He was an idiot. A moron. Like that little whimper was Isabel getting all pa.s.sionate because she was into the way Alex was touching her. Right.
"I"m sorry," Isabel mumbled, her voice husky.
"It"s okay. It"s fine." Alex wanted to jump up and run out of the house. But that"s not what Isabel needed from him. She needed him to be there as a friend. She needed him to hold her as a friend.
Alex pulled Isabel"s head down on his shoulder. He cradled her in his arms. "You should go ahead and cry. It"s good to cry. My mom is always saying that. Try convincing a house full of guys that, though."
He kept talking, saying anything that sprang into his head, keeping his voice low and calm. Trying not to think about her arms around his neck, her body pressed against his.
"I"m so glad you"re here," Isabel said, her voice m.u.f.fled against his shirt.
Alex knew it wasn"t true. He knew there was only one guy Isabel really wanted here with her. And it wasn"t him.
"Dylan, do you know what the-" Michael stopped, censored himself. "Do you know what a kimbie is?" he yelled. He didn"t know exactly where Dylan was, so Michael yelled loud enough that he could be heard anywhere in the entire house.
He hoped that little weasel Dylan hadn"t snuck out. The Pascals had said he was supposed to be helping Michael with the baby-sitting. And he was going to be one very sorry junior high school rodent if he didn"t answer Michael pretty fast.
Michael tried to spoon another bite of applesauce into the baby"s mouth. Sarah, that was her name. After so many foster families it got a little hard to keep track.
Sarah let the applesauce slide into her mouth and spat it back out. Then she laughed. Michael actually had thought the move was kind of cute-the first time. Now that a jar of baby bananas, a jar of baby spinach, and half a jar of baby applesauce were decorating the kitchen, it was getting old. Very old.
"I want kimbie," Amanda screeched from the next room. Who knew a five-year-old girl who insisted on dressing up like a fairy princess every day could yell that loud? Maybe he should try telling her that fairy princesses had very, very soft voices.
"Dylan!" Michael roared. "Get in here now! If I have to come looking for you, it"s not going to be pretty."
Dylan stuck his head into the kitchen, careful to stay out of Sarah"s spitting range. "I"m doing my homework. This is my homework time according to the Pascals" Rascals rules."
Michael almost believed the kid was serious. Then he saw the little smirk pulling on Dylan"s lips. "The Pascals aren"t here right now," he shot back. "You"re living under my rules. And I"m giving you a new homework a.s.signment-find out what a kimbie is and give it to Amanda so she"ll stop screaming her little head off. Then put her in her pajamas and put her to bed."
"How am I supposed to-," Dylan began.
"Just do it," Michael barked. Dylan disappeared.
I should tell the Pascals there are people you can hire to do this kind of thing, Michael thought. People called baby-sitters.
That gave him an idea. Maria seemed like the kind of girl who would get into baby-sitting. He reached for the phone and dialed. Maria answered on the second ring. He wasn"t proud. He begged. And she said she"d come right over.
You can hold out for fifteen minutes until Maria gets here, he told himself. "And you, Sarah, you can get some food down your gullet in fifteen minutes," he muttered.
Michael used his sleeve to wipe some mushed banana off his forehead, then scooped up another spoonful of applesauce. Sarah giggled in antic.i.p.ation. He tried to tune out the sound of Amanda"s yelling as he brought the spoon up to Sarah"s mouth. He ordered himself not to yell when the applesauce hit his forehead and started dripping into his eye.
When Maria walked through the door thirteen minutes later, there was one horrible moment when Michael was sure she was going to turn around and walk right back out.
But she didn"t. First she told Dylan to get some crayons and paper and have Amanda draw a picture of the kimbie. It worked. They still didn"t know what it was she wanted, but she was at least quiet and happy.
Then she dragged Michael into the kitchen to deal with Sarah. "Did any food actually make it down her throat, you think?" Maria asked. She reached up and twisted her hair into a ponytail. The gesture pulled her shirt tight against her body-and Michael flashed on Maria"s dream.
That happened way too much lately. Maria would do some completely normal thing, and Michael would get slammed by the memory of that dream. He should never have gone into it. What he saw had totally messed up his head, turning his thoughts about Maria from G-okay, sometimes PG-to NC-17.
Like at lunch yesterday, she insisted that he and Alex eat at least one green thing. He reached over to take a celery stick from her, his hand brushed hers, he noticed her skin felt really soft. And suddenly he was wondering how it would feel to have those smooth hands of hers touching him everywhere.
"If you have to think that hard, I"d say the answer is no," Maria said.
"Uh, yeah. Right," Michael answered.
"We should probably wait and see if she feels hungry a little later. She"s too hyped to eat right now," Maria decided. "I"ll give her a bath. That should help relax her a little." She grabbed a dish towel and tossed it to Michael. "You can give the kitchen a bath."
Michael was glad to have something to do that would take his eyes off Maria for a while-even though he could still hear her splashing around in the kitchen sink, talking to the baby.
Why did she have to look so s.e.xy in that dream? Cute. That"s how Maria should look. It"s how she"d always looked before. He remembered how annoyed she"d gotten when he used the cute word to describe her. She thought the word cute should only be used when you talked about kittens or something. He thought the way she got all ruffled up about it was . . . cute.
That"s how he wanted to think of Maria. He wished there was some way of going into his brain and cutting out the piece that held the memory of her dream. He wanted his Maria thoughts to be able to get a PG rating again.
He scrubbed the table so hard, it made his arms ache, refusing to allow himself even a glance at Maria. Then he moved on to Sarah"s high chair, the kitchen cabinets, and the floor. Sarah had done some throwing before she got to the spitting. The girl had a good arm.
"Okay, she"s done. Can you get me a towel and some clean clothes?" Maria asked.
"Dylan, get us a towel and some clean clothes for Sarah," Michael called. He decided it was okay to look at her now. She was talking to him. He couldn"t stare at the floor like an idiot. Michael glanced over at her. Big mistake. Sarah had splashed water all over Maria and her shirt now had some interesting semitransparent spots. Michael locked his gaze on her face.
Maria raised her eyebrows. "I always wanted a little brother," Michael admitted. "You know, someone to get me stuff when I was too lazy to do it myself."
"Oh, that"s horrible, isn"t it, Sarah?" Maria leaned down and kissed the baby on the head.
Michael suddenly regretted not going for the towel and clothes himself. Because watching Maria kiss Sarah"s head made him think about her kissing him. And that was completely sick.
Sarah splashed in the water, kicking her pudgy legs. Maria laughed and kissed her again. Michael wondered what it would be like if she did kiss him. And not on the top of his head, either-more like the way she"d kissed that guy in her dream.
Don"t even go there, he ordered himself. It would be way too weird. She was the girl he felt protective of, the girl he liked to tease, the girl he liked to scare when they were watching old horror movies. Kissing Maria would be too much like kissing a little sister.
Dylan wandered into the kitchen and dropped the towel and clothes on the table. "A kimbie is a baseball mitt, if you want to know," he muttered. "She likes to sleep with it."
"Good going," Michael said.
Dylan nodded. He crossed to the fridge, opened it, poked around a little, and shut it. He pretended to be all interested in watching Maria dress the baby, which Michael knew he wasn"t. He got himself a drink of water, drank it, and poured another one.
"Did you need something, Dylan?" Maria finally asked. She picked up Sarah and held the baby cradled against her chest.
Michael stared at Dylan. It was better than looking at Maria. He hoped in a couple more days, the memory of that dream would start to fade and things would get back to normal. He wanted to be able to hang out with her without having . . . thoughts.
"Um, there"s this dance on tomorrow . . . ," Dylan said. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Michael tried to figure out what the problem was. "Are you afraid the Pascals won"t give you permission to go?" he asked.
"No, they already said I could go. Mr. Pascal"s going to drive me," Dylan answered. "But I don"t know how to dance," he confessed in a rush.
Michael shot a glance at Maria and caught her trying not to smile. He tried not to smile back.
"Dancing"s easy. We can teach you," Maria said. "I"ll just go put the baby down. Dylan, show me where?"
I guess I better go pick out some CDs, Michael thought. He headed to his room-well, his and Dylan"s room. He was serious when he told Maria he"d always wanted a little brother. And not only so he"d have someone who he could make wait on him-that was a bonus.
Getting ready to teach Dylan to dance was giving him this big-brother feeling, a little taste of what it could have been like. Although his brother wouldn"t have been such a dweeb he needed to be taught how to dance when he was, like, thirteen years old. Michael would have made sure of that. If he had a little brother, he would have made sure the kid was able to handle himself.
Michael didn"t know why he was bothering to think about this. He was never going to have a little brother. Or a big brother or a sister or parents.
"Michael, come on," Maria called from the living room. "I want to shake my groove thing."
He laughed. Maria could always do that. She could always make him laugh. And that"s what he needed-especially when he was about to sink into a bunch of pathetic thoughts about not having a family. He grabbed a few CDs, then jerked open his middle dresser drawer and snagged a sweatshirt and hurried back to the living room.
"I thought you might be cold. You got all wet," he told Maria. He threw the sweatshirt to her, and she pulled it on. Good.
Michael popped one of the CDs into the player and cranked it.
Dylan instantly stiffened up. "So what do I do?" he asked.
"Whatever you want," Maria cried over the music. "That"s the best thing about dancing." She twirled around the room, giving little hops, doing her happy dance.
Michael attempted to keep his thoughts in line by focusing on Dylan, who looked totally panicked. "Don"t worry, not everybody dances like Maria," Michael said. "All you have to do is kind of shuffle your feet around."
"It"s true," Maria said. "That"s what Michael does. And there are usually a few girls desperate enough to dance with him."
Dylan laughed. Maria grabbed his hands and pulled him around the room a few times. Michael stepped back and watched. Maria was right about him. He was an okay dancer, but he never got into it the way she did. It"s like the music took her over, from all those springy blond curls to- Get a grip, Michael told himself. As soon as the song was over he killed the music. "You"ll be fine," Michael told Dylan.
"But what about, you know, slow dancing?" Dylan asked.
"Even easier," Michael answered. "You don"t even really have to shuffle your feet. You just kind of hold the girl and sway."
"But"-Dylan lowered his voice, sounding embarra.s.sed-"but where . . . where are you supposed to hold her?"
Maria changed CDs and a slow song started up. She turned off the overhead light. "You can"t slow dance when it"s this bright," she said. She stepped up to Michael. "You can use me to demonstrate."
He didn"t want to touch her right now. Not with all those thoughts about her wet shirt filling his brain. But he couldn"t think of a way out of it.
"There are a couple of places your hands can go. I usually put mine here," Michael told Dylan. He positioned his hands in the curve of Maria"s waist.
"A good choice," Maria said. "The girl might do something like this." She linked her hands behind Michael"s neck.
This felt . . . pretty nice. It didn"t feel all wrong and awkward the way he thought it would.
"Is that how far away I should be?" Dylan asked. Any second Michael expected him to pull out some paper and start taking notes.
"Probably to start," Maria said. "But there are signals that a girl wouldn"t mind being held a little closer. Like she might stare into your eyes."
Maria looked up at Michael. Man, her eyes were blue. And she always smelled so good.
Michael wondered what the deal was with her dream. Was there some guy out there she had a thing for, some guy she wanted to kiss? Or did she wake up the next morning going, "That was weird. I guess I shouldn"t eat pineapple pizza before I go to bed."
"Or she might move her arms around your waist." Maria demonstrated on Michael, and it continued to feel good. He kept waiting for that wave of but-this-is-the-girl-who"s-like-my-little-sister feeling to sweep over him. But it didn"t come.
"That"s a pretty clear signal she wants to be held closer," Maria said. "Of course, some guys, like Michael, are kind of slow. They miss the more subtle hints."
"I"m not missing any hints," Michael answered. He pulled her up against him and slid one of his hands up her back. She snuggled closer, resting her cheek against his chest. That little-sister feeling still didn"t come.
"So that"s it?" Dylan asked.
"That"s it," Michael answered. He started to pull away, but Maria tightened her arms around him.
"There is the kissing thing," Maria said. She lifted her head and stared up at Michael again.
"The kissing thing?" Dylan repeated in horror.
"Yeah, sometimes during a slow dance people kiss," Maria said.
Michael"s eyes drifted down to her lips. The color of them reminded him of raspberries. He wondered how they would taste.
But kissing was a whole different deal than dancing. Dancing was kind of a borderline. You could be friends and dance together. But if you started kissing, you crossed the border from being friends into . . . something else.
"I think you"ve learned enough for one night," Michael told Dylan.
-=(8)=-.
Max glanced at the clock. Almost eight. Was Liz changing clothes right now, trying to decide what to wear to UFOnics, trying to figure out what Jerry Cifarelli would think was hot?
"What do you think of a display on the Hollow Earth Society?" Ray asked. "Maybe right over there, next to the one on the Elvis-alien connection." He jerked his chin, nodding toward the back wall of the UFO museum.
"I don"t know what that is," Max admitted.
Maybe Liz and Jerry are already at UFOnics, dancing to some slow song, Max thought. Why had Maria told him that Liz was going out with Jerry tonight? If she wanted to torture him, why didn"t she just pull out his fingernails or drip water on his forehead?
"And you call yourself an alien," Ray scolded. "Don"t you know we"ve been colonizing the hollow center of the earth for hundreds of years?"
"Wait. What? When were you planning on telling us?" Max demanded. He understood that talking about their birth planet was painful for Ray. But if there was a whole group of aliens on earth, he should know about it.
Ray shook his head. "Max, Max, Max. You really should have told me you"d gone in for that lobotomy. I"d have given you the night off."
Oops, Max thought. "I guess the words hollow center of the earth should have tipped me off, huh?" he said. "I don"t have much of a sense of humor tonight."
"Don"t worry about it," Ray said. "And just for the record, as far as I know, you, me, Michael, and Isabel are the only aliens on earth."
"So what"s this Hollow Earth Society deal?" Max asked. He wanted to check the time again, but he wouldn"t let himself. If he kept thinking about Liz and Jerry, he really would need a lobotomy.
"Just one of the wackier human theories," Ray explained. "You want to hear about it-or you want to tell me what"s got you in such a fever?"