There is a message on the answering machine when we get home from dinner. I wait until Dad goes upstairs to get ready for bed before I listen to it. Dad never checks the answering machine. Usually its just Grandma Carolyn calling to tell us some gossip about people, and Dad usually fast forwards through those.

I get something of a shock when I hit the replay button.

"Hi, Rory. I hope this is the right number. It's me, Cassie. If you get this message before ten, call my cell." She giggles and then continues. "It's 555-4766. Okay, well, bye."

I check out the clock on the stove and see it's nine fifteen. I have homework in every subject and a science test in two days. I will skip it if it means I can talk to Cassie.

Of course, the only phone in the house is the kitchen phone. If I take it into my room, my dad will hear every word I say. My options are few, so I take it out to the porch and dial her number.

"Hello."

"Oh, hey, Cassie, it's me, Rory."

She does this cute little giggle like the one she left on the answering machine.

"I'm so glad you called me back."

"Yeah, I would have called sooner but my dad made me go out to dinner. I would have stayed home had I known you were going to call." I wince and smack my forehead for that last line. That sounded pathetically desperate. "Anyway, it was just kind of random that dad wanted to go out to dinner."

"Oh, I hate when my parents make me go with them. My mom's such a bitch. She smiles and waves at people, then talks trash about them."

"Yeah, well, my dad doesn't talk much."

She clears her throat and goes quiet. It makes me think that maybe her mom had talked some trash about my dad.

"Did your mom say anything about my dad?"

"Gosh, I don't even remember." There is an evasive sound in her voice that wasn't there a second ago.

"My dad said that your mom was right pretty when they were in school."

She groans playfully. "She'll love hearing that. She just loves to tell me how everybody in Patterson thought she was gorgeous."

Part of me wonders how she got drop dead gorgeous from right pretty, but I let it go.

"Ugh, let's not talk about our parents anymore. How's basketball?"

"It's okay," I say, leaving out the part about the team being pissed off at me. "How's, um...," I let my voice trail off as I realize I know absolutely nothing about what she's into. All I do know is that she's the prettiest girl in school.

"I'm on the yearbook committee, and I do dance."

"Dance, like ballet dancing?"

She giggles again. "No, silly. I do modern dance. "

I am supposing there is a difference between ballet dancing and modern dancing, so my mind wanders to the type of dancing girls do in the late night music videos.

Those girls morph into Kathleen. God, no, she can't do that kind of dancing.

My mind starts to wander even more. I can picture me bringing Cassie to meet my grandparents.

"So, Cassie, our Rory says you're a dancer. What kind of dancing do you do?" Grandma Carolyn would ask.

Then Cassie rips her clothes off in one fluid motion and starts to grind on my granddad's leg. Grandma Carolyn starts to make that tsk-tsk sound and shakes her head sadly. "You are just like your daddy, Rory..."

"Rory!"

I jump. "Huh? Oh, sorry."

"Did you hear anything I was saying?"

"No, I'm sorry. Go ahead."

"Well, I was telling you about my recital. I am the lead dancer in the dance from Chicago."

"You're dancing in Chicago?"

"No, Chicago the musical. Gosh, Rory, we need to introduce you to some culture."

She probably didn't mean it the way I took it. But my dad's words about her mom thinking she was better than him, jumped into my head. Maybe she thinks my dad and I sit on the porch picking banjos and swatting flies. I've been introduced to culture. I've been to the symphony in Raleigh, the ballet in Chesapeake, Virginia. I've done those things and I can honestly say, it ain't my thing.

Culture is for the birds.

"Musicals aren't exactly my favorite," I say.

"So, I guess I shouldn't bother inviting you to come see me," she says, sounding pouty.

"No, shoot, I'd come see you."

"I wouldn't want to force you," she says, still on the pouty side.

"I'll even bring you flowers," I say. I remember at the ballet, some dude in a tuxedo came out with a bouquet of flowers for the main ballerina. I can probably scrape together enough money for a small bunch of flowers from the Food Lion, but I have a feeling the Cassie would expect roses.

"You will?" she says, the former poutiness gone.

"Sure."

The line goes quiet and I wonder what she wants me to say. I certainly hope it's not about dancing or culture. There is only one thing I enjoy watching live and that is wrestling. Sure I know it's fake, but it's fun.

"You like wrestling?"

"What?" she asks, as if I had just asked her about nuclear physics.

"Wrestling. You know, guys in colored tights, tossing each other around a ring."

"Um, let me think...no."

All at once, I see Cassie in next to nothing walking around on these four inch heels, holding up a sign. I realize they only do that in boxing, but it's my fantasy, so I see Cassie walking around a wrestling ring. I watch as she crawls between the ropes and am horrified as Kathleen crawls in.

"Stop it!" I snap.

"Rory, I didn't say anything."

"No, not you, Cassie. It was a bug." I lie. "There is this bug that won't stop flying around me."

"Ew, there's a bug in your house?"

"Actually, I'm outside on the porch."

"Why? Aren't you cold?"

"I'm freezing."

"So, go inside."

I look at the front door. It makes sense to go inside. Any normal person would go inside, especially since it's only about forty degrees out tonight.

"Naw, I like being outside."

She giggles again then she curses softly. "I gotta go, Rory. My mom is coming upstairs. Bye, see you tomorrow."

"Oh, uh, sure, thanks for-." The line is dead.

I set the phone on the railing and draw in one big happy breath.

Life is good.