Chapter 10

7:30 p.m. Tuesday

"It's a text from Andy!" Regan said excitedly. "He said the phone has to charge for a little bit but his home phone is free if I want to call."

Regan held the phone out to Ruth, who only shook her head.

"Look at how he wrote the text," Regan pressed. Ruth squinted through her glasses and started to laugh. There was no shorthand or abbreviations. Every word was spelled out – and the punctuation appeared correct, too.

"He's goofy like that," Regan said. "Did I ever tell you why I don't say, 'you're welcome' anymore?"

"Not really," Ruth replied. "I've heard you say something else but I never really understood it."

"I say, 'I was happy to do it, '" Regan told her. "Andy says 'You're welcome' has become so contrived. It means nothing because people say it without thinking about it. He's the same way with 'thank you.' He always mentions exactly why he's thanking you. When I talk to him in a few minutes he will say, 'Thank you, Regan, for providing the money for a phone' or something like that. He won't just say, 'Thanks, ' and expect me to know why he's thanking me."

Ruth found herself nodding at Regan's explanation.

"He puts thought into his words and his actions," Ruth noted. "You know, he might be the perfect counter-balance for you."

"Oh ... my ... God," Regan said with a laugh. "You have no idea how many times I've thought that! He makes me stop and think about things. He makes me assess the consequences to an action before I jump in."

"Good thing you were already on the highway when you met him!" Ruth said as she stood. "Otherwise his influence would have kept you at school that weekend. I'm headed downstairs and give you some privacy ... in case you want to sext or something."

Ruth stopped at the door and turned back.

"Thank you for talking with me," she said. "I really enjoyed our conversation."

"I did, too," Regan said. "I'm only sorry it took me a whole year to pull my head out of my butt. Hey, who are you sitting with at the cotillion? Andy and I are looking for tablemates."

Ruth let out a sigh.

"I'm not going," she said. "I told my Dad not to set me up with anyone ... and for once he listened to me. It sucks because I have a cool dress that I wanted to wear."

"I can see if Andy has a friend who might want to go," Regan offered. "Would that be OK?"

"I suppose," Ruth replied. She thought for a moment. "No, that would be great. If he's Andy's friend, he's bound to be a nice person. I just don't want some jerk who expects me to put out or who is embarrassed by the fact I'm not a size zero."

"I don't think Andy would be friends with someone like that," Regan said. "I'll ask him if you want me to. It would be a big help to me, actually."

"Andy won't feel so out of place if there is someone he knows there," Ruth said, picking up on things instantly. "Sure, I'll go if he has someone in mind."

Regan pursed her lips as Ruth DeLancy gathered her belongings and headed down to the lounge with a wave. The girl had been pleasant for the past few days – since Andy's visit, Regan realized. She wondered if Andy might have said something to Ruth as he waited in the lobby.

Regan realized that the change hadn't been in Ruth DeLancy. Regan had changed. It had started two months earlier and continued when Andy had come out for a visit.

"I might actually become a decent human being if I stick with him," Regan mused to herself. Her ponderings were interrupted by her cell phone. She had not responded to Andy's text so he had sent another to let her know he would be around the rest of the evening.

She was still smiling as she dialed Andy's home number – and groaned when she heard a busy signal.

"Damn it!" she muttered as she ended the call. The phone vibrated in her hand as she pondered her next move.

"I decided to be proactive," Andy said with a laugh when Regan answered. "If it's not a good time, I can call back later."

"I just called you!" Regan replied with a giggle. "Let me call you. It's free for me and I know you said calls to cell phones are considered long distance."

She hung up and dialed Andy's house again.

"Geez, it seems like I just spoke to you!" Andy joked.

"It seems like forever since I've spoken to you!" Regan said. "God, I have about a thousand things I want to talk to you about. I actually started a list this afternoon in trigonometry class."

Andy found himself smiling for a reason he didn't quite understand. Camille stood by her door watching her son's face light up from whatever Regan Riley had said. She wondered how many times her face had done that while she was dating Evan Duffield. She figured it the number was probably in the thousands. With a sigh, she turned and went into her bedroom to give her son some privacy.

"So, you talked to your dad?" Regan asked. "And he called last night and talked to your mom?"

"And again this evening," Andy said, sitting down in a chair beside the phone. "Thankfully both he and Mom are too tired to talk until the wee hours. It was almost seven in the morning over there when they finally hung up last night."

"That sounds promising," Regan said.

"She was happy," Andy said simply. "It's weird, you know. I mean, both of us are happy people. We accepted our lot in life and we do the best we can with what we have. But last night, just watching her on the phone, I saw how much strain she is really under. When she was talking to him, the years just seemed to melt away. She was laughing and giggling like she was ... well, like she was our age."

Regan gave a chuckle at the description.

"I am really happy to hear that," she said. "I know I've told you this but I already love your mom. You have turned out to be ... I don't know how to say this."

"Just say it," Andy suggested. "It it's a problem, we'll work through it if we can."

"It's things like that," Regan said. "You have every right to be bitter. You have every right to be unhappy. You refuse to do either. That comes from her. You were raised to see the best part of life. If you see something bad, you do what you can to change it. Even if she absolutely hates me, I will always love your mom for teaching you to do that."

Andy felt a lump in his throat and he glanced toward his mother's closed door. He had never taken the time to think about all the lessons his mother had taught him but he realized Regan was right.

"Thank you," he said in a choked voice. "She is a wonderful person and she deserves to be happy."

"So do you," Regan said simply. "I'm sorry if I pressed you about the cell phone and about college."

"Well, I talked to Mom about the phone thing," Andy admitted. "She told me that I was stupid to turn down small gifts being freely given. She explained a little bit about why she and Evan broke up."

"What did she say?" Regan asked.

"She was pretty honest, I guess," Andy related. "She said she worried that she would always feel second-best in the relationship. I don't think Evan made her feel that way ... just like you don't make me feel that way. It was more about how the world at large would look at it, like she was just some interloper who pushed her way into somewhere she didn't belong. I'm sad to say that I have a lot of the same views on that subject that she did."

"Oh," Regan said.

"I'm not saying that I should," Andy cut in. "I'm just saying that I do. Look, I know what everyone is going to think about me when we go to your dance. I'll be the only person in the room in a rented tuxedo. I'll be the only person there who hasn't had ballroom dancing classes. I worry that I'll say or do something that will make you uncomfortable. I'll be out of my element and I worry that I'll ruin your night for you."

"Don't worry about any of that!" Regan exclaimed. "The only way my night will be ruined is if you don't go with me. Andy, I'm not like your father. I don't put stock in what other people think of me. Yes, before I met you, I probably put too much stock in it. But I don't anymore."

"Evan didn't care about any of that, either," Andy interrupted. "It was Mom who had the problem. Evan told me his parents thought Mom was great when he took her over there to meet them."

"And it appears he still doesn't care ... if the hours long phone call is any indication," Regan said. "On the subject of the dance, I wanted to ask you a favor."

"If I can," Andy said instantly.

"My roommate wants to go but doesn't have an escort," Regan said. "I suppose I have talked about you a little over the past few months and she wondered if you might have a friend she could go with."

"I thought you hated your roommate," Andy said. Regan had mentioned Ruth only sparingly – and it wasn't in polite terms.

"I'm an idiot sometimes," Regan said. "The truth is, God, this sounds horrible. The truth is that I wanted a single room this year. It didn't work out ... although now I guess I understand that if I'd really wanted one I could have gotten one. That's another story. I didn't give Ruth a chance. We had a very pleasant conversation this afternoon while I waited for your call. We cleared the air. She really isn't any different from me. She saw she could goad me and she did it. I saw I could intimidate her and I did it. We're not going to do that anymore. I took a page out of the Andy Drayton book. I spoke plainly to her and actually listened when she spoke plainly to me. It took me a minute to understand that Ruth hadn't changed one bit since the first of the year. I had changed though. She said, given what I've told her about you, that I'm becoming more like you."

"God, I hope not," Andy said. "I'm about as fucked-up a person as you'll ever meet."

"I realized that how a person views himself isn't always reality," Regan said. "It was the same way with me. Andy, I want you to think for a moment about how others react to you. I want you to think about how Elizabeth acts around you. Think about all the responsibility your mother gives to you. She does it part out of necessity. I get that. But she also treats you the way that you've earned. She loves you and she respects you. You deserve that respect. You've earned that respect. I'm sure you've made some poor decisions in your life. I'm equally sure that you've learned from them. That's all I'm trying to do. I'm trying to move away from the mindset that I can do or say anything I want because my family has money."

"You probably can," Andy interrupted.

"Well, yes," Regan agreed with a giggle. "But that doesn't make me a very nice person. I do not want to be one of those spoiled rich kids with her own reality show. I do not want to see pictures of me stumbling from bar to bar with my ass hanging out on the Internet. I do not want to let other trust fund idiots grope me because their Daddy has almost as much money as my Mommy. I want to be better than that. I want to be the sort of woman that deserves a man like you."

8:15 p.m. Tuesday

"So, will you do it?" Regan wondered.

"Uh, do what?" Andy asked.

"Will you ask one of your friends if he will escort Ruth to our cotillion?" Regan clarified.

"It might be a little late for that," Andy said with a sigh. "I mean, the people I know don't exactly have formal wear hanging in their closet."

"Oh, yeah, I didn't think of that," Regan admitted ruefully.

"Well, one guy I know does," Andy said, ignoring the tone of Regan's voice. "He's a nice guy. He's funny as hell, too."

"And he owns a tux?" Regan asked.

"He's in the combined city orchestra," Andy told her. "He's got a music scholarship to Julliard next fall. He is to the Band Geeks what Elizabeth is to the Cool Kids – a walking deity."

"What does he play?" Regan inquired.

"Uh," Andy answered. "I don't know. I was never involved in music. It got cut from the curriculum with art when I was in elementary school. I mean, I know a guitar and a piano but some of the others are a little vague to me. What does a piccolo look like?"