Icon of the Indecisive (7 page)

Chapter 16

TAKE A DIP - FIRST BEACH PARTY OF THE SUMMER!

BY INVITATION ONLY.

The poster was handmade, using markers, blue and green text against a beach and palm trees. I wondered for a bit who had drawn it because the sea water art actually looked cool and inviting. Or it was just that hot lately. It would be even hotter by next week, which was when the party was supposed to be, and the timing was perfect.

Sol and I were parked right in front of the poster, looking at it far longer than it took to read the few lines of text.

"So are you going to this?" she asked.

"It might be the thing Robbie mentioned to me on our post-Valentine dinner," I said.

"So you're both going?"

"I want to, but I don't know if I'm good with my mom about trips with Robbie yet."

"Right." Sol was chewing on her lip. "Are they inviting sophomores to this? I can't decide if I want to be invited. I don't want to be pathetic and begging for the approval of these cool people, but it's really hot and humid you know? A beach trip would be great. And I'd like to meet other people."

I shrugged. "It'll be the same people who are here right now."

"But they'll be shirtless there. And friendlier. You shouldn't be concerned at all. You have a boyfriend
and
you're probably invited anyway."

"I haven't gotten anything."

"Oh come on. They're just late sending it, if you haven't gotten it yet. You're the queen of the sophomores right now, if you haven't noticed. Well, maybe just the princess. Kathy Martin is queen."

"I'm not the princess. But yes the girl who has her own TV show should be queen."

Sol took a photo of the poster with her phone. "What do you mean you're not princess of us right now? You are. You're more popular right now than you were when the school year started. You don't notice the gazillion people who just start talking to you in the hallways?  And then you talk to them like you're friends? It's a little weird."

"Of course I've noticed. And they eventually become friends."

"Well, I used to be your only friend. Me and the basketball captain."

What Sol was not saying was that she used to have a boyfriend, and now she didn't, and that was probably why she was so aware of how larger my circle seemed to be.

"Basketball what?" said a voice, and Robbie's arms came around me from behind. It was super casual, as if he did this all the time.

Sol blinked. "We were talking about this party, Robbie, and if we lowly sophomores would be invited to it."

I felt him plant a kiss on my cheek and I couldn't help but smile. "Please tell Sol she's not lowly."

"You are gorgeous and definitely among the better sophomores," Robbie said.

"Haha." Sol looked dismissive, but I could tell that she was flattered. "I'm so glad you two are together now, Robbie. I was rooting for you all along."

"Thank you," Robbie said, and in his mind
Rooting for me against?

"So do you have a secret girlfriend in your hometown?" she asked, taking even me by surprise.

"No," he answered.

"And are you a secret klepto?"

He smiled. "Not that either."

"Good. Great start for you two then," Sol said.

"Hi," someone else said, and we all turned to see Mara Bautista. I knew her; she had opened up to me before about a crush on a guy who didn't like her back. She smiled and handed me and Robbie a small blue envelope each. "See you at the beach!"

And then she walked away.

Inside the envelope was a small white card that just had driving directions to a specific beach house in Batangas, about an hour and a half from here.

Sol did not get her own envelope. "Great, I guess that answered my question."

"You can have mine," I said, thrusting the card into her hands. "I'll be Robbie's plus one."

"I don't think it works that way, Hannah."

"Look, if I actually am as popular as you say, they'll let you in. Because I want you there."

It was as good as done if Mara was involved in inviting people, because she was devoted to me. All I had to do was ask.

Sol sighed. "Fine. I will keep this pity invite and think about it. And I have to go. See you tomorrow okay?"

Robbie still had his arms around me and we
silently watched Sol walk away. But I could hear his thoughts, and he was stuck on that simple thing that Sol said.
I was rooting for you.

Who else is interested in her

I wonder how far that guy got

Who is that guy or guys

I turned around and tiptoed to kiss him, and he met me halfway with one that took away my breath. In a good way.

Oh Robbie. I understood how he felt. He had the same thoughts as mine, or at least what mine used to be.

Used to be used to be used to be.

Chapter 17

That particular Saturday would have been Introduce Robbie to My Mom Day, and I wanted it to be because I wanted to ask about the beach party, but it didn't happen. Because she had plans.

She actually had plans! That was a good thing. She didn't want to admit it, but I suspected that she was having fun. For the first time in years. She and my dad separated over five years ago, and though she eventually accepted it, she didn't exactly start enjoying life right away. Before I went to college her life was all about me, and the things she had to do for me.

I missed her, but I wanted her to have a little fun too. It took almost two years of living alone again, but I think it was finally happening.

"Who are these plans with?" I teased. I called her on a Friday night, and caught her out with friends. I could barely hear her because there was something wailing a Bon Jovi song in the background.

"Someone at work. Can you not ask so many questions first? I really don't know what to think of this yet." To my knowledge she hadn't summoned the Goddess of Love just yet, so whatever it was, she wasn't feeling so conflicted about it. And I tried not to probe the hearts of people I actually knew, if I could help it.

"I trust you," I said, laughing.

"I definitely need to meet Robbie though. He's the basketball captain, right? The guy you were talking about last year?"

"No, Mom, that guy's just a friend."

"Oh, that's weird. Anyway—the house is a mess, so let me just take him out for pizza or something. I'll let you know when. Is he okay with that?"

"He'll follow you anywhere, Mom."

So that was how I got that Saturday just for Robbie and me, and we did something I had never done before.

I did math with a boy.

"Four out of five."

"Wait
—what did I get wrong?"

"Number three. It should be 300.12 failures per million hours."

"No it's not. Give me that."

"I'm just telling you what's on the answer key."

"It's wrong."

"No, it's right."

We both reached for our phones and fired up our calculators. And then Robbie paused to look at his notes. "I messed up when I turned the page over."

"Yes you did."

Robbie laughed and uncapped his pen, starting over with the problem. "Why aren't you in applied math then?"

"I'm not good at it, but thanks for trying to flatter me."

"You're better than some of my classmates."

"We have stat in Psych. Some problems look familiar to me, that's all."

"Do you underestimate your abilities a lot?"

It was a joke, and it got him a poke in the rib. "I don't think I like calculating failure rates anyway."

"You won't have to do it if you're going to be a psychologist, that's true."

"Yeah, but three hundred failures per million hours? That's a lot of failures."

"It's not bad. Nothing ever runs twenty-four-seven for over a hundred years anyway."

"It's just weird that if this thing actually could be capable of running around the clock for that long, it'll still fail three hundred times. That's a lot."

"Does it help to know that on hundreds of thousands of instances it'll work perfectly fine?"

"Tell that to the unlucky three hundred."

Robbie stopped writing, and pushed his notes off his lap. Some of the loose sheets of paper fluttered off the bed (yes we were on his bed) and fanned out on the floor. Numbers that made sense to me when I was checking it, but just looked like random blue ink on the floor. 

Normal writing on normal paper on a normal floor.

Robbie's bedroom was becoming familiar, and on this, my fourth time, it was becoming less weird that his parents knew we were up here. I don't know, maybe I expected more sneaking around. But then I told myself I was assuming that based on other relationships, maybe more screwed-up ones, and that was a job I didn't have to take with me when I was with Actual Boyfriend.

I was liking this, by the way. Hanging out. Helping with homework. Saying hello to his mother. Small things that I knew others experienced. It was nice to have them happen to me.
 

It was nicer seeing them happen to Robbie, because he just loved it. Everything. The smallest things, like when I replied with a smiley face to some message he sent, would make him happy.

This conversation was making him happy. And curious. 

"So you're saying," Robbie said, pushing himself a tiny bit closer to me, "that you would rather this theoretical machine not be used at all, because of the highly unlikely chance it'll fail you?"

"Well..." Not when he put it that way. "It's just weird I guess, to put it down to a number like that. Why would anyone do anything if they could calculate their own failure rates?"

Robbie made a slight movement of his shoulders, and that brought him even closer, and soon his lips were so close that I could hardly keep track of what he was saying. "If you only knew how many times I told myself that this would never happen."

If only he knew that I knew. 

He planned to kiss me, and I surprised him by kissing him first. It didn't stop him from thinking though. Wondering why I would think of something like that.

Why the pessimism.

Why fixate on failure.

And he was right. It wasn't his fault that I knew how wrong things could get. 

Stop thinking about work, Hannah.

He nibbled on my lower lip, lightly, something he was trying out, and it tickled. 

I open my eyes and I am under the shade of a tall and old tree, and Quin is sitting on its overgrown root beside me. He's in jeans and a white shirt, and also a jacket, which is totally weird because it's so warm.

I am aware of where I am, and I am still in Robbie's room, still in Robbie's arms.

And I am here.

I blush in both locations.

"Not the right time, Quin," I say, with difficulty.

He is amused by my discomfort. "I just want to demonstrate that you can do this."

"Do what? Please get out of here now."

"You can live your life right now and still perform your duties as goddess."

"All right all right I get it—can I not do it right now though?"

"Right at this moment, your friend Jessica's calling out to you."

As he says it, I do hear her. Her song is clearer in this space, and I feel her torment.

Her mother knows about the pregnancy now.

Jessica is full of regret.

"I'll tell her that it's the truth, and that she should be relieved instead. This is going to help her more than hurt her," I say to Quin, rushing, trying to get his face out of my mind.

"Do it right now."

"Right now?"

"From here." He is speaking slowly, like he's taunting me.

I close my eyes and do that thing where I imagine taking Jessica's song, and cradling it, and whispering to it. I tell her to think of her baby first, and that it's more important to think of caring for it than hiding a secret.

I tell her to be honest with her mother.

I tell her to sleep well that night.

And that I'll talk to her in school and she should wait for me.

"Are you happy now?" I nearly scream at him.
 

The sound came out like a hiccup, and Robbie pulled back. "Are you okay?"

I couldn't help it. I blinked, and looked at where Quin would have been/had been/was probably still sitting.
 

"I'm fine," I said, lying to my boyfriend.