He’s partly right about the nun thing. Maybe tomorrow I’ll let Grace’s sundress live up to its name. I wonder if it will still smell like her.
Cass finishes applying a fifth coat of gloss and smacks her lips. The pop sounds great on film. “So how long have you and—what’s his name? Sebastian? How long have you been you two?”
“We’re not actually together.” (Minus the fact that I said Think fast! with my mouth.)
“So you haven’t fooled around at Silver Springs and stuff? No broom closet action?”
My response comes out as a snort. “What am I supposed to do? Pin him up against the wall and whisper in his ear, ‘Oh baby, take me right here, right now, right next to the defibrillator’?”
Dreamy eyed, Ray swivels around in his chair and clutches his chest. “Omigod, that would be so romantic!”
In what possible way could that be construed as romantic? I shake my head, laugh, and shut off the camera so future generations won’t get skewed impressions about my generation’s dating habits.
Eyes spidery with mascara, Cass makes her way over to me in her sky-high heels. She’s doing a much better job of keeping up the normal act. Pink chewing gum lolls around in her mouth as she leans over and says, “I can teach you how to wrangle him.” Those exact words. Wrangle, as if he were a steer. “So you two are going to”—using air quotes—“watch a movie?”
“What’s with the finger bunnies?” I say.
Ray lets out a psshhh. “Everyone knows ‘watching a movie’ is code for having sex.”
Everyone except me, apparently. The Virgin Marilyn. I picture Grace laughing at me: “Really, have I taught you nothing?” And I would shout back, “You’re not exactly here to teach me!”
Cass says, “It’s just like that time I met that Kevin guy who went to art school and he said he wanted to ‘show me his motorcycle’ one day after class, but then we ended up doing it in his basement.” It’s amazing how many of Cass’s stories now end with hooking up in some guy’s basement/car/ backyard. Last year, serious spit swapping began to occur outside our mutual locker, a parade of boys smearing their lips across Cass’s like they were trying to repaint her face. At first I thought it looked gross, but now . . .
Just drop it, Linny!
“Pretty, pretty please, come out with us!” Cass squeals. “I’m sure we can fit one more, or”—slapping her thighs, like she’s calling a dog—“you can sit on my lap.” Okay, she’s totally drunk. Without warning, she crumples down into the beanbag with me, crushing my side.
“Ow.” I bite back a lecture on personal space.
“We can snuggle up like old times.” She digs her nose into my shoulder. “Plus we totally have enough vodka to go around. Lawrence is bringing more. Right, Ray?”
I ask, “How’s that going, by the way? You and Lawrence?”
Ray smiles. “Well. Really well. We’re officially boyfriend and boyfriend, which is kind of scary but also incredibly exciting. And he won’t mind at all about the vodka. If he does”—scrunching up his face—“he’ll have to answer to me.”
I laugh. Compared to Ray’s serious face, his pretend-angry face is about as intimidating as a baby hedgehog. Still, I tell them I can’t go to the party.
Cass huffs. “Can’t or won’t?”
Mostly won’t, for several reasons. People at parties can’t look at me without seeing Grace, and getting a good night’s sleep is essential. If the resident of 212 Seahorse Drive is another Massive Man, I want to be rested enough to shimmy across the lawn.
Cass and Ray know about the movie but not my morning plans. After everything Sebastian told me at the playground, the trip feels too private.
“Can’t go tonight,” I say. “Strict curfew.”
“Well, boo,” Ray says.
“Yeah, boooo,” Cass says.
They catch melodrama from each other, like germs.
“Oh!” Ray suddenly exclaims. “I got one! You said that Sebastian wanted to be an astrophysicist, right?”
Where the heck is this going? “Yes . . .”
“I bet he’d give you a Big Bang!”
Cass and Ray high-five each other. I ask for a ride home, and Ray drops me at my mailbox with a salute. “Good night, Sister Marilyn,” he says. “Sweet dreams in the convent.”
I wait for his truck to round the corner before—once again—checking the mail for a letter that isn’t there.
THE LEFT-BEHINDS (SCENE 9)
GRACE’S BEDROOM—EARLY EVENING
LINNY is in the process of tearing apart GRACE’s black-and-white room. The floor is strewn with dresses.
We hear GRACE’s voice through the cup and string.
GRACE
(angry)
What do you think you’re doing?
LINNY
(yelling)
What does it look like I’m doing?
LINNY opens the closet, drags out a box of shoes, and begins chucking sandals at the walls. We hear bang, bang.
GRACE
It looks like you’re flipping out.
LINNY
Correct.
GRACE
(softer)
And you’re pissed at me?
LINNY
Correct.
GRACE
You won’t find any clues in there. I’m sorry.
LINNY
(tired)
Then just tell me where you went.
GRACE
How about we make a deal?
LINNY
How about you come home?
LINNY notices something odd; where the shoes collided with the wall, there are holes, and on the other side—pinpricking through—is color.
18.
Sebastian
“Theories regarding the dimensionality of the world are far from set in stone. On the historical side, Minkowski invented x0 = ct, adding to the three dimensions of space.” A Brief Compendium of Astrophysical Curiosities, p. 98
“Savannah nixed the prom idea,” Micah says. “She said it was too early to make plans.”
I stretch out on the couch. “You actually asked her?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“But you brought it—”
“What about your girl?”
My girl? Can I call someone my girl if she kissed me and then apologized and then said she’d watch a movie with me? I’d rather not bring that up. Confusion doesn’t even begin to cover it. Instead, I say, “We’re doing something tomorrow.”
“Have you two . . . you know? Bow chica wow wow.”
I hope he hears my eyes roll.
“Dude,” he says, “you’re losing your window. It’s a precise science.” I start to cut him off, but he only speaks louder. “Hear me out! Girls decide in the first five minutes of meeting you whether or not they want to hump your brains out. Given that you’re stuck in boner-killing Old Peopleville, I’d say you’ve got some time. Another week, tops. After that and it’s over. Trust me, I’ve done the calculations.”
“Well my calculations say you’re full of shit.”
“You can’t argue with science.”
“You realize that means you have zero chance with my mother, right?”
He pauses. “Moms are a trickier equation. . . . Are you and your mom still on the outs?”
“Er—sort of. It’s complicated. You don’t—you don’t know the full story.”
“Oh! You’re right! You know why that is? You never effing told me.” He sounds half hurt, half like he’s enjoying this.
“Fine,” I say. “I’m going to pose a hypothetical question.”
“You mean you’re going to pose a real question that you’re trying to pass off as hypothetical.”
“No.” Yes. “What if someone really close to you hid something? Like, something important?”
“Hypothetically?”
“Hypothetically.”
A deep breath rattles through the phone. Then he’s silent for a moment. “Maybe I’d give th
em the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they just need some time to come clean, because they’re afraid of how you’re going to react. If you’re going to totally lose your shit and start screaming and not want to be friends anymore and fly back from Florida to pummel them and— Okay, okay, okay—I may’ve touched Savannah’s boobs.”
I jerk my head back. “Is that what you think we’re talking about?”
“Boob, technically. Just the left one.”
“That’s completely your business.”
“You have to care a little bit. She’s your ex. What if I touched the left one and the right one simultaneously? Would you care then?”
“Look,” I say. “One, I’m serious. Touch both of her boobs, all day every day, and I still will not give a shit. Two, that’s really not what I was talking about.”
“I knew it,” he says smugly.
“What?”
“Nothing about this was hypothetical.”
The next morning, Linny’s already at the bus stop in a yellow dress, curls pulled into a high ponytail. Shimmering. Like she’s not made of human things. Like someone assembled her from glass and flowers and—
Shut up.
Since when did I turn into that guy? A guy who uses words like shimmering.
Is it warmer suddenly? A few moments ago it was run-of-the-mill Florida hot. Now it’s like I’ve cannonballed into a fire pit.
Quick, picture this:
Cryogenic freezing.
Cold-blooded reptiles.
The Boomerang Nebula (–457.7°F).
None of it works. Still overheating.
Linny shifts her backpack to her left shoulder and spins around. “Oh hey!” Her eyes effing shimmer.
In the understatement of the millennium, I say, “You look nice,” and she raises and drops her shoulders like she doesn’t really believe it. When the bus rolls to a stop a minute later, I have to tear my eyes away from her. Tear, like it hurts. We slide to the back, sit two inches apart. This could be horribly awkward, given the kiss, but luckily I’m playing it cool.
“Um,” Linny says, squinting, “I think you have bird poop in your hair.”
I paw at a spot above my left ear, and, sure enough, white goop coats my fingertips. It’s the universe’s equivalent of a swift kick in the shins. How did I not feel a bird shit on my head?
Linny laughs. “Seagulls can be stealthy.”
After the bus stops a street over from 212 Seahorse Drive, Linny and I pace around the block. Pumping each other up.
“Okay, if someone scary opens the door,” she says, “we just run.”
“Fast as we can,” I say. “But we’ve got this.”
“Yeah, totally got this.”
“Absolutely.”
When Agnes, approximately ninety years old and a hundred pounds, materializes at the screen door in a polka-dotted apron, the dramatic buildup (in retrospect) was kind of unnecessary.
I don’t beat around the bush. “Hi, we’re looking for the lost possessions of Álvaro Herrera.”
Agnes pauses to consider us, smiles, then swoops her hand. “Well, come on in!”
Linny says, “They’re actually here?”
That’s when Agnes notices the bird poop and says, “Son, I’ll get you some paper towels. Don’t just stand there letting all the cold air out.” The next thing we know, she’s force-feeding us pecan brittle on her back porch. Around us are about a billion citronella candles. All lit. It’s just past noon.
Agnes hands me a wet wad of paper that I wipe through my hair.
“About what you came here for,” she begins. Linny and I lean forward. Agnes smiles at us, presses her hands over her heart. “I have no idea what you’re talking about! But you two looked so much like lost puppies that I couldn’t say no, and I’d just made all this pecan brittle. Oh—and now look at your faces, you poor things.”
My whole body slumps. Does Álvaro think this is a joke or something?
“Here.” Agnes thrusts the bowl of brittle in my direction. “Have some more. Sweets make everything better.”
Knocking myself into a sugar coma is a decent option. I grab a fistful and shovel it in. Chipmunk cheeks.
“So what do you need, dears?” Agnes asks.
“Álvaro told us his things were here,” Linny says. “He gave us this address.”
“Do I know this All-vayro?”
I speak through shards of brittle. “He wrooote a booook.”
“But he’s at Silver Springs now,” Linny adds. “We thought he maybe used to live here.”
“Ah!” Agnes says. “Well, I don’t know any writers, but I do know about Silver Springs. One of the nurses lives around here. Tries to recruit me because apparently I’m old. Hah!” She smacks the armrest of the porch swing, throws her head back, and heh-heh-heh’s. “I tell them time and time again, the day I willingly go into a home is the day Hades turns into a Popsicle stand. My life is here. I’ve got my kitchen and my books and”—pointing above my right shoulder—“my cat.”
Just then, the ugliest black cat I’ve ever seen rams its head into mine. Meows. It’s drooling and missing an eye. Holy shit kickers is what I think, but I say, “She’s lovely.”
“He,” Agnes corrects. “As I was saying, I don’t want to be locked away in a place like that. Told when to eat, what to eat, when to sleep, when to relieve myself. No thank you! They’ll have to drag me in by my teeth. You get old, and suddenly no one thinks you’re you anymore. You’re just another old bird who flocks to Miami to die, you know?”
No, I don’t. But it’s the type of idea you can drown in. The type that sucks the life out of you if you think about it too long.
Does Álvaro feel this way, too?
Franken-cat scurries across my shoulder, smashing my moment of contemplation. He launches himself, sharp claws of doom first, onto my you-know-where.
Estupendo. (It’s official: the world’s animals are conspiring against me.)
Agnes’s eyes twinkle as she shoves more brittle in my face. “Sweets fix everything.”
In my peripheral vision I think I see Linny crack a smile.
“That went stupendously,” I say, clenching and unclenching my jaw.
Agnes waves at us from behind her screen door.
Linny says, “At least we tried.”
“Sure,” I say, although in actual fact I am not sure. On the bus, I throw my head back against the seat. Keep whacking it until Linny grabs both sides of my face and says, “Stop. You’re losing brain cells.” Her hands are warm. My cheeks turn even warmer. Like she’s burning my skin with her fingertips. (In a good way.)
She lets go, mumbles, “It’s frustrating. I get it.”
I say, “Don’t you ever just want to—?”
“Blow up?”
“Yes.”
“Only like all the time.”
“Know what we need?”
“What?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admit.
“Well, that’s helpful.”
I begin scouring the landscape. “But I’ll let you know when I see it.”
So Linny starts talking about a documentary she saw last weekend, something about SeaWorld. And as I’m listening, I’m watching what’s flying by the window:
Option 1) McDonald’s
Too greasy.
Option 2) the beach
So it looks like I’m trying to get her in her bathing suit? Pass.
Option 3) funeral parlor
No. Just, no.
We’re nearing the stop for a strip mall when—yes! Bally World: Fun for All Ages. Okay, impulse decision. I signal the bus driver and almost immediately regret it, already imagining Micah’s reaction: “You took her to a pit of balls? How much more Freudian can you get?”
“What are we doing?” Linny asks.
“Get off and you’ll see,” I say, pretending this is a fully formed plan.
She follows me into the half-empty parking lot. Each step I take fills me with dread.
; Bells jingle as I open the door to Bally World, which is—as the sign declares—“The Best Ball Pit in Southern Miami!” For once, advertising doesn’t lie. The place is an ocean of Technicolor, the Eighth Wonder of the World.
“You with the McAdams party?” asks the man behind the counter. Approximately a hundred piercings dangle from his face. Magnets must be his mortal enemy.
“Huh?” I say, oh so intelligently.
Slower, like I’m deaf, he repeats, “Mc-A-dams, twelfth birth-day,” and gestures to one of the two pits, where a contingent of prepubescent boys is beating the shit out of one another with plastic balls. Awesome. He thinks we’re here for a twelfth birthday?
Puffing out my chest to highlight my man muscles, I say in my deepest voice, “Nah, it’s just us,” and fork over ten fifty for two passes and a locker key. Behind the desk, Linny and I slip off our shoes. There are little blue hearts on her toenails.
Still gripping her backpack, she skittishly eyes the door.
Knew it. She hates Bally World. Probably hates me for dragging her here. Other guys must take her to better places. Restaurants with steak dinners. The planetarium. Establishments that serve alcohol, not cartons of milk.
“We should go somewhere else,” I say, bending down to retie my sneakers. “This was stupid.”
Dragging her teeth across her bottom lip—“It’s not that.” Her thumb twitches against the backpack. “It’s just, my camera’s in here, and these lockers don’t look that secure.”
“Oh. Why don’t you bring it with you?”
“In the pit?” Her face lights up. “You don’t think that’s weird?”
I start to laugh. “It’s a bit weird. But I like weird.”
A grin edges up the corners of her mouth. She reaches into the bag. Grabs her camera and a protective lens cap. Stashes the empty backpack in the locker. At the edge of the pit, I hear the camera powering on. Then the shuffling of feet as we line up next to each other. Words zoom out of my mouth: “You know there’s this ex-NASA scientist who built one of these in his apartment, and it’s actually really interesting in terms of physics and what happens when you’re at the bottom.”
If Birds Fly Back Page 13