Maria flopped back down into the nest of pillows on her bed.
'Okay, self, you take that advice, too,' she muttered. 'It's Michael's loss.' She clicked the pause button again, and the movie started back up. A minute later she was entranced.
She was so completely immersed in the world of the movie that she practically flew off the bed when she heard her window slide open nearly an hour later.
'You scared me,' she snapped, her heart pounding as Michael climbed into her room.
'It's not like it's the first time I've come in this way,' he answered.
'Not lately.' It came out sounding a lot more accusatory than she'd intended it to. Well, so what? It was the truth, wasn't it?
'What're you watching?' Michael asked. He took a step toward the bed, then veered off, grabbed the chair next to her dresser, and plopped down on it.
'Um, nothing. Nothing! I wasn't really watching anything. It was just background noise.' Oh, God, where was the remote? What had she done with the remote? She scanned the bed, the bedside table, groped under the pillows.
'Looking for this?' Michael picked the remote off the floor but, being Michael, didn't hand it to her.
Maria lunged for the TV set, fumbling for the power button. She had to turn it off.
'Starman,' Michael said. Too late. Maria glanced over her shoulder and saw him holding the plastic video rental box. 'So you go out and rent stuff for background noise?' he asked, raising one eyebrow.
'Yeah, sometimes. Stupid, huh? That's me. Stupid,' Maria babbled. She found the power button, hit it, and returned to the bed, sitting cross-legged and looking everywhere but at Michael.
He used the remote to click the TV back on. 'Let's watch the rest. I've never seen it.'
It will just be worse if I shut it off again, Maria thought. Not that it's not already totally obvious that I didn't want him to see what I was watching, which of course is why he now has to see it.
Michael stretched his legs out in front of him. Maria ordered herself not to check out the nice fit of his jeans. Of course, she didn't obey herself. 'So what's happened so far?' he asked.
Ah, yes. Let's go for the maximum humiliation possible here, Maria thought.
'Well, that guy-' She nodded toward Jeff Bridges, who was in the middle of bringing a dead deer back to life. 'He's the starman. His spaceship crash-landed, and he took on the form of Karen Allen's husband by using DNA from hair from a photo album. You know how some people save locks of hair?'
Maybe if Maria swamped Michael with details, he'd miss the fact that he'd caught her mooning over a movie that was a love story between an alien guy and a human girl.
'Anyway, he has to get back to his mother ship or he'll die, and some government people are chasing them, and a guy from SETI, too, who is basically decent. The starman, he really likes apple pie, and he just learned to drive. At first he thought a yellow light meant go very fast because he learned by watching Karen-I mean Jenny, the character's name is Jenny, Karen's the actress-drive and-'
'I'm up to speed,' Michael said, cutting her off.
'Good,' Maria answered. She scooted back a little farther so she could lean against the headboard and focused her eyes on the TV screen. She'd thought she'd have to pretend that she was having no problem watching it with him, but the story sucked her back in, and she didn't have to fake it after all.
When the movie got to the part where Jenny and Starman had to say good-bye, Maria's eyes got all wet and stingy, and she suddenly became aware that Michael was watching her and not the television.
Maria tried to stop the tears before they began rolling down her face, but she couldn't. Jenny's pain at never seeing Starman again was so real to her.
'Repeat after me. Movie. Reality. Movie. Reality,' Michael said sarcastically.
She nodded and locked her teeth together, but she couldn't stop a muffled keening sound from escaping her. It was so sad.
Michael threw a box of Kleenex in her direction. 'I've got to go,' he told her.
Big surprise.
Maria wiped off her face and blew her nose hard.
'Wait,' she commanded. She used another Kleenex on her face, sure it was already all blotchy. It was so unfair that she couldn't cry like Karen Allen, who looked beautiful and pale and tragic as her tears flowed.
'What?' Michael asked impatiently, getting to his feet and jamming his hands in his back pockets.
'Yesterday it sounded like Trevor expected you to go back home with him. So are you?'
She hadn't planned to ask Michael that question, even though she was dying to know the answer. But when he said he was leaving, it just came spilling out.
'Are you?' she repeated when he hesitated.
'I'm thinking about it,' Michael answered.
And he was out of there, leaving Maria heartbroken and speechless.
NINE
Maria was already sitting at their usual booth at the back of Flying Pepperoni. Michael hesitated, trying to figure out if he should sit next to her or across from her. Next to her there could be some accidental skin-to-skin contact, and he'd definitely pick up the scent of the essential oils she wore. But across from her he'd have to look at her, and-
'Why are we stopping?' Trevor asked from behind him.
'We're not,' Michael answered. He strode over to the table and slid onto the leatherette bench across from Maria, figuring it was marginally safer.
He still couldn't believe he'd gone to her house last night after all his mental lectures on the virtues of Operation Cold Turkey. At least he hadn't let himself sit on the bed, managing to utilize that much brain matter. And he hadn't touched her, even though when he'd seen the tears on her cheeks, he'd had this wild impulse to kiss them away and then just kiss her until the kiss became her whole world. And his.
What was wrong with him?
'Now that your entire party is here, would you like to order?' Lucinda Baker asked as she bounced up to their booth.
'I wouldn't exactly call it a party,' Maria muttered. She grabbed a bread stick out of the basket and broke it in half with a sharp snap.
'How about a batch of our buffalo chicken wings with our special blue cheese dipping sauce to get you started?' Lucinda continued cheerily.
'Lucinda, check the lost and found. I think I saw your pod in there,' Maria said, crunching into the bread stick.
Lucinda lowered her voice. 'The district manager is here today. And I'm supposed to be a-' She pointed to her big, yellow, I'm-a-happy-waitress button. 'I'm also supposed to use my happy, peppy charm to get people to order apps. If you do, I swear I'll pay you back for them at school tomorrow. I'm teetering on the brink of unemployment here.' Lucinda raised her voice again and stood up ramrod straight. 'Or maybe you'd like to try our supercrunchy mozzarella sticks. They're yum-my!'
'Fried cheese.' Maria shook her head with a grimace. 'Is it just me, or is there something obscene about the whole concept of fried cheese?' She shot an evil glance at Michael, as if he was the inventor of the mozzarella stick. Clearly if Maria was wearing a button right now, the words
'We'll take the wings,' Michael said, avoiding Maria's gaze. 'And a medium pie, one-third veggie, two-thirds meatball and pineapple. One mineral water, one Lime Warp-' He looked at Trevor.
'Orange soda,' Trevor said.
'You got it!' Lucinda cried, and rushed off.
'Thanks for asking what I wanted,' Maria muttered.
Michael wanted to yell at her to speak up if she expected a response. Instead he tried to be rational since she was obviously incapable.
