Macbeth in my old school in my honor's class. It was one of the first plays we read this year. I was just about to ask her if we could get together sometime after school so that maybe I could help her understand better."

"Well, that sounds like an offer that you shouldn't really pass up Amanda. But next time please keep conversations, whether related to the class or not, for either before or after my class."

Miss Mowery walked away as she started to read Act 2, Scene 1.

I looked back at my desk and there was a crumpled piece of paper lying on my notebook. I opened it up and it said:

Nice save.

Thank you. I mouthed back to her. I jotted down a quick note and tossed it onto her desk while Miss Mowery had her back turned to the white board.

Would you like to hang out sometime? Not really sure what there is to do around here.

Amanda read it quickly and wrote her own message. The note landed back onto my notebook.

We can walk out to the together and decide.

I looked back at her and she looked like she was in a good mood. This was probably the best mood I had been in since we moved here a week ago. Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad after all.

We decided to go to her house since mine was still a mess from moving. I followed her home so that I could leave straight from her house.

We pulled up in front of an old Victorian looking house that was recently remodeled.

"Oh my God. Your house is stunning."

"Mom loves this type of this. She used to teach about the early nineteen hundreds at some fancy college back east and just fell in love with architecture of the era. Me personally, it's just a house."

We walked up the front steps past their perfect front lawn. The front door was made of mahogany wood that had a large oval shaped window cut into the middle. It was the type of glass that you could see their, but everything on the other side was blurry.

As we took off our coats by the coat rack I thought of mom and how she would be getting ready to great me from the front door.

"Would you mind if I used your phone? I should probably call my mom and let her know that I will not be home for a few hours."

"Sure, the phone is this way."

She walked down the hall filled with antique pictures and a very old chandelier. The front room was an old-fashioned style sitting room with a sofa and love-seat set fitting in perfectly with early 1900's style motif.

There was also a big fluffy style chair that looked like some kind of old-fashioned reading chair with a matching ottoman. It was put into the corner of the room with a reading lamp on an antique side table with a small collection of books behind it.

On the chair, sitting so comfortably and reading a book was Adam.

Amanda was standing in front of me and was the first to speak.

"Hey Adam. I didn't know you were home. What are you home?"

"It's my house too Amanda, I can come and go just the same as you." His tone was laid back and he didn't even bother to look up at her from his book.

"No, I mean that it's Tuesday. Why are you here? Shouldn't you be in the city with club thingy?"

"No, I quit that "club thingy" two weeks ago because I didn't get along well with some of the people there. You know how much I love conflict."

"Of course."

"Amanda, would you mind a little bit of quiet time before mom comes home. Trying to read this book."

He still hadn't looked up from the book in his hands. The book was green in what looked like a suede texture and gold lettering. But I couldn't tell what the name of the book was because the title was written in a fancy manuscript.

Amanda rolled her eyes and said "Whatever Adam. We just came in here to use the phone, but she can use the phone in the kitchen. Come on Marie."

As I turned to walk out of the study I saw him look up from the book with confusion and something else written clearly on his face. I stepped back through the doorway and skipped ahead behind Amanda who was already on her way to the kitchen, talking about something incoherently.

As I neared her I could hear what she was complaining about.

"Sorry about my brother. Sometimes he can be so rude when he is reading."

"No, it's fine. I get the same way sometimes. So what was that about the city?"

"Oh, sorry. I forgot that you don't know what we're talking about. The city is Twin Peaks. The town is so small that there are not many things for teens to do, so a lot of them shop at the mall in Twin Peaks. And since he is in to books, he joined kind of club in the city a few months back. He was going every Tuesday night."

"Okay. That makes sense. I wonder why he left."

"Adam gets bored with things like that easily. He loves reading, but for the most part he isn't a sociable person at school. It's like he hates everything about people our age and 'our shallow minds.' He is always talking about how superficial the girls are too. I think that's why he is such an outcast. I mean, he could be the most popular guy in school, but he prefers to be alone I guess. Anyway, the phone is right here. Do you want something to drink?"

She walked over to the fridge and opened the door. I dialed the number to the house after looking at my printed copy so I wouldn't forget.

"Umm, I think I'll just have a coke." There was a large selection in the fridge, more than anyone one house should have. I guess no one here agreed on what to drink.

Mom wasn't there to pick up the phone, so I left a message on the machine for her when she got back.

She grabbed a coke and a diet coke and came back to me.

Amanda handed me the coke about the same time that I hung up the phone.

"You know, it's kind of weird that you drink the same thing as Adam." She had an amused look on her face as she looked at me.

"Why is that weird?"
"Nothing." She smiled at me before she turned around and grabbed an apple from the counter basket.

"So, what would you like to do today?"

"Hmmm. Maybe a movie? Not really in the mood to go home early or to do homework."

"That sounds perfect. What do you like?"

"Just about any comedy or romance. You?"

She walked away from the counter and threw her apple away and started walking into the front room again and turned into the second doorway, the one before the study. It was a family room with a computer and television.

Amanda walked over to a covered wall of movies and picked out one. She held it up for me to see.

"How about The Notebook?"

"I loved it. That movie is always a classic."

She put the movie in the DVD player and we sat down to watch the movie. About half way through the movie, Adam walked into the room carrying some popcorn and three more sodas. Two cokes and a diet.

"What are you doing in here Adam? You hate romances."

"Mom's home."

"Oh. Ok, just be quiet." I guess their mom being home explained it. Although I wasn't sure what it explained.

Amanda saw my confused expression and leaned across the couch.

"Mom is always bugging Adam about dating a girl from the area. She thinks he's like depressed or something. Anyway, if she knows we are in here, she won't think Adam is here."

She sat back up and grabbed the bowl of popcorn out of Adam's hand and set it between us.

"By the way, here are some more cokes. Think of it as a bribe to not tell anyone that I'm home."

He crossed the room and set the sodas down between us, taking one coke for himself.

After the movie was over, Amanda turned to me and started talking, either pretending Adam wasn't there or ignoring that he was.

"So, are you going to the dance next Friday? Maybe you could drive with me to the city to look at some dresses at the mall. I could really use a critic."

"I actually haven't even thought about it. I mean, it is only my second day in Ridgeway High. Who would I even go with? I don't even know if I'd like someone to spend the entire evening with them."

"I actually have someone in mind, but give me a few days to work on it. This one is going to be hard. But I think it will be worth it, especially since I know this person has a thing for you. Try as he might to hide it."

She had a mischievous look on her face so I left it at that. But who did she have picked out for me?

Before I knew it Amanda and I were leaving school to go catch a movie and the small building they passed for a theater. It was the new release of some romance that I had never heard of but it sounded like it would be good.

The weird girl came back to school on Wednesday but she never said or looked at me again. It was almost like I didn't even exist anymore and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

Part of me was glad that I didn't have her looking at me all the time, wondering what she was thinking about, but the other part of me was disappointed because I never got the chance to know her and it was like I felt incomplete with the knowledge that I wouldn't get to know her.

On our way to the theater Amanda turned to me with a huge grin on her face.

"So, I found you a date to the Valentine's Day Dance. Although this one took me more persuading than I had thought it would. So, you are going with me tomorrow afternoon to the city to look for some dresses."

"Ok. So who am I going with then?"

"Hah! Like I am going to tell you. You will just have to wait and find out. It will be a blind date, we will pick you up Saturday night at 6 P.M. so we can all go to dinner."

"Wait, so you won't tell me who I am going with? Why not?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Because I don't want you to come up with some excuse why you couldn't go. I am pretty sure about the chemistry going on with this person and I don't want you to back out."

"What about this 'other person'. Does he know we are going to the dance together?"

"Of course he does. I asked him. Bribed him was more like it." She turned to see my face at the word bribe. "Oh it was nothing like that. I knew he wanted to go. It was written all over his face that he had a thing for you."

"Oh my gosh, you are killing me. Can't you just tell me who?" I turned my best pleading face on her.

"Nope." She extenuated the "P" on the end of the word. "And don't think that face does anything for me. I use the same one on my family." She turned to smile at me.

Well, I guess my pleading face wouldn't work. It had worked on my mother.