Lock and Key(78)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“It was,” Cora said as Roscoe hopped down, bolting from the room. A moment later, we heard him barking from the foyer as the bell sounded again. “Who would show up on Christmas? ”

“I’ll find out,” I said, although as I quickly got up, heading for the stairs, I was hoping I already knew. The bell rang again when I was halfway down, then once more as I approached the door. When I got to the door and looked through the peephole, though, Nate wasn’t there. Nobody was. Then it chimed again—so weird—so I just opened it.

It was Gervais. Too short for the peephole, he was standing on the front step, in his glasses, peacoat, and scarf, with what looked like a brand-new scooter parked on the walk behind him. “Hi,” he said.

I just looked at him. “Hey,” I said slowly. “What are you—? ”

“I have a proposition for you,” he said, all business. “Can I come in?”

“Um,” I said. Behind me, Roscoe had stopped barking but was still trying to nudge past me. “We’re kind of busy, actually—”

“I know.” He reached up, adjusting his glasses. “This will only take a minute.”

I still didn’t really want to let him in. But in the spirit of the holiday, I stepped aside. “Shouldn’t you be with your family?” I asked as he shut the door behind him.

“We finished Christmas hours ago,” he told me. “My dad already took down the tree.”

“Oh.” Now we were just standing there, together, in the foyer. “Well,” I said, “we’re still kind of doing things, so—”

“Do you think you’ll be prepared for your next big calculus exam?”

I just looked at him. “What?”

“Your next exam. It’s in March and counts for half your grade, right?”

“How do you know that?”

“Will you be prepared for it?”

Upstairs, I heard Cora laughing. A good sign. “Define prepared,” I said.

“Scoring a ninety or higher.”

“No,” I said. Which was, sadly, the truth. Even with all my studying and preparation, calculus was still the one thing that could take me from zero to panicked in less than thirty seconds.

“Then you should let me help you,” Gervais said.

“Help me?”

“I’m very good at calculus,” he explained, pushing up his glasses. “Not only doing it, but explaining it. I’m tutoring two people in my class at the U right now. And that’s college-level calc, not that easy-schmeezy kind you’re doing.”

Easy-schmeezy, I thought. He hadn’t changed entirely. “You know,” I said, “that’s a very nice offer. But I think I’ll be okay.”

“It’s not an offer,” he said. “It’s a proposition.”

Suddenly, I had a flash of him in the car that day, drawing in his breath. Plus the staring at lunch in the green, and the weird way he’d acted at the Vista 10. Oh, God, I thought, finally getting it. Nate was right. He liked me. This was just what I needed. “You know,” I said, reaching behind him for the door, “you’re a nice kid, Gervais, but—”

“It’s about Olivia,” he said.

I stopped, mid-sentence, not sure I was hearing him right. “What?”

He coughed. Then blushed. “Olivia Davis,” he said. “You’re friends with her, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Why?”

“Because,” he said. He coughed again. “I, um, like her. Kind of.”

“You like Olivia?”

“Not like that,” he said quickly. “I just . . .”

I waited. It seemed like a long time passed.

“. . . I want to be her friend,” he finished.

This was kind of sweet, I had to admit. Also surprising. Which brought me to my next question. “Why?”

“Because,” he said as if it was simple, obvious. When it became clear this was not the case, he added, “She talks to me.”

“She talks to you,” I repeated.

He nodded. “Like, at the theater. And when she sees me in the hall at school, she always says hello. Nobody else does that. Plus, she likes the same movies I do.”

I looked down at him, standing there before me in his heavy coat and glasses. Sure, he was annoying, but it did have to be hard for him. No matter how smart you were, there was a lot you couldn’t learn from books. “Then just be friends with her,” I said. “You don’t need me for that.”

“I do, though,” he said. “I can’t just go up and talk to her. But if I was, you know, helping you with your calculus at lunch or something, then I could just hang out with you guys.”

“Gervais,” I said slowly. “I think that’s really sweet—”

“Don’t say no,” he pleaded.

“—but it’s also deceptive.”

He shook his head, adamant. “It’s not, though! I don’t like her that way. I just want to be friends.”

“Still, it would be like I’m setting her up. And friends don’t do that.”

Never in a million years would I have thought I would be offering up a primer on friendship, much less to Gervais Miller. Even less likely? That I would feel sorry for him after I did so. But as he regarded me glumly, then stepped back to the door, I did.

“All right,” he said, his voice flat. Defeated. “I understand. ”

I watched him as he turned the knob, pulling the door open. Once again, I found myself torn as to what to do, but this time, the stakes weren’t so high. Maybe I couldn’t do anything for Nate. But I could help someone.

“How about this,” I said. He turned back to me slowly. “I’ll hire you.”

“Hire me?”

“As a tutor. I pay what everyone else pays, you do what you do. If it just so happens we meet during lunch and Olivia is there, then so be it. But she is not part of the deal. Understood? ”

He nodded vigorously, his glasses bobbing slightly. “Yes.”

“All right then,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” he replied, stepping outside and starting down the stairs. Halfway there, he turned back to me. “Oh. I’m twenty dollars an hour, by the way. For the tutoring.”

Of course he was. I said, “Am I going to pass calculus?”

“It’s guaranteed,” he replied. “My method is proven.”