Crush (5 page)

“Beat you to it!” Joy screeches and slams the phone down.

I walk the dogs and then take Daisy up to the park. The whole while, I’m seething. Joy absolutely cannot be my parents’ child. She must be a foundling, some evil demon spawn from wretched origins best forgotten. I let Daisy off her leash and lie down in a piece of shade to feel sorry for myself. Not a minute passes before Daisy comes charging back with Clocker hot on
her heels. I sit up and scan the meadow. No dreadlocked tattooed crush on the horizon. I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed.

“Here we go again.” I lie back down. “Get comfy, guys. I’m not doing anything about it in any hurry.” About Clocker or the crush.

Before I know it, and without meaning to, I fall asleep. When I wake up, the sun is significantly higher in the sky and neither Clocker nor Daisy is in sight. I leap up.

“Daisy!” I spin around. A million off-leash dogs, but no scrappy little Westie with a big yellow boyfriend. “Clocker!”

How could I have fallen asleep? So far, this summer is about as hellish as it gets. No Larchberry, no parents, a crush on a girl—which does not compute—no money, a useless sister, and now I’ve lost my dog in New York City! This is my time to shine, apparently. Worse, Daisy is one of the breeds people steal to sell. I take a deep breath and bend over, my hands on my knees, feeling that familiar chill of panic flood over me. I couldn’t even begin to pinpoint what this one’s about. There’s so much to choose from.
Where to begin with the spectacular mess that is me?

“Calm down, Hope.” I swear the ground is moving beneath my feet. I sit down, but I still feel dizzy. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell myself. “Count to ten, nice and slow.” I do.

“Now get up and look for the dogs.” I force myself to stand. “I can do this. I can.” I scan the horizon. “Daisy! Clocker!”

I cross the meadow, calling for them, all the while sick with worry. Daisy has no idea how to survive in the city, with all the traffic and people and peril everywhere. What are the chances she’d actually end up safe and sound in the pound and I’d find her?

I’m just about to give up when I hear someone call my name.

It’s Nat, on her bike, with Clocker bounding ahead of her.

“Have you seen Daisy?” I run toward her.

“Yeah, she’s with me.”

And she is, a muddy, panting mess in the crate behind Nat’s seat, half asleep.

“Where have you been?” I pick her up
and hug her, mud and all. She licks my face. “Where’d you go?”

“I found them at the other end of the park, terrorizing the ducks.”

I set Daisy on the grass, where she promptly lies down and is soon snoring.

“Thanks, Nat,” I say.

“Even?” Nat gets off her bike. Both she and Clocker are muddy too.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Come on, admit it.” Nat cocks her head. “You thought I was an idiot for losing my dog. Right?”

“Yeah. I did.” Clocker flops down on the grass too. “Even.”

A birthday party bustles in a stretch of shade nearby. The children attack a piñata that swings from a low branch. A couple more whacks and it bursts, and after they scramble for the candy, the flock of frilly-dressed girls comes running over, squealing in Spanish.

The mothers holler at them, and then Nat says something in Spanish and the girls stop short of the filthy dogs and turn in their party shoes and head back to the adults.

“They wanted to play with the dogs,” Nat says. “But they would’ve gotten filthy.”

“You speak Spanish?”

“Yeah.” Nat stretches her arms over her head, pulling her muscles taut. She has yummy muscles, like a Woofer. Universe? What the hell am I thinking?

Nat’s saying something, but I hardly hear her. Her legs are super long and extra muscled, from all the biking, no doubt. And completely filthy. “Whatcha looking at?”

“Your legs are covered in mud.”

“I had to fish Daisy out of the marsh. She wouldn’t come when I called.” Nat drags a finger along her muddy calf and I just about swoon. This is nuts. Completely nuts! Since when did I become queer?

“Come to think of it,” Nat says, “you might owe me.”

Get a grip, Hope. “I don’t think so,” I manage to say. “If you remember, I spent the entire day with Clocker.” I put my hands on my hips and shake my head. “And Daisy is filthy.”

“That’s not my fault!”

“Still, I can’t take her back to Maira’s like this.”

“You’re staying with them?”

“Yeah, long story.”

“They must have a hose,” Nat says. “Let’s go turn it on them. You can tell me on the way.”

Nat makes me nervous, and when I’m nervous I talk a mile a minute and leave out tons of stuff, so it only takes a block to tell her how I ended up staying with Maira and Larissa. The story over, I have nothing left to say and I’m practically paralyzed with nerves.

“Want to go ahead with your bike?” I suggest. “I’ll meet you there?”

“Nah.” She glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “I’m enjoying the company.”

I glance up at the sky. Universe, if you have power at all, help me to not act like a babbling, confused idiot.

The two of us, Nat’s bike and Clocker— Daisy’s riding in the basket—take up the whole sidewalk. People have to step into the street to walk around us, but I don’t care. Apparently this crush has obliterated
my manners. Thankfully, Nat fills the gaps, telling me about the neighborhood.

“That used to be an armory, but now it’s a homeless shelter.”

“The guy who lives there played drums for Elvis.”

“There was an ecstasy lab in there, but it got busted.” And so on, little bits of Brooklyn filling my awkwardness like confetti.

We go through the garden gate, and as soon as Nat turns on the hose, Daisy dashes under the porch, getting even dirtier. Clocker puts up with it, his tail between his legs and his head hung low, but he lets her rinse him off.

“You do this often?”

“Often enough.”

Daisy, on the other hand, will not come out from under the porch.

“Come on, Daisy.” I try treats and begging, but she cowers in the farthest corner and lets out a belligerent little bark every once in a while. “Get out of there!”

Nat gets on her knees just inches away from me. “I’ll go get her.”

“I wouldn’t bother.” I am keenly aware of how little space there is between us. “She’ll come out when she’s ready.”

“I don’t mind.” Nat shimmies under the porch. “I’m already dirty.” After a little dodge dog and a whole lot of yapping, she grabs Daisy’s scruff and drags her out.

“Look at you now,” I say. “You’re totally filthy!”

“Yep.” Nat yanks at her grimy tank top. “I’m one dirty girl.”

“You need hosing off more than Daisy.”

She raises an eyebrow and grins. “So go for it.”

Okay, now that is totally a come-on!

“I didn’t...I don’t—” I pick up Daisy. If she were a guy, I’d flirt back, but a girl? How do I know she even likes girls? Don’t be stupid, Hopeless. She’s about as dykey as it gets. But what do you do with a girl? That thought makes me blush even more. “I should give Daisy a bath. I’ll use the sink in the basement. Do you—?”

“Do I—”

“I wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t what?” Nat cocks her head, grin still in place.

I laugh, the high nervous laugh Joy loves to mock. I am officially losing it. Any minute now I am going to morph into an immature, stuttering, laughing mess who doesn’t know if I want to kiss a girl for the first time in my life or if I want to run, screaming, into traffic. Getting smacked by a yellow cab might be just what I need. Nothing like a couple of busted legs to force yourself to figure things out. Seriously, I’m considering it.

Nat’s still grinning. I bet she’s getting off on making me squirm. “How about I go home and have a shower?” Yes! Go! Before I humiliate myself! She grabs her bike. “You want me to go?”

“I think so. Yeah.” I cling to Daisy and nod robotically. “Okay. Sounds good. You go. Yeah, good idea.”

Nat whistles for Clocker. “Bye?”

Apparently I’m stupefied, because all I can do is nod.

“And then Hope says, ‘Bye, Nat.’” Nat laughs.

Isn’t she fazed by any of this? Does she do this all the time? Make unsuspecting, seemingly straight girls squirm? Or am I making it all up? But making up
what
? The butterflies are real. The fact that I want to kiss her is real. But what I felt about Orion and the other boys was real too, wasn’t it?

Would kissing a girl be different from kissing boys? If all I did was kiss her, would that make me queer? Are you queer just for thinking it? Or does doing it make you queer? And what if I don’t want to be queer? Do I get a say in this at all?

Nat and Clocker disappear out the gate while I am pinned in place by questions. I stand there, stunned, and then I creep along the side of the house and watch them make their way down the sidewalk, Nat on her bike, Clocker trailing behind her. Nat rears up and pops a wheelie. It seems triumphant, like she knows something I don’t.

Does she? I almost run after her to ask, but then Clocker looks back, and I duck back into the yard, as if he might tell Nat that I was spying on her.

Chapter Seven

Larissa and Maira come home as it gets dark. When I hear the key in the front door, I race upstairs and hide in the stairwell and listen to their quiet murmurs as they bring in the sleeping twins and all the beach gear and baby bags and coolers. I should go down to help, but I don’t know what to say to them, and I know that if I start talking, I won’t stop. I know that I’d end up telling them about Orion, which makes me feel crappy just thinking
about it, and then, worse, about Nat, which I just plain don’t understand. I think it’d be best if I just didn’t say anything. I don’t trust myself right now. Hell, I don’t even know myself right now. Thankfully, I’d planned ahead and left them a note on the counter in the kitchen saying I was going to bed early.

I try watching TV, but entire shows run by and I don’t even notice. I turn the TV off and crawl into bed, but all I can think about is Nat, standing there in the sunlight, her head cocked, and that grin. I stuff my head under my pillow. What am I thinking? What am I doing? Do I want to kiss Nat just to say I’d kissed a girl? Is it because I’m staying with lesbians? Not that I think it is catching—that’s ridiculous—but it’s not like the thought had ever occurred to me before now. Something is happening, and I don’t know what. Yeah, it could be that I’m into girls, but it could also just be me doing what I often do, which is doing something for the sake of experience. My dad has warned me more than once that while he supports my insatiable curiosity, he worries that it might get me into a bit of
trouble here and there. I think this is a fine example of “here and there.”

I chuck the pillow across the room and get out of bed. There’s no way I can sleep! How can anyone actually sleep when life is going on?

I look at myself in the mirror. Am I queer? Do I want to be a lesbian? Do I care either way? I wish I could call my parents. Dad would know what to do. I shut my eyes and put my fingers to my temples. When I was little, my dad and I would try to guess what the other was thinking. Okay, not only when I was little—we still do it, as hokey as it sounds. It’s pretty amazing how often we’re right. One of us will tell Mom a number we’re thinking of, or a picture we have in mind, and lots of times we get it right. Mind you, way more times we’re completely wrong.

“Dad?” I whisper. “Can you hear me?”

Nothing. Maybe Thailand is just too far away.

“There’s this girl...” I open my eyes. This is stupid. I know what he’d say. That part is
easy.
Follow your heart, baby girl.
I’m one of those super blessed kids who have parents who would actually celebrate if their kid wanted to join the circus or become a tattoo artist or sing in a rock band or make pottery for a living, so kissing a girl is nothing they’d have a problem with. In fact, The Talk in our house included stuff like: “It’s okay to love women if you’re a woman, or men if you’re a man...the Universe creates love of all kinds, and all of it is pure and beautiful and precious.”

I should’ve kissed her. How else am I going to know?

“Damn,” I mutter at my reflection. “Now you might not get another chance. Way to go, Hopeless.”

Sleep is like an impatient slip of nothing, but for some reason I wake up and the world feels like one big blue ball of brilliance. I bounce downstairs, scoop a baby up in each arm and dance them around the kitchen to the music from the radio.

“Why the good mood?” Larissa stares
bleary-eyed at the coffeemaker as it slowly does its thing.

“Not sure.” I set Felix down, grab a mug from the cupboard and pour Larissa a cup of coffee mid-brew. “Ta da!”

“Wow.” Larissa grips the mug. “How did you do that?”

“It has a sensor.” I laugh. “You didn’t know that?”

“No.” Larissa takes a sip. “Oh, yes. That’s it. Bless you, Hope.”

Felix flaps his hands at me, so I pick him up, perch him on my hip and get busy mashing bananas one-handed. I’m getting good at it. Maira comes into the kitchen, cell phone to her ear.

“Not acceptable,” she says in her work tone, which is way different from her mommy tone. She gestures at Larissa. “Categorically not.”

Larissa pulls a snack-size yogurt out of the fridge and hands it to her.

Thank you,
Maira mouths.
Love you.
“And I’m equally confident that you heard me the first time. The answer is no.” She kisses
Larissa on the cheek, nuzzles each baby and manages to keep the phone call going the whole time as she heads for the door.

“Man, I love that woman!” Larissa says as Maira leaves. “Amazing, isn’t she?”

“Yep.” A couple of days after I moved in, Maira mentioned that she’d been out west dealing with her parents, who were splitting up after forty-two years together. That’s what the whole emotional mess on the plane was about. Apparently an argument over organic strawberries was the last straw for her dad, but I’m guessing the mistress of thirteen years was a contributing factor too. Anyway, the point is, Maira and Larissa are still all blissed out with each other after twelve years together.