by Misa Sugiura
Willow must have the same thought, because she lifts her head slightly and says, “Dammit. They’re gone. That would have been the perfect moment for a kiss.”
Dammit.
Willow insists on rowing the rest of the way around the lake, to make up for the goosekrieg incident, but I really don’t want to start the hunt again.
“They’ve already seen us together having fun. Wasn’t that the point of coming here?”
“They saw us getting attacked by geese and screaming our heads off.”
“They also saw us laughing about it. I’m sure they did. We can spin the whole thing as a hilarious romantic adventure,” I argue. “We don’t even have to go to lunch. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of other chances to be girlfriends in front of them.” And more time to be together without them now.
Willow remains unswayed. “Maybe, but I think the more time we spend in front of them, the better. It’s kind of the point of the plan, isn’t it?” Well. Her plan, anyway. Reluctantly, I agree.
But it only takes a minute of hard rowing for her to decide maybe we can wait till lunch to catch up with them. “Now I’m really sorry I made you row,” she says, examining her palm for blisters. “Why didn’t you say something? You have to let me make it up to you somehow.”
What I want to say is, You could make it up to me by kissing me. What I actually say is, “Don’t worry about it. It was fun,” even though that’s a lie. The truth is, I’m not really sure why I didn’t say anything. Because your enormous crush has made you into a doormat, I can hear Max saying. Because sometimes you have to make sacrifices in the service of your dreams, I argue back in my head. Besides, it wasn’t a total loss. We’re having this moment right now, aren’t we? And we got to laugh together, which everyone knows is important. And we had an almost-kiss moment—and Willow knew it. Okay, so maybe she didn’t feel the same way about it that I did, but she obviously sensed the potential for romance. That has to mean something.
20
WILLOW AND I TURN THE CORNER ONTO COLE Street just in time to see Arden and Dela go into the Ice Cream Bar, and Willow practically rubs her hands together with glee.
“I am so ready for this, Nozomi. So ready.”
I, on the other hand, am not. I feel exceedingly unready, if truth be told. In the time between the goose attack and now, we’ve gone over an exhaustive list of conversation topics and hypothetical situations, plus when and how much we should kiss, hug, and hold hands. But the fact is, a lot of it is going to have to be improvised. And I am not to be trusted when it comes to improvising.
As we near the shop, Willow slows down. “Riiiiight here.” She smiles softly at me, turning me slightly away from the plate-glass window, and says, “Okay, kiss me.”
“Right now?” I croak.
“Well, yeah,” says Willow, her gaze still fixed lovingly on me. She strokes my cheek and murmurs, “This is part of the plan, remember? We want Arden to think we’re kissing even though we don’t know they’re watching.”
We did talk about this, and her touch should be making me wild with desire, but . . . it doesn’t feel right. It’s probably goosekrieg PTSD. Or maybe . . . maybe it’s because I was so close to kissing her for real before, I want our first kiss to feel more like that. I don’t want to perform it. I want to want it.
“Are you sure they’re watching? How do you know?”
“Trust me. I know Arden. She’ll have been waiting for us to show up, and she’ll be watching,” Willow says with authority.
“Okay,” I say uncertainly.
“Okay. Here we go. Kiss me, baby.” She gives me a playful smile, and I take a deep breath and go for it.
Our lips meet. It’s a bit tentative. Of course it is. It doesn’t feel natural, the way it did back at the lake. I wish we’d gotten to kiss at the lake.
“I’m not sure that was enough,” she says against my mouth. “Should we do another one?” How can I say no? Maybe I can make this one better. I kiss her again, a little more forcefully this time, and she responds by sliding one hand over my shoulder and one hand around my back and pulling our hips together, and my arms tighten around her, and I take it back about this being a weird situation, it’s pretty good, amazing, even, and as her fingers move up to the nape of my neck, I have just enough time to hope that she’s starting to lose herself in this kiss the way I am before she pulls away from me, laughing. “Wow,” she says. “That was unexpectedly hot.”
I would prefer it if she weren’t so surprised, but let’s focus on the positive: she thought it was so hot, she had to shut it down! Maybe she’ll go home and remember that kiss, the warmth and pressure of her lips on mine—no, wait, I mean my lips on hers—and wonder what it would be like to kiss me again. Maybe she’ll smile fondly and think to herself, “I think I might be chasing the wrong girl.”
Maybe she’d even be open to another kiss right now.
I clear my throat and ask her, “Another one?” very casually, as if I’m trying to decide how many cupcakes we should put on our shared dessert plate. Please let her want another cupcake.
“Nah, I think that’s enough. We don’t want to overdo it.”
Right. Of course. There’s an audience to play to.
“Okay. Let’s make Arden regret the biggest mistake she ever made.” Willow takes my hand and we push through the door.
Arden and Dela are waiting just inside, and one look at Arden’s face is enough to let me know that she did witness that kiss, and that she thought Willow was into it. Which is encouraging.
“Heyyy!” Willow gets her greeting out first, and her voice is at its light and melodic best.
Not to be outdone, Arden answers with an equally enthusiastic, “Heyyyy!”
Dela doesn’t say anything, but she meets my eye and grimaces, which is oddly comforting. At least someone besides me is feeling out of their depth here.
We head toward the counter, and Arden says innocently, “Were you at Stow Lake earlier? I could have sworn we saw you. Near Huntington Falls, I think.”
But Willow wasn’t kidding outside when she said she was ready. “Oh my god, really? We did go to Stow Lake! We had this wild experience right by Huntington Falls. Did you see two girls being attacked by a flock of killer geese? Because that would have been us.”
“We did see you, then! Are you okay? You looked like you were really freaking out. We almost tried to rescue you, but—”
“We were totally freaking out! Screaming our brains out—I’m surprised you didn’t hear us, in fact. It was hilarious! Right, Nozomi?”
“Right!” I say. “So, so funny! We laughed so hard!” I laugh a little, for good measure. Arden raises her eyebrows and Dela narrows her eyes. Oof.
“Right? Don’t recommend . . . but highly recommend,” finishes Willow with a smile. “Anyway, I’m starving! Let’s order.”
We walk to the register and look at the menu. I go first and ask for a grilled cheese, and I’m about to order a scoop of butterscotch swirl in a waffle cone when Arden jumps in and orders a banana split for dessert for the four of us, saying to Willow, “We used to get this all the time, remember?”
Willow is unfazed. She says, “I think Nozomi and I will get something to share. What looks good to you, Nozomi?”
“Um.” I was really looking forward to that butterscotch swirl, but I feel like I should support Willow in front of Arden. I take another look at the menu, which lists everything from brownie sundaes and homemade ice cream sandwiches to candy-cap-mushroom-flavored soda and tobacco-infused syrup. I end up suggesting a butterscotch milk shake, which at least has butterscotch in it.
“Good choice,” says Willow. “I’ve never had that one. Arden doesn’t like butterscotch, so we never got it.”
“And we can get a root beer float,” Arden chimes in almost instantly, looking at Willow even though she’s ostensibly talking to Dela, “since Willow hates root beer so much and I’ve never had a chance to try it.”
This is getting very stres
sful. I hazard a glance at Dela, who meets it with raised eyebrows, just for a moment, before staring intently at the other flavors in the freezer case in front of us. I wonder if she wanted something besides a root beer float.
We finish our order without further incident, thank goodness—another grilled cheese for Dela, a black bean burger for Willow, and a BLT for Arden—and grab four spots at the counter at the back of the shop.
Almost immediately, Arden starts again. “So. I’m just gonna be honest and say out loud what’s going on.”
My heart leaps into my throat. She knows. She’s figured out the plan and she’s going to call us on it.
“I have to admit I was kind of surprised that you found someone so soon after we broke up,” she says, addressing Willow as if I’m not even here.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to finish: In fact, I’m so surprised, I don’t believe you two are for real. There’s no way you would ever slum it with a girl like Nozomi. I know I wouldn’t. And neither would Dela.
Okay, that might be my insecurities talking.
But Arden doesn’t say any of that. She doesn’t say anything at all. That was her big announcement? That she didn’t expect Willow to find someone new so quickly?
“Well, you know how it is, I’m sure,” says Willow airily and with more than a little venom. “You meet someone new and you just get swept away, don’t you? You just forget everything that’s ever happened in the past.”
Arden’s smile turns wooden.
“It escalated very quickly,” I add hastily. “Unexpectedly. Right, Willow?”
“Very quickly,” Willow agrees with a sly smile in my direction, and her voice is so loaded with meaning that I shiver involuntarily, as if what she’s suggesting has actually happened.
“It was pretty much the same with us, too,” Arden says almost belligerently. “Totally swept away.”
Dela looks at her in—surprise, maybe?—and opens her mouth, but Arden starts again before she has a chance to say anything.
“I mean, we worked together for a whole semester before anything happened, so I guess I can’t say it was sudden. But I feel more and more . . . smitten these days,” she says. The hard smile is gone, and she’s lavishing an adoring gaze on Dela. Dela smiles back warily.
I can’t stand the mounting tension. I have to change the subject. “Boy, I can’t wait for that grilled cheese sandwich,” I say brightly. “I love grilled cheese. Yum. Yummy-yum-yum.” Oh my god. What am I saying.
Arden gives me a long, thoughtful stare, and I begin to worry again that she’s wondering how in the world Willow could ever fall for me, for the kind of girl who says yummy-yum-yum. I’m beginning to wonder myself.
“Hm. Well. Anyway, I’m glad we can all be friends. It makes everything so much easier, doesn’t it?” she says. “No hard feelings, or whatever.”
“Mm-hmm,” says Willow with a tight smile. “No hard feelings at all.”
Silence has fallen again, thick and heavy and swarming with the hard feelings whose existence Willow and Arden have just denied. I don’t know how much longer I can take this fake-friendly lunch we’re having—it’s not at all like the hilarious larks that you see in movies. I start squinching and unsquinching my toes inside my shoes, just to have something to focus on besides the overpowering sense of doom that’s threatening to crush the air out of my lungs.
Squinch, unsquinch.
Squinch, unsquinch.
Squinch—
“You know what?” Arden says. “I’m so sorry, but I think Willow and I have some issues we need to sort out. Do you mind if we take a moment?”
Dela and I look at Arden, stunned.
But Willow is right with her. She says frostily, “What if I don’t want to talk to you?”
Arden stares her down. “Do you not?”
“Well, I—no. No, I do not.”
“Maybe you should, though,” says Dela. Now we all gape at her.
“What?” says Willow.
“I said maybe you should talk to Arden. It makes more sense than sitting here and pretending everything’s fine when it’s clearly not.”
What is WRONG with you? I want to shout at Dela. It does NOT make sense. I think maybe Willow should NOT talk to Arden. Doesn’t Dela understand that she’s opening the door to the demise of both our relationships? (Well, okay, her actual relationship with Arden and my possible future relationship with Willow?)
Willow opens her mouth, then shuts it, then opens it again, hesitates, and says, “Well. Fine. I have nothing to say, but if that’s really what you want, Arden, I guess I can cooperate.” She turns to me. “Nozomi, is that okay with you?”
I don’t feel like I can say, “No, it’s not okay with me at all! This was not part of the plan!” without looking like I’ve completely lost the plot, so I nod and say, “Sure! Whatever you need to do.”
“Okay, then.” Willow stands up and raises her eyebrows at Arden, who does the same. Then she leans over and kisses me, which takes me so much by surprise that I don’t even have the presence of mind to enjoy it, let alone kiss her back properly. Arden does the same to Dela—only their kiss is longer and hotter, and as it goes on, I can tell Willow is considering kissing me again, which—I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope she doesn’t. Thankfully, Dela pushes Arden away and says, “Go,” and Willow and Arden leave the restaurant and stalk off together with their arms crossed and their mouths drawn into angry frowns.
Then it’s just me and Dela alone at the counter, drumming our fingers, squinching our toes, and looking anywhere but at each other.
21
THE FOOD FINALLY ARRIVES, AND FOR A SECOND I wonder if we should wait for Arden and Willow, but Dela tucks right into her grilled cheese, and it looks so good—crispy and brown and buttery on the outside, golden and melty and gooey on the inside—that I give in and start on my own.
“Mmmm, this is heaven,” I murmur, but I’m drowned out by Dela, who says, “What an unmitigated disaster.”
“No, that’s not true,” I say, only half joking. “This grilled cheese is delicious.”
Dela grins. “Point taken. With the exception of this delicious grilled cheese, lunch has been an unmitigated disaster.”
I can’t help smiling back. I never thought I’d feel solidarity with Dela, but here we are.
She goes on. “Seriously, what were you thinking, asking to do a double date with me and Arden? I don’t know why Arden went with it, to be honest. It’s obvious that Willow’s not over her. And I know she’s not over Willow. I know she’s jealous of you.”
Arden’s jealous of me?
Arden . . . is jealous . . . of me?
That must mean she thinks I have a chance with Willow.
I have a chance with Willow!
Oh, whoops. Dela is still talking. “. . . and I’m not gonna judge her just because she has feelings. But I am not okay with the two of them jerking us around and using us as trophies or weapons or whatever. I don’t know about you and Willow, but I know Arden kissed me goodbye like that for show.”
“Hm.” The disappointment I felt when Willow decided that Arden had seen enough kissing comes rushing back. Dela’s been feeling this, too, I realize.
Though if things work out the way I want, neither of us will have to feel this way.
The root beer float and the butterscotch shake come up at the counter, and we fetch them. Dela eyes the float distrustfully before taking a tiny sip and making a face.
“I thought you liked root beer,” I say. My butterscotch shake is uhhh-mazing, by the way.
“I never said that,” she says. “Arden ordered it without asking me, remember? As a passive-aggressive fuck-you to Willow.”
“Oh. Right.” I regard my shake, which now looks like Willow’s passive-aggressive fuck-you to Arden, though that’s not going to stop me from slurping it right up. “You want some?” I offer it to Dela, who wrinkles her nose.
“I don’t like butterscotch, either.”
“I like grilled cheese.”
“Dessert, I mean,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“I like lemon meringue pie.”
“Lemon meringue pie?” I can’t help laughing.
“What?” she says, looking offended. “What’s wrong with lemon meringue pie?”
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s just—well, it’s such a bright and sunny dessert. And fluffy. And sweet. And only a tiny bit tart. It doesn’t match your personality.”
“And you can say this because you know me so well.”
“I know you well enough.”
“Oh, really.” She leans back and crosses her arms. “What’s my personality, then?”
“Dark. Sour.” I leave out “pretentious.” I don’t need to be mean. “You should like . . . dark chocolate cake with sour cherry filling. Except you don’t like chocolate, so maybe something like sour cherry–infused espresso.”
She rolls her eyes and grins. “So, bitter, too.”
I take a big sip of my milk shake. “I don’t hear you denying it.”
“Ha-ha.” She takes her phone out and types. “Sour cherry-infused espresso isn’t even a thing!”
“I didn’t say it was.”
Another minute goes by, and without warning, Dela says, “You know what, I never should have agreed to this mess. I knew it would end badly, but I let Arden convince me it would be okay. Who knows why. Anyway, I think I’m gonna bail.”
She gets a to-go box and paper cup for Arden’s food and root beer float and asks the server to hold them for Arden. Then she nods at me. “See ya,” she says, and leaves without waiting for me to reply.
I don’t want to go. What if Willow and Arden come back, realize that Dela and I have left, and decide in our absence that the two of them should get back together? I wish Willow had agreed to cancel lunch and we’d stayed on the lake. It would have been so nice, just the two of us.
Eventually, though, I give up and ask for a to-go bag and a paper cup. I draw a big heart on the bag for Willow, but I take the milk shake with me. Dela might not like root beer, but I love butterscotch. And anyway, Willow owes me for all that rowing.