Lovestruck Summer

by Melissa Walker

  159 entirely underwater, but the baseball cap that I borrowed from Russ is totally dunked. When I shake my head out and clear my vision, I see that he’s right behind me, laughing. And I start to laugh too. We’re outside, fl oating down a river on a hot, sunny day and I’m sitting here worrying about my skin (which is already covered in SPF 80 from before I left the condo), my footgear, my whole outfi t, for goodness’sake! Russ is right. I need to just let go and enjoy myself. We’re at a slow stretch of water, so Russ pulls the cooler to him as I paddle over to grab a Coke. Russ holds our tubes together with one hand and his soda with the other. He shares a bag of Doritos with me as we fl oat. “So, do you come here often?”I ask. “Sometimes,”he says. “I used to tube here when I was younger, with my dad. He loved to fl oat down the river.”“That’s cute,”I say. I look over and see a little boy on the edge of the water aiming a water gun at his mom, who’s sitting at a picnic table in their yard. She screams as he douses her. “Were you like that kid?”I ask.

  160 “So much worse,”says Russ. “I used to set water balloons above the front door . . . inside the house.”“And have you matured since then?”I ask. He grins and wipes a Dorito-cheesed hand on my arm. “Gross!”I shout, leaning over to wash off the orange powder. He laughs and takes a sip of Coke. We fl oat quietly down the river like that for a while, and it’s nice. I sort of enjoy Russ’s com- pany when he’s not talking. Soon we go over a small patch of rapids, which is really just a quick drop to a lower sec- tion of the river, and Russ lets go of my tube and I drift ahead. “Are you over hanging on to me?”I joke. “You’re getting that song stuck in my head,”he says. “If that happens, I won’t be able to stop singing it for hours.”“What song?”I ask. “The one you’ve been humming all day,”he says. “‘Waltz Across Texas.’It’s the fi nal track on the CD I made you, or at the end of Side B, if it’s the tape you’ve been obsessing over.”

  161 He smiles at me with a triumphant twinkle in his eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”I say, paddling my tube ahead of him so I won’t have to acknowledge that his songs are getting into my head. “Nothing to be ashamed of,”says Russ. “That’s my favorite song of all time. I’m glad you like it.”“I don’t like it,”I say stubbornly. “Admit it!”Russ calls out. “You love my mix!”I can hear him paddling from behind me and gaining speed. “I do not!”I shout, smacking my hand through the water to splash him as he pulls up alongside me. “Methinks she doth protest too much,”says Russ. I pout, looking off into the distance and pre- tending to focus on the next bend in the river. “I’m really getting to you, aren’t I?”asks Russ. “You’re starting to have a crush on me.”“No,”I say. “You’re just around a lot. If some- one’s constantly there, it’s like, you just think

  162 about them because they’re around.”“Okay, Cleopatra, Queen of Denial,”says Russ, lying back on his tube. “I’m really into Sebastian,”I say, looking over at Russ to gauge his reaction. His sunglasses cover his eyes, but I see the muscles around his mouth twitch a little. “I’m happy for you,”he says, swinging the cooler around with his leg and opening it up for another soda. I’m a little preoccupied for the rest of our fl oat down the Guadalupe, but I try to push the awkward feelings aside and enjoy the cool water. I hum a hard-core London Rose song audibly, so Russ knows his mix is out of my head. Luckily, it’s going out of rotation soon. Sebastian texted me on Wednesday and asked me to come to Dirty’s Friday night. And he said he has a present for me. Russ and I don’t talk much as we get to the end of our fl oat and return the tubes. The drive home is quiet too, but it’s not a bad kind of silence. We listen to a Loretta Lynn CD that he has—and Jack White is singing on it, too, which is pretty cool.

  163 * * * The next day, Jade and I are planning on going out to dinner when we leave Amalgam, and then heading over to Dirty’s to see Sebastian deejay. “Let’s stop by your house fi rst,”says Jade. “Why?”I ask. “You’ll see,”she says. Those two little words are ominous, but I duti- fully pull in to the condo parking lot anyway. When we walk in, Penny and Chrissy are racing around, cleaning. Penny has a bottle of Windex in one hand, and she’s spraying it on every possible surface. She’s also holding a wad of paper towels. Chrissy is vacuuming the rug under the couch, and all the chairs and tables have been moved to the walls. “What’s going on?”I ask. “Ooh, Quinny! We’re having a party!”says Penny. Chrissy squeals in delight. “Everyone’s been gone for a while, but now that it’s getting closer to August, people are coming back. The semes- ter starts in a month, and we’re throwing the fi rst big bash of the season.”“It’s, like, tradition,”says Penny.

  164 I look over at Jade. “Did you know about this?”I ask. “Is this why you wanted to stop here?”“No,”she says. I see her staring at Chrissy. “Oh, Chrissy and Penny, this is Jade,”I say. “She’s a big roller derby fan.”I look at Chrissy pointedly. “We saw you play last weekend,”says Jade as Chrissy runs over to barrel her down with her signature-squeeze greeting. Jade smiles as she hugs Chrissy right back. “You were awesome.”“Quinn!”shouts Chrissy as she pulls away from Jade. “You didn’t tell me you were at my match!”She looks over at Penny, who shrugs. “I didn’t know Quinn liked all that bruiser stuff,”she says. I’m semi-relieved. I have feared that my cousin was going to reveal that her nickname was Penny the Punisher and I was going to have to reevaluate my impressions of all the Tri-Pis. But so far, only Chrissy has truly surprised me. Jade still looks starstruck. “The way you nailed Tess the Terminator

  165 was incredible,”she says. “I broke a nail on that one,”Chrissy whines. She holds up her Tri-Pi purple manicure. “Anyway,”I say, looking at Jade. “What are we doing here?”“I actually planned to get your cousin to help me pick out some hot clothes for you and do your hair for tonight.”“What?”I ask. “Sorry, Quinn,”Jade says. “But you are screaming for a makeover.”Penny drops the cleaning spray and paper towels so she can clap her hands together with glee. “Party makeover!”she screams. Chrissy joins in. I glare at Jade, feeling betrayed by someone who I thought understood me and my dislike of superfi cial fashion-and-beauty crap. “Look,”she says. “If you want to seal the deal with Sebastian, and really make him your summer fl ing, you’ve got to work it a little bit harder.”I think back to her purple jumpsuit from Monday, and actually, all of Jade’s looks. She’s not pink-glossed and fake-lashed like Penny

  166 is when she goes out, but she’s certainly got a style that I suppose is a notch up from my band tees and jeans. I look around the room at their faces. Jade has one eyebrow raised, probably worrying that she’s offending me. Penny and Chrissy share identical looks of hope, wide-eyed and ready to grab the curling iron. I stare down at my Converse. “Okay,”I say. “But no high heels.”Upstairs in the bathroom, I am subjected to all kinds of torture. First, they make me strip down to my bra and underwear. “We start from the bottom up,”says Penny as if this “party makeover”is a reality show that she’s hosting. They turn on the crazy light globes that frame Penny’s bathroom, and Chrissy pulls out a magnifying mirror that retracts from the wall—something I’d never noticed. “It’s for really look- ing at your pores,”she says. “And plucking.”Penny’s perfectly groomed eyebrows are inches from my face as she pulls stray hairs from my natural arches.

  167 “Please,”I say. “Not Marlene Dietrich pencil brows.”Jade laughs and I catch her eye in the mirror. She mouths a sorry and I have to forgive her. She couldn’t have known the excitement that a makeover would cause in this condo. After a sudsy scrubbing that leaves my face a little raw, Chrissy gets out cotton balls and tones my cheeks while Penny waits in the wings with moisturizing cream. Then they start in on the makeup. “Here’s where I take over,”says Jade, tap- ping Penny on the shoulder. My cousin looks momentarily crushed as she hands over the foundation puff, but I’m so glad I won’t be made up to look like a Tri-Pi pledge. Jade grabs eyeliner and a dark lip stain, which she uses on my cheeks. “Uh, that’s for her lips,”says Penny. “Oh,”says Jade, shr
ugging innocently. “Well, it doesn’t know it’s for her lips. It looks good on her cheeks—Quinn isn’t really a Princess Pink girl.”I look up at Chrissy, but she’s just nodding

  168 at Jade’s work. A few minutes later, after some close encounters with the mascara brush and one lipstick do-over (I turned my head at just the wrong moment), Jade steps back. “You look super pretty, Quinn,”says Penny, smiling in approval. “Totally,”says Chrissy. But they won’t let me turn around to see until they do my hair. Over the past few weeks, it has faded to a cool-but-weird aqua-blond color, and it’s growing out, so it’s a little messy. They mussed it with a bunch of mousse earlier, and Jade blew it dry while Penny and Chrissy were working on my eyebrows and skin care. I have no idea what it looks like right now. “Pin it back with clips?”asks Penny, grab- bing her basket of hair accessories, which is overfl owing with purple Tri-Pi bows. Jade shakes her head no. Since the makeup wonder she’s worked, Penny and Chrissy seem to be deferring to her expertise. “Headband?”asks Penny. “Close,”says Jade. Then she tugs a thin, stretchy band out of her back pocket. It’s a double-elastic and it’s black. So

  169 it’s like an accessory, but it’s simple and not girly. She pulls it over my head and pushes it back, pulling out a few strands in the front. “Nice touch,”says Penny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her give so much style credit to someone who’s not a Tri-Pi. “Gorge,”agrees Chrissy. Then they let me turn around and face the Hollywood-lit mirror. My eyelids are lined in black liquid liner. It’s pretty thick, but not in a creepy-looking way. And the soft auburn eye shadow almost makes my brown eyes look golden. My lips are a soft red, which I wasn’t sure I could pull off, ever, but somehow I do. My hair is unbelievable. It’s the perfect mix of done and undone—loose and a little bit wild around the edges, but tucked back with the black double-band, which con- trasts with my pale hair really well. I look like me, but hot. “The Alpha-Alpha guys are going to die when they see you,”says Chrissy. “I cannot wait for this party,”Penny chimes in. I look up at Jade anxiously.

  170 “We’re actually going to Dirty’s tonight,”she says. “Sebastian is deejaying.”“Oh,”says Penny, looking defl ated. But she brightens up again in about half a second. “Wait! Who’s Sebastian?”“Quinn’s boyfriend,”Jade says at the same time that I say, “Just a guy.”Penny’s eyes widen excitedly. “Bring him over after!”“I think we’re probably gonna go some- where else,”I say, knowing that it would not be cool to bring Sebastian to a Greek party. He would hate it. “We can come back here,”says Jade. “Come on, Quinn. . . . It’ll be fun. Sebastian will love your cousin.”“Uhh . . . maybe,”I say, seeing no way out. “Closet time!”shouts Chrissy. In Penny’s room, Chrissy lays out a bunch of clothes in pastels with scalloped edges, and I have to draw the line. “We did the bathroom part,”I say. “Do we really need to go fully Makeover Story on me right now?”Chrissy and Penny nod simultaneously: Yes,

  171 we do need to do that. But Jade is more reasonable. “Girls, she’s not ready,”says Jade. “But let’s at least fi nd your smallest band tee.”When we get to Dirty’s, the bar is packed. “Flannel Fades is playing later,”says Jade. “They’re huge here.”“Looks like some of the students are back too,”I say, seeing way more burnt-orange hats in the crowd than usual. We fi nd space to lean against a wall near the DJ booth and I wave at Sebastian. He smiles and holds up a CD, handing it over the edge of the booth. It’s the mix I asked for. I tuck it into my tattered canvas bag for later, and I resolve to replace Russ’s mix with this one, at least outside of the car. “I am so not bringing Sebastian back to Penny’s,”I say to Jade. And then I think I see her roll her eyes ever so slightly. “What?”I ask. “You think I should?”“I think you should ask Sebastian if he wants to go back to your cousin’s house,”she says. “Tell him it’s kind of a frat party, but that it

  172 could be fun, even if it’s not his usual scene.”That actually sounds . . . wise. But still scary. Who can face that purple Tri-Pi decor without a little bit of a vurp? “You really think he’ll be cool with it?”I ask. “I really think you should let him decide,”she says. “At least give him a chance to meet these other people in your life.”“But they’re not, like, my friends,”I say. Jade looks at me skeptically. “Yes,”she says, “they are. And they’re cool in their own way.”Then she turns around and her back is to me. I let her words sink in. It’s not that I don’t like Penny and Chrissy and their friends. Well, maybe I didn’t like them at fi rst. But I do hang out with them a lot at the condo, because they’re there and I’m there and . . . I guess they kind of are my friends. They’re just . . . not who I thought my friends would be. When Sebastian fi nishes spinning, he joins us against the wall. We stay for Flannel Fades and I don’t mention Penny’s party until they fi nish their encore. Then Jade does it for me. “There’s a party at Quinn’s cousin’s condo tonight,”she says.

  173 Sebastian looks up at me with interest. “It’s a Tri-Pi and Alpha-Alpha party,”I say quietly. “Wait,”he says, his grin widening. “A what?”“Quinn’s cousin is in a sorority,”says Jade. “She’s all insecure about it, but it’ll be fun.”Sebastian shrugs like he doesn’t really care. “Let’s go,”he says. We pile into the Festiva and I pop Russ’s tape out of the deck before I start the car. “Put on the mix I made you,”says Sebastian. Jade knocks me on the shoulder in approval and I smile at her in the rearview mirror. “I can’t,”I say, pointing to the tape player. He laughs. “Whoa,”he says. “I guess you should have specifi ed that you wanted a taped mix.”Then he grabs Russ’s cassette. “‘Indie plus country equals harmony,’”he reads. “Nice. I guess someone knew you had a tape player. Who made this?”“Quinn’s neighbor,”says Jade. “Yup,”I say, starting the car. “So mine wasn’t your fi rst Austin mix?”he asks.

  174 “Second,”I say, concentrating on pulling out of the parking lot. “Well, that was nice of her to make this for you,”he says. Neither Jade nor I correct his pronoun.

  175 Chapter 15 I can hear the party before we pull in to the condo parking lot. Mainly, I can hear hoots and hollers. Like, real hoots and hollers, as in “Yee- haw!”and “Wooooo-hooooo!”It’s like they’re staging a production of the musical Oklahoma!, with a keg. I’m nervous. Sebastian gets out of the car and pulls his seat-back up so Jade can exit too. We walk into the party, and I’m imagining that record-scratch moment, where the music stops and everyone stares because they know we’re not part of the Greek system, and maybe someone tries to beat up Sebastian because he’s pale and kinda skinny. And then Jade gets in a “bitch!”-calling fi ght because she’s tough and these sorority types like to make verbal digs at

  176 girls who don’t look like they do. But none of that happens. When we open the door, Penny runs over to hug me and Jade, and then she introduces herself to Sebastian. He seems slightly over- whelmed by her glossy hair and blazing white teeth, but he still handles himself. I relax a little bit and move into the party, saying hi to Chrissy and grabbing a cup from the kitchen. “’Cilla!”I hear. I turn and see Russ working the keg, smil- ing right over the crowd of people swarming around him and looking straight at me. He’s waving the tap hose. “You know the keg guy?”asks Sebastian. “That’s a good thing, even if he did get your name wrong.”We go over together and Russ reaches out for my hand through the line of beer-seekers. Sebastian grabs on to my shirt and follows. “You look beautiful,”says Russ. And it’s this simple sentence that you think will mean nothing, because maybe your mom has said it to you a thousand times, or your

  177 best friend says it when you’re having an inse- cure moment about your outfi t. But it’s not like that—it’s completely different when a guy says it. I didn’t know that until this moment, because it’s the fi rst time a guy has ever said it to me. Three words just gave me goose bumps, and I feel like a girly girl for a second. “Your eyes . . . what’s different?”asks Russ. “Oh, I don’t know,”I say, tugging at the back of my hair self-consciously. “My friend Jade just helped me do my makeup.”�
��She did a good job,”Russ says, grinning so his dimples deepen. Sebastian noses up to the keg alongside me, pushing a little. “Hey, how about you pour the beer, man?”he says to Russ, impatiently. “What’s up, DJ?”asks Russ, his lips tight- ening as he takes my cup fi rst and fi lls it. “My name’s Sebastian,”says Sebastian. “Of course it is,”says Russ, narrowing his eyes and pouring a lot of foam into Sebastian’s cup. Maybe this is going to turn into the scene I

  178 imagined when we walked in. But Sebastian doesn’t seem to notice Russ’s intensity. He just raises his cup in thanks before we walk out to the deck together. It’s hot outside, but not unbearable. Tonight is kind of nice, actually. I lean back on the deck rail- ing and look up at the sky, which seems so huge here, like the earth opens up wider over Texas. “So these are the people you hang out with?”asks Sebastian. “Huh?”I ask, breaking away from my star- gazing. Penny comes outside and I can see her sizing up Sebastian behind his back. She gives me the thumbs-up, which means she thinks he’s cute even though he’s probably not her type. I appreciate that. “So, Sebastian,”she says. “Are you from Austin?”He turns around to face her and smirks a little. “I’m originally from San Antonio,”he says. “I came for the music.”“Cool,”says Penny. “I love the Austin music scene too. And that’s what got Quinn down here, after all.”

  179 The music changes and Rihanna is replaced by one of the songs on the mix Russ made me—it’s actually a Wholaheys’song that’s been rerecorded by a country artist, and it’s not half bad. Sebastian turns his back on my cousin. “So you wanna fi nish these and get out of here?”he asks me. “Uh . . .”I stutter, watching Penny’s face fall for a second before she heads over to talk to a group of guys on the other side of the deck. She was just trying to be social, but Sebastian was pretty rude. “The beers,”says Sebastian, pointing to his cup like I’m being too slow for him. “We should fi nish them and then go somewhere else. I mean, frat parties suuuck.”“Yeah,”I say, automatically affi rming what I’ve always thought I believed. But the second after I say it, I realize I don’t want to leave. I stare through the glass doors and see Jade talking to Chrissy and two other Tri-Pi girls, throwing her head back and laughing at some- thing someone’s saying. Then I look back at Sebastian, who is so obviously uncomfortable and anxious to go.