When the performance ends, I stand up with the rest of the people who’ve been watching. It’s odd. Everyone claps, and I think they mean it, and then blam, straightaway they’re dusting off their behinds and adjusting their Goofy ears and checking their watches.
“I am absolutely craving a Ding Dong,” a red-haired lady says to her husband. “You think any of these places sell Ding Dongs?”
I feel like there should be more, somehow. More clapping, more appreciation. Or maybe I just feel bad for zoning out when that guy was jumping rope on his hands.
I bite my lip, then straighten my spine and stride over to him. The hand-jumping guy. His hair is spiky from sweat, and I’m struck by how black it is. Jet-black. True black. Blacker than Vicks’s. Way blacker than Penn’s, which isn’t black at all, but a nice, soft-looking brown.
“Y’all were great,” I tell him.
He looks up, surprised. His eyes are so dark, I can’t find the pupils.
“Shay-shay,” he says. At least, that’s what it sounds like. “Thank you.”
“You from China?” I ask.
“Hong Kong,” he replies.
“Oh.”
He regards me quizzically. I like the way he holds himself, as if he’s capable of things.
“Have you been to Hong Kong?” he asks.
“Me? Nah.” What a question! Me, in Hong Kong! I blush.
“Hong Kong very pretty,” he says. “Very…big. You should visit.”
“Um, okay.”
He smiles politely, and I know that the conversation has run its course. But I’m not ready to say sayonara. Or maybe…I don’t know.
I think about Mel and Marco. I think about Vicks and Brady. I think I don’t know what I’m thinking.
I put my hand on the Chinese guy’s shoulder, and his eyebrows shoot up. I’m fluttery inside, veering on light-headed, but what the heck? We’re all gonna die anyway. I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him. He pulls back. I follow. Then there’s a shift in direction, and his mouth opens against mine. His lips are soft. Warm. Salty. Out of nowhere I think of trains.
“Ninmen!” the boss lady shrieks, followed by a flurry of furious Chinese syllables. They pelt us like stones. We jerk apart.
“Ni bie! Dongshen!” Boss Lady’s barreling toward us, and I don’t need to speak Chinese to know she’s saying to leave crazy American girl alone, or else.
My Chinese guy shoots a glance in her direction, then clasps my hand and pumps it up and down. “Sigh jee-ahn,” he says earnestly.
My shoulders hunch. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Good-bye,” he says. “It means good-bye.”
Boss Lady is upon us, scolding and scolding. She yanks him away and smacks his arms, back, and head. It’s a slap fight, only he’s not slapping back. He’s cowering and looking pleased with himself while his friends crack up.
Well. People are staring, and my face is flaming. I quickly walk away, wondering what in heaven’s name I was hoping to accomplish with that little display.
When I’m a good twenty yards from the pavilion, I allow myself to peek back. The temple still stands, but the Chinese dancers have been herded into their dorm. I hope my guy doesn’t get whipped or nothing.
The temple’s reflection shimmers in the pond, like something from another world.
“Sigh jee-ahn,” I whisper.
25
VICKS
IT’S SO PRETTY here, it almost feels wrong. Even on the nicest Florida beach, like when we visit Grandma Shelly and drive up to Hollywood, you’ve always got some garbage left in the sand, a couple of ugly porta-potties clogging up the view, something that reminds you—yeah, this may be beautiful, but it’s the real world too.
In Epcot, there’s nothing like that. No telephone wires, no garbage, no radio blasting, no dead seagulls. Here, everything’s so perfect that it’s only when you look at the people that you can remember anything ugly or sad is even possible. Like there’s a woman yelling at her son because he dropped his croissant on the ground right after she gave it to him. And there’s a guy in a wheelchair who’s missing both his legs. And a man so heavy it looks like it hurts him to walk. And a little girl crying because she’s tired, and her dad telling her he won’t pick her up because she’s a whiner.
There are puddles on the ground from the storm, and the warm early-evening air has a wonderful, just-rained smell. But inside my ribs is a ball of crushed ice.
France, where I am, is only about two minutes away from China, where Jesse’s watching some guys in spandex skip rope. Which I am not in the mood for. I’m not in the mood for much, since I will probably never have another boyfriend in my life and might just die from the cold as it spreads from my chest down my arms, into my fingers, which will turn blue and become paralyzed. Then my legs will freeze to icicles and drop off, and then finally I’ll just expire, right here in Epcot, and they’ll cart me away through underground tunnels so that the sight of my blue, rigor mortising body doesn’t disturb the other visitors during the firework display.
I’d actually like to stay alive for the fireworks. I still remember the Magic Kingdom light show from when Grandma Shelly took me and Penn to Disney, back when I was like six.
But I may not make it, on account of the cold spreading. This cold is a no-Brady feeling, I know that. It’s been there in my chest ever since we broke up, but everything was so crazy with the party and Marco, and fighting with Jesse, and Mel, and the storm—I couldn’t really pay attention to it. Now I’m somewhere where I’m supposed to be happy, where all the badness of the world is washed away or at least camouflaged by innovative placement of decorative bushes—and I’ve got nothing to distract me. No angry Jesse, no driving in the rain, no toll booth, no other drama. So the cold in my chest is colder than before, and I keep noticing things like that tired grandmother carrying two huge shopping bags while she follows a pair of twin twelve-year-olds, who are complaining how Epcot’s not as fun as the Magic Kingdom.
In France, there’s a wine shop. A fancy wine shop—not like the aisles of Publix, which are just supermarket shelves filled with wine, but a tiny, gourmet wine shop like it’s off a street corner in the real Paris, maybe big enough to hold only six people. The bottles look expensive, rich dark greens with antique labels. Next door is a bistro, Les Chefs de Paris, and I look at the menu.
There’s no French food in Niceville, unless you count Au Bon Pain and a bakery that sells some pretty decent cakes and calls them gateaux. My family goes out for Italian sometimes, and sometimes Mexican and P.F. Chang’s, but we’d have to drive an hour to find a real French bistro like they write about in the cooking magazines. And here it is. I mean, I know it’s fake, and maybe the small bit of happiness I’m feeling at reading the menu is fake too—but right now, I’ll take whatever I can get. Besides, the food is real, right? It may be a fake bistro under a fake Eiffel Tower, but the steak au poivre is still steak au poivre.
I don’t have the money to eat here, but I go in and ask if they’ll let me use their bathroom—and they do. While I’m in there I think, Je suis une mademoiselle oops jeune fille française and je put on lip balm in le mirroir de la toilette oops le WC and après le lip balm je will go meet my hot amour français who will drive me around on le motorbike et donne-moi beaucoup de fleurs because je suis une jeune fille très glamoreuze. Like I have a different life. Like I’m the kind of girl who eats in bistros. Or even better, like I’m the kind of girl who cooks in bistros, then goes home through the streets of Paris.
Next door to the restaurant is a gift shop. I go in and spot the expected Eiffel statues and little Mickeys wearing berets, but there are also cookbooks. Lots of them, with beautiful photographs of France and French dishes like escargot and mussels. A small, plainer-looking one is called Bistro Cooking, by Patricia Wells. On the cover, it says, “Recipes inspired by the small family restaurants of France celebrate a return to generous, full-flavored cooking. Bistro is warm, bistro is family.”
I
want to buy it. I want to buy two, actually. One for me, and one for Penn, for when he goes to culinary school. It’d be nice to have something to give him. Like a send-off, even though the school is only two towns over. Anyway, I only have three bucks in my pocket. The book costs $10.99. So it’s not happening.
I flip my phone open and hit speed dial number three. Penn answers on the second ring.
“It’s me. You will never believe where I am right now.”
“Where?”
“Guess.”
“Just tell me it’s not a police station.”
“It’s not a police station. Although we were at the world’s smallest police station yesterday.” I laugh. “From that Fantastical Florida book, remember?”
“You went to that?”
“And to Old Joe Alligator.”
“I’m jealous. Who’s we?”
“Jesse, me, and this girl Mel from the Waffle.”
“Jesse with the long blond hair?”
“Penn, why do you always act like you don’t know who Jesse is? Now guess where I’m calling from.”
“I don’t really have time for this,” Penn complains, and then adds: “Are you on the beach?”
“No, but there’s water. There’s a river.”
“Are you—”
“I’m in Paris! In Epcot. I called because I want to buy you this present and I don’t have enough money, so the next best thing is to call you and tell you. A Parisian present.”
“You’re at Disney?”
“Mel paid to get us in. Don’t you want to know what the present is?”
“Where are you guys sleeping? Are you driving back tonight?” asks Penn, and suddenly it seems like he’s not my coconspirator, not the other youngest Simonoff—but a guy living on his own and working a job and worrying about his stupid little sister.
“I broke up with Brady,” I blurt.
“Oh, man.”
“I’m never gonna see him again and I think my life might be over, but I’m shopping at this cute little store and there’s a present I wanted to get for you. So I’m thinking of you, my favorite brother, in my final moments. Now, don’t you want to know what the present is? Or what it would be, if I wasn’t broke?”
“Listen, Vicks,” says Penn. “I’m sorry about Brady, but I’m at Chang’s right now and I got tons of snap peas to prep before the dinner rush starts. I’m not even supposed to be answering my phone.”
“What?”
“I’m working. I’ll call you later if I can,” says Penn. And hangs up.
Because he’s got a life. Because he knows where he’s going and he’s not even that curious what the present I want to give him is. Because he doesn’t need me like I need him.
We all meet in Morocco at eight, get our pictures taken on Mel’s camera phone together with some second-rate characters that I think come from Pinocchio. (Mel says all the good characters like Pooh Bear live in the Magic Kingdom.) We ride a boat across the river. Everyone goes on a crash-test ride except me, because I had quite enough worry about crashing while driving in the hurricane, thank you, and then Mel takes us to eat in a restaurant filled with such huge tropical fish tanks, it seems like we’re underwater. I have salmon with a papaya relish I’ve never had before, salad made with beets and grapefruit, and key lime pie.
It is nice not to be in the real world. To be somewhere sanitized, eating papaya salmon and pretending nothing can touch you. It helps you forget.
After dinner, we watch the late-night firework-laser show over the water, and Jesse and I walk away to let Marco and Mel be alone.
I can’t help thinking about Fourth of July, when Brady bought fireworks and we set them off together in his family’s backyard with some of our friends from school. Brady is always the one who gets the idea to do something cool, the one who buys not just fireworks but chips and a big, slightly nasty-tasting creamy cake from Publix, one that looks like a flag, and has all the guys come over to his place. He even made onion dip, with dried soup and sour cream. And called Jesse himself to invite her.
And he bought me sparklers.
That hardly sounded like him on the phone the other night, talking about his English paper with red marks all over it, and being nervous about the anthropology quiz and all. Usually, it’s Brady who’s on top of things. Not that he’s such a top student or anything, not all As, but he always keeps it together. Keeps people together. This time, it sounded like he was falling apart.
I’m actually glad Jesse’s next to me while I’m watching the fireworks. If I was alone, the cold in my chest would be more than I could stand.
“I don’t want to go home,” I tell Jesse. “I can’t go to Miami, and I really don’t want to go home.” I don’t say this part out loud, but I don’t want to go back to the empty Simonoff house, and I don’t wanna see Penn, not after that call. I can’t face my school friends, either, after breaking up with Brady. They’ll be too sympathetic, too sorry for me, while my parents won’t be sympathetic enough since they don’t think I should date anyone long-distance anyway. Plus, Niceville is too empty without Brady. It’s just days and days of no Brady picking me up after work, no Brady goosing me in the 7-Eleven check-out line, no Brady’s sweatshirt lying on the floor of my room, no Brady, no Brady.
Whatever it is I need right now, it’s not at home.
“I hear you,” Jesse says. “Home is not my happy place either.” She makes a face. “But then, I guess you knew that already.”
“I got a clue.”
“I am so not tired!” Jesse cries, trying to change the mood. She bounces with her hands on the railing overlooking the water. “We should go somewhere. Not home, not the hotel, but somewhere. I don’t think I’m gonna sleep for hours and hours.”
“Me neither.”
“So where should we go?” Jesse muses. “I mean, we’ve been to China, France, and Morocco. Is there anything in Florida that can top those places? I don’t think so. It’s all gonna be downhill from here.”
I think for a moment. “I know the place,” I tell her.
“Where?”
“Coral Castle.”
Jesse squints, remembering. “You mean that place the sad-sack guy built when his girlfriend dumped him? The one you were reading about in the car?”
I nod. “No one knows how he built it either. Like he didn’t have any helpers or anything. Not one. He lifted thousand-pound pieces of coral in the middle of the night, all alone.”
“Wow.”
“It’s like a heartbreak miracle palace,” I say. “Don’t you think we should go? I think we should go.”
Jesse puts her arm around me. Like she understands.
26
MEL
“SO,” I SAY to Marco, holding on to him and not wanting to let go.
It’s late, it’s hot, it’s muggy, and the two of us are standing in the hotel parking lot. Vicks and Jesse have gone up to the room to pack our stuff so we can visit the castle of heartbreak. Or maybe it’s the castle of love. Or both.
“So,” Marco says. He untangles himself from me, takes my hand, and leans against the driver’s side of Robbie’s navy blue two-door Civic. “I had a great night.”
“But was it Exceptional?”
“No, it was Fine. But Fine is better than Exceptional.”
My cheeks hurt from so much smiling. We smiled while screaming on rides, we smiled while holding hands. We smiled while kissing.
After dinner, I gave Marco a special tour of Canada. I even sang the national anthem for him.
“Sure,” he said. “You can sing as well as act. But can you dance?”
I contemplated busting out my old Britney moves, but decided that that could wait for another day. Instead, I found us a place to sit for the fireworks, while Marco went to get cotton candy.
When I felt an arm around my shoulder, I assumed it was him, but instead it was a seven-foot blue and orange Goofy. He tapped his heart with his giant white glove and made a swooning motion.
I burst out laughing.
“What’s going on here?” Marco said, joining us, a huge pink cotton candy in hand. “Goofy, are you trying to steal my girl?”
Goofy nodded vigorously.
Marco thumped his chest. “Then it’s only fair to warn you that I have an orange belt in tae kwon do.”
I giggled and tore off a chunk of the cotton candy. “Um, isn’t that the lowest belt you can have?”
“It most certainly is not,” he scoffed. “It’s the second lowest.”
We laughed and watched the fireworks explode into stars and triangles.
When he took my hand, I warned him that my fingers were sticky.
“Good,” he said. “Then this time you won’t let go.”
Now we’re saying good-bye. Not good-bye forever, just good-bye for tonight.
“I’ll speak to you…soon,” I say hesitantly. I rub the back of his hand with my thumb. It’s soft, the back of his hand.
“Yes, soon,” he says, and nuzzles me back into him. I breathe in deeply and try to commit his minty scent to memory. “Do you guys have to drive tonight?” he asks. “Why not sleep in the pirate hotel and leave in the morning?”
“The castle is four hours south of here, and then we still have to drive nine hours home tomorrow.” I shrug. “What can I say? It’s a road trip. We’re wired. We want to move.”
“Okay. Are you driving?”
“Me? No. I hate driving. But don’t worry about us. Honestly. We’ll be fine. We had a nap. And Jesse’s a good driver.”
“I’m not worried about the driving. I’m worried about you stumbling upon another keg party.”
“Ha-ha.”
He wags his index finger. “And stay clear of hitchhikers.”
I giggle. “I hear they’re bad news. You’re sure you don’t want to use the hotel?” I ask. “It’s already paid for. You can crash there and drive home tomorrow.”
“Thanks, but if I don’t get this car back tonight, Robbie’s going to kick my ass.”
“I bet you and your orange belt could take him.”
How to Be Bad Page 17