One Summer Night
Part 3
By Lisa
ERDrLewis@aol.com

Lucy heard a knock on the door just as she pulled on her shoes. "Coming," she called, grabbing her purse on the way to the door. "Hey," she said, opening the door and finding Carter on the other side.

"Hi," he said. "You look great, Luce."

She blushed a little and said, "You don't look half bad yourself."

"Thanks for coming, Luce, I really owe you," Carter said as Lucy shut and locked the door.

"It's okay, John, really. I'm sure it'll all be fine."

"Yeah, well, prepare to be bored with lots of senseless talk. It almost puts me to sleep," Carter said, opening the car door for Lucy.

"I'm sure I'll manage," Lucy said, sitting down in the seat. At least she hoped so.

She lived through dinner, at least. When they got to Carter's grandparents' house, which was the biggest house she had been in besides the White House on her elementary class trip to DC, Carter introduced Lucy to everyone. As a 'friend', of course. She met his mother and sister, Barbara, and they both seemed nice enough. Carter's grandmother was fairly nice too. Carter's grandfather was quite intimidating though. He never smiled. Actually, rarely smiled would be more like it. In addition, when he did smile, Lucy could tell it was one of those 'fake smiles'. Carter's father was quite like that also. Not as intimidating, though. Now it was after dinner and they were sitting in *some* room, Lucy wasn't quite sure what it was called, having drinks. Carter's grandfather had gone somewhere after dinner; Lucy didn't know where he was now. They were talking about some stocks or something, as Carter said, "senseless talk". Lucy turned to Carter, who was standing up and leaning on a table. It looked like he had been looking in her direction for a while. He made eye contact with her and blushed a little bit since he had been caught watching her. He rolled his eyes. Lucy had to try very hard to contain her laughter. Carter could see that, and grinned. Lucy smiled back.

"So, what do you think I should do, John?" Carter's father asked.

Carter's head twirled around to face his father, breaking eye contact with Lucy. "Uh, well," he said, trying to think of an answer quick. It didn't help that he had been staring at Lucy throughout the whole conversation.

"Oh, Dad, why do you want Carter's opinion on how you deal with your stocks?" Barbara said, trying to throw Carter a line.

Carter mentally sighed with relief. "Yeah, Dad, I don't know much about them. Do whatever you think is best."

Lucy saw Barbara raise her eyes and grin at Carter. Lucy suspected that she saw their little nonverbal conversation. She noticed that Barbara was the only person she had met today who could *really* smile. All of the other Carters, with the exception of John, of course, had mastered that 'fake smile'. *Actually,* Lucy thought, *Carter's mother showed a genuine smile when we walked in.* Lucy stopped herself for a second. She knew things had gotten boring when she started having "senseless talks" -- with herself! Lucy looked at her watch and noticed that it was already nine-thirty. Getting late. She had somewhat blocked out the boring conversation, only beginning to listen again when she heard Carter's raised voice.

"How come every time I come over here, we have to fight?" Carter said, directing that comment to his father. Lucy didn't know what had made them fight, but she hated to see Carter so upset.

"Because you never listen to anything I say!" Carter's father screamed back.

"That's because I know how to run my own life, Dad," he said. He stood up from leaning against the table.

"Uh, John? I hate to interrupt, but I need to be going home soon," Lucy said, standing up also. Carter's eyes looked grateful for her having the courage to stand up and do that.

"Yeah, that's a good idea. Bye everyone," Carter said, grabbing his coat and walking out.

Lucy quickly said good-bye and thank you to his family and ran off after him.

"Carter? John, wait up!" Lucy said when she got out. John was pretty far ahead of her, almost to the car.

He stopped in his tracks and waited for her to catch up with him. "I'm sorry. It's just that sometimes they make me so . . . furious."

"That's okay, I'm the same way with my family." They continued to walk to the car when they heard a voice coming from the direction of the house.

"John? John?"

They turned around and saw Barbara running out to catch up with them. "What? I'm not going back in there."

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to either. Can you give me a ride to my hotel?"

"You don't mind, do you?" Carter quickly whispered to Lucy. She shook her head and called out, "Sure, come on."

"Thank you so much John. I don't think I could stand any more time in there. Well, I'll just consider it even, since it was because of you that I came," Barbara said as she walked to the car.

"What? Mom told me that I had to come because you wanted to see me," Carter said.

"Well, Mom said just the opposite to me!" she replied. The three of them laughed.

"Looks like you guys were tricked," Lucy said.

They had finally reached the car. Lucy and Barbara had a quick argument over who sat in the front seat (each insisted that the other should) and in the end, Carter told Lucy to get in the front seat. There was no more mention of the fight that had just happened.

The three chatted a little bit on the ride to the hotel. It was past Lucy's house, but Carter wanted to be able to talk with Lucy. They finally got there and Carter got out to walk his sister to the door. Lucy said good night, nice to meet you, and so forth to Barbara and she responded with the same. Lucy saw Carter walk through the doors to the hotel and quite quickly walk back out. He got back in the car.

"Sorry about that," he said. "I just didn't want to make her stay there."

"No problem at all. She's pretty nice too," Lucy replied.

"Yeah, I guess. I don't get to see her much, though. She asked me if you were my girlfriend when I walked her in."

"You said no, didn't you?" Lucy asked, worried.

"Yeah, I did. But she knew I was lying. She said something like 'Well, fine, lie to me if you want, but don't forget that I know when you're lying and I know when I'm right.'" Carter saw Lucy's worried face and continued. "Luce, I don't think she'll be much of a threat. I hadn't seen her for almost two years before tonight. For goodness' sake, she lives in France. Don't worry, okay?"

They rode in silence back to Lucy's apartment. When they arrived, Lucy asked, "Do you want to come up?"

"I better not. I need a good night's sleep, I'm on early tomorrow," Carter said, seeing a fairly disappointed look on Lucy's face. Seeing that, he got out of the car so he could at least walk Lucy to the door. "Luce? Thanks a lot for coming and breaking that fight up and everything."

"No problem," she said, smiling a little. "Hey, you weren't kidding when you told me your family was odd."

"Yeah, I know. I better get going," he said, placing a light kiss on Lucy's lips. "I'll call you after my shift tomorrow, okay?"

She nodded and watched him get into the car and drive off. She walked in the house to make herself a cup of coffee.

Lucy walked in the door from breakfast. It was fine, she dodged any questions about who the person was that they had all seen the day before. She put her purse down and went to her answering machine to see if there were any messages. Yep, one. She played it.

"Hey. It's me. Hope breakfast went okay. Uh, anyway, I'm at work and I left my beeper at your place. Call me when you get back and we can work something out. Bye."

Carter sounded awkward, but she was pretty sure it was because Jerry or someone was around when he had made the call. After all, he hadn't said her name. She looked around and saw Carter's beeper on the counter. Right next to hers. She should make sure not to mix them up. She picked up the phone and dialed the all-too-familiar number to the ER.

"ER?" a voice on the other end said. Lucy quickly recognized the voice on the other end as Jerry. Great. She hadn't though of this.

"Uh, yes," she said, in *very* fake-sounding European accent that she hadn't used since the sixth grade, when she used to ridicule her French teacher. "Is John Carter there?"

Jerry paused for a moment, as if to try and figure out who it was. "No, he's not," he finally replied. "He's on his lunch break right now. Can I give him a message?"

"Uh, no thank you, I'll just try again later." Lucy quickly hung up the phone. Oh great, what was she going to do now? By the time Lucy got to the ER, Carter would most certainly be back from lunch, and even if he wasn't, Lucy didn't know where he was. And she knew all too well how important Carter's beeper was when he was on in the ER. He could get in very big trouble for not having it. She sat down to think for a moment. She couldn't just walk into the ER, they would question why she was there. And they would get even more suspicious if she had Carter's beeper. She thought for a minute more and finally came up with a brilliant plan. She grabbed out the phone book and got to work.

To be continued . . . :)