Girl Parts (9 page)

The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Sun took breakfast on the enclosed veranda. Mr. Sun read the newspaper, fuming over the cryptic crossword. Mrs. Sun read a book called
Messages from Beyond
by Roan Oran.

“How do you think it’s going?” Mr. Sun said. After twenty-five years of marriage, the Suns spoke in code.

“Well, he was out till all hours last night.” Mrs. Sun took a dainty bite of toast. “I heard the garage door at four.”

“I thought she was going to keep him in line. Why didn’t we get one that shocked him for breaking curfew?”

“I believe it’s a more”— Mrs. Sun searched for the right word —“holistic process.”

“You’re too permissive with him. If I’d come home that late when I was a kid, my dad would have smacked the hell out of me.”

“Wonderful. Then he’d wind up like you. Ooh! Look!” Mrs. Sun gestured wildly to a pattern of sunlight refracted by Mr. Sun’s drinking glass. Sun spots fell across the discarded business section (which Mr. Sun had thrown down in a huff). She snatched up her pencil and scribbled down the words they touched.

“Evelyn, what . . . ?” Mr. Sun started.

The book Mrs. Sun was reading,
Messages from Beyond,
said that ghosts often use natural elements to communicate messages to the living. “Only once their messages are revealed can the dead pass on!” Mrs. Sun said, writing furiously. “Is that you, Claire?” But the result was apparently gibberish. “‘She-is-Age-in-cod-less-oh-5,’” Mrs. Sun read. “Oh, well, I guess not. Never mind.”

Downstairs, David and Rose watched a war movie — or maybe a documentary, they weren’t sure. David wasn’t paying attention. He was doing some personal assessment of his own.

“You don’t actually believe that stuff about me being crazy or whatever, do you?”

Their eyes met. Rose’s eyelashes were dark and heavy. Her perfume was like soap and fresh flowers. It might have been a romantic moment.

“I mean, that’s why I’m
here,
David. . . .” Her voice was soft, comforting, which only aggravated him more.

Last night was a blur. David barely remembered stumbling upstairs, collapsing on the bed, and waking up again at five feeling as if someone had sandblasted his larynx. He’d knocked on Rose’s door around ten to find her already up and dressed, a family of paper birds littering her bedspread.

“But you don’t think that’s
true,
do you? I mean, Jesus, I’m perfectly normal. I’m like every other kid.”

David went to the minibar. There was no booze, only soft drinks. He popped one open.

“Don’t be angry.” He heard regret in her voice, and fear.
The guilt-trip protocol,
David thought. He stood with his back to her, watching the cola foam. It looked like boiling black tar.

Rose stood behind him. “Maybe you’re right. Either way, we get to be friends.”

She put a hand on his shoulder, making him flinch. But her touch, when it didn’t burn, was so soothing. He turned to face her and remembered that they were alone in the basement, with his parents upstairs. He leaned forward, eyes closed. Her breath was wet and warm. He kept diving, down and down, wondering when they’d make contact and thinking,
Houston, we have a problem.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Rose leaning back. Her lips were parted and her eyes had that sleepy-hungry look,
but she was tipped so far back it looked like she would topple over.

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not yet? When?”

“Soon.”

“But not now.”

She shook her head.

“So, what? Like a few days?”

Rose made a motion with her thumb — not a thumbs-up. She meant
more.

“A week? Two weeks?”

She tipped her hand back and forth like
so-so.

“A
month
?”

“Maybe. Probably. It depends.”

“Jesus, Rose! What are we, in the 1950s?”

“It’s what’s healthy. . . .”

“By whose definition? I don’t even think my parents would
care
if we were kissing right now.”

“Just be patient, please!” It was the first time he’d heard her raise her voice, and he was surprised by how shrill it was.

“How’s this supposed to be a healthy relationship if neither of us gets what we want?”

“Perhaps it’s about
not
getting what you want all the time.”

“That’s stupid. I never heard such a ridiculous thing.”

He dropped onto the couch. On-screen some heads were blown off, and David thought,
Good.

Rose sat beside him. “Only one month. We can wait until then, right?”

“We don’t have much choice.”

She put her hand on his thigh, and David thought of last night in the car, going so fast it was hard to breathe. She shifted, her hand moving just a quarter inch north. She brought her lips to his ear. “Soon, I promise.”

Her warm curviness settled next to him. She took his arm and positioned it around her shoulder.

One month,
David thought.
OK.

One month he could handle. He could do one month.

And so began the countdown.

Every day David came home around three. Rose heard his bike pull in, heard him bound up the back steps, heard him coming down the hall. And when he exploded through the door and flung his arms wide, she jumped and ran for him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his neck.

“Another day down.”

“Do you want to mark it on the calendar?”

They’d pinned a calendar to her wall and crossed off a box for every day they spent together. There was no set date when Rose’s body would let her kiss him. The more time passed, the better they knew each other, the sooner it
would happen. But it was exciting to see the rows of crossed boxes and feel the moment drawing closer.

In the evenings they watched TV or went for a ride. This was one of their differences of opinion: David loved car rides; Rose did not. She didn’t like the flashing reflectors, which made her think of a crumpled blue jacket in the road. But she smiled anyway and kept her hand on his knee.

She asked him about his day, but David usually had little to tell. School was boring — he just sat in front of a monitor all day. This puzzled Rose, since he sat in front of a monitor at home, too. He liked to surf the Web, chat with friends, and read blogs. Rose decided the difference must be her, since he was alone at school, but at home they were together.

They watched movies. David preferred action, but Rose loved romances. She liked comparing herself and David to the couples on-screen. She recognized the longing looks in their eyes, and even though Rose had never stood in the fog while a plane idled nearby, she knew what the lady in the gray hat must be feeling, having to leave her man. And even though David had never thrown pebbles at her window, she knew what it must feel like to throw open the curtains and run down to meet your beloved on the frosty morning lawn. And of course, every movie ended with a long, passionate kiss.

At night, when the movie was over, they lay in David’s bed. This was the best part of Rose’s day, when it was just the two of them. Talking or not talking. Just breathing. Then Mrs. Sun would knock on the door (which they had to
keep open) and say it was time for Rose to go to her own room. They shared a “faux kiss” good-night, which was a trick they’d invented, a way to say “I like you” without really kissing. Rose would press her fingertips to her lips, David would do the same, and then they’d touch each other’s lips. David thought it was “so cheesy,” but Rose liked it anyway. She was pretty sure he liked it too. It was his idea.

Rose wasn’t programmed to keep herself busy during the day, and at first she spent a lot of time sitting and staring. But the longer she was with David, the more things she had to think about and compare with each other, and soon all the activity in her head accelerated her heart rate, and she got antsy. Her hands wanted something to do, and so they made paper birds. Soon her hands got so good at making paper birds they made them without Rose telling them to. When David got home he found more and more on Rose’s nightstand, until eventually her room resembled a mini-aviary.

One evening they stood at her window, watching dark clouds move in over the lake. The window was open, and a pre-storm breeze blew through the room. “The air is very romantic today,” Rose said.

David chuckled, as he always did when she came out with one of her little Rose-isms.

“Why is it romantic?”

“Can’t you feel it?” she said, looking up at him through her lashes. She touched his collarbone, and David felt a crackle, a vibration in his spine.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do feel it.”

He thought he might kiss her right then, but a cross breeze coursed through the room, and her family of paper birds fluttered up from the desk. Rose made a little noise of delight, but David, unthinking, closed the window and brought their flight to an end. She pouted over the pile of paper, which David didn’t understand, but she perked up when he suggested they watch the storm from the covered veranda.

Then one afternoon he found a picture on Rose’s wall.

“What’s this?” he asked, examining the random squiggles.

Rose was making art, and like all new artists, she hadn’t quite escaped her influences. She’d copied the painting in the hall — a dreary southwestern landscape with storm clouds pouring into a river basin, which Rose thought looked like the murky soap Lupe rinsed down the drain after washing the crystal. She’d scribbled circles on white printer paper until the walls of her room were covered with hoary clouds. The differences between her drawings and the soaring vista above the dinette set troubled her, but David’s compliments filled her with a new and powerful upward feeling.
Pride.

He found himself forgetting Rose was a robot. Her diction had changed, become less formal, more easy and fluid. Her gestures and opinions, once painfully recognizable as his own, were blending into a distinct personality, one that was sweet, steadfast, curious, anxious, funny, and
real.
He liked her fastidiousness in the kitchen, the serious way she considered every joke before deciding whether it was funny, her fascination with folded paper, thunder, shadows, and sunlight (Where had these opinions come from? They weren’t his.), and of course the way she looked at him, which sometimes stopped him cold, so that he forgot what he was saying.

“You’re the best thing in my life,” he said once, surprising himself. They were on the back patio in the big chaise lounge, wrapped in a plaid quilt. Their faces were chilly, but their bodies were warm, together under the blanket. David was drinking a Coke and flicking pebbles into the lake. He thought about the sun and how it changed color as it sank, turning a brilliant crimson. Almost the exact color of her hair.

“You’re the best thing in
my
life.”

He looked at her over his sunglasses, smiling. “I guess I kind of like who I am when I’m with you. I like
how
I like you. Is that weird?”

“I think it makes perfect sense.”

He laughed. “I haven’t spent this much time with a girl
ever.
I don’t think I’ve been
friends
with a girl since first grade.”

“Oh no?”

“Yeah. When we finally
do
make out, it’ll be a little weird. Like I’m kissing my sister.”

Rose said nothing. Instead she tossed a pebble toward the lake. It fell miserably short.

“I’m just kidding, you know. It won’t actually be weird.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” Rose let out a breath, which made David laugh harder.

“That’s my Rose. My Rosy.”

“Yo, Sun,” Artie called.

David kicked up the kickstand of his bike and watched Artie jog across the parking lot. The cars gleamed in the late-afternoon sun, everything looking sharp and white. Artie shouldered his bag, shirt untucked, tie crooked.

“’Sup, Artie?”

“Jesus, dude, where have you been?” He stopped a few paces away and coughed. Artie didn’t do a lot of running.

“Gotta cut back on the smokes, Arts. You’re gonna yack a lung.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Artie lit up. “So, seriously, I haven’t seen you in weeks. I thought we were going to hang this weekend.”

“I’ve just been chilling at home.”

Artie blew smoke into his fist, then tossed it to the wind — an old trick. “How’s Rose? You chilling with her?”

“She’s decent. Yeah.” David pretended to adjust his side mirrors. “You know. We see each other now and then.”

“Getting to know each other?”

David gave Artie a sideways look. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“She touch your pecker yet?”

“Jesus, Artie . . .”

Artie jabbed his cigarette in David’s direction. “What’s with you and this chick, man? You never used to be prickly about girls. Remember when you taped Stacy Keener flashing you on New Year’s and posted the vid on the school server?”

“Yeah, she wasn’t too happy about that.”

“But you didn’t care.”

“Well, maybe I do now,” David said. “I guess maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“So she
hasn’t
touched your pecker yet.” David said nothing. Artie nodded. “Yeah, figured as much. Well, damn. It’s your life. Just don’t want to see my boy get his nuts chopped off.”

David glared at his friend, who sniffed nonchalantly.

“OK.” Artie puffed. “So when are we going to hang out again?”

“Soon.”

“Party at Clay’s this weekend?”

“Maybe.”

Artie nodded and turned away. Head still bobbing, he started off toward the field, trailing smoke. David tried to think of something nice to say, something to let him know they were still dogs, but Artie turned back first.

“Hey, while Rose is getting to know you so well, make sure to tell her about Stacy Keener,” he said, and flashed the peace sign.

“What do you want to do this weekend?” David stretched out on Rose’s bed, folding his arms beneath her pillows. “Other than be with me.”

She tucked in beside him. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“Clay’s having a party Friday night. That might be fun.” Rose said nothing. “So what do you think? Clay’s on Friday?”