by Nancy N. Rue
“I hate you,” I said.
“I’m not that crazy about you either.” He was still grinning.
“Is he making you do this?”
“Look, we’re burnin’ daylight. Are you coming or not?”
“Where are we going?” I said.
“To the Galleon for starters. I need a mocha.”
Only because I saw caffeine in my future did I agree. Although as I marched down the sidewalk trying to stay just ahead of Rocky in spite of the fact that I didn’t know where I was going, I wondered if Lou had told him not to let me drink anything but decaf. It wouldn’t have surprised me. We got our drinks to go–I ordered a vanilla latte with two shots of espresso–and stood on the sidewalk across from the church, blinking in the sun. I fished my sunglasses out of my purse and put them on.
“Now you totally look like a tourist,” Rocky said. “So where do you want to go? And just so you know, I don’t shop and I don’t do historical sites.”
I took a long swallow of my latte. “Good. I want to see a historical site.”
I actually did want to, and if it meant it would get rid of him, I won all the way around.
“Cool,” he said. “The oldest house is only three blocks from here.”
“You just said you don’t do historical stuff!”
“I lied,” he said. “Come on.”
I practically had to run to keep up with him on the narrow brick streets lined with buildings that all looked like “the oldest house” to me, until we got to the one that was officially called that. Once we were inside, I could see why. The rooms were dark and tiny, and the kitchen was in a separate building out back and was even smaller than Lou’s. It figured, since it was four hundred years old.
“Dude, I never knew some of that stuff,” Rocky said when we were back outside.
“Did you just move here or something?” I said.
“Uh-uh. I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“So you’ve been in there before.”
He shrugged and headed around a corner with me in pursuit. “Once on a field trip in third grade. But who remembers anything from third grade?”
Definitely not me.
“Anyway, I got thrown out.”
Of course you did.
“So, speaking of school, the oldest schoolhouse is back down on St. George Street.” Rocky glanced down at me. “I suppose you want to see that too.”
“Do you?” I said.
“No.”
“Then let’s go.”
He took off again with me scurrying behind him like Rose. He was just doing it to tick me off, and I would have told him to get lost, except that then I would be lost.
There was a long line to get in at the old school so Rocky bought us ice cream and we hung out to wait. I was pretty sure by that time that Lou was paying him to babysit me. I checked my phone. It was already 4:15. Bummer. I really wanted to go to the fort.
“It’s weird waiting in line to go in a school,” Rocky said. “I can’t wait to get out of mine.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“I hate it. One more year and I’m out of there.”
“I wish. I have three more years. At least. More if I don’t take ninth grade English over in summer school–” I stopped in mid-Blurt and wanted to cram my entire chocolate ice-cream cone into my mouth. Wonderful. Not only had I just agreed with Rocky about something–I’d also revealed that I was the ditz-queen airhead moron he already thought I was.
But he just said, “I bite at English. Who cares if you know what a semicolon is if all you want to do is tune carburetors, y’know?”
“I don’t want to tune carburetors either,” I said.
Rocky tossed his napkin in a nearby trash can and stuck his hands in the pockets of the denim jacket with the sleeves cut out that he wore over an also desleeved white T-shirt. “So what do you want to do?” he said, green eyes glittering. “Be a test-car dummy?”
I stared at him for all of a millisecond before I shoved all that was left of my ice cream right into the middle of his chest, cone and all. There were titters and muffled gasps all around us that I ignored as I turned on my flip-flops and started off down St. George Street.
“Hey!” I heard him call behind me. “Hey–wait!”
Why–so you won’t get in trouble with Lou? Or so you can smack me in the face with another insult when I’m starting to think you’re an actual human being?
“Come on, stop!” he said–right behind me–even though I was knocking people aside like bowling pins to get away from him.
He grabbed my arm. I tried to wrench loose but he had a steel grip. He even pulled me around the corner and pressed me against the wall of an art gallery and wouldn’t let me go.
“Get off me,” I said between my teeth. “Get off or I’ll scream.”
“Just listen, Jess, okay?”
I did, because his eyes looked scared and he wasn’t flashing the gap between his teeth–and because it was the first time he’d ever said my name.
“Just listen to me, please,” he said. “I want to say something.”
“So say it,” I said.
He sucked in air through his nose. “I was way out of line back there. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Then why did you? No, I know why. Because you actually think that about me–only now you don’t want to get in trouble with your precious Lou–”
“Would you shut up?” he said. “Look–I don’t think that about you. I just said it because I was trying to be funny. Lou says I sound like a jerk when I do that.”
“Lou’s right! You do!” I wriggled my shoulders. “Could you let go of me now?”
“Only if you accept my apology. And if you promise not to go anywhere.”
I glared at him. He took his hands off my shoulders, but he planted one of them on the wall above my head and rubbed the back of his neck with the other one.
“What’s with the Lou thing anyway?” I said.
“What Lou thing?”
“Is he like the substitute father for every kid in St. Augustine?”
“I don’t know about every kid. He is for me.”
“Oh,” I said. Now I was the one who felt like a jerk.
“He’s just been there for me since–well, he’s just been there. Which is probably why I subconsciously wanted to make you look like a loser.”
“Excuse me?”
“You cut in on my time with him. I know, it’s immature–”
“You’re as bad as the little Weezer,” I said.
A grin spread slowly across his face. “The little Weezer,” he said. “I like it. Hey, how did you get rid of her so fast last weekend? She’s usually on Lou like Velcro.”
“Simple,” I said. “She hates me.”
“She’ll get over it. She’s just jealous of you.”
I let out a snort-laugh.
“What?” he said.
“Lou thinks that too,” I said. “Nobody is jealous of me.”
His smile stayed. “I doubt that. I bet a lot of girls hate you.”
“Oh–thank you. Can you not go, like, two sentences without dissing me?”
He looked a little clueless. “I just meant I bet you have a lot of guys chasing you and the girls are jealous because the guys aren’t chasing them.”
I couldn’t say anything. Not a thing–except “What-time-is-it-I-should-get-back” in one big breath.
“Not until you say you accept my apology,” he said.
“Was it for real?” I said.
“I don’t say I’m sorry unless I mean it.”
“Lou said that too.”
“Where do you think I learned it?”
Where else? I rolled my eyes. “Do you promise to stop calling me Crash?”
“Done.”
“And will you never even mention the whole scooter accident thing, like, ever again?”
He gave me a blank look. “What scooter accident?”
“Okay,” I said. “I forgive you. And I hop
e the chocolate comes out of your shirt.”
“Is that your apology?” he said.
“Shut up,” I said. But I smiled at him and followed him across the street and through the city gates.
“We return to the scene of the crime,” he said.
“So help me, I’m warning you,” I said.
“I figure I’m safe. You don’t have a weapon–no killer ice-cream cone, no Formula One scooter–”
He dodged the arm I swung at him.
When I was down on the beach that night watching the water turn pink like I now did every night, Lou came down and joined me.
“Why are those fishermen giving me the hairy eyeball?” he said to me under his breath when he’d waded out to me.
I squinted at the two guys who were standing offshore with their long lines pulled tight over the water. “Does ‘hairy eyeball’ mean it looks like they wish we’d go away?”
“Pretty much.”
I made a note to self to remember that next time Bonsai looked at me that way. “It’s probably because they do wish we’d go away,” I said. “Or at least me.”
“What did you do, Jess?”
“The first night I came out here I was messing around in the water and that one guy said I was scaring the fish away.”
“Define ‘messing around,’” Lou said. His mouth was jittering at the corners.
“I was just bodysurfing and I went crooked and got tangled up in their thing–their line.”
His lips stopped twitching. “Back up. You were bodysurfing?”
“Yeah. You taught me.”
“You can’t be out here swimming by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”
“That wasn’t in the box.”
“It is now. If you want to swim, let me know and I’ll come be lifeguard.”
First a babysitter. Now a lifeguard. What was next?
“We clear on that?” Lou said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Jess.”
I stopped scooping up sea foam and looked at him. He was swallowing the Ping-Pong ball again.
“This is serious,” he said. “Look at me and tell me you get it.”
“I get it,” I said to the foam on my arm.
“Hey.” Lou tilted my chin up with his finger.
“I get it,” I said.
I tried not to pull my eyes away until he did. It didn’t work. He let my chin go and glanced at the fishermen. “Just so you know, they don’t own the beach. It’s not like they’re making a living at it.”
“So, can I bodysurf right now?” I said. It was the only way I could think of to end this conversation.
“Absolutely. But let me get this out of the way first. Tomorrow is Friday. You know that means–”
“That I’ve been here a week, and my mom will be out of the hospital next week.”
For probably the first time ever he looked like he didn’t have a comeback. Then he shook his head.
“What do you mean, no?” I said, my voice heading upward.
“I mean, no, that isn’t what I was going to say. Tomorrow is Friday, and Weezie is coming. You ready to try this again?”
I didn’t ask if it mattered what I was ready for.
“I’ve talked to her, Jess,” he said. “She won’t be throwing anything in your face. I expect the same from you.”
“I don’t have anything to throw,” I said.
“You have the fact that you’re here with me all the time and she isn’t. I know that isn’t a big deal to you, but it is to her.”
I couldn’t help looking at him closer. His voice sounded sad.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“Do you want her to live with you all the time?” I said.
He tilted his head at me. “Of course I do. She’s my daughter. It kills me that I don’t get to wake her up every morning and make sure she’s eating right and tuck her in at night.”
“So you hate it that you can’t torment her the way you do me.” I immediately had my hands in the air, erasing the words. “Just kidding. Seriously, it was a joke.”
He was already chuckling down in his throat. “She wouldn’t think it was a joke. She thinks that’s all torment too. So, are we good to go for tomorrow night?”
“She’s not staying the whole weekend?”
“One day at a time, Jess,” Lou said. “One day at a time.”
I was actually in a good mood when we were on our way to Weezie’s after work Friday. Bonsai hadn’t given me the “hairy eyeball” once the whole day, and Rose had let me clean the bamboo mats he used to roll the sushi so I could finally see how they worked. Very cool.
And Rocky had shown up for my free time, which annoyed me at first because I hated that Lou still thought I needed a babysitter. But we went to the fort, and it was the single coolest place I’d ever seen. We went up and down the same stairs the conquistadores had used when they were watching for the British who were out to take their treasures. We walked on every outside walkway of the whole star-shaped fortress and sat astride the cannons until I could almost feel them shooting out over Matanzas Bay. Every time I looked at Rocky, he seemed to be as into it as I was.
Besides that, he kept his promise and didn’t call me Crash. He had a new nickname for me.
“Have a good weekend with the little Weezer,” he said when I was waiting for Lou.
I gave him the hairy eyeball.
“Aw, come on, Red,” he said. “You know you love her.”
“Shut up,” I said.
Still, as Lou and I pulled up to Weezie’s mini-mansion, I wasn’t planning how to toss her in a dumpster. I wasn’t even gritting my teeth.
That lasted all of about seven seconds.
She seemed to have a new tactic. Instead of making me feel like an intruder, she tried to make me feel invisible. Not only did she not speak to me on the ride to Lou’s or while we were at the supper table having her coconut shrimp again, she didn’t even look at me.
I was actually fine with that. Even when Lou went out to clean the grill and she turned to me in the kitchen where we were doing the dishes and said, “I guess you’re wondering why I’m not speaking to you.”
I blinked at her. “You aren’t speaking to me?” I said.
She didn’t get it. “No, I’m not. You want to know why?”
“No,” I said.
She didn’t get that either. “It’s because my dad says if you can’t say something nice to somebody, don’t say anything at all.”
I laughed right out loud.
“It’s not funny!”
“Yes, it is.”
She opened her mouth, and then she smacked her hand over it and darted out of the kitchen like one of those plover birds and slammed the bedroom door. For a very weird moment she kind of reminded me of somebody. Me.
I was putting the last of the dishes away when Lou came in. He was grinning.
“I was liking that,” he said.
“Liking what?”
“You two laughing in here.”
I shook my head. “That was just me. Weezie wasn’t laughing.”
An eyebrow went up. “What happened?”
I didn’t have a chance to tell him. There was a shriek from the bedroom, followed by Weezie tearing into the kitchen, face flaming, screaming, “She took it! She took my shirt!”
“Whoa, Weezie,” Lou said.
But she wasn’t going to be put in her place this time. “That shirt is mine! She can’t have it!”
“What shirt?” Lou said.
“The one you gave me to wear over my swimsuit. The Kennesaw’s shirt that says ‘Ride American. Eat Japanese.’” She thrust a finger at me. “She took it!”
“That was your shirt?” I said.
“Like you didn’t know! Daddy, she stole it!”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t steal it. I thought it was for me.”
“No, you did not, or you wouldn’t have hid it under your mattress.”
I froze in the middle of anot
her eye roll. “What were you doing looking under my mattress?”
“I can look anywhere I want in there. It’s my room!”
“All right, enough,” Lou said.
“Daddy–”
“I said enough–”
“You have to give her a consequence!”
“Louisa.”
Weezie clamped her mouth shut, which was good because I was ready to shut it for her.
Lou looked at her like he was waiting to make sure she wasn’t going to try again. “Last time I checked, I was the dad here,” he said finally.
“My dad,” I heard her mutter.
“Excuse me?” Lou said.
“Nothing.”
Lou turned to me. I was in the corner formed by the counters, opening and closing a cabinet with my heel.
“You want to clear this up for me?” he said.
No, I didn’t. Because I saw the doubt pinching the skin between his eyebrows. Maybe I could clear this up, but I hated that I even had to.
“She can have the shirt,” I said. “I don’t even want it.”
“You just don’t want me to have it!” Weezie said.
“You’ll have your chance in a minute,” Lou said to her. He scratched the back of his head and looked at me.
“What do you want me to say? The shirt was hanging on the back of the chair when I got here”–I squinted at Weezie– “before I even knew you existed. I thought it was for me, especially after Lou told me the helmet was for me. Then when I found out you thought I was, like, threatening to take your place as princess or something, I thought I should hide it when you were coming over so you wouldn’t do what you’re doing right now–which is pitching a major fit–”
“Okay,” Lou said. “Weezie, do you see what Jess is saying?”
Weezie stuck out her lower lip so far I could have sat on it. “I don’t believe her.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t understand.” Lou lifted his shoulders to his earlobes. “I need to hear a reason.”
“You won’t let me say it,” she said. “So I’m not going to.”
“Good choice.” He didn’t take his eyes from her. “You have anything else you want to say, Jess?”
“No. Yes.” I stopped kicking the cabinet. “I want to know why you were snooping in my stuff, Weezie.”
“I wasn’t snooping. The shirt was sticking right out because you don’t know how to be neat because you’re–”