Part 3 (1/2)
It wasn't that she wanted to misbehave. She just wanted to locate some other set of standards, some way to be and feel without worrying so much about doing the right thing all the time. She wanted to follow the occasional crazy impulse without getting smacked down for it.
She'd just begun to think that maybe she could, with Tony. That she could flirt. Be a bit reckless.
Then, smack.
”Say something.”
Tony's voice, strung tight again.
”What do you want me to say?”
”Anything. I get ... I get antsy, being in my head this much.”
She didn't know what to tell him. She couldn't go back to what they'd been doing before-teasing conversation that had misled her.
Irritation nudged at her. Be who you are. Say what you mean. What difference does it make, anyway? Who's really paying attention?
He might end up thinking she was a fool, but he was just a stranger. A guy who worked construction at her job. When the new wing of the community center was finished, she'd stop seeing him three or four days a week and start seeing him every three or four years. Or never.
Why should she care what Tony Mazzara thought of her? He certainly didn't care what she thought of him.
For once in her life, she was going to say whatever she wanted, and d.a.m.n the consequences.
Chapter Four.
”I'll talk to you,” Amber said, ”but only if you promise not to feed me any bull.”
Tony sounded cautious when he replied. ”I'm not feeding you bull.”
”Just ... just be honest, okay? You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, and the same goes for me, but don't say what you think I want to hear. And don't tell me how nice I am. You don't know me.”
”All right.”
A few more seconds ticked by. She hadn't expected his easy acquiescence. This was uncharted territory, and stepping into it unsettled her as much as it exhilarated her.
”So you gonna talk to me or not?” he asked.
”I'm thinking.”
”Anybody ever tell you that you think too much?”
”Yes.”
She couldn't see him, but she thought he might have smiled.
”Okay, here's what I want to know,” she said. ”Do you feel like the inside of your head matches the outside of you? I mean, do you think people see who you are when they look at you, or somebody entirely different?”
It was something she wondered about a lot.
”Deep thoughts, bunny.”
”Don't call me bunny.' I'm not an infant.”
Amber did a mental stutter step. She never would have said that to him in the light. She never would have said it to anyone.
But Tony didn't seem to recognize the audacity of her remark. He just said, ”Sorry.” Then he exhaled, considering her question. ”No. Not really.”
”So who are you, really?”
”Who do you think I am?”
She felt her face heating, but she ignored it. ”You're strong. I mean, your body, of course, but that's not the main thing. You walk around like you know where you're going, and like that's all you're thinking about. You don't care who sees you or what they think about you. You're ... centered in yourself, I guess. And everyone else is irrelevant.”
”You're seeing the job.”
”No, it's you. I mean, it's what you look like. To me.”
”And you have a thing for that guy.”
He didn't say it like a question. It was just that obvious. She didn't try to perk up whenever he was around, but she felt it happening-the way her spine straightened and her chin lifted and her eyes went all wide and excited.
He must have seen her staring at him. Must have read her mind when she followed him out to the parking lot each night, hoping that tonight would be the night she'd get something other than Have a good one as a goodbye.
Amber closed her eyes against the sick discomfort of her embarra.s.sment, but eyes open or closed, it was the same. The blackness didn't change. She could shrink away from it or expand into it.
She decided she would rather expand.
There was nothing wrong with having a thing for him. It wasn't illegal. It wasn't even pathetic, though it felt that way. It was human. She was human.
And she was tired of shrinking.
She looked straight at the spot where she knew he was and said, ”Yes. I do have a thing for that guy.”
”He's not me. I'm a lot more f.u.c.ked-up than he is.”
”I think everybody is. I mean, everybody is more complicated than they look, when you actually get to know them.”
”Yeah, maybe so. You want me to tell you what you look like? From the outside, I mean?”
”I think you already did,” she said.
”You tell me, then.”
Amber considered how to put it. ”Sweet. Nice. Ordinary nice, and ordinary pretty, all the way through. Like a Girl Scout, or Maria in The Sound of Music.”
A huff of laughter. ”There's some of that, I'll be honest. But you got the whistle, too.”