Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

looked at my watch. “We’ve got to get back anyway,” I told Ethan.
    He nodded. “I’ll go look for Kelly,” he said, and hurried off.
    “Well, you’re doing all right for someone who had to be talked into going out with college boys,” Ellie told me. “Ethan looks quite smitten with you, which was just the way he looked at me the first time. College boys,” she said disdainfully. “They’re not very dependable.”
    “He’s just being nice, Ellie.”
    “Right,” she said. “Looks like I dressed you up too well,” she added bitterly, and went back inside.
    I followed, and we met Ethan, who said Kelly was too drunk to put in his car.
    “I don’t want him along, if you don’t mind, Semantha.”
    “Why should she mind?” Ellie said sharply. “She’s been well occupied.”
    We left the party, and Ethan drove us back tothe campus. I saw that he didn’t even kiss Ellie good night on the cheek. She was sullen and sulked the whole trip back and hurried out when we stopped, not even waiting to walk in with me.
    “Sorry about the night,” he told me, looking after her. “I’ll make it up to you.” He smiled and got back into his car.
    Reluctantly, I followed Ellie to our room. I wished I had somewhere else to sleep tonight. I wasn’t in the mood to hear her ranting. Whenever she drank, she had a runaway tongue. To my surprise, this time, she was simply sulking.
    “What’s wrong with you?” I asked her after a while.
    She sat on her bed staring at the floor. “Nothing.”
    “Why did you spend so much time away from Ethan? I thought you were dying to be with him?”
    “He turned out to be boring,” she said. “I really didn’t know him that well, Semantha. I think you got to know him better than I know him, in fact.”
    She went into the bathroom and closed the door. I could hear that she had definitely drunk too much alcohol.
    “What did I tell you?” Cassie whispered. “Gunslinger. All girls resent each other, except for us. We’re sisters, real sisters.”
    Ellie went right to sleep without saying much else. In the days that followed, she spent more time away from the room than she did in it. On Thursday night, Ethan called, and I happened to be alone in the room. I thought he was calling for Ellie, maybe to apologize, and immediately told him she wasn’t there.
    “I’m not calling to speak with her,” he said. “I’m calling to see if you would like to go to dinner with me tomorrow night. I’ll come by about six-thirty. What sort of food do you like?” he asked even before I had answered. I could tell he was very nervous and was just trying to get it all said. I was too embarrassed to explain that we weren’t permitted to go on dates with college-age boys unless we had special permission from our parents. Thinking that suddenly gave me the idea.
    “Really?”
    “Yes, really,” he said, laughing. “What do you say?”
    “Give me your phone number, and I’ll call you back to let you know.”
    “Sure,” he said, and gave it to me.
    As soon as he hung up, I called my father. Mrs. Dobson said he was out to dinner, but she would give him the message to call me. I waited an hour and then grew too impatient and called his cell phone. When he answered, I could hear he was in a busy restaurant.
    “Semantha? What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong, Daddy. I want to go out with a boy who is in college, and Mrs. Hathaway wouldn’t approve of that without your approval first, so if you can call her . . .”
    “A college boy?”
    “Yes, Daddy. He’s very nice.”
    From the muffled sound, I realized he was putting his hand over the mouthpiece and talking to someone.
    “Where are you going with this college boy?” he asked.
    “To dinner, Daddy. It’s a dinner date.”
    “I see. Well, I’m sure you now know to be careful, Semantha.”
    “Yes, Daddy.”
    “I’ll call Mrs. Hathaway first thing in the morning.”
    “Please don’t forget,” I said.
    “I don’t think I forget things yet, Semantha,” he said, more for whomever he was with than for me, I thought. I heard a woman’s laughter.
    “Thanks, Daddy.”
    “Right. Take care,” he said.
    After he hung up, I called Ethan and told him I would go out with him. Ellie wasn’t talking about him anymore, and pleasing her didn’t matter to me much anymore, either.
    “I guess I like Italian food the best when I go to restaurants,” I said. Cassie never had. She’d always thought the food was too blah or too