“He does not,” I protested, uncomfortable with the compliment. “But he gave me one by John Berger. And it explained how our relationship to the subject defines what we see. So, if you looked at a picture of my mom, it would conjure up her presence. But if I took one, it would define her absence. And that’s the trouble. Every photo I take defines her absence.”
“But maybe it’s better to define things,” Lily said, considering. “So you know exactly what you’ve lost, and what you still have left.”
She stared out at the ocean for a moment, and I stared out, too, wondering what she saw in it.
“Losing a parent is awful,” Lily went on. “But you can’t let it hold you back from pursuing the things you love. Because a life without beauty and art isn’t a life worth living.”
Lily smiled at me, her soft warm hand reaching for mine, and her fingers stroking my palm. She was right, I realized. I’d been letting so many things hold me back. Maybe it was time I started pushing myself forward.
“How did I get so lucky?” I asked, leaning into her.
“Not that I’m advocating for this at all,” Lily said, “but you did show me topless photos.”
I stared at her in surprise, but she was laughing, and I realized I was too. With Lily, somehow that horrible night had become bearable. And that was no small thing.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Lily said solemnly, “because if I kiss you after lunch, we’ll both have onion breath.”
“Spoiler,” I accused. But then her soft lips pressed against mine, and I didn’t say anything at all. She tasted like lip gloss and happiness, like trips to museums and cookies fresh from the oven and cheeseburgers on the beach.
Being here, being together, felt surreal, like all of it was an elaborate dream, the good kind that kept all of my problems at bay. And I didn’t ever want to wake up.
We got lunch from a taco truck in the parking lot of a gas station. It didn’t look like anything special, but there was such a long line that it had to be. When we finally got to the front, the smell of spit-roasted meat was amazing, and I’d mentally upped my order from three tacos to four. We got plates of al pastor and Mexican Cokes and took them over to the curb.
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
“Cane sugar,” Lily said. “There’s no high fructose corn syrup.”
“I didn’t know it was possible to be a nerd about soda,” I teased, balancing my plate of tacos on my lap.
“Oh, it’s possible.” Lily assured me, squeezing more lime onto her tacos. “God, I could eat a dozen of these.”
Lily was right, we did have onion breath. It was also so, so worth it.
When we pulled up to the curb on our block, I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to lose myself in Lily, to spend the rest of the evening with her and then tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, locked in our own private world where nothing else mattered except us.
“Getting out?” she asked.
And I realize we’d been stopped there a while.
Because this was where the kiss was supposed to be. Except there wasn’t going to be one. Because of me.
“Nope. I live here now, in this car,” I announced, scrunching down.
Lily laughed.
“I really like you, Sasha Bloom, even if you did give me your period.”
“I really like you, Lily Chen, even if you do have onion breath,” I returned.
“Hey, yours is worse!” she teased.
And I wanted so badly to kiss her goodbye. To take her face in my hands and press my lips against hers. To feel the flutter of her eyelashes, the curve of her cheek, the soft slick of her lip gloss against mine.
But my grandmother was out front, pruning her rosebushes, so I just said goodbye instead.
Chapter 25
I TURNED SEVENTEEN ON THURSDAY.
I didn’t want to be seventeen, because my mom had never known me as a seventeen-year-old, and she never would. The rituals I was used to, the small personal ways the two of us always celebrated things, were gone.
No silly plastic tiara hung on my doorknob for me to wear to breakfast. And there weren’t going to be pancakes in the kitchen, studded with chocolate chips spelling out my age.
I wondered if my grandparents had forgotten my birthday altogether. Or if we were going to ignore it. But then, either of those was better than making a big deal of it.
When I came down to breakfast, there was a card on the kitchen island, alongside a yogurt and a banana.
“There’s the birthday girl!” my grandfather said, pouring coffee into his travel thermos. Pearl danced at his feet, begging for coffee. “All right, all right, you little monster,” he told her, and then he bent down, letting her lick the spoon he’d used to stir in creamer.
My grandmother took that exact moment to come in, and she wasn’t amused.
“Coffee, Joel? She’s a dog.”
“It won’t hurt her,” my grandfather said, gazing lovingly at the little fluffball.
They were so weird about their dog.
“Sasha, sit down and open your card,” she scolded.
When I did, they stared at me, as though waiting for something. I stared back, confused. I’d opened it. There wasn’t a check inside.
“Well, aren’t you going to read it out loud?” she asked.
It was a grocery store card, which my grandmother had signed for the both of them, “Love, Grandma and Grandpa,” no personal message included.
“Oh, sure,” I said, and then I did, while my grandparents looked on and beamed.
“We got you a little something,” my grandfather said, taking a bright blue Tiffany & Co. box from his suit pocket.
It was a silver necklace with a heart-shaped charm. The kind of nice, generic thing I’d seen on plenty of pretty, popular girls. The kind of necklace the granddaughter they wanted would have loved. So I pretended I loved it.
They’d also made dinner reservations for tonight, at this “fun Italian place,” according to my grandfather.
“I asked Cole to join us,” my grandmother said, taking a sip of her coffee.
I stared at her with a dull sense of horror.
“What?” I said, confused. “How?”
“Facebook,” she said proudly. “How else?”
Oh god. This was awful. She’d kept asking when he was coming to dinner, and instead of telling the truth, I’d made excuses. And now he was coming whether I’d invited him or not.
“I just figured,” she went on, “he can’t be too busy to celebrate your birthday dinner.”
“Uh-huh,” I said weakly.
It was fine, I tried to convince myself. I’d just make Cole say he was sick or had something come up. Because no way was I sitting through a dinner with him and my grandparents.
So I ate my fruit and yogurt and pretended to be cheerful, even though this was by far starting off to be the worst birthday I’d had in a while.
Lily’s car was full of balloons. There were even streamers tied to the headrests. And a box of donuts sat on the cup holder. Rainbow sprinkle, because of course.
“Happy You’re Old Day!” Adam said as I climbed in. He helpfully pelted me with one of the balloons. I loved how oblivious he was to what was really going on between Lily and me. It made it so much easier to pretend, but so much harder to be alone.
“Wow, you guys went all out.” I glanced down at the donuts, and then up at Lily, who grinned.
“Every birthday should start with sprinkles,” she said.
It was the opposite philosophy from my grandmother, who apparently believed that every birthday should start with fat-free Greek yogurt and the realization that she was quietly messaging my friends’ moms on the internet.
I ate a donut, trying not to think about it. I mostly wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening.
When we got to school, I mumbled an excuse about needing to print something in the library, and then made a beeline for Cole’s locker.
Thankfully, he was a
lone that day, instead of chatting with his sporty boy friends who were always sipping on protein drinks. He looked exhausted, and like he’d lost weight. He was staring at nothing, just some distant point inside his open locker, and I was almost embarrassed to interrupt.
“Cole!” I called, giving him some warning.
“Oh, hey,” he said. The transformation was instant. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned against his locker with a smirk. Just like that, he was back to picture-perfect. “Happy birthday, Freshman.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “You don’t have to come to dinner.”
“First of all, your grandmother messaged my mom on Facebook to invite me, so yeah, I kind of do,” Cole said, his eyes crinkling around the corners.
“It’s not funny,” I said.
“It’s hilarious,” he said. “Also it’s a free Italian dinner on a random Thursday. I’m so down.”
“You’re so down,” I repeated.
“Better than eating Postmates by myself,” he said, with a rare flash of vulnerability. And then he coughed and acted embarrassed, like he’d confessed something he shouldn’t.
And I realized I had no idea what his life was like. There’d been hints of it: the dark comments about his brother, the asides about his dad being on top of his grades, the way his mom never seemed to stop working.
“Your parents aren’t home?” I asked, confused.
“No, they are,” Cole said, and then he paused, as though mentally debating how much he wanted to say. “It’s just . . . complicated.”
“Fine,” I relented. “But if you come, you have to be on your best behavior.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a Boy Scout,” I accused.
“Shows what you know, Freshman.”
Cole leaned one arm against his locker, looming over me. It felt very boy of him, and all of a sudden, it felt so strange, the two of us standing there together.
He was flirting. And it was so disorienting, because I couldn’t tell if I was flirting back, or if I was just talking. Oh god, was it possible I did nothing but flirt? Looking back, half of the conversations I’d had with Lily had been total flirtations, little nudges of hey, I like you, you’re cute, even if I wasn’t aware of them at the time.
More important, did Cole think I was flirting back? Because I wasn’t.
The bell rang, and I realized I was halfway across campus from my first period.
The Italian place was a terrible idea. I knew it the moment we arrived, Cole holding open the door of my grandfather’s car for me so everyone could see what a gentleman he was. I wanted to kill him for it, and for dressing up and combing his hair and bringing me flowers.
My grandmother had melted over the flowers, and she talked nonstop about how thoughtful they were, and how she had the perfect vase for them. Cole caught my eye and tried not to laugh.
The restaurant was down one of the little streets just off Ocean, which was filled with older boutiques and businesses, all done up in clapboard for a nautical vibe. Out front, a large sign boasted that it was “Family Owned and Operated Since 1978.” The front porch was crammed with families waiting for their tables to open up, and inside, most tables had booster seats or kids coloring in their menus with crayons. There weren’t any seats left on the porch, so the four of us stood around awkwardly.
And that was before I saw the magician. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen, swimming in his polyester suit. He was going around asking people to pick a card or keep their eye on the foam ball as he made it pass through a plastic cup.
I hated close-up magic. Mostly, I hated the moment during the trick when I knew that I was being duped, that I was being forced to look at one thing so I wouldn’t see something else. Misdirection, it was called. A diversion from the truth.
I was never awed by the trick, in the end. I was always just frustrated I’d been so easy to deceive. But my grandfather loved the magician. The loud, happy boom of his laugh made more than a few heads turn in our direction as the kid produced my grandfather’s three of clubs from inside his wallet.
I suppose I should have been relieved that my grandfather was such an easy mark, all things considered.
My phone buzzed in my purse, and I dug it out one-handed.
Hey, I still need to give you your birthday present! Lily texted. You home?
No, at bday dinner with my grandparents ughhh, I wrote back.
Anywhere good? she asked.
Will report back. There’s a magician, and my grandfather is into it.
There were three dots while Lily was typing.
“Sasha, put that away,” my grandmother scolded. “Honestly.”
“Sorry,” I said, tucking my phone back into my bag.
Finally, our table was ready.
“The menu’s yours to take home,” our server said. “You can color it in, if you’d like.”
He offered Cole and me a cup full of crayons and winked, which was a little weird.
“All yours, kiddo,” Cole said, pushing me the cup.
I shot him a dark look.
“Your mom used to go crazy for this place,” my grandfather said, which I doubted, unless she was eight. “Every time we came, she ordered the spumoni. Loved that stuff.”
So that’s why we were here. I’d been wondering.
“It must be really hard for you all to celebrate without her,” Cole said sincerely.
“Thank you,” my grandmother said, reaching out and patting his hand. Coming from her, a hand pat was basically the same thing as a full-body hug.
“But it’s been wonderful getting to spend so much time with our granddaughter,” my grandfather added, acting surprisingly sincere. “Silver linings.”
It was strange to hear him say that, and to hear my grandparents being sentimental.
“We’re lucky we didn’t lose you, too,” my grandfather went on.
I stared at him in surprise. That hadn’t even occurred to me. I’d always thought their taking me in was a burden, not a relief.
And then I felt a soft elbow in my side.
“What’s he talking about?” Cole whispered. “Were you in a car accident or something?”
He looked so concerned, and the strange part was that he wasn’t faking.
“Earthquake,” I whispered back.
“Whoa. You never told me that,” he accused, his concerned expression deepening.
I shrugged, busying myself with folding a little zigzag out of my straw wrapper. Of course I hadn’t told him. We’d never talked about anything important.
“So, Cole, I hear you’re the one to watch on the soccer team this year,” my grandfather put in.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Cole said. “There are lots of great players. Do you know Ethan Barnsdale at all? He’s one of our best forwards.”
Cole chatted with my grandparents about soccer, draining his second glass of Coke. I was so bored that I actually took out some of the crayons and started coloring in the menu.
When the waiter took our order, Cole added on “a basket of garlic knots, if that’s okay?” looking to my grandfather for approval. He ate practically all of them, plus three slices of pizza.
“Wow, you sure can put it away,” my grandfather said, shaking his head and laughing. “I played football when I was your age, and you’re not going to believe this, but I could polish off an entire pizza.”
“I believe it, sir,” Cole said politely.
It was so strange, watching my grandfather bro around with Cole. He’d never done that with my dad. But then, he’d never liked my father, who was always talking about how all he needed was to get discovered off one gig, and picked up by a manager, and then it would happen for him. The way my dad told it, he was always two steps away from becoming the next Lenny Kravitz, and if we didn’t believe that, it was because we didn’t have vision.
I’d gotten a birthday email from him, which I hadn’t deleted, but hadn’t opened either. I reached for ano
ther slice of pizza, and my grandmother frowned at me in warning.
“Sasha, you already had one.”
I hesitated, pulling my hand back. And then Cole dropped the slice onto my plate with a wink.
“Come on, Sash, you gotta keep up,” he teased. “I’ve lapped you twice at least.”
I was weirdly touched.
Still, that didn’t mean I was having a good time. This was my mom’s birthday restaurant. And Cole wasn’t my boyfriend. No one had bothered to ask me what I wanted, or where I wanted to eat, or how much, or who I wanted to invite. Everything had been chosen for me. And I hated that.
I wished I could choose for myself. And then I realized I had: Lily.
My grandmother made a comment about Mock Trial that I half missed.
“Didn’t you quit?” Cole asked.
I swear my heart stopped beating.
“No,” I said, hoping he got the message. “I thought about quitting, but I went back to it.”
“Oh,” he said. “Right. Right. I remember.”
And then I felt his foot nudge mine under the table, like, I gotcha, we’re lying about this.
He cleverly swerved the conversation back to my grandmother, and how his mom was thinking about starting her own book club, and I smiled at him, grateful. I got that he realized he’d messed things up with me, and then made a disaster of the apology, but I didn’t see why it mattered to him.
Somehow, without our noticing, my grandfather had ordered the spumoni.
It went down in front of me in an agonizing display of clapping servers, with a trick birthday candle stuck in, so that no matter how many times I blew it out, it kept flickering back to life, drawing out my impossibly awkward birthday dinner even longer.
Chapter 26
“I STILL CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW he did that trick with the red ball,” my grandfather said, shaking his head as he pulled into the garage. “That was neat.”
“It sure was,” Cole said, nudging my shoe with the toe of his sneaker. “Well, thank you for dinner.”
“Anytime,” my grandmother purred. “I’m just so thrilled to see you kids spending time together.”
“Come on, Elle,” my grandfather said. “Let’s give them a moment alone.”
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