Appropriate that it’s a Tuesday. I like Tuesdays. Elections are held on Tuesdays. Tuesdays can change the world.
I hold my breath. I’m about to click on my handle and bring up my page.
But then Josh’s confusion clears and he realizes he’s looking at the app. Suddenly his face changes. Gone is the awe at my tech skills, and the glint in his eyes from our teasing banter. His whole expression flattens.
“CeCe, you know how I feel about social media.” He puts his donut down and takes a sip of latte as if to wash away the bad taste I’ve suddenly put in his mouth.
I’d forgotten for a minute there that sometimes Tuesdays are for disappointment. That in elections there are just as many losers as there are winners. But either way, you get your answer.
“I know,” I say quickly, trying to regroup. “But you need to be on here if you expect anyone to find you.” There’s an edge in my voice that wasn’t there a moment ago.
“I don’t even know how to—”
“Which is why,” I interject, “I’ll post your updates for you. I’ll be your one-woman social media team.” I click on the draft of the post I started yesterday but haven’t uploaded yet. It’s the video I took that day at the plaza. I’ve captioned it: New city, same #goals. And I’ve tagged a Brahms fan group I found that has a ton of followers. “What do you think?”
He looks unsure.
“I don’t have to post it,” I say.
“No, that’s not what …” He trails off, then appears to collect his thoughts. “I just … you don’t mind?”
“Do I mind posting about how awesome you are on your feed?” I’m baffled. “Josh, this is where I thrive.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I’ve asked too much of you already.”
“Hello, that makes no sense. You haven’t asked me to do anything. I asked you if I could, remember? For my birthday gift?”
He rakes his hands through his hair, making it messier. “You’re one of a kind, CeCe.”
My legs turn to jelly at that. Good thing I’m sitting down. “Look who’s talking.”
Josh goofily pops the donut chunk into his mouth.
“Anyway, your password is GabbyMarty305, in case you ever need to log in. Three-oh-five is the Miami area code, right?”
His mouth quirks up at one corner and he nods.
I click POST and the video goes up. If the Brahms fan group watches and reposts, Josh’ll start collecting followers within minutes.
I close my laptop. “Do you have anything to do for the rest of the day?” I ask Josh.
“Nope. Dad got out of work early today to pick up Gabby so I could spend the afternoon with you.”
“Oh.” My cheeks heat in realization. “Oh, Josh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think about Gabby when I asked you to hang out. Your dad really left work early? For me?”
He places his hand on my knee. “CeCe, it’s your birthday. He was happy to do it. My family loves you.”
What I don’t say is: I love them too. Even though it’s the truth. “That’s really nice,” I say instead.
“So what do you feel like doing? I’m at your disposal.” He does a cute little bow, like he’s a valet on Downton Abbey.
When I was a kid I used to love my birthday. More than Christmas or the trip to Disney (before it went bad) or summer vacations. Mom would make a cake or cupcakes or pie in the morning, and she and Dad would sing the happy birthday song for me at breakfast. Then, after school, Mom and I would go to the mall, and I’d get to pick out something impractical—platform sneakers or too-heavy earrings or fingerless gloves. The things I always wanted but my parents couldn’t afford to buy very often.
Last year, for my sweet sixteen, Silvie threw a lunchtime surprise party for me at school—I walked into the cafeteria and was greeted by cheers and confetti and a candle stuck in the middle of my veggie burger. Even the hairnetted lunchroom staff joined in. We livestreamed the whole thing; it was pretty epic.
Today, though, I just want to be low-key. Famous Birthdays featured me on their homepage this morning, so I spent most of the day fielding happy birthday messages from followers, which was really fun, but a little overwhelming.
Josh is still waiting for an answer. “Honestly?” I say, leaning over to rest my head on his shoulder.
“Always.”
“I kind of want to go to Trader Joe’s and buy a bunch of junk food and then go to your house and listen to you play for a while. Ooh, and then maybe we can watch the news and shout at the anchors and throw popcorn at the screen?” I peek up at him. “But if you’d rather do something more exciting, that’s good too.”
Josh is staring at me, his expression unreadable.
“What?”
He blinks a few times, then wraps his arms around me in an embrace so powerful it literally lifts me off the ground. “I can’t believe I went seventeen years without knowing you,” he whispers in my ear.
* * *
I’ve never had more fun grocery shopping in my life. We try the free samples, and Josh shows me how to tell if a mango is ripe (which is apparently something all Floridians just know). I introduce him to cinnamon bun spread, which is my favorite thing about Trader Joe’s, and we stock up on peanut-butter-filled pretzels and microwavable mac-and-cheese balls and cocoa batons and Thai-lime-and-chili almonds and of course gummy bears.
We can’t seem to physically stay away from each other for very long. Our hands are linked as we cross the parking lot, and before we even get to the car, Josh stops walking and pulls me close for a kiss. Which leads to a full-on make-out session up against a random car, the grocery bags abandoned to the pavement. This boy is addictive. And I love it.
When we do finally get to his house, Marty greets us at the door, an apron around his waist. “Happy birthday, CeCe!” he booms so loudly the whole neighborhood probably hears.
“Thanks,” I say, blushing.
“Hungry?” he asks. “I’m making lasagna.”
“CeCe requested junk food for her birthday dinner.” Josh holds up the Trader Joe’s bags and kicks his shoes off. “We’re going to hang out in my room for a while.”
Marty nods. “Have fun. Keep the door open!”
Josh rolls his eyes, but when we get to his room, he does make sure to keep the door open a crack. If Marty only knew how many afternoons we’ve spent in here together with the door closed.
Josh sets up our junk food picnic on his bedroom floor as I grab the fuzzy green blanket from his bed and wrap it around myself like a cocoon. It’s become something of a routine for me—the first few times I did it, Josh asked if I was cold. But by now he knows that I just like to be cozy.
He’s smiling to himself, big, as he lifts his violin from its open case and begins flipping through the sheet music on his music stand.
“What?” I ask.
“Hmm?” He looks up, all nonchalant.
I scoot forward. “What is that smile?”
“Nothing,” he insists. But it doesn’t take long for him to give in: “All right. I love that you love that blanket. It smells like you now.”
“A good smell, I hope,” I tease.
“A very good smell. I don’t know what all those products you use are, but they’re amazing.”
I laugh at the image of Josh alone in his room smelling the blanket and trying to figure out what each of the scents are. “People pay a lot of money for that stuff, you know. The lotions and makeup and spray shampoo. I wouldn’t use half of it if I didn’t get it for free.”
I don’t realize what I’ve said until he halts the rosining of his bow and his expression wrinkles in confusion. “Why do you get it for free?”
Oops.
I grip the blanket in my fists, frozen, as my brain wars with itself.
TELL HIM. Now’s your chance. Do it.
But if you tell him now, and he doesn’t react well, your birthday will be ruined. And it was starting to shape up as one of the best birthdays ever.
You’re goin
g to have to tell him eventually, CeCe. This can’t go on much longer.
One more day. That’s it.
Okay, fine. But don’t lie.
“Umm,” I say hypercautiously, as if I’m tossing a live grenade from hand to hand. “It’s a long story.”
“I like long stories.”
Of course he does.
Marty sticks his head in the room then, saving me from having to reply. “Wow, that is a lot of junk food.” I spot him eyeing the cocoa batons, so I offer him one. He takes it and devours the whole thing in three seconds.
“Dinner of champions,” I say, holding up a baton of my own and crunching into it.
“Have you ever been to a Reds game, CeCe?” Marty asks.
“Reds?” I repeat. “Like the baseball team?”
Josh quirks his head, apparently also trying to get a hold on the non sequitur.
“That’s the one,” Marty says. “The great American pastime.”
“No,” I admit. I walk Abe past the ballpark all the time but have never actually considered going inside.
Marty reaches into his back pocket and produces two tickets. “One of the doctors gave me these today. They’re for Friday night. I thought you two could go, if you wanted. Consider it a birthday gift.”
I look at Josh. “Are you a secret baseball fan?” I ask him.
He laughs. “Definitely not.”
“Do you know anything about baseball at all?”
“Nope. You?”
“Nope.”
We read each other’s expressions in silence for a moment, and I know we’re thinking the same thing: It could be fun, going somewhere together neither of us have been before. An #adventure. Kind of like our relationship. I turn back to Marty. “We’ll take them.”
Once Marty’s left, Josh looks back at me.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “What were you saying before? About the free products?”
Sometimes I think Josh is the only guy in the world who truly wants to listen to what women have to say. Usually I love that about him. Usually.
“Can I tell you more about it on Friday?” I ask. I’ll explain everything at the ballpark. No one can be mad while surrounded by nachos and stadium lights, right?
Josh looks confused, and intrigued, but I give him a big, innocent smile and bat my eyelashes at him exaggeratedly, and he relents. “Of course.” And he lifts his violin and starts playing the happy birthday song.
Mom meets me at the door, candle in cupcake, cupcake in hand. It’s funfetti. Her hair is in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she’s changed out of her scrubs into jeans and a flannel shirt.
“Sorry I had to work late,” she says, lighting the candle.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I assure her. “I had a good day.”
“What did you do?” She holds the lit flame out to me.
I close my eyes, and on the hope that the “influencer CeCe” conversation with Josh on Friday goes well, I blow out the candle.
Friday. In three days, Josh will know everything.
“CeCe? You in there?” Mom waves a hand in front of my face.
I blink myself back into the room. “Yep. Sorry. Just spacing out.”
She leans in closer, inspecting my face. “Did you get bitten?” she asks. “Am I going to have a full-fledged zombie daughter on my hands in a couple of days?”
I laugh. Her question reminds me of that time I asked Josh if he was a vampire. Feels like lifetimes ago now.
“I don’t smell any rotting flesh,” I say, looking down at my bare arms. “I think we’re good.”
“Excellent.” Mom nods. “So? Tell me. How did you spend your birthday?” We sit on the couch together and pass the cupcake back and forth until it’s gone. My stomach whines over the newest injection of sugar.
“Josh and I went to Holtman’s and Trader Joe’s, and then hung out at his house. He played me music and we watched MSNBC.”
My phone chimes from my bag with a new text, but I ignore it.
Mom smiles. “Trader Joe’s, huh? If you guys get married, you might have to have the wedding there. It’s kind of your place.”
“Married?” I balk. “Jeez, Mom. Settle down.” She sounds like Marty.
She laughs. “I’m kidding, CeCe. You should wait until you’re at least thirty to get married.”
“If I decide I want to get married at all,” I remind her.
“Of course.” She nods. But for all her progressiveness, Mom’s still old-fashioned in some ways, and I know she hopes to someday get married again. She’d have to start dating first, though.
All this long-term-relationship talk makes me think again about Friday’s impending moment of truth. If Josh doesn’t react the way I want him to, it’s very possible I’ll be single again sooner than any of us think. My stomach takes another little swoop.
“What?” Mom asks. She must have noticed my expression change.
I sigh. “There’s one thing I haven’t told you.”
Her eyebrows raise.
“Remember that time when Josh was here talking about his family, and I kind of … rushed him out the door?”
“Yeah. That was weird.”
I nod. “Well, it was because you said something about posting his story online for all my followers.”
“And?”
“And … he doesn’t know about my followers.” I bury my face in a pillow to hide from Mom.
I can’t see her expression, but after a moment she asks slowly, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he knows I’m on the app, obviously. And that I … like the internet.”
“You ‘like the internet’?” Mom repeats, as if double-checking she got that right.
“You know, like, I made his website for him and stuff.”
“Uh-huh …”
I lift my head and blink against the spots as my eyes readjust to the light of the room. “He doesn’t know I’m internet famous, or that Silvie is internet famous, or about the Pride speech, or that I get paid to promote products, or … anything.”
It sounds really bad when I say it out loud like that.
Mom stands up. “Cecilia.” She’s aghast. “How could you not tell him that? Why wouldn’t you tell him that?”
My phone chimes again. And again. I need to check my texts.
“You don’t understand!” I say to Mom, in full defense mode now. “He thinks all that stuff is stupid and problematic and offensive. He told me so pretty much the first day we met. I didn’t want him to dismiss me so quickly, so I kept quiet. And then it turned out we had so many other things to talk about, and it was … nice, getting to know each other without the app in the way.”
Mom considers this, and her body language goes a little less rigid. Just a little. “Okay, I get why you didn’t mention it at first. But you can’t build a relationship on lies, CeCe. Keeping things about yourself secret from the other person is a one-way ticket to a breakup.” I know she’s thinking about Dad, and all the ways he changed over time.
“I know that, okay?” I’m shaking my head. “I’m going to tell him this week. But … what if he decides he doesn’t like me anymore? That I’m not the person he thought I was or something?” My heart squeezes at the thought.
Mom sighs. Sits back down and holds on to my socked foot. “First of all, I’m not into any of that app stuff either, but you and I manage to get along just fine. Who’s to say the same thing won’t happen with Josh? But you have to give him the chance.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
“That said,” Mom says, “if he does overturn a table and run down the street screaming bloody murder, or whatever it is you think he’s going to do, then … did you really want to be with him anyway?”
I roll my eyes. “Well, when you put it like that …”
“Exactly.” Mom crosses her arms, smug.
But not exactly exactly. Because, yeah, if Josh reacted that badly, then obviously he’s not the right person for me. But it would s
till be a rejection, based solely on who I am. And I’m not sure I can withstand another blow like that.
This is not one of Mom’s two-choice situations, though. I have to tell him. I should have told him from the start, and I didn’t, and now it’s way more complicated, and I have no one to blame but myself. And maybe Silvie, a little. Just because it feels good to blame her for something.
“Luckily, there will be no tables to overturn. We’re going to a Reds game.”
Mom’s entire being jolts. “A what?” She reaches over and touches the back of her hand to my forehead.
“What are you doing?” I duck away.
“Checking your temperature. Surely ‘a sudden interest in sports’ has to be a symptom of some rare illness I’ve never heard of.”
“Ha ha, very funny. The tickets were free, and you know I can’t turn down free stuff.”
My phone chimes again.
“Who is that?” I grumble, getting up off the couch and grabbing my bag.
My phone is lit up like a warning flare. A loooong string of app notifications is lined up one by one, and at the top there are seven texts from Mackenzie.
Girl. OMG.
Are you dating a BOY?
WHO IS THIS BOY???
Why didn’t you tell me????
Where are you???
You’re not on your phone, I guess. Where ARE YOU? Why no phoney-phone???
CeCe, check the app. You’re blowing up.
I freeze. What the …?
I’m going to throw up.
Someone with the handle @CutiePumpkinPie1998 saw me and Josh making out in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. They recognized me and they took about a zillion pictures. And they posted them all to the app.
The photos are good quality. You can tell it’s me. You can’t see Josh’s full face, but it’s clear he’s a guy. You can also totally tell we’re super into each other. The person must have been only a few yards from us, but Josh and I were too preoccupied to notice.
I should have been more careful. But the parking lot felt private, and I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.
But who would do this? I kind of recall seeing @CutiePumpkinPie1998’s handle in my comments before, but not in any way that made me take real notice.
Follow Your Arrow Page 15