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lookingatandlookingthrough · 11 years ago

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Chapter five

I hide the next day, from whom, I'm not one hundred percent certain, but I am about eight-nine percent certain Walter is a factor.

The calm has passed. I'm definitely feeling more like crying. And eating an entire tub of ice cream. And calling Tessa to wail about how wonderful he is.

My parents are at work, so there's no one to ask why I'm pacing, no one to tell me to put on pants, no one to tell me to go outside, no one to tell me to eat something nutritious, no one to tell me to stop making sugar cookies… After two hours, the kitchen and I are both coated in flour and the tabletop is completely obscured by a mosaic of christmas-tree-shaped cookies.

I walk around with the phone aimlessly for about half an hour, the Cat watching me all the while. Finally, I lie down next to him on the floor, poking at his whiskers, and ask him if he's ever been in love.

He bats at my finger with a lazy paw.

I try talking to the Cat about it, but it turns out he's a horrible conversationalist (not that I'm surprised). When he leaves, I lie on my back and track a speck of dust in the beam of sunlight falling through the window.

Tessa picks up on the fourth ring. "Lucy! How are you?!?!" I can almost see her curls bouncing.

"Hey, I'm uh, well, I guess I'm okay. How are you?" I wave my hand in the air to stir up more dust particles.

"I'm great! The internship is fabulous and it's so interesting! Everyone here is so helpful and they don't even mind that I ask questions like all the time."

“That’s great, Tessa,” I say, and for once, I actually don’t sound sarcastic because I’m really not trying to be. “Have you and, uh, Jake kept in touch?” I squinch my eyes shut, hoping that’s actually his name.

“Jake?” she asks, blankly.

Shoot. “I mean Jack, sorry.” I make a face. If his name isn’t Jack, I’m going to throw myself out a plate glass window. I am such a horrible friend.

“Oh, Jack, yes, gosh, of course we have! He calls me every day, if I don’t call him first.” I can actually hear the blush in her voice. “He’s been great, actually,” she confides. “I asked him if he wanted to break up over the summer because I was going to be gone and everything, but he said he didn’t want to unless I did.” She makes a little squeaky noise. “Isn’t that sweet? Of course, I didn’t want to, I meanwhy would I? But since I left, I’ve been a little homesick and he’s been really sweet about it. He sends me cat videos when I sound sad on the phone.”

“Oh my God, Tessa,” I manage. “That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“And I’m glad he’s so great. Really. If he weren’t, I’d have to go and beat him up or something.”

“Oh Lucy, you’re such an amazing friend,” Tessa tells me, laughing.

“Thanks.” We’re both silent for a moment before I say quietly, “Tess?”

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” she asks immediately.

“Nothing. I mean, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, it’s just - I mean - Okay, so there’s this guy and I think I like him?”

“Really? Oh my God, Lucy, really? I’m so happy for you!” Were we in the same room, I have no doubt she would be hugging me right now.

“I mean, he doesn’t know I like him or anything,” I say.

“Okay,” she says, unphased. “How often do you talk?”

“A lot I guess. I mean, a lot recently, anyway. We didn’t really start talking until summer.”

“But how often is a lot?”

“Like almost every day, I guess.”

“Do you hang out, go places, do things together?” I imagine her reading off a clipboard, checking boxes busily, getting ready to make a diagnosis.

“Sort of. I mean, uh. Well, we hang out sometimes. We go on walks. Together.” It sounds dumb saying it out loud, especially to Tessa, who probably goes on interesting, normal, romantic dates with Jack all the time. “I’ve been over to his house a lot recently.”

“Good! Does he usually have people over? And by people I mean girls, of course!”

“I don’t think so. Are you trying to figure out if he likes me back?”

“Well yes,” she says, like it should be obvious. “That’s why you called me, isn’t it?”

“Partially.”

“Oh! Well what was the other part then?”

I consider this for a moment before answer. “I think I just wanted to be able to talk to someone who knows what it feels like to like someone? I can’t talk to Isaac because he knows him and it would be weird.”

“Oh, honey. What did you want to talk about? Specifically?” I hear a rustling on her end of the line that probably means she’s settling into wherever she is.

“I don’t know?” I’m pretty useless aren’t I.

“Okay, so how about… you start by telling me all about him, okay?”

I heave a sigh and wave my hand to waken the dust particles again. “Well, he’s kind of quiet. He doesn’t usually talk very much. But sometimes, if you catch him at the right time or with the right topic, he’ll talk a lot. A lot for him, I guess.”

“Is he cute?” She sounds a little dreamy.

“Uh, I don’t know if he’s cute by normal people standards, but I guess I think he is. He’s blond. Ish. And his eyes are really, really green, like greener than normal green, like brighter than grass green-” I break off, horrified, because I sound like a girl in a chick flick. “He’s tall,” I rush onward, “And he has really nice hands.” Damn it. “He plays piano. And guitar. Um. He also reads. A lot. Uh.”

“He sounds perfect for you!” Tessa sighs. “Artistic, a reader… He sounds like he’s basically the opposite of Isaac. Which is good. You and Isaac are compatible for friendship, but you could never be together romantically.”

“Oh my God,” I say, scandalized. “No.”

“Not just because you’ve known each other since you started to walk, I mean, you’re just so different. You’d stab him in a few days if you lived together.”

“That’s probably true,” I say, frowning. Maybe the road trip wouldn’t have worked out all that well after all.

“So when are you going to tell him?”

“Tell who, Isaac?”

“No, silly! The guy!”

“Isaac is a guy.”

“Lucy. Stop being difficult.”

“I’m not being difficult and I don’t know, should I tell him?”

“Of course you should! You can’t just wait for him to figure it out. He’s a guy. That could take forever. You need to take action! Be brave!”

“Bravery isn’t really my thing, you know, Tess.”

“You might surprise yourself, sweetie.”

---

I know I am fooling exactly no one, most notably myself, when I go outside with a book in hand, saying "I'm going to sit in the yard and enjoy the weather." Still, I'm harboring a small hope that perhaps my parents won't jump to the (correct) assumption that I'm actually staking out a claim to lie in wait for Walter. I can't tell how obvious I am.

"Have fun," my mother says, with a shark-like smile that makes me a little uneasy.

I settle into the grass with 'The Silver Chair' by C.S. Lewis, head resting on the root of my friend, the tree.

Sure enough, at 2:30, as predicted, Walter's voice pipes up from the sidewalk. "Hey, Lucy."

"Hey!" I really do try not to look as though I've been waiting. Really. "Were you going anywhere?" I silently curse my inability to think of interesting, non-creepy questions at the moment.

"Not really."

"Just walking?"

"Just walking."

There is a brief pause while he stands there awkwardly, hands in pockets, and I sit there awkwardly, finger marking my place in my book, before I blurt out, "Do you mind if I join you?"

He perks up visibly, smiling when he says, "No! Of course not."

I stow my book in the mail box and smooth out my shirt.

“You leave it in the mailbox?”

“Yeah, I mean, no one’s going to bother it if I leave it in there.” Luckily, he doesn’t mention the fact that I just suggested that someone might bother my flimsy, little paperback book.

"What were you reading?" He asks, jamming his hands further into his pockets.

"The Silver Chair, you know, Narnia."

"Of course." He smiles at me. "Which one of the series is your favorite?"

"Probably The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." I nod at my feet.

"Why?"

I frown at the concrete. That's like asking why my favorite color is my favorite color. Or why I like one type of ice cream more than another. You just can’t ask me something like that. "I, uh, well, I don't know. I think I like it because it seems so innocent. It's all new to them, all fascinating and exhilarating. It just feels lighter and the evil isn't so dark. I think that's why I also love the Silver Chair, because it is so dark. I mean, the villain turns into a snake and lives underground and enchanted a prince for years and is friends with human-eating giants. So."

"Plus it has Puddleglum," he points out.

"Very true. He may be a wet blanket, but he's a very nice wet blanket."

I'd be lying if I said that the way he throws his head back and laughs doesn't make me feel like my smile is going to split my face in two. In that moment, part of me aches to open my mouth and tell him, but that’s an awfully small part and there’s also an awfully large part that could never, ever, in a million years do that.

I’m not listening to him while he talks. Instead, I watch his hands and the way the shift. I watch his eyes and how they dart from mine to his feet to the houses to the gardens to my face again. I hear the way his voice shapes the words without really comprehending them as they leave his lips. Maybe I’ve read too many books. Maybe I think this is how it’s supposed to happen in real life. Maybe I don’t really know what love is. Maybe I that’s why I feel stupid.

I think he asked me a question. He’s looking at me expectantly.

“Hmm?” Great, really great, Lucy. Impressively intelligent. A+.

“Why does your mother call you Lucinda?”

What a weird question. “It’s my name.”

“Yes, but everyone calls you Lucy.”

“Well… I don’t know. She calls me Lucy sometimes. Occasionally Lou. I guess.”

“Do you like being called Lucinda?”

“Not really,” I admit. “It seems a little… clunky. It’s so long. I mean, it’s a nice enough name but it’s not all that pretty. I just like Lucy better.”

“So do I.” He nods seriously, like he didn’t just make me feel like exploding into sparkles and cupcakes and baby unicorns. He likes my nickname. Why is that so exciting? Why am I so dumb?

---

Skype makes a noise at me when it opens, sort of like what I imagine a space ship taking off at warp speed might sound like. I poke at the space bar a couple of times before clicking on Isaac's name. He was probably waiting on the other end for me to come online because his face appears immediately.

"You're late," he accuses.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Sorry." I purse my lips. Maybe I should tell him.

"So…" He sounds unnaturally careful. "What's been going on? Have you been hanging out with the Band? Have you been hanging out with Walter?"

Maybe I shouldn't.

"Well, yeah. I guess."

"Tessa tells me -"

"WHAT HAS TESSA BEEN TELLING YOU?"

"Oh, not much. Just that you've been spending time with Walter lately. That's all."

Definitely not telling him. "So what if I have?"

"No reason."

"Stop being suggestive and say something worth my time or I'm disconnecting," I threaten, cursor hovering over the button.

"He considers me for a moment and I can tell he's thinking about taking a risk and saying it. I know he is. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of being right and forcing it out of me too.

I like Walter.

Walter is attractive.

Walter is really good company.

Walter is practically perfect in every way -

"I think I'm in love with Walter," I blurt out. Okay so that's not how I meant it to go, but it'll do. I guess.

"Oh perfect!" Isaac's grin stretches across his face as he pulls out a handful of confetti.

He's prepared. I am outraged. "How did you know I was going to tell you that?"

"I've been keeping this around just in case. You never know when the need will arise."

"The need for confetti."

"Of course. One must always travel with confetti."

"Right yeah, but I just told you I'm in love with Walter."

"So you did."

"Okay, so what do I do?"

"Are you asking for my advice, Lucy?" He's starting to look smug.

"Sort of."

"Either you are or you aren't, Lou." He's fishing for it and… I'll give it to him.

"Yeah, okay, I'm asking for your advice."

"Good, so I say you tell him."

"Right, that's what Tessa said, but how?"

"You just tell him."

"That's completely unhelpful, you know that right?"

"Well you know what, if you're going to be that ungrateful and ruuude, I just won't help you."

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Count to five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

"I'm sorry, Isaac, I just don't know how to do this without screwing things up."

"Why are you afraid of screwing things up?"

"Why wouldn't I be? I screw most things up, why wouldn't I screw this up too? I'm afraid that if I tell him, he won't feel the same way, obviously, and then we just won't be friends any more." I feel like I'm in middle school. This feels like a kid's crush. But at the same time, it feels totally different. I feel way more stupid.

"So you're afraid of failure?"

"I guess so. More like afraid of rejection really."

"If you live your life afraid of failure, you'll never truly live, Lucy."

"Are you quoting someone?"

I hear a voice off screen say something in Spanish and my mouth drops open. "Is that Andres? Is he listening to our conversation? Can he hear me? Can he hear me spilling all my deepest, darkest secrets?"

Andres scoots on screen. "Hi Lucy," he says kindly. "Boy problems?"

"Yeah," I say grimly.

"I think you should tell him. He's a boy. Who knows how long it will take him to figure out how he feels." Andres shrugs helplessly. "And once he figures it out, who knows how long it will take for him to actually do something."

"Can't I just wait and see if he does?" I plead, not wanting to sound whiny, but not really able not to.

"If you want to wait a lifetime," Isaac mutters.

---

It's raining, which is stupid because it's summer and I want to go talk to Walter and until this morning, it's been warm and sunny. For the first time in recent memory, I'm actually mad that it's not still warm and sunny.

“Lucinda,” my mother says. Her words say my name but her tone says something along the lines of don't try to hide or possibly resistance is futile.

I stop in the center of my room and realize I’ve been pacing.“Yeah?”

“Why are you sulking?”

“I'm not sulking,” I say sulkily.

She frowns. “I know you miss Isaac,” she begins and she's so far off that it actually makes me laugh.

“Mom, no. I mean, I miss Isaac, sure, but that's fine.” I lean against the doorway to the living room. “I'm not lonely. Seriously.”

“You two do everything together. You had your road trip all planned. I know you're disappointed.” And the funny thing is, I was. Just not any more.

“Mom,” I say more gently, “I'm fine. I was disappointed, but so far, my summer has been fine. It's been good, actually. I know, hard to imagine, right? Me having fun without Isaac. I would never have believed it myself.”

“So why are you sulking?”

“I told you,” I snap, “I'm not sulking.”

She hums disbelievingly.

“I think I'm going to go for a walk,” I say, snagging my raincoat off the hook.

My mom doesn't say anything to that, just blinks at me and sighs.

Of course it would rain when I’ve finally figured out my feelings. Maybe it’s a sign, I think, gloomily. I bet it’s a sign that having feelings is bad and I should never do it. It’s a bad omen. Having feelings will end up ruining my life one day and here’s this rain, trying to warn me. If I tell him, he won’t like me back and then I’ll feel dumb and I’ll never tell anyone how I feel again.

“Lucy? What’s wrong?”

I turn and, of course, who else? What the hell is he doing out here in the rain. When I am out here in the rain. This can’t be a coincidence. It must be fate.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him, barely bringing myself to meet his eyes.

“Yes it does,” he replies steadily, taking a step closer, right into a puddle.

“No, it doesn’t, because I’m an insignificant collection of particles floating around in the vast universe with electrical currents running through my brain which are the only reason I function, Walter. It doesn’t matter.” I blow my hair out of my face angrily. I feel dumb. I hate feeling dumb.

“Just because it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter right now,” he persists, taking another step closer. “It matters because you matter and it’s significant because you’re significant. Still… you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I make a face. “I mean, it’s stupid,” I say beginning to feel vaguely annoyed.

He shrugs. “So?

“I mean, it has to do with feelings,” growing steadily more irked.

“Okay.”

“Why are you so calm about everything?” I feel like shaking him. Why can’t he get angry? Why can’t he just overreact? Just once?

“Why are you so afraid of having feelings?” He takes another step closer, out of the puddle, still sounding like he’s commenting about the weather, though he might sound more emotional if he were talking about the weather.

“Why are you so afraid of talking about your feelings?” I glare, moving forward so we’re close enough that I have to look up a little to meet his eyes.

“You say ‘I mean’ a lot. Do you really mean everything you say?” he asks sharply.

“Why do you resent your mom when it’s your dad you should resent?” I shoot back.

“Why do you ask weird questions?”

“Why are you so afraid of growing up?”

I bite my lip and snap, “Why are you so frustrating?” and he asks, “Why are you so frustrating?” and I shout, “Because I love you” and then he kisses me and for a moment, I am frozen, terrified, confused, and still a little frustrated because that isn’t really a real answer, but the frustration melts away because maybe it is really a real answer and then his hand runs up my back into my hair and I drag mine over his shoulders to his neck.

He breaks away. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“And no one’s ever kissed me before,” I confess, embarrassingly breathless. “Do it again.” I feel thoroughly and deliciously cliche.

---

The basement looks different somehow. The couch doesn’t look so gray and the boxes don’t look so faded. I can’t tell if it’s the room or me who’s changed, but one thing that has changed, is the fact that, on a box next to Lewis, holding hands with Lewis, is Peter.

Peter?

“Hi, Lucy!” he chirps.

“Uh, hi, Peter, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to meet the band! Lewis tells me all about you guys.” If a smiley face emoji could be spoken aloud, Peter would have mastered the art of speaking it long ago. “So you and Walter are finally together,” he says teasingly, looking pointedly at our clasped hands.

“What do you mean finally?” I ask as Walter says, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Lewis has been saying for months that he wished you would just get together already. I’ve been following your relationship very carefully. Through him.” Peter smiles at Lewis who smiles back. It’s like I’m in some dream world and can’t wake up. I actually consider pinching myself.

“Wait, so Lewis said stuff about us? Lewis talks?” I ask, only half kidding.

“Of course he talks, Lucy! He just doesn’t talk to everybody, do you?”

Lewis shakes his head.

“Yeah, of course,” I say, head reeling. “So how long have you been, uh, together?”

“Since the end of June.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Since June,” Peter repeats, matter-of-factly. “We’ve been dating since the end of June.”

“Oh. I see.” How have I not heard about this??? “That’s great, I’m glad.” And I am. I’m very glad. I’m just also still confused.

Walter and I sit on the couch, watching them talking quietly to each other. I lean over to whisper, “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. The most talkative person and the least talkative person I know. Sharing a box to sit on. And dating.”

“It is fairly bizarre,” Walter allows.

“They’re like polar opposites.”

From across the room, I hear Peter say, “Well my last name is Clark, so if you changed your name it would be Lewis Clark, like Lewis and Clark!”

Lewis smiles and says (HIS VOICE IS REALLY DEEP OH MY GOD), “But mine is Kent, so if we hyphenated, it could be Clark-Kent,” and Peter gasps, “Perfect!”

“Okay, so not that opposite. They’re both total nerds,” I say, shaking my head. “This is an exceedingly weird day. Actually, it’s an exceedingly weird week.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, first somebody kissed me.”

He laughs. “Okay, that’s pretty weird.”

“Told you so.”

Fred strikes up a slightly awkward waltz that I think I recognize from Sleeping Beauty, and James picks up the down beat on the cymbals. Hugo just sits there and taps his foot.

Peter takes Lewis’s hand pulls him to his feet. Walter stands up and holds out a hand towards me. He raises an eyebrow, green eyes gleaming in the light of the garage. I take his hand without hesitation and he twirls me closer, one hand on my waist, the other clasping mine. My body is pressed against his, my face a few inches from his cheekbone. We’re almost on eye level, me just an inch or two shorter than he is. With a stupid grin plastered across his face, he spins me in a circle. I feel like a Disney princess when he twirls me back in to him and presses me close to his chest.

My face is against his neck, my chin is on his collar bone. I can smell the laundry detergent Rhoda uses on the collar of his shirt. I think this summer will smell like this. Like laundry detergent, mown grass, and petroleum.

---

It's not like I don't like meadows. I love meadows. They're very green. And pretty. And nice. I've just never spent much time in them, probably because there really aren't very many meadows around here. But Walter, of course, knows just the meadow to go to.

To which to go.

But anyway, I think I really do love meadows because the way the light filters through the trees at the edges of the clearing and the way the grass glows in it and the stillness are straight out of a fairytale and I think if I could, I would live here for the rest of my life.

"Do you like it?" He sounds so eager that even if I didn't actually love it, I would have said yes.

"It's so beautiful here." Just saying it out loud can't capture how beautiful the meadow really is. "I want to read a dictionary so I can find all the words that I can use to describe it because it's - it's so -"

"Indescribable?" he suggests, innocently.

"Shut up," I tell him, pretending to be angry. "But yes, it is. Saying it's beautiful doesn't cover it."

"I know. Maud used to take me here when I was little. I remember when she'd read aloud to me and I always felt like Alice in Wonderland because - well, it's dumb, never mind."

"No," I cry, "Tell me! Why did you feel like Alice in Wonderland?"

"It's like the Golden Afternoon poem, and how she's sitting there listening to a story and having all these wonderful dreams, and when I was here, it always felt a little... Magical. I guess."

"It is magical. It's the kind of place where I think fairies would live." I say it partly because it's true and partly because I want him to feel better because he's still blushing.

He smiles at me and in the light, his eyes look brighter than the grass. He lies down in it, stretching his arms and legs out so he looks like a starfish, eyes closed. "You know how when the sun is out and you close your eyes and everything looks red and warm?"

I lay down next to him and shut my eyes. My vision is bathed in reds and oranges and feels somehow warmer. "Yeah," I say, keeping my eyes closed. The breeze whispers over my skin and somewhere to my left, a bird chirps. "Sometimes I wish it were always summer," I murmur, feeling sleepy and heavy and weighted down. "But I think I'd miss winter."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I like snow and Christmas and bundling up in blankets and drinking hot chocolate, but... Then there are times like these and I just wish it were always sunny and warm."

"Why?"

"Because it's sunny… and warm?" I wrinkle up my forehead, eyes still closed, and see spots on the undersides of my eyelids.

"But what's so great about sunny and warm?" he presses.

"Well, I like lying outside in the grass and feeling the sun on my legs and arms and my face, even though I know I'll get sunburned and I'll regret it. And I love the breeze because in the winter it's already cold, so then it's just more cold, but in the summer, it's a relief and it's gentle and it's cool, not cold. And I love the blue sky and watching the clouds and how they move on windy days and how they don't move on still days. And I love closing my eyes and feeling the sun and the breeze on my skin and hearing the birds… It's like being more aware of everything around you because you can't see, so you hear things and feel things you wouldn't normally hear or feel, you know?" I fall silent, listening to the dull roar of the world turning around us and the sound of Walter's breathing.

"I know." When he speaks, I open my eyes and find him propped up on his elbow a few inches from my face. His head blocks the sun, which illuminates his golden blond hair around his head.

"You look like an angel," I tell him, reminded of the walk we took a couple hundred lifetimes ago.

"Why's that?" he asks, laughing.

"You have a halo."

He frowns at me for a second and then smiles when I reach out to drift my hand over his hair.

I let my arm fall back down, feeling as though I could fall asleep right then and there, as though my arms are made of lead.

Walter draws a finger across my palm and my skin tingles. "You have really nice hands," he tells me. "Your fingers are so slender."

"That's the strangest compliment I have ever received," I say, fighting back a yawn. "Thank you."

"You also have a very long life line."

"Really?" I turn my head to look at him, grass pressing against my cheek. "Can you read palms?"

"No. I just made that up. I think that's your lifeline. It may be your love line though. I don't know which is which."

"Oh. Well what does it mean? A long life line? Or a long love line?"

"I don't know, Lucy, I just told you, I don't know how to read palms." His expression is both exasperated and amused and I take that as a good sign.

"Make something up. Tell me my future. All of it," I command, waving my other hand imperiously.

"Okay..." He concentrates on my hand, biting his lip. "I'm going to say that this long one is your love line," he says, tracing it with one finger, "And that means that you're a very loving person-"

I scoff. "I so am not. I love like five people. I tolerate the rest."

"Well, the people you do love, you love harder," he persists. "And this is your life line," he continues, tracing another line across my palm. "It's also pretty long, but not as long as the love line. Maybe I got them mixed up, but I'm going to say that it means you're well-loved and after you die, your family writes an really nice obituary about how much everyone loved you."

I can't help laughing at that. "That's pushing it."

"No! It's not! You think you're abrasive and hard to love, but you aren't. Not for me."

I open my mouth to say, Well I am for everyone else, but I suddenly find it very hard to care about everyone else when he's leaning in a few inches to kiss me, so I don't say anything.

oOo

He has his arms around me. The sun is behind the trees now, so we're in the shade, but it's still warm, the kind of warm you only feel in summer, like you’re warm from the inside out. The meadow is practically silent, except I can hear his heart beating under my ear pressed against his chest. One of his hands rubs gently over my arm.

“So," I begin, breaking the silence, "You remember how in the end of Peter Pan, when Wendy decides to grow up rather than stay a child forever?

“Yeah, of course I remember. I’ve read that book about a million times,” he sighs, pulling me closer.

“I know. I always thought she chose that because she was excited to be an adult and do adult things and have a chance to be a part of that world.” I snuggle closer against his side, the grass beneath my arms and neck brushing across my skin.

“And what do you think now?”

“I think she was just as scared of growing up as I am. She was just brave.”

“You’re brave.”

"Maybe I am now.”

#chapters

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lookingatandlookingthrough · 11 years ago

Text

Chapter four

He has a secret love of puffy cheetos

He owns a single plaid shirt and loves it dearly

He voluntarily reads more Shakespeare than is normal for a teenage boy

He cries during movies

He sucks at Mario Kart

oOo

1. He has a secret love of puffy cheetos

I realize, with great disgust, that we are out of powdered lemonade mix. I search the entire cupboard. There is definitely none. Not behind the ramen, not behind the boxed mac-and-cheese mix, not behind anything. “THERE’S NO POWDERED LEMONADE,” I yell to the house at large.

“DID YOU LOOK BEHIND THE RA-”

“YES.”

There is silence as my dad chooses a course of action.

“WELL YOU’LL HAVE TO GO TO THE STORE.”

I feel like a crusader, about to die for my cause, riding out to battle, as I trudge over the hot concrete. I swear the bottom of my feet must be baking through the thin soles of my flip flops. It’s a relief (for once) to get inside the (air conditioned) store. I make a bee-line to the isle my dad calls the No Food Value Allowed Isle and turn the corner into, of all people, Walter.

“Oh wow, uh hey,” I manage, trying frantically to smooth down my hair without actually looking frantic.

“Hey, Lucy.” He barely meets my eyes and fiddles with the bag of puffy cheetos in his hands.

“I sort of always thought you’d eat, like, health food, or something,” I say, gesturing to the crinkly plastic bag. “I never really considered the possibility that you were a normal teenage boy who eats normal-teenage-boy food.” Okay, so that was dumb. I’m off to a great start.

“My mom wishes I didn’t.” I take courage in the little smile that accompanies the words and grin back at him.

“Yeah, mine too. I mean, I’m not a teenage boy but I eat like one. I mean, um. Puffy cheetos though. Those are like, the meaning of life.” At least I ended somewhat less stupidly.

“I concur.”

What the hell. Who says concur any more??? I want to hit myself in the face because of how adorable I find that. “Also powdered lemonade mix. Which is what I came here for,” I blurt, needing an escape route before this conversation becomes even more embarrassing. “I’ll see you around!” I flee before he can say goodbye. On the list of things I hate, not being in complete control of my mouth comes in around number three.

2. He owns a single plaid shirt and loves it dearly

The sound of a push mower meets my ears. It’s the familiar squeaking, chopping, metallic noise I remember so clearly from my childhood, before we got an electric mower that just roars and yells. It’s a noise I associate with the smell of real, sweet, cut grass, no burnt gasoline to adulterate it. Walter moves steadily across the lawn away from me, mower rolling before him, sending a little spray of grass clippings up behind it. He’s wearing shorts and a plaid shirt over a plain white t-shirt, rolled up to the elbows and unbuttoned, so it flaps around his hips as he leans into the handles of the mower.

I slide around the gate and lean up against the fence, just watching as he turns and sees me. He waves. I wave back. I feel somewhat like a character in a 90’s movie about a girl and the “boy next door,” so I push off the gate and make my way up the gently slope of grass towards him.

“Hey!” he calls, leaning on the handle of the lawn mower.

“Hey yourself.” I should probably stop with the movie thing. “Do they pay you for your labor?”

“Nah.”

“You should talk to your union about that,” I advise. “We have labor laws and a minimum wage for a reason.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he agrees seriously.

We fall into companionable silence. He glances down at the lawn mower, then up at the back porch and the vine that curlicues around the columns and across the roof. I follow his gaze to the vine and notice the delicate, purple flowers growing in clusters hanging from it.

“What kind of plant is that?” I ask.

“Wisteria. Haven’t you ever seen it before?” He smiles a half confused, half amused smile at me.

“If I have, I’ve never known what it was. It’s beautiful though. Those flowers are so…” I can’t think of a word that describes them and doesn’t sound pretentious, so I go with “nice.”

“It never used to bloom,” he says thoughtfully. “But last year, Maud threatened to dig it up, so it bloomed for the first time this year.”

“Why did threatening it make it bloom?” I scrunch up my nose. “Seems counterintuitive. Shouldn’t you be nice to a plant to make it bloom?”

“Apparently, if you make it look like you’re going to dig it up, the wisteria will reproduce quickly before you relocate it or kill it, like it’s trying frantically to continue the family line.”

“That seems somewhat barbaric, threatening a plant. It can’t fight back or anything.”

“You should talk to Oliver. He swears this wisteria has it in for him. All those tendrils grow up around his bedroom window and once he caught one forcing its way through the screen.”

“Sounds like the plot of a horror movie; A killer plant, attacks kids, enters houses at night, comes in through windows. I’ll write the script, you compose the soundtrack. I think it could be a hit.”

I feel stupid after letting that slip out of my mouth, but he just laughs.

Neither of us speaks for a few minutes, just standing there in silence, surrounded by the tufts of grass scattered by the lawn mower and the distinctive sound of summer - the faint chirping of birds, the gentle rustling of a breeze in the trees, the far-off buzz of an electric mower somewhere in the neighborhood…

“I should finish the lawn.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I’m distracting you, sorry, I, sorry-”

“No, no it’s fine. I should just finish it. It won’t take long. You can stick around. IfyouwantImean,” he takes a breath before repeating slowly, “If you want, you can wait around until I’m done,” then blushes furiously.

If we’re both feeling a little stupid anyway… “Yeah, I will. I’ll just, uh, sit over here then.”

He hastily goes back to mowing. I settle into the grass, feeling the short, soft stalks brush against my bare legs. The Bean makes his deliberate way from the porch to me, unperturbed by the chop-chop-chop of the mower, before he sits down next to me. I stroke his head absently, watching Walter force the mower over lumps in the lawn. He frowns at the ground and brushes at his hair angrily, leaning into the handle and putting his weight into it, feet braced in the ground. His flannel is so worn in places that it’s almost transparent. The blue and dark green stripes have faded on the elbows and over the shoulders, where he bends and moves his arms. He’s probably had it for years, it’s probably been through hundreds of washing cycles and hung on a hanger in a closet for-

The Bean bats at my knee with a paw and lets out a quiet “mrow” to let me know I’m neglecting to devote all my attention to him.

Walter stops, surveys the yard, pushes the mower up the lawn, and nods contentedly. He props it against the house and flings himself down in front of me.

“Your shirt is so threadbare, it must be old.” In the second after I close my mouth, I realize how that sounds, so I stammer out, “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing! Old shirts are great. They’ve got a lot of, uh, character.”

“It’s the only flannel shirt I own. I wear it all the time,” he says. “It was my dad’s.”

I don’t know what to say about that except, “Oh.” I look down at the Bean, who blnks lazily at me with his wide, green eyes. “You have the same eyes,” I say.

“Who, me and the Bean?” There’s a smile on his face when I look up at him.

“Yeah. I mean, you’ve both got these huge, luminescent, green eyes.”

“So I have cat eyes.”

“Or he has human eyes.” I’m beginning to feel even more stupid than I usually do, so I fiddle with the Bean’s collar.

“Jelly Bean?” I read from the tag. “So his real name is Jelly Bean?”

“Yep.”

“Who named him?” “Don’t laugh at me,” he mutters, squinting at me from under his bangs.

“You named him? How old were you?” I squeal.

“I was eight, okay?” he says defensively. “I was young.”

“I’m not saying it’s bad name, it’s adorable. It’s just funny, that’s all. You’ve got a family with all these names like Elise and Oliver and Rhoda and Maud and Walter, and then you’ve got a cat named Jelly Bean.”

He grins at me. “I almost named him Spot, but Maud told me that’s a dog name.”

“Well we didn’t name our cat at all, so don’t feel bad,” I tell him.

“What do you call your cat if it doesn’t have a name?”

“Cat. We just call him Cat.”

“How did that happen?”

“I was a different kind of eight-year-old than you were. You went for cute and traditional, and I went for smartass.”

3. He voluntarily reads more Shakespeare than is normal for a teenage boy

I peer in through the window of the house and see Rhoda sitting in a wicker chair. She raises a cup to her lips, a tea bag sunk to the bottom of golden brown liquid. She’s watching the Bean play with a piece of yarn with a pensive look in her eye.

I tap lightly on the glass and she looks up, a smile lighting up her face under the wisps of graying hair that fall gracefully around her face.

“Walter is in the backyard,” she tells me, through the gray film of screen door.

“Thanks.” I turn away before she can see me flush. Of course she knows that’s why I’m here, I tell myself. Why else would I be here? I’m his friend.

I turn the corner of the house, grass brushing the tips of my toes, and freeze. A lawn chair is set up in the middle of the lawn, covered entirely by a sprawling Walter, long limbs stretched off the edges. Above him, he holds a book. He hasn’t noticed me yet, so I stay still. I watch the way he turns a page, slowly, reaching for the corner before he finishes the page.

“Hey.”

He looks up under the book and sits up hastily, running a hand through his hair. “Hey. What’s up?” It’s a little hesitant, like he probably doesn’t say that very often. That I can believe.

“Not very much, I guess.” That was dumb. “What are you reading?” Alright, not quite so dumb.

He flushes, actually checking the cover like he doesn’t know what book it is, and squints up at me. “Twelfth Night? It’s, uh, Shakespeare?” he says, hesitantly.

“I know,” I blurt and immediately feel bad as he scrambles, saying, “Yeah, of course you do, sorry” and ducking his head.

“Oh yeah I mean, uh, do you like it?” I try, panicking. This is why I should not be allowed to have social interactions. For God’s sake, Lucy, pull yourself together.

“It’s good.” He frowns. “Well, it’s Shakespeare, so obviously it’s supposed to be good, but yeah. I like it.”

I sit down cross-legged on the grass in front of him so he’s about a foot above me and I have to look up to see his face. “Do you, uh, read a lot of Shakespeare?”

“Depends on what you mean by a lot. Probably more than normal teenage boys though.”

“Probably,” I agree. “I think by even reading one play not required by your high school English class, you’ve already surpassed 95% of teenage boys.”

He makes a face. “Do you read much Shakespeare?”

“Well, no. I wish I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess I just wish I were the type of person who reads Shakespeare while drinking tea and sitting in window seats, occasionally staring out the window past the rain to the forest surrounding their little, remote woodland home.” I pause for breath. “If that makes any sense to you.”

He narrows his eyes at me. I hold my breath. I can’t tell if he’s thinking “wow, what a weirdo” or trying to figure it out. I look at anything but him, eyes gliding over the grass, the flower pots painted with delicate blue and pink flowers, the blooming roses, and thinking about how nice it would be to have a mother and grandmother who would have a garden like this one.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I get that. But I don’t live in a remote, woodland home.”

“But do you drink tea though?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, guiltily.

“Well there you go. See? I wish I were that kind of person. Your kind of person.” Oh crap, crap crap crap -

“You are my kind of person. Maybe just not in the Shakespeare and tea kind of way.” He says calmly.

I don’t understand it. How does this work, how can you be embarrassed and bashful about saying you read Shakespeare and then turn around and be completely comfortable saying something like that? “You’re the most confusing person I’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter,” I want to scream at him, so, of course, I don’t, I just say, “That’s good to hear” and try not to blush too much.

4. He cries during movies

“Well, I think it’s a great movie and we should watch it,” Hugo declares, glaring at James who only laughs harder. “It’s a classic novel and a well-made film-”

“Film,” James whispers.

“-With a very good soundtrack,” Hugo continues sternly.

“Yeah and we’re a symphony orchestra so it makes sense,” James manages, making a mock-serious face.

“I’d be up for watching it,” interjects Fred, calm as always.

Lewis shrugs.

“Same here,” Walter adds, shooting a glance at me.

“Yeah, so would I,” I blurt, before wondering whether Hugo meant to include me in we.

“Oh lovely! That’s a majority, certainly,” he says, reminding me that, he’s Hugo, of course he included me in we. “I have it right here, actually,” he adds, pulling a dvd from his bag with a flourish.

“Are you kidding me,” mutters James, rolling his eyes. “How long have you been plotting this?”

“I haven’t been plotting it,” Hugo says calmly. “But we have plenty of time right now, so we might as well watch it.” He smiles a vaguely menacing smile (as much as little, 5 foot 3 Hugo can actually be menacing) and turns on the TV.

It becomes evident very quickly that James’s objection to watching the movie is that he’s one of those people. You know. The kind that gets extremely invested in the characters and their well-being. Fred has to tell him to “just shut up, man” because James won’t stop asking about Jean Valjean’s sister and why she isn’t in the story if she had a child who was starving and everything and isn’t that at least worth one more mention?

I too have a habit of letting myself care a little too much about characters. By the time Fantine dies, I’ve already cried a little and James has shed “a single manly tear” (“nah, man, that was like twenty manly tears,” Fred tells him).

At the end of the barricade scene, when Les Amis are dead and I am wiping the floods from my cheeks, I glance at Walter beside me, out of sincere curiosity, to see if he seems moved by the tragic and premature ends of so many handsome, young Frenchmen.

I can’t decide whether I am embarrassed or excited to see that he’s crying. He doesn’t just have softly glistening eyes, like Fred or Hugo or even Lewis. No, he’s full-on crying, tears sliding down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. I make the spit-second decision not to look away and instead take a small step for woman, a great leap for Lucy, and take his hand. He looks at me in profound surprise, glancing from my hand around his to my face and back, like they do in movies. There is a brief moment when I regret every choice I have ever made in my entire life leading up to this moment, but that moment ends when he gently squeezes my hand smiles at me.

Watching a spectacularly sad movie among a group of people who have never before seen me cry has never been quite so enjoyable.

5. He sucks at Mario Kart

“Walter, for God’s sake, you’re headed right off the - Yeah, the edge, okay. Too late. I tried to warn you.” James shakes his head sadly and spares one hand from his controller to pat Walter on the shoulder. “All the better for meeeee!” he sings suddenly, whizzing by Hugo, who takes a calculated turn with ease. I putter past the little cloud setting Walter down on the path and continue on, happy with my position in 11th place.

Fred passes in front of the TV, causing Hugo to careen into a tunnel wall, James to squawk in anger, and Walter to fly straight off the cliff edge and towards the water below. I stolidly push forward, now passing Hugo trying to do a Y-turn and falling in 10th place.

“Sorry, man,” Fred drawls, settling down by my knee and leaning back against the sofa.

“I could have lost my lead,” James complains, shooting past the finish line. “But I didn’t. And I won. So HA!” He pumps his fist enthusiastically.

Walter misses a turn and falls off the edge again.

“Walter, what are you doing?” James laughs, not unkindly. “I shudder to think what kind of a driver you’ll be.”

“Lucky for you, I don’t plan on driving any time soon.” Walter keeps his eyes fixed on the screen, frowning a little.

“Lucky for the human race,” Fred says quietly and quite seriously. I have to laugh at that. Even Lewis smiles.

---

Band practices without Isaac are probably quieter and also probably less productive. Despite my revelation in the library about Walter being a motivator, which is proving to be true, they manage to begin and finish their practice session within about ten minutes.

"Oh, come on," I say, exasperated, when James sets down his drumsticks and Hugo begins to take apart his clarinet. "This is ridiculous, you guys. You're a band, you’re musicians, do you even like playing music?"

"Yes," James says defensively. "But we also like playing board games."

I think it's a joke until he pulls out Monopoly and everyone cheers. "Are you kidding me," I say, rolling my eyes. "Is this what you do when Isaac isn't around, just play Monopoly and waste time?"

"Yes," Hugo says, honestly. "Now come on, since you're the guest, you can pick which piece you want first."

“She’s not even a guest any more, she’s pretty much a member of the Band now,” James grumbles, and I want to hug him.

I pick the candlestick, which I'm pretty sure came originally from Clue. Walter chooses the thimble, which I find cute. Hugo goes with the top hat, which seems extremely fitting. Fred picks the wheelbarrow. Lewis chooses the car. James picks a small model lightsaber, which I am 100% certain did not come from this game and looks as though it may originally have been from a Lego set. I tell him he should have chosen the car and when he asks why, I say slyly, “Because it runs on…” and James glares and Fred adds, “Petroleum,” looking highly pleased.

I've never been a huge board game person, myself, so watching the rest of them get really into it is extremely entertaining.

James refuses outright to play by the rules and, before the board is even unfolded and out of the box, he declares himself banker. Hugo makes a valiant attempt to drag him back to the rulebook, but to no avail. After only half an hour of play, Walter and I are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy so we pool our funds and properties the better to “stick it to the man,” as Fred tells us. But in another fifteen minutes, we’re wallowing in debt (which is technically against the rules, but with James running the bank, you never know) so we default and decide to watch them play. Eventually, it’s Lewis who wins, taking everyone by surprise and just sorting out his pile of money calmly when Fred claps him on the back.

---

I lie on my back. The house around me buzzes very softly. I can hear the refrigerator in the kitchen humming. I can hear the air conditioner in my parents’ room whirring. I can hear my own breathing. Outside my open window, there is the constant, continuous whoosh of cars on the freeway and on the streets. A plane flies overhead, the metallic wheezing of the engines reminding me of mysterious, floating lights, aliens, spaceships, everything Isaac and I were into as kids.

Into which we were as kids. That sounds so pretentious.

I open my eyes to stare at my blank ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars from when I was young have faded. I may need to replace them. A few of them in the corner look like they’re dying slow and painful deaths, fading into oblivion. I have a surprisingly clear memory of putting the first round of stick-on stars on the ceiling. This batch is probably the 4th generation. I remember how excited the four-year-old me was was when my dad got out the step ladder to put up the first generation of stars.

When I finally fall asleep, I dream about stars. Someone is sticking them to the night sky. I expect it to be my father, but when they turn to face me, it’s Walter, eyes glowing in the moonlight until he blots it out with a ballpoint pen.

---

Somehow, sometime in the last few weeks, the prospect of going to Walter’s house has lost the ability to instill paralyzing fear within me. Instead, when he texts me to ask if I want to hang out, I don’t have even a second of anxiety about it.

Why I would have anxiety about it in the first place is not question I want to answer.

When I walk up the driveway, I notice the mailbox for the first time. It’s small and a little bent-out-of-shape, but someone has painted it a deep, sea blue. There’s a large and coral pink starfish on the door, which hangs open an inch or so. Careful hands (Rhoda’s, probably) have painted graceful, swooping letters on the side: Argall. It’s so simple, but it reminds me of how plain, how mundane, our gray, metal box is, sitting out on the front porch, with the plain, red flag on the side.

I knock on the frame of the screen door and Walter lets me in, smiling, his one, beloved plaid shirt hanging about his torso loosely.

“Argall,” I say by way of greeting.

“That’s my name,” he answers, unphased.

“I didn’t know that,” I say apologetically. It seems like something I should know at this point.

“It means ‘dweller in a calm place.’ It’s Welsh.” He nods around at the house. “It’s calm right now, but when Oliver and Elise get home from camp, it’s going to get pretty crazy around here. You may not want to hang around here any more when that happens.” He eyes me carefully. “They can be a little overwhelming.”

“I’m sure I won’t mind,” I say firmly, wanting to assure him that I’m not going to jump ship just because he has a little sister and brother.

I haven’t spent much time looking at their living room. There’s a rocking chair (an honest to God wooden rocking chair) by the fireplace (an honest to God fireplace for honest to God fires with wood and everything). There is also an upright piano. The dark reddish-brown wood has swirling patterns in it, smooth lines and shapes ingrained in the body of the instrument. The front is covered in intricate carvings, flowers and leaves spreading across it. I run a finger over the ridge of a petal on one of the flowers. "This is a beautiful piano," I tell Walter, leaning closer to peer at the wood.

He doesn't say anything, just slides onto the piano bench and lets his hands hover. He glances up at me once before his fingers are drifting over the keys, gracefully and deftly, slowly at first, the first few notes ringing into the silence of the room. At first, it sounds painfully lonely. Tears prickle at my eyes. I close them, standing and letting the notes wash over me. Then a smile tugging at the corner of my lips as the music speeds up and brightens. I open my eyes to watch Walter, the way his arms flow from his body to the piano like it’s an extension of him, the way his shoulders roll up and down as he moves. I notice for the first time how slender his fingers are as the fly over the keys. I should have guessed he played the piano.

"What was that?" I breathe, when the last note has faded away.

"Clair de Lune, it's Debussy," he says, the French accent in his voice sending a shiver through my spine and into my fingertips.

"That was beautiful," I tell him. When he doesn't say anything, I fumble for some better way to explain how I felt listening to him play. "It's like the music was dancing," I manage finally, and end up feeling even more dumb. "It sounds like two people who are very lonely and who find each other and they... dance."

"Is that what you think it's about?" he says, and he's not accusing or criticizing. He's smiling, his face a combination of amused and interested. "Two lovers?"

"Yes." There's something poetic about the way his mouth forms the word lover. "Is there anything you can't do?" I ask, sliding onto the bench next to him.

He blushes a little. "What do you mean?"

"You basically do everything, I mean, you play guitar, you play piano, you sing... So what can you not do?"

"I can't ice skate," he says without hesitation.

"Well it's summer, so you're in luck, but come winter, we're going ice skating." He starts to protest. "No, we're doing it," I insist. "I will teach you to ice skate. Not like I'm much good at it either, but last time I went, I only fell once and that was because Isaac ran me over. What else can you not do?"

"I can't bake pies."

"But you've tried?" I guess, trying to hide my grin.

"Yeah, okay, I've tried," he admits.

"Okay, what else?"

"I can't - I can't dance very well." He nods emphatically, like this is the ultimate proof that he is a fundamentally flawed human being.

"Oh, well then, I don't think I can continue to associate with you," I say seriously. "This is a great blow to me. I thought you were a perfect angel, but if you can't dance..." I shake my head in mock disappointment and he hangs his head in shame.

"Please accept my sincerest apologies, dear friend," he says in an almost Shakespearean tone. "It pains me to hear that I have disappointed you so." He bows as much as he can, so close to the piano, and his forehead hits a few keys. The discordant noise makes Jelly Bean jump from his place in a beam of sunlight.

“See?” he laughs, “I’m so good at this even the cat loves it.”

"Can you play me something else?" I ask shyly, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. He sits up abruptly and shifts on the piano bench.I take it as a sign of discomfort, so I hurry, "You don't have to! Not if you don't want to."

Without answering, he presses his fingers into the keys. The first notes are more darker and dramatic than Clair de Lune. It's less like a conversation than like a monologue, like a lonely protagonist who hasn't found their lover yet. His movements now are sharper and more deliberate, not the light, dancing movements from before. I feel like I’m being led to my own execution. It feels stoic, proud, yet lonely. I feel as though I am living an entire lifetime in this piece.

"That's Moonlight Sonata. Beethoven."

I shake myself out of my own head and pull myself together enough to say, "I guess you're pretty into the moon, huh."

He frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Moonlight Sonata, Clair de Lune, which is moon in French... Do you have any other moon songs in your repertoire?"

oOo

Rhoda accosts me when Walter gets up for a drink of water."He doesn't usually play for people," she says thoughtfully. "He never plays for me. He waits until we're out of the house to practice. I haven't heard him in years... And he's so good." She turns to me, pushing her glasses up her nose with one finger and smiling with sparkling eyes. "I would be willing to bet that you're the first person he's played for in years."

I don't know how to respond to that, so I just look back at the piano and wonder what exactly that means for me.

---

I stare at my ceiling. I definitely need to replace the glow-in-the-dark stars. I am filled with a sudden burning desire to look at the actual stars. Like the actual stars in the actual sky. I slip my legs out of bed and pad to the window, which is thrown wide open in the summer heat.

“Psst.”

Now, I am painfully aware of the fact that “psst,” in literature, is the common thing to whisper when trying to get someone’s attention. I’ve read it enough in books to know that. But in all my 17 years of life, I have never, not once, not one single, solitary time, heard anyone in real, actual life, say “psst.”

But here, now, outside my window at 11:30 PM, is Walter. And he is whispering “psst” like his life depends upon it.

I just stare for a moment because oh of course he would before saying, “Yes? Can I help you?” in a normal voice because really. What do you say to someone in this situation?

“I was wondering if you - if you wanted to go on a walk?” What I can see of his face in the moonlight looks scrunched up and frowny.

“I - you know what? Sure, yeah. Hold on.”

My bedroom door squeaks. The floor in the hall creaks. The floor never, ever, ever creaks. But of course it does, now, when I desperately want it to be quiet. And of course the back door to the house makes sort of a quiet slamming noise. But I figure my parents will be sleeping too soundly to notice. I hope.

“Do you often take walks late at night?” I ask, hoping vaguely that I won’t come to regret not wearing shoes.

“Only when I can’t sleep,” he says, and I notice that he too is barefoot.

“Yeah? Why couldn’t you sleep?” We have reached the sidewalk and I find that the feeling of cool, rough concrete under my feet isn’t too unpleasant.

“I dunno. Just restless I guess. You?”

“I was thinking about the stars,” I say truthfully, craning my neck upwards to look at them. “I have all these old glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling,” I explain. “They’re old so they aren’t very bright any more. It fees a little like they’re my childhood, slipping further and further away.” I laugh to hide the fact that I’d rather cry.

He doesn’t say anything, just looks up at the stars and heaves a sigh. “My mom painted stars on my brother’s ceiling. After she and my dad split up. Oliver had nightmares, so she painted stars onto the ceiling so he could count them to fall back to sleep.”

“That’s really sweet,” I say, because it’s the only thing I can think to say.

“I wish she’d painted me some stars.” His voice isn’t bitter. It’s just sad.

“Why don’t you paint some on yourself then?” He narrows his eyes at me calculatingly. “I bet they sell glow-in-the-dark paint somewhere,” I press on. “You could get some and paint stars onto your ceiling. I’ll help. If you want.”

He cocks his head at me, and just as I’m starting to doubt myself, he says, “Yeah. That sounds good. Let’s do it.”

We walk for a long time, side-by-side, bare feet stepping in unison. We talk. It’s not even all about books either. It’s about Real Things. Maybe it’s the shadows in the yards and under the cars or the cool concrete under our feet or the stars above us. Maybe it’s the light from the streetlights glinting off his hair or the dark windows in the houses. Maybe it’s just the fact that we’re walking aimlessly at 1 in the morning and there’s no one else to hear, not even any birds, just the absolute calm of summer nights, when the air smells fresh and clean and you can hear the faint roaring of cars far off in the distance mingling with the breeze and the airplanes above. But somehow, I can talk about things I can’t in the daylight. And so can he.

Like how when his parents divorced, his dad said he didn’t want him and Walter has always been afraid of not being wanted. And then there’s how he doesn’t make friends easily because he’s not good at talking about how he feels.

And I tell him what I’ve never told anyone but Isaac.

“A lot of the time, I feel like I’m invisible,” I begin, taking a breath because this whole talking about how you feel thing is still pretty hard. “I’m not memorable enough, I think, and people, well it’s the difference between looking at and looking through. Some people look at you and they see you, some people look and they don’t see you. They just look right through. When you’re nondescript like me, that’s all they ever do.”

“You’re not nondescript.”

“How am I not? I’m not particularly interesting or funny or pretty, I mean, it’s not like I have many memorable features. I don’t have any talents. I can’t sing or play an instrument or, I don’t know, unicycle. I can read, but you can’t win a talent show by reading.”

I risk a glance at him and see that he’s frowning.

“I like to read,” he points out. His voice is level and emotionless. I can’t tell if he’s upset or thinking or distracted or confused.

“I know, so do I. But I won’t get anywhere by doing it. I mean, I can’t make friends by reading at them,” I say, exasperated.

“Why does that matter? Just because you can’t tap dance doesn’t mean you aren’t an interesting person.”

“But I can’t do anything, that’s the problem. All I’m good at is reading, being sarcastic, and being alone. And I’m not really particularly good at any of those things.” I can tell he’s looking at me, but I can’t bring myself to look back at him.

“I’m good at being alone too, but neither of us are alone right now.”

I can’t think of a good answer for that and we don’t talk much on the walk back.

oOo

“Lucy?” Walter says, looking relieved and a little surprised. “I'm glad I found you here.” Like he didn't know if he'd find me here, in the front lawn, at my own house. Yeah right.

“I'm always here,” I say, not angrily but perhaps more coldly than I had intended, shifting in the grass of the lawn. The sun is warm on my face. I wonder briefly if perhaps last night was a dream.

“Lacking distinctive or interesting features or characteristics.” he blurts, leaving little or no pause between words and without taking a single breath. He immediately turns red.

“What?” I ask blankly.

“You said you’re nondescript.” “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s what it means: Lacking distinctive or interesting features or characteristics,” he repeats slowly.

“Okay, and?”

“You’re not.”

“No?”

“No. You’re not. You have distinctive and interesting features and characteristics. Lots of them. More than anyone I know, actually. Another definition of nondescript is ‘not easily described.’ That’s true. You’re very hard to describe. Because you’re so not nondescript that you’re indescribable. And you don’t see that. And I think that’s sad.” If it's possible for him to turn even redder, he does. “That sounds really stupid and cliché, I'm sorry-”

“No, it's really sweet, actually. Thank you.”

“I also brought you some glow-in-the-dark stars.” he hands me a folded paper bag.

I don't know what to say. “I don't know what to say,” I say. Shoot.

“You don't really have to say anything. I'll see you tomorrow.”

I’m fighting an internal battle and neither of us say anything. He’s backing away, eyes on his feet, when one part of me wins and basically yells, “DO YOU WANNA HELP ME PUT UP THE STARS?”

Both of us freeze and I take a deep breath before saying more quietly, “It would be kind of nice to have someone to help me, uh, stick them to the ceiling.”

“If you want,” he says, so quietly that I almost can’t hear him.

“I do! I mean, if you want.”

“I do want.”

“Good, okay then.” I get up and walk to the house, uncertain whether I should lead him up the porch or just let him follow me. It’s not like he’ll get lost on the way to the door.

"You've never been in my house before, have you?" I ask. It's mostly to create conversation and lessen the awkwardness. I know he's never been in my house. "It's not nice like yours."

"My house is nice?" I chance a glance at his face. His mouth is quirking up at the corners and his eyes are roving around the room.

"Well yeah. Your house is so artsy and it feels so much like a home. I mean, it's not like this house doesn't feel like a home. We've lived here for almost as long as I can remember. But it's so clean and sharp. There are corners and edges everywhere. And everything is smooth and the kitchen is all stainless steel and the floors are all the same color and all the furniture looks like it came from the same section in IKEA."

"See? This is why you're not nondescript. I've never met anyone who sees the world quite like you do."

"What, sees the stainless steel and the sharp edges? Is that so special?"

"The way you see a house. You break it down into components and it could almost be scientific, if it weren't for the fact that you speak in poetry. You do it with people too. You have a unique ability take things apart while still seeing what they are as a whole. It's a home, but it's made of all these little parts and pieces that make it feel like something. And that ability just one of the things that makes you special. So never believe that you're nondescript. If anyone allows you to believe that about yourself, they don't deserve you." He frowns seriously at me, eyes trained on mine. "Alright?"

That was definitely more than three sentences. "Alright." I don't know how to say thank you, so I take his hand instead and lead him to my room. His hand is cool and soft. I can feel the calluses on his fingertips.

"Mmm, hold on just a second or five. I need to just, uh, tidy up a little bit." I curse myself for not thinking of this sooner. I move a few things under my bed, but mostly i just unceremoniously dump my bras and various other articles of clothing into the closet and shut the door. I have very limited options.

Walter smiles at the book posters on my walls. "I have that one," he tells me, pointing to the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows poster above my bed.

While I hunt for a step stool tall enough to actually get us to the ceiling, he scans my bookshelves. I watch him from the door for a moment. I can't help smiling when he drags a finger over the spine of Peter Pan.

"That's my favorite book," I tell him. "My absolute favorite book of every book I've ever read."

"Why?”

“Because I don't want to grow up either. If I could fly away to Neverland and never have to be a grown-up and do grown-up things, I would." I step up on the stool. "But I can't do that, so the closest I can get is rereading that book and pretending I can stay a little girl forever."

"You're practically grown up right now," he points out.

It's true. An image flashes through my mind of my father standing on possibly this very same stool, sticking stars to this very same ceiling.

"I can look grown up, but that doesn't mean I have to be one. Not yet. I don't have to buy my own food or pay for my own internet or drive myself places or work or pay taxes. I still have a few years. And after that, just because I do grown-up things won't have to mean I'm a grown-up. Don't they say you can be a child at heart? Even when you're old?"

"I hope that's true." He hands me a star.

I take it. “So do I.”

---

It's 1:30 AM and I'm still staring at the ceiling and at the newly glowing-in-the-dark stars stuck there when I whisper to myself, "I love Walter." It's jarring, saying it out loud. I've been trying to deny it, both to Isaac and to myself, but somehow, I find that it isn't news to me that I love Walter.

I also find that having said it aloud, I feel more calm than I think I ought to. Maybe it's that I'm not used to liking people this way or maybe it's that I think maybe, just maybe Walter feels the same way, but I don't feel like crying, and I don't feel like eating an entire tub of ice cream, and I don't feel like calling Tessa and wailing about how wonderful he is.

I briefly entertain the thought that, since I don't feel any of those things, maybe this isn't really love, before I actually, literally smack myself in the face because is “real love” a conspiracy by the ice cream industry? No, so therefore “real love” does not need to include ice cream.

I'm starting to feel stupid though and I think that's part of “real love”, for sure.

#chapters

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lookingatandlookingthrough · 11 years ago

Text

Chapter three

“I’ll die if I don’t.”

“You’re being overdramatic, Lou,” Isaac says, making that face.

“And you should be asleep. It’s what,” I calculate, “3 AM for you? You’re five hours ahead?” I make a disapproving face at the computer screen. Isaac yawns at me. “See? You should go to bed.”

“What, now? 3 is child’s play. Yesterday we went to bed at 5.”

“We? Are you dragging Andres down with you?”

“No, he’s dragging me. He stays up late every night.”

“Until 5? How is he still alive?”

“Well not that late, but late. He reads.”

“My kind of guy.”

“See? You’d like him. Even if he is attractive. Especially if he’s attractive.”

“Not this again. Good night.” I disconnect from Skype, making sure my last expression is one of disgust.

---

“Have you heard from Isaac?” Hugo asks, smiling at me through his glasses. They magnify his eyes enough to make him look like a bug. A cute bug though, not one of those creepy ones with too many arms and legs and pincers and antennae or anything. I wonder idly how many times his parents dressed him as a bug for Halloween when he was a kid.

“Yeah, I talked to him just last night, actually. He’s loving it. It’s chilly, but he likes sweaters so it’s okay.”

Hugo nods approvingly. “Did he say anything about the architecture? It’s supposed to be-”

“How are the the girls there?” James asks, leaning in.

“I have no idea. He didn’t say,” I tell him. He looks disappointed, but just shrugs and taps a cymbal experimentally.

“What’s the name of the boy he’s staying with?” Hugo asks.

“Andres. Isaac said he’s really nice. He likes to read apparently.” I don’t mention that he’s attractive.

“Speaking of liking to read, where’s Walter?” Hugo frowns. “He’s usually on time. That’s very strange.” His eyebrows squish together in the middle of his forehead.

Right on cue, James looks up from his phone and announces, “Walter’s not coming.”

I feel a twinge of disappointment. “Why not?” I ask.

“He says something came up. I guess we can get started though.”

It takes another thirty minutes to actually get started, and by that time, I’ve exhausted my tolerance for the six chords I can play on James’s battered acoustic guitar. I feel a little useless, sitting in my corner on the couch. I could melt into the wall and it wouldn’t make much difference. But then, every once in a while, Hugo looks up at me and smiles or Fred nods his head at me or James winks in my direction or even Lewis sometimes almost smiles, which is about as good as I could hope for from him… and I guess I couldn’t just melt into the wall, even if I wanted to.

oOo

I get off the bus next to the public library, which is only half a mile from my house. Even for a part-time hermit like me, it’s not too far. Anyway, walking isn’t so bad. I like walking.

The library’s familiar wooden shelves box me in without really confining me at all. I remember when I was a kid and my dad brought me here. I was shorter than the shelves back then. I crouch down by the teen literature, just to see if anything doesn’t have vampires and/or werewolves in it. At present, it doesn’t look like it. Someone seems to have picked through all the good books. I move on to classics because surely there’s one I haven’t already read.

And since I’m not shorter than the shelves anymore, I see a haloed head of blond hair by the windows in one of the chairs. I spend at least a minute trying to decide whether or not to go over.

“Hey, Walter.”

He looks up from his book, battered and stained, the best kind of library book: one with a history. “Hi, Lucy… What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” It’s a little half-hearted. His voice doesn’t have the cheery quality I’m used to.

“Only continuing my never-ending quest for more reading material,” I say, sitting down in the chair next to him. “You weren’t at practice today. Are you okay?”

He smiles, dull stainless steel compared to his usual silver. “Oh yeah, fine.”

“Uh huh.”

He breaths in and out slowly. “It’s the anniversary of something not very nice. That’s all. It’s a little silly to dwell on it.”

“Okay.”

His forehead wrinkles as he looks up at me. “You’re just going to leave it? Not pry?”

“Nope. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t want to tell me. And that’s fine.” He snorts unbelievingly. “No, really. You don’t have to. In fact, I don’t want you to tell me. Not if you don’t want to. I’ve spent my entire life around people who always have to know everything and won’t rest until they do, so I swear, I won’t be that person.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“...”

“So,” he begins. “How was practice?”

“It was okay. A little uneventful. I, uh, noticed that they didn’t start until you said you weren’t coming.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They just sort of all sat there. Hugo was there when I got there and he just organized papers. And Lewis and Fred just sat on boxes doing nothing.”

“James was late, I assume.”

“How’d you guess?”

“...”

“I just thought it was interesting. You’re kind of an integral part of the Band. They don’t really function without you.”

“Nah. They wouldn’t function without Hugo. Or Isaac. ”

“They are functioning without Isaac.”

“True.”

“I thought Isaac was the motivator, but I think I wrong. I think he’s just louder about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I’m a good motivator?”

I laugh. What a strange question… What a strange boy. “Yes. I do.”

“Do you always psychoanalyze?”

I pause. “Isaac does. I guess I picked it up from him.” Laughter wells up inside my chest. “I’m such a hypocrite. I’m always telling him not to do it because it scares people away.”

“Hasn’t scared me away.”

I think if my life had a soundtrack, this would be the moment when the orchestra crescendoes and the theme returns and and the brass comes in and everything gets brighter and happier and more hopeful.

---

“Edward,” my mom says, slowly and deliberately, “Why are there six zucchinis in the cart?”

“To use?” My dad smiles hopefully at her, shrugging unconvincingly.

“You mean for me to use,” she clarifies, using her I’m-reasonable-I’m-a-lawyer voice.

“Well, I guess so.”

“And that would be because…”

“...”

“Because I have so much time on my hands? Because it’s not at all busy at the office? Because I’d love to bake you some zucchini bread in my spare time.” Her voice is rising by the end of the sentence, so I back away until I find a safe place to hide.

“Hey, Lucy.”

I jump. Walter smiles at me, scrunching up his eyes that are basically the same color as the label on the jar of salsa on the shelf behind him. “Hey, Walter, uh how’s it going?” I realize a little late that the question in my voice is more of an I’m-uncertain-about-what-to-say question and not an honest-to-God question. Oh no, he thinks I don’t really care how he is and I’m just filling space (but aren’t I, though?) and-

“Fine, how about you?”

“Oh, you know, okay. My parents are arguing about zucchinis though,” I tell him, nodding towards the entrance to the isle. I can still hear them around the corner. Walter frowns.

“When I was little, I used to worry about them,” I tell him, not sure of whether this falls under the category of Uninteresting Conversation Topics or not, but Walter just sort of smiles sadly and asks, “Why?” in a soft voice.

“They’d argue about stuff. Stupid stuff. Unimportant stuff. Like the groceries or who was going to drive me to something or when my grandma was coming to stay. And I’d worry they were going to get a divorce.” I laugh. “The thing is, when I was younger, it really freaked me out. When they’d fight - and it wasn’t even fighting really, just disagreeing - I’d hide in my room and cry sometimes because I actually thought they were going to get divorced. It’s ridiculous, thinking about it now. It was such an overreaction. They aren’t a perfect love story or anything, but they do love each other.”

“What is their love story?” Only Walter would ask that. Only Walter would actually be sincerely interested in the “love story” of my parents.

“Well, when my dad was in his mid twenties, he got a job here. He’s from the East Coast, so when he moved here, it was like, massive culture shock. I mean, massive. He didn’t know anyone except this one guy at work who invited him to a party. So my dad went and he met a bunch of people and he liked them and they liked him, so he just sort of started going to these parties regularly because they kept inviting him back.

“And he met my mom at one of those parties. She was the girlfriend of my dad’s friend from work, the one who invited him to the party, and she was friends with all the same people. So he met her and he sort of fell in love with her, but, you know, she was taken and he wasn’t exactly very confident or outgoing or anything, so he just ‘loved her from afar’. That’s what he says.

“Then she broke up with the guy - they’d been together for like three years - and she moved out and bought her own house and became totally independent and my dad, who isn’t really an extrovert, was completely lost as to what to do. I mean, he loved her, but he felt like it was too weird to just walk up to her and ask her on a date, you know?”

Walter nods. He’s completely engaged in the conversation, despite staring the salsa jars on the shelf. I can tell by the way his eyes look, the way he looks thoughtful and amused and curious all at the same time and the way he looks at me now, blinking, and I glance away quickly.

“So anyway, one day, about eight months later, he went up to her and they started talking and they ended up talking for like four hours and finally, there was a silence and then my dad, smooth bastard, stammered, ‘So I was wondering if you’ and my mom interrupted, ‘I thought you would never ask,’ as my dad finished, ‘Wanted another drink.’ And they stared at each other until my mom said, “Wow, I’m sorry, I thought’ and my dad said, ‘Well, I was going to but I chickened out at the last minute.’ And they started at each other some more and finally my dad said, ‘So would you like… you know...’ and my mom asked, ‘Another drink?’ and my dad, in an astounding display of courage, said, ‘Yes. A drink, with me, sometime, somewhere not here,’ and my mom just laughed and said, ‘God yes,’ and that is the love story of my parents.”

He’s silent for a moment before smiling at me and saying, “Well I think it’s a great story.”

“Do your parents have a story?” I ask.

He retreats into his shell and I realize I have trod on unstable ground without realizing it.

“My parents are divorced,” he says. “It, uh, that was the anniversary the other day. The anniversary of the divorce.”

“Oh God, I’m - I’m sorry,” I tell him. I don’t really know what you say in this sort of situation. It seems insincere, but I really mean it. I am sorry. And I feel like an asshole.

“Don’t apologize,” he admonishes. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, but I have to say something.” He’s silent, so I continue, “So if I can’t say I’m sorry, I guess I’ll say, ‘that sucks.’ Does that work?”

“Yeah.” He laughs. “That works.”

“That sucks,” I tell him.

“Yeah. It does.” He smiles at me, one of those bright, wide smiles that seems like it will swallow his whole face, followed closely by me and then the entire world. So I smile back.

---

In the mail is a postcard from Isaac. On the front is a picture of the inside of a bookstore. But it's not any bookstore. It's like a palace. I actually have to sit down because the lines of shelves of colored spines is making me dizzy.

"LUCY! LOOK AT ALL THOSE BOOKS. YOU SHOULD SIT DOWN OR YOU MIGHT PASS OUT."

Good thinking, Isaac. You're a genius.

"This is the most amazing bookstore. I wish you could have come see it with us. Andres and I had so much fun, just walking around look at all the books. You would have fainted probably. We've been sightseeing. There are lots of beautiful places to go in Buenos Aires and we haven't seen them all yet! It's a little chilly but I picked the right hat. I'm going to send you pictures soon. Lots of them! Please enjoy this representation of me and Andres in the awesome bookstore. Love you! Isaac."

Under his signature is a stunning illustration of two stick figures, one in a hat and one wearing glasses, with wide open mouths, shouting "BOOKS! OMG! BOOKS!!!"

It almost makes me cry because wow, I miss him.

Skype makes a little noise when Isaac connects. “LUCY!” he cries, face breaking into a huge smile.

“Hey, Isaac, I just got your postcard.”

“Did you like it? Books, Lucy, lots of books.”

“In a bookstore? No way.”

“Oh shush, you,” he flaps a hand at me.

"So how's the weather down there?" I ask.”Still chilly?”

"It's a bit cold. Not like really cold. Just a bit cold," says Isaac, pulling his cardigan more tightly around his shoulders.

"Uh huh. Well that's nice. It's very warm here. And also sunny. Very good beach weather," I say, a bit smugly.

"Hmm well - Oh! Andres! Come say hi to Lucy!" Isaac scoots over very enthusiastically to make room for the boy who slides in next to him.

He has dark hair and is wearing glasses that make him look very studious. I guess… Yeah, okay, so he is pretty cute. "Hello, Lucy," he says.

“Hey, Andres,” I say, smiling awkwardly. “Nice to… meet you?”

“Yes, you too. I’ll leave you two to talk. Bye, Lucy.”

“Bye.”

"So what are you doing to fill the empty hours without me, hmm?" Isaac asks. I hear a snort from off camera and can't help smiling when Isaac throws a sock at what must be Andres in the corner.

"Oh you know, reading. Hanging out."

"With who?" he asks, skeptical.

"With whom, and with the Band."

"The Band? My Band?"

"No, the other Band I know. Of course your Band."

He wrinkles up his nose. "Why?"

"What do you mean why, they're your Band, your friends. They're nice."

"Told you you'd like them."

"Oh shut up. But yeah, I like them."

"Who's your favorite?" He leans in towards the camera with an evil smile on his face.

"I can't have a favorite, that's mean."

"Of course you can! I do."

I gasp dramatically and lean in too. "Which one?" I stage whisper.

"Promise not to tell."

"I promise."

"It's Walter," he whispers and nods knowingly. "I bet he's your favorite too."

"No," I lie.

"He totally is."

"No he's not! I don't have a favorite."

"Yes you do, and it's Walter."

I glare. "Okay, I guess it is." Before he can properly crow victoriously, I hurry on, "Just because he's really interesting to talk to. He's not easy to understand which is actually kind of nice. There's a lot about him I don't know yet, but I mean, it's nice being able to talk to him and feeling like there's so much more to know... You know?"

"You think there's not more to know about the rest of the Band?"

"No, of course there is, but with him, it seems like there's a lot more below the surface than I can ever truly understand."

Off screen, Andres says something I can't quite understand.

"Andres says you should be a poet," Isaac tells me.

"Well you can tell Andres to shut up."

“Andres, Lucy says to shut up.”

Off screen, Andres calls out, “Okay!” cheerfully.

“So you’ve decided he’s not a Jacob then?” Isaac says, peering at the screen intently.

“Yeah, no he’s not. Definitely not.” He takes a breath, smug smile on his face. “Don’t say I told you so,” I snap, wagging a finger at him. “You may have told me so, but I don’t want to hear you say it.”

He hums in agreement.

---

I listlessly flip a page in my book. Peter Pan and Wendy are just about to get stuck on the rock (my favorite part) but the heat is making it hard to concentrate.

“IT’S TOO HOT IN HERE,” I shout.

“Then go outside,” my mom says from right outside my door. “And don’t shout.” Oops.

“Like it’s any cooler out there.”

“There’s a breeze. You might like it. Anyway, I think I may have to get you some Vitamin D tablets. The doctor thinks you might have a deficiency. You should go outside more often.”

I stifle the urge to gag. “Right. Okay. Fine.” But if Jacob kidnaps me, you’ll have only yourself to blame. “If I boil-”

“Just go outside,” my dad says. “Your mom’s right. I bet you do have a deficiency.”

I make sure to stick my tongue out at him as I go past.

It actually is cooler outside. The tree beside the house gives enough shade for me to sit in the grass on our very lumpy lawn and lean against the trunk. The tree also screens me from view of Jacob’s house. I decide I like this tree.

“Hey, Lucy.”

I look up.

Walter stands on the sidewalk, hands in his shorts pockets, looking scared and hopeful. His hair looks a little lighter than I remember it from only a few days ago. I wonder if he’s one of those kids who comes back from summer break looking like they bleached their hair because the blond lightens in the sun.

“Do you wanna come over for dinner tomorrow?” Walter gets out, with considerable effort. He immediately turns pink and brushes at his hair nervously.

“Uh yes, sure, yes, that would be lovely! Yes!” I blurt. I probably look like a lobster, but it doesn’t really matter because he won’t even look at me. “Thank you, I’d love to,” I continue, a little more calmly.

“Uh good, okay.” His blush deepens. “I’ll come to your house at five, if that’s okay, and if you don’t mind walking.”

“Oh gosh no, that’s fine, lovely, good, I’ll see you then?” I flee, not knowing what to think about anything any more. I pause to lean against side of the house. Boys are obnoxious and awkward and adorable and hard to read, but I’m at least a little bit certain this means something. Maybe I need to talk to more boys. I think I need something to compare this to.

To which to compare this.

Damn it.

oOo

The knock comes at five o’clock exactly. It’s like he was waiting at the foot of the driveway or something. A picture filters into my mind of him standing on the sidewalk and checking his watch obsessively. I push off the wall in the hallway I’ve been leaning on for the last 10 minutes and straighten my shirt self-consciously. I wait a few seconds before trotting to the door and looking out the peep hole, just in case.

Walter looks a little nervous when I open the door. His blond hair - blonder in the sun - is carefully arranged to look messy and his button-down shirt, rolled up to look casual, has obviously been ironed. I can’t help the smile that forces its way onto my face.

“Hey.” I’m amazed at how normal I sound.

“Hey.”

“Bye, Lucinda! Have fun sweetie!” My mom calls loudly from the kitchen.

“Be home by-” My dad is shushed into silence by my mom, and, after a moment’s hushed conversation, he finishes with “Have a nice evening, you two!” and I shut the door quickly to avoid anything else embarrassing. I’m just lucky they weren’t out there with the camera, making us pose for pictures. I had to remind them at least 10 times that this isn’t really a date.

And obviously, I’m wearing a skirt (for the first time since that family funeral two years ago) because this is not a date. Clearly.

“You look nice,” he says, his voice suspiciously lower than usual.

Of course I blush. Of course I do. “Thank you!” I tuck my hair behind my ear (again) and begin to wish I’d just put it up because it’s such a pain and -

“Your hair is really pretty down.”

Okay, never mind. “Thank you!” I swear to God that will not be the only thing I say tonight. “You look very… dashing, in that button-down.” The great thing about Walter is that when you say dumb things around him, he doesn’t act like they’re dumb.

“Why thank you. I save it for special occasions.”

Is this flirting? I think this is flirting. “So you don’t bring girls home every day, then,” I tease.

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and catch him smiling at his feet. “No.”

“Not every day then? Just, what, alternating Tuesdays?”

“Nah, more like the first Wednesday of every month.” I mentally high-five myself. Ten points to me.

His house is small-seeming without really being very small. It’s a soft, light, sky blue that you might expect on a little house in a small town. The white picket fence - yes, an actual white picket - lines a not-so-recently mown, gently sloping green lawn. Flower beds with an assortment of daisies, wildflowers, and unusually unkempt roses. There is a porch with a swing and a wooden railing, and it is when I notice this that I decide that this house and this family must be absolutely perfect.

“What do you think?” Walter asks, surprising me, as ever, with his strange questions.

“Your roses look free,” I say, without thinking, I realize, too late, that it probably sounds either stupid or pretentious, and before I can decide which most demands an apology, Walter chuckles and says, “They’re my grandmother’s. She says she likes to let them grow their own way. She’s a very laissez-faire gardener.”

With relief and something undefinable flooding through me, I laugh.

Someone pokes their head out of an upstairs window and shouts, “Walt! Bring her inside!”

He frowns.

“Walt? Do they call you that?” It doesn’t fit him quite right.

“They do sometimes. I prefer to be called Walter, so they do it to annoy me.”

I have enough time to realize that I’ve never asked about his siblings, or if he has any - which it would seem he does - before the front door opens and a woman steps out.

My first impression of her is that she looks like an artist. She’s wearing an apron and faded jeans, no shoes. Her light brown hair is speckled with gray and pulled up loosely into a bun. When I’m inside and she has hugged me and introduced herself as Rhoda, I get a look at her face. Her glasses are a little big for her face. She has wrinkles at the corners of her eyes from smiling and wrinkles in her forehead from frowning. I lover her from the instant she wraps her arms around me and says softly, “Hello, Lucy. I’m so happy to finally meet you. We’ve heard so much about you.” Walter blushes.

A tall, thin, older woman appears in the doorway, and from the grass stains on the knees of her jeans, I know she must be Walter’s grandmother. Her name is Maud and her voice sound like her garden looks. She hugs me too, so I’m not surprised when two kids bound into the room and immediately dive in for a hug.

“This is Oliver and this is Elise,” Rhoda says.

“And they are terrors,” Maud adds fondly.

“You can call me Ollie,” Oliver says confidentially, “Because you’re Walter’s girrrrlfriend!”

“Girl who’s a friend,” Elise corrects in a singsong voice and with an evil grin directed towards Walter, who flushes.

“Ignore them,” Maud advises.

“Why don’t you go set the table?” Rhoda suggests sweetly.

A cat brushes against my legs, winding its tail around my ankle and stepping carefully over my feet. “That’s the Bean,” Maud tells me, gesturing towards the cat as I bend down to run my fingers through its short, soft gray fur. The Bean purrs.

oOo

Over dinner - salad and the best spaghetti have ever tasted - Rhoda tells me about her work. She’s an art teacher at an elementary school, not the one I went to, though I’m sure I would have enjoyed art class significantly more, had she been the teacher. The kitchen walls are full of art-teachery things, the kids’ finger paint drawings from when they were little near the baseboard, pinned up crayon drawings from the first few years of school, still lifes from later on… I strain to see what’s on the single page of sheet music pinned up over the sink - undoubtedly Walter’s - but it’s too far away. The whole room looks like it fell out of a painting, with blue and white linoleum on the floor and deep green paint on the cupboards and a deep, brick red counter that hugs the walls on either side of the sink. The light from the window makes the dishes in the dish drainer shine.

“So how did you get to know each other?” Maud asks, after Ollie and Elise have disappeared.

“Through the Band,” I say, while Walter says, “A mutual friend.”

There is a moment of silence.

“You’re in a band, Walter?” Rhoda asks, clearly surprised.

I teeter on the verge of panic, praying to every higher power that I have neglected all my life that I didn’t just do something terrible by accident.

Walter shrugs. “Yeah. Just a few friends from school.”

“Oh.” She keeps her voice level, but her eyebrows shoot up and the implied question is, You have friends at school?

I feel extremely uncomfortable.

“That’s lovely!” Maud exclaims and I realize that I must be the only member of the Band he’s ever introduced to his family. And I’m not even a member of the Band.

“Yes!” I agree enthusiastically. “A friend of mine is in the band and he dragged me along to practice one day.”

“Oh, how nice!” Maud smiles at first me, then Walter.

I find myself thinking he should bring Hugo to meet Maud. Then they could be sweet and sincere and nice together.

Rhoda rearranges her features into a smile and nods at me. I surprise myself with how easily I smile back. She’s like an aunt, the kind who might send you books for Christmas, knowing your favorite author or genre without being told, and who would always have the right kind of cookies on hand for when you visited and would sneak you an extra after your mother said no.

“So what do you like to do, Lucy?” she asks me. No where do you think you’ll go for college or what do you want to be when you grown up, questions from different eras of my life, but equally bad.

“I like to read,” I say.

“Our Walter likes to read,” Maud adds. Our Walter. I think this family might be perfect.

“Unfortunately, they don’t pay you to read,” I say and cringe inwardly. My mom would have liked me saying that. Ick. “If they did, I’d probably have bought myself a small island nation already.”

Maud cackles. “You and Walter would be neighbors then.” I can’t help but laugh with her.

“So what if they don’t pay you to read?” Rhoda asks, grandly. “My father told me they wouldn’t pay me to paint. And look at me now, paid to teach children to paint, granted, not paid all that much.” She pulls a paintbrush from her overalls pocket and brandishes it at me. “Don’t let anyone tell you the value of anything is measured by it’s worth to people who don’t know the first thing about it.”

She looks like an angel now, the sun coming through the kitchen window making her hair glow. The resemblance between Rhoda and Walter is so plain. He has her eyes, the exact shade of green. He has her nose, turned up just slightly at the tip. And he has her smile, gentle and bright and contagious.

---

Walter texts me about Band practice. At first, I'm hesitant to go. It's not like going without Isaac has been bad. It's been nice, actually. I’m surprised at myself by thinking that. I find that I like making friends without Isaac's help. The Band are the kind of people I can talk to. They're not too cool and they're not too weird. (I can actually hear Isaac's voice in my head, telling me "you're one to judge people for being too weird.")

But despite my hesitance, the idea of spending time with them instead of spending the rest of the summer alone in my room is really quite inviting.

It has nothing to do with Walter. Nothing at all. Okay maybe a little, but not all that much, I swear. Only about 40%.

It’s all those little moments, the ones that make me smile late at night when I think about them again. It’s smiles from Hugo who is probably at least half woodland nymph. It’s lazy grins and jazz piano interludes from Fred. It’s increasingly less rare moments eye-contact and even (gasp) smiles from Lewis. It’s jokes from James. Or about James.

“My mom bought me a God-awful shirt today and she expects me to wear it,” James complains.

“What’s so God-awful about it?” I ask.

“It’s a horrible color. And not just something a little bit bad like, I don’t know, fuschia or olive green or something, it’s bad, like really bad.”

Lewis turns a delicate shade of fuschia which clashes fabulously with his olive green shirt.

“Olive green isn’t a bad color,” I say firmly, and Lewis gives me a grateful smile. “What color is it, if it’s so bad?”

“It’s - It’s -” he looks around the room for a moment. There’s a patch of old, sickly, bluish-greenish-brown linoleum in the corner of the basement. James points to it. “It’s that color,” he says. “It looks like that uh, what’s the word?”

We stare at him.

“Ugh, what’s it called? Rhymes with petroleum.”

“Linoleum?” I suggest.

“Yes! Yes, linoleum!” James exclaims, relieved.

Fred begins to laugh. “Rhymes with petroleum?” he wheezes. “Petroleum?”

I foresee weeks of petroleum jokes in James’s future.

---

“Lucinda,” my mom says sharply, “Let’s move along.”

Reluctantly, I shuffle out from behind the shelf of tortilla chips and move beyond the display of watermelons to where my mother is standing. It’s been a rough morning.

“Do you want a watermelon?” she asks curtly, gesturing to them.

“Sure, I guess.” “Well is it yes or is it no, Lucinda? I didn’t bring you along to be indecisive.” She glares.

“Why did you bring me along,” I mutter, not loud enough for her to hear, as I turn with a loud, “Yes. It’s a yes.”

“Lucy?”

I jump a little, about to pick up a watermelon, and whip my head around.

Maud stands a few feet to my right, dressed in a yellow shirt, a yellow sun hat, yellow shorts, and birkenstocks, in front of a display of bananas. “Oh, it is you,” she exclaims, smiling brighter than her hat and any of the bananas.

“Hi, Maud.” I can’t help but smile back. “How are you?”

“I’m just fine, thank you, darling. And how are you?” She moves closer, basket rocking on her arm gently, and reaches one arm around me for a hug.

“Oh, I’m fine. Thank you,” I say into her hat. I cringe inwardly. What an absolutely fascinating conversationalist I am. “Do you have any advice on picking watermelons?” I blurt. “I’ve never really known how to tell if one is ripe or not.”

“Well,” she says, not skipping a beat, “I think this one is just about perfect.” She reaches out and stretches her bony fingers around a melon, all shades of green on the outside. She lifts it to her ear and taps on it experimentally. “Yes, this one is just right.” She hands it to me, her smile never faltering.

I thank her, turning to put it in our cart, and find my mother squinting at me. “Hello,” she says awkwardly. “I’m Lucinda’s mother, Beatrice.” Her hand hovers by her side, half extended, as if she’s not sure whether to offer it to shake or not.

Maud surprises her with a hug and a sunny smile and says, “I’m Maud. My grandson is a friend of Lucy’s.” She beams at me. My mom looks skeptical.

“Uh yeah, he’s in the band. With Isaac.” Isaac is always a good reference point for my mom. She knows about Isaac. She understands Isaac. Other friends (“what other friends?”), not so much.

“Oh, of course!” What does she mean, of course, how many times have I mentioned the Band? Have I even mentioned it at all? “The Band.” She’s transitioning into full Conversation Mode. I’d better shut this down pronto.

“Oh hey mom, we need bagels!”

“Oh goodness! You’re right, Lucinda. Bagels. I knew I’d forget something. This is why I need you along!” Oh okay, so that’s what you brought along for. She graciously excuses herself with the cart and wheels it away towards the bakery. I breath a completely literal sigh of relief.

“Well, your mother is nice,” Maud says slowly. I wait in case there’s a but. “But why does she call you Lucinda?”

“Oh, um,” I stammer. It’s obvious where Walter gets his strange question habit. “Well, that was her grandmother’s name, so my parents named me that. And um, she rarely calls me Lucy. Sometimes she calls me Lou.”

“Well that’s very interesting. Lucinda is such a nice name. It means light, in Spanish.” She picks up a bunch of bananas and looks at me significantly, as if to prove a point.

“Lucinda! We should go, I have the bagels,” my mom calls from behind me.

“Bye, Maud.” I wave at her and she waves back, watching me from under the brim of her hat.

“Goodbye! I’ll see you soon, I expect.” She smiles at me like she’s telling me a secret and disappears down an aisle of cereal and dry goods.

#chapters

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lookingatandlookingthrough · 11 years ago

Text

Chapter two

“Sure, sure okay, I won’t, indoor voices, please,” I implore him, still mostly asleep from my nap. From which he woke me.

“Right, sorry. So. Guess what?” There’s a twinge of explosive exhilaration in his voice, and he doesn’t wait for my answer before continuing, “I got in!”

I frown. “Got into what?”

“You know, the exchange program!”

My heart sinks a little through my chest. I don’t know. I don’t want to. “What exchange program?”

“The one this summer! In Argentina! Didn’t I tell you about it?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well.” He sounds a little deflated. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. “See, it’s an exchange where I got to study there for a few months, you know how their summer is different from ours, so they have winter classes there while we’re on break, and then in winter, the student I’ll stay with will come here and stay with me! It’s amazing! It’s really last minute, they had a dropout and I was next in line, but it’s so amazing, I mean it’s a national thing, it’s a big deal, and -”

I cut across him, trying to keep my voice clear, not wanting to rain on his parade any more than the light drizzle I can already feel coming on. “When do you leave?”

“Saturday, that’s like half a week, so it’s so last minute, I know -”

“So no road trip then, I’m guessing.”

I can practically hear the parade flooding as I speak. “Oh, wow, I hadn’t thought about that. I guess - I mean, there’s always next summer, I just didn’t think about -”

“No of course you hadn’t!” I force a smile into my voice. “No, this is amazing, you’re right. It’s so great you got in! You’ll have so much fun! You can tell me all about it later. I’ve got to go. Talk to you later!” I hang up before he has a chance to psychoanalyze the exclamation points I know he can hear and before I start to cry.

I look up the program on the internet. It takes a little sifting through search results to find the right one, but eventually, I end up with a website with a description and dates that match. Grudgingly, I admit that it sounds pretty cool. They’ve got pictures of kids wandering Buenos Aires, doing tours of historic sites, going urban exploring, eating at restaurants, buying souvenirs, going to sporting events… There are quotes from participants about how great the experience was and what wonderful friendships they made and how it was the best summer of their lives.

I shut the laptop more than a little bitterly and glare at my wall, trying to shut the annoyingly well designed green-and-white layout of the website out of my mind.

This was supposed to be the best summer of our lives. Did you forget? The last real summer. The last summer as kids. And now it’s already over and it hasn’t even started yet.

“Dinner, Lucinda,” my mom calls down the hallway. It is with consuming dread in my heart that I pad down the hall to the kitchen. “When are you two leaving for your road trip?” she asks. Oh, of course she would.

“It’s not happening,” I mutter, grabbing my plate off of spaghetti and turning to escape. “Isaac got accepted into this big exchange thing. Argentina. Cool stuff. Road trip is off.” I stuff a forkful of noodles into my mouth.

“Oh, now that’s too bad,” she says, managing to sound pitying, patronizing, and sarcastic at the same time. “There’s always next summer. You’ll be adults, you’ll be older and more mature and I’ll just feel better about the whole thing. But you know, I don’t even remember hearing about this exchange program.”

“Hmm.” I edge toward the door, anticipating her critical gaze with a hurried “I’m really tired so I think I’m going to take a nap bye” and then fleeing.

Finals are over. There is no test tomorrow. There is no studying. What there is, is me aimlessly twirling spaghetti on a fork and blinking at the bookshelf facing me. I try not to cry. Really I do. It feels petty and absolutely mind-numbingly dumb, but at the same time, it hurts. It’s like a paper cut. It’s so tiny and it’s just a piece of paper, for God’s sake, that sliced at centimeter long gash into your skin, barely even anything at all, but it stings like Hell.

There’s always next summer! Yeah. There is. But next summer, we’ll be leaving in two months for “bigger and better things”.

I check my email, for lack of anything better to do, and find a message from Tessa about her internship at a lab somewhere out of town, three political messages (sent by organizations from which I’m positive I unsubscribed), an update from someone’s Youtube channel, and a college email asking if it’s really me because I haven’t responded to any of their other emails. (To tell the truth, I haven’t even opened any of the others.)

My pasta does nothing to calm my moodiness. Normally, in a situation such as this, I would call Isaac. But that’s not among my current options.

So I decide to do something crazy.

I decide to go for a walk.

oOo

It’s barely even dark yet, and it’s already 8. I turn my gaze upwards to frown at the sky. Cloudless, perfect, pure, and blue. Tugging my shorts further down my legs, I walk on, speeding past Jacob’s front yard (just in case). My mind drifts back towards Isaac’s exchange, so I focus myself on the concrete below my feet. It’s sidewalk chalk season. Very clearly. The little girls on the corner have been playing hopscotch. I follow the squares as they turn into ladybugs and then a dragon, snaking along until where the woman next door watered her rhododendrons and the water washed away the blue and pink and yellow chalk.

The houses look a little wilted. I’ve never really noticed that before. The grass is turning brown, the trees look dejected, the spring flowers are either in their golden years or past their prime. At one house, there are lawn chairs set out in the yard with a huge sun-umbrella stuck in the ground between them. I remember one summer when Isaac’s grandmother got him one of those and we wanted to jump off the roof with it to see if we could fly… No, steering away from that. Wilted houses, wilted houses wilted houses wiltedhouseswiltedhous-

“Lucy?”

“Oh gosh, hi, Walter.”

“You okay?” He cocks his head to the side and squints a little. I’m taken aback.

“Um, well, I - yeah!” I force as much excitement and enthusiasm into that word as I can muster.

He quirks an eyebrow unbelievingly.

Who does this boy think he is? Being attractive and perceptive like that. I’m disgusted. “Well, okay, maybe I’m slightly less than okay?”

He just blinks at me.

“Alright, so basically, Isaac and I were going to do this dumb road trip thing because he can drive and we’ve been planning it for, like, ever and now he’s going on an exchange to Argentina and we can’t do the road trip, but it’s not just that I’m upset about, I mean, it’s our last summer as kids and it’s next summer we’ll be leaving for college, so I guess I’m upset about that and I guess I don’t want to grow up.” I draw in a gulp of warm, muggy summer air and realize that I said all that in one long breath, so I shut up and make a face at my feet.

“Wow.” That’s it. Wow. It’s not a mocking wow, it’s not even a sarcastic wow. I can’t even remember the last time I heard someone say wow and actually mean wow. I glance up at him, thinking I’m being discreet, but he’s staring back so I’m caught feeling simultaneously like an indiscreet idiot and not so bad after all. “That was rude of him.”

“I guess so. I mean, I feel bad being angry about it, but I…”

“You what?” “I feel… neglected.” As he’s opening his mouth to say that sounds like my name, I rush to backtrack, feeling like an idiot and mumbling, “It’s selfish, I know, I know, but it was supposed to be fun” before bursting into tears. Oh God.

“Oh dear,” Walter mutters, reaching out a hand to pat my shoulder. “Please don’t cry. Oh dear.” He looks truly devastated when I manage to get a look at his face. It’s only that, and the fact that he’s standing awkwardly with one arm glued to his side, the other bridging the two-foot-wide gap between us, that make me stop crying. Thank God for awkward, dorky guys.

When I’ve snuffled and scrubbed my face dry, he removes his hand and says, “You good?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” The relief is clearly evident in his voice and he grins at me, so I manage a little smile in return.

“Thank you for, you know, putting up with me.”

“No problem. I’m sure you would have done the same.” Probably true. “You wanna… Walk?” I frown at him questioningly and he jerks slightly his head at the wilted house with the lawn chairs and the umbrella. To my dismay, there’s a woman in the window with curly gray hair and thick, pink-framed glasses and she’s staring at us. I wave. She glares and disappears.

“Yeah, let’s walk,” I say, turning on my heel and setting off down the sidewalk, letting Walter fall into step beside me. “So what are you doing out and about at eight in the evening? Enjoying the weather?”

“I like walking.” I expect more, but nothing comes.

“Right, Isaac said you liked walking around.” Dumb, dumb, and dumb. “I mean, he may have mentioned that, over the phone, one time, anyway, walking is nice.” DUMB. “I mean, you know, I don’t do it much, but it’s nice. Gives you time to think.” REALLY, REALLY DUMB. I decide to just shut up while I’m less behind.

Walter smirks a bit, but it’s not a mean smirk. It’s the kind of smirk someone does when they’re amused but they don’t want to full-on smile. It’s a very little smirk. “Yeah,” he says, “It sure does.”

“...”

“You don’t talk all that much, do you.”

“Well, not all the time. If you catch me on a good day, I might say more than three sentences in a row.”

I shrug. “Not talking isn’t always a bad thing. Some people talk too much. Like Isaac.” And me.

He doesn’t say anything, but I hear a short exhale of breath that could be a laugh.

We pass a tree, tall and gnarled, with thick branches and roots that claw at the grass and push up the sidewalk around it. I probably fell over those roots as a child. Actually, I probably fell off a scooter over those roots as a child. We stop to let an SUV, ignoring us and our right of way as pedestrians, swoop around the traffic circle and continue on.

“I climbed that tree once.”

“Really?”

“Yup. All the way to the last branch that could hold me.”

“How old were you?” I ask, incredulous.

“About 11, maybe.” He cranes his neck back and I mimic him, trying to figure out how high that must have been. “Of course, then I couldn’t figure out how to get back down.”

I picture a smaller, even blonder Walter perched in the very top branches of the tree, frowning worriedly at the ground where a concerned neighbor called the fire department. “So, how did you get down in the end?” “My grandma came out and threatened to climb up and get me.”

I laugh.

“I just didn’t want her to fall and break a hip or something,” he explains earnestly. “I was worried she might hurt herself.” Oh of course he was.

“That was very practical of you,” I tell him, and he blushes a little. It shouldn’t be as adorable as it is. “I always wanted to climb that tree as a kid,” I hurry on.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I never did. I think my mom would’ve killed me, if I didn’t fall and accidentally kill myself. Which was probably more likely. And anyway, I wouldn’t have done it without Isaac, and he’s deathly afraid of heights. Like, deathly afraid. In kindergarten, he could barely go down the slide because it was too high off the ground.”

He laughs at that, smile wide across his face, head thrown back. In the light from the sun setting over the hill, he looks like an angel. He has a halo of golden blond hair framing his face. “Well someday, we can climb this tree and go as high as we can. You don’t need Isaac to do that. You can fulfill your lifetime dream. It’s perfect! He’s ditching you for Argentina? Well you don’t need him, you can climb a freaking huge tree!”

I’m laughing too now, and my face actually hurts. “That was more than three sentences,” I manage, watching him turn to me and grin.

“Must be a good day then.”

oOo

The sun behind the hill, it’s getting colder. The sky growing dimmer every minute. Walter walks me home, despite my protestations, saying, “It’s barely out of the way at all. I only live a few blocks from here.” I unlock the door with his promise to climb the tree with me fresh in my mind and a dumb smile still plastered across my face. Because I’m in a forgiving mood, and only because of that, I call Isaac.

He picks up after half a ring, already launched into “Lucy? Lou? Lou, are you angry, please don’t be angry, I’m sorry, it wasn’t very nice of me to bail on our plan, actually it was really not nice, like douchebag level not nice, and I’m sorry.”

I just let him apologize without interrupting him, since I’m feeling generous. And also significantly happier than before.

“... And I need to make it up to you somehow.”

“Yup, you do.”

“... Why do you sound so… happy?”

“I went on a walk.”

“And?” “Oh, nothing much, I just saw Walter and we talked for a while.”

“You WHAT?” I’m starting to feel a teensy bit of regret about this whole telling Isaac thing. “I talked to Walter, that’s all. We had a nice conversation. He’s a nice guy.” “Lucy.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

As if. But I won’t press it. “Exactly, nothing. Are you all packed?”

“Not completely.”

“You should be.”

“Like I don’t know that… Would you come help me tomorrow, please?”

“Okay, sure, whatever, see you then.” I hang up before remembering to hope he won’t wonder why I called in the first place.

---

Isaac’s bedroom is one of those weird places where you wouldn’t want to be caught alone. He can always find things (like the door) but that doesn’t mean anyone else can. He has the walls mostly covered, except for the patch around his light bulb on the ceiling (only because his mom said it was a fire hazard). He claims that white walls “hinder his concentration” and I think if you peeled off the top layer of posters and drawings and pieces of printer paper covered in WordArt inspirational sayings, you’d probably find a few more layers below that. Exactly how long this has been going on, I’m not sure, but I do know that when I set foot in his room for the first time, there were only a few posters and a large crayon drawing of a cactus that is now covered by a Queen poster and the “Hang In There” with the kitten I got him last year as a joke.

“Help me,” he groans, throwing a sock at me.

“You told me yesterday you weren’t ‘completely finished.’ This is like not even started. Shouldn’t you have finished already? Like, actually finished? You’re leaving tomorrow,” I remind him, peeling at the already half-off scrap of newsprint with only the word “NO” on it.

“Well, yeah, but you know how I pack. It’s in stages.”

“Oh, I know,” I say, tripping over a haphazard pile of old wall calendars. “Why the hell do you have these?” I ask, exasperated and leaning on the dresser.

“I like the pictures in them. I want to hang them on my wall.”

“Like you need more things on your wall.”

“Just help me,” he wails.

“Fine. Fine, I’ll help you pack. You are so not self-sufficient, God, how will you ever survive on your own?”

“At least I can drive.”

“Yeah well at least I know how to make use of public transit.”

“I got lost one time. Just one.”

“Yeah, but you ended up 20 miles away. Just sayin’.”

“Hand me that pile of socks,” he commands.

I gather up a massive pile of socks, but pause a foot from handing them to him. “Isaac?”

“Yeah? Can you just give me the socks?”

“Why are there so many socks?”

“I’ll be gone the whole summer, Lou, I need lots of socks.”

“How many pairs is this?”

“18, now just give them to me.”

“You do know that people in Argentina have washing machines, don’t you?”

He frowns, considering this. I take this opportunity to set aside half the socks and hand him the rest. They go into the suitcase, next to five different hats.

“Isaac. The hats.”

“I was going to choose one-”

“Or two. Or three. Or four. Or-”

“Okay okay! The blue one.”

I put the others with the extra socks and say sternly, “Now, you have to choose one scarf. Only one. I know that’s hard for you, but you need to be strong, and-”

“Ugh, just shut up and hand me that red one.”

“Good choice. Very bright. Very conspicuous. Not at all subtle. Or modest. It’s so your style.”

“Wow, rude.”

“Is it cold there this time of year?” I ask, ignoring him and thinking of the nice places in the world that have winter right now instead of this blasted heat.

“Andres says it doesn’t really get down below freezing in Buenos Aires. It doesn’t snow usually.”

“Oh good, so no ski suit then. I know you’d have trouble choosing which one to bring. Do you have a coat? Something warm but not too big. You may have to sacrifice fashion for the sake of practicality.”

“You sound like my mom. You sound like your mom,” he accuses.

“I know, I can hear myself. I’m mentally kicking myself, don’t worry.”

“Andres says I should bring sweaters.”

“Okay, so who is Andres, anyway?”

Isaac makes a dive for his laptop, opening a page and showing it to me. “This,” he announces, “is Andres.” On screen is a well-designed, green-and-white profile page for someone named Andres Torres, who appears to be an attractive, dark-haired, young adult male.

“How old is he?” I ask, suspiciously.

“18.”

“And they’ve screened him to make sure he’s not actually a 45-year-old internet predator?”

“God, Lou, he’s not a predator! Jesus Christ.”

“...”

“Lucinda, he is very nice. I’ve talked to him. He speaks excellent English, he loves to read, he likes a lot of the same music as I do, and he’s not a douchebag.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Oh come on, you can’t hold his good looks against him.”

“Are you suggesting that I am biased because he’s cute?”

“Maybe.”

“You suck. Go pack your own sweaters.”

---

Surfin’ Safari blares into my eardrum. “Isaac, it’s 7 AM. I hate you.”

“Today’s the day!” he sings down the phone. “I am so excited! This is going to be amazing!”

“Yes, it will be amazing and you will have lots of fun with your new best friend, Andre the Argentinian, and you will also send me postcards.”

“Andres, Lou, the es sound is important!”

“Ooh sorry, Andres, then.” I roll my eyes, purely for my own benefit. He can’t see me. “But seriously. I do expect postcards. Lots of them. Like really, lots. I want at least one a week. No, make that two.”

“You’re so demanding for so early in the morning.”

“Yeah, well you woke me, you have to deal with the consequences. And why are you up anyway? You’re not leaving until 1. Why waste perfectly good sleeping hours?”

“Why waste perfectly good visiting my best friend hours? I’m almost at your house. Be there in 5.”

I have enough time to moan a faint “nooo” before he hangs up.

oOo

“Lou!” He raps on the door, obscenely loudly for 7:06 in the morning. “Time to get up! You don’t want to spend my last day in town sleeping, do you?”

“Yeah, I actually think I do,” I mumble into my pillow. He opens the door and practically skips across the floor to open the curtains. “Goodbye darkness, my old friend,” I stage-whisper, dramatically, kicking back the covers and sitting up before he has a chance to do that himself. “Now go away so I can change. Shoo.”

I put on a pair of capris because I refuse to wear shorts in public and a shirt that, in the dim light of my windowless closet, I assumed to be gray, but turns out to be a bright, cheery yellow. I’m a little disappointed, but Isaac whisks me out the door with a “No time to change! Farewell, Mrs. Duncan, Mr. Duncan, the nonexistent Little Duncans! When I see you next I will be a well-traveled man!”

“The Cat is offended,” I tell him solemnly, as the Cat eyes us through the window balefully. “You didn’t say goodbye to him.”

“Aww, Cat, you do love me!” Isaac coos, rubbing a finger against the windowpane and giggling when the Cat bats at it experimentally. “Goodbye, Cat. I’ll miss you.”

“Yeah, and all the times he would have bitten you this summer,” I add. “Were we going somewhere or not, because I got up for this.”

“Right! Yes! We’re going to a cafe! For breakfast!”

“Oh, how exciting.”

“Lou, is everything sarcasm with you?”

“Of course not! I’m never sarcastic. What are you talking about?”

He sighs and drags me to his car, opening the passenger door with a flourish and a “your chariot awaits, madam!” and a princess wave to the neighbor’s five-year-old daughter. He gets a giggle in return and a shy smile. I drum my fingers on the gear shift while he hops in.

“I hope you didn’t make reservations or anything. Old Bessie may not start.”

“It’s a cafe, Lou, and Betsy has been good today.”

Isaac's car is not like most people's cars. It's one of those things that can barely be called a car because it's barely functional. In fact, it's pretty much not functional at all. It rattles, it squeaks, it moans, it roars, it whirs, it stalls, it stops, it dies, it comes back to life, it does pretty much everything you don’t want a car to do. And it does that every day. Isaac spends his life leaving five minutes early for everything.

We arrive at the cafe after a few shifty traffic light experiences and one mid-intersection scare. The sign says it’s famous for it’s Ultimate Hashbrowns, but apparently not famous enough, because I’ve never heard of Ultimate Hashbrowns, not that I’m exactly a cafe expert.

Inside, the walls are a sunny yellow. They match my dumb yellow shirt. The way the intensity of the color changes, going from bright yellow to darker gold to almost orange along the walls, reminds me of a picture I once saw of a house in the Tuscan countryside. I don’t think hashbrowns are Italian, though.

“Good morning, Isaac!” the woman behind the counter says. Behind her bifocals, even her eyes are smiling. “Is this the day you’re leaving or do I get to see you again before you go?”

It seems Isaac has heard of Ultimate Hashbrowns. “Morning, Louise, and yes, I’m leaving today.” If a sad-face emoji could be spoken aloud, I’m pretty sure Isaac would have said it just then.

“We’re all so proud,” Louise says, ignoring me. “When you applied, we all prayed for you.” Another slightly-older-than-middle-aged woman smiles sweetly at Isaac from the window into the kitchen and nods emphatically. I raise one eyebrow, but neither of the women notice because all their attention is on Isaac.

“You’re so accomplished,” Louise continues.

“Aw thanks, Lou, you’re so sweet,” Isaac coos, reaching across the counter to squeeze her hand.

That’s the last straw. I turn and stalk to a table by the window. It feels a bit petty, but at the same time, my eyes are prickling and my face feels hot. At the counter, Isaac and “Lou” are still bantering. It would seem that neither noticed my departure. I pull out my phone and, very slowly, very deliberately, dial Isaac’s number.

At the counter, Isaac’s phone rings. Surfin’ USA startles him and Louise out of their conversation. As he picks up the phone, I hang up. He turns to squint around the cafe and sees me at the window. We glare at each other and he tells Louise that we’ll both have an Ultimate Hashbrown.

“What was that for?” he asks grouchily, sitting down across from me.

“Sorry to break up your little party.”

“What’s wrong with you? You were fine until we got here. Now you’re all get off my lawn about everything.”

“So you told these two that you applied for that exchange but you didn’t tell me.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“Mostly.”

“Oh come on, Lou.” I glare at him. “This is ridiculous.”

“Oh yeah? You told the two ladies at the cafe that you were leaving for the entire summer for Argentina, but not me, you best friend, who was supposed to be going on a road trip with you. Because that makes sense.”

He rolls his eyes. “You won’t be mad at me once you’ve had the hashbrown.”

“I don’t even like hashbrowns.”

“You’ll like these ones.”

“Probably not.”

“Well you’ll never know unless you try it.”

“You called her Lou.”

“What?”

I sigh. “You called her Lou. That’s my nickname.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

I stare moodily at the tablecloth.

“Apology not accepted then?”

I consider for a moment. “Well I guess I should. In case your plane crashes and I never see you again. I might feel guilty.”

“Okay, whatever, but here’s the hashbrown, so seriously, you need to try it.”

Louise sets a plate down in front of Isaac, then me, with a large, shapeless mass of what I assume is shredded potato, but could really be anything, for all I know. It’s sort of brown in varying shades. I’m not too interested in eating it, but Louise is hanging around looking hopeful and I feel bad. I take a small bite and realize that, actually, it’s not all that bad.

I smile at Isaac without thinking. “It’s good,” I say, surprised at myself.

“I told you you wouldn’t still be mad at me after the hashbrown,” he crows triumphantly.

“Oh shut up,” I tell him, kicking him lightly under the table. “Remember, you're accomplished and they prayed for you.”

“Shut up and eat your hash brown.”

#chapters

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lookingatandlookingthrough · 11 years ago

Text

Chapter One!

So when my phone rings on the counter, the Beach Boys’ Surfin’ Safari echoing through the empty house, I am not happy.

“Isaac. Hello. What.”

“How’s my little ray of sunshine?” he jokes.

“No.”

“That’s not an acceptable answer for that question, Lou,” he sighs. “What’s got your panties in a knot?”

“It’s hot - hotter than June should be,” I answer, glaring at the green and yellow linoleum under my feet that makes the whole room look brighter than feels reasonable for 7 o’clock in the evening. “And I don’t like it.”

“Lou, you don’t like a lot of things,” Isaac tells me.

“Because a lot of things suck. Like summer.”

“God, Lou, you’re so crotchety sometimes. It’s like you’re already an 80-year-old man, in the body of a seventeen-year-old girl.”

“Which is funny,” I tell him, smiling at the ten seconds left on the stove timer, “Seeing as I’ll never be an 80-year-old man, whereas you will.”

“Very funny,” he says as the timer goes off, getting in two sharp BEEPs before I shut it off. “What are you doing?”

“Making pasta. The parentals are working late, so it’s just me and the Cat.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounds smug. I turn off the burner and move the pot to the side, wafting the steam away from my face. The Cat ignores me on the way to his food bowl. So maybe just me.

“I see a book-filled evening in your future,” he says, and I can actually hear the grin in his voice. “I spent today practicing with the Band.” Lighting-fast subject changes are one of Isaac’s specialties.

“Oh,” I grunt grimly. I have so far avoided a complete Introduction to the Band conversation, but with Isaac, if you give him an inch, he’ll take a mile, so I carefully keep myself from sounding curious in the least. And I’m not really curious. Just a little. I mean, they’ve practically consumed my best friend’s life for the past 6 months. Who wouldn’t be at least a tiny bit curious?

“You would love the Band,” Isaac loves.

“Are they boys?” I ask, deciding to shut this down early on.

“Yes, but -” he starts, obviously planning on elaborating.

“Then no, I wouldn’t.”

“Lou. You like boys.”

“Uh no, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, Lucy, you just don’t like some of them.”

“...”

“Jacob getting to you?”

“Well yes. Like he ever doesn’t get to me.”

“Ignore it,” Isaac advises.

“I know, it’s just hard, okay, when he’s there all the time. It’s like he lives in his driveway. Like, no normal human being spends that much time sitting in a lawn chair in their driveway. Actually, no normal human being spends any time sitting in a lawn chair in their driveway!” His latest tactic has been to try to start a conversation with me through my open window. Since this freak heat wave hit, I’ve seriously considered letting myself suffocate in a completely sealed off house. Either of those would be preferable to having to listen to Jacob ineptly flirt with me while I try to live my life in peace.

“Well, think of it this way, Lou,” Isaac tells me. “It’s flattering that a guy likes you, even if you don’t like him.” Always the optimist.

“Sure, but it’s Jacob.”

“True. He’s an idiot.”

“You’re telling me.”

“And a jerk.”

“Uh huh.”

“And an absolute douchecanoe.”

“Yeah, and - Wait no. A douchecanoe? That’s a thing?”

“Yup. It’s the height of douchebaggery.”

“I like it.”

“Good. See? You do like some things. Not all things suck. Like the Band. They don’t suck. You’d like the Band.” He sounds like a puppy looks when it does a trick right.

“Huh.” I’m not convinced, so I shift the phone to my other ear, pressing it there with my shoulder so I can mark my place in the book.

“Not all boys are Jacob,” Isaac reminds me.

“I know that, it’s just… You can never be sure which ones are and which ones aren’t and I don’t like to risk it. And don’t say, ‘well there’s me,’” I tell him, as the ‘well’ is just leaving his lips, “Because I know there’s you. I formed an opinion about you before douchecanoes were a thing and you weren’t a jerk yet.”

“Hey!”

“Okay fine, you’re still not a jerk, but the point is, you don’t count.”

“What about Peter?”

“He doesn’t count either.”

“How come?

“Because I met him by mistake and by the time I figured out if he was a jerk or not, it would have been too late to back out of the friendship, even if I’d wanted to.”

“Fair enough. But the Band is awesome. I love them.”

“That’s nice.”

“Lou, please? Just let me tell you about them?” I sigh. It’s going to happen eventually, I guess. So why not now? “Ugh. Fine.”

“Okay, so there’s James,” Isaac begins happily, launching into a description of this Band mate that I’m sure will be fascinating. “He plays drums and he’s an idiot, but not a Jacob idiot. He’s funny. He’s kind of insecure which is why I think he’s always making jokes about everything, and I can’t figure out why he’s insecure, but-”

“Oh my God, Isaac, you need to stop psychoanalyzing people like that. It scares them away.”

“You’re still here, so I don’t see a problem with it.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you already psychoanalyzed me when we were, like, six and you know literally everything about me. Literally. Because there is pretty much nothing to know about me because I’m so-”

“You’re not-”

“-nondescript.”

“You aren’t, Lou.”

“I am.”

“Are not, but then there’s Hugo, who plays clarinet and a lot of Mozart, I mean a lot of Mozart,” he continues, choosing to ignore my whispered ‘am too.’ “And he’s a bit awkward, but very nice. He knows, like, everything there is to know about music, so that’s awesome. Then there’s Fred, who plays piano, mostly jazz. He’s very… groovy.”

“What.”

“He is though! He’s just very chill with everything, very… in tune with the world. And that was not a music pun, Lucy. No.” I glare at my pasta. “But speaking of people who are in tune in a non-musical way, the other guy is - you’ll love him. His name is Walter, and he’s very good looking-”

“No setting me up with your Band mates, Isaac,” I warn. “Not allowed.”

“God, fine, but you really would love him. He plays guitar and sings and he’s really not that bad. But he’s just very okay with himself - I think he really gets himself and he’s so okay with that.” He’s psychoanalyzing, but I ignore it because Walter actually sounds pretty cool. “He’s smart and spends a lot of time just, like, walking places. I don’t even know. Apparently, he played something else, like french horn maybe, for, like, two months one time, but he didn’t like playing brass instruments so - oh God, I forgot Lewis! How did I forget Lewis?!?! It must be because he’s so quiet.” I wait patiently for him to explain further, but he doesn’t.

“So what does Lewis play?”

“Oh Lucy! You’re interested after all! He plays trombone and he’s really tall. Like 6’5”. He doesn’t talk, like, ever. That’s about all I know about him.”

“No hidden fears, no traumatic experiences, no psychological scars to make him not talk?” I tease.

I can almost hear Isaac’s glare through the phone. “No, Lucy, I have not yet successfully psychoanalyzed Lewis, but if you would like me to-”

“Nevermind. So this Band, what do they play?”

“We play many things, often classic rock, though I have been toying with some songwriting.”

“God, what have you written? Songs about your undying love for cheese? The reason you don’t go to church any more? An ode to your collection of polka dot bowties?”

“No, in fact, I haven’t written any of those,” he says, dignified in the face of my taunts. “And I don’t have a collection of polka dotted bowties.”

“The church story would make a good song,” I muse. “It made a lovely poem in 6th grade.”

“I’ll thank you not to bring that up,” he snaps, pretending to be angry.

“Sorry not sorry,” I tell him. “You could probably write a few songs about our road trip, once we go on it. Aren't there about a billion songs about road trips? Or is that just hipster-y album covers?”

“It might just be the album covers, but my mom's calling for dinner, bye!”

---

There are several types of Jacobs. There’s the classic Type A, who act nice with the intention of reeling you into their little web of despair and douchebaggery. Then there are the Type Bs, who start off fine, but it turns out are eternally stuck in second grade, when teasing and pulling pigtails was still a sign of affection. Type Cs will bypass the preliminary phases of mock kindness all together and skip straight to being an absolute douchebag right off. The Original Jacob is, himself, a mix of a Type B and C. Once upon a time, he was all B (back when we were actually in second grade). He tried a brief stint as an A, back in freshman year, but I guess it wasn’t quite working for him.

Still reeling from my first Jacob encounter of the week (an absolute fiasco, of course, which ended in me all but running into the girls' bathroom), I pull open the door to the cafeteria, doing a quick search for Tessa and her mass of blond curls which is clearly visible in the crowd of gray-clad science kids that inhabit the other tables in our customary corner.

A hand snakes around my shoulder to hold the door and I turn to find myself faced with some guy I suppose I’ve noticed but never met officially. He’s got bright green eyes and sandy blond hair that does a sort of wave over his forehead. He’s taller than I am, so his eyes are just about level with my forehead. I’m used to people like Isaac (who still has about two inches on me) slouching, but this guy has what my mom would call “phenomenal posture.”

“Uh, thanks,” I say, wishing he’d stop looking at me so directly (it’s really quite unnerving).

“No problem.” He grins at me crookedly, his face going a shade pinker. There’s something about him I can’t figure out, something about the way he waits until I have walked into the room before strolling away a little too jauntily in his khaki pants and his converse. Oh God, a new Type A. Already. It’s only Monday.

The bright side is, it's already June. The school year is almost over. Any new Jacobs I meet will be out of my life in just a few weeks. And Isaac and I will be safely out of town on our road trip, free to gossip and not-psychoanalyze-but-really-actually-psychoanalyze whosoever we please. We can laugh about Jacob and his weak attempts at flirting and at all the other douchebags at this school, while sitting in the front seat of his clunky little car barreling down the highway at speeds that push the speed limit without actually breaking it. Just survive a few more weeks, Lucy. Just a few more weeks.

oOo

“Oh Louuuuu,” Tessa wails, clutching at my hand on the cafeteria table. “It’s just, he’s so hot.”

Sometimes I wonder how Tessa ever ended up in our Group of Friends. She and Peter are the only ones who actively express any interest in boys. I myself have a healthy appreciation for an attractive male, but I’m not going to chase after him and wail about how hot he is. I suppose that’s why we have Tessa.

“And I think he likes me,” she tells me confidentially.

“Who likes our Tess?” asks Regina, sliding into the chair next to Tessa, brown ponytail swishing over her shoulder. Valerie sits down next to her, rearranging her skirt around her long, thin legs and giving me a smile.

“Some guy,” I tell them. “Possible Boyfriend Material. And I like your new hair, Val.” I gesture to her newly dyed pixie cut.

“Red is a good color for you,” Regina adds, shooting Val a brief smile before taking a swig of milk.

“So what does he look like?” I ask Tessa, figuring I may as well play along.

“Well, he’s tall and really muscular,” Tessa begins, smoothing her hair down unconsciously. “And he has brown hair that’s sort of curly I guess. His eyes are brown - oh God, he has really nice eyes.” She has a way of talking that I’ve never encountered anywhere else. She emphasizes certain words. She has a whole vocabulary of perpetually italicized words and phrases, like really, oh God, and, usually, my name. I may or may not be picking up this habit from her.

“Who has really nice eyes?” Peter asks as he snags a chair from another table, looking expectantly at Tessa. He gives me a quick, one-armed hug from which I try (and fail) to shy away.

“Just a guy,” Tessa says.

“Possible Boyfriend Material,” Regina expands, nodding significantly.

“Ooh, where?” Peter is beginning to crane his neck to peer around the cafeteria in search of this mysterious hot boy, when Tessa lets out a squeak and reaches across me to pull him back into his seat and promptly hides behind me. Suppressing the irrational fear that it’s the guy from the door, I look up to see a fairly hot guy standing at Peter’s shoulder. And it’s not the guy from the door.

I guess his eyes are kind of nice…

“Hey, Tessa!” he says as Tessa dives into her bag. “Um,” he continues, looking confused.

I nudge Tessa with my foot, sort of a “don’t be silly” nudge, and she pops back up with an “oh, hello!” and a bright red smile. Possible Boyfriend Material shifts from one foot to the other awkwardly, so I take pity on him and get up quickly, scooting my chair towards Peter’s.

“Here, do you want to pull up a chair?” Peter suggests encouragingly.

I feel bad for the guy, surrounded by a group of people, all of whom he doesn’t know, except the one he does, who is currently looking like she might faint. (Tessa has never been very good around guys, which is why it’s kind of sad that she’s the one with the most chance of actually getting a real boyfriend.)

Possible Boyfriend Material pulls up a chair and perches on the side of it until Peter introduces himself and the rest of us dutifully follow his lead. “Uh, my name is Jack, I guess” leans back in his chair and strikes up an enthusiastic conversation with Tessa. On my other side, Peter begins texting some boy he “met at the H&M” and across from me, Val and Regina converse quietly about Virginia Woolf, leaving me to wonder how you can be “Jack, I guess”and not just “Jack.”

I’ve moved on to rating him on Peter’s Male Attractiveness Scale (everything is out of 15 ½, don’t ask me why) and I’ve gone through legs (11 because he’s wearing jeans and it’s hard to tell when he’s sitting down), hands (a solid 12), and forearms (9 ¾), and have just gotten to his face, when Isaac shows up behind me and offers me my ticket out of this uneventful lunch.

To my dismay, it comes in the form of an invitation to meet the Band, but I’ll take what I can get in this world.

“I don’t understand how you haven’t met them yet,” he tells me, after we have said our goodbyes to the Group of Friends Plus Jack.

“Yeah, I have no idea.”

“Lou, do you ever say anything that isn’t sarcastic?”

“Oh sure. I say plenty of things that aren’t sarcastic.”

He huffs angrily and pulls me through the cafeteria, weaving through the tables with me in tow. A group of guys has set up camp at the bottom of the stairwell. They look like they could be a band, I guess (though frankly, I don’t know what a band would look like. I’ll admit, I sort of pictured them as having bowl cuts and wearing matching suits.). There’s a tall guy dressed all in navy blue leaning against the wall, hands in pockets, and a small curly haired one who appears to be trying to study. From this distance it looks like he’s wearing a polo shirt and perhaps, from the way the light reflects off his face, a pair of glasses. Beside him, lounges a guy in an American flag tank top and denim cutoff shorts with a - is that a - a ponytail? He must be the groovy one - Ted maybe? Fred? There’s another one in black and he’s a little hard to see from where I am, but it looks to me like he’s making a paper airplane. And then there’s another, blond head bent.

“Is that them over there?” I ask, pointing.

“Yes! Yes, that’s them, the hooligans blocking the staircase,” he says fondly.

I roll my eyes. He’s going maternal on them already. It must be serious.

oOo

There are introductions all around, starting with me (“Boys, this is Luuuucy, you know, my best friend, Lucy”) and then the Band.

“Hi! I’m Hugo!” says the short one, blue eyes twinkling behind thick glasses and under fine, brown curls. I’m just wondering how often he has to put up with hair-ruffling when Isaac reaches over and runs a hand over Hugo’s head. Hugo just smiles and waits it out patiently.

“I’m glad you’ve finally found someone to pet who’ll actually sit still for you,” I tell Isaac, who maintains that my hair is soft enough to warrant petting, even though I have long since perfected the art of dodging him.

The one in black lets out a laugh and does a little flip thing with his hair. This turns out to be James, the “clown,” as Isaac told me.

I can already tell which ones are Lewis and Fred (not Ted, okay, gonna remember that one) from Isaac’s descriptions, which leaves Walter. The blond one (it’s more brownish than I’d thought, you could call it sandy maybe, up close), who hasn’t met my eyes since Isaac and I showed up, determinedly watches his knees. Sometimes out of the corner of my eye, I think I see him looking at me, but I can never seem to catch him at it.

After “Hey, I’m Fred, how you doin’?” and “Lucy, this is Lewis” have introduced themselves/been introduced by Hugo, I turn expectantly to Walter. I find surprisingly green eyes staring me down below a sort of wave of hair on his… forehead.

Door Boy. Just my luck.

“Hey, I know you,”he says, getting to his feet smoothly. “I’m Walter.”

My senses are going into overload. On the one hand, he exhibits all the hallmark behaviors of both a Type A and Type C Jacob, but on the other hand, he actually seems nice. I just don’t know what to think any more. I’m too distracted by this dilemma to pay all that much attention to the conversation, but I find myself agreeing to “come on over to a practice someday” (Fred) and “maybe give us some feedback about our performance” (Hugo) or “something” (James). Walter says nothing the whole time, just watches us all in turn. He’s probably psychoanalyzing, I think bitterly, recognizing the symptoms.

When we’re walking away, Isaac turns to me triumphantly and crows, “You liked them!”

“Well, I, uh, suppose they’re nice enough,” I allow, avoiding his eyes.

“Right, well, you’re coming to Band practice tomorrow.”

There is no arguing with him, so I nod. After a second, I say, frowning, “So is Walter a Jacob or not?”

Isaac stops walking and stares at me. “Well,” he says slowly and deliberately, “What do you think?”

“I can’t tell,” I complain, launching into an explanation of my door experience and how he seems nice but then parents always say bugs are more afraid of us than we are of them and some bugs can kill us with a single bite, and sometimes I think he’s a Type A and wow, this is aggravating me because when is it this hard to figure out something so easy.

Isaac blinks at me. He is silent for a good 40 seconds, so I start to walk away, when he says, “This really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

I frown. “No, it’s just-”

“No, it really does bother you. You don’t get all worked up like that unless it really matters. You really want to figure this out, don’t you?”

“Well of course I want to figure it out, idiot, I want to know if he’s a total jerk or not,” I snap, turning to stalk away.

“Of course you do, Lou,” he calls after me. “But we both know if you didn’t care past that, you wouldn’t even give this the time of day.”

If I sulk for an hour or so, it’s because I know he’s right.

---

In James’s garage, the site of the Band practice, I stake out a claim on the couch over against the wall facing their equipment. I don’t know exactly what I expected from them, but I guess you could say I am pleasantly surprised.

It’s a weird assortment of instruments, one you wouldn’t expect to work. And it doesn’t. Not really. And they’re really not all that good, but I’ve heard worse (oh God, I’ve heard worse). I watch from my seat on (or really in) the squashy couch and think, If this were a movie and I were the narrator, I would say, “they may not have been rock stars, but they sure had heart.” And I guess it’s true. They do have heart.

When they’re covering Beatles songs, they really aren’t that bad. And you have to cut them some slack anyway, seeing as they have two acoustic guitars, a piano, drums, a clarinet, and a trombone. They’re not bad musicians per se, and Isaac has a decent singing voice, though I’d never say that to his face.

It’s when they attempt to cover Metallica and follow it up with an “original composition” that I decide they really aren’t good at all. On the bright side, I think they know it.

“Guys. Guys, we suck,” Fred says, leaning back. He’s wearing a shirt identical to the one he was wearing when I first met him.

“We’re not that bad!” Isaac cries, always the optimist.

“Yeah, we probably are.” James heaves himself off his chair and heads to the mini-fridge in the corner for a can of soda. “It’s still fun anyway. You know. Whatever.”

“Well, at least we play in tune,” Hugo adds innocently.

They all look to Walter. He shrugs and says diplomatically, “We’re not great, but we’re not terrible.” To my surprise, he looks to me instead of to Lewis, who is leaning, trombone in hand, against the wall, silent as usual. “What do you think, Lucy?”

“Uh, I think that you’re better when you’re covering the Beatles,”I say truthfully, “And that your songwriting could use some work.”

They all nod except Isaac, who huffs and says, “I wrote that song” in an injured tone.

They go back to work and I settle in to observe. By the end of practice, I’ve pretty much isolated each of them as a separate personality. James is the joker, has a habit of flicking his bangs out of his eyes even when they aren’t there and a tendency to come in early on the cymbals, and enjoys making sheet music into paper airplanes to throw at people, mostly Hugo. Hugo is classically trained, his music folder contains almost exclusively Mozart, plus the occasional arrangement of a Broadway musical, and he seems a tad uncomfortable in such a casual setting. Fred is such a jazz guy, sometimes breaking off in long improvisations, which are quite probably the best parts of their compositions. He’s very… okay, he’s very groovy and very relaxed, with a sort of far-away look in his eyes most of the time. If jazz were a person, it would be Fred. Lewis is quite clearly the quiet one. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him utter a single word. He’s a good musician, as far as I can tell, though I know absolutely nothing about the trombone and I sometimes can’t tell if he’s actually playing or just standing there with his instrument up.

It’s Walter who’s difficult. Or maybe I just care more because I still don’t know what to think about him. But I think I know now what I couldn’t figure out at lunch yesterday. Here, with his acoustic guitar, in this garage with his friends, he’s comfortable, relaxed, and actually slouching a little. He’s quieter, I guess, fairly mild and soft-spoken, now that we’re on his home turf. It’s like he lost his confidence at 2:30 when the last class of the day ended. And now I’m even more lost than I was before. And slightly more annoyed because of it

---

I’m frowning at the math review sheet in front of me. There is half a week until finals start and I am hardcore stressing. This is serious business. If I don’t get higher than an 78% on my math final, I won’t finish the year with an A in that class, which isn’t something I want or need in my life right now. And the thing is, math and I don’t have a good relationship. I didn’t even figure the 78% thing out on my own, Tessa did that for me. Without being asked.

So I guess that’s also why we have Tessa.

What doesn’t make sense to me right now though is why in the world anyone would want to calculate the trajectory of someone flying off a ferris wheel at x speed and y height, unless of course, they were planning their suicide or plotting to kill someone, and I can totally relate.

Luckily, I have strategically placed myself in this study session with Tessa to my right, our resident mathematician.

“He told me my hair looked really beautiful today,” she gushes, fiddling with one of her perfect curls.

“Oh my God, really?” Peter leans in closer. “What else did he say?” “Well, he told me the other day that my eyes are spectacular,” she says slowly, looking down at her lap.

“He’s totally into you,” Peter says confidently. “Like really into you, Tess.”

“Oh gosh,” she mutters, flustered. Tessa’s inability to understand boys baffles me. She practically already has a boyfriend. Why she’s so worried, I have no idea.

Peter flies into a detailed explanation of how she should get him to ask her out and Tessa finally wails, “What are you so interested in my love life?” and Peter looks her straight in the eye and tells her, “Because I plan to live vicariously through you for my last year of high school, before being set free into a world full of far more hot guys than this dumb school has to offer.”

Tessa seems interested, but Val and Regina are lying in the corner of Regina’s basement, peacefully undisturbed by Peter’s boy troubles. Well, at least, Val is lying in the corner. Regina has her back up against the wall and Val’s head in her lap while she reads a book (Moby Dick, so I can’t imagine she’ll want to hold it up for long).

Whether anyone is interested or not, Peter continues, telling anyone who is listening (which only half includes me) that there are “like no hot guys at school, okay, maybe ten” and it’s ridiculous because nine out of the ten are most definitely straight and the other one (a soccer player who goes by E.J. (for Elton John, Peter suspects, though he has no definite proof)) is only possibly gay and Peter just can’t wait to meet hot gay college guys. Tessa says she thoroughly agrees but wants to make sure he’s including Jake in the ten, so I tune them out and unsuccessfully focus my efforts on math.

The really tragic thing about my strained relationship with math is that I am convinced that, while math is not the center of all things in the universe, you could probably find a function to model mostly everything, from the correlation between facial symmetry and general attractiveness to the relationship between the height of a girl and the number of boyfriends she has per 12 months of her life (the “you” in this situation refers to someone who is not me).

I end up internally debating the underlying superficiality of hotness in the grand scheme of things. I mean, sure it serves a vaguely practical purpose of attracting potential mates, but really, does the sharpness of your cheekbones or the proportion of your head to the rest of your body matter in the end? Cedric the Saxon in Ivanhoe once said of a friend, “Alas! that so dull a spirit be lodged in so goodly a form!” and I agree, one hundred percent. What you want is someone with a personality you find attractive, someone with whom you have a spiritual connection, who-

“So, what do you think, Lucy?” Peter asks me.

“About what?” I frown. I have no idea what they’re talking about now.

“Are there many hot guys at school?” Oh. So the same thing. Okay.

I get all prepped to give a speech about how I couldn’t care less about how good looking someone is or isn’t and how I try not to notice that kind of thing about people, and I end up just saying “maybe a few, I guess” and thinking of Walter.

Peter and Tessa leave within a few minutes of each other and close to 10 minutes later, my dad calls me to say he’s on his way home from work and is outside the house at this very second. I rejoice at the prospect of a ride home and collect my belongings in a rush. The heat wave hasn’t passed, so I long ago shed my jacket. Regina, who is always cold, is wearing a sweater and jeans. I think she’s part lizard. She needs excessive heat to keep her blood flowing.

Once I’m upstairs, bag, jacket, books, and pencil in hand, I realize that I left my calculator down stairs. I maneuver the narrow stairs as quickly as I can without falling and pop back into the room.

Val is sitting up now and Moby Dick is lying beside her. Her arms got tired, just as I suspected. My calculator is under Regina’s sweater. I nod approvingly at her. “So you got warm after all. I knew you would. No one can survive this heat in wool.”

“It’s actually mostly cotton,” Val corrects automatically. She knows more about Regina’s clothing than Regina does.

---

“God, I’m gonna get a three out of one hundred and forty-five,” I mutter, fiddling uncomfortably with my pencil.

“No, you’re not,” my table partner sighs.

“I am, and then I’ll have gotten a two on the AP exam and then -”

“Qui était le président des États-Unis pendant la guerre civile?” the teacher spouts at random, test papers still clutched in her arms.

“Abraham Lincoln,” I mutter.

She calls on someone, who says, “Lincoln?” as a question instead of an answer.

“Oui! Extra crédit!” She smiles like a shark faced with a school of small, slow-moving fish.

“See?” my table partner whispers to me. “That’s why you won’t fail. You always know the answers. You just whisper them under your breath before anyone else gets them.”

“That was a U.S. history question. It doesn’t count.”

“Yeah…” He considers for a moment. “But,” he says suddenly, “You had to translate that in your head. So it’s still French. It’s comprehension,” he finishes triumphantly.

I frown at him. He’s kind of cute in a plaid and cargo shorts kind of way. “I see your point. But still. I’ll fail. I panic during tests.”

“Is that your strategy, Lucy?” he asks, half-smiling. “Expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised every time you surpass your own expectations? Don’t you think you should give yourself some credit? Have a little faith in yourself!” He pats my arm kindly and then there’s a test paper on my desk and I think to myself, Alright, have a little faith. Sure. I can do that.

oOo

I have always been greatly disappointed by real life chemistry class. In movies, it’s all test tubes and chemicals and explosions and goggles and lab aprons. But apparently, movies are not real life (who knew?) and there have been no explosive chemicals. All year.

Our final lab includes neutralizing an unidentified liquid given to us by the teacher in little, sealed vials. Dutifully, my lap partner and I set to adding chemicals one at a time, drop by drop, watching the pH indicator sheet get progressively more brownish, which I figure isn’t a good sign.

About 45 minutes into our methodical dribbling of various substances (which includes a dust bunny and some of my own hair), we discover that we are now working with explosive chemicals. Well, they’re explosive if you mix them with each other in the correct amounts in a small beaker.

Our test tube explodes with a tinkling of glass and a burst of flame, making me supremely grateful for the uncomfortable goggles which are surely leaving red indentation lines on my forehead.

My lab partner blinks at me and I shrug.

The upside of our entire experiment being ruined is that we get attached to other groups and mine includes Tessa, who, aside from being my friend, happens to be very good at science.

oOo

The door opens to the hallway after my math final and I stumble out of the classroom in a daze, trying to decide if I simplified far enough or if I remembered to calculate the angular speed or not. My head is reeling when I turn the corner and run smack into something - someone’s tall and rather firm chest.

I teeter and am mid-arm-windmilling-motion when two hands steady me, one on my upper arm, the other on my waist. I look up, already prepping my apology and taking a breath that sounds vaguely like “wowimsosorryohmygod” when I realize that I’m looking into those startlingly green eyes. This guy is everywhere.

“No, it’s my fault,” he says mildly, setting me back upright. He grins at me crookedly and I find myself thinking that if Tessa’s Possible Boyfriend Material (Jason? Jackson? Jack?) has really nice eyes, then Walter must have - Oh wow okay, now he’s noticed me staring. Well this is awkward.

“Um,” I say, really intelligently.

“So are you coming to Band practice today?” He seems so hopeful, like a puppy. Why he cares if I’m there or not, I don’t know, but gosh darn it, if he doesn’t actually look like he wants me to say yes.

So, of course, I do.

“Oh good. Isaac won’t be there, but I was hoping you would be.”

I have no idea what to say to this.

“Five o’clock at James’s house, you remember where that is?”

“Uh, I guess so? I think I can find it.”

“Great!” He gives my arm a friendly pat and disappears into the crowd.

oOo

The side door to the garage is open, though the door on the front is shut, I assume to keep the neighbors happy and avoid disturbing the peace. I edge around a prickly-looking push sticking out from the neighbor’s side yard and knock on the frame of the door. I’m two minutes early and only Hugo and Walter are there. With a smile, Hugo waves me inside and says, “Everyone else should be getting here soon. James will be late because he always is.” “Isn’t this his house, though?” I ask, eyeing the interior of the garage and the stacks of crates marked in neat print, “JAMES” and “TOYS” or “CLOTHES” or “BOOKS” or, in slightly messier handwriting, “CRAP.”

“Well, yes,” Hugo replies seriously, pushing his glasses up his nose in a very professional manner. “He underestimates the time it takes him to get from the 2nd floor to the first floor,” he explains.

Lewis sidles in exactly on time, trombone case in hand a folder under his arm. Fred saunters through the door three minutes later, wearing red-and-white striped cut-off shorts and another white tank top. At this point, I’m pretty sure he just owns a few pairs of shorts and a lot of the same shirt.

When James finally stumbles in through the door to the stairs, it’s 5:15 and the rest of the band is set up and already a little way into Bohemian Rhapsody. I’m almost in tears due to the fact that none of them have the vocal range of Freddie Mercury. James just rolls his eyes and flops down behind the drum set and gives the cymbals a lazy tap.

“Fashionably late, as usual,” Fred drawls at him, earning a bark-like laugh from James and a hair flick.

“I suggest we play-” Hugo begins.

“I think you’re good with just the Queen,” James smirks, propping his stocking feet up on a stack of “JAMES - LEGOS.” “It seems like it’s going very well. Don’t you think so, Lucy?” He winks at me under his bangs.

“Oh yeah.” I nod seriously. “Totally. You guys sound great.”

It looks like Hugo isn’t completely sure whether to believe me or not, and Lewis looks impassive, but Walter grins and warbles, “Galileo!” in a fantastic imitation of the chipmunks from that dumb movie about the chipmunk boyband and Jason Lee. I clap - for the chipmunk voice and certainly not because he’s turning an adorable shade of red.

After a few more minutes of this, the Band falls into anarchy. It sounds to me, speaking as someone who could maybe tell Tchaikovsky from Leonard Cohen, like Hugo is playing a clarinet solo and Lewis is just doing scales, while James bangs around on the drums at random. Fred stares blankly into the distance, fingers dancing across the keys. Walter, though, weaves around the shoes and instrument cases in the middle of the floor and asks over the noise, “Want something to drink?”

“Sure,” I say, and though I don’t think he can possibly have heard me over the incredibly loud, sustained notes coming from Lewis’s trombone, he nods. Obviously, he’s better at projecting because I can hear him perfectly well when he shouts, “All we have is Sprite, so I hope that’s okay.”

I just nod my head helplessly.

He sits down heavily on the couch next to me after pressing a chilly can of soda into my hand.

I curiously watch him strum absently on his guitar. It’s too loud in the garage to hear what he’s playing, but I track his fingers as they dance over the strings between chords. I remember thinking a long time ago that one day I’d learn guitar. We’d been to a free concert in the park and Isaac and I had decided we’d grow up to be musicians.

Walter raises his eyebrows and I realize I’ve been staring at his face for a little while now. I set my half-finished can of soda on the box next to me. To my dismay, Walter offers me his guitar.

I’m terrified and I have no idea what to do with a guitar, so, of course, I take it gingerly and just sort of hold it there. He reaches over and turns it so the long wooden part is pointing towards him on my left, opposite of the way he was holding it.

“I’m left-handed,” he explains, leaning over and moving my hand to hover over the round hole in the front of the instrument. “This is the neck,” he tells me, patting the long wooden part. “Put your ring finger here,” he tells me, pointing patiently to one of the spots on the neck, “and your middle finger here and your pinky finger here.” He adjusts my wrist so my fingers will reach and then reaches his right arm all the way across my chest to pick my right hand up by the wrist and use it to strum the strings in a somewhat shaky chord. It sends a tingle of pride and accomplishment through me, though I did about 0.2% of the work.

“Congratulations,” he says in my ear, breath whispering against the skin of my neck. “You just played a G major chord.”

oOo

I’m still experimenting with my one chord ten minutes later when Lewis quietly packs up his trombone and pulls up a box to sit on. He stares at me owlishly, not even pretending to be discreet.

James closes up shop with an impressive clashing of cymbals and sprawls onto a questionable-looking beanbag chair. “So Lucy,” he says, quirking an eyebrow. “Are you and Isaac…”

I pause, mid-strum, and glare. “No,” I say firmly.

“Okay, okay, just checking.” He puts his hands up in surrender, ducking his head and promptly shaking his bangs out of his eyes.

“How long have you known each other?” Hugo asks, packing away his clarinet neatly in its case.

“Uh well, I guess since we were four. We went to pre-school together.”

“How nice,” Hugo says, smiling. Because he’s Hugo, I know he’s not being sarcastic. It’s refreshing. I decide to make an effort to be more sincere.

“You talk like each other,” Walter says to me.

“I think we may be slightly the same person. It's one of the dangers of spending most of your life with someone.”

He hums in consideration, squinting at me. “I don't know if you're the same person-”

“So you’re like, best friends, right?” James interrupts in a drawling tone, taking a long sip of a soda that magically appeared in his hand. The only thing missing is the southern accent.

“Yeah. I mean - yeah, we are. We just sort of ended up friends, not sure how. And I guess his optimism is good for me. And people like him. Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s right when he says if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have many friends.” Walter turns to look at me and I realize with surprise that I have just said more to these boys I hardly know than I have to anyone in my other group of friends... Maybe fewer words, but far more content.

oOo

“Hey dad? Do we have a guitar? Anywhere? Like in the basement or something? Maybe the attic?” I ask, as casually as I can.

“Well, I think I might have one in the attic. Let’s check.” The great thing about my dad, I think as he las down the newspaper, is that he doesn’t ask questions. “Why do you want it?”

Right, well scratch that. “Well I um just thought it would be kind of fun. To learn how to play. And stuff.” My answer isn’t cutting it. “After going to Isaac’s band practice, I thought it would be nice to play an instrument. Since I can’t. And um. Yeah.”

He’s already poking around for the stepladder in the hall closet, so I shut up before I put my foot in my mouth. (Well, put it further in than it already is.)

I think this guitar must be about twice old as I am. “I used to play before I met your mom,” my dad tells me vaguely. I can’t tell whether that means it hasn’t been played since before he met my mom or not.

It’s grievously out of tune. He has to teach me how to tune it, which proves harder than I anticipated. I still remember my G major chord though. He laughs at me when I tell him that’s the only chord I know.

“Here,” he says, sitting down next to me on my bed. “This is C major.”

He teaches me five new chords. My fingers itch to practice them, my chest swelling with pride. I could compose a song, write an album, go on tours... I guess I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself.

“You can get your band to teach you some more,” my dad says, hitting my shoulder gently.

I decide to ignore that.

oOo

My mom flops into a chair. She manages to get one shoe off but loses her will power at the second and just sits there, leaning back.

“Long day?” my dad asks, poking his head out of the kitchen. I live for the days he’s off work. It means he cooks dinner and that means he orders pizza.

“Very,” she sighs, pulling her severe lawyer’s bun out of its clip. “So Lucinda,” she says, turning to me where I stand in the doorway. “Finals are almost over.”

“So they are.”

“What do you have tomorrow?”

“Uh, history?”

“Oh.” I know that oh. That’s the Lucy, you seem to have a C in history oh.

“Yup.” It’s useless to hope she won’t press it, so I wait around until she says, “Have you studied enough?” and looks at me expectantly.

“Oh yeah,” I tell her, “Totally.”

She doesn’t look convinced and opens her mouth, but my dad dances through the living room, singing, “Pizza’s here!” and grinning like a maniac.

My parents spend dinner discussing Boring Lawyer Things, so I run through the causes of the Civil War because there’s bound to be a question about that on the test tomorrow. When my hour of freedom arrives, I escape, not quickly enough, however, to avoid the “Oh, Lucinda, sweetheart, how do you think Math went?” question.

“Oh, okay, I guess, not too badly,” I say carefully, walking to the front window and peering out.

“I told you, you should have studied more, Lucinda, I said-”

“Someone is blocking the driveway again!” I note.

From the kitchen, I hear, “ARE YOU SERIOUS? I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THOSE PEOPLE!” and then a flurry of action while she kicks off her other shoe and finds herself a pen and paper and scribbles out a very angry note to stick on the windshield.

“Once,” my dad tells me, proudly, “There was a drug deal happening out there and your mother stormed right down the driveway and told them to move their car because it was blocking the driveway.” My mother blushes and says something that is essentially “aw shucks” before stalking down the driveway barefoot and still in her work clothes to the silver SUV and sticking a piece of paper (undoubtedly quoting state law and probably the driving manual) under the windshield wiper.

My phone rings, Surfin’ Safari blaring through the house as she closes the door behind her She gives me a No Lucinda, you need to study look when I say, “Oh, hey Isaac.” I ignore her. It’s just history. A half hour phone call won’t be the difference between life and death. Hopefully.

“So Lou, have you decided about Walter yet?”

“Decided what about him?”

“If he’s a Jacob or not.”

“Uh well, I don’t exactly know. Yet.”

“Come on, you’ve known him how long now?”

“I’ve known him all of nine days. And in that time, I have actually encountered him five times.”

“Three.”

“Five, and why are you counting the number of times I’ve encountered him?”

“It’s for science, you’re counting too, and what have the fourth and fifth times been? You met him at the door, then when I introduced you, then at Band practice on Tuesday.”

“And today in school and at practice.”

“You were at practice?”

“Yeah, and you weren’t. He asked me if I’d come.”

“When did he ask you? What is this madness? Why are you two seeing each other behind my back?”

“Isaac! We’re not seeing each other anywhere! We go to the same school, we can’t help bumping into each other sometimes, in this case, literally.”

“Please do not tell me you had a cliche running around a corner into each other scene, Lucy, please.”

“It may have happened somewhat like that, yes.”

“Oh, Lou.”

“He also taught me a chord on the guitar.”

I think I can actually hear the face he’s making.

“God. I’m sorry, Mr. ‘That’s so unoriginal,’ quoth the hipster. I just walked around a corner and sort of bumped into him and then we talked a bit. And he was really nice. And he invited me to the Band practice. Which you weren’t at.”

“Well-”

“At which you were not, sorry.”

“Lou, stop it. And as I was going to say, well, don’t you dare steal my friends.”

“You don’t have a monopoly on their friendship. We are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we may be mutually inclusive. My friends got you in the deal. Of course, then you bailed on our lunch table, so…”

There is a loud gust of air which I assume is him sighing. Either that or it’s a whale expelling water from its blowhole. “Well, I brought it upon myself. You’re such a curmudgeon, Lou, you’d never make friends if it weren’t for me.”

“Hey!” I protest. “I made my Group of Friends on my own!”

“No, you were adopted by Peter and then he initiated you into your Group of Friends. It really had nothing to do with your own personal efforts, Lou.”

“Well, I did do some work with Peter. I made an effort.”

“Somewhat.”

“Rude.”

“Huh. Anyway, how was practice? “They sounded fine I guess. James kept coming in early.”

“No, I mean, how did you like it? How did you like them? That kind of how was it.”

“Oh. Well why didn’t you say so? You have to elaborate, Isaac, if you want-”

“What I want is for you to answer my question.”

“Fine. It was fun. They were nice. Happy?”

“Not particularly. You need to elaborate, Lucy, if you want-”

“You suck. They’re fun to talk to and they’re good conversationalists. I mean, except Lewis, obviously. He’s nice, just not a good conversationalist. They are very hospitable. They offered me soda. Um, they…” The truth is, I really have no idea what to say about them. “I mean, they’re weird and they’re all huge dorks, but you know that, and it makes them interesting. I guess. They’re all different in weird ways and the great things is, they’re all kind of comfortable with it-”

“Now who’s psychoanalyzing, huh?”

“Oh ha ha, anyway, they’re all comfortable with themselves, except Walter, really.”

“What? He’s totally comfortable!”

“No he’s not. He’s obviously insecure about something.”

“He’s the most well-adjusted human being on the planet.”

“No, that’s you, Isaac. He’s not, like, a total lunatic, but he’s not as simple as you think he is. I think you’ve incorrectly analyzed him.”

“I do not incorrectly analyze, Lucy,” he snaps. “Uh yeah, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You keep telling yourself that. I have names and dates to review. See you tomorrow.”

He hangs up without saying goodbye.

---

The Civil War does not factor into the test as much as I had hoped.

“There was way too much Continental Congress,” Isaac complains to me as we exit that accursed classroom for the last time, ever.

“Mmhmm,” I agree, preoccupied with the textbook, notebook, folder, and stack of returned work I clutch in my arms.

“Oh, look! It’s Walter!” In an undertone, he adds, “That makes six” and elbows me in the ribs. I jab him back and try to look even busier with my history papers.

“Hey,” Walter greets us, falling into step beside me. “Need any help with those papers?”

“Oh, no, I’ve got it,” I mutter as I drop a few papers.

“I got it,” he says smoothly, bending to scrape them together off the floor. “Good job,” he tells me, nodding at the 40/40 marked on the top of one of the papers.

I blush furiously and mentally smack myself over the head. Stop it, Lucy. “Thanks.”

“Congratulations!” I hear from behind me, as an arm slithers around Isaac’s neck and James swings into view. “On surviving the last day of school!” He lets out an inhuman whoop and dances away. 20 feet down the hall, he claps Lewis on the back where he stands cleaning out his locker. Lewis barely reacts.

I turn to Walter suddenly and ask, “Why doesn’t Lewis ever talk?”

He looks a little surprised. “Uh, I don’t know. I guess he’s just not very social. Why?”

“I just wonder, I mean, there’s a difference between being quiet and literally never saying a word. Have you ever heard him talk?”

“Oh wow. I don’t actually know.”

“He must talk sometimes. He must have to, like, answer questions in class sometimes. And order things at restaurants. And answer the phone. He has to talk, sometime,” I conclude, frowning at Lewis, who is now shutting his locker. I turn back to Walter. “He does have to, right?”

“Yeah, and it looks like he might be talking right now,” Walter answers, pointing.

I whirl around and, sure enough, Lewis is talking to someone. From here, I can’t hear what he’s saying, but his mouth is moving and he’s making hand gestures to the person standing next to him. And that person is Peter. I blink in surprise, wondering if I’m imagining things.

“Am I dreaming, or is Lewis, the solitary, taciturn Lone Ranger, actually engaged in conversation with Peter, the most social and talkative person in the entire world?” Isaac stage whispers.

“If you’re dreaming, then so am I,” Walter whispers back.

“Well, speaking of dreaming��” I yawn. “I’m going home so I can take a nap. It’s been a long day. Actually, it’s been a long year. Bye.”

Isaac ignores me, still staring at Lewis, but Walter returns my wave with a small smile.

“Happy beginning of summer,” he tells me.

“You too.”

“I hope I’ll see you at Band practice over the summer.”

Oh, well, in that case… “I’m sure you will.” Isaac will drag me, but perhaps it will be less dragging than bringing.

#chapters #this is actually incredibly scary

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