Strand peers around, inspects the posters on my walls, and says, “It’s pretty much what I imagined.”
“Why are you imagining my bedroom?”
He smiles innocently, then notices my wall of music, partially hidden from view inside a little nook by my desk.
“Is that your collection?” he asks, striding over. His steps are so heavy that the floor trembles under their force.
“Yes.” I hover behind him. He smells like vanilla. I wouldn’t expect someone like Strand to smell like baked goods. Leather, maybe. Or pot.
He inspects my vinyls, pausing to nod in approval or pull one out to examine it more closely. Then he glances at my laptop, open to my online music account.
“May I?” he asks.
My biggest source of pride isn’t my seven-minute-mile 5k split or my 3.8 GPA. It’s my music collection. I have everything from Bach to Metallica to Kendrick Lamar. I invest a lot of time and effort into crafting the perfect playlist for every occasion. There’s a playlist for skinny-dipping, for sleeping under the stars, for driving a convertible on a hot summer day. Not that I’ve done any of these things . . . but if I listen to my music while I think about it, I can pretend I have.
I’ve never let anyone look through my playlists. Not even Annie. For some reason, though, I give Strand permission. “Okay.”
Strand plants himself at my desk, scrolling through my never-ending succession of playlists.
“That’s a good one,” I say. I lean over his shoulder to point at the screen. Crap, he smells delicious. “My Staring Out the Window on a Rainy Day mix. Slow, mopey . . . there’s some Portishead, the Smiths, Nick Cave . . .”
I scoot to share the seat with Strand. I can only fit half of my massive butt on the chair. “And this is my Lying on a Hammock on a Sunny Day playlist.”
Strand laughs. “That is so specific.”
“And this is the Stargazing playlist. Gustav Holst, Brian Eno . . .”
“Pink Floyd?”
“Obviously.”
“Have you actually done this stuff while you listened? Stargazing, lying on a hammock?”
“No, but when I listen it gives me the feeling of doing them. I can imagine it.”
Strand is the first person I’ve ever admitted this to. I’m not sure why I decided to tell him.
“You,” he says, “are the most unique person I know.” He smiles when he says it, and it’s the genuine smirk-free kind, so I don’t feel offended. I smile back at him for maybe the first time in the history of our semifriendship.
He continues to scan my music collection. Sometimes he stops to nod appreciatively or run his finger along his chin. He hums as he scrolls, in his soothing baritone. The melody is interesting. Beautiful, actually, in a sad way.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“What?”
“That song you’re humming.”
“Was I humming?” He rises from the chair, his back to me as he walks over to my vinyls to inspect them for a second time. “Got any Pixies?”
“You were definitely humming.” I walk over to him and slide the Pixies’ Doolittle from the top shelf. “I liked it, whatever it was.”
His fingers graze mine as he takes the album from my hands. “It’s something I’m working on.”
“I forgot that you wrote music.”
“I don’t. Not physically, I mean. I come up with a melody and record it.”
“Why don’t you ask Levi to arrange it? We could use some original songs.”
Strand rakes his fingers through his hair. “I’ve never actually shared my stuff with anyone. It’s kind of . . . personal.”
Color me surprised. I pictured Strand writing the type of songs that involved strippers and pole dancing, à la Def Leppard or Warrant.
“Personal means it’s good,” I say. If I didn’t know better, I would think Strand is actually being shy. Which is impossible, because Strand is the most confident person I know.
“Coldplay is personal.”
“Coldplay is unfairly maligned. My point still stands. Anyway, all I’m saying is that I’ll listen to your song . . . if you want.”
His eyes drift from the album up to my face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
At that moment Mom yells that we have to leave for Jessica’s.
“Next week?” I press.
“Maybe.”
“Strand, come on! I want to hear it.”
His cocky swagger is back in full force as he bows for me to walk in front of him.
“Please?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
* * *
Jessica is much more developed than I remembered. She’s wearing a tight long-sleeved shirt that clings to her round bosom. Suffice it to say that my small breasts don’t come from this side of the family. When Strand and I walk into the house, she grazes my cheek with a kiss and then focuses her attention on Strand.
“Who’s your boyfriend?” she asks, tugging on the bottom of her shirt to reveal more cleavage.
“Friend,” Strand corrects, and I’m slightly annoyed at how quickly he clarifies that fact. Like it would be inconceivable for someone to think we were together. “I’m Strand.”
“Nice to meet you!” Jessica kisses him on the cheek, shamelessly rubbing her chest against him in the process. Or maybe her chest is so big it has nowhere else to go. “Any friend of my cousin’s is a friend of mine.”
“Isn’t that nice,” Strand says.
She smiles, exposing a glittering set of braces. “Well, come on in. We’re practicing in the living room.”
As we trail behind her, Strand leans into me and whispers, “She’s very friendly.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” I reply.
“Do you seriously think I would?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“No,” he says, sounding annoyed. “She’s your cousin.”
I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I mean, he was openly flirting with my mother not an hour ago.
Jessica’s living room is packed with couples. The furniture has been pushed against the perimeter of the room so that the large rug in the center has become a makeshift dance floor. A boom box is set on the floor by the large glass doors leading out to the pool.
“¡Ya estamos listos, Eduardo!” Jessica says to an old, gray-haired man bedecked in sunglasses and a bright-red pashmina.
Strand pokes me for a translation.
“She’s telling the old man we’re ready,” I whisper to him.
Eduardo claps his heavy hands together, and in a husky smoker’s voice, rasps a stream of directions in Spanish. He does this too quickly for me to understand, so I mimic the way the other couples are gathering into a straight line, and in response Strand mimics everything I do.
As flamboyant as his fashion sense is, Eduardo seems like a person who demands respect. He doesn’t bother to officially introduce himself or ask us our names. He immediately launches into the steps, barking directions in Spanish.
“¡Adelante!” He steps forward with his left foot, lifts his right foot slightly off the ground, then plants both feet back in their original spot.
“¡Atras!” He performs the same move, but reversed, stepping back with his right foot and shifting the weight off his left foot.
“Now you,” he says in heavy accented English.
So we dance. He continues to shout commands, and we follow his footwork like an army of salsa soldiers. Eduardo sways his hips in the direction of whichever leg moves, so I try to do the same. The movement feels natural to me. I look over at Strand, and he’s not as awful as I expected. He even adds these tiny arm flourishes.
“I see you admiring my moves,” he says without missing a beat.
“I kind of am.”
We dance in unison. One-two-three, one-two-three.
“I told you I could dance,” Strand says.
“I had to see it to believe it.”
“Maybe you should take me at my word more ofte
n.” He swivels his head to give me a meaningful look.
I turn to face forward, staring at the way Eduardo’s shirt lifts to expose a mound of back fat. “Maybe I should.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES”
—THE PLATTERS
It’s the day before Levi leaves for his ski trip. His dad is at work and his mom is at a charity function, so we have his entire apartment to ourselves. Mom and Dad don’t know that part, otherwise I would be under house arrest instead of sitting on Levi’s puffy blue comforter and striped sheets.
“Is it lame to say I’ll miss you?” I ask as I watch him pack the suitcase flopped open beside me. With him leaving in less than twenty-four hours, everything he does is suddenly adorable. Even the way he packs. He tucks his shirts under his chin, then flips the sleeves first in a very methodical approach to folding.
“No,” he says, layering the shirt onto the others in his bag. “It’s sweet.”
There’s a certain expectation hanging over us. We don’t usually have the chance to be alone, unsupervised like this. As adorable as Levi’s packing style is, I secretly wish he would be a little less careful about his folding so we can get on to things.
“Do you have to finish packing now?” I ask him, leaning back on my elbows.
He looks down at his half-filled suitcase. “I just hate putting it off.”
“Maybe you can put it off for a little bit . . .”
“Maybe, but . . .”
I sit up and hook my fingers onto his belt loops. “A ten-minute break will make your packing skills even stronger.”
“I’m almost finished, I swear,” he says, undoing my grip on his jeans.
“Well, at least let me help you.”
As I get up and start to fold a sweater, Levi openly cringes.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, scrunching his lips together. “Your folding style is a little different than mine, but it’s okay.”
I groan, flopping back onto his bed and covering my face with my hands.
“Never mind,” I say through my fingers. “Just let me know when you’re done.”
A few minutes later, I hear the zip of the suitcase and feel the bed descend under Levi’s weight. I look over at him hopefully.
“All finished?” I ask.
“All finished.”
And then he leans in, and that nerve-wracking pressure is back. The apartment to ourselves, a week-long separation approaching. I want our good-bye to be perfect, so the memory will linger on in his mind as he descends the slopes of Vermont.
There are steps to Levi’s kissing, just like there are steps in the way he folds his shirts. He starts with small closed-mouth kisses, then he slowly moves in with a purposeful, precise tongue.
“I’ll miss you,” I say when we break apart for breath.
“Me too.”
I pull him on top of me and we continue where we left off. This is new, this horizontal making out, but it also feels instinctual. Whether it’s biological engineering or years of watching romantic comedies, something has contributed to my not being inept at sexiness.
Then I feel it. Through Levi’s jeans, against my thigh.
At first I think maybe it’s the remote control wedged between us. But when I gaze downward I see the bulge pressing against Levi’s jeans. This is the only real-life erection I have ever come across. Here lies (or rises) physical proof that I have turned Levi on, that I possess the capacity to do so. I feel proud, powerful, and winningly feminine. And then the feeling passes and I wonder whether now I have to do something with it.
My hands are fixed onto Levi’s waist, and even when I will them to migrate downward, they don’t budge. The idea of a penis kind of freaks me out. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I’ve never even pictured one, really. I view most men as real-life Ken dolls. I don’t usually think about whether they wear boxers or briefs, or what lies beneath the layers of clothing. If I don’t see it, I don’t believe it’s there. Or in this case, as I’m reminded by the weight on my thigh, feel it.
Levi’s hands begin to play with the bottom of my shirt, grazing the skin underneath. They slide upward, onto the small of my back, then stroke the skin between my shoulder blades. I should be lost in a wave of passion at this point, but all I can think about is how quiet it is in the room, and the fact that a boy’s hands are officially up my shirt.
The hands creep around so that they’re almost on my breasts, and that’s when I remember with a slight panic that my bra is packed with more padding than a mattress showroom. Flinching, I grab Levi’s hands and our lips smack together as I pull away.
Levi blinks his eyes open, startled out of a heavy daze. “Sorry. Was that not okay?”
“Oh! No. I mean yes . . . it wasn’t not okay,” is all I can manage, brilliantly. “I wasn’t ready for it, that’s all. Maybe we can—”
“Take things slow.”
“Right.”
I feel disappointed in myself, like I’ve failed an important test. It’s not that I don’t like doing this stuff with Levi, but something stops me. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s going away. Or that stupid purity pledge I once signed.
The two of us sit in silence. He has a disquieting look of concern on his face that I avoid returning. My eyes flit to a framed picture of him when he was a little boy. I think about Levi as a little boy, watching his future self trying to find his way under my bra. I glance down to Levi’s crotch, where his erection forms an awkward bulge through his jeans.
“Do you want to go home?” he asks.
I jerk my head up. “Do you want me to go home?”
“Of course not. You just seemed uncomfortable.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Do you want to watch TV or something?”
“I’ll do whatever you want, Vi.”
What I want is to stop overthinking the situation. I want to move forward in this relationship and prove to Levi that my feelings are real. It doesn’t seem like something I can do today, though. He grabs the remote control and clicks on the TV. The bulge in his jeans has disappeared. The moment has passed.
“What do you want to watch?” he asks as he flips through the channels.
We lean back against his pillows and I curl into his chest.
“I’ll watch whatever,” I say.
He settles on CNN, which is pretty much as unsexy as it gets. You can’t be in the mood when a chubby middle-aged news anchor is lecturing you on the state of affairs in China.
As exciting and scary as making out is, sometimes I prefer this. I like the sexual stuff too. But there’s something nice about closeness without sexual expectation. I trace my finger along Levi’s arm, admiring how it’s slender yet toned, enjoying the feeling of his chin resting on my head.
I soak in all his Levi-ness, because I’ll be going without it for ten days. A record for us. I want to give him an exciting send off. I want to show him I could be sexually adventurous. I want to tell him that I’ll be ready to do more soon, just not today. But when I look up at him, he’s fallen asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“GIMME ALL YOUR LOVE”
—ALABAMA SHAKES
I’m surprised to realize that I’m looking forward to the second quince rehearsal. I haven’t spoken to Annie all week, and Levi hasn’t called from Vermont, so I’ve been living hermit-style. Cut off from the outside world. I wake up before my laptop has a chance to belt my morning wake-up playlist from its speakers. I straighten up my room, even making my bed properly, decorative pillows and all.
Since I have some extra time, I put a little more effort into my appearance, brushing my lashes with mascara and blotting on some lip gloss. When the doorbell buzzes, I beat Mom to the door to open it.
Strand grins at me and strides into the apartment. He’s wearing the same thing he wore last week except for his shirt. Today it’s a faded Pixies T-shirt with a picture of a bull terrier on it.
“Ready to
serenade me?” I ask him, and his grin falters.
“Not sure what you mean.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Strand.”
He groans as I push him by the shoulders into my room. It takes some effort. Strand is heavier than he looks. “I was hoping you’d forget.”
“I could never.” I shut my bedroom door almost completely, leaving a small enough crack to placate Mom. As much as she likes Strand, she’s still my mother. It’s an unspoken but understood rule that thou shall not hang out with boys behind closed doors.
“Shouldn’t I say hi to Gloria?” Strand asks, his eyes flitting to his escape route.
“Mrs. Cruz. And you can say hi to her after you sing. Stop stalling.”
“Not stalling, just demonstrating my impeccable etiquette.”
I flop onto my bed and look at him expectantly. He swallows. I’m loving this rare moment, when the tables are turned and I’m the one making him anxious.
“All right,” he says. “So you want me to just . . . start?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” he says again. “Here we go.”
He clears his throat. And . . . nothing happens. I’ve never seen Strand so undone. Any trace of ego has diminished, leaving him looking exposed. For once, he doesn’t look like an all-confident sex god. He looks like . . . I don’t know. Like Strand.
“I have an idea,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“What if I close my eyes? You can pretend I’m not here.”
“Thank you, yeah, let’s try that. Good thinking.”
I shut my eyes, and I hear him clomping around my room. I feel the weight in my bed shift as Strand lies down next to me. Then I lose all concentration.
There’s a boy in my bed. This has never happened before.
Mom would freak out if she saw us. Levi would probably freak out if he saw us. It’s purely innocent, though. We’re not even touching. I open my eyelids halfway to peek at Strand. His eyes are closed, his hands resting on his stomach.
His chest rises as he takes a long breath.
“Ready?” My voice comes out in a whisper.
And then he starts. His voice is smooth and warm. Honestly, he should consider singing for a chocolate commercial, because that’s what his voice reminds me of. Chocolate truffles with dark cherry filling. That could be the name of his playlist. He really is lovely when he uses his mouth for singing and not annoying me. His brown curls frame his forehead, and his lashes are long and dark. He almost looks angelic.
The Victoria in My Head Page 15