"What's this?" She looked first at the waiter and then at Rick.
They both grinned like schoolboys with frogs in their pockets.
"Surprise!" Rick said, removing the silver ID bracelet from the lettuce mountain. "Let me put it on you."
He wiped off the sour cream with his napkin and placed the bracelet on Christy's right wrist, fastening the lock to make certain it was secure.
The waiter left them alone, and Rick, still grinning, said, "Do you like it?"
Christy looked at the wide silver bracelet now circling the wrist where for so many months she had worn Todd's bracelet. This one was thick and heavy. She held it toward the light and read the inscription in fancy scroll. It said: RICK.
"Now there's no doubt who your boyfriend is," Rick said proudly. "You like it, don't you?"
"I'm just surprised, that's all. It's really nice. Thank you."
"I knew you'd like it better than the other one. A more than fair trade, I'd say." Rick picked up his fork and attacked the huge platter of food before him.
That comment hit Christy hard. It didn't just make her angry; it made her furious. Why was Rick so competitive and jealous that he had to replace Todd's bracelet with a bigger and better one, with his own name in bold letters on it?
She moved her tostada mountain around on her plate but didn't eat much of it. Rick barely spoke at all but scarfed down his dinner, using the tortilla chips to scoop up his refried beans and rice.
Finally Christy concluded within herself that replacing the ID bracelet was a guy kind of thing. It apparently made Rick feel more macho, like he had marked his territory, and as he said, everyone would know that he was her boyfriend. Besides, being labeled as Rick's girlfriend wasn't a bad thing at all.
They left the restaurant hand in hand, the bracelet wedged between his hand and hers. It took only ten minutes to drive across the freeway to the Cinema Center, where Rick led her to the box office. Without asking her opinion, he bought two tickets for a movie that was starting in five minutes.
"Good timing, huh?" Rick asked as they stepped out of line and headed for the door to turn in their tickets.
Christy hung back, reading the sign over the ticket window.
"Come on," Rick called to her.
She hurried to catch up, but just before he handed the tickets to the guy at the door, she pulled Rick's arm, drawing him off to the side.
"Rick," she said quietly, "that movie is rated R."
"So? I'm eighteen."
"I'm not."
"You're with me. It doesn't matter. Nobody's going to ask you how old you are. Come on, we're going to miss the show."
"Rick," she said, letting her irritation show, "I can't watch that movie. I have an agreement with my parents that I won't go to R-rated movies."
"You're kidding." He laughed as if she were making a joke.
Christy stood her ground. "I'm serious, Rick."
People were watching their standoff.
"That does it!" Rick threw his hands up in the air. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the parking lot.
Humiliated, Christy followed him to the car, feeling like a puppy with its tail between its legs.
As soon as they reached his car, where there wasn't an audience, Rick started to yell at her. "Why didn't you tell me your little rule before we got here? Why did you have to wait until we were at the door and make me feel like dirt in front of all those people? You are so full of rules, Christy. You're driving me crazy! You can't date until you're sixteen, and then you have unrealistic curfews and get put on restriction for nothing. It's a major effort for you to even find the time to go out with me, and when you do, you have all these rules, as if I'm some kind of monster you have to keep caged up! And now you won't even go to a stupid movie because it violates your perfect standards."
Rick kicked a tire and turned his fierce eyes on Christy. "You're being a baby. That's what you're doing. I know you, Christy. I've watched you for more than a year, and I know you're not a wimp, but you're wimping out on me."
He folded his arms across his chest. "So you'd better decide if you're ready to grow up and experience a real dating relationship or else..."
Christy couldn't contain her fiery emotions any longer. "Or else what? You'll dump me and find some other girl who'll do whatever you want? Is that what you were going to say? Go ahead. Say it."
Rick backed down, breathing heavily through his nose. "That's not what I want, and you know it. I want to go out with you."
Christy's feelings were at an all-time high intensity, and she unleashed them. "You want to go out with me? Are you sure? You want me to be your girlfriend? Because if you do, then this is me! I have standards and rules and restrictions and everything else you just complained about. That is me, and if you want to date me, then you get the whole package, rules and all! I'm not going to change for you or any other guy."
Her whole body was shaking, but she mimicked his tough-guy stance by folding her arms and returning the hard look he had been giving her.
Rick unfolded his arms and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked down at the pavement and shuffled some pebbles while he appeared to calm down.
Christy calmed down too. She had amazed herself with the words that had spewed out of her mouth, but she didn't regret one of them. For the first time ever with Rick, she felt like he was no longer in control.
"I was right," Rick said, looking at her sheepishly. "You're not a wimp. I shouldn't have blown up like that. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," Christy said automatically. She wasn't sure why she said it because she really wasn't sorry for anything she said. She was sorry they had gone through such a scene though.
Rick opened up his arms, inviting Christy to receive his hug. She willingly stepped into his embrace.
As he held her tightly, he said, "I do want to date you, just the way you are. I don't ever want you to change. You are one of a kind, Killer, and that's the way I want you to stay. I can learn to make a few adjustments, and maybe you can make a few too."
They held each other long enough to feel calmed and restored. Christy lifted her head. "Do you still want to see a movie? There's one playing that's rated G."
"What, that animated one? Are you kidding?"
"No, I'm serious. Come on. It'll be fun," Christy urged.
Rick slowly gave in and walked back to the ticket booth with his arm around her shoulders. "I can see me telling my brother tomorrow on the racquetball court that I took my girlfriend to see a cartoon." Leaning down to speak to the girl in the ticket booth, he said, "Could we trade these two adult tickets for two tickets to the kiddie show?"
With the exchanged tickets in his hand, Rick led Christy to the door once more. Then, as if to make sure the guy collecting the tickets knew who was in control, Rick said, "I mean it, Christy. If I fall asleep in this one, you owe me a refund."
Rick delivered Christy to her front door at five minutes to ten and stated for the fifth time that the movie was "sweet."
"I'll be over around one-thirty tomorrow," he said. "Or do you want me to call first?"
"Better call just to make sure it's okay for you to come for lunch. What do you want to do tomorrow?"
"I'll check the list," he said, grasping her by the shoulders and planting a hard, fast kiss on her lips. "You'd better get in there before the clock strikes ten and you turn into a pumpkin for another two weeks."
"Good night, Rick," she called as he jogged to his car. "See you tomorrow."
"Did you have a nice time?" Mom asked when Christy stepped inside.
"Yeah," she answered, not anxious to go into the details of the complicated day or to start answering questions about what the silver bracelet around her wrist meant. "I still have sand in my hair from the beach. I'm going to hop in the shower."
As Christy washed her hair, Rick's bracelet became tangled in it. She ended up yanking out a chunk of hair. Todd's bracelet had never done that.
Thinking of Todd's bracelet made her wonder where she had put it. The last time she saw it was when Rick took it off at the restaurant and she slipped it into her black purse.
After her shower, she pulled the purse out of her drawer and dumped its contents onto her bed. Lipstick, mascara, tissue, a quarter, and a pen. No bracelet. She felt around the inside of the fabric lining to see if it had caught there. Still no bracelet.
She went to the drawer where the purse had been and ran the palm of her hand inside the drawer in case it had fallen out of the purse. No bracelet.
She grabbed the Folgers coffee can off her dresser and emptied out the dried-up carnation petals from the first bouquet Todd had given her, remembering that she had buried the bracelet in there once before. It wasn't there.
What did I do with it? I put it in my purse. Then I left my purse in Rick's car, and he gave it back to me the next night Could it have fallen out in his car?
Christy worked the purse's clasp back and forth. It was strong and couldn't have opened on its own.
She was beginning to panic. Scooping the dried carnations back into the coffee tin, she hurriedly returned it to its spot on her dresser.
The coffee tin collided with the blue pottery vase, knocking it off her dresser. Hitting the edge of her desk, the vase shattered into a dozen pieces on the floor.
Oh no! Not Rick's vase! How am I going to tell him I broke it?
She gathered up the shards of jagged pottery, wondering if she could glue them back together. The roses had died a week ago, and Christy had tossed them out, not even thinking of saving them the way she had Todd's carnations.
Todd, Rick, flowers, broken vases, lost bracelets-all like the pieces of broken pottery she tried to match up on the floor.
Christy gave up trying to piece the broken vase together and put it all in the trash can. She crawled under her covers and held her stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear that Todd had given her on her fifteenth birthday.
That was the night she had prepared herself for her very first kiss when Todd walked her to the door-only he didn't kiss her. He did kiss her the day he gave her the bouquet of carnations. She was leaving for the airport to go back to Wisconsin, and Todd had kissed her in the middle of the street in front of a whole bunch of people. His kiss had made her feel fresh and free, not like he was trying to "magnetize" her.
For more than an hour she lay with Pooh in her arms, thinking through all the comparisons and differences between Rick and Todd. For so long she had wanted Todd to be the kind of boyfriend Rick was being to her now. Yet Todd would never hold her or pressure her or say things to her the way Rick did.
Now she had what she had wanted for so long-a boyfriend, Rick. Rick adored her so much he even sat through a "kiddie" movie with her. He held her and kissed her and said things that made her feel beautiful. Rick had made a list of possible dates, he had brought her roses, and he had given her a bracelet.
Rick wanted her in his life. Todd had left her. Sure, things were bumpy with Rick, but they kept working at their relationship, and that's what really mattered. Things were getting better. Weren't they?
Even though her relationship with Todd was over, it still bothered her that she couldn't find his bracelet. She couldn't explain why, but that bracelet meant more to her than Rick's did. She had to find it.
Maybe it had fallen on the floor in Rick's car. Maybe Rick had it and just hadn't told her. She decided she would ask him tomorrow.
Christy's parents agreed that Rick could come for lunch, and Mom kept the meal warm in the oven, waiting for him to call.
He finally phoned at two o'clock, saying his racquetball game had run late. He suggested they go ahead and eat since he still had to shower and wouldn't be there for another forty-five minutes or so.
The family ate the dried-out chicken and cool mashed potatoes without much conversation. Dad retired to read the Sunday paper and take his customary snooze on the couch. Christy did the dishes and then went out front to wait for Rick. She didn't want him bounding up the steps and waking her dad.
She had Rick's bracelet in the pocket of her cutoff jeans. She hadn't worn it all day because she wasn't ready to answer the questions it would have raised at church or with her parents.
Christy waited patiently on the top step of the porch. Fall was definitely coming. The night-blooming jasmine that covered the trellis above her head had withered, and the vine was filled with hundreds of tiny brown squiggles where fragrant white flowers had once bloomed.
She could hear Rick's Mustang before she saw it turn the corner of her quiet street. She hurried down to the street to meet it.
"Hi," she said brightly through the open passenger window. "Who won?"
"Do you need to ask? I did, of course. My brother's ticked too. He's three years older than I am, and he hasn't been able to beat me at anything for the last six months."
"I can believe that," Christy said. "My dad's asleep, and I think my mom is sewing. Do you want me to see if we can go somewhere?"
"Sure. We'll go over to my house. Hey, where's my bracelet?"
"In my pocket. I'll be right back." She ran in the house, grabbed a sweatshirt, and asked Mom if she could go to Rick's.
"As long as you're back before six," Mom said. "And do you have any homework you need to finish this weekend?"
She had forgotten all about her mound of homework. "Some. I'll do it when I get back. Bye." She quickly scooted out before Mom had time to say anything else.
Once in the car with Rick, she tied her sweatshirt around her waist and, pulling the bracelet from her pocket, explained how it had become tangled in her hair the night before. A hair strand was still twisted around the clasp.
"Here," Rick said. "I'll put it back on you. You'll have to be more careful when you wash your hair."
Rick locked the clasp and then started the car. They had driven about three blocks toward the expensive side of town, where Rick lived, when Christy decided to ask Rick if he had come across Todd's bracelet.
"Rick, I wanted to ask you something," Christy said cautiously. The last thing she needed was for him to get mad because she was talking about Todd.
"Good." Rick pulled the car into a parking lot behind a complex of doctors' offices. "Because I wanted to ask you something too."
He turned off the car and reached his arms around her, then kissed her slowly and gently. Pulling back, he asked, "How was that for 'light kissing'? I'm getting better, aren't I?"
"Rick," Christy said, thinking she had better talk fast before her emotions clouded, "remember the night we went to that Italian restaurant?"
"You looked gorgeous. I loved you in that black dress."
"Rick, come on! Let me ask this and get it over with. That night you took off my gold ID bracelet, and I put it in my purse. I left my purse in your car. Then you gave it back to me the next night when you drove me home."
Rick leaned against his door. "Yeah, so what?" He sounded defensive.
"I wondered if you saw the bracelet after that. I thought it might have fallen out of my purse onto the floor or something. Have you seen it?"
"You don't need it anymore."
"But I don't like not knowing where it is. I'd feel awful if I lost it."
"Why?" Rick challenged. "Why do you even want to know where it is?"
"Because it's a valuable bracelet, and I don't like to go around misplacing valuable things."
"Calm down." Rick put his arms back around her. "You don't need to get all upset about such a little thing." He spoke softly in her ear. "You're my girlfriend now. You don't need to worry about that jerk anymore. You have me."