by Laura Hankin
She cast her eyes down over her body and noticed the lobster claw perched right on her breast, stuck there as if magnetized. Hurriedly, she flicked it off. “Sorry, lobster. Take me to dinner first,” she tried to joke, and then she kicked herself for even bringing up the subject of dating. “I guess we should just push this onto the trash pile? And then we can figure out what to do about getting clean,” she went on, indicating the bag’s debris all over the ground. Quickly, with their feet, they shuffled it away.
“Bet you weren’t expecting to get a garbage shower when you volunteered to help me out.” Her exposed skin felt slimy, and she wiggled her shoe to dislodge a stubborn peach pit. Even better, she thought, to be covered in garbage around him. Any air of mystery and romance had officially been destroyed.
“Are you kidding? It’s the only reason I offered! For an environmental nerd, visiting a dump is generally a pretty depressing prospect,” he said. Then he hesitated. “Actually, uh, I wasn’t going to say this ’cause I was hoping you would find me devastatingly cool and attractive, but that’s clearly gone out the window so I might as well, because it has been driving me crazy. Can we please separate your grandma’s recyclable material from the rest of the trash?”
“What?” Beth stared at him, and he turned pink again.
“I just—Britton Hills is so terrible about recycling, and I’ve tried talking to the town council about starting a recycling program, but they say it’s too expensive and there’s not enough interest.”
“But wait, if there’s no recycling program, then what are you going to do with the stuff if we separate it?”
He looked down. “Um, I’ve been driving over to Hancock every Saturday to drop off my family’s stuff and stuff from the store at their recycling center there, since it’s the closest one. So I’ll bring this along next time I go. I know it’s kind of weird. And the gas I use driving over there probably almost negates the positive effect I’m having. I just really hate seeing stuff that could be reused sitting on a trash pile forever, taking up space, and I feel like I have to do something.”
“I don’t think it’s weird,” she said. At that moment, she was almost overwhelmed by how much she liked him, as he stood there, a little embarrassed but firm in his belief that he had to try to save the world. “Of course we should separate it.”
Together they knelt down and rooted through the trash bags, pulling out anything plastic or paper. Almost immediately, Beth’s whole arm felt sticky, but the trash smell ceased to bother her. Owen, on the other hand, squinted at the trash as he sorted it, his nose wrinkling. She couldn’t help laughing.
“What?” he asked.
“Your face,” she said, and demonstrated, mirroring him.
“I’m sorry we can’t all be as calm and collected as you when reaching into trash bags,” he said, faux-offended. “Tell me the truth—you’ve got to be a secret Dumpster diver or something.”
“Hah. No Dumpster diving for me. But Haiti isn’t exactly the cleanest place in the world, so I’ve experienced worse.”
“Haiti, huh? I’d like to hear about that.” She didn’t say anything, just moved a sheaf of magazines from one bag to another as she tried to figure out what she wanted to tell him. “I mean, if you’d like to talk about it.”
“Yeah, I think it’s a longer conversation. Maybe not right now.”
“Okay.” They finished sorting and turned back toward the car, bags full of recycling in hand.
“Oh no, we’re going to stink up Grandma Stella’s car,” Beth said. “And someone’s finally coming to look at it this afternoon, ’cause it makes no sense for her to have it at the retirement home. Shoot.”
“Hey, we’re not too far away from Carvey’s Pond,” Owen said. “I’d guess half a mile, a mile, maybe. Want to run over there and jump in to clean off? It’s much better to smell like pond than like rotting shellfish.”
“All right, let’s do it,” she said.
They jogged over to the pond, silent except for their breathing and the thuds of their sneakers on grass. The sun on her face felt like something out of an advertisement for a perfect day. As they straggled up to the top of a hill, the pond came into view ahead of them, their salvation from stinkiness. Owen let out a yell, suddenly boyish.
“Race you the last bit,” he called. He powered down the hill and plowed straight into the water, spray arcing up on either side of him. Caught off-guard, Beth lagged behind. When she reached the pond too and sank completely down into it, the water blissfully cool, he turned to her and smiled.
“Looks like I beat you.”
“I didn’t know we were racing, cheater! I’ll get you on the way back.”
“Are you sure about that? Your own grandmother vouched for my speed and my strength, so I think I’m going to win again.” Jokingly, he flexed, and Beth found herself temporarily distracted by the way his arm hair glinted golden in the sunlight. Water droplets clung to his muscles, slowly streaking along his skin.
“Uh. Yeah. Yes. I’m sure,” she said lamely.
He laughed. “You’re gonna have to step up your smack-talking. The only thing you’ve convinced me of is that I’m going to be leaving you behind in the dust.”
“Hey! Not going to happen. I’m ruthless,” she said, and to prove it, she splashed him. The water, more than she had intended, temporarily blocked him from her view, and when he reemerged into her sight, he was shaking his head side to side, his face a perfect mixture of outrage and joy.
“Oh, you are in for it,” he said, and launched into a counterattack. She screamed and tried to swim out of range, and he followed. They circled each other warily, panting, then slapped at the water simultaneously, great jets of it spraying into the air and at each other. As she ducked and attacked, shrieking and giggling, Beth realized that she’d spent more time being goofy in the past few days than in the entirety of the last year. “Okay, okay,” she said, and held up her hands, palms toward Owen. She backed out of the water and lay back on the grass, letting the sun dry her body and clothes. Owen scrambled onto the grass beside her and set himself down less than a foot away. She could sense the warmth rising off him, the air carrying it from his body to hers.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad that trash bag covered us in crap,” he said. He stretched his hand out so the side of his pinky touched the side of hers. The entirety of Beth’s attention shot to her little finger, an infinite amount of sensation and awareness concentrating itself in one tiny digit. Owen moved his hand over farther so it laced completely with hers. She allowed herself two seconds of that sweetness, then pulled away, jumping to her feet.
“I’m going to win,” she said, and started running. She heard his feet behind her. They ran through the high grass, crickets and bumblebees singing whispery insect songs around them as their legs swished along. Beth put thoughts of Haiti and obligation and attraction out of her mind and just focused on breathing, on lifting her feet up and over. Her calves started to ache. Owen pulled ahead, just slightly. The dump appeared, and Owen shouted back at her, “First one to touch the car!”
She ignored her body’s complaints and pushed it faster, letting the pain embrace her. She changed the pain from her enemy to her partner, and they worked together in a beautiful symbiosis. Just fifty feet more, then twenty, then ten, and she passed Owen, running straight to the side of the car and slapping it hard.
Her breath expelled itself in a whoosh from her body, and she hurled her arms up toward the sky. “I won! I won!” she crowed. “Bow down to the champion!”
Owen threw himself on the ground in front of her. “Ah, Beth,” he gasped in defeat, “you superior goddess, you are the fastest lady in the world and I am not even worthy to kiss the ground at your feet.”
“Oh shush,” she laughed, pulling him up, and then, before she even quite knew what was happening, his lips were on hers, full and warm, and sh
e was returning the kiss, her whole body alight with the sun and with him. They drew in deep, shuddering breaths, and he wrapped his arms around her, his fingers tangling in her hair. She pressed herself into him and he pressed back, the great expanse of trash around them disappearing. She could have stayed like that forever.
A horn honked, startling them apart. An old man with about four teeth leaned out the window of his pickup truck and screeched, “Hey, lovebirds! Move your car. I gotta dump my crap.”
Half-chastised, half-delighted, they hustled into the car, calling out apologies to him as they buckled their seat belts. Beth started driving, and as they moved down the dirt pathway from the dump to the main road, they imitated him. Beth felt lightheaded. Time seemed to be whooshing by at twice its normal speed. Her heart thudded heavily, and she wasn’t sure whether it was from the running, or from how completely happy she felt.
“Hey, lovebirds!” Owen called out in a high-pitched voice.
“Quit your necking! I’m a busy man,” Beth quavered, and giggled.
They calmed their hysterics, and in a pause from her laughter, Beth thought to herself, Oh no. What have I done? This was not supposed to happen.
Owen rubbed away tears of laughter from his eyes. “Young lady, I want to take you on a date,” he said, still in the screechy voice.
“Ha-ha, old man,” she said.
“No, but really,” Owen said, his voice suddenly serious. “I would like to do that, very much.”
Beth panicked. “I might be too busy helping Grandma Stella pack up,” she said. “There’s so much to do, and I’m not around for very long.”
“Oh. Okay,” Owen said. There was an uncomfortable silence. “Beth, if you don’t want to go out with me, you can just tell me so. I can leave you alone, but I’m getting a lot of mixed signals from you. I’m confused here.”
Beth pulled the car over to the side of the path and turned it off. The kiss had changed things. She was tired of herself, of her evasions that accomplished nothing.
“This isn’t me,” she said, angling in her seat toward him.
“What isn’t you?”
“I can’t be a silly, splashing girl.”
“I don’t think you’re silly,” he said. “Or, well, maybe sometimes, but in a good way.”
“I don’t normally sit around tasting lollipops and making fun of old men and having dance parties all day.”
“Wait, having dance parties?”
She kept talking, quickly, the jumble of words fighting each other to exit her mouth. “I like doing all this stuff, I do, I really do, and that kiss was, well, it was amazing—”
“I agree.”
“But I’ve made a commitment to go back to Haiti. Because I can’t live in a world filled with such inequality and sadness, and not do my best to try and fix it.” He was looking at her, his eyes grayer than ever in the day’s brightness. He had long, light lashes. “Like how you feel about the recycling, I think. Recognizing that you probably won’t make much of a difference, but that you have to try anyway. So my life is not going to be able to include a lot of this fun, silly stuff.”
“Okay,” he said. “First off, I think it’s awesome that you’re going to do good stuff for the world in Haiti, if that’s what you want.”
“Thank you.”
“But are you saying that spending time with me is silly and pointless? ’Cause that makes me feel kind of bummed.”
“No, no, no, I’m not trying to say that. It’s not that being with you is silly, it’s that it’s something that’s totally for myself. And I like it so much that I could start only wanting to do things that make me happy, and then I’ll never end up helping other people the way I think I should. No, not think. Know. The way that I know I should. What if I get sucked into it, and then realize that all these years have gone by, and I haven’t done anything with my life except amuse myself?”
“Would that be so terrible? What if it’s just as bad to be bored with your life?”
“Oh, I’m not bored in Haiti. I’m just—” She stopped herself, aware that she’d been about to say miserable.
“Just what?”
“I don’t know.” She couldn’t dwell on the word that had danced, unbidden, to the tip of her tongue. “Anyway, given the circumstances, and the fact that I’m not really a one-night-stand or even a one-week-stand kind of person, I think it’s best to say no to a date. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said.
She turned the car on again and drove back along the main road. They sat quietly. He gave her brief directions to his house. She dropped him off and thanked him for his help. He got out of the car, the bags of recycling clanking in his hands, and started to shut the door. Then he stopped himself, and leaned his head back in.
“Have dinner with me,” he said, “as friends.”
She stared at him, taken aback. “Um, I think that’s a bad idea.”
“I won’t offer to pay for your meal. And I promise I won’t try to kiss you.” He held up his fingers in the scout’s-honor salute, and she felt certain that he’d been the most adorable Boy Scout in the world. “But I like you, and while you’re still in this country, before you begin your grand renunciation of silliness and fun, I’d rather hang out as friends than not at all.”
“I— When? Where?”
“Tomorrow night. Meet me in front of Mulberry’s at six.”
She tried to corral the goofy smile yanking her lips upward, but it was too strong for her. “Fine,” she said. “No romance.”
“Okay,” he said. “It’s a friend date.” Then he shut the door and walked up the driveway to his house, carrying the bulky recycling bags effortlessly.
She put her head on the steering wheel for a minute, took some deep breaths, and then drove back to Grandma Stella’s, barely seeing the road (which was blessedly devoid of traffic). As she pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, Ally opened the front door and ran out to her, her big eyes bright, her anger from before replaced by what seemed like anticipation.
“There you are!” Ally said. “I have something I really need to tell you.”
Beth walked straight up to Ally and leaned into her, holding on for dear life. “Oh, Ally,” she said, “I’m so confused.”
ELEVEN
No, no, I told you that you could review a movie for adults, not an adult movie! This is a family newspaper, goddammit! I won’t run it!” August Niederbacher, roly-poly editor and owner of the Britton Hills Bugle, slammed down his telephone and turned to Ally and Beth as they walked through the door of the Bugle headquarters. “Good afternoon,” he said, suddenly formal. “How may I help you?”
“Is Valerie around?” Ally asked.
“Right in there,” he said. He pointed toward a door in the wall, with a sign posted on it that said Home of Britton Hills’ Favorite Advice Column and, underneath, a gold plaque with the name Valerie Niederbacher. (Ally suspected nepotism played a large part in Dear Valerie’s continued existence.)
“Thanks so much,” Beth said, and together they walked over to the door and gave it a knock.
When Ally had told Beth about her Penny Joan Munson discovery, and Beth had shared Grandma Stella’s comment about missing the woman in the photo, they’d sat in perplexed silence for a moment.
Then Ally had blurted, “We need to get them back together!” She’d realized immediately after she said it how childish she sounded, so she said, rolling her eyes, “Coming soon, direct to DVD, The Parent Trap 2: Ally and Beth Reunite Two Old Ladies.”
“Right,” Beth said. “And in a side plot, we’ll set up our homeroom teacher with Mr. Martin from eighth-grade algebra, because they’re just so perfect for each other.”
“The New York Times calls it ‘an insipid successor to the Lindsay Lohan remake!’”
They’d laughed together
at the ridiculousness of the idea, but as her giggles subsided, Ally found herself surprised by how much she actually wanted to do it.
“I mean, we could—” she started to say, right as Beth began talking too.
“But what if we tried—” They had both stopped talking and stared at each other, then smiled.
“For Grandma Stella’s sake . . .” Beth said. So they’d come up with a plan.
Now, from the other side of the door, a choked voice called out, “Oh . . . yes, come in.”
Ally pushed the door open. Valerie sat behind a desk, frantically dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“Oh, I’m so sorry—should we come back?” Beth asked.
“No, no, please!” Valerie said, struggling to her feet and coming around to greet them. “Elizabeth, Allison, it’s marvelous to see you.” She gave them both kisses on the cheek, then sniffed loudly.
“Are you all right?” Ally asked, hyperaware of the wetness Valerie’s kiss had left behind on her cheek.
“Oh yes, yes, I was just watching the most wonderful video,” Valerie said, heading back to her desk chair and gesturing at her computer. “It’s a—have you heard of—there are these things called flash mobs, and oh, they’re so romantic. Have you ever seen one?”
Ally smirked and tried to catch Beth’s eye, but Beth was watching Valerie with a pleasant smile and nodding.
“This one—” Valerie paused to blow her nose into the tissue. “It’s a marriage proposal. The couple just met four months ago. He found her lost wallet. Isn’t that just kismet? They knew right away that they wanted to be together for the rest of their lives. And he took her to their favorite spot—the loveliest park you’ve ever seen—and they were just sitting there on a bench, and”—here she started to tear up again, and her words got slower, incredulous—“she thought they were just having—a—picnic. I’m sorry.” She stopped to wipe her eyes again. “Well, just watch. I’ll start it over from the beginning.”
So Ally and Beth walked behind her desk too, and bent down to watch the video over her shoulder. An ordinary-looking couple, Ally thought, sat on an ordinary-looking bench, and then a Nickelback song began playing. Other parkgoers got up and started to dance, surrounding the couple, and then the man got down on one knee. In her head, Ally thought of all the snarky comments she could make to Beth later, things about how she’d seen better dancing in an elementary school play, about how she felt sorry for anyone whose fiancé chose to mark an important life moment with Nickelback, about how the woman being proposed to was perhaps the definitive textbook case of an ugly crier. Again, she tried to catch Beth’s eye, to make a sort of Is Valerie serious? face, but Beth was watching the video with total concentration for the whole, interminable five minutes it took to finish.