The Vow

by Jessica Martinez

  “Shoot,” I say. “Then I guess I’m just really bad at this. Exactly like I told you I am.”

  His laughter is deep and natural, not loud but melodic. I want to be closer to it. I wait by the post and watch the setting sun warm his features as he concentrates on the ball. He hits it, and it rolls through the first wicket.

  “Cheater,” I mumble.

  He taps the side of my calf with his mallet. “I wasn’t the one trying to distract my opponent.”

  “I’m not trying to distract you.”

  “You should not try a little harder then.”

  Distracting. I look away, fighting the shyness suddenly warming me.

  We hit the ball a few more times each. “You weren’t kidding,” he says. My ball is finally through the first thicket; his is a foot from the end post.

  “About my athletic abilities? Nope. I’m not sure why you aren’t giving me the same treatment as Piper got, though.”

  “You want me to let you win?”

  “No. But you could at least let me think I’m catching up.”

  “Sorry,” he says. “I’m not afraid of you like I’m afraid of Piper. I love her, but she’s nuts.” He hits his ball too hard, deliberately missing the post by two feet. “Better?”

  “Much. So you’re painting something blue?” I ask.

  He rests his mallet against his leg and holds his speckled hands out. They look calloused and rough beneath the splatter. “Yeah, I just finished the den. Moving on to the kitchen next. I should be finished with the rooms by next week, then starting outside after that.”

  “At least it’s not too big,” I say, glancing back at the quaint house. It has a separate garage and a weathered fence that borders the entire property.

  “Yeah, but the upkeep is still too much for her,” he says. “That’s why she’s selling it, which is why I’m painting it. I’m hoping to have it ready for her to put up for sale by the end of the summer so she can move into a place where she doesn’t have a lawn to mow or stairs to climb.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” I say.

  “I don’t mind it. I’d rather spend the summer with her than my parents, and she’s been pretty lonely these last few years. Plus I’m getting free room and board in the apartment over the garage, so I’ve got my own space and my own kitchen.”

  “Where do your parents live?”

  “LA.”

  “Huh. You don’t sound like you’re from California.”

  “I’m not. I grew up in Louisville, but my parents moved out West a few years ago. I did my last two years of high school there, then came back the second after I graduated.”

  “But California’s the place everyone wants to escape to.”

  “I wasn’t exactly living in Beverly Hills.”

  “Oh.” I slap a mosquito off my leg.

  “What about you?” he asks.

  “What about me?”

  “Born and raised here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And your family? Any crazy sisters, neglected grandmas? Now you know all about mine.”

  “Oh.” I stare hard at the mallet in my hands. “My family’s small.”

  “Siblings?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Just a mom who used to teach Victorian Lit,” he says, “and a dad who doesn’t like it when you get home too late.”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  He squints at me. I know I sound dumb or aloof, but I don’t want to talk about my family.

  “So, what time is officially too late tonight?”

  I smile and hope it’s dark enough that he doesn’t notice. “Actually tonight they’re out with friends, so they’ll just be texting me every hour.”

  He laughs. I should probably tell him I’m not kidding. Instead I say, “So we can finish our game, at least.”

  “Theoretically.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, no offense, but at this rate I’m not sure your ball is ever going to make it to the post and back.”

  I glare at him as I walk over to my ball, put my bare foot on top of it, roll it toward the next wicket, and push it through. “I actually do much better at this game when I’m playing in the dark.”

  “I can see that.”

  I nudge and roll my ball through the next few wickets with my toes, aware of Reed’s eyes on my bare legs. It’s dark enough now and we’re far enough from the lawn torches that I’m probably just a silhouette.

  A high-pitched laugh floats over, and I glance at the center of the party, where people look like they’re pulsing in the moonlight. The voices are getting louder as the sky darkens and the drinks flow, but it’s the sound of orderly drunkenness. Occasional cackles and hoots are as bad as it gets—a grown-up party, as opposed to the few high school benders Mo and I have made brief appearances at. Nobody half-naked on the couch, nobody puking in the bushes.

  We’re on the edge of the gathering, visibly separate. I can’t see Reed’s grandma anymore. She must’ve gone inside, and Vicky has finished with the gifts and is shouting for Soup to get her more pink lemonade.

  “I’m glad you came,” Reed says. “Aside from the work people, I don’t know many of them.”

  “They seem nice,” I say.

  “They seem about ten years older than us.”

  He has stopped playing entirely and is sitting on a large rock, leaning back on his palms, watching me cheat. It’s too dark to see much more than his eyes, but I can still feel them warming my skin.

  “So, you’re a chef. What do you cook?” I ask.

  “Food.”

  I roll my eyes. “Really? How fascinating.”

  “I’m still reeling from being told butter and lemons are nonessentials.”

  “If I take it back, will you tell me what you like to cook?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. I apologize to butter and lemon lovers everywhere.”

  “I’ll accept your apology on their behalf.”

  “So, answer my question.”

  “I like to cook whatever makes people happy. For my grandma that’s hot browns, cheddar grits, and derby pie. For Soup and Vicky, ribs and chocolate anything. For Piper, mac’n’cheese.”

  “What do you cook at culinary school?”

  “Uh, mostly unpronounceable French sauces.”

  “And what do you cook for people who don’t know what makes them happy?”

  “That’s my specialty. I make them something so good they realize that’s what they’ve been wanting their whole lives. They just never knew it before.”

  “Pretty sure of yourself.”

  “Not really,” he says, giving his glasses a nudge and looking embarrassed. “I just love making food.”

  “Okay, one more question,” I say. “When you cook for yourself, what do you make?”

  He squints and I can feel his eyes evaluating me. “Something different. But I don’t believe in exotic just for the sake of exotic. It has to taste good. Have you ever had Moroccan food?”

  I shake my head. “I’ve had Jordanian food a few times.”

  “Oh, right. Your friend. Moroccan flavors are warm—lots of cumin and cinnamon and turmeric. And you’ve got to sit on the floor and eat it with your hands for the whole experience to be authentic. I’ll make it for you sometime, if you’ll try it.”

  “I’ll try it.”

  He smiles, and I feel warm and weak at the same time.

  “So, what about you?” he asks.

  “What about me?”

  “Are you going away to college this fall or staying here?”

  I turn my mallet upside down and twist it, digging a hole into the grass. I should’ve already told him I’m still in high school. I know he saw my age on my job application, and I let him assume from there. “I actually have one more year of high school.”

  “Oh.”

  “But then I’m going to art school in North Carolina.”

  I wait for him to say mo
re, but he doesn’t, so I just roll the ball back and forth under the arch of my foot. He’s doing it right now, making the assumption people naturally make about a girl who’s a year older than her classmates and headed for art school. Dumb. It is, I think, the same assumption my parents make, though they don’t come right out and say it.

  “So, tell me about your mural again,” he says.

  I bend down and pick up the ball. It’s surprisingly heavy. “What have I already told you?”

  “That it’s an ocean.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Or it will be an ocean, but for now it’s just water and some coral. I work slowly. I want it to be exactly how I want it to be.”

  “And how’s that?” he asks.

  I swallow and stare up at the starlit sky. I’d have an easier time describing how stars are made. Mo suffers through my mural ramblings like they’re physically painful, reminding me regularly that he has no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe that’s why Reed’s curiosity feels so foreign and terrifying. I’m not used to genuine questions about it or having to squeeze my images into words. “Like long sheets of silk parachutes,” I try. I didn’t realize I was talking softly, but I see him lean in so I try to speak louder. My voice falters, though. “Different shades, I mean, but all twisted up together. It’s . . . it’s hard to explain. I’m not good with words.”

  There is just enough silence between us to convince me I’ve made no sense, that he’s picturing some grade-school art project that looks like a SpongeBob backdrop. I shouldn’t have said anything. The idea is still too young. Before my art is done it’s just an eggshell in my open palm, so brittle that the weight of the night air could crush it. I squeeze the yellow croquet ball in my hand. It’s solid, no give at all.

  “Show me,” he says.

  My heartbeat throbs in the tip of each finger. Yes. No. Yes. No. I need just a few seconds to think, but my pulse is pounding reason away and I don’t know what to say. What I should say is no. I haven’t even let Mo see it yet, and the wrong reaction from Reed could make me doubt it, or hate him, or both. But then I imagine Reed in the center with me, feeling the water swirling all around us, and I know what I want. “Now?”

  He glances over to where Soup is poised on a ladder, tying a pink diaper-shaped piñata to a tree. Below him Flora’s holding a Louisville Slugger bat, and some guy in a cowboy hat is blindfolding her. “I don’t think they’ll miss us.”

  “Okay.”

  We don’t bother telling anyone that we’re going. The piñata chaos is loud enough that we don’t have to. I scoop up my sandals, looping my fingers through the straps rather than putting them on, and down the melted piña colada.

  “I’m parked over there,” I say, pointing down the street. My knees feel a little weak, but I look down and lead the way. The grass tickles, and when I feel the cool concrete under my bare feet, I stop to put my sandals on. With each step I feel a little more nervous. Why am I doing this? If he sees my mural and says something stupid, I won’t be able to like him anymore. It would be much safer to just go somewhere and make out.

  “Wait, where’s your truck?” he asks, looking around.

  “Oh. I got a new car.” I point to the Explorer. The car-lot gleam seems suddenly too much, almost garish under the streetlamp light. At least I took off the bow.

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what happened to your old truck?”

  “I think my dad sold it. Do you want to drive?” I ask.

  “Seriously?”

  I shrug. I hold out the keys and he takes them, his fingers brushing over mine. They’re warm and dry, almost rough.

  He opens my door for me and I climb in. Everything looks different from the passenger seat. I run my fingers over the console, open and close the glove box, examine the cup holders in the door. Reed gets in and buckles his seat belt. The muscles in his arm tighten as he turns the key. Mo would kill me if he found out I let someone else drive it before him.

  It’s a short drive, but I keep forgetting that I need to tell Reed which way to turn.

  “Right or left?” he asks as we sit at the stop sign poised to turn onto Ridgewood.

  “Oh, sorry. Left.”

  I can see from half a block away that the house is pitch-black. I should be relieved. Except if they were home, I could just explain to Reed that my parents are insanely strict and make up something about not being allowed to have guys in my room and how he really doesn’t want to meet my parents anyway. That would be it. We’d go back to the party, and the mural would still be all mine.

  But the lights are off, so the dread and the excitement build, filling one cell at a time until I’m brimming with it, about to spill over.

  “Which one?” he asks.

  “The one with the porch swing.” I hear my voice as if it’s someone else’s, forced and high.

  “This is . . . wow.”

  I pinch the skin on the back of my arm to keep myself from squirming. It’s big, but not that big. Not a mansion or anything. Except tonight the moon seems to have leached the cream from the towering stucco, and what’s left is bone-gray and lifeless. It looks like a mausoleum.

  Reed parks. We walk up the driveway together, his hands in his pockets, mine fidgeting with my dress. It’s the sound of our steps on the pavement—the click of my heels beside the slap of his flip-flops—that makes me realize that for the first time I’m alone with Reed. Not work Reed. Just Reed.

  I can still taste the sweetness of piña colada in my mouth, but it doesn’t mask the ache that’s growing in my stomach. How can bliss and nausea both happen at the same time?

  “It doesn’t look like much yet,” I say, gripping the key, leaning my hip into the door for support.

  “What do you mean?” He’s beside me, closer than he’s been before. So close I’m looking up at the gold stubble along his jaw. And I can smell his neck.

  We could still turn around. And what would he say if I told him I wanted to go back to the party? He’d think I was crazy for dragging him out here, but there are worse things than having people think you’re crazy. Losing yourself is worse.

  I twist my wrist and jingle my bracelets, but I can’t remember what they’re warning me against now. Not boys. Not sex. Something worse. Getting walked all over.

  But this is different. I’m choosing this.

  Reed’s staring at me now, like I really am crazy.

  “I’ve only done the water,” I say. “And the water is just the background.”

  “You already said that. But the way you described it before—it didn’t sound like just background.” He pushes his glasses up, and the glare from the streetlamp disappears. His eyes are warm and serious. If I kissed him, we might be able to call it a day. I look at his lips. I’m pretty sure he would kiss me back.

  I slide my key into the door and twist it, and with the clunk of the lock, it’s over. I’m doing it. I push the door open and turn to watch him as we walk in. He glances around the front hall, and I feel how painfully clean it is, how the spaces between things make the house even larger than it looked on the outside.

  The moonlight follows us in, pouring through the sitting room windows, soaking the tall white walls and making them glow. His face is nearly blank, but I see it in the slight widening of his eyes as he looks from chandelier to French doors, from vases to china cabinet. Too much glass. Too much crystal.

  “No offense,” he whispers, “but why are you working for minimum wage?”

  I take off my sandals for the second time this evening to stall. I don’t have an answer that won’t embarrass us both, based on his reaction. “I really love custard?”

  It works. He laughs, and the tension lifts just enough for me to keep going. “My room is upstairs,” I say. I lead him without turning on the foyer lights. He doesn’t need to know that it turns from tomb to morgue when illuminated.

  Up. I’m taking him up. My heart beats a little faster with each step.

  I reach my room at th
e end of the hall, put my hand on the doorknob, and turn to him. He looks too big in this hallway, his shoulders filling up the space between the silver-framed photographs that line the walls. I’ve never noticed his shoulders before. Maybe it was the apron. He comes to a stop close enough that I could reach out and put my palm on his chest. I want to do it so I can both touch him and push him away.

  “You’re nervous,” he says. “Am I doing something to make you nervous?”

  “No. This is just the first time I’ve showed it to someone. And it’s probably not like what you’re expecting. It doesn’t actually look like water. It’s more like . . .” Of course, I can’t find the words, which is why I brought him here in the first place. Words can’t become the colors and curves and rhythms of waves.

  He leans toward me and puts his hand over mine, pulling back on the door so I can’t open it. His neck is only an inch from my lips. He smells fresh but warm, like soap mingled with something indefinable—his heartbeat?

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t want you to show me if you don’t want to.”

  I stare into his eyes. Do I want to? Or am I getting talked into this too? I turn to look at his hand over mine. His grip has relaxed, not pulling anymore, and he’s waiting for me to decide. In or out.

  In.

  I turn the knob and push. Panic spirals inside me. I anchor my hand to the door frame to keep the room from spinning and let my eyes follow Reed to the center, where my bed and dresser have been pushed. I focus on his face. I don’t want to but I have to, because if he doesn’t understand, I’ll see it now, in the way his eyes flit over the four walls I’ve spent weeks painting. And then I won’t be able to just like him because he’s handsome and he smells beautiful and the feel of his skin on mine makes my heart race.

  But his face tells me nothing. He turns a slow circle, then walks to the far wall to where his shoes crinkle the tarp that lines the room. He lifts his hand, and his fingers trace a turquoise current to the corner, then down the length of the next wall as it rises and falls.

  “It looks like it’s moving,” he says, voice low and soft.

  He feels it. I lean into the door frame.

  “How did you do this?” he asks. “I mean, have you seen something like this somewhere?” He stops turning and looks at me.