Book Read Free

Unlit Star

Page 16

by Lindy Zart


  "I made lemonade. Do you like lemonade, Rivers?"

  "Yes. Thank you."

  He's being so polite that the urge to shake him up emboldens me. Just as we sit down, I announce, "Rivers asked me to marry him."

  He spits out the lemonade he just took a drink of. Luckily it doesn't hit any of the food. Unfortunately, it does hit my mom directly in the chest. A squeak leaves her as her arms raise and hover out at her sides.

  "I'm so sorry," he says, lurching to his feet and then standing there awkwardly. It isn't like he can exactly wipe her down.

  "You should get her a towel. There's one on the stove," I tell him, laughing when he glares at me.

  My mom waves him away. "It's fine. Sit down. I'll just go change my top. Really, Del?" she asks in exasperation as she walks by.

  "What are you doing?" he demands, eyeing me suspiciously.

  "I'm having fun."

  "At my expense."

  "Well, yeah."

  "Stop it."

  "No."

  "Stop it or I'll be forced to fight back."

  My breath catches at the gleam that enters his eyes. "That's what I'm waiting for."

  The glint in his eyes turns dangerous and I know he is thinking about all the ways he could get me back, and I also think he is thinking of things that would make me blush—until I realize I already am. My face is on fire and it matches the way my body feels. I gulp down lemonade and tear my eyes away from his, instead focusing on the vines of a plant in a corner of the room.

  "You're in so much trouble, and you don't even know it," he promises. "You can always dish it out, but you can never take it, can you?" He rubs a finger over his lower lip just as I return my gaze to him and my pulse careens out of control. "What are you thinking about? Right now?"

  Sex. That's what I'm thinking about. And it's his fault. I always innocently tease; he turns everything into an insinuation. I'm not complaining, I just get flustered by it. Let's just say I am not sauve in the art of flirting, or anything sexual, really.

  "Nothing," I answer quickly.

  "Mmm-hmm," is his dubious reply.

  As soon as she gets back into the room and sits down, I continue with the previous conversation, much to Rivers' annoyance. "I told him no. It's too soon. But, maybe, ya know, in a few more weeks."

  She stabs a piece of chicken with her fork and plops it on her plate, offering the dish to Rivers. "Yes, that should be sufficient time." She glances up with a question in her eyes. "What's with you tonight?"

  I shrug, taking a bite of mashed potatoes. They melt on my tongue in a perfect combination of butter, cheese, and garlic. "I like teasing Rivers. Look at him. He doesn't know what to do."

  "I know what to do, I just don't know if your mother would approve." There is a double meaning there, and his eyes confirm what it is when they meet mine.

  My face flushes and I stare down at the salad, counting the dark flecks of seasoning in a crouton as I wait for my face to stop burning. I think I need to admit defeat. I am out of my league here.

  I am not sure if my mother is truly aware of what is going on between us, but she chooses to say in response, "If I were you, Rivers, I'd tease back. Delilah needs that once in a while."

  And that's all the encouragement he needs.

  "Your daughter is obsessed with me," he casually supplies as he cuts into a piece of poultry.

  My mouth drops open and I quickly close it before a chunk of tomato falls out.

  A smile flits over my mother's lips. "Really? How can you tell?"

  "She follows me around, taking indecent pictures of me at every opportunity." He shrugs, a smirk on his face as he looks at me. I promise retaliation with my expression and he laughs, turning back to my mom. "She even wrote me a love song. It's sweet, but sort of embarrassing as well, especially when she serenades me from outside my window at night."

  "I can see her doing that. She wrote a song once when she was a child. How did that go?" She looks at me, her eyes alight with happiness.

  "I don't remember," I state slowly and firmly, widening my eyes at her.

  "It was about peanut butter, I do remember that."

  I drop my face into my hands.

  "Peanut butter?" Rivers sounds like he is choking.

  "Yes. She really loves peanut butter."

  "Trust me, I know."

  I remove my hands from my face and divide a glare between the two of their smiling faces. "It was for school. I was eight! We had to write a song about something that brought us joy. Peanut butter was an easy answer. Lots of people love peanut butter!" I add when they start laughing.

  "Was it called 'Ode to Glorious Peanut Butter'?" he teases, and even I laugh at that, though I fight to keep a scowl on my face.

  The meal continues on with Rivers and I tossing words back and forth and my mom being entertained by it. After the meal is finished, we clean up the kitchen. I want to show Rivers the backyard and go in search of a blanket to take with us. My mom follows me into the closet near the living room.

  I glance over my shoulder at her. "The both of us are not going to fit in here."

  She fidgets with the hem of her top, nibbling on her lower lip. "I know we really don't talk about boys, but...what's going on with you two? I thought you were working there. It seems like you're...dating?"

  Pulling a soft fleece blanket from the top of a pile, I back up, forcing her to move away, and face her. "I am working there." I purposely avoid the dating question.

  "You seem..." she trails off when she catches my eye, her face reddening.

  "What? What do I seem?"

  "You both seem really happy, that's all. Like you care about each other."

  "I do care about him," I admit, shifting my stance.

  Her smile is bright, but also bittersweet. "He seems like a nice kid. Just...what happens after summer?"

  I sigh. "You ask me that a lot." I pause, deciding to be honest. "You know, I really have no idea, and I don't even want to think about it right now. I'm just going to enjoy the summer."

  She nods. "I've dated a boy or two, if you ever need advice or anything."

  "Thank you," I say after an inner debate upon how exactly I should respond to that offer.

  "Let me know when you're leaving so I can say goodbye."

  "I will."

  "I'm going to stop over to Alice's for a bit, but I won't be too long. She found a new recipe and wants me to try it with her."

  Alice is seventy-seven years old and lives across the street. The only recipes she ever looks at or makes are for alcoholic beverages. She used to babysit me when I was younger. I associate her with the scent of baby powder, chocolate chip cookies, and a raspy voice brought on by years of smoking. She's nosy and blunt, but also endearing. My mother loves her. I suppose I do too.

  "Okay. Tell her hi. Don't have too much fun boozing it up."

  She smiles. "There is no such thing as too much fun."

  "Or too much booze," I add and she laughs.

  Rivers and I are camped outside on a blanket when my mom returns. I scoot over and she sits beside me, looking up at the black sky dotted with little blips of light. "That was a good margarita," she supplies.

  I laugh. "What kind was it?"

  "Mango with frozen mangos in it. Delicious. I'll make you one when you're twenty-one." She bumps her shoulder to mine. That's over seven hundred days away—too far into the distance to consider.

  "Only three years away. It can be your ultimate achievement," Rivers says.

  I lift an eyebrow at him, the night hiding certain features of his face while illuminating others. "It's more like two years away. I'll be nineteen in less than a year...and you're saying my goal in life can be to have a mango margarita at the age of twenty-one?"

  "You've got to start out small."

  I turn my face upward, letting it be kissed by the moon. "I thought the saying was, go big or go home?"

  "No one likes a critic," he tells me.

  "I wonder if criti
cs even like critics?"

  My mom shakes her head. "They probably criticize one another."

  I snort. "I would love to see that. The entertainment possibilities are endless."

  Touching my shoulder, my mom gets to her feet with popping knees. "I'm going to go in. I think my body is telling me I am older than I want to believe I am. It's past my bed time."

  "You look great, Janet," Rivers says, and I shoot him a look. He shrugs with a grin in place.

  "Thank you, Rivers."

  I hop to my feet, tugging on the blanket before Rivers is off of it. "My babysitting hours start early and the child in question is extremely demanding, so we should be going." My tone is snippy and the gentle squeeze on my hand tells me Rivers caught it. I fold the blanket up and hand it to my mom, following her inside the house.

  "Thanks for the grub, Janet. It was really good," I tell her.

  Rivers shakes her hand. "I agree. Thank you for having me over."

  My mom smiles. "You're welcome. It was nice to meet you. We'll have to do this again soon."

  I wave and start down the sidewalk, but am abruptly halted when an arm slings around my waist. "Hey. Stop for a minute."

  I go still, scowling at nothing in particular. "What?"

  "What just happened? You were awesome and then you were scary. Tell me why." His hold tightens on me before leaving altogether. "Are you—are you jealous that I told your mom that—about her looking good?"

  I cross my arms. "No. Of course not."

  He moves around me, stopping when he is before me. "What's going on?"

  "I'm just...you know..."

  He laughs. "I really don't. What are you trying to say?"

  I exhale and rub my face, turning to stare at the house I grew up in. With its dark coloring and old architecture, it looks eerie and magical under the cover of night. "My mom's beautiful. It isn't a jealousy thing, not at all. I love my mom and I love her beauty. I look at her in wonder all the time. I just...I just wish I was too." I can't believe I admitted that, especially to him. I hold my breath, my pulse working at a crazy pace, and wait for the mortification that is sure to come with whatever he decides to say next.

  His fingers tip my chin back so that I have nowhere to look but into his eyes. He smiles tenderly, looking like a damaged angel under the radiance of a nearby streetlamp. "Who are you to judge beauty based on how you view yourself? We all look at ourselves and see our flaws. Look at me. I have scars I cannot hide, scars I think make me ugly. Do you think I'm ugly?"

  "No," I whisper, my voice like a caress of air.

  The back of his hand slides down my cheek, and my breathing turns quicker while my insides warm. "Your eyes are like honey, your lips like the soft petals of a red rose, and your cheekbones are sharply designed to accentuate your unique features."

  "Unique?" I repeat, my voice higher than I would like.

  Half of his mouth lifts. "Yeah. Sure, you're not classically good-looking, but you have your own form of beauty. It's your light, your heart. You glow."

  "Rivers," I begin raggedly, my heart thundering inside me like a million drumsticks beating against a drum.

  "Yes?"

  "Stop or I'll be forced to write you a sonnet. For real."

  Quiet laughter floats over me as he takes my hand in his. We begin to walk. "Don't pretend you haven't already started it. It probably begins with you rescinding your love of peanut butter for me."

  "Don't push it."

  THE SUN WARMS MY BACK with its blanket of fiery heat as I swim laps in the pool. I have learned recently to take joy in the smallest of things—like the sun shining, the rain, the wind, the colors all around us. I never paid enough attention before. Now every intricate detail is important to me.

  Fingers dance along my spine and cause a tingling where they meet my flesh. I jerk away and up, finding Rivers standing beside me.

  “Hey. You surprised me.” I splash water at him, grinning when I get him directly in the face.

  He wipes an arm across his face and my eyes are drawn to the muscled length of his arms and down to his chest. “Why do you splash water at me when I'm already wet? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?”

  “Oh, Wise One, thank you for pointing that out to me.”

  He squints through the sunshine at me, water dripping down his face and chest like glistening teardrops. “Your back says Neil.”

  I blink, it taking a moment to make the connection between where he touched me in reference to his words. There is a black four-lettered word tattooed down my spine that I got on my eighteenth birthday, along with the nose piercing. It was my tribute to a little boy—my way of saying I will not forget him, not ever. Well, the tattoo was. The piercing was all for me.

  “It does, yes.”

  “Who's Neil? Was that your brother?”

  I swallow and look down, trailing my fingers back and forth through the clear water. “Yes."

  "I didn't know his name." He nudges my chin and I look up. Rivers smiles sweetly, his eyes warm.“I bet he thought you were pretty cool, didn't he?”

  “Actually, he found me to be quite annoying.” I laugh softly, remembering how I used to follow Neil around everywhere, much to his chagrin. He couldn't even go to the bathroom without me on the other side of the door trying to talk to him.

  “If he could see you now—he'd know the depth of your coolness.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I'd still be just really annoying.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  I take a deep breath, the warm water swaying around me, and I sway in return. Or maybe my legs are wobbly from thinking about my older brother I have missed for twelve years. He would be twenty now, probably in college, in love with some girl and partying it up with his friends. I could see him as a version of Rivers in some ways—he loved sports so much he would have had to be good at them. My older brother that I have surpassed in age, making me the older sibling. It's weird how once someone dies, they are forever frozen at the age they left this life. Everyone around them continues to grow older, but not them. They are forever preserved. It is an abnormality that shouldn't be. In my estimation, we should all have long, well-used lives; not half-lives, or quarter lives.

  We all need our chance at life.

  “He was on a jungle gym—”

  “No,” he interrupts. “I don't want to know about that. I was there that day. I remember. I want to know about him.”

  Rivers just gave me a gift without even knowing it. I feel my heart expand and fill as I gaze at him. No one asks me to talk about him, not even my mother—especially not my mother. The death of Neil is this big wall between us, unbreakable because we let it be. And here Rivers stands, asking me to scale it for him. I press my lips to his, tasting water, feeling the warmth of his life through his lips.

  And I talk about my brother.

  The sun goes higher in the sky as we do back floats, and I tell him about Neil trying to teach me about sports. He loved watching football, baseball, and basketball. He tried to explain the logistics of the games to me, but I was too young to understand. He should have been too young to know what he was talking about, but he seemed to understand the plays. I still don't understand sports.

  I reapply sunscreen as I tell him how one summer Neil went an entire two months wearing the same shirt. He would let my mom wash it two times a week, but that was the longest he'd agree to go without it. She had to eventually wrestle it from him when he announced he was going to wear it to school too. The shirt magically disappeared that night. Neil cried. It was a Spider-Man shirt and he thought as long as he wore it, he had spidey senses. I cried with him, thinking my mom had stolen his powers away.

  Rivers watches me—not speaking, just listening. I tell him how my brother would play zombies with me and I always had to be the zombie. I got shot a lot with an imaginary gun. One day I squirted ketchup all over the front of a new dress to be a more effective zombie. Neil thought it was real blood and went screaming to our mom. She was not happy,
mostly because she'd just gotten the dress and we were supposed to get family photographs taken that day. She rescheduled. He laughs, sweeping hair from my face as we make make a light lunch of roast beef sandwiches and fruit salad.

  We eat on the deck under the shade of the umbrella. He steals my grapes and I take his banana slices. And still I talk of my brother, never tiring, never running out of words. I needed this. Rivers somehow knew I needed this. The sky has turned from blue and cloudy to streaks of pinks, purples, and oranges by the time I finally go quiet. I am exhausted, and not just my body, but my mind. I am also empty of some of the sorrow I normally carry around. I feel cleansed, relieved—not fully, but enough. I exhale slowly, turning my head to find his eyes still on me. In fact, I don't think they strayed far from me all day.

  “I've been thinking.” he tells me.

  “Oh?”

  “I've been thinking a lot, actually.” The intensity of his gaze is startling. “There are so many people out there, so many lives unknown because of stereotypes, or because someone doesn't fit in with the majority the way they are expected to. There are so many chances to know amazing people thrown away without people even realizing it.”

  I pick at my yellow nail polish. “You just now realized this?”

  “Yeah. I guess I'm a little slow. I was always seeing life in one way when I should have been seeing it in another. Apparently getting injured turned out being a good thing for me. Who knew, right?”

  A warm breeze caresses my face like a kiss from a loved one and I smile as I close my eyes. He is finally getting it. I lie back on the soft blanket we procured from inside. It's so serene here with the sun setting and our enclosed area behind the fence. I think I could lie here forever and be at peace.

  “You're evolving. Be proud.”

  “You make me sound like a caveman.”

  “Well...”

  “Funny.” He lets out a deep sigh. “Anyway, I think...I think I know what I want to do.”

  “What's what?” I whisper.

  He shifts beside me, lying down with his arm touching mine. “I want to be more like you.”

  I laugh. “No you don't.”

 

‹ Prev