Love Edy (27 page)

His frown tilted only a tad.

“You could do something closer to home. All
of you could crowd in here like you used to and—”

“Daddy.”

“Edith, Dorchester isn’t safe at night!”

Edy sighed, reminding herself as she
rummaged through her knapsack for keys that his worrisome nature
was a sign of love, not distrust.

“I’m more capable than you give me credit
for. And anyway, we’ll be fine. We’re skating, not heading to a
knife fight on Blue Hill Ave.”

The twist of his face had her regretting the
words, so she kissed his cheek quickly, certain that her path to
escape narrowed by the second.

“Be safe,” he said in a voice a little too
soft, a little too serene.

She shot him a single inquisitive look and
left.

Edy peeked into the SUV idling at the curb
and scowled at the sight of Chloe. Mason was driving with Alyssa
Curtis in the front passenger seat. Matt and Lawrence sat like
bookends in the back with Chloe in the middle. Jessica Wilson sat
on Matt’s lap.

Alyssa and Jessica were the two
upperclassmen who Edy always assumed attended her birthday parties
under duress. Seeing them so clearly attached to the twins forced
Edy to rethink their motivations for the annual attendance. It
conjured up images of all the girls who used to compliment her
shirts or chat her up enthusiastically, in the hopes of gaining
sway with her boy of choice.

“Nice sweater,” Alyssa said in greeting.

Edy’s eyes narrowed to nothing. Never had
the girl spoken to her before.

“It is nice,” Mason concurred from behind
the wheel. “Sawn pick that out when you two went shopping for
curtains?”

The Dysons snorted with laughter.

“You shut up,” Jessica said. “
I
think
they’re cute. Always have been.”

She shot Edy a reassuring smile.

“I forget your name,” Edy said sweetly. “Or
the last time we spoke for that matter.”

The laughter snuffed out.

“Do me a favor and dial back the Cruella de
Ville,” Matt said.

If he thought for a second that his friends
wouldn’t be subjected to the Wyatt treatment, then he—

“Beautiful view back here,” Hassan said.

Edy jumped, turned to face him, then flushed
horribly, as latent understanding found her. He’d been looking at
her backside.

She groped for something clever. “Hey,” she
managed.

“Hey,” he said. “Haven’t seen you all
day.”

“Hadn’t touched her all day” was what came
to her mind. That he hadn’t wrapped arms around her waist or
pressed lips to hers all day. Him slumbering with an arm beneath
her head felt like eons ago. Was it really only the night
before?

“Stare at each other on your own time,”
Mason said. “Meet you at the rink.”

Their group met at the rink’s entrance and
queued for shoe rentals. When it was Edy’s turn at the counter,
Mason flanked her right and Matt her left, whispering in her ear
about a pierced and pudgy man, whom they likened to a walrus in a
leotard. Wasn’t he her type? Didn’t she want his number? They’d
make sure she got it if she wasn’t nicer to the other girls.

With only a pout that mimicked hurt
feelings, she promised to say nothing more. Absolute silence was
what she’d give those girls. That wouldn’t stop her from searing
glares though.

As the group laced up on benches, Jessica
and Alyssa traded barbs with the twins about their exes, slicing
words that cut, despite bright, deceptive smiles. With each
comment, irritation snaked through Edy, promising to tip her temper
to the point of words. So when Matt whisked Jessica onto the rink
and kissed her, Edy’s scowl followed them round and round, turning
circles that should have made her dizzy.

“Starving,” Mason announced. “Gonna make
Lawrence buy me something. Be right back.”

For some reason, he snatched Hassan by the
arm, steering him away. Edy looked around, wondering how she’d come
to be left with Alyssa Curtis. Where were the others? Even Chloe
would have been preferable then.

Alyssa was staring at Edy. “Am I really that
bad?”

Edy couldn’t keep her word to the twins and
answer her, so she decided to pretend she hadn’t heard.

“Wow. It’s as bad as everyone thinks. You’re
an absolute jerk,” Alyssa said.

Edy’s mouth fell open. “And you’re only
talking to me to get somewhere with Mason!” There. She hadn’t meant
to say it, but she’d been provoked.

“You’re either painfully conceited,” Alyssa
said, “or you enjoy playing the victim. It’s their fault though,
with the way they orbit you like the star of their solar system.
Are we all supposed to treat you like that? You go on and on about
when and under what conditions certain people to you. But just as
easily as I can talk to you, you can talk to me, too. I’ve seen you
every day for years. In the halls, on the street. I’ve seen you
walk right by me. Why don’t
you
talk to me?”

“Why would I do that?” Edy mumbled.

“Oh, I don’t know! Maybe to thank me for one
of the birthday presents I’ve gotten you every year for the last
six years.”

Edy shot her a sideways look, heat creeping
into her cheeks.

“The boys have nothing to do with it,”
Alyssa said. “People don’t speak to you because you don’t like to
be spoken
to
. You act like we’re the snobs, but you’re the
biggest snob of them all. You and yours are too good for everything
and everyone.”

Edy paused, mouth pregnant with a protest.
It reminded her of the time Ali had spent all afternoon professing
to be a consummate diver, fielding the laughs of his wife, Hassan,
and Edy. He’d climbed shirtless onto the diving board at their
resort in Belize, abdomen hairy and formidable, arms extended. A
pause ensued, weighted and silent, as they considered—only
briefly—that perhaps they didn’t know all there was to Ali
Pradhan.

And then he swan-dived into the pool.

Things weren’t always what they seemed to
be.

“If I’m so unbearable,” Edy said, “then why
do you come to the parties?”

She didn’t think she wanted to hear the
girl’s answer.

Alyssa hesitated.

“Mason loves you,” she said. “So I do
too.”

Edy considered the possibility.

She’d seen them horse playing in the hall
and exchanging the occasional hug or touch. But nothing more. “I
never knew you two were so serious.”

Alyssa shrugged. “As serious as anyone can
be with a Dyson.”

It occurred to Edy that being romantically
involved with someone who was all tickles and giggles had to be
difficult. How could you separate sincerity from situational
comedy? She pictured Alyssa leaning in to kiss Mason, only to have
her most vulnerable moment turned into fodder for laughs. Edy had
always thought her boys too good for the pickings around them.
Never once had she considered their shortcomings.

She hadn’t known that Mason and Alyssa were
an item, for example. Yet she’d seen him with other girls in the
hallway as readily as she’d seen him with Alyssa, grinning,
flirting, and cutting eyes as their bottoms sashayed past. Were
Hassan to ever treat her that way, Ali and Rani would have to bury
him piecemeal.

Mason appeared.

“Matt’s trying to show us up,” he announced
and held out a hand to Alyssa. “The bum thinks he’s Don Juan the
Figure Skater.”

Alyssa gave Edy a tight smile and whisked
away with Mason as Hassan showed up.

“You didn’t get food?” she asked, blinking
away lingering thoughts from the conversation just passed.

“I ordered fries for us, but Mason licked
’em.” Hassan shrugged.

“Ready?” he said and pulled Edy to her
feet.

He gripped her hand, eager, led her to the
rink, and then shot like a bullet. She whipped in alongside him,
ready for his punishing stride.

Back when Edy’s mother was a lowly assistant
D.A., she and Tessa Dyson would take the kids roller skating. The
women used to harbor a fanaticism for the sport that sucked them
all in, making their childhoods as much about strobe lights and
blading to disco as it was about football, family, and friends. But
though that was long ago, skating bonded them still. They managed a
competitive streak that outsiders couldn’t quite get.

Music pulsed and jolted as a dizzying array
of strobe lights streaked the rink. They circled at a blast,
fingers laced, hair flapping, bodies slicing in flawless sync. Edy
leaned in, leading, and shot him a wolfish grin.

“Keep up,” she warned.

His eyes lit with the deliciousness of her
taunt before he kicked into overdrive, yanking her forward into
breakneck speed. Edy shrieked in approval, then heckled as they
passed a meandering Mason and Alyssa circling the rink at a
crawl.

“Come on. I like your thinking,” Hassan
said, and they whipped around the rink again, twin minds of a
single devilish nature, racing toward the source of their next
amusement. And when they arrived, they circled Mason and Alyssa as
if they were prey, grinning at the winding way they moved. All
jerks and lurches from Alyssa’s inexperience with Mason’s jaw
clenched in his impatience.

“I’d say you should glue her to you,” Hassan
said, “But I doubt she can hold you up much longer.”

They swept off at the barb as Mason cursed,
crooks on the lam, laughing, chancing a second look. Together, Edy
and Hassan shot at triple speed, stockpiling velocity, feeling
invincible. This was them, them as they’d always been.

His arm slipped around her waist. She was
still getting used to that.

A day. It was all the time that had passed
since he’d pressed her hand to his heart and his lips against hers.
All was the same, and yet all was different, as if viewed through a
kaleidoscope of colors, ignited.

When the music slowed, he pulled her in for
an easy stroll to the up-tempo music. She relaxed in his embrace,
molding like seams stitched together, gliding, anticipating,
intuitive. Had they always fit so perfectly?

Yeah. They had.

Nineteen

School.

From the front passenger seat of the
Mustang, Edy stared down at her palms, palms creased with lines
Hassan could trace by heart—had traced by heart. He took one of her
hands in his.

“Ready?” he said.

She didn’t answer, instead allowing the
warmth of his hand and the familiarity of his fingers to coax her
to steadiness.

Not ready. But it wouldn’t matter.

He slapped a kiss on her cheek and bounded
from the Mustang before coming around to let her out. When Edy
slowed on climbing out, he bent and stuck his head into the car,
mouth close to her ear.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “We are what we
are. No regrets, right?”

That much she knew. Her back straightened
with the notion.

But her eyes swept the parking lot. Kids
clustered on the right and left, some by cars, others on bikes, a
few with skateboards. At least one car had its trunk open, hip hop
bounding from it. In a moment, all eyes would be on them.

“It feels fake,” she said. “Like putting on
a show.”

Hassan pulled a face.

“So, you’re acting when you’re with me?” A
smile played across his lips.

“No, but—”

“Then get out and kiss me already.”

He took her hand and pulled her from the
car. The moment she stood, he embraced her, and like always, she
became instantly aware of him—
painfully
aware of him. Aware
of the space between them, of the shared air they breathed. And
like always, she wanted to push straight through it.

“Did I ever tell you that I like theater?”
he said.

Edy smiled, tilting her chin up
expectantly.

“Me too.”

He leaned in closer, blotting out the
school, parking lot, and onlookers from her mind. Briefly, Edy
wondered if he could sense the wild pound of her heart, the shallow
breaths she had to try for, the sweat that formed on her brow. Then
he kissed her and all was forgotten.

With his hand against her cheek, his mouth
moved over hers, earning a flush of her face. Every place they
connected ignited her at his touch, beckoning her to boldness. She
lifted her hands to his waist and ran them to the small of his
back, reaching beneath the jacket and sweater for a feel of smooth
skin and taut muscle. The kiss ran deeper, and she stood on tiptoe,
not caring that her back was pressing into the side mirror of the
Mustang. A whimper of want escaped her. Then the school bell
rang.

Hassan cursed. He broke off from her,
leaving her to the chasm of his absence. “We’ll be late.” He said
it with a too-dry throat, pushing it out as if the words cost him
pain.

With her surroundings reappearing, Edy
remembered their goal, with the success of it painted clear on
shocked faces. Both Edy and Hassan had staked a claim in what would
become a well-documented kiss, staving off innuendo in the hopes of
conveying a clear message. “They were together,” that message said.
And while they hadn’t quite figured out how to address their
“togetherness” to their parents, they did know one thing. There was
no room for ambiguity at school, even if home was a different
matter.

She didn’t have long to wait. They were on
her before lunch, sullen and salty beauties with gazes that burned
and scowls that promised wrath. Wax-smooth skin and wintertime tans
were their mark, as lush, full-bodied locks hung around faces so
beautiful even their anger seemed a derivative of attractiveness, a
model of what the rest should aspire to. They bumped her in halls,
sneered in corridors, and muttered insults about her clothes, her
appearance, her nothingness.

But they were tragically mistaken.

They thought her as delicate as the daises
that bloomed in the spring, dipping with the wind, bending with
pressure, petals aflutter. It was what ballerina meant to those who
couldn’t know, who had never known the broken bones and the fire of
competition.