by James Ramos
It took him longer than it usually did to get to my house, and I was waiting in the driveway when he pulled up. Sure enough, Nicole was with him. I wondered how awkward our interactions would be now that she was officially off the market, but she gave me a perfectly polite, “Hey, Elliott,” and scooted over to make room for me.
Lucas’s truck had never seemed smaller. They were holding hands when I climbed in, which I tried to take as a good sign. I wondered what kind of sea creature she considered him to be.
We drove in silence for the first few minutes—just Lucas, Nicole, me, and the humongous elephant in the truck. I tried to figure out how to frame my questions so that I didn’t come across as a skeptic, but that was difficult, because I was absolutely a skeptic. Finally I decided on something generic.
“So . . .” I began, staring out the passenger window, “how are you both . . . enjoying the break?”
“It’s been spectacular,” said Nicole with as much conviction as she could squeeze out of her voice. “We’ve been having so much fun.”
I tried not to imagine what that meant, but found that even if I tried, I couldn’t. What could Lucas and Nicole possibly enjoy doing together?
“I’ve been reading the blog,” said Lucas as he drove. “You guys do some good work. Hey, did you know Nicole and I are trying to get into the same school?”
I frowned. “No . . .”
“The Art Institute of Phoenix,” she said excitedly. “He’s going for photography, I’m going for web design. Isn’t that weird?”
“How about that.” It was all I could say, because my first reaction—“That’s unfortunate, considering the two of you will have broken up long before then”—somehow didn’t feel appropriate.
Nicole gave the directions, and we pulled onto what I assumed to be Christian’s block, stopping outside a large house that looked like it was in the process of being swallowed by a garden. The front yard was a labyrinth of perfectly groomed bushes and shrubbery. There were flowers of all different colors, and trees that converged to form a canopy over the walkway. The few cacti disbursed among the plants were the only things that seemed to belong here, in the middle of a desert.
I climbed reluctantly out of the truck. “This is like the Little Shop of Horrors,” I said as we fought our way through the foliage. We made it unscathed to the door and rang. After thirty seconds of awkwardly standing there, the door cracked open, and Christian met us on the porch wearing a white linen shirt.
“So glad you could make it,” he said as he welcomed us inside, where we were hit by the icy blast of the AC.
Being inside Christian’s house reminded me of being at a tea party. The walls were a soft baby blue, the tables and chairs were milky white with floral designs etched into them, and there were lace trimmings on the curtains and tablecloths. To our left was a large bay window, and the right corner of the room was taken up with a grand piano. There were exotic-looking plants everywhere.
“That makes everyone, I believe,” Christian said. “We do have a new addition. You all know Darcy Fitzwilliam, I presume?”
My stomach dropped, but this time it had more to do with the frequency and improbability of our paths colliding—again—than any irritation by that fact.
The rest of the paper staff were here, scattered around the large foyer, and sure enough, there was Darcy, occupying the corner of a large, squishy-looking couch all by herself. She looked as uncomfortable as I had ever seen her, but when our eyes met something changed. She sat up straighter and her frown lost some of its severity. She watched me with a guarded expression as Christian gestured to two wicker chairs arranged facing Darcy’s couch and the piano, in front of which Christian seated himself.
“I’ve asked Miss Fitzwilliam here to join us as my assistant editor,” Christian explained. “Temporarily, of course. She has a keen and critical eye that I know will benefit us all.”
Critical eye. That was the understatement of the year.
Christian noticed me looking at the piano and patted it paternally. “Studies show that those who play instruments are, on average, smarter than those who don’t,” Christian said as he ran his fingers along the keys. Then he turned to me. “Do you play?”
“Do you?”
“In my youth,” he said with a rueful sigh, as if his youth was some bygone era lost to the mists of time. “I’m far too busy now, but had I stuck with it I’d be playing Carnegie Hall by now. I was most gifted, but my true talents lie in my ability to perceive greatness. Some have an eye for beauty, others for fashion, but I have an eye for uniqueness. That’s what drew me to Darcy. She, like myself, is of a unique pedigree.”
I stifled a laugh. “Which pedigree is that?”
Darcy didn’t respond, but Christian was all too eager to. “Darcy, for one, can hold an intelligent conversation. She is one of the few people I’ve met who does not bore me to tears. Normal things bore me; I simply find no delight in normalcy. For me, it must be unique, and Darcy is most definitely unique. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing sidelong at Darcy, who was watching me out of her peripheral, with her face toward the bay window. “Sure.”
“My brother plays the cello,” said Christian. “Andrew, bring me my laptop so we can get started. Maybe later you can play us something.”
“Cool,” said the big oaf as he dutifully snapped to attention and lumbered off. I still couldn’t picture him playing a cello of all things, and I almost wanted to see it for myself, just to be sure Christian wasn’t lying about it.
“It’s good to have a pair of strong arms around to do the heavy lifting for you,” he said. “Darcy, you’d do well to find yourself a strapping young man such as my brother.”
Darcy looked at me with a straight face and said, “I’ll be sure to do that.”
Christian’s eyes flickered to Darcy, then to me, and something he saw must have annoyed him because he gave a slight huff and said, “A unique personage such as Darcy here could only ever be matched with an equally unique individual, isn’t that right?” This time his question was directed solely at me.
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more,” I said with a grin. Christian was so over-the-top asinine that he was hilarious now instead of annoying. Beside me Lucas chuckled, and, though her hand concealed most of her mouth, I saw the edges of Darcy’s lips curled upwards.
Christian nodded obliviously, satisfied with my apparent agreement as Andrew returned with his Macbook. “Right, now, I’ve been reviewing the way we format our pages, and I think we need to give more attention to our images. We need visuals that pop, dynamic angles that complement the words. Now, Lucas, I know you’re the photographer, not me—although I think I have some skill there—and I’ve snapped a few examples for you, just so you can see what I’m envisioning.”
Lucas rolled his eyes, but he got up and stood behind Christian’s laptop so he could look. Judging by the way his nose wrinkled up I could only assume that Christian was not as gifted with the camera as he thought he was. Nicole stood beside him, recording every syllable that came out of his mouth, and Andrew was tinkering with his phone. Everyone else seemed to know what they needed to do and broke off into their little groups to work, leaving Darcy and myself as the only ones with nothing to do.
I took out my notepad and tried to write, but the words wouldn’t come. I was distracted, mostly by Darcy. After a while I gave up and started staring at the plants—the leaves, the stems, the flowers. Then I stared at the floor. I tried to write again, but I came up with nothing. All the while, Darcy was looking out the window. My throat was dry. I swallowed, and I could swear I heard the saliva. I tried counting down from a hundred. Then up to a hundred. Then reciting the multiples of eleven.
Suddenly Darcy got up and crossed the room to sit in the chair Lucas had vacated. “We’re not friends, Christian and I,” Darcy said in an almost whisper. “At least not in the real sense of the word. He prattles. And he’s been
trying to convince me to go to this stupid Winter Formal with his brother for weeks now.”
I looked over at Andrew. A line of sweat had condensed on his upper lip. The thought of Darcy going dancing with him stirred an unfamiliar feeling inside me. I was almost . . . angry? “Why don’t you?”
“Not my type.”
“Right.” I laughed, “Your list.”
“Lists change,” she said, looking me square in the eyes as she said it.
“Do they?”
“I’m a girl. Of course they do.”
Change to what? I wondered. And I couldn’t help but hope that her revised list of expectations was more aligned with what I might be expected to achieve. For some reason Lucas’s words from before popped into my head. People spend too much time searching for the perfect person that they look right past the right one. Was that what Darcy was doing? Wasn’t the right person the perfect person? How did you know the difference?
Chapter 18
I woke up in a cold sweat, breathing like I’d been running a marathon. I tossed my comforter off and hurled myself from bed. It was completely dark, and I nearly tripped over my chair. I was dreaming about Darcy. Again.
“No. Nonononononono. No way. This is stupid.” I slapped my forehead, but the images would not fade. I flicked the light on and stood in my pajamas. “Why is this happening?” I asked the walls. I’d dreamed about girls before. No big deal there. But Darcy? That was gross. Gross and unnatural and strange and . . . and . . .
Hot?
No.
Well, maybe. Darcy was a girl. She was an attractive girl. I was a hormonal teenage boy. Simple math. Far worse things could happen in a dream under those circumstances.
I read once that dreams can reflect subconscious desires, or they can be a manifestation of the things we want to suppress. Maybe that was it. Maybe I was in denial.
That had to be it.
I turned the light off and climbed back into bed. Before I lay down I looked up at the ceiling. “Alright, universe, you win. I admit it. I think that Darcy Fitzwilliam is—sort of—really cute. Are you happy now?” I dropped onto the bed and pulled my blanket up over my head. Ten seconds later I snatched the blanket off and sat up.
“By the way, universe, that’s all I’m admitting.”
* * *
Sunday, the last day of the break, arrived, and in a rather lame turn of events, I decided to spend it catching up on chores. I had a pile of laundry in my room big enough to qualify as its own piece of furniture, and I was fresh out of boxers. By my third load I was thoroughly played out on chores, and I was grateful when I got a call from Lucas.
“Sup, bro?” he said loudly enough for me to have to hold the phone away from my ear.
“Are you outside or something? Why are you yelling?”
“My bad,” he said. There was a pause, and the noise died down. “Driving with the top down, the usual.”
“You own a pickup truck.”
“Guy can dream, right? Anyways, you down to shred today?”
“You know it,” I said without hesitation. I hadn’t been skating in nearly two whole days, which was altogether unacceptable. But then, “What about Nicole?”
“She’s not coming. She has a cheer meet. Besides, it’s not like she skates anyway.”
See? The beginning of the end, I wanted to say. The two of you aren’t even into the same things. “Should I sound the call for the rest of the guys?”
“Already did. Kyle will meet up with us there; Liam’s a no-go.”
“Why not Liam?”
“I dunno, says he had some trip to make across town or something. Kyle didn’t even know what he was talking about.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah, but his loss. I’ll be over in an hour.”
He hung up, and I went back to my laundry, this time with more pep in my step, now that the end was in sight. I piled my last load into the basket and carted it outside where I started exchanging the dry clothes on the line for the wet ones. I fell into my zone, humming to myself and shimmying as I worked, until someone cleared their throat behind me.
I whirled. Darcy was standing just outside my yard with an amused look on her face.
Geez! What could she possibly want now?
“What are you doing?” I demanded, wondering how long she had been standing there and how much she’d seen.
She gestured to her outfit. Track pants, running shoes, and an athletic t-shirt. “Jogging,” she said, looking at me as if there was nothing at all strange about her being here. “You know, using my legs to get from point A to point B, bipedal locomotion—”
“Why?”
She frowned. It wasn’t an angry frown, just a confused one. “Am I breaking some weird Arizona law by jogging?”
“It is a million degrees out here.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me much.”
“Okaaay,” I said skeptically. Heat bothered everyone. But I had to admit, her standing there in her workout clothes, glowing with sweat, her face flushed from running and her hair sort of damp . . . it reminded me of the dream that I was still trying very hard to forget. I plucked a sock out of the laundry basket and clipped it to the line. “I’d offer you a towel, but they’re still wet.”
“That’s fine.”
“Bridget isn’t here, if that’s who you’re looking for.” I’d assumed she knew about what had happened between Bridget and Jake. I wondered what she thought of the whole thing.
“I know,” she said plainly.
I plucked up a pair of boxers then quickly traded them for a t-shirt. No need for her to see those.
“Is your dryer broken?” she asked as she watched me work.
“No. My mom’s on this saving money jag. ‘Why pay to dry your clothes when the sun can do it for free?’”
“That’s sensible, I suppose.”
I shrugged and picked up a pair of pants.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she said suddenly.
I regarded her suspiciously. “About?”
She slowly paced the outside perimeter of the yard, troubling her bottom lip the way I noticed she did when she was concentrating or gathering her thoughts. “About making friends. It’s not that I would mind more friends—I’m sure I could do with a few more. It’s that, making friends isn’t something that comes . . . easily. For me.” She stopped pacing and looked at me. I smiled and picked up my pajama pants.
“You seem to be getting the hang of it.”
She smiled, and she seemed genuinely pleased. I, on the other hand, was thoroughly confused.
“So, for clarity’s sake,” I asked, “are we . . . friends?”
Her smile turned mischievous. “I haven’t made up my mind about that yet.”
“Let me know when you do.”
“Would you like a formal letter?” she asked.
“Whatever floats your boat.”
“Do all your friendships begin with a declaration?”
I laughed. “Only the weird ones.”
There was a commotion from the side of the house, and Lucas stumbled into the yard, the gate slamming shut behind him. “What’s up, Elliott? Ready to shred—” He fell silent when he saw who I was talking to. “Oh, um, hey.”
Darcy nodded curtly and left. As she walked she gave me a quick, neutral glance over her shoulder. I smiled, but I wasn’t sure if she saw it.
“Was that Darcy?” asked Lucas when she was too far away to hear him.
“What of it?”
He watched her with a contemplative face as she shrank in the distance. “I think she likes you, bro.”
Inside, my heart swelled. But outside: “She was just on a jog and happened to see me out here. What’s the big deal?”
He laughed like it should have been obvious. “The big deal is that she walked—oh, excuse me, jogged—all the way over here, just so she could talk to you.”
�
��That doesn’t mean anything. She was already out here.”
“How long has she been going to school with us?”
“A few months,” I answered, even though it seemed like longer.
“Yeah, and in all that time do you know how many conversations I’ve had with her? I’ll tell you. Three.”
“It’s a big school.”
Lucas gave me an are-you-kidding-me-right-now look. “She sits behind me in two classes.”
“Oh.”
“Oh is right.” I followed Lucas out to the front, and after I locked up we headed out to his truck, where I stacked my board in the bed on top of his. “Y’know what I’m gonna do?” he asked as we pulled off. “I’m gonna find out if she really does dig you.”
“No, please, don’t ask her that.”
“I’m not going to ask her; what type of stupid do you take me for?”
“How else would you find out?”
He just laughed. “I have my ways, bro. I’m Lucas, remember?”
I muttered that he shouldn’t waste his time, and that it wasn’t like I really cared either way, but secretly I hoped that he would ignore me and find out anyways, and, more importantly, I hoped that his findings would be in my favor.
“Can I ask you a personal question, Lucas?”
“This isn’t about to get weird, is it?”
“It’s about Nicole.”
He chuckled. “No, I have not gotten to third base. Heck, I haven’t even got to second.”
“That’s not—okay, gross. I was going to ask what do the two of you, you know, do?”
Lucas laughed, and I got the feeling I was about to be sorry I asked. “We do lots of things. We’re building a website.”
“A website?”
“Yeah, bro, from the ground up. I’m handling the images, and she’s doing the coding. She knows HTML and C++. Crazy, right? Why didn’t you ever tell me she was so cool? I would have asked her out a long time ago.”