“Really?” he says, looking hopeful.
“No, not really. I’m speaking hypothetically here. Get your head out of the gutter.”
“Give me a second, then.” He pauses as if he’s running live camera shots through his head. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Let’s say we kiss. And that kiss leads to a relationship. And that relationship leads to the inevitable breakup. How do we go back to what we’ve had?” Kirby starts to answer, but I stop him. “We can’t go back. It’s like neutering a dog. You can’t put all those parts back into place once they’ve been sucked out.”
“Thanks for the visual. But I disagree. It’s not like a neutered dog, Natalie. Neutered dogs still hump legs.”
“Okay, wrong analogy, then. I just know that things will change between us, and I’m not willing to go there. I don’t want to risk our friendship. Not now.”
“So what are you saying? Someday?”
“No. I can’t see into the future. I just know that, now, I want exactly what we have.”
Kirby picks up some stray screws from the floor and lets them roll around in the cup of his hand. “I still feel like an ass.”
“Well, don’t.” I take his hand in mine and give it a squeeze. “You and me? We’re gonna be fine.”
“Ruh?” Kirby asks in his Scooby voice.
“Promise.” I give him my warmest smile. “We’re even gonna go on eBay and find you a Zip and Go! Wallet.”
* * *
I get to work about ten minutes late, but Mom is occupied in the exam room. Convenient timing and very much needed.
Things with Kirby feel more straightened out. Even though we may be on different pages, knowing where we are prevents us from losing each other.
It could be I’ve approached this lie thing in the wrong way. Instead of looking at the deposit slip of seasonal lies, I spend the rest of the afternoon pretending that sixteen years of good behavior amounts to something. Like there’s a bank account where I’ve deposited good in order to withdraw some cold, hard bad. I deposit more today by being polite to my mom and giving her more than monosyllabic answers to her questions.
In the late afternoon, my nerves are bundled in doubt. I leave a note in the kibble bin for Carver. “I can’t do it.”
I retrieve a note from him later. “You can. Don’t worry.”
Carver leaves work at five p.m. and gives me a wink on his way out. He’ll be back here by five-fifty to sneak into the unlocked car.
Diana, a large fluffy-haired white Samoyed, leads her short and portly owner, Mrs. Gonzales, through the front door of the clinic at 5:48 p.m. Mrs. Gonzales’ thick black hair is disheveled, and sweat glosses her face. It looks like Diana has dragged her, Iditarod-style, for several blocks.
Mom comes out of the exam room with Madame Bovary, a small, elderly, white-muzzled Boston terrier, and her owner. Diana jumps playfully at Madame Bovary, who lowers her head and fiercely snarls in reaction. She’s obviously not feeling well, because Boston terriers normally have a gentle disposition.
Mom interferes and tells Mrs. Gonzales and Diana to wait in the exam room. Looking relieved, Madame Bovary and her owner wait for me to tally the bill.
Mom leans over the reception counter. “You should go get your grandmother soon.”
“Sure,” I say. A pang of guilt. Ignore it. Ignore it.
She stares at my strand of dyed hair for a minute. “Your blue is fading.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Good thing, huh?”
“Drive safely,” she says. “And wait for her in the parking lot.”
I nod. Mom thinks I’m being a good sport about being on restriction. At least Madame Bovary, the Boston terrier, made her discontent apparent when Diana provoked her. The best I can do is behave like a hedonistic pathological liar living an alternate life.
Speaking of an alternate life, Carver is probably sneaking into the car right about now.
It behooves an owner to know that a dog, in essence, is unpredictable.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
“You there?” I ask when I get into the driver’s seat.
“Of course,” Carver answers in a muffled voice. I look behind me, into the backseat, where a huge duffel bag lies on the ground next to Carver (who appears to be a hump covered by a plaid flannel blanket).
“What’s with the humongous bag?”
Carver peeks out from the blanket, his hair feathery with static electricity. “Provisions. That’s all you get to know.” For a second, Pixie holds up a flashing yellow warning light. I want to ask him more about the contents of the bag, but I know I’m prone to fits of paranoia. He wouldn’t do anything too risky after the whole pot episode. No way.
I take a deep breath, start the car, and force that stupid scared voice of mine out of my head. I feel Carver pushing into the back of my seat. “Carver?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re not wearing a seat belt.”
“No, but I’m not going to fly out of the car if you hit something.” He sounds like he’s talking from inside a cave. “You’re not planning on hitting anything, are you?”
“No.” I squeeze into highway traffic and am cut off by a red pickup truck and forced to pound on the brakes.
Carver pops out from beneath his blanket again. “Okay, so maybe I do need a seat belt.”
It’s past six. When we get to the railroad crossing, the giant black-and-white-striped arms are lowered. The world always slows down when I’m in a hurry!
A freight train crawls along the tracks. The worry about Carver being in the backseat closes in on me like it never really left. I keep hearing Mom say we’re not supposed to be alone together, and even though the “universe” surrounds us, I’m starting to think that I’m doing the wrong thing.
“Carver?”
“Yes?”
“What if I get pulled over by the cops?”
“You don’t drive fast enough to do that,” he says. I’m slightly offended. “Besides”—he comes out from beneath the blanket and is so close to me I can feel his breath—“if you’re always asking ‘what if,’ you’d never leave the house.”
I look at him in the rearview mirror. “I know, but I could lose my license if I’m caught, because you’re not wearing your seat belt. My mom would find out and she’d yank away yet another privilege. I barely get to drive as it is.”
Carver lets out a huge sigh, running his hand through his flyaway hair. “You can think of the worst-case scenario for any situation. You could stop crossing the street because you might get hit by a car. You might stop getting out of bed if you thought about getting struck by lightning or having a tree freakishly topple onto you.”
“Carver, I’m a victim of worst-case scenarios, if you haven’t noticed. My mom found us in bed together, she found out I skipped school. Doesn’t it follow that this will lead me to another worst-case scenario?”
“No, you see, you’ve had your share. This is your freebie,” he says. “Don’t worry, okay? You’ll see, it’ll actually be fun.”
The gates in front of the train tracks rise. I drive through the crossing and toward home. Carver resumes hiding under his blanket.
Grandma is tapping her white-patent-leather-clad foot on the curb when we get there. I jump out of the car and run to her side to open the door for her. “I can do it,” she says. “You are late.” She kisses my cheek.
“Sorry,” I say. From Grandma’s viewpoint outside, Carver cannot be seen in the backseat.
Once the two of us are buckled in, I drive down the block, toward the stop sign. “Reva’s daughter is getting divorced,” she says. “That vay!” She points in the direction we’re driving.
“Why?” I try to keep my cool and pretend that there’s not another passenger in the backseat.
“Her husband is not very attentive.”
At the stop sign, a police car drives by in the opposite direction. Panic. “A cop,” I blurt.
“No, Reva’s husband is not a poli
ceman. He is a lawyer,” Grandma says, continuing our conversation.
“He’s turning around,” I say. I see the cop in my side-view mirror as I sit stunned at the stop sign.
“Just go,” Carver says in a loud whisper.
“Who is saying that?” Grandma is startled and looks around the cabin of the car.
“I’m pulling over!” I shout. I steer the car to the curb. The cop passes me. “You have to get out of the car. I can’t do this.”
“Vhat? Vhy?” Grandma looks at me with her eyes narrowed. “Vhat is going on?”
“No, I mean you, Carver.” I look straight ahead and watch the police car fade into the length of the never-ending street.
“Why? Are you being pulled over?” Carver asks, still under his blanket.
“Carver is back there?” Grandma yells, craning her neck toward the backseat.
“Please, Carver, I can’t do it.” Carver comes out from behind the blanket.
“Vhat are you doing here?” Grandma waits for him to answer.
I pounce in before he can say anything. “I’m sorry, Grandma. Give me a minute.”
I step out of the car and Carver follows me to the sidewalk. We stand underneath a leafless tree. I gauge a rise in Carver’s frustration level: red floods his cheeks. “You are great, Carver. Fun. Spontaneous. I just—” Oh, no, tears. Look down! Wipe them away! I look at a crack in the sidewalk. “I just can’t do this. It doesn’t feel right.”
How can this not feel right? There’s a wonderful guy standing in front of me who makes me want to vampire-kiss right into his neck, but I’m too worried to go forward with this. I must be a freak.
Grandma is watching us from inside the car.
I can feel Carver look at me. Perhaps he’s trying to define me. “Not everything you do is going to lead to the worst possible consequence.” He must think I’m a slow learner, because he told me this in the car about five minutes ago. I hear the words, but I can’t seem to understand their meaning. There is always a consequence.
He allows me some time to study the sidewalk crack a little longer. When I look up at his green eyes, he shakes his head. And with that, he walks back toward home. For the first time in the weeks that I’ve known him, his shoulders slump. He doesn’t look back at me. I stay on the sidewalk, ignoring Grandma’s ring-fingered tapping on the window.
I want Carver to know me better. If he did, he’d know that I’ve lied to my mom, ditched school, prowled out of the house, and consumed alcohol—all within a week. If he knew these were all firsts for me, maybe he’d give me a break or at least understand why his hiding in the car was just a little too much to bear.
My face is wet with tears when I get back into the car. “Please don’t say anything to Mom, Grandma. He’s out of the car, okay? It was a mistake.”
I expect Grandma’s head to spin 360 degrees while she says, “I’m late!” but instead, she looks at me and asks, “Vhat is vrong?”
I hang my arms over the steering wheel and rest my head on it. “I’m tired of being good.”
“Hiding a boy in the car is being good?”
“But I made him get out.”
“That is because you are an honest girl,” she says proudly.
Tears wet the steering wheel and I wonder if they’re heavy enough to sound the horn. “No,” I heave, “I’m not an honest girl. I’ve been lying to Mom.”
“But you do not do it vell. It stays vith you”—she reaches over and gently touches my stomach—“here. You feel bad about it.”
“So that makes it right?” I straighten up, trying to compose myself.
“No!” Her petrified pointer finger jabs toward my face. I flinch. “You feel bad because you are not being true to yourself.” She slaps her hand on the dashboard. “And vhen you are not true to self, that is the biggest lie of all, vhen you lie to yourself.”
“Grandma?” I ask.
“Vhat?”
“Was Mom true to herself when she was my age?”
Grandma takes a deep breath and looks out the window. “Your mother always had a drive inside. She always had her nose in a book. Always serious. Your grandpa and I tell her to relax, to smell the roses. But she did not listen. Perhaps that vas her vay of being true to herself.”
I try to suppress my crying on the way to the senior center. Out of sympathy, Grandma refrains from screaming driving directions. When we get there, she turns to me. “I can stay vith you,” she says.
“Thanks, but a little time alone might do me good,” I say. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
Grandma hesitates, then gets out and walks through the double doors of the senior center.
I climb into the backseat and wrap myself in the plaid blanket. Carver’s bag is at my feet. I sniffle, wipe my nose on the blanket, unzip the bulky bag, reach into it, and pull out a large CD player. There’re a tapered white candle with holder, matches, two plastic cups, a bottle of sparkling apple cider, and a box from the Crusty Crumb Bakery containing two devil’s food chocolate cupcakes.
I press Play on the CD player. Otis Redding’s buttery voice spills from the speakers.
These arms of mine
They are yearning
Yearning from wanting you.
I press Stop on the CD player, get in the front seat, and start the car. I’ve an hour and fifteen minutes to be true to myself.
Genetics, not abandonment, causes a dog to stray.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
I loop back toward the route I took to get to the senior center. Every person I pass, be it potbellied man watering his lawn or slender woman on a porch swing tending to a crossword puzzle, becomes subject to scrutiny. After ten minutes of driving at street-sweeper speed, I am still unable to find who I am searching for.
Carver left his key in the duffel bag, so I know he didn’t go home. I decide to follow my intuition to Juniper Street.
Less than halfway down the road, I see Carver sitting under some sort of willowy tree in front of the vacant house where he, Laney, and I trespassed two weeks ago.
I press the brakes once Carver is framed in my window. When he looks up at me, I am trembling inside the car. We are only about fifteen feet from each other, but it feels much farther.
Carver, picture-perfect and simple in his white T-shirt and worn faded jeans, has enough heart in him to muster a smile. It is not the kind of smile that is toothy or ear to ear or sarcastic. It is a soft smile, the kind someone gives you when he recognizes something he’s never seen in you; it is a knowing smile.
I steer the car to the opposite side of the street and park. I hoist the duffel bag and the blanket from the backseat and walk across the street to join Carver.
He watches me as I approach, the twitch in his jaw becoming clearer as I get closer. “Here,” I say quietly, trying to settle the bag at his feet without letting it make a thud.
Carver looks up at me and shakes his head a little so that the hair almost covering his green eyes sweeps to the side. “Did you peek?” he asks.
“I did.” I sit next to him, surprised that he doesn’t seem angry with me. “I was tempted to eat the cupcakes.”
“Better than their going to waste,” he says.
“Carver.” I bite my lip. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” He reaches down to pick up a small jagged rock from the street and tosses it from one hand to the other. “I’ve never met a person like you, someone who can actually trace all the thoughts that lead up to a no.” Is that bad or good? “Maybe you take it too far, though. We were just going to sit in the parking lot of a senior citizen center.”
“You’re right, but you don’t seem to question things the way I do. I wish I could just dive headfirst without having to listen to my overactive conscience.” I sigh. “But I don’t think I can.”
The rock sits in his open palm. For a minute, I think he’s going to pet it. “You don’t have to be sorry,” Carver says. “We’re just different.”
&n
bsp; Does he mean “we’re just different” as in “we can’t be together”? Or “we’re just different” as in “I like you and want to make out with you anyway”?
He is not leaning over for a kiss. I can only assume what he means.
Carver scrapes the rock against the concrete like a piece of chalk. He stops, clutches it in his hand, pulls up his pant leg, and scratches his ankle. There, above his anklebone, is a tattoo. A dragonfly. Not a light, airy-looking one, either. It’s a thick-bodied dragonfly, a perfectly rendered one with a matrix of lines and texture running through it.
Mystery solved.
It would have been obvious of him to have a koi etched on his ankle. But koi don’t have wings. I’m not exactly sure what the dragonfly represents to him, but right now, I choose to read it as a symbol of freedom.
I pry the rock from his hand and toss it into the street. “You know how to get in there?” I glance over my shoulder at the vacant house behind us.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here.” Then it hits me. He’s here to meet Laney. “I was going to wait until dark and go into the house.”
“With Laney?” I ask.
“No, by myself. But Laney gave me the access code.”
“I don’t get it,” I say. “You have the whole room above the garage to yourself.”
He sighs. “I came here last night and even though I didn’t feel like I belonged here, I didn’t feel like I was intruding.”
“You’re not intruding, Carver.”
“It’s obvious your mom thinks I’m not such a good influence on you.”
That’s it. “Let’s go in,” I say, standing up.
Carver’s eyes widen. “Are you serious?”
“Grab the bag.” I have an hour before I have to pick up Grandma.
The pinkening of the sky follows us inside the house. Carver takes my hand and leads me up the stairs into a different room than the one he, Laney, and I went into before. Outside the window of the room, a huge tree with feathery purple blooms stretches out its many branches.
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