Chapter 14

7:15 p.m. Thursday

Regan glanced at her phone as she sipped the lukewarm water she neither wanted nor needed.

Crestview Mall was different from where she and her friends did their shopping. The stores were K-Mart and J.C. Penney, not Sachs Fifth Avenue and Macy's. The food court where she waited didn't have a sushi bar or a place for organic food. The names above the stalls were Sbarro and Chick Filet.

She decided the polite term for the place was "earthy."

She adjusted the hem of her skirt and tried to ignore the stares of the boys and the glares from the girls at adjacent tables.

She had wanted to wear something casual for the date. She didn't expect Andy to show up in a sports coat and tie. But as she looked through her closet, she realized that even her casual clothing was ridiculously expensive.

She settled on a black skirt and a white sleeveless pullover. The skirt had cost $190 and the shirt was $120. Her strappy black heels had cost $150. Even the bra and panty set she wore beneath her clothing had set her back $110. She found that she didn't own any jeans that didn't have a designer tag and all of her shorts and shirts came from fashion houses. She was embarrassed to sit at the mall surrounded by girls in cutoff blue jean shorts and crop tops.

The clothing was just the latest in a series of disasters during the day. Regan had been appalled when it wasn't her father that arrived to pick her up. Instead, her mother had stayed in town so she could have dinner with Regan and Andy before the dance. Rita had arrived an hour later than planned to pick up her daughter and she insisted upon a family meal.

Dinner had been relatively silent. Her father didn't mention the nature of Friday's doctor's visit and Rita, thankfully, hadn't asked. After much discussion, Regan had convinced her father that she should go on some sort of birth control. Robert Riley had agreed that she was correct but was taken aback when Regan told him that she wanted to do it immediately.

He had eventually agreed and got her excused from her Friday classes. It wasn't like anyone was going to do anything anyway. It was the day before the Cotillion. Most of the upper-level girls were checking out early to make sure their gowns were just right – and to have time to correct things if they weren't. Regan estimated that by noon, two-thirds of the upper-level classes would be empty.

She had left her Audi convertible at home and accepted a ride to the mall from her father. Andy had sent a text to let her know he was running a bit behind schedule but that he should arrive no later than 7:30.

So she sat and waited, hoping that she wouldn't have to run to the restroom before Andy arrived.

She saw him coming up the escalator and bolted from her seat. She only made it two steps before she turned around, scooped up her forgotten clutch purse, and set off again. Andy stopped at the entrance to the food court and started scanning the crowd of teenagers. The mall was a meeting place for a lot of the groups that had other plans for the evening.

He spotted the Stoners congregated in one section of the sitting area. He knew that they would be gone by 8 – off to lose themselves in a haze of smoke and pills. The Goths were on the opposite side. He had no idea where they went for the evening – perhaps a cemetery to dig up bodies or something.

He continued to move his eyes across the groups. He spotted a familiar face and frowned. Erin Cooley was sitting with her boyfriend du jour but was watching him intently. He broke eye contract and spotted Regan bustling toward him.

He hoped she didn't plan to greet him as she had in her school parking lot earlier in the week. He had nothing behind him to catch them and they would probably wind up on the floor in a heap if she jumped at him again.

Regan was smiling and Andy couldn't help but smile back at her. She looked lovely as she approached. Her top was tight enough that he could see the outline of her bra beneath it. Her skirt was short enough that he could see her lower thighs with each step she took. It amazed him that she could move so swiftly in shoes with a two-inch heel at the back.

She didn't jump at him this time but instead pressed right up against him and put her cheek against his chest as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

He returned the hug and gave her a kiss on her strawberry-blonde hair. She looked up at him with a huge smile. He saw she had on lip gloss and perhaps some eyeliner but no other makeup that he could tell.

Regan looked up at Andy for a moment but he didn't get the hint. She pursed her lips in an exaggerated way and he chuckled – but he leaned down for a brief peck on the lips.

"I guess that will do for now," Regan said with a laugh as she took his hand and led him back to where her water had been abandoned. "You look very handsome today."

Andy wore a pair of tan shorts and a dark green Polo shirt.

"I think you look beautiful," he admitted. "You looked like an angel coming toward me."

Regan beamed – and made it a point to lead Andy within one row of Erin Cooley and her date. Andy pretended not to notice that Regan squeezed his hand tighter and put a little extra sway in her walk as they approached Erin. He did shoot the guy a glare when he saw him taking a little too much interest in Regan. The guy shrugged but turned back to Erin – who had added her glare to the one Andy had offered.

"Skank," Regan muttered. "Her rear end is hanging out of her shorts and everyone can see her boobs whenever she leans forward."

"Got to use what you've got," Andy said with a wink. The chairs in the food court were bolted to the floor but he still stood behind Regan while she sat.

She offered a wide grin when he sat down opposite her. The stresses of the past days seemed to melt away just because she was with him.

"My mother is ridiculous," she said, shaking her head. "I told you she showed up on campus. Well, get this, she didn't go back to Washington. She's going to stay through the weekend."

Andy grimaced at the thought of having dinner with Rita Riley.

"Sorry," Regan said. "If you want to cancel, it's OK."

Andy could plainly see that it wasn't OK in the slightest.

"No," he said. "It's an hour or two out of my life. I promise: I'll be on my best behavior. I'll even apologize to her."

"I wouldn't go that far," Regan said, relieved that he didn't even consider breaking their date.

"I shouldn't have spoken to her that way in her own home," Andy said. "I've thought about this a lot over the past few weeks. It doesn't matter who she is. It matters what she is. She's your mother and I do want to develop a good relationship with her – for your sake if no other."

"I don't want to develop a good relationship with her," Regan said with a shrug. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it to have dinner with your mom. Did you eat?"

"We had pizza," Andy told her, shaking his head at the concept at having a meal with his mother and father in the same room.

"Was it not good?" Regan asked.

"It was fine," Andy told her. "Uh, look, the reason I was late ... I had to run my father to a hotel."

It took Regan a moment to get the gist of what Andy had said.

"He's here?" she asked loudly.

"Showed up on the doorstep like a lost puppy this afternoon, Mom said," Andy replied with a laugh.

"Seriously?" Regan asked. Andy nodded. "That's great! I mean, it's great if you want him here."

"It was ... odd," Andy admitted.

"No, it was new," Regan correct. "Dinner with my mother and father was odd. My mother was making a concerted effort to be pleasant. She actually asked questions about school and my plans for the summer. I mean, she asked and she actually listened to the answers. That's odd. Your situation is just something that you've never experienced."

"I stand corrected," Andy answered. "Or, rather, I suppose I sit corrected."

"Goof," Regan said. "So? How is he?"

"Surprisingly normal," Andy said. "I mean, I've talked to him on the phone a few times and he sort of seemed, I don't know, stuffy. But in person, well, he's pretty charming. I swear, I think Mom has smiled more in the past few days that she has in the past few years."

"That's awesome," Regan said enthusiastically. "I'm so looking forward to meeting her tomorrow. I was thinking about seeing if I could just come straight to your apartment from the doctor's office. Do you think she'd mind? I would be there about an hour before you got home. Oh, I guess maybe your father might be there. I guess I shouldn't intrude."

"I don't foresee them renewing intimacies," Andy said with a blush. "I mean, if they were ready to do that, I wouldn't have taken Evan to a hotel. God, it's gross to think of your mom that way."

"Your mom or my mom?" Regan asked.

"Either!" Andy said. Regan giggled.

"I'll see what her plans are and let you know," Andy proposed. "What do you want to do tonight?"

Regan grinned and lifted her eyebrows suggestively before she broke into laughter at Andy's blush.

"I thought about a movie or something but I want to be able to talk with you," Regan answered. "Is there, I don't know, somewhere we can go that's private?"

Andy considered the question. There was no place on this side of the city that he considered safe.

"I'll need to have you home by 10:15 if I'm going to make my curfew," Andy said. "What about on your end of town?"

"How would I know?" Regan asked. "If my asshole mother was gone, we could go back to my house and hang out. But I don't want you to have to put up with her twice in a weekend. Talk about a deal breaker."

"Let's just walk around here for a while," Andy said. "We can talk while we're strolling. Do you want to shop or anything?"

Regan kept her face neutral. There wasn't a single store in the mall that she'd ever stepped foot in. She was certain that she wouldn't be interested in the latest in Kmart fashion.

"I want to look for a baseball cap," Andy said. "Does that sound OK?"

"Like I care if you own a baseball cap," Regan said with a wink.

"I meant just walking around here for a while," Andy clarified.

"So long as I get the chance to make out with you for at least an hour tonight," Regan said as she stood. "After all, it's why I wore a skirt."

Regan found herself sitting in Andy's car for the first time since he dropped her off at her house more than two months earlier. She turned in the seat as much as she could with the seatbelt strapped around her.

She watched him as he carefully threaded his way through traffic. It was another major difference between them. She tended to drive as fast as possible everywhere she went. Andy came to a complete rest at every stop sign; he slowed down when he merged on the freeway; he watched for pedestrians in the mall parking lot.

She smiled as she recalled the frantic night she met the guy in the driver's seat and squeezed his hand. Andy took his eyes off the road and glanced over at the smiling girl beside him.

She clutched a bag from a sporting goods store in her hands. The shopping trip had been a bust for Andy. He hadn't found the hat he wanted to buy and he didn't settle for something he didn't want. Regan seemed entranced by the store. In fact, it was the first time she had ever been in a store of that sort.

The stores she frequented stocked Dolce & Gabbana and Chanel, not tennis shoes and baseball gloves. But she found a maroon Stanford hooded sweatshirt and just had to have it.

"You didn't buy a hat," Regan pointed out.

"They didn't have what I wanted," Andy replied.

"What were you looking for?" Regan wondered.

"I was looking for a baseball cap," Andy said with a laugh.

"They had hundreds of baseball caps," Regan pointed out.

"Not the one I was looking for," Andy told her.

"Which comes back to my question!" Regan said. She was laughing so Andy didn't think she was angry. "You know, you have a birthday in a few weeks. Maybe I could find the hat you want."

Andy glanced over again. He wanted a more dramatic way to make the announcement.