Lemon Lavender Is Not Fine

by Elle Pallmore

  “All the time.”

  “I’m serious. Even thinking of him is a waste of brain cells, right?”

  She fans her T-shirt over her stomach. “Nothing wrong with thinking, but be careful how much, Lem. I know you, and you have a tendency to overanalyze. That means a lot coming from me, who gets off on analysis.”

  I fall on my back again. She’s so right.

  Coach Keets whistles a long blast, telling us we can hustle back to the locker room. Isabel stands and offers a hand to peel me off the field. As I heave up to my feet, Chelsea bumps shoulders with me, purposely knocking me off balance. She turns around and flashes a sinister smile.

  “Why don’t you bring an oxygen tank with you next time, Lemon? You were snorting harder than a horse at the Kentucky Derby.”

  She laughs, and her cluster of field-hockey leeches cackle with her. While Isabel and I exchange confused looks, she whips her braid around, leading her pack back to the school.

  “What was that about?” Isabel asks after they’re gone. “Since when does Chelsea care about you?”

  With a blaze of awareness, I recall yesterday. The hallway. Graham. My locker. I close my eyes. Why did I think I could remain invisible when he’s anywhere near me?

  BY A SHEER MIRACLE, I manage to grind my way through the rest of my classes without any additional Chelsea smackdowns. When the final bell rings, I sprint to my locker, dump some books inside, and barrel out to the parking lot.

  A relieved sigh escapes when I get in my car—other than lunch with Isabel, my drive home is the best part of my day. With the windows down, the sun shining, and music cranked up, I’m in my own private utopia of rolling Pennsylvania hills for fifteen minutes. But even when I drag it out by slowing for yellow lights and coasting under the speed limit, usually getting flipped off by some Westmoore assclown in the process, it’s still too short of a ride to fully decompress. Today, it definitely won’t be enough.

  Instead of turning for home, I make a left and head toward East Branch, the next town over. Bad days mean I reward myself with a cola-flavored slushee from the Gas & Sip, which is tucked safely in the middle of the East Branch school district. I never see anyone from Westmoore, which ratchets up its awesome factor about a billion.

  By the time I get there, my mood has dramatically improved. I’m practically punch-drunk as I grab a red-striped paper cup from the metal tube and plunk it under the machine. I’m so entranced by watching sixteen ounces of frozen, sugar-glistened slushee waterfall down that I don’t notice Graham appear next to me. He touches my shoulder as I ease off the lever, and when our eyes meet, the shock causes me to bobble my cup so that a good amount spills out.

  My first thought is that Graham is touching me; second, that I’ve slopped slushee onto both of our shoes.

  “Sorry!” I shout. I snatch a bunch of napkins from the dispenser and shove them at his chest.

  He laughs, taking them. “It’s my fault. I guess I shouldn’t surprise you while you’re operating heavy machinery.”

  He licks his hand (with his tongue) where slushee splashed him, then bends down to swipe a glob off his shoe before doing the same to mine. I was wrong about yesterday being the worst day. This is the worst of the worst days. Seriously, why does the floor never open into an escape hatch?

  “We keep having these awkward situations,” he says. “I’m starting to think I’m bad luck.”

  While I try—and fail—to think of a witty response, Graham snaps a lid on my cup and hands me a straw. He gestures to the machine and says, “I never did understand the fascination with these.”

  I have definite opinions on slushees, and it finally gives me a topic to talk about with some confidence. “This is the best invention to ever come out of a convenience store. The name alone is awesome. Slushee. Sounds exactly like what it is.”

  He tips his head. “Slushee. Slush-ee. I never realized how that’s incredibly weird to say.” He tries it again, exaggerating even more, and I cover my mouth with my hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I say between breaths, “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that you’re right. It is weird to say.”

  He narrows his eyes, staring. “I finally made you smile.”

  And just like that, he sticks a pin into the moment, popping it. I realize we’re here, actually talking, and I panic. I’m instantly hot under my jacket, and my breath stutters like I’m running today’s dreaded mile all over again. It doesn't help that his jeans are low on his hips, so the band of his black boxer briefs shows when he reaches for his own slushee cup. I look away. Then look back—because even a nun would admire the view.

  “Um, right,” I say. I drop my head so he can’t see my blush from the long stare at his underwear. All the reasons he couldn’t possibly feel anything more than pity for me shifts to the forefront of my thoughts. The list runs like movie credits before my eyes when he asks, “Which flavor?”

  I tap the cola lever-pull and he fills his cup. We move to the counter to pay, and once outside, he follows me to my car. It’s madness. I hypothesize that somehow, the slushee machine has sucked me into an alternate reality. Or maybe I actually did die from running during gym, and the afterlife is this fantasy. Either way, the likelihood of it being my actual existence is slim to none.

  “What do you think?” I ask after he takes a good draw off his straw.

  He drops his head back and waits for the brain freeze to dissipate. “It’s cold,” he replies. “But I have to admit, there’s something about it that makes me want more.”

  He leans against my car, and I casually scan the parking lot to see if there’s anyone who might recognize us. The sun is so bright I can’t make out faces, only silhouettes.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” I say. “Nobody from Westmoore usually comes here.”

  “Just lucky I ran into you, I guess.” He slides his free hand into his jacket pocket. “I was out exploring, since this is all new to me. And good thing I did, or else I’d never know about the wonders of the Gas & Sip. That’s two favors you’ve done for me in two days. I’m in your debt.”

  He looks at me, unreserved, and pushes his messy curls away from his eyes with his forearm. I hold his gaze for a second, only to fumble for something, anything—a word, a thought, an action. It ends up being my phone. When the screen lights up, I see I’ve missed three calls from Dad.

  “Am I holding you up?” he asks.

  “Not really. Well, sort of. I should go.”

  I think about home and its depressing dark rooms, but also the safe walls that are a shield from gorgeous boys who inexplicably show up out of nowhere and present you with compliments.

  “So quickly, after you’ve convinced me of the amazingness of slushees?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “In that case, I propose a tradition. On Wednesdays, we meet up at the slushee machine after school. Maybe next time we can go wild and try a new flavor.”

  He says this like it’s perfectly normal. Like this sort of thing happens all the time. People meet up, they talk, they have random weekly dates. But here’s the thing: I’ve never been on a date, never been asked out before. In fact, this is the first time a guy has spoken to me for more than borrowing a pen or requesting that I move out of the way. I’ve gotten so good at flying under the radar that I’ve gone off the radar completely, becoming non-existent to the opposite sex. But for some reason, Graham sees me.

  He shakes his slushee cup, waiting.

  Say no, say no, say no.

  “Um, we could do that.”

  His smile reaches the corners of his eyes. “Excellent. I will see you here next Wednesday. I mean, I’ll see you before then, but definitely next Wednesday.”

  “Okay,” I reply.

  He walks away then, waving, and I can’t help but watch him get in his car and pull away. I shiver, and it is not because of the slushee.

  seven

  OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, Graham appears at my locker randomly to say hello, which throws m
e out of balance almost as much as our slushee meetings.

  Which have happened.

  Twice.

  Both times, we leaned against one of our cars and talked until I reluctantly said I have to leave. This was usually after I had a mixture of phone calls and texts from Dad, making sure I was home. When he inevitably grilled me later, I promptly lied and made excuses about the library or getting tutored, which reduced his freak-out to only ten minutes. I just hoped he wouldn’t notice he only had a difficult time reaching me on Wednesdays.

  Each time, I told myself I’d leave after a few minutes, but I really liked talking to Graham and learning the lesser-known facts about him. He was born in Scotland but only lived there for a short time before moving to the Chicago suburbs—hence the slight accent instead of a full-on brogue. The scar winding over his eye is from when he was ten and tried to skateboard down the roof of his house. His tattoo is Latin and says serva me servabo te, which translates to “save me and I will save you.” His parents grounded him for two months when they found out about it, and he spent that time in his room, trying to teach himself to play guitar from YouTube. With each story, the obvious parts about him faded to the background, and he became more than the bits and pieces of gossip from Lady Westmoore.

  At my turn to talk, I stuck to safe topics—homework, school, music, movies. As soon as he asked questions that hovered too close to home, like about my family, I pushed along to something else. I hated how it felt like lying, but Meg, my mother—they were things I didn’t want him to see, so like Dad, I hid them.

  Even though I didn’t reveal anything of substance, there were moments I felt Graham was looking right into me. I’d be standing next to him, chattering on about something random, and when I caught his eye, it stopped me cold. The fringe of his eyelashes, his physical presence a foot away, how he quietly listened. I’d become so self-conscious that I’d trail off, as if my words were helium-filled balloons. I ended up saying “sorry” repeatedly.

  “Don’t be. I really want to hear what you have to say,” was his reply.

  I believed him, but I couldn’t understand why.

  “Maybe he really likes you,” Isabel says when I finally confess to Slushee Wednesdays a few days after the latest one. This, of course, is after she’d alternated between asking me if I was serious and smacking my arm with her AP chemistry book. “He asked you to meet up. That’s legit, sort of dating.”

  “No. No, it’s not. I mean, it’s not. Right?”

  She rolls her eyes and finally tugs the lid off her salad container. We’ve been talking so much that lunch is almost over, and neither of us has eaten.

  “You realize you’ve blown my probability equation out of the water. I hate it when math fails me, but I’m happy for you, Lem. Really.”

  “So I have your approval?”

  “The best-friend seal of approval is in effect.”

  With my confession finally out, I jump to the other issue. “You can’t tell anyone. If it gets around—I don’t even want to think about that.”

  She drops her salad fork with a clank. “Please, like I’d do that. LW has eyes everywhere, though. You’d better watch yourself.”

  “I know,” I reply. “I’ve been scanning the site every night, expecting to see some crazy video about me, but there’s been nothing. The last thing I want is to be under Madeline’s loafer.”

  “Right, but he talks to a lot of girls, so there isn’t much of a story if she did find out.”

  Even though Isabel doesn't mean it to be hurtful, I still feel the knife twist a little. It sends my brain churning, which is usually a bad thing.

  “So you think I’m just one of many? Like maybe he has Taco Tuesdays and Pizza Thursdays, and I’m the dumbass who thinks I’m the only one seeing him?”

  Isabel considers this as she takes another bite of salad. I wait for her to chew, and it’s killing me.

  “It’s not like he said it was a secret, yeah?”

  I shake my head.

  “Does it seem flirtatious to you?”

  I frown. “Maybe. But maybe not.” I cover my face with my hands. “I have no idea what it is. We talk, then I go home. He’s never asked me to go anywhere else, but he comes to my locker a lot between classes, so he isn’t afraid to be seen around me.”

  “Maybe he’s just really friendly. Or maybe he wants to make out with your face.”

  “Not helping.” I stare at my untouched lunch. I went to Isabel for her expert observational skills, but now I feel worse.

  “You should ask him to the Halloween dance,” she suggests.

  I start to laugh, then realize she’s completely serious.

  “As if I could ever do that. It’s hard enough trying to put sentences together around him. Dancing? Eating? Those are like death traps. And can you imagine Papa Lavender answering the door and realizing I had a date? Nuclear fallout.”

  “Even if you talked to him about it first?”

  “Please. He’d make me wear some sort of bungee cord secured around my waist, and that’s if, if, he even let me out of the house. Never gonna happen.”

  A crease forms between her brows. “Okaaay, so strike one on that idea.”

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the hope for my future. I really do. But there’s no way I could ask him.”

  She shrugs and strips away the rind of an orange. “It’s just that I might be going to the dance.”

  My ears perk up, full attention. “Now who’s the one withholding information?”

  “It’s just a rumor I heard, and it probably isn’t even true. But, supposedly, Mike Dettmer wants to ask me.”

  “Wow. Mike Dettmer. I can definitely see that. You two and your unspoken science-y rivalry. Years of hate turned into steamy sexual chemistry. Get it . . . chemistry?”

  Isabel shrugs again and won’t look at me. “I guess I could go. You know, if he asks.”

  “You should,” I say. I arrange her orange rind into the shape of a flower. “You’d have an actual date. That’s much better than sitting at home like me, wondering if you’ve even been on one or not.”

  She allows herself to smile. “It could be fun, even if it is Mike Dettmer.”

  “When is he supposed to ask?”

  She exhales, trying to contain her excitement. “Today, maybe.”

  “Well, I expect a text as soon as it happens.”

  “Whatever,” she scoffs. “You’ve been hiding your secret slushee lovefests from me for two weeks!”

  She laughs, but I can’t tell if she’s still hurt or not. I decide to take it seriously, because I do feel bad about not telling her. I’ve gotten so used to hiding everything that it’s beginning to feel more natural than sharing.

  “I should’ve told you. I think I was afraid to hear how it sounded, like I’d realize that I was making a bigger deal of it than it really was, and then I’d feel dumb.”

  “You’re not dumb,” she says. “You could never be dumb.”

  I want to hug her right then, and I promise myself that I’ll focus extra attention on her love life since mine seems to be more of my imagination than anything real.

  ON MY THIRD SLUSHEE Wednesday with Graham, the weather turns cold and windy. It’s a week from Halloween, but it might as well be December. After a minute outside in the misting rain, we decide to huddle into his car, which turns out to be an entirely different experience. He’s right next to me, inches away, in an enclosed space. I’m not freaking out about it at all.

  “This rain is miserable,” I say. My great contributions to the conversation are often weather-related. I shiver in my jacket and clench my cold slushee cup between my knees, since my hands have turned a pale, bluish white.

  “This is nothing,” he replies. “In Chicago, this is a nice day.”

  I shift in my seat, causing it to squeak loudly. Rain-saturated clouds cast a gray shadow over us, making it almost dark. I look around, trying to get a sense of him from his car—the him that I don’t already know. I
pluck a Lego ninja from the cupholder and move its arms up and down.

  “Do you miss Chicago?” I ask. “I know it hasn’t been that long since you moved.”

  He doesn’t seem sad when he answers, “Sometimes.”

  “Did you have a lot of friends?” I hesitate. “Or a girlfriend?”

  He adjusts the vents so the heat flows upward as I put the ninja man back where I found him.

  “I guess I had a lot of friends. I always had someone to hang out with, at least. I still text some of them, but it’s weird because I don’t feel any great connection anymore. It’s like, even after a few weeks, they fade, and you fade, and eventually there’s only a handful of memories instead of a lot of them.” He runs his palm over the frayed steering wheel. “It’s even that way with my ex-girlfriend. I guess it kind of makes me a jerk, but I don’t really miss her that much. I’d rather be . . . here. Living in the present moment instead of thinking about the past.”

  His eyes slide to mine. My face prickles, and I concentrate on yanking my sleeves over my hands, one by one. I’m still not used to this—him and me, meeting up in semi-secret. Every time, I tell myself I have to stop, but I never do. I like the idea of getting to know him too much, of being a part of something no one else shares.

  “The thought of a new school and making new friends . . . seems terrifying.”

  “It definitely was on the first day. I was really angry at my parents after they told me we were moving, but it’s been better. My dad is less stressed with his new job, which makes all of us a little calmer. Besides, I kind of like it here. You can’t ever tell them I said that, though.” He punches the bottom of his slushee cup with his straw to break up the ice. “I feel like all I do is talk about myself. You’re probably counting the seconds until I shut up.”

  “No way,” I reply. “Besides, I’m not very interesting.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second. How can a girl named Lemon Lavender not have all sorts of insane stories to tell?”