by Maurene Goo
When we had first arrived at the wall yesterday, it was a masterpiece of ancient graffiti. It was like every tagger in Orange County had at one point visited this shack. Layers and layers of color: words, tiny animals, symbols. All jumbled and packed in this small space.
So when Luca splashed the wall with paint thinner, I almost had a heart attack. But I kept my mouth shut, sitting back and watching him go about his business. The graffiti had started to smudge and drip, creating a mass of swirled colors.
Then he had grabbed black spray paint and started covering the wall in great big swaths of black—leaving the middle visible in a soft circular shape. He left bits and pieces around the circle visible as well, so that color peeped in as blurry-edged shapes. Eventually he took out some gold and silver paints and dotted the black with little splashes and pinpoints.
And when it was all over, I was staring at the universe.
When I said as much, he corrected me: “Nebula.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Pretty specific there, art boy.”
“There’s something you can’t outnerd me in, nerd.”
“What?”
“Space.”
“Like, all of space?”
“Yeah, like everything outside of this tiny, insignificant planet. All of that,” he said, pointing up at the sky. With eyes turned upward, Luca’s face took on a faraway look that I recognized from my dad’s face when he was talking about his latest favorite K drama. “Space is…”
“The final frontier?”
He looked at me with a huge grin. “Yes. Live long and prosper.”
“Did you ever want to be an astronaut when you were younger?”
The swiftest of replies: “Yes.”
I imagined a little Luca staring out into space and I almost died from the preciousness overload. “Why did you give up on that?”
A slight hesitation, then he pulled me into another big hug. “I found out I had to be good at math.” Mm, math. Arms. Luca’s soap.
I looked up at him. “So, wait—when’s the application due for your scholarship? I’m guessing this graffiti stuff is going in?”
Luca nodded, keeping his arms linked behind my back. “Well, the deadline for the scholarship was actually in November, but I managed to include the graffiti. After Emily and I broke up I got a lot of tags done. So those older ones made it just in time for the application.”
“What’s the scholarship? It seems like a lot is riding on this.”
Letting go of me, Luca stepped back and looked hard at the nebula wall. “There is a lot riding on it. It’s a pretty big one—the largest fine art scholarship in the country, in fact. It’ll pay for half my tuition basically—for the rest I can take out loans.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait, what! Half your tuition?”
“Yeah, if I keep up my grades every year. Some superrich anonymous donor is doing it.”
“That’s so much!” I sputtered. “There are some big ones for the sciences, for sure, but they’re backed by huge pharmaceutical companies and, like, weapons manufacturers!”
Luca laughed. “Well, there’s money in art, too, you know,” he said.
“Geez, I guess!” I was still doing the math, knowing how much private art schools cost, while Luca snapped a photo of the wall.
“What’s crazy is that the announcement’s going to be made the day of the gallery show. Cosmic timing, right?” he asked, putting his phone away.
I helped pack up the supplies. “Whoa, totally. Are you nervous?”
He hoisted his backpack back on with a grin. “What do you think?”
Flutter. “You’ll get it,” I said firmly. “Believe me.”
He reached for my hand. “Thanks, ye of too-much faith. Now let’s take a train ride.”
We hopped on the next train to San Diego, a few stops south, where we would catch a concert. The train lurched forward and I had to grab on to Luca’s sleeve to catch myself from falling.
He looked down at me. “You okay?”
The boyfriendly concern made me blush, and I held his hand as we walked through the train to find seats.
When we did, a comfortable silence settled between us.
I stared out the window, watching the ocean and tall grasses zoom by us. Suddenly I realized what we would pass. I elbowed Luca. “Hey, Graffiti Gary, look out the window.”
“Graffiti Gary,” he muttered under his breath, but he craned his neck over to my side to peer out anyway. We were passing a long cinder-block wall, but after a few seconds I jabbed my finger on the window and grinned. “Look, the three buds!”
Painted on a row of storm-drain covers were three colorful and slightly grotesque cat faces, each with a toothy grin—one was sporting sunglasses, one had a giant mole, the other had its eyes closed blissfully. I sighed happily and looked at them until they were receding shapes in the distance.
When I finally turned around to see Luca’s reaction, I found him with his elbows on his knees, staring at me with mock wonder. My smile slid off my face. “What?” I asked.
“I think I should be the one asking questions. What the heck were you excited about? Those cats?”
“Yeah! They change every once in a while but have been there forever. Aren’t they awesome?”
He tried to bite back his pitying smile. “Yeah … So edgy and neat!”
I reclined in my seat and snootily avoided his gaze. “Whatever, they’re an institution. When I was little, I always looked forward to spotting them when we drove down to San Diego on the 5.” I nodded my head toward the window at the traffic-jammed freeway running on the other side of the tracks.
Luca was still smiling at me. “That’s sweet.” And then I abruptly changed the subject, because I didn’t know how else to bring it up.
“So what’s the deal with Emily?”
He winced and I bit my lip, regretting how rudely that had come out.
He tapped his thumb into my palm before launching in. “I was … really smitten. She was my first real girlfriend and we made a good team in a lot of ways. We bonded over our messed-up families. It was kind of obvious that art was our cathartic release from our mediocre family lives,” he said drily.
Smitten. First girlfriend. Hmph. A unexpected surge of jealousy coursed through me but I squeezed his hand to encourage him to keep talking.
“But she was also … full of shit. In the beginning, I was so into her that I didn’t really notice, you know? But I caught little glimpses here and there. She was really good at manipulating people, at getting her way by pulling the damaged-rich-girl act, or just by batting her eyelashes.”
Manipulating. Like following a bunch of steps to get a guy to like you? My breath caught for a second, and an iciness trickled down from my scalp to my toes. But no. Emily was different … She hurt Luca. My K drama stuff was just to get me on level footing. So that Luca and I even had a chance. And it had worked. I brushed the dread aside and continued listening to Luca.
“And in the end, I was just one of the many suckers who fell for her act. She was just using me—she knew I would take the fall for her if she ever got caught tagging. And not to mention, I got her a ton of attention online, too.”
I kicked his foot playfully. “According to Wes, you’re Tumblr famous.”
He didn’t even look embarrassed. “Yeah. I don’t know how that happened. Anyway, once I got arrested, I figured it all out. The blinders I’d been wearing fell off. She was just this lying little opportunist. And so, yeah, I haven’t had a high opinion of girlfriends since then.”
Again, I shoved that shadowy sense of guilt off to the side. “That’s pretty harsh, to take all girls to task for one jerk’s duplicity.”
He leaned in to me, mouth inches away from mine. “Not all girls, I guess.”
“Good,” I whispered, then fell back in my seat.
I gazed out the window—tall grasses flying by, a strip of ever-present blue sea alongside it. I realized it was the perfect moment for the ol’ classic K
drama move of falling asleep on your love interest’s shoulder. I channeled a K drama hero this time, Jin-Gu from Plus Nine Boys, when he takes the bus home with his crush and purposely moves her head onto his shoulder when she falls sleep. A few minutes passed and then I took a shallow breath and willed myself to drop my head onto Luca’s shoulder.
At one point, I shifted slightly in my seat and rubbed my cheek onto his shoulder, making my hair slip across my face and onto his arm. But then my hair was tickling my nose something fierce.
Okay, just move your hand up to your face, as if drunkenly passed out and not realizing what your body is doing, then casually move that stupid piece of hair off your nose … and as my hand inched across my lap on the long trek to my nose, someone else’s hand touched my face.
It grazed the lock of hair fanned across my eyes and the bridge of my nose, then gathered the hair together and gently pushed it to the side of my face—short fingernails brushing across my cheek.
Change the train—from the Surfliner to an underground subway in Seoul. And as the train zips through one of the stations in the heart of the city, the camera catches two figures in one of the windows. A girl fast asleep on a boy’s shoulder. He’s staring at her with conflicting emotions flitting across his face: tenderness, irritation, compassion, and finally submission.
I made a mumbled sleepy noise, moved in closer, and tucked my right leg up to my torso so that my entire body was now curled into his side. And I felt Luca’s breathing match my own as we zipped along the coast.
STEP 17:
Worlds Have to Collide for Some Comic Relief
The next week passed in a haze. The only thing completely in focus was my time with Luca. Luca this and Luca that. I was in full-on, Bella Swan, obsessed-with-my-guy mode.
And you know what? It was a pleasant place to be. Do I think one’s life should revolve around a boy? No. BUT. And here’s a huge BUT: when you had spent almost eighteen years on this planet wondering who that first boyfriend was going to be, and then holy cannoli there he was, it was pretty freaking amazing.
Some amazing things:
• There is a person who thinks my color-coded charts for watering every plant in my yard are fascinating. And that person isn’t my dad.
• Despite seeing my pores up close and personal, Luca still stares at me and says with wonder, So pretty.
• Having someone help you carry heavy things even if technically he is not as strong as you.
• Listening to music and suddenly understanding the significance of all feelings in all songs.
• Sharing your favorite everything with someone new—and everything you’ve loved forever taking on a fresh and exciting new light.
• Everything reminding me of him: ramen, pencils, T-shirts, ice, my house, the Buick, my bed, trains, morning glories, the ocean, breathing.
• Finding yourself fitting into the negative space of someone else’s body perfectly.
• Feeling like the center of someone’s life—that someone is waiting for you to wake up so they can text you good morning and send you a funny cat gif.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg, I’m sure.
On Saturday night, I nervously texted him: Have you left yet?
Within seconds: Leaving now. Keep your pants on. Or not.
I giggled. There was a whoooole lotta giggling going on lately, let me say. I was nervous because we were headed to a bonfire with my friends. And despite being together for a week, this was our big “public appearance” together as a couple. We’d been seen holding hands together and kinda canoodling at school but in a weird way I felt like we were “coming out” at this event. It would be the first time he hung out with my friends. Everyone had been busy and I had basically slipped away with Luca at lunch, alone, at every opportunity.
To be honest, I was nervous about the Big Meeting. My best friends … God love them, but they could be an obnoxious, critical duo. Wes called Luca Brooding Artist Boy and teased me endlessly about him. Fiona—well, she just hated everyone until she didn’t. They were both excited for me when they found out about the kiss and subsequent mushy moments, but a little cautious, too—as if they couldn’t quite believe I had actually done it. I couldn’t blame them. Also, I had to remind them one billion times not to accidentally call him Won Bin.
I skipped over to the kitchen, where my dad was cleaning out the refrigerator. His head and upper body were barely visible as he grumbled while moving things around wearing a pair of pink rubber gloves. “How many leftovers you going to bring home and never eat?!” he demanded as he tossed a box filled with moldy fries at me.
Catching it deftly, I threw it into the trash bag that my dad had set up at his feet. “If we had a dog, we could give it to her.”
“No dog!”
I sighed and went into the pantry to dust off the picnic basket we kept in there. After three of my gerbils died consecutively, we’d had a strict no-pets policy at our house. But the past few months I had been pestering my dad to get us a dog, which he found really confusing, I’m sure. But I hated knowing that after I left for college, my dad would be alone. “A dog would be so good at chasing away Señor,” I cajoled.
Señor was the neighbor’s cat and my dad’s nemesis. He was constantly shitting in the vegetable beds and leaving dead mice on our doorstep. My dad’s facial expression indicated that he was definitely weighing that pro for a moment.
He straightened up and pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes with his forearm. “Where you going again?”
I started filling the basket with various bonfire foods—hot dogs, marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, and some pickles for good measure. “The beach, for a bonfire.”
“Which beach?”
“Vista Dunes,” I answered dutifully. “We’ll be there with Fiona and Wes and lots of other kids from school. Call the police if I’m not home by midnight.”
“That late?” he yelped comically while emptying curdled milk into the sink.
“Yup,” I chirped, adding some napkins to the basket.
He pulled open the produce drawers in the fridge and inspected the contents tentatively. “Okay,” he responded amiably. “Luca’s driving his dad’s car?”
Luca’s car was still being worked on by my dad. Apparently, there was a lot wrong with it and I had my suspicions that my dad was prolonging the fixes as a bit of a pet project. He loved Honda Civics from that era.
“Yup.” My phone buzzed just then. “It’s him, gotta run, Appa.” I ran over and smacked his butt with my basket. “Don’t go too crazy partying with all the kitchen appliances tonight!”
He mumbled something about me being a brat and continued tossing rotten produce into the trash bag.
I ran outside to see a zippy little BMW idling in my driveway. The driver’s-side window rolled down and Luca stuck his head out to yell, “What up, babe, like my riiiiiide?”
“You’re disturbingly good at that.” I crawled into the tiny passenger seat, shoving the basket between my feet.
He immediately leaned over and kissed me. My skin buzzed, every part of me alert and alive.
“Hi,” I said, unable to keep the smile off my face.
He smiled back. “Hi.”
I mean.
We drove with the Beach Boys blasting and didn’t feel the need to talk. But constantly hold hands? Yes.
We pulled into the beach parking lot, which was brightly lit and full of cars. The pitch-black shoreline was dotted with glowing bonfires. It seemed like all of Monte Vista High was jam-packed onto the beach.
“Ready to be officially initiated into Monte Vista High School debauchery?” I punctuated the question with a weird dance involving puppetlike bent elbows.
He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Can’t wait, nerd.”
Fiona and Wes were standing under a parking lot light waiting for us, arms full of grocery bags, wood, and blankets. No sign of Leslie since, true to her word, Fiona had broken up with her. Wes made a
porno-ish bow chicka bow bow sound as we approached. I rolled my eyes. “Just so you know, Wes is the worst.”
“Is that why you spent seven minutes in heaven with him?” Luca asked in a low, teasing voice.
I bit my lip to choke back a laugh. My instinct was to reassure him and shake my head and say, Gross! but being completely honest with him would make that entire night suspicious. Instead, I shrugged. “We’re over that weird blip in our relationship. You’re my one and only.”
His lips twitched. “Are you being sarcastic?”
I hugged his arm. “Yes and no.”
And then there we were, me and Luca facing Fiona and Wes. I cleared my throat. “Hey guys. Um, this is Luca. I mean, you guys have already met but I mean…” I just stopped talking and shrugged.
Luca held a hand up. “Hey.”
Wes lifted his chin in response. “What up, man. So you and Desi, huh?” I saw Luca’s eyes get all squinty again.
Fiona elbowed Wes. “Don’t be lame.” Then she smiled this scary smile at Luca. “So what are your intentions with our darling Desi?”
I started choking on nothing and Luca took my hand, very casually, very coolly, and said, “Being forever life partners.”
Wes looked horrified but Fiona burst out laughing. “Okay, cool. Ready to hang out by a giant fire?”
We all walked toward the beach and found a fire pit, which we filled with wood, then lit. I had started unpacking my picnic basket when I noticed Violet and Cassidy. “What the heck, look who’s here!” I whispered to Luca. He looked over and waved at them. “I invited them. Is that okay?”
What! “Sure … I mean, you can do what you want. But why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked at me with a sheepish smile. “To be honest, I didn’t want to be outnumbered by your friends. Fiona scares me.” I was going to argue but then saw Fiona viciously taking Wes to task for not skewering his hot dog correctly, and realized he had a point.