Meg Cabot - Shadowland

I guess that was when David stopped being Doc to me, and started being David.

"Don't worry," I told him, just before we parted ways because he looked so worried and cute and all with his red hair and freckles and sticky-outy ears. I reached out and rumpled some of that red hair. "Everything will be all right."

David looked up at me. "How do you know ?" he asked.

I took my hand away.

Because, of course, the truth was I didn't. Know everything was going to be all right, I mean. Far from it, as a matter of fact.

CHAPTER 15

Launch was almost over by the time I cornered Adam. I had spent almost the entire period in the library staring into a computer monitor. I still hadn't eaten, but the truth was, I wasn't hungry at all.

"Hey," I said, sitting down next to him and crossing my legs so that my black skirt hiked up just the littlest bit. "Did you drive to school this morning?"

Adam pounded on his chest. He'd started choking on a Frito the minute I'd sat down. When he finally got it down, he said, proudly, "I sure did. Now that I got my license, I am a driving machine. You should've come out with us last night, Suze. We had a blast. After we went to the Coffee Clutch, we took a spin along Seventeen Mile Drive. Have you ever done that? Man, with last night's moon, the ocean was so beautiful – "

"Would you mind taking me somewhere after school?"

Adam stood up fast, scaring two fat seagulls that had been sitting near the bench he was sharing with Cee Cee. "Are you kidding me? Where do you want to go? You name it, Suze, I'll take you there. Vegas? You want to go to Vegas? No problem. I mean, I'm sixteen, you're sixteen. We can get married there easy. My parents'll let us live with them, no problem. You don't mind sharing my room, do you? I swear I'll pick up after myself from now on – "

"Adam," Cee Cee said. "Don't be such a spaz. I highly doubt she wants to marry you."

"I don't think it's a good idea to marry anyone until my divorce from my first husband is finalized," I said, gravely. "What I want to do is go to the hospital and see Bryce."

Adam's shoulders slumped. "Oh," he said. There was no missing the dejection in his voice. "Is that all?"

I realized I'd said the wrong thing. Still, I couldn't unsay it. Fortunately, Cee Cee helped me out by saying, thoughtfully, "You know, a story about Bryce and Father Dominic bravely battling back from their wounds wouldn't be a bad idea for the paper. Would you mind if I tagged along, Suze?"

"Not at all." A lie, of course. With Cee Cee along, it might be difficult to accomplish what I wanted without a lot of explaining....

But what choice did I have? None.

Once I'd secured my ride, I started looking for Sleepy. I found him dozing with his back to the monkey bars. I nudged him awake with the toe of my boot. When he squinted up at me through his sunglasses, I told him not to wait for me after school, that I'd found my own ride. He grunted, and went back to sleep.

Then I went and found a pay phone. It's weird when you don't know your own mother's phone number. I mean, I still knew our number back in Brooklyn, but I didn't have the slightest idea what my new phone number was. Good thing I'd written it in my date book. I consulted the S's – for Simon – and found my new number, and dialed it. I knew no one was home, but I wanted to cover all my bases. I told the answering machine that I might be late getting back from school since I was going out with a couple of new friends. My mother, I knew, would be delighted when she got back from the station and heard it. She'd always worried, back in Brooklyn, that I was anti-social. She'd always go, "Suzie, you're such a pretty girl. I just don't understand why no boys ever call you. Maybe if you didn't look so ... well, tough. How about giving the leather jacket a rest?"

She'd probably have died of joy if she could have been in the parking lot after school and heard Adam as I approached his car.

"Oh, Cee, here she is." Adam flung open the passenger door of his car – which turned out to be one of the new Volkswagen Bugs; I guess Adam's parents weren't hurting for money – and shooed Cee Cee into the backseat. "Come on, Suze, you sit right up front with me."

I peered through my sunglasses – as usual, the morning fog had burned away, and now at three o'clock the sun beat down hard from a perfectly clear blue sky – at Cee Cee squashed in the backseat. "Um, really," I said. "Cee Cee was here first. I'll sit in the back. I don't mind at all."

"I won't hear of it." Adam stood by the door, holding it open for me. "You're the new girl. The new girl gets to sit in the front."

"Yeah," Cee Cee said from the depths of the backseat, "until you refuse to sleep with him. Then he'll relegate you to the backseat, too."

Adam said, in a Wizard of Oz voice, "Ignore that man behind the curtain."

I slid into the front seat, and Adam politely closed the door for me.

"Are you serious?" I turned around to ask Cee Cee as Adam made his way around the car to the driver's seat.

Cee Cee blinked at me from behind her protective lenses. "Do you really think anybody would sleep with him ?"

I digested that. "I take it," I said, "that's a no, then."

"Damned straight," Cee Cee said just as Adam slid behind the wheel.

"Now," the driver said, flexing his fingers experimentally before switching on the ignition. "I'm thinking this whole thing with the statue and Father Dom and Bryce has really stressed us all out. My parents have a hot tub, you know, which is really ideal for stress like the kind we've all been through today, and I suggest that we all go to my place first for a soak...."

"Tell you what," I said. "Let's skip the hot tub this time, and just go straight to the hospital. Maybe, if there's time later – "

" Yes ." Adam looked heavenward. "There is a god."

Cee Cee said, from the backseat, "She said maybe , numbskull. God, try to control yourself."

Adam glanced at me as he eased out of his parking space. "Am I coming on too strong?"

"Uh," I said. "Maybe...."

"The thing is, it's been so long since even a remotely interesting girl has shown up around here." Adam, I saw with some relief, was a very careful driver – not like Sleepy, who seemed to think stop signs actually said Pause. "I mean, I've been surrounded by Kelly Prescotts and Debbie Mancusos for sixteen years. It's such a relief to have a Susannah Simon around for a change. You decimated Kelly this morning when you went, 'Hmm, do angels leave blood stains? I don't think so.' "

Adam went on in this vein for the rest of the trip to the hospital. I wasn't quite sure how Cee Cee could stomach it. Unless I was mistaken, she felt the same way about him that he evidently felt about me. Only I didn't think his crush on me was very serious – if it had been, he wouldn't have been able to joke about it. Cee Cee's crush on him, however, looked to me like the real thing. Oh, she was able to tease him and even insult him, but I'd looked into the rear view mirror a couple times and caught her looking at the back of his head in a manner that could only be called besotted.

But just when she was sure he wasn't looking.

When Adam pulled up in front of the Carmel hospital, I thought he had stopped at a country club or a private house by mistake. Okay, a really big private house, but hey, you should have seen some of the places in the Valley.

But then I saw a discreet little sign that said Hospital. We piled out of the car and wandered through an immaculately kept garden, where the flower beds were bursting with blossoms. Hummingbirds buzzed all around, and I spotted some more of those palm trees I'd been sure I'd never see so far north of the equator.