by Jen Klein
“I’ll guess B,” says Cooper. “People you secretly want to snuggle.”
Hope and Ardy laugh, but the softness of Cooper’s joke bothers me. If Ian hadn’t been here, there’s no way the final word of the sentence would have been snuggle.
“What are you talking about?” Ian asks Evan.
“Screw, Marry, Kill,” Hope answers for him. “It’s a game. And I’m not playing.”
“Why not?” Evan drapes an arm over her shoulders. “It’s fun. Don’t you want to know more about our new friends?”
“I don’t think finding out who they would hypothetically bone counts as ‘knowing more.’ ” Ardy’s tone is mild, but he’s trying to back Hope up.
“I’ll play,” I tell Evan, because I have no interest in backing up Hope. “Plus, this one is obvious. I’ll definitely marry the gym floor guy.”
“Oh, because he’ll keep the house clean,” Ardy says.
“Exactly.” See, Ardy gets me. “Kelli for the sex.”
“Intriguing,” Evan says.
“Not really.” I shrug, since it’s all hypothetical, anyway. “Bowtie Man counseled me into taking advanced biology, so I kind of already wanted to kill him.”
“Okay, I get the rules,” Ian says.
Yeah, because this is neurosurgery.
“You’re a team player,” Evan tells me. “Unlike my girlfriend.”
“Fine, I’ll play,” Hope says. “But only the PG version.”
Evan groans, and Cooper joins him but then stops abruptly midgroan. Because—of course—Ian.
“Why?” asks Evan.
Hope adopts a prim expression and voice. “Because my boyfriend is here.”
“Your boyfriend is the one who came up with the game,” Evan reminds her.
“Kiss, Date…Punch in the Face,” she says. “That’s my final offer.”
“I’m in,” Ardy says, because of course he has to agree with Hope.
Still, I sort of want to hear his answers, so I nod. “Me too.”
“But why?” Evan asks Hope.
“Because if I name someone who I would have sex with, then that’s what you’re going to be thinking about that person next week at school.”
“I’ll still be thinking it even if you only want to make out with them,” he says.
“Not the same,” she tells him, and then pulls his head down to hers for a kiss.
The way she does it—so casual, so easy—and the way he goes along with it…in that moment, I get them. I understand why they’re together. This freedom they have, this joking thing. Evan acknowledging—albeit in his slightly dickish Evan way—that he has a stab of jealousy about his girlfriend. I’ve never gotten to that part with a guy: the vulnerable part, the freedom part. Now, looking at these two—at #Heaven—I wonder if it could be this easy for me if I was with the right person.
Along those lines, another thought: If Ardy and I had a ship name, what would it be? #Lardy? #Ark?
Uh…no.
We play Kiss, Date, Punch all the way back to the diner, branching out to include celebrities and, sometimes, weird made-up categories: a person who only speaks sentences in reverse, a person who subsists wholly on dried seaweed, a person who never wears shoes. We learn that Ardy likes anyone who plays guitar (not great news for me) and that Cooper is willing to punch people who vape. Hope surprises everyone by expressing great interest in a make-out session with the French teacher (“because afterward he might talk with that cute accent”). Evan and Ian give only predictable answers.
When we reach the parking lot of the diner, Evan gives a generic wave. “See you on Monday.” He nods toward Hope and Ardy, who are standing together. “Let’s go.”
Hope beams at me. “I’m glad you guys came. This was fun.”
“Agreed,” Cooper says as Ian nods.
I know I need to respond to Hope, but instead I’m looking at Ardy. It’s impossible not to when he’s looking right at me. Finally I manage a smile for both of them. “Bye.”
We split apart, Evan and Hope and Ardy piling into Evan’s car while Cooper and Ian get into Cooper’s. I slide into my own, and as I pull out, I look in my rearview mirror. I can see Evan’s car, still parked behind me, and Ardy in the backseat. He’s staring out the window at me, watching me go. It’s hard to tell if he can see me in the mirror, but it seems like our gazes lock. I raise my right hand and flutter my fingers. If you’re Ardy, it could look like I’m waving to everyone in general, but I know it’s just for him.
And right before I swing out into traffic, he raises a hand in return.
* * *
I’ve traded jokes with Leo and endured the maternal gauntlet of “what did you do, where did you go,” and now I’m in my bed, huddled under my comforter, with my phone propped on my pillow so I can play games before falling asleep. I’m in the middle of a word battle with a stranger when a text notification pops up on my screen. I slide to look at it…and it’s two words, from an unknown number:
Not punch.
I send back a symbol—?—and receive a few more words:
I wouldn’t punch you.
Warmth blazes up inside me, and I type back a quick response:
I assume you wouldn’t punch anyone.
The return message comes fast:
You assume correctly.
And is followed up with a second:
Punching is rude.
I type the question, even though I already know the answer:
Who is this?
The letters come one at a time, spelling it out vertically on my screen:
I stare at his name. Up and down, to be visually interesting. Obviously, I already assumed Ardy didn’t have a hidden desire to punch me, but texting me like this clearly lets me know that what he does want is one of the two other options: date or kiss.
Why not both?
I take a screenshot and then open the photo in an app so I can use my finger to scribble words next to his name. I save the picture and send it back to him:
I get an immediate LOL in return.
I respond with: Thanks for not punching me.
He says: It’s the least I could do.
I don’t respond, because I want to know what he could do, what he will do. This feels like flirting, actual flirting, and I want to know if he’s going to make a move. If he’s going to do something real.
I realize I want him to. I’m aching for him to do something real.
I need something real.
Three dots appear, flickering at the bottom of my screen. He’s writing something. I wait, and a moment later the words appear—one at a time, like how he spelled out his name before:
I’m smiling so hard, my face hurts. Ardy’s sent my name, typed out in adjectives. Really sweet adjectives. I don’t know how to respond, so I send back one word:
Thanks.
He replies:
See you Monday.
Our exchange is over, so I turn off my phone and snuggle down onto my pillow. I think I’m still smiling when I finally fall asleep.
Ardy isn’t in the hall when I go to my locker on Monday morning. He’s not in the cafeteria when I pick up a barbecue chicken salad. Hope’s there, but she’s huddled at a two-person table with Evan, so we merely exchange waves and smiles. Instead, I eat with the cheerleaders. After school I linger at the flagpoles, but I never see Ardy. I consider texting him but can’t quite muster up the nerve. What would I say?
Wheelz is always dead on Monday nights, so we all know Mom is expecting Dad to make it home for dinner. I have the six o’clock shift, which isn’t taxing. I help some parents fill out their kids’ waiver forms, I make change for a dude who wants to get arcade tokens but “not, like, twenty dollars’ worth,” and I sell a couple of bottles of sod
a. Dad is conducting assistant manager interviews in his office, so other than directing Tall Goatee Dude and then Blue-Haired Ponytail Girl to the back, I’m left largely to my own devices. Which is a very typical Monday. Nothing out of the norm.
Until half an hour before closing, when Ardy walks in.
He lets the door close behind him and stands there a moment, across the lobby from me, getting the lay of the land. I watch his gaze rove over the karts whizzing around the electric track, the arcade bay, the Skee-Ball prize counter…and come to rest on me. Where I’m standing. Watching him.
For a split second, I feel caught. But then I realize—Ardy is here to see me. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Except it doesn’t make sense.
Or does it?
I raise my hand in a feeble wave, and he lopes toward me, running a hand through his hair. My own hand rises to my head as I suddenly remember that I’ve piled my hair into a giant messy bun thing. Even though we do have teen clientele, I don’t think of work as a place I’ll see kids from school.
Ardy arrives at the counter and offers me a half smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I half smile in return. At least, I think I do. My face feels a little frozen. So do my reaction times and my instincts. I’m not sure how to handle this boy.
This might not be a boy who can be handled.
“I’ve never been in here,” Ardy says, which confirms—in case there was any doubt—that he’s here for me. “It’s huge.”
If Cooper were here, he’d respond with the old reliable That’s what he said. But he’s not, so I only muster a weak smile and an even weaker “Yeah.”
“I saw Leo this morning,” Ardy tells me. “He said you were working tonight.”
Privately, I decide to bring Leo home a treat from the snack counter as a reward. But to Ardy I say, “Do you want to drive a go-kart?”
“No.” He cocks his head, considering. “Maybe. I’ve never done it. Do you offer driving lessons?”
Before I can answer, Dad and Blue-Haired Ponytail Girl come out of the back. She looks eager—excited, even—as she and my dad shake hands. “Thank you so much, Mr. Dayton.”
“You’re welcome,” he says. “We’ll make a decision by the end of the week.”
She beams and then leaves, her blue ponytail swishing behind her. My dad turns to the two of us and shakes his head. “Train wreck,” he whispers.
“Really?” It surprises me. She looked put together. “She seemed nice.”
“She had two misspellings on her résumé,” Dad says. “And a grammatical error.”
How well does an assistant manager at a go-kart facility need to spell, anyway? But to Dad I say, “Okay.” Then I gesture to Ardy. “Dad, this is Ardy. Ardy, my dad.”
Dad engulfs Ardy’s hand with a giant paw. “Larry Dayton.”
Yes, my father’s name is Larry. And Mom is Lisa. They named their children Lark and Leo. We’re that family. At least that’s how it looks from the outside.
“Your friend’s here,” Dad says to me. “You can go if you want.”
“No, I’ll stay.” I avoid Ardy’s eyes. “You said you had to finish those orders.” If I leave, my father will stay out front behind the counter. Which means he won’t finish the orders. Which means he won’t be home until late. Which means Mom will lose her mind and I will lose sleep. So I’ll stay. It’ll make everything easier.
“I’ll go,” Ardy says. “I was just saying hi.” He turns to leave, and I realize it must seem like I’m blowing him off.
“Wait,” I call. He turns back, and we look at each other for an awkward moment because I don’t actually know what I was going to say. The moment is interrupted by Dad.
“I’ll be in the back,” he says, and disappears. Leaving me, the sounds of karts skidding into walls, and Ardy.
Ardy cocks his head, regarding me from behind his dark-rimmed glasses. “Is it weird that I’m here?”
Okay, so that’s blatant.
“Um, no,” I tell him. “Unless…I mean, why are you here?”
Ardy sets his hands on the counter. “Do you want to go on an adventure?”
“Now?”
“No.” He smiles, and his smile is absurdly warm and inviting. He’s here for me. Ardy Tate is here for me. “Saturday.”
“What kind of an adventure?”
“Hmm.” He looks like he’s considering. “I don’t think I’m going to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to say no.”
“Is it a bad adventure?” I suddenly realize I’m doing that wide-smiling thing again, where my face is starting to hurt. “Might we die?”
“Probably not.” Ardy says it with a straight face, but his lips twitch like he’s holding back laughter. “No one has died with me yet.”
“Oh.” It a little bit kills the mood for me. “How many people have you taken on this adventure?”
Ardy’s mouth settles, becomes serious again. He leans over the counter toward me. For the tiniest second, I think he’s about to kiss me and I’m about to let him. But instead he gazes at me with those dark brown eyes. He drops his voice and says, “You’ll be the first.”
My mood is immediately resurrected. “Sold,” I tell him. “What time?”
“Morning. For the whole day.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what it is?”
“Still no.”
“I need a hint.” Because—come on—a girl needs to know what to wear. “Does it involve hard physical labor?”
“No.” He grins at me. “It does, however, involve other sentient beings, possibly getting your shoes muddy, and a two-hour drive.”
Okay, everything about that is intriguing, but especially the two-hour drive. Where is he taking me?
“One last question,” I tell him, because if Hope is all up in this, I might scream. “Is anyone else coming?”
“Nope.” He straightens, reaches across the counter, and brushes his hand against my left arm. It’s a fast, gentle caress. “See you at school.”
I nod and swallow, watching him turn and lope back toward the door, his messenger bag swaying at his side. My right hand floats up to my arm, to the spot where he touched me.
I’m sure it’s my imagination, but it feels warm.
* * *
“The San Diego Zoo,” Cooper guesses from my left as he, Katie, and I sit on the top row of the bleachers, watching the junior varsity soccer team run practice drills on the field below.
“I thought about that.” I take a bite out of the coconut milk Popsicle we’re all sharing and pass it to him. “He did say there are other sentient beings involved. But isn’t San Diego more than two hours away?”
“Maybe.” Cooper licks the Popsicle thoughtfully. “Santa Barbara? There’s a zoo there.”
“I have no reason to believe it’s a zoo,” I tell him. “Humans are sentient beings, too, you know.”
“He’s going to take you out to the desert to kill you so he can bury you in the sand,” Katie says, reaching over me for the Popsicle. “Stop hogging.”
“That’s why I’m telling you, so if I go missing, you’ll know what to tell the police.”
Katie turns to stare at me with wide violet eyes. “Seriously?”
“No, dummy.” I whap her in the arm. “But guess what?” I look back and forth between them. “I like him.” I wait for a response, like I’ve dropped the world’s greatest bomb. There is none, so I try again. “You guys, I actually like him.”
The smile Cooper gives me is a tolerant one. “You always like them in the beginning.”
“Yeah, no one’s buying it,” Katie says.
“This one’s different,” I protest.
“Prove it,” Cooper says.
“How?”
/> “You know how.” He makes a swipe over me for the Popsicle, but Katie holds it out of his reach.
“Reel him in,” she says. “Wait three months, break his heart.”
“I want him to give a crap about her,” Cooper tells Katie.
“Whatever,” she says.
“He might,” I tell them both.
“I hope he does.” Cooper gives me a patient look. “But I want you to give a crap about him, too.”
“That’s the part I don’t get,” Katie says. “There’s a buffet bar of boys out there, and you make a beeline for the one who’s Undateable?”
“Don’t listen to Katie,” Cooper tells me. “She doesn’t like it when we’re happy.”
“I don’t like it when you’re a freak,” Katie tells him. “Which in your case is every day.”
“Back to me,” I tell them. “I think I do like Ardy. I might.” The logic of the bet is unspooling in my head. “And if I like him, and if he likes me…I mean, if we give a crap about each other”—I emphasize the word to sound like Cooper—“if that happens, there’s no way for me to win the game. Because we won’t want to break up.”
“Wouldn’t that be so nice?” Cooper says, making another swipe for the Popsicle. This time when Katie jerks it back, the last piece of frozen coconut milk falls off the stick and lands on my lap. “Well, damn.”
“Well, damn.”
* * *
Hope knows. Whatever Ardy’s taking me to do on Saturday, Hope knows what it is. Maybe it shouldn’t irk me, but it does. Especially when, at lunch on Thursday, she pulls me off to the side so she can whisper in my ear: “Bring an extra sweatshirt.”
“What?”
“On Saturday,” Hope says. “Make sure you have enough layers to stay warm.”
I stare at her, wondering if Ardy’s lied before we’ve even gotten started. “He’s taken you to…whatever it is?”