Meg Cabot - Queen of Babble

It isn’t until we’ve pulled away that Luke gives a mighty exhalation and says, “Thanks for that. I thought she was going to talk all day.”

“She’s a big fan of yours,” I say with cautious nonchalance. “She thought I was your girlfriend and she about had a heart attack that I wasn’t French. She said it will be a big scandal if you don’t marry a French girl. It was a big scandal when your dad married your mom, apparently.”

Luke throws the car into gear with more force than is strictly necessary. “The only person who was scandalized was her. She’s been after my dad since they were kids. Now that he and my mom are on the rocks, she can’t wait for the chance to sink her claws into him.”

“But it won’t work,” I say, “because your dad still loves your mom. Right?”

“Right,” Luke says. “Although I could see the old guy marrying that witch just to get her off his back. Oh, here. I got you something.” He pokes the bag of heavenly scented croissants that sits between us.

“A croissant?” I ask, opening up the bag. A wave of yeasty steam hits me. They’re still warm from the oven. “Thanks!” I decide not to mention anything about my carb-free diet. I’ve pretty much given up on that since those rolls on the train down here, anyway.

“Not that bag,” Luke says, looking at me like I’m crazy. “The other one.”

I notice a smaller bag behind the one containing the croissants and open it.

And my eyes nearly pop out of my head.

“Wha-” I gasp. I am, for only the second time in my life, speechless. “How-how did you know?”

“Chaz said something about it,” Luke says.

I pull the six-pack-glistening with moisture-from the bag and stare at it.

“They’re…they’re still cold,” I say wonderingly.

“Well,” Luke says a little dryly, “yes. I know Sarlat looks old, but they do have refrigeration.”

I know it’s ridiculous. But my eyes have actually filled with tears. I do my best to blink them away. I don’t want him to know that I’m crying with joy over the fact that he’s given me a six-pack of diet Coke. Because I’m not. It’s the gesture, not the beverage.

“Th-thank you,” I say. I know I need to keep the conversation short, or he’ll hear the tremor in my voice. “D-do you want one?”

“You’re welcome,” Luke says. “And no, thank you. I prefer to get my caffeine the old-fashioned way, with a Colombian drip. So. What have you decided?”

I’ve taken one of the cans from the plastic holder and am about to crack it open. “Decided?”

“About what you’re going to do,” Luke says. “When you get back to the States. Are you going to stay in Ann Arbor? Or move to New York?”

“Oh.” I crack open the can. The sharp hiss of carbonation is every bit as musical to my ears as the burble of the river to my left. “I don’t know. I want to move to New York. You know, with Shari. But what would I do there?”

“In New York?”

“Right. I mean, let’s face it. It turns out there’s not a whole lot you can do with an individualized major in history of fashion. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Oh,” Luke says with a mysterious smile, “I’m pretty sure you’ll figure something out.”

“Right,” I say-very sarcastically. I mean, for me, anyway. “And then there’s the small fact that I haven’t exactly graduated yet. How can I find a job if I don’t even have my B.A. yet?”

“Well,” Luke says, “I think that depends on the job.”

“I don’t know,” I say. And take a sip of my diet Coke. The bubbles from the carbonation tickle my tongue. God, I’ve missed this. “It might just be simpler to stay in Ann Arbor for one last semester.”

“Right,” Luke says. “And see if you can patch things up with what’s-his-name.”

I am so shocked by this I nearly spit out the diet Coke I’ve just swallowed. Yes! Nearly one of sixteenth of one my six precious cans!

“WHAT?” I cry after I swallow. “Patch things up with-what are you TALKING about?”

“Just checking,” Luke says. “I mean, you say you want to stay in Ann Arbor…and he’ll be in Ann Arbor. Right?”

“Well, yeah,” I say. “But that’s not why. I mean, at least in Ann Arbor I still have my job at the shop. I could live at home and save up my money, then join Shari in January.” If she hasn’t already found another roommate.

“That,” Luke says as he turns the car up the driveway to Mirac, “doesn’t sound much like the girl I met on the train the other day, the one who took off for France without even knowing if she’d have a place to stay when she got there.”

“I knew I’d have a place to stay,” I say. “I mean, I knew Shari was here somewhere. I knew I wouldn’t be alone.”

“Just like you wouldn’t be alone in New York,” Luke says.

I laugh. “Oh, you’re one to talk,” I say. “Why aren’t you moving to New York? You told me you got into NYU.”

“Yeah,” Luke says as we bounce along the steep driveway. “But I don’t know if that’s really what I want to do. I mean, give up my six-figure salary for five more years of school?”

“Oh, you’d rather help rich people figure out how to make more money than save lives?”

“Ouch,” Luke says with a grin.

I shrug. Or as best I can when I’m being jounced around so much and am also trying to protect the precious elixir in the can I’m holding. “I’m just saying. I mean, managing stock portfolios is important. But if it turns out what you’re actually good at is healing sick people, isn’t it kind of a waste not to do that instead?”

“But that’s just it,” Luke says. “I don’t know if I am. Good at healing sick people, I mean.”

“Just like I don’t know if there’s anything I’m good at that someone in New York will actually pay me to do.”

“But,” he says, “as a certain person keeps telling me, you’ll never know if you don’t even give it a try.”

Then we’re bursting out of the trees again and onto the circular drive that leads to the house. It’s even more impressive, it turns out, in daylight than it is at nighttime.

Not that Luke seems to notice. I guess because he’s seen it so many times already.

“That’s different,” I say. “I mean, you already know there’s something you can do. Someone’s paying you a six-figure salary to do it. You know how much I get paid? I get eight bucks an hour at Vintage to Vavoom. You know how far eight bucks an hour goes in New York City? Well, I don’t, either. But I’m guessing not very far.”

Luke, I notice when I glance nervously his way to see what he thinks of my admission, is grinning more broadly than ever.

“Is this how you are with everybody?” he wants to know. “Or am I just lucky because, in a moment of weakness, you revealed all your deepest secrets to me?”

“You promised not to tell anyone about those,” I remind him. “Especially Shari, about the thesis-”

“Hey,” Luke says, pulling up in front of the chateau. His gaze is steady on mine. He’s not smiling anymore. “I said I wouldn’t tell. Remember? And I’m not going to. You can trust me.”

And for a second-while we sit there looking at each other across the bag of croissants-I can swear that something…happens…between us.

I don’t know what. But it’s different from all the times I thought he was going to kiss me. There’s nothing sexual about what happens there in the car. It’s more like some sort of…mutual understanding. Some sort of acknowledgment that we are spiritual kin. Some sort of magnetic pull-

Or maybe it’s just the smell of the croissants. It’s been a really long time since I’ve had any kind of pastry.

Whatever it is that’s going on between Luke and me-if anything-it’s over a second later when the door to the chateau is thrown open and Vicky, standing there in a pale blue kimono, says, “God, what took you so long? We’re all starving. You know I get hypoglycemic if I don’t eat first thing in the morning.”

And the moment between Luke and me-whatever it was-is gone.

“Got your cure for hypoglycemia right here,” Luke says cheerfully, grabbing the bag of croissants.

Then, when Vicky stomps back into the house, Luke turns to me and winks.

“Look at that,” he says. “I’m healing people already.”

The rest of the morning is a blur of deliveries. The first truck to arrive is the one carrying the dance-floor, stage, and sound equipment for the wedding’s band-in this case, not the string quartet Luke tells me plays most weddings at Mirac, but Blaine’s band, Satan’s Shadow. As workers from the company in charge of setting this up begin their work, another truck-this one filled with folding tables and chairs for the rehearsal dinner and wedding reception (both of which are to be held on the lawn)-rumbles up the driveway (knocking down everything Luke and Chaz couldn’t reach, and forcing the two of them to have to scramble back down the driveway to clear it of all the newly fallen branches) and needs help unloading.