by Eric Smith
She could easily be confused for her biological mom.
A blast of warmth shot through Leila and she had to turn away.
“It’s for you, and it accentuates what’s already there,” Lisabeth said, sitting back down and putting a hand on Leila’s shoulder. “And what’s there is beautiful.”
“Okay,” Leila said, nodding. “I’m, um, I’m going to head out, meet up with Shawn.”
She pushed her chair out and grabbed her bike helmet off the rack near the back door, pushing it down over her hair and onto her head, clicking the strap in place. She smiled as bits of hair pushed their way up through the spaces in the helmet, and glanced at Lisabeth, who stared, aghast.
“What?” Leila said. “I’ll fix it later.”
Lisabeth shrugged.
“You said it yourself,” Leila said. “Never change, remember?”
_____
After several minutes of awkward wrangling and twisting, Leila finally managed to squeeze her bike out the front door. It was a tedious routine. The hallways of the home were narrow, and the only place for her bike was hanging from the wall in the living room, far away from the door. Jon suggested locking the bike up out in front of the house, promising there was no way it would get stolen, but she’d heard that before.
Her bike, named Marigold after the seeds Frieda and Claudia sell in The Bluest Eye to purchase a bicycle, had been with her through too much to risk losing it. The group home, foster homes, and now this one. She wasn’t about to lose her to people who wouldn’t appreciate her fading paint, her slightly dented tire that wobbled a little bit, and the brakes that were somewhat spotty.
“Alright, let’s do this,” Leila muttered, swinging her leg over the thin bike frame. Straddling the bike, she pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket and clicked it on to double check where she was going, flipping to the texts Shawn had sent her earlier in the day.
Let’s meet over at the Art Museum, and we’ll roll out from there.
Meet you there around 3PM? Ride our bikes through golden hour?
Sounds good, see you soon!
She stared at the phrase “golden hour” quizzically for a moment, as confused about it now as she was when she got the text, before shrugging her shoulders and putting the phone back in her pocket.
With a few quick huffs, she was off.
LEILA: Hey what does “golden hour” mean?
SARIKA: What?
LEILA: I don’t know. Shawn said something about it in his text. Riding our bikes through it.
SARIKA: Oh.
SARIKA: Damn girl, it’s going down.
LEILA: What?!
SARIKA: ;-)
LEILA: What does it mean?
SARIKA: Not telling, but you’re gonna like it when he does it. Mm. Rawr.
LEILA: Oh my God stop it what is it.
LEILA: No seriously I’m like a block away from my house still and about to go home.
SARIKA: Hahahah it has to do with taking pictures.
SARIKA: Golden hour is like, that time when the sun is at its best.
SARIKA: Probably wants to take cute snaps together on Instagram or something.
LEILA: Ohhhhh.
SARIKA: You thought it was some weird sex thing.
LEILA: I hate you.
SARIKA:
VIII
Leila pushed forward on her bicycle as the wind tickled her skin. She had always felt that Philadelphia’s end-of-summer-here-comes-fall weather had a special magic to it. It was unpredictable. Sometimes Mother Nature was kind, with cool breezes and temperatures that usually came in October, ushering in the crunch of multicolored leaves and the smell of tiny fireplaces. Other days, it felt like it hammered home the remains of summer, with blistering, unforgiving heat that rose up in waves off the cobblestone streets and burnt-brick sidewalks. Back at the Kline’s, air conditioners and space heaters waged a noisy war with one another in the old, historic home, despite the fact that one side was always going to lose.
Today felt like it was a lucky day, with surprise fall weather, just minus the changing, vivid landscape. Leila rode her bike out from home and through the brownstone-lined streets, and flashes of murals greeted her as she pedaled along the bike lane. Fearless alongside speeding cars and motorcycles, Marigold’s threadbare tires pushed hard against the city asphalt. Philadelphia. The City of Murals. From the large-scale paintings that took over the sides of entire buildings to the smaller ones decorating the ends of rowhomes, they were everywhere, impossible to miss, and were always a welcome distraction on long walks or quiet bike rides.
She took a hard left onto the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as she rode away from the Center City region of the city and towards the Art Museum neighborhood, and went up the long strip of road that led up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A mile of museums, with beautiful buildings that thrilled her. Like the Academy of Natural Sciences, a place dedicated to the history of the planet, with dinosaurs, plants, weird insects, and live animals. And then there was the Franklin Institute, a science museum that she and Sarika used to get lost in on school trips, ducking in and out of a giant, to-scale human heart you could walk through and hole up in. Museums dotted the mile, most of which were easier to visit in the evenings, when tickets were discounted and the lighting was low. It set the mood for some and dished out the opportunity to hide, or sneak in, for others. At the end of the mile was the museum that housed most of the artwork in the city.
Leila squinted as she approached the Philadelphia Museum of Art, looking for a sign of Shawn. She cursed herself as she stopped her bike and leaned it against one of the columns by the long steps leading up to the museum. Why hadn’t she asked him what he’d be wearing, or maybe something about his bicycle? Even at this hour on a Sunday, late afternoon when you’d think people would be snuggled in on a blustery day or grabbing brunch someplace, the front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art was swarming with people. Runners used the stairs as a workout routine and tourists meandered about, absorbing everything with their cameras and smartphones, and some, embarrassingly, with their giant tablets. Leila grinned at an older man holding up an enormous iPad to take a picture. She opened her backpack and had just flushed her phone to text Shawn when the wind picked up, tickling her neck.
Carrying the voices.
Ley . . . ga . . . co . . . hel . . .
They came in and out, half-formed words that sounded like they were on the other end of a bad cell phone connection. Leila winced and closed her eyes, gritting her teeth against them. She thought of what was around her. Get grounded. Be present. She whispered to herself.
“Museum. Stairs. Concrete. Leaves. Bike.”
Suddenly a hand grabbed at her shoulder, the fingers grasping tight.
“Get off!” she shouted, and swung at the hand’s owner, her fist connecting squarely with a shoulder. She bounced back, and despite the stinging pain that buzzed along her knuckles and down into her wrist, balled her fist up again to strike again. The figure stumbled back and fell onto the hard stone steps, their backpack slapping against the beige stairs.
Their beat up, slightly military-surplus-looking backpack.
Leila groaned.
Oh no.
It was Shawn.
“Damn!” he shouted, looking up at her with pained eyes as he got back to his feet, brushing himself off. A few people scaling the steps slowed to look, and then kept going. “You sure know how to throw a punch.”
“Oh, hell,” Leila muttered, walking over to him and flexing her fingers in and out. “Sorry, I really don’t like people sneaking up on me.”
Her thoughts ran.
Or touching me. Or looking at me. Or speaking to me.
“It’s, uh, nothing personal.” She shrugged.
“Noted, noted,” Shawn said, gripping his shoulder. He smiled that crooked smile of
his and ran his hand through his hair. Leila relaxed a bit, and then tensed back up immediately as a runner brushed by her, bounding up the stairs.
“Excuse me!” he shouted as he darted by, leaving the smell of sweat and coffee in his wake. He moved strangely fast for someone with a medium-sized cup of coffee in his hand. He made quick work of the stone steps with his bright-red sneakers and neon-yellow, stretchy pants.
“Watch it!” shouted Shawn, and the runner turned back for a second, locked eyes with the two of them, and turned back, continuing up the stairs while sipping from his coffee cup.
“Ass,” Shawn muttered. He turned back to Leila and smiled. “Question: And I’m sure you have, but have you ever, you know?” He nodded at the stairs and grinned.
“What?” Leila asked.
“I mean, I guess it’s kinda silly,” Shawn continued, gesturing over at the stairs, that confidence he seemed to ooze fading just a little.
Leila looked over at the stairs and up to the top, where the coffee-drinking-while-running guy had reached the final step. He placed his coffee down and jumped up and down, his fists in the air, and promptly knocked over his own coffee with a careless foot. She laughed as the man muttered some kind of inaudible swear, bending down to fumble with the coffee which was now making its way down the steps, streaming and hot. Served him right.
And then someone next to him did the same thing. Jumping up and down, fists in the air.
And then a couple, who promptly kissed at the top of the stairs.
And another person, cheering alone.
Something clicked.
“Oh,” Leila said, turning back to Shawn. “You mean the whole Rocky stairs run thing? You know a couple of years ago, someone knitted a sweater that said ‘See the Art’ on that statue, right?”
“Yeah, I saw that on Tumblr,” Shawn laughed, looking over at the nearby statue. A massive statue of Sylvester Stallone as the iconic underdog boxing champ, Rocky, stood on a small platform in bronze. Tourists were lined up to take photos of it, and a family posed in front of it, two parents and their two children, all their hands raised. A man took the photo and handed it to one of the kids, who looked at the picture and smiled brightly.
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Shawn said, his voice practically a nudge. “You’re new to the city, right? Or is it just the school? It’s like, a total rite of passage.”
“Shawn, you, um,” Leila started before fading off. “You really don’t know that much about me just yet. I’ve lived in Philadelphia almost my entire life. My . . . um, adoptive parents and I don’t live that far, we’re right in Manayunk.”
“Adoptive parents?” Shawn asked, his eyebrows arching up. “I didn’t know you were adopted. Were you born here? Where in Philly were you before you were adopted?”
“Little bit of everywhere?” Leila said, shrugging, trying to steel herself against the questions. “My old group home is down in South Philly, not too far from the stadiums. I lived with one foster family in Frankford, another in West Philly.” She looked up at Shawn to find his mouth open, agape. She fought the discomfort rising in her chest as the thoughts of each of those places rushed in. The couple in Frankford filed for divorce shortly after bringing her home; evidentially having a kid wasn’t a good way to save a marriage. The family in West Philly had a number of foster kids, and were clearly in it for all the wrong reasons. She’d heard about that before, seen kids come back to the group home with stories of homes far too full of children and never full enough of love.
“Yeah, like I said, there’s a lot you don’t know.” She sighed, feeling the return of the pressure from that meeting last week, in that classroom with all those eyes on her. People ran by, charging up the stairs, or casually strolled too close, holding hands, bodies and backpacks brushing against her. “Maybe, um, maybe this wasn’t the best idea.”
Leila felt a rush of warmth course over her, the anxiety heavy and hot. All these people everywhere, all these things to talk about, secrets she didn’t really want to share with anyone. Was this what it was going to be like? Dating? Meeting boys? That wasn’t something she did back at the group home, back at any of the old schools she’d gone to, where things were temporary. Where questions were even harder to answer. And making friends other than Sarika or the people at Adam’s Café? She’d have to explain things to them. Her life.
“Wait, no,” Shawn said, holding out his hand. Leila flinched, and Shawn retracted. “I just . . . that’s what dates are for, right? Getting to know each other and all that?”
“I suppose,” Leila said, fighting the urge to shrink back into herself.
“I mean, you already know a, um, rather embarrassing thing about me. You saw it in the class, with, you know.” He shrugged, stammering a little. “She who will not be named.”
“Your ex-girlfriend isn’t Voldemort, Shawn.” Leila laughed, shaking her head. “There are far worse villains in the world.” She thought back to the incident in the hallway with Sarika. “Though I suppose not too many.” She grinned.
“I knew I liked you,” Shawn laughed. “Look. You shared some truths with me, and I’ll share one with you,” Shawn said, extending his hand again. Leila looked at it hesitantly, and then up at his face. His smile was warm, that dimple a crater on the side of his mouth, his eyes kind and welcoming. Leila closed her hand into a fist, backed up, and then opened it, grabbing his hand.
Shawn pulled her forward, and Leila felt her whole body tense up.
“What are you—” she started.
“I love those Rocky movies, but I’ve never run the steps. I tell people I have, but I haven’t,” Shawn whispered into her ear. The tension in Leila’s body faded a little as Shawn spoke and softly laughed during his confession. “The first one is amazing, and the next few get worse and worse, until you get to the masterpiece that is Creed, that is. But I love them. Even the part with the robot in Rocky IV.”
“There’s a robot?” Leila whispered back. She thought about pushing him away but stayed close, listening to his whisper, feeling a rush of warmth to her cheeks at the smell of his shaving gel, like cinnamon and vanilla.
“There is, and it’s terrible.” He backed away, smiling, and Leila exhaled with a sigh, a rush of warmth all over.
Shawn took her hand.
“Now come on,” he said. “Take a little run. I’ve always wanted someone to do this with me.”
He squeezed Leila’s hand encouragingly and put one foot on the first step leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
“Can we go see the art another day?” Leila asked, pulling back a little.
“We can do whatever you want,” Shawn beamed.
Leila looked back to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the long strip of road leading towards Philadelphia’s City Hall. Museums were off to the right and the left, and the street was lined with flags of every country, high and waving in the chill breeze. She stared at them, and for a moment, wondered if her flag was in there someplace, representing wherever it was she had come from. It was a mystery to her, though she’d made assumptions and lied about it before, to the endless wave of too-curious people who tended to ask the annoying “but where you are from?” questions. One of the joys of being adopted. So many questions, so few real answers.
She turned back to Shawn, who still smiled warmly.
“Race you to the top!” she shouted, letting go of his hand and darting madly up the stairs.
Leila stumbled almost immediately as she took off up the stone steps. Shawn hurried behind her, yelling shouts of concern as she regained her footing and kept going. She didn’t turn around, instead, focused on the surprisingly small and narrow steps leading to the museum. They looked a lot wider when you weren’t running madly up them, but now that her feet were hitting the hard surface, she realized how thin they were, barely able to hold an entire foot, mostly just the tips of your toes as you moved up
quickly. No wonder people exercised on this.
When she reached the top, she caught the view of the city and gasped. She could practically see the tops of the flagpoles now, and the surface of the multicolored pavement that led away from the museum looked far more stunning when you stood above it instead of on it. Shawn reached her side, huffing, puffing, and coughing. He dry heaved and sat down on the top step. Leila struggled not to laugh.
“Are you okay?” she asked, sitting down with him.
“Yeah, it’s just . . . I don’t really . . . run that often,” he stammered in-between deep breaths and coughs. “Or . . . um . . . at all. You really . . . really know what you’re doing there.” He looked up at her, his face bright red and eyes watering. “I’m, uh, I’m a little . . . embarrassed . . . right now.”
“You’re fine, it’s fine,” Leila said, nudging him with her shoulder as they sat on the top of the steps. A young couple ran up by them, and instead of sitting down, stood up and pumped their arms in the air. They kissed, and Leila felt that rush of warmth go through her again. Was this what was supposed to happen after the run? Was this some kind of cute setup? Leila steeled herself, adrenaline still pumping, the anxiety washed away with a fierce, almost rebellious feeling after running up the stairs. She breathed in, leaning towards Shawn, her lips parted.
“Shawn,” Leila started, thinking of what felt like an almost-kiss at the bottom of the stairs, a rush of heat in her chest.
Shawn dry heaved, louder this time, and coughed heavily. He spit a large glob of saliva onto the sand-colored steps and looked back up at her, wiping at his face.
Okay, yeah, no kissing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “This was a bad idea. I ruined the moment.”
“No, no,” Leila said, feeling bad for the guy. He had seemed so confident. “This was great. I feel great. I think I needed this.” She leaned against his shoulder, staring out at the cityscape, and he took her hand. “Are you, um, going to be okay for the bike ride after this?”