“Do you know what the best part of tonight was?” I asked.
She glanced hopefully at me. “What?”
I looked at her. I wanted to say something tender, something real, but the smallest talon of fear dug into my side.
“Leo put Samuel’s underwear on when we got out of the water,” I said, overdoing my smile. “But Samuel hasn’t noticed yet.”
Lydia blinked, and then she started laughing in the silence, and I scooped up the T-shirts and helped her carry them downstairs.
* * *
Early the next morning, before Lydia’s family could wake up and realize they had eight teenagers passed out in their basement, we slipped out of the house and trudged back to the park with bleary, half-asleep eyes. We hugged each other quietly and automatically, stifling our yawns behind our hands and muttering that we’d see each other later.
And in the spaces between everyone’s goodbyes, Lydia looked at me. I can’t describe it any more than that. She didn’t smile, she didn’t flutter her eyelashes, she didn’t do anything that could be read as outright flirtatious, but the truth was she kept finding me.
“Ricky,” I rasped when we were tucked inside his truck, “I think Lydia might be for real.”
I told him about the conversation in her bedroom as we drove back out to the main road, the faint six -o’clock sun peeking through the clouds. Ricky laughed and dropped his head back, looking like something was obvious.
“Of course,” he muttered.
“What?” I asked eagerly.
“This wasn’t some random hangout Lydia dreamed up on a whim. She had it because she wanted to invite you. That’s why she called all our friends first, to make sure we were free so she wouldn’t look stupid if you said no.” He nodded to himself, thinking. “And Natalie must know. That’s why Cliff called to invite me, because Natalie would’ve told him to.”
“Wait…” I said, putting the pieces together. “Natalie kept looking at me funny last night!”
“Sizing you up.” Ricky nodded. “Trying to see if you like her best friend the same way her best friend likes you.”
“Do you think that means Cliff knows, too? Or you think Natalie just told him to check if you were free?”
Ricky seemed to wake up at the idea. “I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “The idea of Cliff helping Lydia get with a girl is … I mean, I wouldn’t expect it…”
He seemed lost in thought, almost like it was a wondrous possibility.
“Maybe you don’t know Cliff as well as you think,” I said.
Ricky was still zoning out. “Maybe…” he said slowly. Then he snapped back to life, blinking quickly. “Although…” he said, a grin inching up his face, “after that skinny-dipping last night, I’d say I know everyone pretty well.”
12
My quiet euphoria took a couple of days to get used to. Every interaction I had with Lydia seemed to confirm more and more that she actually liked me. We were texting regularly now—on a group chat with the others, but also individually between ourselves—and I took to dropping by the café to drink free lattes with her and Natalie after our morning shifts. Ricky was wholly supportive, asking for the latest updates every time we went for a drive, and I was always ecstatic to tell him about it.
It was late June now. The days were hotter, the insects buzzed louder, and the sunlight stretched past nine P.M. Maritza, JaKory, and I went to the movies twice in one week, sneaking grocery store candy and a bottle of Coke into the theater. We didn’t feel guilty about it because we still splurged on a large popcorn to share between the three of us, and I thought longingly of Lydia and how much she would have loved it. My brother and I fell into the same late-night routine, staying up until ungodly hours, holing away in our bedrooms but sometimes finding each other in the kitchen at one in the morning. He even offered me the rest of his ravioli one night, gesturing to it in the overlarge pot, and the two of us ate at the counter while our parents slept soundly upstairs. And my portraits, meanwhile, continued to draw fierce interest: First Terrica asked for one, just as Natalie had guessed she would, and then Samuel followed her lead, trying to downplay his excitement about it. I painted them on back-to-back days while they sat there and teased each other, and the looks on their faces when I showed them the finished versions were priceless.
One afternoon, when I popped into the café after the breakfast shift, Natalie surprised me with an invitation.
“Can you come to Lake Lanier with us for the Fourth?”
My stomach skipped. I’d heard them talk about their previous Fourth of July parties like something out of a shimmering dream. Lydia looked up from the booth she was wiping like my answer was the most important thing she would hear that day.
“We’re gonna camp again,” Natalie went on, “probably just one night…”
I tuned her out. Lydia was smiling expectantly at me, and all I could think about was Lydia in a bathing suit, Lydia sleeping next to me in the tent, Lydia stealing me away for a private moment in the dark …
“So?” Natalie said. “Are you in?”
I didn’t even think twice about it.
“Definitely.” I grinned, and Lydia beamed at me.
* * *
Maritza asked JaKory and me to come over one afternoon, which was unusual, because we rarely hung out at Maritza’s house. Her dad was a big-shot attorney for Coca-Cola, and he had a habit of purchasing expensive gadgets and lavish furniture that he never had the time to enjoy. Her mom, when she wasn’t working for Delta, kept their house impeccably clean and perfect, to the point where it was almost sterile. JaKory had taken to calling it “The Museum,” especially after Maritza’s mom started framing Panamanian art and tagging each piece with the artist’s name and date of completion.
We sat on the pristine white carpet in the living room, close to the fish tank Maritza’s dad had bought last fall. It was a huge basin of a thing, like one of those gigantic tanks you see in a dentist’s office, and it was full of dozens and dozens of tropical fish, swimming past us with bright, colorful movements.
“My mom hates this thing,” Maritza said, watching the tank with a challenging expression on her face. “It creeps her out.”
“Kinda creeps me out, too,” JaKory said. “It’s like a prop for a horror movie. Like a deranged murderer breaks in here, kills one of us, and stuffs our body in that tank.”
“JaKory, in what fucking universe would that ever happen?”
“It could happen.”
I lay back on the carpet, laughing. “’Kory, you have an amazing imagination, but it scares the shit out of me sometimes.”
JaKory shrugged. He had a dopey little smile on his face. “Daveon would get it.”
Maritza sent me a loaded look. I fixed my eyes on JaKory instead.
“Yeah … how’s that going?” I asked casually.
“Unbelievably well,” he said, still with that dopey smile. “We FaceTimed until five in the morning last night. He said he’d told his friends about me, too.”
“Aren’t you worried?” Maritza asked. She hesitated, wrinkling her nose. “You’re getting so invested in this guy, but you’ll never be able to date him for real.”
JaKory death-glared her from a few feet away. “Maritza, I know your opinion on this, but it’s not going to change anything. My heart’s already in this. Either step up and be supportive, or I’ll stop telling you about it at all.”
Maritza clucked her tongue. “I am supportive. I’m just concerned.”
“Stop being concerned. I’m fine. I’m happy.” He leaned against the foot of the couch and crossed his arms like that settled the matter. “Didn’t you wanna tell us something?”
That shut Maritza up. She made a show of adjusting her posture and clearing her throat like she was about to drop something huge on us.
“I think I have a crush on Rona,” she announced.
I peered closely at her: She seemed triumphant and self-conscious at the same time. I held my breath, unsur
e whether I wanted to hear more.
JaKory frowned. “From dance?”
“Mm-hm,” Maritza hummed, her eyes lighting up. “We’ve been hanging out after camp a lot, like going to Starbucks or back to her place until traffic dies down, and she’s hilarious and energetic and smart and gorgeous, and she, like…” Maritza paused. “I don’t know, I feel like she flirts with me.”
I sat up. “Flirts with you how?” I asked, eager to know for reasons beyond Maritza.
“Like … the other day she told me I had a good ass,” Maritza said, blushing.
JaKory and I looked at each other, our eyebrows raised. Maritza never blushed. “Um…” he said. “Context?”
“We were standing with the other senior coaches, and we were all trying to figure out how to change one of our steps, so I showed them an idea I had, and Rona just kinda interrupted and said something like, ‘Those leggings make your ass look amazing.’”
“She just blurted it out like that?” I asked skeptically.
“Yeah. Very enthusiastically.”
“How did the others react?” JaKory asked.
“Becca just laughed. Vivien seemed annoyed, but what else is new.”
JaKory and I traded looks again, holding eye contact this time. I could see he was thinking the same thing I was.
“Isn’t Rona the one who said you were overreacting when you were upset about Vivien getting captain?” I asked.
“Well, yeah…” Maritza hedged, “but I was overreacting.” She glanced between JaKory and me. “Why do I get the sense that you two aren’t excited about this?”
“We are,” JaKory said hastily, “but…”
“But what?” she pressed, and when JaKory wouldn’t answer, she turned to me.
“But it sounds like you need to go slowly,” I said gently. “Rona’s … cool … but I always got the impression she would flirt with anyone.”
Maritza didn’t speak for a long second. Her brows were furrowed, and her mouth hung open like she couldn’t believe she was hearing this from us. “Wow,” she finally said, widening her eyes, “thanks a lot.”
“Come on, Maritza,” JaKory said. “Rona’s known for being boy crazy.”
“So that means she can’t like a girl? God, how many times do I have to explain this bisexual concept to you two?”
“That’s not what we’re saying,” I said firmly. “We’re saying Rona seems like one of those girls who would flirt with another girl just for the hell of it—like, that she wouldn’t really be into it, but she would do it because it’s like a game.”
Maritza looked so frustrated, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d chucked a lamp at the fish tank. “Y’all hardly even know her,” she said loudly. “And so what if that’s what she’s doing? Who says I can’t enjoy that?”
“You can,” JaKory said. “We’re just telling you the same exact shit you’ve been telling me: to be careful.”
“We don’t want to see you get hurt,” I added. “Having a crush is fun, but it makes you vulnerable, too.”
“Who are you to be advising me on crushes?” Maritza snapped. Her eyes were blazing. “At least I have a crush. I’m not wasting my time bopping around a giraffe store all day.”
My mouth fell open, but before I could retaliate, JaKory cut in.
“Don’t be like that, Maritza,” he snapped back. “This isn’t a competition. Codi doesn’t have to be hitting this at the same pace as us.”
He rested a hand on my knee, glancing at me in what he clearly thought was a protective way. It was even more patronizing than the day at the coffee shop when he’d told me to keep an open mind. I could feel the flush creeping up my neck, and my heart pounded like a warning. The old, toxic resentment reared in my blood.
Maritza exhaled, but the blazing look was still in her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m gonna invite her over when my parents are gone, and then we’ll see who’s right.”
We fell silent. JaKory took his hand off my knee. Maritza picked at the carpet and chanced a look at me, her expression sheepish, but I ignored her. I was sitting there burning up inside, the truth of everything fighting to get out of my mouth, every beautiful and wonderful thing about Lydia and Ricky and all their friends, and yet I couldn’t do it. And it wasn’t because I was chickening out. The truth was I didn’t want to share any of it with them. We were sitting there beneath this huge-ass fish tank with the ideas of our desperate crushes flitting around the room, and I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.
“Codi?” Maritza said softly. “I’m sorry I said that. It wasn’t fair.”
It took me a second to answer. I turned my head slowly to look at her.
“I gotta go. My mom asked me to pick up Grant from a friend’s house.”
It was a lie, and we all knew it, but neither one of them pushed back on it. They probably thought I wanted to go home and sulk about my small, timid, limited life. I got up from the carpet without saying goodbye and walked out of the house in silence.
* * *
On the last Monday of June, my brother asked me to take him to the movies again. He claimed it was because our parents wouldn’t want to miss their favorite TV show that night, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was meeting up with that girl again.
I looked long and hard at him when he asked me. He shifted uncomfortably on the spot, sighing like my three seconds of staring were unbearable.
“Yeah, I’ll take you,” I said finally.
For a fraction of a second he looked happily surprised, but then he fixed a stoic expression back on his face. “Cool. It’s at seven.”
“We’ll leave at six forty.”
“Yeah.”
I wanted to say something to him on the drive to the theater—I was curious and anxious to hear where things stood with that girl—but something in me held back. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Maybe I couldn’t bear it in case he’d already beaten me to the punch, or in case things didn’t work out with Lydia.
“Thanks,” Grant told me when he got out of the car.
“I’ll pick you up at nine. Leave your phone on.”
“Yeah,” he said, stepping away already.
I passed the next two hours reading in my room, figuring I’d better start on the school’s summer reading list now that we were inching into July. The novel they’d assigned us was dense and boring, but I knew I could ask JaKory about it later, when I’d gotten over my anger at him. I had always been a slow reader, but tonight I was even slower than usual because I kept stopping to check my phone, hoping Lydia had texted me. Instead I had texts from Maritza and JaKory, exchanging crass thoughts on some celebrity guy they thought was hot, as if our standoff yesterday at Maritza’s had never happened.
Finally I gave up and texted Lydia myself.
I’m so jealous of you starting college. You don’t have to deal with bullshit summer reading anymore.
She wrote back a few minutes later.
Lydia Kaufman aka Jason Waterfalls: Yeah haha I know. What are you reading? Is it that bad? Sorry I haven’t really texted today, I’ve kind of had a bad day
A new, weird feeling came over me then, soft like my stomach had gone all melty but was trying to reach outward at the same time.
Are you okay? Can I do anything?
Lydia Kaufman aka Jason Waterfalls: Thanks Codi, I wish you could. Just a bad day in math class, we got our midterms back and I didn’t do so hot, and we have another test on Wednesday that I have to study for tonight. Sucks
I thought back to the Lydia I’d seen in the woods: the girl who’d been tackled by Samuel and ended up laughing, the troublemaker who orchestrated our prank to steal everyone’s clothes. I remembered what Natalie had told me about Lydia not seeing the good in herself, and I hated to realize that Lydia probably felt like that right now.
I wanted to make her feel better. I wanted to make some grand gesture, something that would surprise her and pull her out of her bad day. I sat there thinking about it, my heart pumping fast,
and the answer came to me in a blaze of inspiration. It was perfect, especially because my brother was already at the movies.
I texted Grant with my request, hoping he would see my message before he exited the theater. As I was driving to pick him up, my phone chimed with his response.
Grant: Ok.
* * *
Grant met me at the car with the huge bucket of popcorn under his arm. “Why’d you want this so bad?” he asked, grunting as he slid into the passenger seat.
“I need it for something. Thank you for getting it.”
“It was eight dollars.”
“I’ll pay you back.” I looked around at the people outside the theater. There was no sign of that skinny girl I’d seen him with last month. “Um,” I said, hesitating. “Are you waiting on anyone? Or should we go?”
Grant wouldn’t look at me. “We can go.”
He didn’t ask again about the popcorn, and I didn’t ask about the girl. When we got home and I made no move to get out of the car, Grant turned back to me.
“Aren’t you coming inside?”
“I have to go somewhere real quick.”
“Where?” He narrowed his eyes. “Who’s that popcorn for?”
I couldn’t shut him down, not when he’d been the one to help me buy it, but I didn’t want to tell him the whole truth, either. I debated in my head while he watched me carefully.
“It’s for … someone I’m getting to know,” I told him cautiously. “But I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
My brother frowned, but not like he was mad—more like he was processing. After a beat he nodded and said, “Okay.”
“Can you tell Mom and Dad I’m dropping something off at Maritza’s?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He ambled off to the garage. I considered the popcorn bucket, wondering how to keep it steady now that Grant wouldn’t be there to hold it. The only idea that came to me was to buckle it up like a baby, so that’s what I did, pulling the passenger-side seat belt snug against it to hold it in place. Then I sat back and looked at it for a moment, and out of nowhere I started laughing, really laughing, just me sitting there in the car by myself and feeling so goddamn good about everything.
Late to the Party Page 15