Love & Other Natural Disasters

by Misa Sugiura

  “Seriously, it’s fine,” Willow says easily. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t totally okay with it.” Max doesn’t argue, but I can tell from the way he’s searching her face that he doesn’t believe her. And now I’m afraid that Stephen and Lance don’t, either.

  “Well! You’ve clearly got a lot of clothes to try on, so don’t let us keep you!” says Lance in a voice so bright it makes me want to squint. “Up the stairs you go!”

  “I’m so sorry about that,” I say as I help Willow lay all her clothes out on the bed.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure Max is afraid you’ll get hurt because I’m still obsessed with Arden. And he’d be right, if you and me were for real. Because it will be awkward. Ugh, it better be awkward, anyway.”

  “Right. Of course.” Ouch. If Max was trying to protect me, it’s already too late.

  It takes a minute for me to recover—and despite Willow turning on some music, another couple of minutes to relax, because bras and bodies. But Willow says she’s good with what she has on, so it’s just me. Whew! That sure simplifies things! I’m definitely not disappointed that we won’t both be shirtless in front of each other. Not at all.

  “Here, try this top with the jeans you have on,” she says, and holds out a cream-colored boatneck T-shirt.

  I take the shirt, turn my back, inhale, and undress. I pick up her shirt and sneak a peek at her; she’s absorbed in her phone. Oh well. I didn’t really think I’d catch her casting discreet but longing looks in my direction, did I? But then I slip the soft cotton shirt over my head and realize that I am now putting something next to my skin, that has been next to her skin—next to her stomach, her back, her boobs . . . well, her bra, anyway—and suddenly I feel a lot better.

  “Mmm, that’s not quite right,” says Willow when she sees the top on me. “How about this”—she hands me a pair of black skinny jeans—“and . . . this.”

  An oversized plaid shirt?

  “I know, I know.” She grins when she sees the look on my face. “But plaid is super in right now.”

  But that outfit doesn’t quite work, either, and we try another outfit, and another, and we’re on Outfit #5 when Willow gestures frantically at me to turn down the music.

  “Are you sure that Dela said lunch at one o’clock at the Ice Cream Bar?” she asks, frowning at her phone.

  “Yeah . . . ?”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Well, yeah.” Of course I’m sure.

  “She didn’t say, for example, bike riding at eleven o’clock in Golden Gate Park?”

  “No, definitely not.” That’s an oddly specific hypothetical. “Why?” I ask, nervous.

  Willow drops all pretense of being calm and thrusts her phone at me. “Because, Nozomi, they’re on their way to Golden Gate Park right now. Like right this very instant! They lied to us!”

  I look at Arden’s story—a photo of herself smiling next to a bicycle, her hair wrapped in a silky lemon-yellow scarf, with the caption: Headed to Golden Gate Park to meet my girl! I can almost hear the music in the background: Dun-dun-dunnnn! [Extreme closeup of Nozomi’s and Willow’s stunned faces!]

  I feel a spike of resentment at Arden. Leave it to her to ruin my morning alone with Willow. Just when things were really starting to click!

  Scrambling to de-escalate the situation, I say, “It was probably a last-minute decision.”

  “Well, they should have told us, then, shouldn’t they!”

  “But . . . but that’s okay, though, right? They haven’t canceled lunch. Let’s just concentrate on that. Speaking of which, what do you think of this shirt with these—”

  “And bicycling in Golden Gate Park! I cannot believe her.” Her nostrils flare and her eyebrows lower menacingly.

  “Um. What’s wrong with bicycling in Golden Gate Park?” I quaver. Too late, I realize my mistake; Willow goes off, and so does my opportunity to keep things under control.

  “It’s what I did with her for our first date,” she fumes. “How dare she do this to me! Don’t I mean anything to her? Is nothing from our relationship special to her?” Suddenly, her lip trembles and her eyes well up as her fury threatens to give way to anguish. “I don’t understand why she’s doing this,” she says, her voice thick with impending tears. Then after a pause, “No. No. I will not cry. I won’t. I won’t,” between clenched teeth. She blinks ferociously and grabs a tissue and dabs carefully at her eyes, taking long, measured breaths until finally, she lets out one big whoosh and sort of shimmies her shoulders, as if to dislodge any remaining heartache.

  “Okay. All better.” She glances at my face, bites her lip, and says, “We don’t have time for foundation or concealer—wait, no, maybe this stuff, really quick. It’s practically transparent, so we don’t have to worry if the shade isn’t a perfect match.” She hands me a tube and instructs me to put a tiny bit on. I take it with a slight sense of foreboding. There’s an urgency in her voice that I don’t like.

  As I spread the goop on my face, she surveys the outfit I have on currently—denim capris (mine) and an embroidered top (hers)—and pronounces, “That’s actually perfect. Okay, let’s call a Lyft. We have to move fast if we want to catch them.”

  “Catch them?” I was afraid of this.

  “Nozomi, we have to do everything in our power to prevent them from getting closer.”

  “But . . . but won’t it look like we’re stalking them?”

  This appears to give her some pause, but she waves it off. “They deserve it. You know she posted that story for me to see. Does she think I’m going to just sit back and let it happen?”

  “But what if she’s just trolling you? You don’t have to—”

  “Please?” Willow takes my hands in hers. “Come on, it’ll be fun. It’ll be an adventure. A fun, spontaneous adventure. It’ll be a bonding experience!”

  Well, when she puts it that way . . . I imagine us on a madcap ride through the park, searching for Arden and Willow. Maybe we’ll spot them in the Botanical Garden and hide behind bushes as we follow them around, giggling as we place ourselves in an impossible-to-miss spot so they can see us kissing each other. And then just like in the movies, the fake kiss will become infused with real desire, and we’ll find ourselves suddenly bashful and shy . . .

  My hands are still in Willow’s, and she’s looking at me with bright-eyed anticipation. “All right,” I say.

  “Oh, yay!” She gives me a quick hug, then pulls back and beams at me. “Thank you. You’re such a good friend.”

  “It’s no big deal,” I say. “You’re right. It’ll be fun.”

  “No, really, I mean it.” Willow takes my hands in hers again. “Thank you.”

  All this holding of hands . . . I can feel myself starting to blush. So I let go and cover my face in mock exasperation to hide it.

  “Hey. Look at me.” I feel Willows hands again, and as she gently pulls my hands away from my face, I open my eyes to see her looking right into them, her gaze steady and searching. Whoa. I smile shyly, heart pounding, a little confused but ready for anything.

  “I wish we had time to do your brows and lashes,” she says finally. “But we should really call that Lyft.”

  19

  ARDEN POSTED A LIVE VIDEO OF HERSELF AND Dela at the Golden Gate Park carousel a few minutes ago, so it seems like as good a place as any to start. But when we arrive, panting on our rented bikes, they are not among the riders who empty into the plaza when the carousel comes to a stop.

  “Dammit,” Willow mutters. She checks Arden’s stories for another clue, but there’s nothing new. “Okay. Okay. Where else?” She gazes into the distance, tapping her fingers on her lips as she thinks, then turns to me with her eyes ablaze. “The Japanese Tea Garden.” We leap onto our bikes and barrel through the plaza, scattering pigeons and small children. We glide downhill and huff and puff uphill, past playing fields, meadows, and thick groves of oak trees and eucalyptus. Willow clears the path ahead of us, bellowing “On
your left!” and “On your right!” at joggers, roller-bladers, and parents with strollers who leap aside and shout at her. I trail in her wake, calling “Sorry! Sorry!” and absorbing a barrage of dirty looks and muttered comments about disrespectful teenagers.

  But there are no bicycles parked in front of the Japanese Tea Garden. “The de Young Museum!” Willow cries, and we ride over. But there’s no sign of Dela and Arden there, either. The next twenty minutes is basically a grim, high-speed bicycle tour of Golden Gate Park where we stop at each attraction just long enough to ascertain that Arden and Dela aren’t there, after which Willow makes a prediction about where Arden and Dela will really be, and we leave. We stop by “The polo field!” “The bison paddock!” and “The beach chalet!” until finally she makes a prediction that sticks: “The boathouse!”

  Willow spots Arden’s bike locked to a rack in front of the boathouse almost immediately. As we lock up, she seethes. “I cannot believe they came here, of all places. This is where we had our first kiss!” The seething continues for a minute, but then something dreadful seems to occur to her and she turns to me, her eyes desolate. “What if I’m wrong? What if they really are meant for each other?” The furious energy that propelled her through the park seems to drain out of her, and she droops against me, resting her head against mine. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  This is it. This is my moment. Tentatively, so as not to disturb the scales that are starting to tip in my favor, I put an arm around her and give her a gentle half hug. “Maybe it would be healthier to go somewhere else,” I say. “We can focus on having a good time, like you said. I used to love the observation tower at the de Young. Or maybe we could just chill on the grass somewhere.”

  “Maybe,” Willow says quietly. “This is really nice right now, actually. Just sitting here with you. It’s helping me calm down.”

  AAAAAHHHHHHH!

  “Oh, good,” I say, and lean back against her just the tiniest bit and try hard to exude a calming aura. I concentrate on soaking up every drop of this delicious moment so I can take it out and savor it later—the sun on my face, her back against my arm, just like a real couple. Just like I dreamed of at the beginning of the summer. Soon I’m adrift on a fantasy in which Willow and I have our first kiss—we’ll be laughing about trying to outsmart Arden and Dela, and she’ll admit that she doesn’t feel the same way about Arden as she used to. And I’ll say, “Oh?” And she’ll say, “It’s because of you,” and I’ll say, “Well, I’m glad I could help,” and she’ll say, “No. I mean I’m in love with you,” and then we’ll lock eyes and lean toward each other, and—

  “Okay, I’ve made up my mind. I know I’m being an obsessive asshole, but I have to see this through. I have to show her that she’s making a mistake.”

  No! No-no-no-no-no-no-no! “Are you sure?” I ask. “It won’t upset you too much?”

  But Willow’s face has taken on a steely-eyed determination. “No, I’m ready for this. She wants to bring her new girlfriend here? Fine. I’ve brought mine. Let’s see how she feels about that.” She slips her arm around my back and gives me a quick squeeze and a peck on the cheek, and I know I’m pathetic, but I have to restrain myself from putting my hand to the spot where her lips touched my skin.

  I figured our rowing expedition would be fun and romantic, at least—I had visions of a lazy little float around an idyllic little pond, the kind of leisurely, refined activity you might expect to see in a movie featuring girls in gauzy white dresses and straw bonnets, shot through a soft-focus lens.

  I was wrong.

  We’re led to our boat by an outdoorsy-looking white guy in a forest-green T-shirt and khaki shorts named Chip or Tyler or Huck or something, who gallantly holds our hands as we teeter aboard. The boat is docked pointy-side in, so all I have to do, Chip-Tyler-Huck tells me as I sit down with my back to the dock, is turn it around and we’ll be on our way. Easy-peasy. I smile at Willow and take an oar in each hand. She smiles back expectantly, and my heart flutters. This isn’t so bad after all.

  A few minutes later, I’m sweating and cursing and struggling to maneuver the boat backward away from the dock without whapping anyone else with an oar. (To be fair, the other boater should have known better than to get within oar-whapping distance. I’m sure that’s a violation of safety rules.)

  “Get those oars in a little deeper and apply even pressure throughout the stroke!” Chip-Tyler-Huck calls cheerfully as I flail about.

  What does he think I’ve been trying to do?

  Willow, in the meantime, is helpless with laughter, which does nothing to quell my mounting frustration and humiliation. At least she’s having a good time. She’ll associate me with mirth and merriment, in addition to utter incompetence.

  Finally, we get far enough out on the pond for me to work the oars and not have to worry about causing a waterfront catastrophe. I pause to wipe my brow and catch my breath—rowing is shockingly hard work—and look around. According to Chip-Tyler-Huck’s orientation and safety speech, this wooded island behind me takes up most of the lake, and the thing to do is to row around it. It’s something I think I might enjoy quite a lot, actually, if it didn’t involve so much rowing.

  Willow begs me to hurry. “They can’t be far ahead,” she says, craning around me to scan the stretch of water in front of her. I’m about to raise a protest when she muses, “I think what we should do is get within sight of them and when they look over, you could lean forward and kiss me. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

  You could lean forward and kiss me . . . Without warning, I feel the phantom sensation of her waist against my forearm, her hip under my hand, her head on my shoulder. It makes me woozy with desire.

  It is more than okay with me.

  Don’t get me wrong. Rowing is still a nightmare. I’m still hot and sweaty and worried about ruining Willow’s nice top and I think I might be developing a blister on my right hand. But I discover that it’s not quite as stressful when we’re alone and Chip-Tyler-Huck isn’t shouting helpful tips at me every few seconds. We glide past little beachy landings and under a stone bridge, and we’re just coming up on a Chinese pavilion when Willow says, “I see them!”

  Thank god.

  “Okay, just a little farther—I think they’ve stopped to look at the waterfall.”

  “If we get between them and the waterfall, they can’t miss us,” I say. Plus, it looks so nice and shady by the shore, and I won’t have to turn the boat ninety degrees or execute some other ridiculous maneuver to make sure they get a good angle on our kiss. I forget my aching arms and burgeoning blisters, and redouble my efforts. Every stroke is bringing me closer to feeling her lean into me again, feeling her lips on mine.

  It’s a romantic little spot with the (clearly fake, but still very pretty) waterfall on one side and the lake stretching out on the other. An older white couple are tossing crumbs to a pair of mallard ducks right in front of us, and the ducks are bobbing and quacking and wagging their little ducky tails with charming enthusiasm. A flock of Canada geese floats serenely on the other side of a jetty behind us, and a few of them have drifted over and are watching the ducks and their antics with detached amusement.

  “Has Arden seen us?” I ask.

  “Definitely,” says Willow. “Are you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.” My heart starts racing. Our first (fake) kiss. This is always the moment in the movies where the pretend couple comes face-to-face with their undeniable attraction to each other—the before-and-after moment—the turning point. I have to make it good. No, not just good. I have to make it real.

  I grip the sides of the boat for balance and it rocks gently as I shift my weight forward, slowly, slowly. Willow leans toward me, smiling, meeting my gaze; we’re so close now, I can see myself reflected in her eyes, and I pause for one tantalizing, terrifying, exhilarating moment—

  And then the geese attack.

  It turns out that the mildly amused geese we saw earlier were actuall
y the advance guard for a vicious band of goose marauders who have decided as one to crash the duck party, and what’s worse, seem to have used some sort of secret goose communication system to alert every goose in the surrounding area to the plan. They close in on us with astonishing speed, in obscenely large numbers, and our tranquil, romantic little cove becomes a hurricane of flapping, honking, hissing monsters, churning up the air and water all around us and ruining everything.

  “Get us out of here!” Willow keeps shrieking.

  “I’m trying!” I shriek back, but the boat has turned itself pointy-side-toward-shore because why not, and there are geese literally everywhere, which makes putting the oars in the water an exercise both in animal cruelty and self-endangerment. There’s nothing to do but keep screaming, really, and pray we don’t get pooped on.

  I don’t even know how we manage to escape, but I do know that once we’re clear of the goose juggernaut, I hate geese, I hate rowing, and I hate the smudge of goose poop on my butt from where I sat on it on my bench. I also hate Dela, who I bet thinks the goose attack was the funniest thing she’s ever seen, and Arden, who will probably pretend she was worried about us.

  “I’m so sorry,” Willow says. “This was a bad idea. I never should have suggested it.” She hands me a wipe from her bag, and I do my best to wipe my pants off while she cleans the bench for me.

  “It’s okay,” I lie, and she gives me such a penetrating stare that I amend, “It was okay until the goose blitzkrieg.”

  “The goosekrieg,” says Willow.

  We look at each other and smile. The smile turns into a chuckle, which blossoms into wild, hysterical laughter, and soon we’re collapsed against each other and giggling uncontrollably.

  When the laughter fades, the sensation of Willow’s arms on my knees, and our heads on each other’s shoulders, sharpens. I feel her back rise and fall as she sighs contentedly.

  I should kiss her. Now would be the perfect moment. Dela and Arden are still watching, I’ll say. Should we . . . ?