Time Between Us Read Online Free PDF Page B

that makes us both crack up.
    She finally stops squeezing, but keeps holding my face. “I really am sorry. I just got carried away. I wasn’t trying to embarrass you.”
    I bite my lip. “You did.”
    “I know.”
    “Please don’t do it again.”
    “I won’t,” she says with a smile and a hard shake of her head. She grips my shoulders and air-kisses each of my cheeks. They still feel red from all the squeezing. “Can we get in the car now?” She clenches her jaw and shivers.
    When I nod, she leads me to the Saab. She even opens my door and ushers me in before going around to her side and taking her place behind the wheel.
    “Where to?” she asks. “Want to grab a coffee?”
    “I can’t. It’s Tuesday.”
    “Right, family dinner night.” She backs out into the nearly empty parking lot. We’re silent for a few seconds, and I think she’s going to reach over and crank the stereo like she always does, but instead she turns to me. “So, do you still think the new guy was the one watching you at the track?”
    I shrug. “I don’t know.” I start to tell Emma about the pencil, but I stop myself. To someone who already considers him creepy, it might sound weird rather than charming. Come to think of it, perhaps I should have found it weird rather than charming. I reach up and touch the top of my head, having forgotten that I’m now wearing a baseball cap and the pencil is tucked safely in my backpack.
    “Do you want my opinion?” Emma asks.
    “Do I have a choice?”
    “No. Stay away from him. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something…off about him.”
    “Oh, come on. That’s just because of the track thing. He made it clear he’d never been to Northwestern. I must have been wrong.” I’m not sure why I’m defending him, and I’m still sure I am not wrong, but I think I sound pretty convincing.
    “What about how he reacted to your name?”
    Yeah. That was weird. I shrug.
    “Look at you. You think he’s cute.” She draws out the words as her accent intensifies.
    “I don’t even know him.”
    “You don’t have to know him to think he’s cute.”
    “Sure I do.” I glare at her. “I’m just…curious about him, that’s all.” But if I’m being completely honest, Emma may be right. I exchanged a few meaningless glances and a pencil with him, and that somehow gave him the right to creep into my head and settle there.
    The car skids to a stop in front of the house, leaving a two-foot space between my door and the snow-covered sidewalk. Emma turns to face me. “I missed you this morning, by the way.”
    “Me too.” I finally reach over and hug her. I get out of the car and shut the door behind me, and she peels away, kicking up a flurry of dirty snow.

    “Grab a knife!” Mom’s singsong holler carries from the kitchen into the hallway, over Pavarotti’s booming tenor. I follow the tantalizing smell of roasting peppers and onions and see Mom hard at work in the kitchen.
    “Hi, honey!” Mom looks up with a smile and returns to her sauce. She’s wearing a black apron over her scrubs, and her dark curls—the ones she passed down to me—are piled into a clip on top of her head, though a few loose ringlets have escaped to frame her face. She hums along with the Italian music as she draws a blade through ripe tomatoes. “Can you start slicing the mozzarella?” She uses her knife to point at the ball of slimy white cheese on the counter. “How was school?”
    I twist around to watch Mom slide the last of the tomatoes into the stockpot, give them a little stir, and take a seat on one of the bar stools facing me. She rests her elbows on the counter, and I stop cutting to glance up at her. She’s waiting for me to tell her everything, because it’s Tuesday—the day we cook and I tell her who’s dating whom, who’s fighting with whom, and who’s not quite cutting it on the track. Then I ask her what’s going on at the hospital, and even though I imagine it’s all fairly