Love, Stargirl (17 page)

“Is the number classified too? How many Honeybees are there? Just the three I met at Pizza Dee-Lite?”

“That’s all,” he said. “But there’s no limit. There’s a slot open for number four. Want to apply?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not a harem kind of girl.”

“You get to wear a Honeybee tattoo.”

I swooned. “Where do I sign up?”

He laughed. “So you’re a one-guy kind of girl, huh?”

I’m not good at playing coy, but I was trying. “Maybe.”

“Arizona Leo?”

He remembered. Did that mean something?

“You have a good memory.”

“The guy who dumped you.”

“I never said that.”

“Dootsie did.”

“Dootsie lies. She admits it.”

He looked off across the park. “Well, anyway, dumped or not, he’s there….”

“And you’re here.”

He threw out his arms. “Up close and personal.”

I had a premonition of those arms closing around me. And a memory of yours. “Such wonders I must be missing,” I said with mock dismay. “Me and my silly anti-harem principles.”

He turned those deep blues on me. “Yeah. Too bad.”

The words fit our quippy, flirty script, but his eyes said something else. We were still sitting cross-legged on the picnic table. Our knees were touching. I felt the need to keep chattering.

“So, is that what this is, a recruiting trip? You’re trying to sign me up?”

He put on a face of mock innocence. “Where’d you get that idea? Why would I want to do that?”

“That was answered back at Pizza Dee-Lite—you think I’m fascinating.”

“Stephanie said that. I said ‘interesting.’”

“So”—I nudged his knee—“what is it you find so
fascinating
about me?”

“Interesting.”

“I prefer
fascinating.
”

He pretended to think. “Well…for one thing, you’re not a typical girl.”

“Old news. I already told you that on the roof that night.”

“You were right.”

“And you were wrong.”

He sighed. “Mea culpa.”

“So,” I said, “
how
am I not typical?”

“You want specifics?”

“I want specifics. I want details. I want flattery.”

He turned himself ninety degrees so he was now facing me broadside. His stare was a blue-eyed laser that seemed to peel the skin from me.

“You have freckles across your nose. They spill onto your cheeks a little.”

“Piddlefoo. Freckles are common.”

“Eleven.”

I boggled. “You
counted
them?” I had never counted them myself.

“In the library that day. While you were yelling at me.”

“You were spitting lemon seeds all over the library. And I did not yell. I berated. What else?”

He stared some more. I was uncomfortable being a target in profile, so I rotated a quarter turn. Now we were face to face, knees to knees.

“You don’t wear designer labels.”

“I hate labels.” I looked him over. “I guess you hate them too.”

He seemed to wince at that, then said simply, “Yeah.”

I regretted my words as soon as I said them. The shirt he was wearing was the same one he wore every time I saw him. He lived in a little space behind a bike and lawn mower repair shop. He stole food. He shopped in Dumpsters. Hate had nothing to do with Perry Delloplane and labels. He was simply poor.

It was in me to apologize, but he would say, “Why?” and I would have to reply, and I was afraid to bring the subject out into the open. So I tried to steer us back to safer ground. “So that’s it? Labels and freckles?”

“You’re not stuck on yourself. You don’t touch your hair every ten seconds. You don’t look into a mirror every five minutes. You don’t wear makeup.”

“I plucked my eyebrows once.”

“Not lately.”

We laughed.

“You don’t act like you’re gorgeous.”

“Even though I am, right?”

“No, you’re not.” He said it so casually, I knew he meant it. “Neither are most girls. But that doesn’t stop them from acting like it.”

“Wait a minute. Let’s go back to the part where I’m
not
gorgeous.”

His eyebrows arched innocently. “Problem?”

He had me feeling wobbly again. Talking with this guy never seems to go the way I want.

I shrugged. “Well, I guess not. Not if beauty is in the eye of the beholder—and you’re the only beholder I see around here.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“So,” I said, “let me get this straight. I’m typical because I’m
not
gorgeous, and I’m
not
typical because I don’t act as if I
am
gorgeous.”

“Something like that.”

“So…if I’m not gorgeous, what am I?”

He grinned. “You’re asking for a label?”

I grinned. “Touché.”

He made a bubble with his chewing gum and popped it. “So what’s his last name?”

I flinched. “What? Who? Where’d
that
come from?”

“Arizona Leo. The guy who didn’t dump you.”

“I’m not finished with the other conversation yet. I want to know more reasons why you like me.”

He held up a warning finger. “Hey, I said you’re interesting—”

“Fascinating.”

“—fascinating. I never said I like you.”

I did a mopping-the-brow pantomime. “Oh good. That’s a relief. Because I don’t like you either. Wouldn’t that have been icky if we didn’t agree?”

He spat out his chewing gum. “Icky.”

“Borlock.”

He nodded, smiling. “Leo Borlock.” He pulled out another stick of gum. He handed me the wrapper. “Leo Borlock, huh?” He seemed to chew on both the gum and the name. I felt a flurry of questions about you coming on, but instead he said, “Oh yeah, the calendar.”

“Huh?”

A conversation with Perry Delloplane is about as straightforward as the path of a soccer ball.

“Your calendar. That’s pretty not typical too.”

“Really?” I said. “You don’t think many girls plant a spatula in a farmer’s field every week and at the end of the year wind up with a big homemade sundial to celebrate the Winter Solstice? You don’t think so?”

“Not girls
or
boys.”

“So you’re impressed.”

“Sort of.”

“Just sort of?”

“Very sort of.”

“And your crappy home planet, does it have a Solstice? Does the sun ever rise on Poop World?”

His reply wasn’t the grin and quip I expected, just: “Once in a while.”

“Well then”—I paused, plunged—“do I have a treat for you. How would you like to join this impressive, fascinating girl next time she goes to plant a sunrise marker on Calendar Hill?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”

I remembered waiting for him on that morning back in August, hoping. I reminded myself that I had not specifically invited him that time. I wouldn’t make the same mistake now.

I tapped his knee. “Thursday morning. This is Friday. That’s six days from now. Can you remember?”

“I can count to six.”

“
Before
sunrise.”

“Before sunrise.”

I told him where it is. I had never seen him on a bicycle. “Can you get there?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you wake up early enough?” I knew I was pushing too hard, but I couldn’t help myself. “You have an alarm clock?”

“I don’t need alarm clocks.”

“Me neither,” I said. “I live in a house without clocks.”

“Me too.”

I believed it. I think he would be a clockless person, rich or poor. We seemed to intersect at many points. Suddenly I felt flirty again. “So, jealous?”

This time he was the one taken off guard. “Huh?”

“Of Leo?”

He grinned. “No comment.”

“You know,” I said with an air, “Leo said the same thing to me once, the first time I ever had a real conversation with him.”

“Really?”

“Really. He was already starstruck—so to speak. I had sent him a valentine card and tweaked his ear in the lunchroom and, you know, just generally overwhelmed him with my charms. I think you can relate to that.”

“Right.”

“Right. But he was so shy and absolutely terrified of me. So he still had not spoken a single word to me. And then this one night I looked out the window and I saw him walking up and down the street in front of my house, trying to work up the nerve to make a move.”

“Did he?” Perry’s expression and voice said,
I’m really not interested,
but I knew that was a mask.

“No. So I did. As soon as I opened the front door he ducked behind our car in the driveway. We talked, but we never laid eyes on each other. At least not directly. Cinnamon scooted under the car and went to him. So at least Cinnamon saw him. I asked him if he thought I was cute.”

“Wha’d he say?”

“That’s a silly question. A resounding
Yes!
of course. And that’s when I asked him if he thought Cinnamon was cute too, and that’s when he said, ‘No comment.’”

“You remember everything people say to you?”

I locked into his eyes. “Everything
some
people say to me.”

We fell silent. We just looked at each other, sitting cross-legged on the picnic table. As in my meditations, I had no awareness of time passing, only a sense of the air between us electrified with eyes.

When we got down from the table, I found, to my surprise, that I was chewing gum. We walked off through the park, and I think we were both relieved to turn our talk to safer subjects, idle chitchat, anything but ourselves.

October 6

I know you have questions, Leo. And I know you’re busy with other things at college. So I’ll ask them for you:

YOU: Do you like him?

ME: Yes.

YOU: Love him?

ME: Next question.

YOU: I hear he counted your freckles.

ME: He did! You believe it?

YOU: He likes you, doesn’t he?

ME: Mm…yes.

YOU: Yes, but?

ME: He’s a rolling stone. His nickname is Dandy. He has a harem.

YOU: And you want him all to yourself.

ME: I didn’t say that.

YOU: Maybe you’re afraid if you get too close to him he’ll dump you.

ME: Maybe.

YOU: Like I did.

ME: I wish you wouldn’t put it that way.

YOU: But I did. I dumped you. And I’m sorry. I regret it now.

ME: Hey—enough! This is
my
fantasy interview. I’ll give you your lines.

YOU: Sorry.

ME: Speaking of sorry, why don’t you ask me if I feel sorry for him.

YOU: Do you feel sorry for him?

ME: “Sorry” doesn’t sound right. Maybe “caring.”

YOU: Would you like to fix his crappy world?

ME: I can’t fix his world. Maybe I can fix him. A little bit, at least.

YOU: How?

ME: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just by being around him. He handed me his chewing gum wrappers yesterday. That’s a start.

YOU: Fixing a person—some people might call you a busybody.

ME: So be it.

YOU: So, with this Perry guy here, what are we talking about—a reclamation project or a budding romance?

ME: I’ll let you decide.

YOU: Are you surprised he hasn’t tried to kiss you yet?

ME: Yes.

YOU: Do you want him to?

ME: Yes.

YOU: What about me?

ME: No comment.

October 7

O = (BY)210 Birch(F)

October 8

I met Alvina after school. I did the most basic kid thing you can do: I took her to Pizza Dee-Lite. I prayed her enemy boys wouldn’t show up. They didn’t. She threw a small fit because a mushroom from my half of the pizza wound up on her pepperoni half. Otherwise she was harmlessly unpleasant. As per Mrs. Klecko’s instructions, I simply tried to be myself. I have a feeling I’m not rubbing off on her.

October 9

Margie has a new helper. A woman. She does what Alvina did—sweeps, helps out in the kitchen, keeps the coffee going. Except she gets paid in real money, not donuts. Her name is Neva. Margie introduced her to me, saying I’m her “best customer.” “Hi,” I said. “Neat name.” “Thanks,” she said, and went back to the coffee urn. Not exactly chummy. Suddenly grumpy Alvina wasn’t looking so bad.

Neva looks to be maybe in her late thirties, forty. Her brown hair is long and curly and streaked with blond highlights. She wears dangling earrings and oodles of makeup. You might say she’s glamorous (from the neck up), but you hardly notice because she’s so shy. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t look at Margie when Margie speaks to her. She doesn’t look up when the door tinkles and someone comes in. She wears a huge, gaudy diamond that must be a fake. She wears loose dresses. I guess she has to, because she’s pregnant. Very.

October 10

Tomorrow is Thursday. Calendar Hill day.

October 11

He wasn’t there. I can’t believe it.

This time I didn’t hang around waiting for him. I planted the marker and ran back to the house. I told my mother I felt like taking a ride. I pedaled to Betty Lou’s house. The sun was just now coming up. I knew she was still sleeping but I didn’t care. I punched the bell until she opened the door. She was so shocked when she saw me that she took a step outside the doorway. When she realized where she was, she shuddered, pulled me inside, and slammed the door.

“Stargirl, what’s the matter?”

I started to tell her.

“Wait—” she said. She led me by the hand into the kitchen. She made coffee and put out donuts. She took a seat at the opposite end of the table. Then she grabbed another chair and pulled it close to me. She took my hand. She rubbed it. She studied my face. “I’ve never seen you this angry. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you angry at all.” She studied me some more. She cupped her hands over my ears, pulled them away, put them back, pulled them away. “I’m making smoke signals from the steam coming out of your ears.”

A chuckleball escaped before I could stop it. “Don’t make me laugh, Betty Lou. I’m not in the mood.”

She dropped the smile. “I know. Sometimes I make light of things at the wrong time. I guess I think anyone lucky enough to have a mockingbird outside her window can never have a bad day.” She petted my hand. “So…tell.”