“All right,” I say. “I’m not going to spend a hundred hours of my time collecting pictures again when I know Dad is going to delete them.”
“That’s a good point. Don’t save them.”
I can look, but not save. Okay, I get it.
Actually, I don’t absorb anything my parents have said to me. Mom leaves and I make sure the door is closed. I have a metal lockbox that’s supposed to guard precious items from fires. The small box holds my childhood journal, four hundred dollars in emergency cash, and my flash drives. I find a pink flash drive and rub my thumb alongside it. It’s so small, yet what it contains is more precious than gold. I plug it into my computer and wait for it to load.
What Mom and Dad don’t know is that I back up my files at least once a week. My old computer crashed years ago, causing me to lose all of my homework and other personal documents, so I learned to save everything on a flash drive. The contents of the flash drive open and I hit copy and paste. My hotties are copied into my computer, so that I can make new desktops and screensavers of my favorite men. I change my password. That was a nasty run-in with my dad—thanks to Grandpa’s big mouth—but Mom’s conversation was a nice cushion to fall back on.
Pattinson is back, and I blow a kiss at him. Because my eyes are still blurry with unshed tears, I can swear that he winks at me. I touch the screen and smile.
I get a text message from a number I don’t recognize. When I open it, my heart starts to flutter. It’s a wonderful surprise after that run-in with my parents.
art gallery 2nite @ 7. can u come?
It’s Peter. I remember that he invited me to an art gallery, but I didn’t know it would be so soon, on such short notice. But he did say he would text me when his friends were all available to tag along for the assignment. This allays my fears—he doesn’t think I’m silly or stalking him. When Shakira showed him my sketch, it was a nothing incident for him, although it’s everything to me. My feelings were revealed in that drawing, but maybe he thinks it’s funny or flattering. Anyways, I can’t say no to this gallery thing.
I pop my head out of my room and yell at Mom. “Can I go to an art gallery tonight with some friends?” I ask.
“Who are you going with?” she yells back.
“Friends!”
“Like who?”
“Lisa, Maria, the usual!” I blurt out their names because I don’t want Mom knowing I’m going there for Peter’s sake. Actually, Lisa and Maria have no clue about this, but now I have to tell them since I need to use them as my cover for the night—my parents trust Lisa and Maria while they’re wary about some of my other friends. So they’re definitely coming, even though I don’t want Lisa to attend this rendezvous.
First I text Peter, telling him I can come, and he texts me back that Raul is borrowing his parents’ SUV and we can all fit in there. So I give him my address and write to him that Lisa and Maria are coming too. I call Lisa and Maria, and of course they want to come: Lisa is eager to see Peter and Maria has no plans for the night.
Once Raul picks me up, I’ll direct him to their houses. Lisa will throw herself at Peter. And Maria might make a scene at the gallery with her big mouth. We once went to a bank together and it was pin-drop quiet, but then Maria started raving about how cute the shoes were on the woman in front of us, and then she went on an insane tirade about how a heel broke on a new pair of pumps she just bought. Everyone looked at her, which made me feel self-conscious since I was standing next to her. Which is worse? A best friend who’s thin and pretty and has eyes on Peter? Or a girl with a motor mouth and a booming voice? Definitely the best friend, since things are more at stake when she’s around.
Great, my plans to look like a knockout fizzle out since this is short notice. It’s six o’clock and he’s coming in an hour. I don’t have time to iron my hair or buy a new outfit. I look in the mirror at my puffy hair. I rub some anti-frizz serum into it and then put it in a bun. That’s better. I look through my closet and find a dress that I haven’t worn in a while that Peter probably never saw me in before. I put on makeup. Pink blush brightens my face and mascara makes my eyes pop out behind my glasses. I decide to forget about the contact lenses since I don’t want to spend another night blinking like crazy. My efforts are good enough.
Peter comes early, fifteen minutes before seven. There’s a honk outside and I walk out. Jillian is in the front seat of the SUV, with Raul behind the wheel, but when Mom looks out of the window she doesn’t say anything, since she’s met the two of them before. It’s the person in the back seat that will confuse her—Peter, whom she briefly met at Parent Night and whom I aspire to have a relationship with. But she doesn’t see him, or she doesn’t ask about him. She lets me go without saying anything more than, “Be home by ten.”
I sit next to Peter in the back and smile. Then I stop smiling because it might weird him out if I’m always grinning.
“You look nice tonight,” Peter says.
“Thanks.” I can feel the blood rush to my face. I hope that my fake blush is hiding the real one. He’s looking mighty tasty himself. He has on a tight shirt and I see muscles that I haven’t noticed before (he always wears a plaid shirt at school; it helps with the frigid air conditioning in most of the wings). I think of the ugly drawing I made of him, that Shakira picked up. He doesn’t mention it. He must think it was just a harmless doodle. I’m still embarrassed about it, but hopefully he forgot about it completely, and I hope he’s forgetting about the time I stole his bookbag, too. I didn’t realize that chasing after a boy requires so much drama and action. This whole experience of pursuing Peter is filled with firsts for me.
Lisa lives close to me, so her house is next. I can feel my lips turning down in a sneer. What’s happening to me? Since when do I dislike my best friend? Can a boy really make me not want her around? I’ve always wanted her around. As soon as I come home from school, I text her, IM her, and if I can’t do those things, then I think about her. When I’m out shopping without her, I ask myself if she’d approve of the outfit I’m about to purchase. When I watch TV late at night, I laugh at the comedies wishing that she was there to laugh with me. Now I actually sneer thinking about her! I’m a monster. I make my lips slacken into a straight line. I feel so guilty.
She comes out and Peter’s eyes practically pop out like some cartoon character’s. I can’t see the actual roundness of his eyes coming out of his orbitals, but he is sure looking, looking hard. Lisa’s gorgeous. Her hair, which is similar to mine, looks shiny and springy. How does she get her curls like that? Why is it that every other curly haired girl has better hair than mine, and what is their secret? Lisa is bony but doesn’t look it. She’s wearing a dress that’s baggy on the top and bottom, but cinched tightly at the waist. Her dress is black and her high heels are pastel pink, which is a combination I never thought of before. She wears large, circular silver earrings that frame her face. She looks like a runway model.
Peter complimented me minutes ago, but when Lisa joins us in the back, he whistles. “Lisa, wow, who knew,” he says.
Lisa giggles and coyly shrugs her shoulders. I feel the sneer trying to penetrate my facial muscles and skin, and I have to yank my lips up with a fake smile. “Lisa, you look great,” I say.
“Thanks,” she says. “I just threw this on.”
Yeah, right. She just put a lot more effort into getting ready than I did. But who am I to judge? If I had more time to prepare, I’d look like a million bucks, too.
Raul and Jillian sit in the front having their own conversation. Sometimes they turn around to talk to us. Jillian’s flat, black, ironed emo hair is mostly what I see of her. I see part of Raul’s sharp profile. He has a pointy nose and angular jaw. He laughs a lot, so that interrupts Peter and Lisa’s conversation every minute. Raul nods at something Jillian says. Peter and Lisa talk about school. I feel like the fifth wheel. Maybe I am the fi
fth wheel. There are five of us and I’m not talking to anyone. We stop in front of Maria’s house. I feel better when she gets in, because she’s a hub of excitement who talks to everyone. She distracts me from Peter’s obvious attraction to Lisa. We all start talking about Lil Wayne’s music because she’s going on excitedly about his songs, which she downloaded recently.
“Girl, let me tell you, that Lil Wayne is fine as hell,” Maria says. Her large hoop earrings swing against her shoulders. She’s right next to me and I have a good look at her drawn-in eyebrows and bright red lipstick. Chonga. But at least she’s a chonga with a good heart. She squeezes my hand, which comforts me during this stressful time when my best friend is stealing my spotlight. Peter’s eyes were on me before Lisa came into the picture.
We drive past chic restaurants that have outdoor seating, and then we’re in front of the art gallery. Raul parks at a meter and we all chip in with quarters so that we have two hours of parking time. We go inside.
There are a bunch of paintings on the wall and an equal number of rich-looking people milling around looking at them. Even though Dad’s a dentist and I live in a ritzy neighborhood, I don’t consider myself a fancy person, so I feel out of place. Maria loudly snaps her gum, causing a middle-aged woman to turn toward her with blazing eyes. Maria doesn’t notice the stares, so she continues to chew and pop.
Peter acts as the group leader. Wherever he goes, we follow. He leads us through archways and different rooms. The paintings are all abstract. I don’t see people or trees. There are lines, ropes, and ribbons of paint. Some of it looks like something a child can do, but others look really neat. One of them reminds me of a bowl of spaghetti, if each noodle were rainbow colored. Another one looks like the ocean exploded and merged with the sky. Raul is taking pictures that he can share with Jillian and Peter.
“Peter, this is wonderful,” Lisa says. I can tell she doesn’t mean it. She barely glances at the paintings because her eyes are always on Peter. Raul and Jillian are both kind of strange—Raul is a math and computer genius and Jillian is emo and depressed—and they study each painting as if they could fall into them. Maria couldn’t care less about anything except her gum. Then there’s me. I’m only halfway interested in the gallery, some paintings charming me and others boring me. I’m waiting to be wowed.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Jillian says.
Peter points to where the bathrooms are. Girls have this habit of going to the bathroom together, even if they all don’t need to go. Maria and Lisa both follow her. I decide to stay behind, because I want to be with Peter. Raul drifts off to another room to take more pictures, and that leaves the two of us alone together.
“So how do you like these paintings?” Peter asks. “They’re all by local artists.”
“They’re really interesting,” I say. “Especially the two of them in there … ” I describe the ones that I really liked from the other room.
“Not a lot of people get abstract art,” he says. “I’m glad you do.”
“Yeah, I know.” Actually, I don’t get it at all.
“Abstract art is about the way you feel. It’s not about seeing something recognizable, like a tree or bird. These paintings give me all sorts of emotions. Come here.”
Peter backtracks through an archway we already went through, to a room we visited earlier this evening. The gallery isn’t that big, but since we stand in front of each painting for a few minutes, it feels like we’ve been there forever. Now Peter wants me to look at some paintings again.
We face black and red cubes that overlap each other with imperfect edges. I look at it and think about toy blocks, sugar, and other things that are shaped the same way. It isn’t an ugly painting, but I’m not sure if I would want it hanging in my house.
“What does this make you feel?” he asks.
“Um, I guess it makes me feel, I’m not sure … ” What to say?
“It makes me feel lonely.”
“It does?”
“Yes.”
That silences me. How does a painting make one feel lonely? I look at it harder, trying to see why it would make Peter think of loneliness. The colors are dark. Cubes are a solid shape, something you can depend on, but the edges of the cubes are smeared. Surrounding the cubes are swirls of blue. The painting reminds me of the solar system, how you see the planets together in a picture or three dimensional model, while in fact they’re very far apart.
“Maybe the cubes are keeping each other company,” I say. “Or maybe they’re together, but they’re not related to each other, like when you’re in a room full of people and you’re not talking to anyone.”
“That could be it,” Peter says. “But we all feel different things when we look at these pieces. Let’s go to another one.”
The next painting is another one we’ve seen. It’s a sunburst of yellow and orange, with a red outline outside the dabs of color. It makes me think of sunshine and happiness. “This is more cheerful,” I say.
“I feel like my heart opens up when I see this,” he says.
“I know. It’s so airy and bright. It’s like spring and flowers and light, even though the artist didn’t really paint those things.” Wait a minute, am I actually feeling something toward a painting? Yes, I am. I almost gasp out loud, but the gallery is relatively quiet and I don’t want to break the silence with teenage gushing.
We continue to admire the painting. I want to hug Peter. Because of him, I now have all these thoughts and feelings toward this blob on the wall. I didn’t think it was possible. I actually like abstract art now that I see beyond the streaks and smears. Peter’s so deep. When he takes me to the next painting, which has sharp lines of blue and purple, the anger of the artist is obvious, as if the slashes of paint are slashes against someone or something. He must have really been upset about something when he painted it. I can tell.
The evening has been so unexpected. I came here to dazzle Peter, but instead he’s dazzling me. I’m thinking more about how the paintings are filling up my mind with ideas, and less about my goal of a romantic relationship with Peter. I can still feel him at my side, his presence, his body heat. But instead of thinking Peter, Peter, Peter, there are other things to look at and ponder about. For the first time in weeks, I don’t have tunnel vision when I’m around him. I can focus on other things. It isn’t all about Peter.
“We’re baaaaaaack,” Maria says, sashaying toward us. My friends have reapplied their makeup and perfume, so I see glossy lips and smell floral body spray. But they missed out on a lot while they were away.
My friends are loud, compared to the silence that surrounded me and Peter when we were alone together. I want to rewind time so that we’re alone again, just the paintings and us, but Maria is there smacking her gum and Lisa grabs Peter’s arm to lead him to a painting she likes (something pink, her favorite color). “I love pink,” she says. Lisa’s still looking at the surface of the paintings, rather than at what they mean. At least I see past that, and I had that sweet time with Peter when he showed me something new and different. Lisa continues to dominate his attention, but he still turns to me when we come to the last painting, which is near the exit of the gallery.
“What do you think?” he asks me.
I look at the lively colors of red, orange, and purple. The colors are in swirls and circles.
“I think it’s romantic,” I say.
“I do, too,” he agrees.
Lisa twitches her nose and Maria frowns. They don’t get it.
“This is very psychedelic,” Jillian says. “It’s like, wow, really touches the heart.”
“I don’t get it,” Maria says.
Peter squints at the nameplate on the bottom. “The title is Love and Sunset,” he informs me. He winks at me. We were both thinking the same thing. And he’s super sexy when he winks. He should do it more of
ten.
I think of the horizon in the morning time and a couple sharing the same vision of it, just as Peter and I share this thing we have. It’s an indescribable thing, the same way some of the paintings are beyond description. Even Lisa, with her hands and eyes all over Peter, can’t take that away from us. I smile as we all get back into the SUV to go to a restaurant. It will be the second time this Ramadan that I’ll be breaking fast with friends rather than family.
At the restaurant we pile into a booth, and it just happens that I sit next to Peter. We jostle each other constantly when we reach to get a glass of water or a fork. We all laugh and crack jokes. Raul impersonates our teachers, Lisa tears up with laughter, Maria cackles hysterically, Jillian shakes so hard that our glasses of soda tremble, and Peter touches my knee or squeezes my arm anytime he finds something funny. He’s giving me mixed messages—am I a friend or something more? I silently hope that I’m something more. When we get to dessert, we all order something different. I order a sundae and he orders a Frisbee-sized cookie. He insists that I have a bite of his cookie. I’m about to reach for it, but he’s faster than me. He breaks off a piece and pops it inside my mouth. I see the flash of distaste in Lisa’s eyes. Even though it’s probably a friendly gesture, it does seem like something more. His fingertip did graze my lips. If only we could be alone together, minus our friends and the restaurant crowd. We could feed each other all we want, and even kiss each other.
It feels like the best night of my life. Parent Night might have been a disaster, but this is the exact opposite. The night is luminous, just like the paintings we saw, just like the green sheen of Peter’s eyes, just like the tinkling laughter of my friends.
The braces are on my teeth, and my mouth is immobile with metal and ceramics.
Dr. Abdelwahab put them on me—very nice, he proclaimed—grafting each bracket on my teeth with some superhuman glue that keeps them in place. Then he slid a wire between these brackets. My teeth feel tight afterwards, with some unseen forces working against them. Only my lower teeth have the clear braces on them. My smile stays the same since only my top teeth, which are braces-free, can be seen. I’ll make sure my lower lip doesn’t retract too much when I talk, so that people can’t see them at all.
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Page 15