“Is that what you spend your spare time doing?”
“You got me. All I do is write down lines to impress women.”
“Women?”
“Sorry—one woman,” he rectified as I scowled at him. “One woman who is worth a thousand women.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said. “Don’t try and dig yourself out of this one.”
“So gracious.” Xavier shook his head. “So forgiving and compassionate.”
“Don’t push it, buddy,” I said, putting on a thuggish voice.
Xavier hung his head.
“I apologize . . . jeez, I’m whipped.”
I continued with the history task while he finished writing his report. He still had a stack of homework left, but in the end I proved too much of a distraction. He had just completed his third trig problem when I felt his hand wander over to my lap. I slapped it gently.
“Keep studying,” I said when he looked up from the page. “No one said you could stop.”
He smiled and scrawled something at the bottom of the answer sheet. The solution now read:
Find x if (x) = 2sin3x, over the domain -2? < x < 2?
“Stop goofing around!” I said.
“I’m not! I’m stating a truth. You’re my solution to everything,” Xavier replied. “The end result is always you. X always equals Beth.”
Into the Woods
I was nervous about meeting Xavier’s family on Saturday. He’d invited me several times already, and it had become impossible to refuse without looking as though I wasn’t interested.
Besides, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to meet them; I was just terrified about how they might react to meeting me.
At school, after the first-day nerves had evaporated, I’d never been too bothered about how
I was perceived by my peers. But Xavier’s family was different; they actually mattered. I wanted them to like me, and I wanted them to think that Xavier’s life had been enhanced by our relationship. In short, I wanted their approval. Molly had told me no end of stories about her exboyfriend Kyle, whom her parents had thoroughly disapproved of, even going so far as to refuse him entry into the house. I was sure the Woods clan couldn’t object to me that strongly, but if they didn’t like me, their influence might be strong enough to affect Xavier’s feelings for me.
When Saturday came, Xavier’s car pulled into our driveway at precisely two minutes to five as arranged. We headed off toward his house, which was on the other side of town, about a ten-minute drive away. By the time we pulled into his street, I had a hundred negative thoughts whirring through my brain. What if they thought my pale complexion was due to illness or a drug addiction? What if they thought I wasn’t good enough for Xavier and that he could do better? What if I accidentally said or did something embarrassing, as I often did when I was nervous? What if his doctor parents noticed there was something different about me. Wasn’t it their job to notice? What if Claire or Nicola thought my clothes were unfashionable? Ivy had helped me choose my outfit: a sleeveless navy dress with cream buttons down the front and a round collar. It was, as Molly would say, classy and very Chanel. But everything else was still one big question mark.
“Would you just relax!” said Xavier as I ran my hands through my hair and smoothed down my dress for the tenth time since we’d left home. “I can almost hear your heart from here.
They’re good, church-going people. They’re obliged to like you. Even if they don’t, which is impossible, you’ll never notice. But they’re going to love you, they already do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve told them all about you, and they’ve been dying to meet you in person for ages,” he said. “So you can stop acting like you’re going to meet the executioners now.”
“You could show a little more sympathy,” I said testily. “I have a lot to be worried about.
You are so horrid sometimes!”
Xavier burst into laughter. “Did you just call me horrid?” he asked.
“I certainly did. You don’t even care that I’m nervous!”
“Of course I care,” he said patiently. “But I’m telling you that there’s nothing to worry about. My mom is already your biggest fan, and everybody else is excited about meeting you.
For a while they suspected I was making you up. I’m telling you this to make you feel better, because I care, and now I demand that you retract your insult. I can’t live with the stigma of being labeled horrid.”
“I take it back.” I said, smiling. “But you are a dunce.”
“My self-esteem is taking a serious bashing today,” he said, shaking his head. “First I’m horrid, now a dunce. . . . I guess that makes me a horrid dunce.”
“I’m just worried.” My smile faded. “What if they compare me with Emily? What if they don’t think I measure up to her?”
“Beth”—Xavier cupped my face in his hands and made me look at him—“you’re incredible. They’re going to see that right away. And besides, my mom didn’t like Emily.”
“Why not?”
“She was too impulsive.”
“Impulsive how?” I asked, puzzled.
“She had some issues,” Xavier said. “Her parents were divorced, she didn’t see her dad, and sometimes she did things without thinking them through. I was always there to keep her safe, thank God, but it didn’t make her too popular with my family.”
“If you could change things and have her back, would you?” I asked.
“Emily’s dead,” Xavier said. “And that’s how life played out for us. Then you came along.
I might have been in love with her then, but I’m in love with you now. And if she came back today, she’d still be my oldest friend, but you’d still be my girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry, Xav,” I said. “I just feel sometimes like you’re only with me because you lost the one you were meant to be with.”
“But can’t you see, Beth?” he insisted. “I was never meant to be with Em. I was destined to love her and lose her. You’re the one I’m meant to be with.”
“I think I understand now.” I took his hand and squeezed it lightly. “Thanks for explaining it to me. I know I sound like a baby.”
Xavier winked. “An adorable baby.”
Everything about Xavier’s home suggested comfort. It was a big, recently built neoGeorgian house with neat hedges and pillars by the shiny front door. Inside, the walls were painted white and the floors were wood parquet. The front of the house, with its plush living room, was reserved for guests, while the open area at the back, which overlooked the deck and pool, was where the family of eight spent most of their time. Deep sofas draped with fluffy throws faced a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. The dining table was cluttered with a collection of girlie paraphernalia, a basket of folded laundry sat in one corner, and several pairs of sneakers were lined up by the back door. Opposite the TV was a toy corner, with a collection of Barbie dolls, trucks, and puzzles designed to keep the youngest children occupied. A ginger cat lay curled in a basket. I noticed a whiteboard on one wall where family members had scrawled messages for one another.
Maybe it had something to do with the smell of cooking in the air, or the voices calling to one another from all around the house, but the place had a welcoming feel despite its size.