I sling my arm around my head. “You know . . . not to brag, but I have an entire three-pack when I wake up.”
“Three?”
“Yeah, not sure where the other ones are. Behind a burrito maybe. The three survivors join them after lunch.”
Max pops a nacho into her mouth. “I once had an ab. Now I have nachos.”
I think for just a moment about actually seeing Max’s body and yeah, solar flare volcano filter, so I get busy setting up my laptop. I’ve never felt like this before. Like just touching her hand is so unlikely right now that anything else seems impossibly pent-up exciting. Which makes me think about the long term . . . what if we can’t be physically close for months? A year. Can a relationship actually start like that? Are we even in a relationship?
“So . . .” I say with my most casual voice possible, “I liked Dannie and Imani.”
She curls up into the corner of her couch, knees to her chest and one arm slung around them. “Me too. You know . . . I might just hang out with them again.”
“Max.”
She smiles. “Yes, they liked you. Maybe too much. They already want you on future game nights.”
“I am so in.” And I am thinking about the implications there but I’m definitely not going to say anything because I don’t want to pressure her.
“What about your friends?” she asks. “Do I need to pass any tests?”
“Well, my best friend is Carlos F. Santi. See?” I show her a picture of us at Universal Studios two summers ago. “But he’s delighted by new people in general. He’ll love you. He’s also kind of a genius in a really weird, impossible-to-describe way. You’ll meet him eventually, I’m sure.” My finger hovers over the play button. “Ready? Three . . . two . . . one. . . . go.”
The opening score of Greed and Glory plays on our respective sides, just a bit out of sync.
“I guess I did make a deal, didn’t I?” she says, smiling, eyes on this screen only.
I try to look confused. “I don’t remember a deal.”
“For the record, I haven’t been purposefully avoiding the topic,” she says. “Or maybe I have. I don’t know. I guess I was just worried. What does dating even mean when we can’t, you know, date?”
“This feels like a date.”
“I agree. But how can I have a boyfriend if we haven’t even, I don’t know . . .”
“Kissed?”
“Kissed,” she echoes. “Or even hugged. I just don’t know if dating even means anything right now.” She throws her hands up and lets them flop back to the couch.
“It could mean something.” Another twang of an acoustic guitar, first on my side, then hers. I’m fumbling now. That’s the problem with this new reality—there are no natural social cues. No chance for our hands to touch over a bowl of popcorn, for our eyes to meet. “It would mean something to me.”
She pauses for a moment, looking off-screen, chewing on her lip, and I’m worried that I’ve somehow upset her. That would be a very me thing to do. Then she sits up, pushes her hair off her forehead, and looks right at me.
“Jonah,” she says. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I say in a rush of air, flushing, heart beating, trying hard not to shout it because that’s kind of becoming a thing.
“Then we’re official,” Max says. “Whatever that means.”
We hold eyes, and it feels close. It feels like she’s here. It feels like the moment before we would kiss, and even though we don’t get to, I think the idea still stands. Maybe a kiss is about two people wanting to do it, and the action is . . . secondary. Max is the first one to look at the TV.
“I have no idea what’s happening so far,” she says.
“I’ll get you caught up. And Max?”
“Yeah?”
“I am so glad I accused you of hoarding toilet paper.”
chapter thirteen
MAX
I really wish Mr. Antinova wouldn’t conduct AP Lit class from his bed. It’s weird. His pillowcases are extra wrinkly and I’m pretty sure that’s a lava lamp I see on his nightstand. I liked the image I had of Mr. Antinova in the classroom with his Earl Grey tea steaming in a chunky misshapen mug, a print copy of that weekend’s New York Times book section folded neatly on the corner of his desk, thank you very much.
I see a number of my peers have taken his lead and shown up to class today sporting pajamas, uncombed hair, and zit cream. Ellis Gardener isn’t even wearing a shirt.
Mr. Antinova welcomes us back and warns us that just because we’re resorting to virtual school doesn’t mean we’re going to get to slack off. “By the time your generation has entered the job market, most of you will likely be doing the bulk of your work remotely anyway, and so you should think of this as a good opportunity to employ self-discipline to get things done without someone standing over your shoulder.”
We pick up right where we left off talking about Hamlet. “What does the king reveal in his soliloquy?” Mr. Antinova asks the shirtless Ellis with his signature head tilt. Mr. Antinova doesn’t bother with hand-raising in his classroom. He prefers the Socratic Method, which is a very “Earl Grey” way of saying he calls on a student and keeps asking questions until the student wishes that he or she put on extra deodorant. Lucky for me, AP Lit’s one of my best classes.
By the time he’s done questioning Ellis, my internet connection has gone spotty and the screen’s more frozen than Elsa’s underwire. I open my bedroom window, but that doesn’t seem to be helping matters, so I cradle my laptop and carry it out into the kitchen. My mom’s bent over the coffee table scribbling on a notepad, her own laptop open beside her.
“Miss Mauro.” I can’t tell if this is the first time Mr. Antinova has said my name or just the first time I’ve heard it. “Are we interrupting something? You’re making us seasick over here. Please take a seat.”
“Sorry.” Then, remembering to unmute my microphone, I say it again. “Just some technical difficulties.”
“Well. Now seems like a good time to turn to you,” he says.
I sink down in a chair and push the computer onto our kitchen table. I tuck a strand of hair behind each ear and prepare to use superhuman levels of concentration to listen closely.
Mr. Antinova leans back against his headboard and rests his fist underneath his chin. “Gertrude screams—Polonius— What happens—”
I angle closer to the screen, as if that’s the problem. “I’m sorry, you were cutting out, what was the question?”
His forehead crinkles almost as much as those pillowcases. “Excuse me, Miss Mauro, please speak up?”
“I said,” almost shouting, “can you repeat the question?”
It’s right then that my mom’s cell phone starts playing her marimba ringtone. “Mauro Dry Cleaning,” she answers in her professionally nice voice. “Yes, your statement was . . .”
I try to focus on the choppy, stop-start animation of Mr. Antinova on-screen. “—Screams— Polonius— happens—af—”
I squish my fingers into the ear closer to my mom. “I—” I’m shaking my head. “I don’t know, I’m sorry. I—”
“Miss Mauro.” Mr. Antinova frowns. “The assignment was— time—”
“I don’t mean that—my neighbor’s playing Call of Duty and—”
“We’ll come back to you another time.”
“But . . . but I did the work,” I say. “All of it.” At the bottom of the screen, I see that he’s already muted me. I pound my fist on the table.
“I’m sure it’s correct, yes.” Mom seems to be dealing with her own problems. Her profile looks sharper than usual in the morning light. “I know you don’t need the clothes now that you won’t be in the office, but we already cleaned them— No—”
* * *
• • •
I’ve agreed to take an ext
ra shift for Vons. Mom has always warned me that I can work only as long as it doesn’t interfere with school. But last night, when I told her I was pulling a double the first day back to classes, she just nodded without saying a word.
A FaceTime call pops up just as I’m parking my car on my afternoon delivery route.
“Please tell me you haven’t finished your shift yet,” Jonah says.
“Aren’t you supposed to wish for the opposite? Wow, you’re already sick of me. That was fast.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. No. It’s just that I wouldn’t be bothering you when you’re trying to wrap up for the day if it weren’t time sensitive.”
I sit there for a beat. “Ticktock. I’m waiting.”
“I found him.”
“Who?”
Jonah seems to have actually managed to leave his bedroom today. He’s either taken an impromptu trip to visit Buckingham Palace or that’s just what his living room looks like. “Winter.”
“Say what?”
“So, Arlo said that Winter wasn’t actually from Miami. He was from some small town somewhere else in Florida. Somewhere swampy, right? So I was like, great, that’s nothing to go on until I was bored—”
“You’re always bored—”
“And I started just looking at a map from Florida. And right in the middle where all the swamps are is a town called Winter Haven.”
“No.” I bite my knuckle.
“Remember how we said that Winter was a weird stage name for someone from Miami? Well, I thought, okay, maybe. And so I started poking around and found property tax records—thanks, lawyer parents—for Ernest Ralph Robbins and . . . I found him.”
“I’m scared to ask.” I bite my thumbnail.
“Alive.”
“Okay, so I haven’t made contact with him yet, but I found a hospital where he’s been working for a few years doing administrative work, and I called and said I’d come in and spoken to someone about a billing matter last week. I played it up, said I was looking for an Ernest and was trying to get back in touch and asked them to describe the person and . . . it’s him.”
He’s talking so fast, I’m trying to keep up.
“The woman I was talking to loved him—she said he was just a really nice old man working to pass the time. The description matched too: tall and lean and apparently still a great head of hair. We got to chatting . . . And, well, okay, unfortunately he was off that day, but I’m sure—I’m sure—it’s him.”
“Wow.”
“She gave me his work email address and everything so that I could follow up. Me! I have Winter Robbins’s email address. Do you know how nuts my mom would think that is? She would flip.”
Would. For a quick second in time, my mind flashes back to my Spanish teacher, Señora Flores, of all people. Would is a conditional verb. Would indicates “I would if.” But Jonah’s face goes redder than normal, like a hot stove—don’t touch. And I get it, the whole don’t pry in my business thing, maybe too well. I stall a beat too long and then, I let it go. Because the way I see it: He would talk about his mom, if he wanted to.
“I can’t wait to tell my dad.” He bulldozes through the conversation, razing that would to the ground, just so we can walk over it. “And you—I can’t wait for you to tell Arlo,” he says.
“I mean . . . wow,” I say, still processing.
“You said that already. Anything else to add?” He’s smiling now.
I want to add that my heart has grown two sizes like the Grinch and that I haven’t felt this optimistic about love since my faith in romance was nearly crushed by the breakup of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez (the second time). I want to add that Arlo has been special to me in a way that I don’t feel totally comfortable owning up to and that I hate how I can’t afford to do a lot for the people I care about, but maybe, just maybe I can do this.
And I want to tell him—“I really like you right now.” Because you know what? Jonah Stephens has been showing up for me, and that’s a fact. And here I am and I can’t wait to tell Arlo. After all these years. It seems so—I don’t know—right. Especially now.
The dimple in Jonah’s left cheek makes a surprise appearance. “I’ll take that,” he says. Which is when I notice the girl—woman?—in a plush bathrobe sitting on a bar stool in the background crunching rice cakes.
“Um.” I tilt my head and nod in her direction. “I think we, uh . . .” The girl continues to eat her rice cakes. Her hair looks like it could be the home of an entire family of woodland creatures.
Jonah pivots in his spot on the couch. “Olivia! Can you not just sit there staring at us, please?”
“Don’t stop on my account.” She grins. Even though I’m seeing the back of his head, I’m pretty sure I can feel the heat from his eyes boring straight into hers. “What?” she says, mouth full. “The Bachelor’s not on. Watching you two try to fumble your way through a flirtation is just as awkward and almost as entertaining. But do you mind if I offer some notes? I think we could get some really interesting plotlines going with just a few tweaks.”
“Olivia!”
“Fine.” She climbs down off her bar stool. “I’ve got big plans to hydro paint-dip my Birkenstocks anyway.” The train of her robe moves slowly off-screen.
“I’ve got to go too. I have to finish delivering these groceries. I’ll let you know how it goes with Arlo.”
“Or . . .” Jonah brightens.
“You need a hobby.” But as soon as I say it, I do have a small niggling worry that Jonah does have a hobby and that maybe, just maybe, it’s me. “Fine, okay, you deserve this one. But we have to make it quick.”
“Oh, shoot, that’s right. I forgot your—your data overages.” Again, like he’s just learned a new phrase.
“Yes, my data overages.”
“I could—”
“Do not even say it,” I warn. I am not some charity case, my god.
“I just don’t want—” He pushes his fingers through his hair and I can tell that this is a lesson in etiquette that they don’t teach in cotillion or whatever.
“Stop,” I say. “I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions. Come on. We don’t have all day.” I unhook my phone from the dash holder.
To my surprise, Arlo isn’t waiting for me on the balcony or on the front porch.
I ring the doorbell. When he doesn’t answer, I text through the app to let him know I’ve arrived, a couple of baby carrots firmly stashed in my pocket.
“That’s weird,” I say. Because I remember a lot of little things about Arlo—like how his birthday is on New Year’s Eve and that when he orders chocolates it’s because he wants to sit and share them with me—but never once do I remember him not showing up when I arrived.
I glance down. Jonah opens the refrigerator and pulls out a carton of orange juice.
Chester barks from behind the door and scratches at the glass.
“He’s not answering.” I bite my cheek.
“Maybe he’s sleeping?” The juice glug-glug-glugs into a glass.
Here, on Arlo’s porch, Chester’s bark is deep and guttural. Then, he begins to whine, pushing his nose at the threshold.
“It’s okay, Chester.” I crouch down, wishing I could touch his nose. “Maybe I should check.”
“You can’t break into his house.” Jonah hoists himself up onto the kitchen countertop. Even his cabinets look like they belong to a rich person.
“Arlo!” I yell. “Arlo! Are you home? It’s me, Max!” A finch flies from a bush nearby, startling me. “He’s old. He could have fallen.” I don’t know if I’m talking to myself or to Jonah. “What if he needs help?”
“My friend Carlos’s dad is a doctor. I could call him?”
I step back to get a look at the whole house. “I think I can go around the side. Maybe through the gate.”
The side
of Arlo’s house is shaded with thick-leaved avocado trees. All of the shutters on the windows are closed tightly. “Arlo!” I call as I walk through the stiff blades of grass. “Arlo!”
I reach the back gate and still no answer. Through the cracks in the fence, I can see a pool. “Do you think I should go in?”
“You’ve come this far.”
Gingerly, I unlatch the gate. It creaks open. I’ve never seen a backyard like Arlo’s, not even at a hotel, not that I have a big database to reference. Arlo has a grotto with a legitimate waterfall cascading out of a hot tub.
“You know,” Jonah whispers. “Arlo seems like a guy who appreciates a good Jacuzzi. I’m not surprised.” I walk across the limestone and around the umbrella-ed lounge chairs to the glass doors.
“Arlo, are you in there? It’s just Max.” I’m half afraid that if I catch him off guard I’ll scare him to death. He is really old, after all. I cup my hands around my eyes and press my nose to the glass. He could have gone out. As much as I’ve been warning him against it, I know he’s still been taking trips to the dog park. But then, here’s Chester, tossing his head back and forth, agitated. “No sign of him,” I report back.
“He must have gone out,” says Jonah, echoing my train of thought. But I really don’t think he’d leave when he knew I was scheduled to come. “You’d hear him yelling for you if he was in trouble.”
I press my lips together and let myself out the back gate. I trudge back through the grass. “I guess so.” Digging out the carrots, I leave them on a post on the front railing.
A new voice is calling up from the main road. “Hello?”
I turn to see a woman walking a dog, looking curiously at me.
I wave.
“You looking for . . .”
I move closer to hear.
“You could—” Jonah starts, and I shush him.
“Hold on. Someone’s trying to—” The small terrier mix at the end of the woman’s leash is pulling hard and she stumbles forward a step or two. “Jonah, I have to go.”
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