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his
manhood.
    He looked over at the phone, lying on
the bed next to him. He reached it over, picked it up and then
dropped it right back down.
    He reached out again. Phone up, phone
down.
    “This is stupid,” he muttered grabbing
the phone up again, his other hand quickly stabbing at numbers
before he could chicken out a third time. The phone rang for what
seemed like an eternity, and he almost dropped the phone back down
when she picked up.
    “ Is that you Mark?”
Christine answered.
    “ Yeah,” he said. Oh God, she
was there! “There’s no surprising you, is there?”
    “Well, you’re the only person I’ve
given my new number to so far and I don’t think the telemarketers
could get me that fast. Sorry that took so long, I was stuck behind
a pile of boxes. So what’s going on this weekend?”
    “Everything is good to go, so I can
give you the address of Clara’s store or I can swing by and pick
you up. Whichever is cool with you.”
    “I’d definitely take another ride if
you’re offering. I think you were holding back on me
today.”
    “Hey, I told you, I’m a terribly
responsible driver. You get no fast rides out of me.” He paused.
“Wait, I think that came out wrong.” The phone was good, he
realized. She couldn’t hear wincing and foot twitching.
    “Really?” she laughed. “I hope
so.”
    “Yeah, definitely came out
wrong.”
    “So,” she said, “aside from the fact
that you’re disaffected with your home town, a bitter atheist, good
with directions and drive a snazzy little scooter, what else do I
need to know about you?”
    “Oh, not much,” he said, “But then
again, me just telling you would just spoil the mystery, wouldn’t
it?”
    “Well, I’ll just have to see how much
of this mystery I can uncover before I get called back to
unpacking.”
    He smiled. “Ask away. My life’s an open
book, pretty much.”
     

Chapter Five
     
    Mark was rooted to the V, holding his
helmet in a death grip. With the lights of Manhattan shimmering to
life behind it Christine’s house managed to look even more elegant
and formidable than it did almost 24 hours ago. Tiny lights lit the
crooked walk up to the front door and then twinkled off the
panoramic windows that curved around the side of the
house.
    He knew nerves were stupid, as the
conversation with Christine was amazing last night. While they
didn’t have much in common interest-wise (he wrangled out the
secret of her young love affairs with various boy-bands of mediocre
talent), he laid back and listened with wonder as she regaled him
with tales of the various places she had lived. Almost every story
began with “We were hanging out” or “We were at this party.” Mark
had spent almost a decade in Cedar Ridge and had yet to see a
single party. The closest he came to hanging out was when Steve
dragged him to one of his Theater Club things, where Mark just
ended up practicing for a spot on the Olympic Wallflowering
Team.
    When they finally had to get off the
phone she said that she “was really looking forward to the party.”
Mark found himself playing that, and the rest of their conversation
over and over again when he went to bed.
    It was easy to say over breakfast that
nerves were stupid, but walking up the path to the world’s
prettiest house of horrors he remembered all the things he’d left
out and avoided on the phone last night - like his lack of wealth
and parents. Nerves were the only things that existed in his body.
As he walked up the path he could see the driveway curve around the
back of the house and down, nestling under the porch and providing
the perfect resting place for the pair of nearly matching sports
cars.
    He jabbed the doorbell quickly,
expecting it to shock him with some kind of poor kid detector. The
chime was as perfect and inviting as the rest of the house had led
him to believe it would be and it did nothing to put him at
ease.
    The door opened and an older,
shorter-haired Christine smiled at him.