Lovesick Read Free Page B

you came back to Crockett in the first place.”
    “I’m sorry, but I’m not giving Gregory the satisfaction of rejecting me on a whole new level,” I tell him. “You’re being a total hypocrite. Look at what happened to your own grandson when he asked
his
future father-in-law.”
    Jordan, Sid’s grandson, was ridiculed for asking permission. Something along the lines of: “Our daughter is not a piece of property. We don’t treat her like chattel. And please don’t tell me you’re expecting some sort of dowry. Abigail is an adult. I suggest you ask her yourself.” Jordan did, Abigail said yes, and they lived happily ever after, but not before her father struck “obey and honor” from their wedding vows.
    “That man is a hippie tree-hugging commie,” Sid says of Jordan’s father-in-law. “He doesn’t count. You ask the father for his blessing because that’s what us old geezers expect. Why do you ask for my opinion when you don’t even want it?”
    “This would be so much easier if Paige were just
your
daughter.”
    “Don’t say that!” he says loud enough to startle the next table.
    “Drink your tea,” I suggest softly.
    Sid is on all sorts of heart medicine. I need him to stay calm.
    “What am I going to do with you?” Sid laments, clearing his throat.
    “Gregory doesn’t make it easy,” I mumble, gulping down my latte.
    “You’re no walk in the park yourself,” he responds. “Level with me, kid: how are the two of you getting along?”
    “Pretty good,” I lie.
    “I’m blind, but I’m not deaf. I hear the way you talk to each other.”
    “Just don’t tell him I told you what I’m going to tell Paige.”
    “And the wedding? The grandchildren? You plan to enter them into a witness protection program?”
    My stomach gurgles from anxiety. Everything’s starting to unravel.
    “I think Gregory hates me,” I whisper.
    “He doesn’t hate you,” Sid insists, softly. “Do you know Elie Wiesel?”
    “I’ve seen her around the pharmacy.”
    “She is a he, and I highly doubt you’ve seen Elie Wiesel trolling the aisles of Day’s Pharmacy. Wiesel is a famous writer and philosopher, a Holocaust survivor. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1980s. He’s famous for saying a lot of very smart things, but one of my favorites is ‘The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.’”
    Sid studies me. “Just
talk
to Gregory,” he says. “Gregory is a good, generous man—more generous than you’ll ever know. You need to have a relationship with him. It would make Paige happy and earn you—whatever you call ’em—‘points!’”
    Staring blankly at the table, I run the back of the Magic Marker along a grain in the wood. My chest hurts.
    “Do you love her?”
    “You know I do.”
    He snatches the marker from my hand, pulls off the cap, and starts drawing across my stunning masterpiece.
    “Can you not do that?” I beg.
    “You want the perfect formula? You think you’re ready?” he asks.
    Sid draws a big, thick jittery “G” around the circumference of my chart. “From where I’m sitting, you missed the biggest factor of all: Gregory. He takes the cake … or rather, pie.”

C HAPTER 3
ILYS
    THE six o’clock news is eleven minutes out. When I see Paige approaching, I punch up a random Web page to hide what I’m doing.
Look busy.
    “Okay, bring it on,” Paige goads. “What’s tonight’s word?”
    Paige drags her pointer finger across my back as she heads for the nearby printer. She stands there, sorting television scripts.
    “‘Chewbacca,’” I tell her.
    “That’s impossible,” she says with a slight snort.
    Paige and I have a long-standing relationship with Han Solo’s burly seven-foot four-inch fur-covered
Star Wars
sidekick. I met Paige one unseasonably warm October evening, twenty-three Halloweens ago. I was six. Paige was seven.
Return of the Jedi
was still in theaters and a monster hit. I must have run into a dozen Darth Vaders that night, but