Boy Shopping (12 page)

Jacob

K
iki stayed up late working on her e-mail, distracted while she typed by the picture on his HelloHello profile. Jacob Young! What kind of mind lay behind his honey-brown eyes, which Kiki remembered from the days before he started wearing sunglasses. And that face! It could have been carved from the same mahogany as her father's most prized African mask, polished to the same satiny smoothness. In the morning her mother had to shake her twice before she crawled out of bed and over to her computer. There was an e-mail from Jacob, just two lines long: “What are you doing Friday night? Let's hit the Trip-Hop Triple Threat.”

Friday was the one night Kiki was almost always off—the band didn't play on Fridays unless they had a show, and since their contract allowed them to travel only one weekend a month during the school year, they played big gigs in town and, very occasionally, opened for a bigger act at the Ryman or Starwood.

It annoyed Kiki to admit that she didn't have plans, but it was the only night she did have free for the next couple of weeks, so she e-mailed Jacob to say he could pick her up at 7:30. She was a little hurt that he hadn't spent more time on his message to her, but those two lines were the most anyone had gotten out of Jacob Young since they started ninth grade, so she decided she ought to be thankful.

 

An hour later, Kiki passed Jacob in the hallway as she hurried to English class. She smiled, waved, and almost said something, but his face was just as expressionless behind his sunglasses as it always was. Kiki thought he actually sped up a little after they passed one another, as if he was afraid she would run after him.

“Did I just get dissed?” she asked Sasha, who was jogging along with her. Their English classroom was a long way from homeroom.

Sasha's long violet curls and her lacy black skirt streamed behind her. Sometimes Kiki wondered if that was the difference between goth and punk: she and Sasha both dressed in black most of the time, but Kiki rarely wore anything covered in lace.

“I don't think so. I mean, why would he do that after he asked you out?” Sasha asked, waving hello to Dr. Bonner, their AP European History teacher, as they passed the history wing.

“I don't know, but that felt like a diss.”

“Maybe he didn't see you?” Sasha sounded doubtful.

“Maybe he's secretly blind. At least that would explain the sunglasses.”

“Maybe he's mute? Then he'd have to meet girls online.”

Kiki laughed, the bell rang, and they ran the rest of the way to English class.

Kiki was actually beginning to wonder if someone had used Jacob's name and picture to pick up girls on the Internet, when the secretary paged Kiki to the office during fifth period European History class.

“What have you done now, Kelvin?” Dr. Bonner asked. Everyone was staring at her, except for Mark. He refused to look up from the chapter on Charlemagne they were supposed to be reading. They might not be fighting anymore, but they weren't on the friendliest terms either, not since he'd asked about Jasmine.

“I haven't done anything!” she insisted. She was expecting the worst, though, when she got to the office. Could it have anything to do with the hijacked PA system Monday morning?

“Kiki, this has to be signed for.” The secretary handed her a long florist's box, the kind that she'd only seen in movies, filled with roses.

Kiki balanced the box of flowers in one arm as she scrawled her name on the form the delivery guy handed her. Then she opened the box. The roses were a strange bronzy-brownish-pink, almost the exact color of the skin on the inside of her wrist. Kiki had received plenty of roses in the last few years, from her fans and from RGB, but they were always white, pink, or red. She had never seen roses this color before.

“Ooooh, chocolate roses,” cooed the secretary.

“I can't find a card,” Kiki said.

“I guess you have a secret admirer,” the secretary said.

“I guess so,” Kiki admitted. “Would you mind putting them in the fridge until two-thirty?”

“Just don't forget them.”

“I won't forget.” When Kiki stepped out of the office, Jacob Young was strolling down the hall. He turned to her, gave her a slow nod, and kept going. He was the one who had sent the roses—Kiki was certain. She felt a flush creeping across her whole body. Jacob Young really
was
into her. It was like hearing that instead of getting you a new ten-speed for your birthday, your parents decided to get you a Porsche: that unbelievable.

The Pussycats all purred happily when they saw Kiki's roses at the end of the day, except for Jasmine.

“They might not even be from Jacob,” Jasmine said as they all walked to the parking lot.

“You think those are from Jacob?” Mark asked, popping up behind them.

“Did
you
send them, Mark?” Jasmine asked, turning on him as fast as a rattlesnake. “Is this your way of declaring your everlasting love for Kiki?”

“I, um, no,” he said, turning purple.

“That's enough, Jazz. Come on, Mark. Let's get going.”

Kiki dragged him by the elbow to his car as the Pussycat Posse laughed behind them. Jasmine laughed loudest of all.

“So, I, um, Kiki,” he began, but she cut him off.

“Mark, forget what Jasmine said. She just likes messing with you.”

“Um, yeah. So, um, are those really from Jacob?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. That's . . . cool, I guess.”

Kiki almost said, “You had your chance,” but why should she bother? If he had suddenly decided that she was the one, it was too late. She was going out with Jacob that Friday night no matter what. If Mark finally got it together to ask her out, he'd have his chance, too. Later. If Jacob wasn't her soul mate.

 

By the time Friday night rolled around, Kiki was having second thoughts about Jacob. Well, more like tenth or eleventh thoughts, since he kept ignoring her in the halls all week. What was his problem? He couldn't possibly be embarrassed to be seen with her—could he? He was Jacob Young, who may or may not have been in
Hustle and Flow
, and was definitely the son of producer Andre “Too” Young, but she was Kiki Kelvin—she had been on the cover of
Billboard
twice before her seventeenth birthday! And if he really was embarrassed to be seen with her, then why were they going to Trip-Hop Triple Threat at the Maze, where half of Wentworth would probably turn up? Kiki had no idea what was going on, and she wasn't about to ask him. Instead, she just laced up her lucky Doc Martens, tucked them under a nice new pair of low-rise jeans, checked her tank top to make sure her bra straps were covered, and went downstairs to wait for Jacob to show up.

“Since when have you liked Jacob Young?” her dad asked, wandering through the living room on his way to the garage. For once, he and Kiki's mom weren't going to see her off on a date. Since they had known Jacob's parents since Kiki was in kindergarten, they didn't think he was much of a threat. This had less to do with any faith in Jacob himself than the fact that if Dr. Kelvin wanted to hunt Jacob down, he knew exactly where he lived.

“I've always liked Jacob.”

“No, you used to think he was nasty.”

“That's because he ate glue.”

“Just for fun?”

“I think it was a dare.”

“Booger-eater?”

“Maybe. I can't remember.” It was hard enough believing that Jacob had anything to do with the faintly disgusting first grader he had been, much less remembering exactly what he had done. Kiki thought all boys were gross back then, except for Mark, and he'd had his moments too.

“Right. Well, think about that before you let him stick his tongue in your mouth.”

Kiki groaned. “Have a nice night, Dad.”

“You too. I'll see you at two o'clock, or I'll come looking.”

“Goodnight, Dad!”

“Okay, goodnight.”

Jacob showed up ten minutes later, looking like he did every day at school, but better. The sunglasses were gone, revealing a pair of eyes the color of old gold, eyes that were a lot more mesmerizing than they had been in elementary school.

“Hey,” Kiki said, climbing into the passenger seat of a new Z3 convertible, perfectly black inside and out. He drove a black Mercedes sedan to school, which was nice enough, but this car was a work of art, especially the sound system. Gnarls Barkley was pouring through the speakers like molasses, dark and sweet.

“Hey.” It was the first word he had spoken to her since they were twelve. And it was the last she heard for a while, since he reversed out of Kiki's driveway fast enough to knock the breath from her lungs, then whipped through the curvy streets of Belle Meade, her quiet, tree-lined neighborhood, so fast that wind was all Kiki could hear. A quick glance at their reflection in the window of a car they passed told Kiki that they looked like a scene from a movie: the rapper who has just made it to the top, but can't forget his past; the gold digger who may leave him for the next big star, but will always love him. It would be a movie with great beats and a sad ending—him dead, her pregnant, something like that. Kiki had to laugh, but that sound too was lost in the wind roiling around Jacob's car.

“What's so funny?” he asked when they stopped at a light.

“Just thinking about how different things look from outside.”

“I know what you mean.” He nodded at the car stopped next to theirs, an elderly Cadillac full of elderly white people. “They probably think I'm a drug dealer and you're some kind of ho.”

“We're not wearing enough jewelry.” Jacob wasn't wearing any, and Kiki just had on a pair of tiny diamond studs.

“Look at them. That's what they see.”

Kiki saw that he was probably right. The old man driving the car was staring at them as if staring might make their heads explode, and the three women in the car wouldn't even look at them. Maybe the old man had some reason for giving them the look of death, but if he wasn't an out-and-out racist, convinced that any young black couple driving around Belle Meade in a new BMW had to be drug dealers, Kiki didn't know what his problem was.

The light changed, and the chance for conversation was left back at the intersection with the old, slow Cadillac. When they got to the little Mexican place next to the Maze, they had plenty of time to talk, but Jacob had retreated into his shell of silence. At first Kiki tried asking him questions, easy, open-ended questions, like reporters always ask at the beginning of an interview, but he would answer with as few words as possible, and that was that. If he was completely silent around a girl he had known his entire life, Kiki understood why he had tried HelloHello.

Kiki stared at her burrito as if she could see Mother Teresa's face burned into the tortilla, feeling her stomach jump around. When she was with Mark and Franklin, silence always meant something was wrong—most of the time the two of them talked nonstop.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” Kiki asked. She knew, even before she asked, that she was being stupid. Guys don't like having relationship talks when they are actually in a relationship, much less when they're on a first date. But it wasn't like Jacob could shut her out anymore than he was already, so what difference did it make? And it was something she'd been thinking about a lot lately—might as well get a guy's opinion.

“Do you think people can be destined for each other? A
Romeo and Juliet
sort of deal?”

Kiki expected him to say no, or sit there in silence. Instead he put down his fork, pinned her with his golden eyes, and said, “Romeo and Juliet are the dumbest characters in that whole play. The only character with anything going on at all is Mercutio, and he dies for it.”

Kiki cocked her head, considering his answer. “Yeah, I guess that's true,” she admitted. She probably should have used a different example, or have phrased the question better. “But what about true love? Not love at first sight, or whatever, but the whole twin souls thing?”

“Absolutely.” His eyes glowed like lamps. Kiki knew she was blushing. She couldn't help it. Whenever he looked at her—really looked at her—she felt as if she was bathed in a golden spotlight all her own.

“How do you—would you—know?” she asked. “How could you tell if it was the real thing?”

He ate another couple of bites of his tostada, and Kiki thought at first that he was giving her the silent treatment again, but realized he was giving her question serious consideration.

After a few minutes, he gave her the The Look again. “You remember reading
Catcher in the Rye
back in eighth grade?”

“Sure.” Jacob may not talk in class, but he had obviously been paying attention.

“Holden says that the thing about him and Jane is that he doesn't have to talk when she's around. They can just sit there and understand.”

“I guess I had forgotten that part.”

He nodded. “Most people are just talk. Not everything is about words.”

Kiki nodded too, but she wasn't sure she really understood. After all, Jacob didn't really talk to anybody—how would he know whether someone understood him?

At that point their waiter came by with the bill. He wasn't much older than they were. “I was just waiting for a break in the conversation,” the waiter joked, winking at Kiki. La Rosa was small and cozy, and the tables were barely large enough for two placemats—perfect for a night of low-key romance. Every other table in the restaurant buzzed with romantic whispers or loud laughter. There had probably never been a date as silent as this one, at least not at La Rosa.