“I don’t like him. He doesn’t really love her,” Betty says. “He left her, and then he’s stupid enough to get killed.”
“But he left to earn money so they could get married,” I point out.
She shakes her head. “If he really loved her—if she really loved him—would the money have mattered? They could have gotten married without money. All you need is a marriage license and a priest, for Pete’s sake. They’re stupid.”
I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes. Betty is right, after all. “You get hung up on abandonment, don’t you?”
“All the Arlington women are cursed. Men always leave us—my mother, my grandmother, even perfect beautiful Gracie couldn’t escape. You won’t either.” Her expression is grim, but I try not to let it affect me.
“I don’t believe in curses, and my mom and dad are still together.”
She gives me a side-glance. “You’ve never had a boy leave you before?”
I shift in my seat, uncomfortable with the truth. “No.”
She looks surprised. “Really?”
“Really.” I always make sure to leave first, to not get so attached that separating will hurt. Because deep down, getting left behind by someone I care about is the thing I fear most. I’ve always made sure the guys I’m with are completely safe, the kind that wouldn’t break up with me. Maybe I didn’t love them, but I liked them and knew I’d be the one to leave if I wanted.
Dylan isn’t like that—he’s a risk. He doesn’t have any history of commitment. He’s here indefinitely, meaning there’s no easy escape route. And worst of all, I could see myself falling for him.
“Just wait until you find someone you really love. When he leaves … ” She sighs, her pain palpable. “You’ll know the curse is real.”
I don’t answer, scared to reveal in any way that she might have gotten to me. Cursed. That’s a bunch of crap. It’s an excuse she uses so she doesn’t have to take responsibility for separations. She’s playing the victim. I’m nothing like her … but then why can’t I stop my heart from racing?
Chapter 26
By the time Thursday rolls around, I regret the tank-cleaning agreement. Dylan doesn’t look like he’s about to get punished—he’s excited. I can feel it, no matter how hard he tries to hide his smile. There’s a bounce in his step as he goes from tank to tank with his brush. He’s actually really good at cleaning when he takes it seriously.
“My uncle let me borrow his bike,” Dylan says as he pours the clean water into the tank. “He said I could ride home with you.”
“Great,” I grumble, scrubbing my own tank faster.
He deflates. “Is it really that bad?”
“I don’t know.” And it’s the truth. I can’t figure out what’s real when it comes to what I think of Dylan. Sometimes I think I hate him, and I’m getting pulled in by the chemistry. Other times I’m crazy about him, and I want to be his girlfriend like I played at Cypress Point.
“That’s okay.” His voice is soft. “I know enough for both of us.”
“Not how it works.” I put away the cleaning tools, antsy to get out of here. “I usually go out to lunch before I go home. Is that okay?”
His eyes light up. “Yeah, I have a little money left.”
“You’re not paying for me.” I pull off my apron and stuff it onto the island’s shelf.
“How’d you know I was planning that?”
I shrug. “C’mon.”
There’s no way I’m taking him to Shades of Bombay—Shrey would enjoy that too much—so I pedal my way to Su Casa. Dylan is right behind me, which I’m not a fan of because I know he’s checking out my butt. I can feel it.
“Is this place any good?” Dylan asks as we go inside. He looks uncomfortable, his eyes running over the rough interior.
“Best in the area.” I shove him because people are starting to stare at the skittish gringo. “Stop acting like such a rich boy.”
I order two fish tacos, and Dylan gets three beef ones. As he takes the first bite, all the apprehension fades. “Damn, that’s amazing.”
“Told you.” The fried fish crunches perfectly when I take my first bite, the burst of cilantro and lime are so satisfying, the fresh corn tortilla comforting, and the salsa’s heat tops it off. “It’s sad you’ve lived here for so long and never eaten at this place.”
He swallows before he talks. “One taco, and I’m seriously regretting it.”
I try not to, but I smile anyway.
He nods at my food. “With how much you love fish, I didn’t think you’d eat them for lunch.”
“I can’t help that other people kill them, but I can honor the sacrifice by making sure they don’t go to waste.” I grab a napkin to wipe my mouth, too aware of him watching me eat. “Besides, I’m half Japanese—my mom snacks on dried squid for crying out loud. Loving seafood is in my blood.”
He laughs. “So she’s actually from Japan? I didn’t know that.”
“Yup. My dad went there for an internship in college and stayed longer to be with her. When they both got into Stanford for their doctorates, they moved back.” Why I’m telling him this, I don’t know. But it’s nice to talk with him without fighting. “What about your parents? How’d they meet?”
“High school sweethearts.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
He nods, unwrapping another taco. “Picture every cliché possible, and you’ll be pretty close to their reality.”
“Quarterback and head cheerleader?”
“Yup. Valedictorian and Salutatorian, too. Went to Yale together. Got married. Had a son. That’s kind of where it went wrong for them, though.” His eyes get sad, and I restrain myself from putting my hand on his. “Anyway, I should probably stop there. Too close to information I’m not allowed to give you.”
“Right.” I keep eating, though I kind of want to ask him and get it over with. Except once he tells me there’s no going back. And I’m still scared to take that step.
The closer we get to my house, the more nervous I become. By the time we reach my front yard, my heart feels like it’s about to explode. I thought I didn’t want to explain my family problems to Dylan, it seemed like the easier option. But then I grab his arm to stop him before we get to the door.
He looks at me, confused. “What’s wrong?”
I gulp. “Just so you know, my grandma … she has Alzheimer’s. I watch her after work until my parents get home. She can be unpredictable, so I don’t know how she’ll react to you. It could be bad.”
I can almost see the dots connecting as he nods. “That explains a lot.”
“Yeah … It’s been difficult having her around.”
“How long has she been here?”
“She showed up the same day you did—it was the first time I ever met her. She and my dad had a falling out when he got engaged to my mom.” I look at the ground, unsure if I want him to understand me this much. “She’s … kind of racist and rude and she’s been a total pill this week. So you’ve been warned.”
There’s a pause, and I can feel Dylan looking at me though I focus on my bike. “How can someone be kind of racist? It’s an all or nothing category, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know … ” I might have agreed before, but now that I’ve dealt with Betty the lines are blurring. “There’s a big difference between someone who’s knowingly racist, someone who is just ignorant, and those who understand. It’s grayer than you might think.”
“I guess.” He reaches his hand out to where mine rests on my bike handle. When his fingers touch my skin, my whole body tingles. “So you’ve been dealing with this the whole time we’ve known each other? You never thought to say, ‘Hey, Dylan, my sick grandmother is making my life hell, please don’t add to it’?”
“That never came to mind, no.” I stare at his hand on mine, telling myself to move my arm. It’s not listening.
He lets out a short laugh. “Of course not. It was easier to take it out on me.”
My head snaps up, my eyes meeting his. “That’s not—!”
“I’m relieved, actually.” He pulls back, his smile smug. “Here I was starting to think you were perfect.”
I clench my jaw, forcing myself not to argue with him. He’s more right than I want him to be. I probably have taken out a lot of my anger over Betty and losing the internship on him. “Let’s get this over with.”
We lock our bikes to the porch, and I open the front door. At least there’s no screaming this time, but I can still hear Betty’s cranky tone coming from the kitchen. Joel’s at the table trying to get her to eat lunch.
“You’re missing out, Betty.” He bites into his sandwich. “Mmm, that is some quality grilled cheese. I even cut it in a heart just for you.”
“I don’t like hearts,” she grumbles.
“Then you better eat it so you don’t have to look at—” Joel sees us and smiles wide. “Mika’s home! And look, she brought a very handsome friend with her.”
Betty appraises Dylan with a sneer. “He is handsome.”
I hate that I’m blushing. “This is Dylan. He’ll be cleaning the aquariums today. Watch him a second while I get out of my work clothes?”
“Sure thing, sweetie,” Joel says.
I lock my door and change as fast as I can. It’s tempting to wear the goldfish shirt he bought me, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Ending up in jeans and a purple tee, I rush back to the kitchen in hopes that nothing disastrous happened while I was gone. To my surprise, Betty is happily eating her sandwich while Joel laughs hysterically.
“Mika, you’ll have to bring Dylan home every day,” he says. “He said he liked grilled cheese, and now Betty seems very hungry. I think she might have a crush on him.”
“I do not!” Betty says, though she looks embarrassed. She totally likes him. Of course she does—everyone I know seems to.
“I’ll be here each week to clean the tanks.” Dylan looks at me. “Maybe more. It depends.”
“I see … ” Joel stands, seeming to understand his implication. “Good luck with that. See you later, Mika.”
I wave to him as he goes, and then I get down to business. “I’ll start you on the freshwater tanks first, since they’re easier. C’mon, the stuff’s in the laundry room.”
We keep two fifty-five-gallon barrels of water at all times, one fresh and the other salt. I show Dylan the water pump, siphons, heaters, filters, scrubbers, etc. He seems overwhelmed.
“You’re hardcore,” he says. “Do your parents make you do all this?”
I roll my eyes. “They don’t make me. I want to. It’s good practice—the second I was old enough to do it on my own I gladly volunteered.”
“I’ve never met someone who actually wants to be like their parents,” he says as we push the fresh water out of the laundry room. We rigged the barrels with wheels a long time ago to make it easier.
“Now you have. Betty, my room.” I motion for her to follow us, and she doesn’t complain. She seems happy to stare at Dylan non-stop. I’m trying not to be creeped out by it.
My heart speeds up as he takes in my room. There’s not much I can read in his expression except surprise. “That is a lot of goldfish for one person.”
“Yup.” I show him how much water to drain from each tank, then hand over the empty buckets. “You’re pretty familiar with this by now, so get to it. Then you can do the koi pond and the saltwater tanks.”
He nods. “This is gonna take hours, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
He goes to the tank nearest my bed, where the smallest goldfish swim in a school. Putting his finger to the glass, he says, “Hey, there’s the one you bought my first day at work. What’d you name it?”
I freeze. I can’t tell him I named it after him. “I didn’t. He doesn’t have a name.”
Dylan gives me a suspicious look. “But you said you named all your fish.”
“When did I say that?”
“The day that fish fanatic came in and you said you’d let him have one of yours,” he says without skipping a beat.
“You remember that?”
He looks at his feet. “I remember everything about every day I’ve known you.”
The more he says things like that, the easier it is to believe he’s not as big of a risk as I think. Even though I’ve hardly given him any hint that I might be interested, he’s made his feelings crystal clear.
“I named him Dill,” I blurt out before I can think better of it.
A huge smile breaks out on his face. “Did you seriously name your fish after me?”
“Get to work.” I sit at my desk and open my laptop, beyond flustered. That was too close to admitting how I feel about him. Too scary.
“So you do think about me sometimes,” he says. I don’t turn around. “Gotta admit it’s nice to know, what with how much I—”
“You should stay for dinner,” Betty says.
“No.” I check Facebook, but there’s nothing entertaining. My email is empty except for spam. I try to look busy, even if I can’t stop thinking about the fact that Dylan is in my room, seeing my pictures and makeup and where I sleep. Betty is being good at least. She compliments him on how well he cleans the tanks until she drifts to sleep on my bed.
It’s not until she’s snoring that Dylan says, “I like your room. It’s really you.”
“Uh, thanks?” I turn away from my computer, finding him staring at one of my corkboards full of pictures. Of my parents, friends, sand sculptures. He’s smiling, but it seems sad somehow.
He points to a picture. “Where’s this?”
I have to get up and come close to see what he’s talking about. “Oh, that’s my grandparents’ house in Japan. My mom took me there when I was two—I don’t remember a thing. Sucks.”
“If I ever put up pictures or posters in my room, left clothes on my floor, whatever, they’d be gone within the day.”
I give him a confused look.
“Maids.” He sighs. “My mom doesn’t like stuff disrupting the design of the rooms in our house. She’s super Type A, a little OCD.”
I nod, though I’m stuck on one word. “Maids? Plural?”
“And a chef, a pool guy, gardeners. My dad even had a butler for a while because he thought it might be cool. He decided he didn’t like being fussed over, though. Now he just has a personal assistant.”
“Weird.”
“It is, isn’t it? I like my room at my uncle’s. If I leave something on the floor, it stays there. If I put up a picture, no one takes it down. Makes it feel like my space, not a museum.” He pulls the pin out of one picture, taking it in his hand. Olivia took it of me while I was at the beach sculpting. “Can I have this?”
I watch him intently, and he watches me back. He might not be asking directly how I feel about him or what I’ve decided, but my answer to this question will give him a big clue. I take a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Really?” His voice is full of hope.
“Yeah, really.” I bite my lip, scared to say it, and yet I can’t ignore my feelings anymore. Whether it’s a good idea or not, I like him. So much. Most girls probably love feeling this way, but I hate it. I feel vulnerable, weak, like I have something to lose. But right now, as he holds a simple picture of me like it’s worth a million dollars, I can’t help thinking I might have something to gain, too. “I think you should—”
My phone rings. I almost consider letting it go, but the sound wakes Betty up and that means the moment is lost. I look at the screen, trying not to be angry at whoever it is. “What’s up, Olivia?”
“Mika, oh my gosh, I have something to tell you.”
“It doesn’t sound like good news.” I sigh, sitting on the edge of my bed. Dylan slips my picture into his pocket and picks up two buckets of dirty water, heading to the hall.
“That chick from Bubba Gump’s, London?”
My eyes go wide. “What about her?”
“She was here at the
spa! With her mom. They were talking about you, and not in a nice way.”
Chapter 27
My stomach turns at the thought of all the things London might say behind my back, especially with how upset she seemed on Sunday. “Olivia, I don’t think I want to know.”
“What?” There’s clattering in the background, and I imagine she’s in the storage room at the spa where they keep the bottles of lotion and fancy oils. “Come on! This is serious information. I had to restrain myself from beating the crap out of her and her stupid mom.”
“Is something wrong?” Betty sits up, rubbing her eyes.
I shake my head. “Fine. Tell me.”
“Thank you! They were getting facials when I heard your name, so I hung around to see what they’d say. London whined about how Dylan obviously likes you, and she didn’t know what to do because he’s never liked anyone enough to date them.”
“That’s nothing new,” I say, mad that I have to hear about what an “issue” I am yet again.
“I know, but then her mom told her not to worry about it. She said Dylan’s going through a phase—that he thinks he wants to be in charge of his life but will realize the money is better. She said the only reason he’s interested in you is because you’re exotic and eventually he’ll get bored. When he does, he’ll come back home and realize London is the right girl for him.”
I feel like curling up in a ball the more she talks. Olivia tells me they said I’m not that pretty and too flat and my clothes are cheap. Their words shouldn’t bother me—London is jealous—but at the same time this conversation is all my fears rolled into one. “I’m so sick of people calling me exotic. What the hell does that mean, anyway?”
“They’re saying you’re Asian without saying you’re Asian. Pretty much they are thinking racist thoughts but not saying them out loud,” she says. “If they order drinks, I’m spitting in them.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that will stop the tears. “Go for it.”
Fish out of Water Page 14