Goodbye, Rebel Blue Hardcover (14 page)

Those “disgusting cigarettes” do such a good job of annoying those I wish to annoy, like Aunt Evelyn and my-lungs-are-in-perfect-shape Cousin Pen.

I take a long drink of water. “Why are you giving me advice?”

“Honestly?”

I jack my eyebrow at an angle.

“So you don’t kill yourself and make my parents more upset.” She seems almost wistful, not angry. “They never used to fight before you came into our lives.”

A SHOE BOX HAS MAGICALLY APPEARED AT THE foot of my bed. Inside sits a pair of pink running shoes, slightly used. They must be a pair of Cousin Pen’s from her Amazon-growth days. In junior high she grew half a foot, while I added half an inch. She called me lima bean; I called her string bean.

The shoes have more tread than the pair I wore when I fell, and they’ll fit tighter at the sides, keeping sharp rocks from impaling me. She must be serious about keeping me safe so I don’t cause any more tension between her parents. I can’t argue with her on that point. Most of Uncle Bob and Aunt Evelyn’s shouting matches are about me.

During the past week, the bungalow has been oddly peaceful. To my surprise, Aunt Evelyn didn’t gloat about getting me the Red Rocket trees, or, if she did, I was too busy doing bucket-list items to notice. Now Pen has gifted me with a pair of running shoes.

A week of wonders. Next thing we know, Tiberius will stop digging under the fence in search of sweets, and Macey and I will give each other manis and pedis.

For the next week I slip into Pen’s old shoes, warm up, and run before school. My lungs burn, and muscles in my calves protest. Technically, I walk more than run, and I return gasping and covered in sweat, clocking in a dismal fourteen-minute mile. Aunt Evelyn watches me from the living room window. She probably thinks I’m on meth.

With Percy, I plant the Red Rocket trees in the school parking lot and start work on another bucket-list item:
Learn American Sign Language,
although I’ll still need to work on the second part,
and volunteer to sign for the hearing impaired at church.
The tiny point of contention being, I don’t have a church. I never felt at home in Uncle Bob and Aunt Evelyn’s church. Too many rules about shoes.

At school I do my best to avoid random encounters with Nate, which isn’t too hard since we swim in different oceans. I bypass the breezeway in front of Unit Five where he and the other jocks hang out. I steer clear of the baseball field where he works out most days after school. Biology is a bear. All week I listen to Nate
breathe
. It’s crazy how I can distinguish his breathing from everyone else’s.

Maybe it’s because we’d breathed as one. On the beach. In the cab of his father’s truck. For his part, he doesn’t mention anything about that moment in the truck and hasn’t made any more attempts to get within a foot of the air I breathe this week.

So imagine my surprise on Friday afternoon when I get home and find Nate sitting on the porch, the right side of his hair a mess.

“Pen has track practice today,” I say. “She’ll be home after five.”

“Reb—”

“And if you’re selling, we don’t need Scout-O-Rama tickets, our house number painted on the curb, or homemade enchiladas.”

“We need to talk.” He shifts his legs, making room for me on the step.

So many choices. I can leap over his legs and make a mad dash through the yard to the back door.

Or I could dive over the fence and hang out with Tiberius.

“You were right,” he says on a wobbly breath of air, which freaks me out because Nate is the type who doesn’t wobble.

I sit and sigh. He toes the dried husk of a flower at the base of one of Aunt Evelyn’s flowerpots.

“In this lifetime would be nice,” I say.

He throws back his head and makes a sound, half laugh, half groan. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Not giving a crap about trying to make me feel comfortable or making this any easier.” He studies the porch step. “You’re just being you.” He crushes the husk, grinding it to dust. “You know who you are, and you refuse to be anything else. Honestly, on some days I wish I were you. I’d love to tell off my smart-ass friends. I’d love to tell my baseball coach I don’t want to do another round of burners. I’d love to tell Mr. Phillips he has ugly ties and that it’s cruel and unusual punishment to those of us in the front row.”

I try to hold it back, but a laugh escapes.

“You don’t care what others think. You don’t compromise.” Nate shifts one tennis shoe and then the other. “You’re true to yourself and true to your word. Take this whole bucket-list thing. You said you’d complete Kennedy’s list, and you’re doing it.” He shakes his head in amused disbelief. “And I have no doubt you’ll do everything within your power to finish. You’re true blue, and you were right that other night in the truck. For a moment I was worried about what my friends would think if they saw me with you. But sometime this week I stopped thinking.” He doesn’t say it, but I know the words hanging between us:
and started feeling.

Nate’s foot shifts and brushes against mine, the touch as light as the brush of the flower husk, but it hits me like a spring storm. I’m not denying what sparks between us, but it’s scary. Nate likes perfect, and I am everything but perfect.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Nate says. “I just wanted you to know where I stand. If all we ever do is paint fake birds together, I’m fine. Well, not fine, but I can deal with it.”

He lowers his head and studies his hands.

A silence settles between us.

I let out a Tiberius-like growl. “Do you always say the right thing?”

He contemplates me through the full black fans of his lashes, a slow smile curving his lips. “I try.”

This can’t work. I should run. But the truth is, I don’t want to. I like the feel of Nate’s foot against mine. I like the way he’s looking at me. I like the fact that he’s not filling the porch with noise. Perfect. Because he’s Nate.

I rub invisible dust from the shark teeth on the strap of my messenger bag. “Do you know how to tango?”

“As in the dance?”

I nod.

“Bucket list?”

Another nod.

He stands and holds out his hand to me. “No. But I know someone who does.”

At Nate’s house, he plants me in the large sunroom where we painted bird decoys and goes to find his aunt, leaving me alone with the creepy statue in the corner, the one with angel wings and a sword.

“That’s Saint Michael the Archangel.” The youngest Bolivar stands in the doorway. “He protects us against the wickedness and snares of the devil.”

“Marco! Rebel so does not want to talk about the snares of the devil.” It’s Little Miss Vogue.

Today she wears a red felt hat tilted across her forehead and a gray sheath with red boots, very 1920s.

I nod but give Saint Michael my undivided attention.

The felt-hat girl sits on a chair next to me. “How do you get the blue color so bright?”

Saint Michael is grinding his foot into some guy’s head but managing to look saintly.

“And how do you keep your hair so shiny and healthy looking? Are all those waves natural?”

Girl with Red Hat reaches out a hand, and I duck. “Go away.”

“It’s my house.” She crosses her right leg over her left and swings a red boot. She stares and swings. Swings and stares.

“Exactly why are you watching me?” I ask.

The swinging stops. “You have panache.” The little girl’s eyes grow wide and shiny, like Macey’s when she digs through peaches. “You have style and flair. People notice you.”

“I don’t give a damn about panache.”

“Which makes it work even better. It’s the juxtaposition of who you are on the outside with who you are on the inside. It totally works.”

I can’t believe I’m sitting next to a ten-year-old who uses the word
juxtaposition.
And
panache.

“What’s your name?”

“Carla Gabriella Maria Soltera Bolivar. Everyone calls me Gabby.”

“Okay, Gabby. I’m going to be honest with you. With all your staring, you’re bugging the shit out of me.”

“You shouldn’t swear.”

I jump. The littlest Bolivar sits in a chair on my other side.

“And you shouldn’t run around in your underwear,” I say. Today’s tightie whities are sprinkled with dump trucks.

He sticks out his tongue and runs away.

“People must stare at you all the time,” Gabby says. “You’re beautiful.”

I’m not tall and leggy like Cousin Pen and the Cupcakes. I’m not elegant and put together like Aunt Evelyn. And I don’t have that adventurous, windblown look my mother pulled off. Even with the blue streaks, I have average brown hair with average waves and average brown eyes.

Before I bemoan my less-than-average chest, Nate walks in with Tia Mina. She strokes her chin as she glides in a half circle around me. “You could do well at the tango. You short, but all legs. You have attitude. Passion.”

“I have a pain-in-the-butt bucket list,” I say under my breath.

Nate hides a chuckle behind his hand.

“Yes, I teach.” She claps her hands and leaves the room, waving over her shoulder. “Take off shoes. I be back.”

I kick off my flip-flops, and they make a happy, clacking sound as they hit the tile floor. “I like this dance already.”

Nate slips his hand along my back and guides me to the middle of the floor, his tennis shoes making soft, shuffling sounds, his palm firm and steady, as if there is nothing unusual about escorting girls with blue hair to tango lessons. A warped laugh builds in my chest, and I’m about to let it loose when Tia Mina walks back in, a pair of strappy black heels dangling from her fingers.

“For you,” she says.

I wave off the offending creatures. “No, thank you.”

“But Nate is so tall,” Gabby says. “With the stilettos, you’ll fit better in his arms.”

“I can’t walk in heels, let alone dance in them.”

Gabby crosses her hands over her chest. “It’s not a true tango without heels.” Tia Mina nods.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Nate’s arched eyebrow. “Fine. I’ll wear the heels, but please note, I cannot be held liable for any bodily damage I cause to anyone in this room while in these shoes.”

“I’ll risk it.” Nate’s voice is a low thrum, his fingers warm against my back.

After I put on the heels, Tia Mina shows us how to create the frame. I rest my hand on Nate’s rock-hard shoulder. I can see why he’s one of the baseball team’s superstars. Nate’s hand settles at my waist. He must feel the butterflies stampeding in my midsection. Tia Mina joins our free hands, palm to palm, just like that moment in his dad’s truck when we were surrounded only by darkness and the brush of each other’s breath. My hand trembles, as if I’m going through nicotine withdrawal. Nate is steady, poised.

“Slow … slow … quick, quick … slow.” Tia Mina claps her hands. “Got it?”

Nate nods. I don’t. The movements are fast and jerky. My feet tangle, and I fall, my tailbone smacking the cold tile. “That would be slow … slow … quick, quick … crash,” I say.

Nate helps me stand. We go through the movements again, Nate confident and encouraging. I step on his toes. I step on my toes. At one point I step on Gabby’s toes.

“You don’t go to many school dances, do you?” Gabby asks.

I ignore her. When I manage to make it across the floor without stumbling, Tia Mina announces we’re ready to try it with music.

“And this,” Gabby says. She thrusts a red bushy flower made of paper under my nose.

I wave off the monstrosity. “I am not going to hold a flower between my teeth.”

“Don’t be a dork, Rebel. It’s for your hair.” Gabby’s nimble fingers slide through my hair as she pins the flower behind my ear.

“Perfect,” Nate says as he takes me into his arms.