“No, I’m going out.”
“Oh, you have a date. That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. He smiled and continued down the hallway. I watched him walk away to see if he would turn to look back at me, but he didn’t.
Harmless, I told myself. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.
Liam was back from Boston by seven, and we went to another one of his favorite restaurants. This time, when friends of his approached, I had the sense that he didn’t want us to spend any time with them, and it wasn’t only his burning desire not to share his time with me with anyone. I picked up the vibes and asked him about it.
“You were pretty curt with those guys,” I said.
“Somehow, I can’t lie to you, Lorelei,” he said. “I don’t want to have anything to do with those guys anymore. They were part of my history that I’m not proud of.”
I understood. It got so that if he saw any of these old rotten buddies, as he liked to call them, he would turn us around and go someplace else. We didn’t go out every night of the week. Sometimes the work he had really did keep him away. One project kept him out of town for three days, but he was always on the phone with me as much as he could be.
“I bet you think I’m like some teenager with a terrible crush,” he said.
“No,” I told him. How could I tell him that I really wouldn’t know? I had never been a real teenager. I’d had no teenage boyfriends calling me on the phone. “I hope it’s more than a crush.”
“Do you? I was hoping you would. Dad wants to take us all out to dinner this weekend, Julia and Clifford included. I told him I’d let him know. I don’t want you to feel like I’m pushing you into anything.”
“I really like your father and your sister, Liam. No worries.”
“No worries? What are you, Australian now? You forgot to say ‘mate.’ ”
I paused. That really was a funny thing to say. Daddy used to come up with expressions from everywhere because of how much he had traveled. Whether I liked it or not, I was a Patio in more ways than anyone could imagine. Daddy’s influences on me were impossible to cast away.
“I’m a good mimic. What can I say? Soon my vowels will sound like yours.”
“Good. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “I’ll be back later tonight.”
“Be careful, Liam.”
“Sure.” He paused. “Any special reason why?”
What would I tell him? That there was the possibility that some elderly man would suddenly appear in front of him, causing him to veer too quickly and crash, or that I thought my sister Ava was there and might pursue him and have him destroyed?
“No reason except that I care,” I said.
I had the feeling that if he could have crawled through the phone line to kiss me, he would have after I said that.
That night, I went to sleep happier and more optimistic than any other night. This was really working. I could become someone’s wife and someone’s mother. I could live a normal life. Couldn’t I? Days were passing into weeks without any more serious threats or looming dark shadows.
I saw little of Mr. Nickels. He was, as he said, practically nonexistent. When I did have dinner at the Winston House, he was always late and confused, but most of his discussions were with Jim, who, as Mrs. Winston had predicted, enjoyed the topics and the whole education scene. Jim had finally given up on me. He was polite but kept his distance more and more. Liam and I were becoming too much of an item.
Not once during any of our dates, however, did we get so close to the point of making love that I couldn’t pull back. I kept control like some preadolescent who was terrified of what would happen. Truthfully, I was afraid of the sex, but for far different reasons. What changes had occurred in me? How different would it be from when I had made love with Buddy? Would my body tighten and
harden even more? Would Liam notice what was unusual, and would that create some new tension? More important, would that frighten him away from me? Would I have to leave Quincy almost immediately afterward? Was this part of what Ava had warned me about?
One night, after we’d had dinner and had driven to one of his favorite spots where we could look out over the ocean, he said a surprising thing. All the while, I was afraid that he was getting impatient and annoyed with me, with my teenager-like resistance and reluctance.
“I like the fact that you’re different from most girls I’ve been with, Lorelei. In fact, every girl I’ve been with,” he added. “Those idiot friends of mine I’ve been avoiding have this rating system for girls they take out. They use stars to disguise it.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“It’s how many dates they have to go out on before they can score. More girls than you might imagine are one-star girls. The unwritten law is that if they reach five stars with a girl, they bail.
“Maybe I’m becoming old-fashioned or something. Maybe my great-auntie Amelia and her way of refusing to look at the world today and not see the world she would rather be in is rubbing off on me after all. My father used to make me spend a lot of time with her. I didn’t want my friends to know, because I knew they would tease me, but at least she was family. I like Mrs. Wakefield, don’t misunderstand me—and I know that once she really gets to know you, she’ll warm up to you, and you’ll like her more, too—but I always liked being with Great-auntie Amelia more.”
“She’d like to hear that.”