Becoming Mila by Estelle Maskame
6
The party draws to an end an hour or so later. I watch as everyone gathers up trash and stacks away chairs and coolers. Tori shuts down her music and packs away the speakers, and soon people climb into trucks and disappear. There’s not a single trace left behind of anyone ever having been here tonight.
All this time, I have remained in Blake’s truck. I’m exhausted from this morning’s flight, so it’s actually been a welcome relief to sit in silence and close my eyes for a half-hour (mostly in fear of seeing an angry text from my parents or Ruben pop up on my phone). And now, finally, it’s time to head back home.
Savannah and Myles climb into the truck first, the pair of them bickering loudly about something. I sit up and rub my tired eyes.
“How was the rest of the party?” I ask, taking a wary peek at my phone. Still no calls or messages. That’s a relief.
Savannah yanks her seatbelt around her, annoyed. “Great, except Prince Charming over here wanted to sneak Cindy back to the house with us. So gross.” Myles scoffs in the passenger seat, but Savannah ignores him and turns to me instead. “And I made sure everyone knows to stay cool about the fact that you’re here.”
The driver’s door swings open and Blake slides into the truck, whistling a low tune to himself. Even the mere sight of the back of his head annoys me. He starts up the engine, turns on his country pop, then drives off school property.
“So, Miss Mila,” he drawls, eyeballing me in the rearview, “do you think you’ll be around for the July tailgate?”
“Hopefully not,” I say through clamped lips. Why is he still bothering to even speak to me?
“What – you didn’t have a good time?”
“Blake, shut up,” Savannah snaps. “Can all of us in this truck right now please agree to make Mila feel comfortable while she’s here?”
“Sure,” Blake says with a stifled laugh. “I promise to be nothing but nice to Mila.”
Savannah shoots me an apologetic glance. “Thanks,” I mouth. I appreciate her effort, but it seems her cousin is determined to be a jackass. At least he turns his attention to wisecracking with Myles and doesn’t say anything more to me as we head back along Fairview Boulevard and north into the spread-out landscape of the town.
It’s nearing midnight, so there really is no one else around by now. We don’t pass a single car on the ride back to the ranches, and there’s nothing to look at besides the dark void. Eventually, we turn down the twisty road I recognize from earlier, and I spot the lights of the Bennett farmhouse appearing in the distance.
Which makes me realize that Blake is dropping his cousins off first, meaning I’ll be left alone in the truck with him. Why, why, why? I assumed I would get dropped off first, because that makes sense, right? You always drop off the people you know the least well first, so that this exact problem is avoided. I don’t want to be alone in the truck with Blake and I’m surprised he’s willing to be alone with me. I don’t need him antagonizing me, especially without Savannah there to put a stop to his fun.
My mouth feels dry and I try to focus on the crunching of dirt beneath the tires as the truck bobs its way down Willowbank’s dusty driveway. Blake pulls up to a stop outside the house, and Savannah and Myles climb out.
“Blake will drop you off,” Savannah whispers, her hand resting on the door. “You’re only five minutes down the road.” Then she raises her voice and directs her attention to Blake. “Be nice to Mila.”
“Order received,” Blake says firmly, saluting her.
The Bennetts say their goodbyes for the night and creep inside their house, wrestling silently with their elbows to be the first through the front door. They disappear out of sight, and Blake does a U-turn, driving off the property and back onto the road.
I feel ridiculous being in the backseat while he’s up front, chauffeuring me, so I unbuckle my belt and climb over the center console.
“Hey!” Blake protests when I accidentallywhack him in the side of the head with my elbow.
I collapse into the warm passenger seat that Myles has just vacated, then pull my seatbelt on. Now that I’m alone with Blake, I have two options – I either act like a loser and allow him to walk all over me, or I stand up for myself.
“So, what’s your deal?” I shoot at him, arms crossed, body angled toward him.
Blake flashes me a look of disdain, unimpressed with me clambering all over his upholstery. “My deal?”
“Yeah. What’s your deal?” I ask again, firmer this time. “Because you seemed to love watching me squirm out there tonight. Are you the class bully or something? Who crowned you King of Fairview High?”
Blake throws his head back and softly laughs. “You’re the one being a drama queen. I introduced you and I got you involved in the game by offering you a talking point. Tell me again how that makes me a bully?”
“You weren’t doing me any favors. Why did you have to tell everyone who my father is?”
“Well, personally, I reckon your dad’s acting skills could do with some fine-tuning. The Flash Point movies majorly suck, but a lot of people think otherwise,” he says, shrugging. He drives with one hand slung over the top of the steering wheel, the other mindlessly fiddling with dials on the center console. “So, it seemed a shame to keep everyone in the dark. Besides, I didn’t know it was some kind of big secret.”
“Oh, give it up,Blake!” I nearly spit his name at him. “Don’t act like you didn’t know exactly what you were doing. You’re a jerk. You ruined my night.”
I turn to stare out the window, sending a prayer out into the dark sky that Savannah doesn’t hang around with her cousin all that often, because I really don’t want to be in close proximity to him for the time that I’m here.
Blake doesn’t bother to respond, only chuckles under his breath, and we sit in silence for a minute until, finally, the Harding Estate comes into view. The spotlights running along the walls light up the road in a cool, blue haze. I tug off my seatbelt before Blake has even reached the front gate, ready to make my getaway and hopefully never see him again.
“One Mila Harding safely delivered to her prison – sorry, home,” he states, putting the truck into park.
“Prison?” I echo, bewildered. I mean, sure, the walls are intimidating, and the thought of the ranch being like a prison did cross my mind earlier. But still, the walls are there for a reason – to protect Sheri and Popeye.
Blake dips his head and peers through the windshield. “Well, yeah. I imagine it feels that way.”
I haven’t been at the ranch long enough to feel locked in yet, so I ignore his musings and get out of the truck. No way does he deserve a thank you or a goodbye, so I grab the door to slam it shut.
“Do you have a key for that gate?”
“I have a code,” I say, shoving the door of the truck closed.“Obviously.”
I make for the gate and pull up the notes app on my phone to find the code I wrote down earlier, but I become aware that Blake’s truck is still idling behind me. Why hasn’t he left yet? I hate this feeling of his gaze following me.
Twisting around, I yell back to the truck, “Do you have to stay there and watch me?”
Blake rolls down his window, hooks an arm over the door, then smiles sweetly. It’s the nicest smile he’s given me all night, but it doesn’t hide the steeliness in his voice. “Just making sure you get home safely, as promised. Surely you’d be worth a big chunk of ransom money? If you disappeared right now, I’d be the prime suspect.”
“Go home, Blake,” I order, disregarding him with a flippant wave of my hand. “Bye. Goodnight. See you never.”
I turn back to the gate and take a deep breath, tuning him out, then punch in the numbers Sheri gave me. A shrill beepemits from the gate and the keypad flashes red, but nothing else happens.
Huh?
I try again – pressing each number on the keypad slower this time to ensure I’ve entered the code correctly, but another beep and a flicker of red light tells me otherwise. Did Sheri give me the wrong code? Did I note it down wrong? I was rushing to leave at the time.
Anxiously, I tap my foot the same way I did when I first arrived at the ranch this afternoon, thinking hard. I don’t want to turn around and admit to Blake that I’m currently locked out, so keeping my head down, I swipe through my phone’s contact list.
I am horrified to discover that I do not have Aunt Sheri’s number.
My eyes widen as I check my list again, panic searing through me. Why don’t I have her number? I wrote mine down on a sticky note in the kitchen earlier, but I didn’t think to ask Sheri for hers in case of, you know – emergencies like this.
“Is there a problem with that big expensive security gate?” I hear Blake call.
“I told you to go home,” I mutter with my back to him. I’m feigning confidence, but right now I am racking my brain for a way to get inside this ranch.
“But aren’t you glad there’s someone here to help you?”
The engine cuts out and I hear the click of his door closing, then footsteps. He stands alongside me and places his hands on his hips, head tilted to one side as he stares at the looming gate before us. Meanwhile, I stare at him, mortified. Could tonight get any worse?
“Maybe you should – I don’t know – call someone?” he suggests.
“Well, yes,” I’m forced to agree. “But . . . I don’t have my aunt’s number.”
He gives me a sideways look and the spotlights from the wall shine over the dimple in his cheek. “You don’t have your aunt’s number?” He grins like he can’t believe anyone could be that dumb.
“Shut up!” I growl, still scrolling frantically through my contact list in case I’ve got the ranch’s landline in here, but it’s hopeless – whenever I call Popeye, I call from our own landline back home. I don’t have anyone’s numbers saved in my cell phone. “I only arrived today.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he says, then turns to the stretching darkness behind us and jokingly calls out, “Does anyone out there have a tent Mila can borrow?” His voice booms in the night, echoing far in the distance. “And maybe a sleeping bag?”
“Stop it. This isn’t funny.”
I tilt my head back and run my eyes up the height of the walls. There’s a reason they are eight feet tall – no one’s going to scale those babies. I groan and press my palm flat to my forehead, mulling through my limited options.
“You seriously have no way to get inside?” Blake asks.
“What – you think I want to be stuck out here with you?”
He smiles, then reaches into his pocket for his phone. “Look, I’m going to do you a real favor this time.”
I wonder what he can possibly do to help me get inside, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I may be angry at him, but right now I am secretly pretty glad that he didn’t follow my orders to leave.
Blake dials a number, then presses his phone to his ear and walks away from me. He stuffs his other hand into the pocket of his shorts and paces silently by his truck, not making eye contact with me. I remain where I am, watching, waiting. Who is he calling?
He stops pacing and clears his throat when the call is answered. “Hey, yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry,” he says quietly into the phone, his back to me. “I know it’s late, but I need you to call someone for me. It’s kind of an emergency.” He listens, then sighs. “I just told you I’m fine. This isn’t about me.” He pauses and turns to me, holding his phone away from his ear. “What’s your aunt’s name again?”
“Sheri.”
Blake angles away again and talks into the phone, his voice lowered but not quite enough. “Can you call Sheri Harding and tell her that her niece is locked out of their ranch? Yeah, her niece, so his daughter.” A long pause. “I know, but you’re the only one who’s awake at this hour and can help.” Another pause. “Okay. Thanks.” He ends the call, puts his phone back in his pocket, then walks back over to me.
“Who was that?” I ask.
Both Blake’s hands are now in his pockets and he rocks back and forth. He stares at the ground for a few seconds, then says, “My mom.”
“Your mom?”
“She has a lot of connections. Also – small town, remember? Smaller than you’d think.”
Okay, ominous, but I guess it doesn’t matter how I get into the ranch just as long as I eventually do. I keep quiet and wrap my arms around me, not really sure what to do now besides wait it out.
At this time of night, the summer warmth has cooled down and there’s a soft breeze blowing strands of my hair into my eyes. On the other side of the road, there’s just sprawling, empty fields that fade into the dark. The moon is full tonight, and the stars dance high in the sky above us. Thanks to LA’s chronic light pollution problem, I’ve never seen stars so vibrant before.
Blake and I stand together in the silence of the night, the only sound being that of a cricket’s incessant chirping, and we don’t say a word to each other. The more time that passes without either of us speaking, the more the pressure builds. I’m the one who cracks first.
“Thanks for staying with me,” I say.
He leans back against his truck. “Pretty considerate for a jerk like me, huh?”
Any attempt at further civil discussion is disrupted by the startling shrill of the bell, signaling the opening of the gate. The gate slowly peels open and reveals Aunt Sheri on the other side, a fuzzy bathrobe wrapped tightly around her.
“Mila! Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry!” she splutters. Her slippers scuff the ground as she rushes to me, pulling me into her arms as though I’ve been missing for five days. “Is this damn gate playing up again? Didn’t the code work?”
“It’s okay,” I reassure her, awkwardly patting her on the back until she unravels me from the hug. I look into her guilty expression and offer up a playful grin to put her at ease. “I think I wrote it down wrong. Also, I really need to get your number.”
“Oh, of course!I didn’t even think . . . I just assumed you had it already . . .” Sheri’s words trail off into nothing as her gaze shifts over my shoulder. “Hello, Blake.”
“Evening, Miss Harding,” Blake says, nodding his head as a polite greeting. Oh, so he can be nice if he wants to be?
Sheri gives me a strange look and says, “I thought you were going out with Savannah?”
“She was,” Blake answers for me. “We were all in my truck. I’m just dropping Mila back off to you.”
“Well, thank you, Blake. And thank your mother again for me. I didn’t know what to expect when I answered the call.”
“Will do,” he says, but there’s a strained tension between the two of them that I don’t understand. They never really meet each other’s eyes. “I better head home now. Goodnight, Mila.”
“Goodnight,” I mumble, perplexed. So now he’s all gracious and sweet?
Blake jumps back in his truck, waves, then drives off. His taillights shine bright in the distance until all at once they disappear, and he’s gone.