by Walsh, Sara
FOUR
Holy six-pack,” blurted Willie, her eyebrows almost in her hairline. “Or should I say, twelve-pack!”
Sol walked along the opposite side of the river in sneakers and jeans with a long-sleeved tee tied around his hips. I made no comment, as Andy had followed me to the edge of the Ridge, but the truth had to be told. We now had another item to add to the list of things we knew about the new guy:
1. He lived on the river with Old Man Crowley.
2. His name was Sol.
3. He had a smoking body.
Sol had muscles I hadn’t known existed. And they weren’t bulky gym-muscles, either. They were lean, real-life muscles, the kind that came from swinging an axe all day. Andy was tall, but even from across the wide river, I could tell that Sol was taller. Andy was broad. Sol was broader.
“Why can’t we stay another year?” drooled Raquel. “I’d give up college. I’d give up everything.” She looked at Willie. “You guys are so lucky; we don’t have anyone like that in our grade.”
I glanced at Andy, but thought it not the coolest move to disagree.
Jake was already wandering away. “You know, guys get all the flak for having one-track minds,” he said. “Girls are fifty times worse.”
I wondered if maybe he was right. I liked to think I was master of my hormones, but between what was standing at my side and what was stalking half-naked along the riverbank, I didn’t know where to look.
Sol strolled on. He was now directly across from us, his dark hair turned golden brown by the sun, shoulders back, head tilted in our direction.
“Did you hear he lives with Old Man Crowley?” asked Sally.
“Once or twice,” Willie replied. “You know, I haven’t seen Crowley for ages.”
As soon as she mentioned it, everyone agreed.
“Maybe he’s sick,” said Seth. He glared at Sol. “Maybe that’s why the Incredible Hunk’s come to stay.”
“You mean Sol,” said Willie, dreamily. “Like the sun. I’ve never wanted Monday to come so fast. We have to get his schedule.”
“He’s in my chemistry lab,” said Kieran.
“And you tell us this now?” gasped Willie. “So unfair!” She grabbed my arm and pointed to the riverbank. “Mia, look—it’s true.”
Sol continued on, his back toward us. From shoulder to shoulder, from neck to hip, was a huge tattoo. It was a bird, a massive bird, with wings outstretched, talons down, its head proud and erect. Against Sol’s tanned skin, it burst in vibrant reds, blues, greens, and golds. But most unusual was the way that Sol carried it. He must have known we’d see it as he passed, yet there was not a hint of self-consciousness in the way he walked. He simply ambled by, knowing we watched, not caring either way.
Us girls ogled him in silence until eventually Sol rounded the river bend and finally disappeared from view.
“Told ya,” said Kieran.
Sally shuffled back from the drop, a stunned expression on her face. “Was that an eagle?”
“Not like any eagle I’ve ever seen,” said Willie. “Mia?”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Everything was out of focus, as if the world had narrowed and all I could see was Sol and his tattoo.
I had seen that bird before. And I planned to see it again the second I got home.
* * *
“So,” said Willie on the drive back. “How did it go with Andy? You guys looked pretty tight there for a while.”
Thoughts of Sol’s tattoo had consumed me for the rest of the day and not even Andy’s increasing attention had been enough to blow it from my mind. All I saw was the iridescence in its wings, its razor-sharp talons, its proud, steely eye. But now there was only me and Willie, and there was nothing on her mind but Andy.
“It went great.” I thought of what Andy had said about Jessica and taking Jay to the cages, but pieces of the puzzle still hadn’t fallen into place. “I’m just not sure I get it. Why would he be interested in me now? He’ll be gone in a couple of months.”
“So this is his last chance. Seriously, you two look amazing together.”
“Maybe.”
Willie shook her head. “Maybe? Mia, what’s bitten you?”
Sol and his tattoo flashed in my mind. “It’s nothing.”
We pulled up at my gate. Willie turned to face me, her usually mischievous expression suddenly serious. “Mia, one day you’re going to have to knock down that wall.”
Willie wasn’t serious very often, but when she wanted to make a point, she sure knew how to hit the target. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, genuinely shocked by the abrupt shift in her tone.
“You know exactly what I mean,” said Willie. “I’m talking about the wall between you and any guy who might actually care about you.”
Oh. That wall.
I glanced at the house, hoping Pete might magically appear and give me an excuse to escape.
“I date,” I said, when it was clear Pete wasn’t about to bail me out. It was the only defense I could come up with.
Willie wasn’t impressed. “Little boys like Seamus McEvoy don’t count.” She held up her hand, her eyes twinkling with the first trace of a smile. “You don’t have to explain to me, Mia. This is between you and Andy and that loser father of yours. There. Stated for the record.”
“Statement noted?” I uttered.
“Good,” said Willie. “Now go call Andy. Tell him you had a great time. Listen to Love Doctor Willie; she knows what she’s talking about.”
She leaned in for a hug. Relieved she’d finished her lecture, I hugged back.
“You know I think he’s great,” I said. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up over nothing.”
“You mean nothing like asking him to a movie or dinner or something?” she asked, squeezing back.
I pulled away and climbed out. “You’re out of control.”
“True,” said Willie. “I blame the new guy. All that testosterone has melted my brain.” She waved. “So long, Mrs. Monaghan.”
I watched Willie’s car disappear down the road, knowing full well that she was right about me and guys and walls and expecting things that were good to turn bad. But I didn’t have time for that now, because there was something I really needed to do. I turned for the house on a mission.
Pete was making coffee in the kitchen.
“Where’s Jay?” I asked, as soon as I got through the door.
Pete raised his hands in surrender. “I’ve been with him the whole time!”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I need to see him.”
“He’s just gone out back.”
I found Jay at the side of the house trying to shoot baskets with an inflatable ball that was twice the size of the hoop.
“Hey,” he yelled, when he saw me. “Look what I won at bowling. Pete pumped it up.”
“That’s pretty neat, Jay.”
Arms folded, I watched the ball bounce up and down, all the time contemplating how I was going to handle this. It was probably nothing, just a stupid idea that had gotten into my head, but . . .
“Jay, I need a favor.”
Jay didn’t miss a beat. “No, you can’t borrow my Wii.”
“I don’t want your Wii. I want your leg.”
Jay turned to me just as the ball hit the rim. He let it fall to the ground. “Which one?”
“The left,” I said. “Now hand it over.”
If there was one thing that pissed me off about my dad and his parade of pathetic women, it’s what they did to Jay. Not just abandoning him—like there could be anything worse. But this . . .
I crouched, and then rolled down Jay’s sock to the top of his sneaker.
There it was. Just above the ankle. About the size of a Ping-Pong ball. A tattoo. Of a bird. Sol’s bird.
“Thinking of getting one?” asked Jay, with a cheeky grin.
I examined it closely. The same colors. The same lofty demeanor. The same razor-sharp talons.
“Not right no
w,” I replied. I pulled his sock back up.
“Then what’s the deal?’
“No deal.”
I teasingly kicked the ball across the yard—“Don’t pop that thing”—then headed back to the kitchen to find Pete pouring himself a cup of coffee. I immediately headed for the table.
“It’s time we got rid of Jay’s tattoo.”
Pete stopped mid-stir. “What’s brought this on?”
“He’s ten years old. It’s child abuse.” I traced circles on the table with my finger, anything but look at Pete. I didn’t want to explain to him about Sol. He’d only get the wrong idea and think this was me obsessing about some guy. It wasn’t. It was about Jay. “That clinic in Omaha can do it. Doctor Peak said he’d arrange it, and then you never called. Sign the consent form and I’ll organize it. I’ll take him and everything.”
He came to the table, watching me. Only then did I realize how closely. “Has something happened?”
“No,” I said. “We should have done it ages ago. That’s all. Heaven knows what Doctor Peak thinks of us leaving it there.”
“I’ll call him on Monday,” said Pete. “See if we can get him in next week.”
I don’t know why I let something so stupid consume me, but for the rest of the weekend I kept picturing Sol on the riverbank. That a guy like him, so grown, so mature, could be walking around with the same tattoo as Jay just struck me as wrong.
I swore that if I ever saw my dad, I’d slap his stupid face . Idiot. How could he do that to a kid, to brand him when life was hard enough? It wasn’t as if Jay and I had the advantages of Andy, or even Willie. If we were to make it in the world, Jay and I had to stand on our own two feet. We didn’t need to be singled out as different. It may be fine for Sol Crowley, or whatever his name was, with his hunky muscles and devil-may-care attitude. But to do it to Jay—it was just infuriating.
I was grouchy at work on Sunday, grouchier still when I thought of Andy and realized I should have been on cloud nine, not stewing over Jay’s tattoo. I wound myself up so badly that by the time I got into bed Sunday night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I conjured Andy’s image, it spontaneously morphed into Sol. Everything came back to two questions: Why would Sol choose to get that particular design? And where did he get it?
It must have been somewhere seedy. Sol was a junior too, which meant he couldn’t be much older than seventeen. The tattoo place in Crownsville wouldn’t touch you unless you were twenty-one. And it didn’t look like a standard tattoo, either—no love hearts and arrows, or tigers and snakes. Sol’s bird had been designed and I was betting that whoever had designed it had also applied the ink. I hurtled toward an unnerving conclusion. They were the exact same tattoo. Whoever had done one, had done the other.
“That’s ridiculous. It’s coincidence.”
Did I really believe that if I discovered who’d inked Sol’s tattoo, I might find a link to my missing father?
* * *
Monday. Lunch.
“It’s a terrible idea,” I said to Willie, for the fifth time. “I’m not searching the school for him.”
“You don’t have to,” said Willie. She slid her tray onto the table, and then took a folded piece of paper from her bag. “I have Andy’s schedule.”
I appreciated that Willie was cheering me on from the sidelines. But with this latest move, I suspected her obsession for getting me and Andy together was racing out of control.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked, totally aghast.
“Sally. She’s in all the same classes.”
“Now Sally will tell him you asked for it.”
Willie shrugged. “So? There is such a thing as playing too hard to get. You know, he was grilling Kieran about you this morning.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “There’s no way I’m hanging around his classes just to say hi.”
“Whose classes?”
Kieran had arrived. I prayed he’d be on my side.
“Andy’s,” said Willie.
Kieran took the seat beside me. He threw his arm across my shoulders. “So where do you guys hang in the evening these days?” he asked, mimicking a deep, hunky voice. “Is Mia normally there? What nights does she work at Mickey’s? What’s her bra size, Kieran?”
So Kieran was getting in on the act, too.
“He didn’t say that,” I protested.
“‘She doesn’t wear one, Andy,’ I said.”
I shrugged off his arm. “As if you’d know.”
Willie scoured Andy’s schedule, completely deaf to the fact that I refused to stalk him. “He has Spanish last period,” she said, her nose almost touching the paper. “You can easily get there from history.”
“I’m not doing it!”
I glanced around the cafeteria for inspiration, or maybe a giant roll of duct tape for Willie’s mouth. What I found instead was Sol. He was seated alone by the windows with an apple and a bottle of water before him. Even if I hadn’t known about his tattoo, he still stuck out like a sore thumb. His T-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders, the muscles in his back visible as he leaned slightly forward. A couple of guys from our grade talked at the table behind him. Compared to Sol, they looked like kids.
“Then how about a compromise?” said Willie. “I’ll ask Jake to a movie on Saturday, if you and Andy go with us.”
She still hadn’t given up? “But that’d break Seth’s heart,” I said.
“Kieran can amuse Seth. It’s a simple solution. Jake’s a fine man. We had a good time on Saturday.”
“I thought he was your new love,” said Kieran, gesturing left.
I could guess where he’d pointed.
“Scoped him the second we got in,” said Willie, giving Sol a quick glance. “Yes, I would rather have a bundle of that, but, as he’s yet to speak a single word to anybody in the school, I think we’ll declare him a lost cause. Strictly eye candy.”
I put my head in my hands, but it was just an excuse to take another peek at Sol. He’d turned his back to us, and sat with his feet on the chair beside him. I pictured his skin beneath his shirt, and the tattoo that had to have come from somewhere.
“Last chance,” said Willie, waving the paper in my face.
I snatched it from her. “I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll do it,” she said. She checked her watch. “Yeuch. Physics.”
I stuffed Andy’s schedule into my bag and glanced at Sol. He’d gone, the apple and the water abandoned on the table.
“Willie, I’ll trade you any day,” said Kieran. “I’ve got chemistry lab all afternoon.”
I immediately looked to Kieran. Chemistry lab. If memory served me, that was exactly the class he shared with Sol.
* * *
I feigned a headache so I could leave history early. Andy would have to wait. I had other fish to fry.
I camped out at the lockers by Mr. Benbow’s lab and rehearsed what I wanted to say. Hey, Sol, show me your tat, wasn’t going to work. With half the girls already gaga over his very existence, I definitely didn’t want him to think I was swooning over him too.
Hey, Sol, can you take your shirt off? The thought made me want to puke.
When the bell rang and the first galloping steps sounded on the floor above, I decided there was only one way to go. Wing it.
Doors opened along the hall and soon the flow of students meant that at least anything I said to Sol wouldn’t be overheard. I pushed my way to Mr. Benbow’s door, tried to ignore the butterflies fluttering in my gut, and hoped to hell I could avoid Kieran.
Sol was second out of the lab.
He entered the tide of bodies. Head and shoulders over most of the other students, he was an easy track. I hurried after him, several paces behind as he swung toward the gym and the parking lot at the rear of the school. A couple of shoves and a few wayward elbows and I’d almost caught up to him, just as he stepped outside.
“Sol?” I said. It didn’t come out as decisively as I’d planned.
Though barely ahead of me, Sol didn’t stop. He headed on toward the lot.
I shouted louder: “Sol!”
He turned around.
Andy aside, I’d never been one to fall at a guy’s feet. They were just guys, right? But up close and personal, I suddenly understood the reason for all the fuss surrounding Sol. He was hot. Not just tall, hunky, handsome hot, which he was, but intense-looking, gorgeous. And not Monaghan gorgeous where everyone was after him and he knew it, but gorgeous like he knew it, and just didn’t care.
All the things I’d noticed about Sol from the Ridge took on new clarity up close.
His hair was a shade lighter than his eyes; his jawline was straight and strong; his arms long, his feet huge. But again, he wasn’t like the jocks—pumped-up boys parading as men. It was something more than that. It was the way he looked at me. I mean, looked at me. No embarrassment, no awkwardness like with other guys. He hadn’t even glanced at my chest!
And then it struck me: There was no way this guy was seventeen.
Sol tilted his head and opened his hands as if to say, “What?”
Okay. So obviously not the friendliest guy. There was nothing to do but speak. I gripped my bag strap and took a few steps.
“I’m Mia,” I said, cursing myself for thinking this a good idea. “Mia Stone. I know Kieran in your chemistry class.”
Great introduction, Mia.
Sol didn’t reply, but neither did he turn away. His expression was impossible to read. Bored, disgusted, mad? All I knew was that his gaze penetrated as deeply as the eyes of the bird he wore on his back. He waited patiently for me to continue.
But what to say? Under the pressure of his poised, self-assured air, all I came up with was this: “How do you like Crownsville? You live out by the river, right?”
He nodded. It was something. All I had to do now was forge a route from the river to the tattoo. Easy.
“Some of us were out that way over the weekend. You might have seen us? We were on the Ridge. You passed by.”
The expression on his face never changed. I again tried to decode what it meant. Who are you? What do you want? What the hell am I doing here?
Rapidly getting nowhere, I sighed. This was ridiculous. “I was interested in your tattoo.”