You Don't Live Here

by Robyn Schneider

  “It’s from an old folktale,” she said. “Look at the moon and tell me you don’t see a rabbit.”

  She pointed, and I squinted, and sure enough.

  “How have I gone my entire life not knowing that there’s a rabbit in the moon and we’re all made from dinosaur pee?” I said.

  Lily shrugged.

  “What can I say?” She grinned. “You were missing out.”

  “You know what else I was missing out on?” I asked.

  “Cheeseburgers with chopped chiles?”

  “Close,” I said, and then I kissed her.

  Chapter 24

  THE NEXT WEEK WAS TORTURE.

  Lily was true to her word about keeping everything a secret. She behaved just as she always did around our friends. But occasionally her hand or her leg would brush against mine, and she’d wait a beat too long before moving it away.

  Our eyes would meet at lunch, or in Art Club, or the locker room during Phys Ed, and I’d see the wicked twist to her smile as she glanced away first. And feel the flush in my cheeks as I didn’t.

  “Secret date this weekend,” she told me as I was switching my books at my locker on Tuesday after school.

  “I’m all yours,” I promised.

  “Obviously,” she said. And then she made an excuse to touch my shoulder. I shivered involuntarily, and Lily clocked it, pleased. “I love your top. Where’d you get it?”

  “I can’t remember,” I said, my cheeks flushed. Oh god, she knew exactly what she was up to. And I knew my shirt was Forever 21. But that would ruin the game. So I cleared my throat and said, “You should check the label.”

  I twisted around, lifting my hair off the back of my neck, stiffening as I felt the soft brush of her fingers at the top of my spine.

  “Today sucks,” Adam declared loudly, interrupting us.

  Lily and I sprang apart guiltily.

  “Spanish test?” she asked, sounding surprisingly normal.

  “I got an eighty-seven,” Adam moaned, and Lily made a face. “It was one verb conjugation. But every time I used it in the essay, Ms. Gonzales took a point off. I stayed after and tried to argue about it, but she was like, ‘Too bad about your future, you forgot the transitive form of esperar for usted.’”

  “Bright side?” I said. “You’ll never forget it again.”

  “It’s esperando,” Adam said miserably. “Not esperanto.”

  “Isn’t Esperanto that made-up language that was supposed to be the universal standard?” Lily asked.

  “Yep,” Adam said. “We were learning about it in AP Gov last month. How can I be expected to learn esperando and Esperanto and not confuse them?”

  “The one with the E is for government,” Lily said without hesitating.

  “Shit.” Adam shook his head. “I should have thought of that.”

  I glanced over at Lily, impressed by how quickly she’d come up with the study trick.

  It was fascinating to watch when they smart peopled like this. No wonder their homework was always perfect; if they ever had a question, they could just ask each other.

  We climbed into the car, and Lily turned right out of the parking lot, instead of left. I frowned.

  “We’re not going home?” I asked.

  “We’re going to cheer up Adam,” she said.

  “Impossible,” he said.

  “Also, for one afternoon only, we can listen to your stupid podcasts,” she said, passing him the auxiliary cable.

  We merged onto the freeway, listening to two dudes banter about James Bond movies, which was predictably uninteresting.

  “Is it far?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you that,” Lily said seriously. “Because then Adam will know where we’re going.”

  “I already know it’s the frozen cookie dough place,” he said.

  “Wrong.” Lily grinned.

  And then she took the exit for a giant luxury mall. I stared out the window at the Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus, realizing with a sinking feeling that I had like a dollar on me.

  Thankfully, we weren’t going to the mall, but to a small cluster of restaurants just across the street.

  “Cauldron!” Adam exclaimed, cheering immediately as we walked toward an ice-cream shop I’d never heard of before.

  The walls were covered with steampunk clocks, and smoke billowed from behind the counter, where they were mixing ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Everyone there was eating ice cream shaped like roses, wrapped in fluffy, still-warm waffles. Instead of the grid shape I was used to, these waffles looked like bubble wrap.

  “Wow,” I said.

  And then I remembered that I didn’t have any cash.

  “Um, can I pay you back?” I asked Lily.

  “Don’t even worry about it,” she said, taking out a debit card.

  Lily had me hold up my cone next to hers, for an Instagram. I stared down at my phone, with the tag notification, getting a little thrill out of making it onto her feed. There was a secret meaning to the photo that only we knew about—everyone else would just think we’d gone for ice cream.

  The ice cream tasted even better than it looked. Lily caught my eye and nodded at Adam, who was happily demolishing his sea salt caramel crunch.

  I loved Lily when she was like this. I loved her loyalty, and her fierceness, and the way you could always count on her to sense when something was wrong and to know just how to make you feel better, even if she couldn’t fix it.

  “I’m going to pee,” Lily said, standing up. “Want to come with?”

  Lily had this mischievous expression, and I wondered what was up.

  “Um, sure,” I said.

  Adam rolled his eyes and took out his phone.

  Lily opened the door to the bathroom, and there was just the single toilet.

  “I’ll wait outside?” I said, wondering if I’d misread the whole thing.

  “I’m just putting on lip gloss,” she said, dragging me inside with her.

  I wasn’t even sure how it happened, but suddenly we were kissing. Her fingers were in my hair, and mine were on her waist, and I realized that in my stack-heeled boots, I was a few inches taller. It was disorienting, being the larger one, but I didn’t mind, oh god, I really didn’t, because her lips were ice-cream sweet and her tongue was cold, and we were all alone, with a lock on the door.

  We finally pulled apart, and Lily was like, well. And I was like, I know.

  “So lip gloss, huh?” I teased.

  Lily shrugged. And then she took the little tube out of her pocket, redid her lips, and passed it over to me.

  It smelled like birthday cake, was decorated to look like a frowning cartoon bear, and was somehow the most Lily thing I’d ever seen.

  “Wow, I love this,” I said.

  “Keep it,” she told me.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised.

  “You’ll never be able to stop thinking about kissing me now,” she said with a wicked smile.

  She was right.

  I spent the rest of the week counting down until my secret date with Lily. Whenever I’d think about it, my heart would pound faster, and the hours would feel endless, but somehow they managed to tick past.

  The best part was how my grandparents didn’t suspect a thing. How in their minds it was Cole whose texts made my phone buzz during dinner, to the point that I was asked to leave my phone in a different room. How they still thought that, when I came home late from school, it was because of Mock Trial.

  “She seems happier,” I overheard my grandfather telling my grandmother one night. “Haven’t you noticed?”

  I was happier. Lily and I texted every night before bed, sometimes watching the same TV shows at the same time and sending each other commentary, and sometimes talking about more important things than Schitt’s Creek or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

  I’d never felt this way about anyone. Giddy and terrified and so obsessed with the tiniest things about her, the brand of mascara she used, the websites she liked,
the bands she listened to.

  My grandparents had no idea. And neither did our friends. Lily was true to her word about it being private, about letting me figure things out on my own terms.

  Which meant I could just not think about what I was going to tell my grandparents, or when.

  So I didn’t.

  Instead, I kept Lily’s lip gloss in my pocket, taking it out and reapplying it far too often. I’d never known a tube of lip gloss could make me feel giddy and warm inside, but then, there were so many things I didn’t know about dating girls. It was the same world I’d always lived in, but slightly different, an alternate reality.

  In PE, we had assigned lockers, and mine was in a different row from Lily’s. But that Friday, she wandered over anyway, asking if I had an extra hair tie.

  My shirt was off, and I stiffened, embarrassed. My bra wasn’t very cute, and I had a pimple on my chest, and I was bloated from my period, my muffin top spilling over the waistband of my jeans.

  “I think so,” I said, digging through my bag.

  Lily leaned back against the locker. I could feel her eyes on my back, my chest, my belly. I could feel her drinking me in, in that wicked, silent way of hers.

  I took my time, letting her look, because I liked that she wanted to. Even if it did make me feel self-conscious.

  “Found one,” I said, passing it over.

  “Thanks.”

  Lily flipped her head over, gathering her hair into a blobby bun.

  “I hope we’re not doing badminton again today,” she said, unbuttoning her own shirt, letting the center of a lacy white bra peek out, and revealing the tight, tanned stretch of her stomach.

  She was teasing me. Her eyes met mine, and her lips tugged into a smile.

  “It’s the worst,” I agreed.

  “Hey, you’re not supposed to change here,” a girl in my row said, scowling.

  She was covering herself with her sweatshirt and glaring at Lily.

  Lily rolled her eyes and didn’t even glance over.

  “Hi, Natasha,” she said. “Am I bothering you?”

  “Actually, yeah,” the girl said, being openly hostile about it.

  I felt terrible. And I waited for the fire to burn in Lily’s eyes, for her to tell Natasha exactly where she could shove it. But instead of fire, all I saw was pain.

  Lily’s smile went tight, and her shoulders hunched forward, just a little.

  “No problem,” Lily said calmly. “I was just leaving.”

  After Lily left, Natasha whispered loudly, “She’s a lesbian.”

  I realized belatedly she was talking to me.

  “So?” I said.

  “So, it’s gross,” Natasha said, making a face. “I mean, we’re changing our clothes. I don’t want her looking at me.”

  I had a flash of middle school. Of Tara’s cruel accusation in the locker room, and how the girls who followed her lead had made me feel. It wasn’t okay. Lily hadn’t stuck up for herself, had taken it in stride, and that made me so angry.

  “Speaking of looking,” I said, “you should probably get that homophobia looked at.”

  Natasha’s jaw hit the floor. So did mine. I couldn’t believe what had come out of my mouth.

  Now that I’d said it, I couldn’t just stay there. So I picked up my stuff and finished changing with Lily and Mabel.

  “That was badass,” Mabel said approvingly.

  “I didn’t know you had it in you,” Lily said, looking proud.

  “Yeah.” I shook my head, still in shock. “Me neither.”

  When Lily picked me up on Saturday, I was so nervous, fluttering around and changing outfits about a million times. She refused to tell me where I was going, but had told me to dress “like Anna Karina in that scene in Band of Outsiders, when they run through the Louvre.”

  It was an absurdly specific request. So I’d tied a ribbon around my ponytail and worn a baby-doll dress with a collar. And then I’d stared in the mirror, appraising whether or not I looked cute enough. For a boy, it was easy. Show some skin, wear something tight. Break the dress code. But I doubted Lily would be impressed by a low-cut top.

  Pearl went crazy when I opened the front door, practically leaping into Lily’s arms.

  “Hiya, little dog,” she said, making a face and twisting away as Pearl’s tongue came out.

  My grandfather was out with his hiking club, thank god, but my grandmother, who was in the living room, came to see what the fuss was about.

  “Oh, Lily. What a lovely blouse,” my grandmother said.

  It was nice. Black with lace sleeves. She’d worn it for me, I realized, and I felt my cheeks heat up.

  “Thank you,” Lily said.

  They chatted a moment, and I held my breath, waiting for some lie to spill out, about Mock Trial or Art Club or Cole, but of course nothing did.

  “So where are you girls going?” Eleanor asked.

  “The movies,” said Lily.

  I frowned, because I was pretty sure she was lying.

  “Well, have fun,” my grandmother said.

  “Will do,” I promised.

  When Lily and I climbed into the car, I was like, “Did you really tell me to dress like a character out of a Jean-Luc Godard film just so we could go to the movies?”

  Lily snorted.

  “Of course not,” she said. “But I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, so the lie was necessary. If you feel bad about it, we can see one after.”

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  “You look really pretty with your hair like that, by the way,” Lily said, smiling.

  “You look really pretty always,” I said.

  She looked especially great today, in that black lacy top and a long, fluttering wrap skirt and a leather jacket.

  “Well, I feel gross,” Lily said. “Got my period this morning.”

  It shocked me that we could talk about something like this, but I tried to cover my surprise.

  “I’ve had mine since Thursday,” I admitted.

  “Oh my god,” Lily said. “You gave it to me.”

  “I did not,” I said.

  But Lily just shook her head and turned on some music.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  I was always asking. Lily’s knowledge of music was extensive. I had the impression she was playing songs for me, testing to see what I liked, and she always smiled when I asked her one I didn’t know.

  “Phoebe Bridgers,” she said. “I’ll make you a playlist.”

  We turned onto Ocean Avenue and drove north, past the sparkling private beaches and the marina, past the dingier public beach with its boardwalk cafés, and even farther still. The beach was just a narrow strip here, along the highway.

  Lily stopped the car in a lot labeled “scenic viewpoint parking” and then grinned.

  “Where are we?” I asked, frowning.

  “Really?” Lily’s grin stretched wider. “I was worried you’d already been here.”

  Lily pointed down the edge of the parking lot, toward a small brown building on the side of the highway.

  When we got closer, there were signs.

  “It’s a camera obscura!” I said, delighted. “I’ve read about these!”

  Lily’s smile was a beautiful thing. She bought both of our tickets from the man behind the counter, even though I protested that we could split it.

  “You can buy lunch,” Lily said, holding open the door.

  There was a little hallway with black-and-white photos displaying the history of the building and explaining about the camera, how it was a projection of what was happening outside, cleverly rendered through light and mirrors. How the pinhole camera was created from natural phenomena in the seventeenth century, and how its invention led to modern photography.

  The place was deserted. A family with a young child had been leaving when we walked in, so we had the room to ourselves.

  “Shall we?” Lily asked, holding back the curtain.

  I stepped insi
de.

  The room was dark and round, with an enormous disc at its center the size of our dining table. And projected on the disk was a flickering, moving image of the Pacific Ocean.

  “Wow,” I said, stepping closer.

  “I thought you’d like it,” Lily said.

  And I did. Because it wasn’t an image of the past. It was a projection of now. We were seeing the present as art.

  Everything was flattened, circular, warped. But it was still recognizable. It was still Bayport.

  Lily was standing so close to me. Her hand brushing against mine. And then she reached out and clasped my hand in hers.

  She smiled at me, her face lit up in the glow from the camera obscura, and I felt myself shimmering with happiness.

  And then a loud family of tourists in Pismo Beach sweatshirts thundered in, ruining the whole thing.

  “Guess we should go,” Lily said.

  And I realized we weren’t holding hands anymore, or standing quite so close together. That subconsciously we’d stopped what we were doing for fear of someone noticing.

  I’d never had to do that before. It was all so new, not just being on a date with a girl, but being on a date where we had to be cautious.

  We slipped outside, taking a seat on one of the benches along the beachfront hiking path. The plants were a wild tangle, and you could hear the ocean crashing onto the rocks below, and everywhere the sunlight was soft and warm and perfect.

  “Well?” Lily asked. “You going to sit next to me, or are we leaving room for the Holy Spirit?”

  I snorted and scooted closer, briefly resting my head on her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” I said seriously. “For bringing me here.”

  “You’re a photographer; it’s a giant camera,” Lily said. “It seemed like a safe bet.”

  “But I’m not,” I confessed. “A photographer, I mean. I haven’t taken a photo since my mom died.”

  Lily turned toward me, frowning.

  It was so easy to tell Lily things. And so I explained about how she’d bought me the camera, and how difficult it was to bring myself to capture a world without her in it, and to take pictures she’d never see.

  “So Mr. Saldana’s been giving me these photography books,” I said.

  “He does that,” Lily said. “Means he likes you.”