by Abbi Waxman
That evening, Nina could see the jacarandas were having their usual giddy effect: Every May, jacaranda trees burst into flower in an improbably riotous display of color. Ranging from deep purple to the palest violet, they bloom together on some prearranged schedule, so one night Angelenos go to bed in Kansas and wake up in Oz. They’re all over the city, hundreds of them, but until they bloom, they’re totally unremarkable. Like dozens of transformation scenes in movies from My Fair Lady to Mean Girls, jacarandas are the previously plain girl who suddenly gets a makeover and emerges triumphant to turn everyone’s head. They don’t last long, but while they’re there, people smile more. They flirt more. They feel spring in their step and summer in their underpants.
Nina hid behind her camera and watched people crowd together, or sail alone down the street, looking at one another from the corners of their eyes, noticing and seeing and ignoring like any herd congregating around a water hole. She never felt more contented than she did when she was seeing and taking pictures and being invisible. She thought maybe owls felt the same way, but she couldn’t turn her head 270 degrees, which was a total bummer.
Anyway, once the light had gone, she would take this happy feeling of peace and purpose with her to the movie theater, where she would sprinkle herself with heavily buttered popcorn and then spend the whole movie picking it out of her teeth.
The ArcLight was a Hollywood institution, a movie theater with great seats and amazing sound, plus the usual healthy range of unhealthy movie snacks. Nina loved going to the movies alone, even though Saturday night was always crowded.
It turned out it wasn’t Polly who had the pull with Fate, it was Nina, because the first person she saw as she walked into the movie theater lobby was the guy from You’re a Quizzard, Harry.
No, she said to herself. Ignore him. But then he looked up and saw her and smiled. Unbeknownst to her, he’d seen her, thought she was someone he knew, smiled, then realized she was someone he knew, she was that quiz girl who knew everything and not actually a friend of his, but by then it was too late because she was smiling back at him. Uncertainly, but definitely smiling.
Crap, thought Tom. She’s really so pretty.
Crap, thought Nina. He’s gorgeous.
Crap, thought Lisa, the girl from Quizzard, who had walked into the lobby to meet Tom to see a film and immediately saw Tom and Nina smiling at each other in a strained fashion across a twenty-foot distance. Go! she thought to herself, or rather to Tom, go talk to her. But he wasn’t moving, and the girl wasn’t moving, and so Lisa decided she needed to take matters into her own hands.
“Hey, Tom!” she called out, raising her hand.
Oh thank God, thought Tom, though he was also a little annoyed with himself. Why couldn’t he have gone and said hi, made a new friend? What was this, kindergarten?
Ah, thought Nina, he IS dating that girl from his team (which we all know is suicide for team cohesion) and that’s that. Not that there was any that there in the first place, of course . . . And then she realized the girl from Quizzard was walking toward her with a big, broad smile on her face. Behind her, Tom was wobbling in his trajectory, thrown by Lisa’s sudden darting movement. His sneakers squeaked on the polished concrete floor.
“Hey there, I know you, don’t I?”
Nina was a full adult, capable and competent in many ways, but this simple greeting made her blush and get flustered. “Uh . . . well . . .”
“From trivia league, right?” said Lisa, holding out her hand. “I’m Lisa. Our team beat your team last week.”
Nina nodded, shaking her hand. “Yes, I remember. I’m Nina.” She paused. “January the first.”
“I’m sorry?” Lisa shot a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure Tom was coming over. He wasn’t. She micro-frowned at him, and he started to move.
“Racehorses. January the first. That’s how you won.”
“With racehorses?”
“Yes. You won with a question about racehorses.” Nina was starting to feel a little desperate for this conversation to be over. The good-looking guy was approaching; it was too late.
“That’s right,” said Lisa, smiling at Nina as if the two of them had known each other forEVS. Then Tom joined them and Lisa revealed herself as the manipulative mastermind she truly was. “Oh, hey, Tom, this is Nina. Do you remember her from Quiz League?”
“Of course.” Tom had had an additional fifteen seconds to compose himself, and felt utterly capable of exchanging pleasantries and walking away. “I’m Tom. Nice to meet you properly, if you know what I mean.”
Nina shook his hand, feeling her systems coming back online. “The feeling is mutual.” (No, Nina! What the hell was that? Why do these stupid phrases come out of your mouth? What’s next, gum would be perfection?)
“So, here’s the weirdest thing,” said Lisa. “I can’t see the film after all, so here, have my ticket and you guys can go together.” She pushed her ticket into Nina’s hand and started to back away.
“No,” Tom yelped. (Great, Tom, attractive noise. Let’s hope she’s got a secret fetish for yodeling.) “Why? You texted me like ten minutes ago saying you were looking forward to it.”
“I have a sudden headache,” said Lisa.
“I have Advil in my bag,” said Nina, also in a somewhat higher voice than normal.
“I can’t take ibuprofen. Sorry, upsets my tummy.” Lisa looked apologetic, but she was still unmistakably backing away.
“I also have Tylenol,” said Nina, starting to rummage.
“Can’t take acetaminophen, either. Deathly allergic.”
“Allergic to Tylenol?” asked Tom, trying to remember if she’d mentioned this in the nearly twenty years they’d been friends.
“Yes, terribly. I’ll drop dead on the spot.” Lisa shrugged, which Nina thought made for a pretty casual reference to sudden death.
“Maybe you need caffeine?” suggested Tom. “Or something to eat?”
“Or you can get a rain check?” suggested Nina, looking now to Tom for support. They didn’t want to see a film together, did they?
Lisa looked at the clock above the movie board. “Too late! Movie starts in three minutes. Run along.”
“I don’t think that’s how rain checks . . .”
“Gotta go,” said Lisa, clutching her head. “Starting to lose consciousness. Got to get to a darkened room and an ice bag ASAP. See you guys.” And then she turned and essentially ran away. Not literally running, obviously, because that would have been bizarre, but definitely speed walking.
Tom and Nina stared after her. Then Nina looked down at the ticket in her hand. Space Spiders on Mars? She raised her eyebrows and looked up to see Tom watching her.
“Not a sci-fi action movie fan?” he said, with a note in his voice that suggested he wasn’t surprised. He looked up at the board. “I bet you were going to see Miss Eglantine Expects, weren’t you? One of those movies where the corsets are tighter than the fight choreography.”
Nina frowned. He was right, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “No, actually, I’m here for Bloody Deadly Blood Death III: The Blood Rises.”
“Really?” He had started the word sounding surprised, but by the end of it he was sarcastic.
“Yes.” She gazed up at him, Popsicle cool, though she suddenly wished she hadn’t gone in this direction and had simply offered to buy the popcorn. He was really attractive, and now he thought she was . . . She didn’t know what he thought. His expression was unreadable, not that she was all that good at reading people, anyway. She started to feel the familiar signs of imminent panic. Tingling hands. Mild nausea.
Tom was thinking he didn’t believe Nina about Blood Death III, but it was clear she didn’t want to watch a film with him. He wanted to stop bickering with her but wasn’t sure how. He opened his mouth to suggest something, and then she suddenly thrust the ticket back
at him and turned and walked out.
He watched her go, realizing for the first time that he really was attracted to her and that she apparently hated him so much she was willing to break all social conventions and walk away without a word.
* * *
As she walked toward Vine Street, Nina realized she had done exactly what Lisa had done, and giggled a little, somewhat hysterically. She was starting to calm down, but her palms were still tingly. Her anxiety had gotten better in the last several years, once she’d started to use a planner and keep a schedule and basically try to control every aspect of her life, but it was always curled up at the base of her spine like a sleeping cat. Any step off the normal path, any deviation from standard, and it started lashing its tail.
Suddenly, she wanted to cry. She’d been doing so well, but clearly she wasn’t one of those people who could be spontaneous, and that was going to have to be OK. She didn’t want complexity in her life, and with work and the new weird family thing, she definitely didn’t have space for a boyfriend.
Time to go back into hiding.
Nine
In which Nina gets schooled by well-meaning but ill-informed children.
“You did what?”
“I just turned and walked away.”
Polly stared at her. “But, wait, I thought you liked this guy. Or rather, I thought he was cute and, therefore, you might like him once you got to know him. There was the possibility of liking.”
Nina nodded. It was the following Monday, there were no customers in the store yet, and Polly had shown up on time for once.
Polly continued, “And yet, when you had a chance to talk to him, you walked away.”
“Right.”
Polly narrowed her eyes. “So I’m struggling with this. Talk me through it.”
Nina sighed. “I went to the movies, alone. I saw him there. Weird circumstances involving a girl on his trivia team meant suddenly the two of us had tickets to the same movie, then I freaked out and walked away.”
“Without a word?”
“Silently, yes.”
“No pathetic excuse, even? No ‘I have a headache’?”
Nina shrugged. “The other girl beat me to that one, and I was freaking out, remember?”
Polly shook her head. “It’s amazing to me you ever get laid at all.”
“It’s amazing to me, too.”
“When was the last time?”
“We’re not talking about this.”
“We are. I can hear us.”
“No.” Nina walked away toward the stock area to grab some books that needed shelving, or something. Anything.
“Well,” said Polly’s voice from behind her, “if it’s any consolation, you have a great walking away view. Walking away makes your butt look awesome.”
“Good to know,” called Nina. “I’ll make sure I always keep attractive men behind me.” She paused. “You know what I mean.”
“Sadly,” said Polly, “I do.”
* * *
• • •
At the end of the day, Nina started to set out the beanbags for the elementary book club. She’d been feeling irritable and sad all day, but she knew the generous application of little girls would distract her perfectly.
“All right, young one,” said Liz, pulling on her battered Dodgers baseball hat. “It’s an important game, and I am so out of here I am basically a dot on the horizon.”
Nina frowned at her. “You’re still very much in front of me.”
Liz replied, “And yet my heart is already in the stadium, a hot dog in its hands, ketchup on its chin.”
“Does a heart have a chin?”
“Some have several. I, however, am slender and lissome, so mine only has the one.” And with this utter ridiculousness over, Liz touched the brim of her cap and left the store. Nina stared after her for a moment and shook her head. Honestly, that woman was a lunatic.
“Do you need any help?” Nina looked up to see Annabel, one of her book club ladies, as she called them. Annabel was ten, a serious child, with deeply held beliefs and unwavering suspicions.
“Sure,” said Nina. “Can you grab the extra beanbags from the office?”
Nina had started out using regular chairs, but everyone had been silent and reserved. Beanbags worked much better. Annabel knew where they were kept; this was the first book club she’d joined, but she was one of those kids who was geared toward mastery. She wanted to know how you did it, then she wanted to do it herself.
Logan came in. Logan was also ten, though she went to a different school than Annabel. They looked at each other and Logan smiled first. Annabel smiled back and said hi. Logan followed her back into the office, and they both came back with the final pair of beanbags, not saying anything. Nina was often surprised by how tentative and shy ten-year-olds were. She had been like that herself, but all the other girls had looked so much more confident than she’d felt. They would greet one another enthusiastically, play together at recess, argue passionately, and hug. She had always marveled at them and wondered if maybe her mom had been supposed to apply for some kind of training for her, something she’d forgotten to do because she was so busy. Other people’s moms had clearly equipped them better. Then she would feel guilty for feeling that way and retreat further into her books and TV shows and solitude.
The door flew open and Nora and Una came in, full of chatter and giggles. They were the same age and had known each other since preschool. Just behind them were Asha and Ruby-Fern, another pair of friends. They were all dressed in regulation girl-power ensembles, with fully empowered whimsical touches: rainbows, fake fur, glitter, unicorns, pictures of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Amelia Earhart, enamel pins of donuts or sloths or foxes. Check, check, check. This age was the last hurrah of individualism; already they dressed like one another, but usually because they saw something and loved it. Icons or fabrics blew like a breeze through every classroom in the land, and parents, happy to get a request they could fulfill with a simple trip to Target, went out and bought every Girls Rule the World T-shirt they could.
Nina wondered how much good it would do once hormones rolled up and kicked the doors down; her own observation of middle school girls was that they dressed alike in order not to be separated from the pack and eviscerated online, which was an entirely different motivation than “OMG, that sloth is so cuuuuuute!” She looked at her watch; it was time to start. She locked the front door—nothing was more distracting to book club than customers wandering about—and went to the office to get the Goldfish crackers and bottled water that constitute the mortar of childhood.
“Who wants to start?” she asked when she returned and sat down on her own beanbag. The book that month was The Mysterious Benedict Society, one of her favorites. Seeing as she got to pick the books they read, this was hardly surprising.
Nora stuck up her hand. Nora was a highly creative little girl, who never hesitated to share her thoughts. As they were usually sharp and insightful, nobody minded, and in this group the kids had clearly decided she was the leader.
“I loved this book, but it made me really frustrated. Why is it always kids who have to solve stuff?”
“Please clarify,” requested Nina.
Nora tipped her head to one side. “Well, in real life kids don’t get to do anything much on their own, right?” She looked around at her peers, all of whom nodded. “Parents drive you places; there are teachers and babysitters and whatever. But in books, little kids are always doing things. In this one, they take weird tests and join a secret society and save the world.”
“They don’t have parents,” said Logan. “Not proper ones. None of the kids in books do.” She counted on her fingers. “They’re usually dead, or evil, or distracted and busy.”
“Junie B. Jones has parents. Ramona Quimby has parents,” Nina said.
“Yes,” replied Logan, “b
ut those kids do regular stuff. I’m talking about when the kids do awesome stuff. Stuff that nine- or ten-year-old kids never really get to do.
“Like fly on a bat and fight rats like Queen Luxa in the Gregor books.”
“Or travel through space like Meg in A Wrinkle in Time.” Annabel clearly agreed with Logan on this one.
“Let’s try and stick to this book.” Nina sometimes let them ramble on about all the books they loved, because she enjoyed that conversation as much as they did, but she was trying to be more grown up about it.
“Sticky has parents, though.” Asha waved her copy of the book. “Right?”
Logan nodded. “He does, but he thinks they don’t want him anymore.”
“Which is worse than not having any,” said Annabel.
“Definitely,” said Ruby-Fern.
“And Kate has a dad, but she doesn’t know it.”
“What about Miss Perumal?” asked Nina. “Isn’t she like a mother to Reynie?”
There was a sudden knocking on the store’s front door, which scared the applesauce out of all of them. One of the girls actually squeaked.
From where they were on the floor, they couldn’t see the door, but Nina stood and saw a man standing outside. The early-evening sun was behind him, so she couldn’t get a good look at his face, but she started over to let him know the store was closed. The parents wouldn’t be here to pick up the kids for nearly another hour, but maybe it was one of them.
It wasn’t. It was Tom. From Quizzard. That Tom.
What. The. Actual. Heck?
“Is that a friend of yours?” asked Ruby-Fern, from a foot or two behind her. Nina turned and discovered the whole book group had followed her to the door, drawn helplessly by their adaptive need to stick their beaks into anything new.