Let Me List the Ways

by Sarah White

  I watched her shoulders shake as she tried to laugh without making a sound. She never even looked up to get permission from me to turn the page before she flipped through and found another one of our lists. TOP TEN 31-FLAVOR FLAVORS.

  I rested my elbow on my desk so I could rest my head on my hand and watch her as she browsed through the lists I hadn’t moved into my desk drawer yet.

  “I didn’t know you guys still made these,” she whispered when she found a list titled TOP TEN REASONS HENRY WOULD MAKE A PERFECT COMIC BOOK VILLAIN dated the weekend we’d all gone to the beach together.

  I smiled and nodded.

  Nisha closed the notebook and set it back on my desk. “If this class gets any more boring, you and I could make a list of the top ten reasons why we’re going to get an F on the final, starting with how hard it is to pay attention to the lectures.”

  Nineteen

  JUDE HAD PICKED me up on time and we’d managed to get out of my house with only a few awkward minutes of meeting my parents. We were sitting in the back of the Italian restaurant waiting for our drinks to arrive. I found myself nervously playing with the hem of the tablecloth that lay in my lap. “So,” Jude began, “have you decided where to go once we graduate?”

  “I’m going to UCLA. What about you?”

  Jude took a small piece of bread from the basket and then held it over my plate, offering me a piece. I shook my head. Better not. My numbers had been crazy and bread was a hard thing to account for, especially since I knew I’d be eating pasta and having to take a wild guess about how many carbs it might have.

  “I’m going to stay here and go to community college. I’m not sure what I want to study yet. I figure, why waste the money if I don’t know what direction I want to go in.” He dipped the bread into the oil and vinegar mix on the table. “Do you already know what you want to do?”

  “I want to be a journalist.”

  “That’s cool. What kind of stories do you want to cover? Sports? Entertainment? World news?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I just know that I love writing and hate the idea of office jobs. I want to go out in the field and spend my day talking to people. I know I’ll have to work behind a desk too, but at least it would be worth it if I didn’t have to do it every day.” The waitress arrived with our food and I felt a little nervous and shy about bringing out my kit. This was one of those moments I always dreaded when I ate with someone new. Most people just ignored it, but every so often someone would make a comment about how testing myself was “freaky” or “gross.”

  Clearly I shouldn’t have been worried about Jude, though.

  “How long have you been diabetic?” he asked nicely and with genuine curiosity after I tested myself.

  “Since fourth grade.” I picked up a fork and began to twirl my pasta.

  “That must have been hard. I would hide from shots until I was thirteen.”

  I laughed. “They made me use syringes for a year before they let me get a pump. My doctor wanted everyone to learn how to take care of me without it first. Pumps do all the calculations for you, so my doctor thought it was important that we knew how to do them without it so we had a better understanding of how the insulin was working in my body to bring down my blood sugar as we figured out my dosing. He said we needed to know how to do injections in case there was ever a problem with my pump. I cried a bit at first, but after a while it was so quick I barely had time to make any fuss.” I took a bite of the delicious fettuccini Alfredo.

  “If I had known you back then I would have thought you were some sort of superhero.” He cut a bite of his lasagna and raised it to his mouth. “To be a kid and get a shot without crying . . .” His eyes went wide and he let out a small whistle. It made me laugh and feel proud of the brave little girl I’d been forced to be. It also made me happy I was on this date with Jude. Talking to him felt so effortless. His smile was cute too.

  “I saw you leaving school early Wednesday with Antonio and Kenji. Do you guys have a zero period and no sixth?”

  “Surf. We have to be at the beach at six in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We surf until about eight and then head home to shower up and get to school. It counts as our PE and zero period. Sometimes if the waves are good we stay past eight and just rinse off in the freshwater showers they have near the strand. If it looks like the waves are going to be good after school we’ll head back down too.” He seemed at ease discussing surfing. I could tell he loved it.

  “I saw you riding your skateboard a few times as I was driving, but I didn’t know you surfed too. How long have you been doing that?”

  “It feels like I’ve been surfing forever. My dad taught me. He surfs as a way to relax before big surgeries. I think the first time he put me on a board I was five. I’m not really sure when I started doing it by myself but I know we have pictures of a family vacation in Hawaii and I can’t be more than maybe seven years old and I’m riding a wave by myself.” He shrugged like it was not a big deal. To me it was so impressive I had stopped eating while listening to him talk.

  “Wow, that’s incredible. I wasn’t doing anything like that when I was seven.” I laughed. “I don’t think I could even do that now.”

  “I could teach you,” he said quickly. I could hear in his voice how eager he was for me to accept his offer. It made me grin and my cheeks felt warm.

  “Okay, but I should warn you that I’ve never been on a surfboard. I’ve read about it, though.” I bit my lip, praying he didn’t think girls who read instead of surfed weren’t worth a second date because I knew right then I wanted a second one.

  “I have some great books about surfing. Do you like to read fiction or nonfiction?” he asked. In his excitement he didn’t even wait for me to answer. “I have a book about the woman who was bitten by a great white shark while surfing, but maybe you should hold off on it until you’ve gained some confidence on your board.”

  “So you surf and read?” I teased.

  “Yeah, I always have. I guess it’s because of how I grew up. My parents got divorced when I was nine. My mom lives about two hours from here now, so when it’s her time with me it’s a long trip back and forth. I don’t have to go very often, but reading was something they both encouraged to help pass the time. She’s a teacher, so between her and my dad’s love for knowledge, if my head wasn’t in the ocean, it was in a book.” He held his fork above his dinner. “I guess it’s still that way.”

  “Two hours away?” I asked. “That must be rough.”

  “It probably would be if it was inland,” he answered with a knowing grin, “but she moved down the coast. I kind of get the best of both worlds now. I get to surf here and right outside of San Diego. Doesn’t get much better than that.”

  I realized that talking to Jude was easy. He was friendly and interesting, and the more I talked with him, the more I wanted the night to continue. We lingered over dessert, discussing everything from the piece I had written in the school paper about the unequal funding the male and female sports teams received to the time that I had accidentally kicked a hornets’ nest and gotten ten stings. He asked me questions about myself that I hadn’t really thought anyone would be interested in, and I realized we had so much in common that the conversation never felt stilted. I really liked him. He didn’t make my heart beat as quickly as it did when Nolan touched me or smiled a particular way, but it did speed up a little as we walked up to my door.

  “Thank you for going out with me,” he said when we stopped on my porch. I turned to him and smiled.

  “Thanks for taking me. I had a good time.” Never mind what I said earlier about my heart; it seemed to jump the second I realized we were going to kiss. It pounded against my ribs and made my head feel dizzy. The tense moment built up around us. Finally, he leaned forward and kissed my lips. It wasn’t as intense as my last kiss, but it was nice. His lips were soft against mine and he even put his hand to the side of my head, causing a warm rush to race through my body.

&nbs
p; When the kiss finally broke, he took a step back with a smile on his face. “I’d like to take you out again.”

  “I’d like that too,” I answered honestly, my heart still pumping a little quicker than it usually did. He nodded and then turned around. I watched as he moved toward his car, parked at the curb. He turned his head to look at me one more time and I could clearly see his smile even though it was dark outside.

  Twenty

  SATURDAY MORNING NISHA, Regan, and I went to get breakfast at our favorite coffee shop so they could get all the details of my date with Jude at the same time. They swore they weren’t jealous of each other, but when it all came down to it, they would admit that they couldn’t stand being the last to hear the gossip.

  “So he actually watches The Bachelor and wasn’t just saying that to have something to talk to you about?” Nisha asked.

  “There’s no way he doesn’t watch it. He knows too much. Not just about this season either. He knows the names of all the past contestants and had a pretty convincing theory about who the bachelor is going to pick this time.” I smiled, remembering how fun it had been to debate our theories.

  “Did you hold hands?” Regan asked as the waitress refilled her water.

  “He held my hand for the ride back to my house,” I tell them, remembering the way it had felt to feel his warm hand in mine. He’d held it the right way and I’d had to look out the window so he couldn’t catch me smiling so widely all my teeth were probably showing.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Nisha said. “It’s going to be hard to get used to.” She took a sip of her drink. “We’ve never seen you with any boy other than Nolan. When you and Jude start hanging out it’s going to make everyone do a double take the first time they see you together.”

  “It had to happen sometime,” Regan said. “I think now is good.” She smiled and popped a strawberry from her small bowl of fruit into her mouth. “I can tell you’re happy just by the look on your face.”

  “I can’t believe how much is changing this year,” Nisha said as she watched the waves crash beyond the strand. “We’re graduating in a few months and we’ve all picked different colleges. Declan and I won’t even be in the same state.” Her voice trailed off for a moment, and I wondered if she was lost in the idea of her boyfriend being hundreds of miles away.

  “You’ll get through it,” I told her. “You both promised to come home for winter break.”

  “It’s not just us; Regan is going to get her girl, Nolan found Erin, and you and Jude make the cutest couple. It’s wonderful we’re all happy in this moment, but you have to admit the timing is terrible.” She laughed, and I could tell she was trying to be strong when her heart was breaking.

  “Don’t go there, Nisha,” Regan warned lovingly. “You’re going to be so worried about having to leave each other that you won’t enjoy the time you have left together.”

  Nisha nodded. She seemed to understand that logic. “Graduation is making me sentimental, I guess,” she confessed, pushing her sunglasses up and wiping a tear off her cheek. “But I have to be honest,” she said casually, “a little part of me always thought you and Nolan would end up together. I know it’s silly—you guys have told us all a million times you’re only friends—but the romantic in me wanted you to fall in love because you’re just so perfect for each other and you have all that history.” She smiled at me, as if to express that she knew the idea was nonsense. I almost told her that I’d wanted the same thing, but what good would it have done? She was right to call it a fantasy and it was time to grow up and look to the future.

  That afternoon, after Nolan’s game, we headed to Target so we could grab the supplies we’d need for the campout. His parents were actually going to be out of town, visiting some old friends from high school, so they’d left him money so that he could get food for his brothers and some snacks for us. We entered Target through the sliding glass doors and I noticed the way Nolan attracted attention as he clicked along the linoleum in his cleats. His baseball pants were stained from where he had sat on the dirty bench inside the dugout and his hair was wet with sweat and slightly wavy as it hung down by his eyes. Even just warming up had taken its toll, and he’d had to ice his shoulder the rest of the game. Sitting out the game on doctor’s orders was hard for him, especially on such a sunny perfect day for baseball.

  “What?” he asked when he caught me smiling.

  “You’re a mess. It’s embarrassing.” I was joking, of course, and he knew it. I didn’t get embarrassed easily, and definitely not in front of him.

  “What, this?” He swept his arm down the length of his body. I tried to hide my smile. “This is not embarrassing.”

  “It’s not?” I shook my head slightly. “Because I think it’s a little embarrassing. You have an ice pack wrapped around your arm.”

  “No,” he said confidently. “That’s not embarrassing. Now, if I did something like this . . .” He started dancing in the middle of the aisle. Not some smooth dance that you’d see in a romance movie, but more like a robot having a malfunction. He added in facial expressions to make sure I was completely hysterical with laughter. A woman with her small children passed us by and the kids pointed at him and smiled. She tried hard to scold them for pointing and moved away from Nolan as quickly as possible. It only egged him on more. He added some sort of a shuffle, which had the kids giggling.

  Just as quickly as he had started, he stopped. “Now that was embarrassing.”

  “Right. I’ve got it now.” I followed him over to the grocery section of the store and we began throwing items into the cart like people who had just descended from a twelve-month hike of Everest. With our cart full of everything we probably shouldn’t be eating, we headed over to the camping section to get my sleeping bag.

  “This one, of course,” he said as he reached for a tiny Disney sleeping bag.

  “I think I might be ready for a big-girl sleeping bag. Maybe this one.” I tossed in a flannel sleeping bag and pulled the cart down to the end of the aisle, where all the insect repellents were. I tossed in some bug spray and was about to leave when Nolan swiped a bunch of citronella candles into the cart.

  “You can never be too careful,” he explained as an older man checking out small portable stoves gave him a dirty look when the candles clanked and clattered into our overstuffed cart.

  I slipped into the next aisle and tried to contain my laughter. Nolan followed and did the same. He marched around, mocking the way the old man had balked at us and then turned and marched to the other end of the aisle, as if we had somehow contaminated his shopping area.

  It took a few minutes of not looking at each other to get our silent laughing under control, and when we finally left that aisle, my cheeks were sore from smiling and my eyes were red with happy tears. We made a funny pair at the checkout: a messy, broken baseball player and a girl who looked like she’d been crying while still smiling like a loon.

  Twenty-One

  THE SUN WAS just about to set when I opened the small gate that led to his yard. I had a bag packed with a few items I might need. Nolan was already outside, sitting on top of a big blanket. I felt my heart flutter in my chest and my pulse quicken when I took in the sight before me. He had lit every single candle and more. I’m not sure when he even got all of them.

  I slowly made my way over to the small circle of fire and stepped inside, sitting cross-legged beside him. “You think this will keep the mosquitoes away?” he asked, staring out across the yard as if the bug apocalypse was on its way.

  “It’s gonna be close, but I think we have one up on them.” I smiled and then leaned back on my hands. “What’s first on the agenda?” When we were younger we’d play hide-and-seek or tag while we waited for it to get dark, and then we’d start in on all the snacks we’d brought out. As we got a little older, I’d bring a book and he’d bring a graphic novel and we’d read until the light of the day was gone.

  “I of course brought the best book of all time
out with me tonight. I also brought snacks and a card game. What are you in the mood for?” Nolan asked.

  Before I could answer, the back door slammed and Seth made his way into the backyard toward us. “Dude, I’m going to Bonnie’s house. Hey, Mackenzie,” he said almost like an afterthought.

  “Do Mom and Dad know that you’re going over there?” Nolan asked.

  “Nope. And they aren’t going to.”

  “Not cool. I’m not keeping your secret!” he yelled after him.

  “Yes, you are,” Seth tossed back as he headed out the gate.

  “I’m not keeping his secret,” Nolan said almost to himself.

  “Yes, you are.” I scooted down farther and folded my arms behind my head. “You keep every secret your brothers tell you. Stop pretending that you’re suddenly righteous.”

  Nolan moved down and copied my position. “My parents don’t think it’s a good idea that they’re so serious. They’re worried that they’re both impulsive and their relationship is getting in the way of his schoolwork.” He said it in the same tone I imagine his parents used.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s going to do whatever he wants to do no matter what my parents think about it. He’s never been one to follow directions. My parents know that. I think that’s why they are so strict with him. They put down a boundary knowing that he is going to cross that line just a bit. They’re not stupid; they know where to draw the line so that the real line won’t be crossed.”

  The sun sank farther and the darkness began to creep into the yard. “Would your parents make the same rules for you if you got serious with a girl?” I turned my head so that I could look at him as he stared up into the sky.