Shrimp (7 page)

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standing there confused and wanting to know what's in Humboldt County; maybe if my mother hadn't sent me off to boarding school for so long I'd know what's in my own state. Then just as he was heading up the stairs toward his balcony section, Shrimp turned around and walked back over to where I was still standing in the lobby, watching him, wanting to hyperventilate with happiness--and confusion. Shrimp stood in front of me, and it was like our live awkward slo-mo moment. What were we supposed to do here? Do we really even know each other anymore? Shrimp leaned his face into mine like he was going to kiss me. I
mucho
wanted those full lips of his but I turned my cheek slightly and offered him my hand instead.

We have a long way to go, despite my urge to tear that canary yellow leisure suit from his body and have my way with him.

His face leaned close to my lips again, then diverted to my ear. Shrimp mumbled, "Next Saturday, eightish, party for the parents. Rooftop."

The feel of his soft lips against my hand, the graze of his chin stubble on my wrist, and his breath whispering into my ear had made my legs all Jell-0 and I was swooning as I turned around to return to my seat. My eyes fell on Nancy, whom all the men were checking out, with her perfect blond hair in a French twist and her model figure wearing a form-fitting couture evening dress, standing in a corner with a Perrier in her manicured hand, where she must have been watching Shrimp and me.

Nancy had the lemon-sucking face on again, like,
Oh, no, here we go again.

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*** Chapter 8

I really am
so over the Wallace crush, but walking back onto that roof at Java and Shrimp's house, overlooking Ocean Beach with the smell of serious coffee brewing and the view of Java flipping the veggie burgers on the grill while wearing a Java the Hut apron over his wet suit, well, I couldn't help but think, Mmm, break me off a piece of
that.
Something about the smell of the Ocean Beach salt air and eucalyptus trees seeping through the aroma of Java the Hut coffee beans, something about that particular mixture of scents brought me back instantly to the beginning of summer, when Shrimp and I were still On. The smell sent my hormones into immediate overdrive and almost made me forget how I have decided engaged man Wallace has become slightly a sellout and wouldn't I like to see him naked on a honeymoon, all buff and showering our matrimonial bed with Java beans instead of rose petals.

I gave myself a mental slap on the wrist and tried to distract myself from further impure thoughts. My eyes searched the rooftop, where a large group of teen to middle-aged people--hippie/surfer/artist types, very grunge, your basic Ocean Beach crowd--were hanging out for Iris and Billy's welcome-home party. I was scanning for Shrimp, whom my eyes spied lying on a hammock and motioning me from where I was standing at the door. I licked the Java-inspired drool from my lips and walked through the crowd toward Shrimp.

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I couldn't help but remember that the last time I had been on this rooftop I was in a moonlit, whispered convo with Java--nothing romantic, just dishing about life and past loves and your basic deep thoughts, I suppose--while Shrimp and Delia were passed out in their sleeping bags next to us. My welcome home from that party had been a sentence to Alcatraz, courtesy of Sid and Nancy. Now I am not only past imprisonment but I'm completely paroled, although I did have to promise to be waiting downstairs to be picked up by Fernando promptly at eleven o'clock this evening. Most amazingly the evening air was warm enough for me not to be layered in wool and tights. That is one thing I loved about New York: the late-night summer hanging out, when it's so hot you could just stand in your birthday suit with a fire hydrant spraying you with
agua
and be perfectly content. Danny and his boyfriend have this great blacktop lounge area on the roof of their brownstone building. I guess it's their one consolation for living on a fifth-floor walk-up apartment. They have plastic beach chairs lying around up there with Jackie Collins and Sidney Sheldon books folded inside and card tables for when their buds come over for mah-jongg games, and a karaoke machine that Aaron uses to sing Kylie Minogue songs. From that rooftop you can see the Empire State Building and all of midtown Manhattan looking like a Lite Brite game. From Shrimp and Java's rooftop you can see the Pacific Ocean and Mount Tamalpais in Marin County if it's not too foggy and if you're willing to brave the Ocean Beach chill.

Hammocks are serious business intimacy-wise, so I was glad Shrimp was sitting up in his by the time I reached him. I could feel the
Fatal Attraction
instinct to machete

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down all the party people just to get rid of them so I could have some personal hammock time lying next to Shrimp. I sent a mental memo to my future, dictating,
Hammock-- Watch This Space.
The desire to lie in the hammock with Shrimp spooning me from behind, maybe nestling his head on my shoulder, running his fingers through my hair and massaging my scalp, just the two of us alone together, breathing in the ocean air and each other, was one that would have to hold out a while longer. My mental memo received an instant reply:
CC, play a little hard to get, why don't you? The boy did break up with you and did kinda break your heart.

I sat down on the hammock next to Shrimp and crossed my arms over my chest. "Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said back.

What is with the
heys?
He's, like, been inside me. You'd think two soul mates would have more to say, but we were both silent after our greetings. Our non-conversation was broken by the sound of the ocean crashing down from across Great Highway. The sound of the ocean breaking our silence was like chocolate syrup poured into a glass of milk, dispersing into awkward dark clumps while waiting to be stirred.

If Shrimp is my one true love, shouldn't conversation come a little easier?

I saw Helen sitting on a bench on the other side of the roof, talking to some surfer-rat guy and a dreadlocked girl. Helen waved at me and I waved back. I considered ditching Shrimp and our empty air to go talk with Helen. I barely know her, and I think I could fill hours of conversation with her (most of it about Shrimp). No pressure.

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My wave prompted Shrimp to speak. "You know Helen?" Not the words for which I was waiting:
Oh, Cyd Charisse, I've missed you so much, I think of you every waking second, I love, need, and want you, baby, I can't live another moment without you.

"Yeah, she's my new chum." To Shrimp's surprised look, I added, "Why, is that so weird?"

Shrimp shrugged. "That's cool. I just never knew you to have girlfriends before."

"Well, maybe you didn't really know me either."

"Vice versa." His tone wasn't angry or mean, and mine hadn't been either. We were just stating facts.

"How do you know Helen?" I asked. "From your art classes?"

"Kinda," Shrimp said. "But mostly cuz our friend has this mild crush on her."

Oh, someone with a crush on Helen! Delicious! I pointed to the surfer-rat guy Helen was talking to. "That guy?" I said.

Shrimp laughed. 'Arran the long boarder? No, I don't think so. He's saving himself for some bimbo
Penthouse
ideal that will never happen past his nocturnal fantasies." Shrimp cocked his head in the direction of the dreadlocked girl talking with Helen and Arran. "Her. Autumn."

THAT WAS AUTUMN! My eyes widened as I tried to get a better look at the she-devil who had been haunting my nightmares since Shrimp broke up with me. Autumn was standing beneath a string of red chili pepper lights and appeared to be a light-skinned black girl, but one with the eye shape and facial bone structure similar to the Vietnamese girls at the
pho
soup shops on Clement Street.

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She had one of those warm, infectious smiles wrapped by an impossibly perfect-shape mouth--big full lips and gleaming white teeth--that just made me want to hurl. So much for my assumption that any surfer girl named Autumn had to be a red-haired, hairy-armpitted, folk-singing, sun-kissed California white girl, like, fer sure. And so much for my assumption that the Autumn chick was jonesing for my man.

I laughed a little, and for the first time since being back at Java and Shrimp's house, I relaxed. I uncrossed my arms from over my chest and leaned a little closer to Shrimp. "What's that grin for?" Shrimp asked.

"Maybe I'm just surprised. Last summer when I was grounded and Delia told me about how Autumn was your surfing friend and how she had taken my job at Java the Hut, I was like so sure you and she hooked up while I was banished in Pacific Heights."

"I told you when we broke up that nothing had happened between me and Autumn," Shrimp said. His hand on his lap moved to his knee so his pinkie finger was touching mine, and our knees were
this close
to knocking. It would be rude to just randomly make out on a hammock at a party where people are socializing all around you, and where your intended make-out partner's parents are being celebrated, right? Even if there clearly was a need to celebrate something else--that the Autumn chick was not a playa in the Shrimp-CC love duel?

I said, 'And if I had realized Autumn was gay I wouldn't have been so, you know, hung up on the idea that you and she had hooked up."

Shrimp said, "Oh, we hooked up. After." My hormonal

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overdrive shifted from lust to boiling point on the verge of major temper tantrum. I had to summon every ounce of willpower not to SCREAM at the top of my lungs. My temper was held in check by the view of Iris standing next to Java. I had to avert my eyes so Shrimp's mom wouldn't notice my aura turning to THUNDERCLOUD RAGE RAGE RAGE. "Right before I left for PNG. We just didn't, like, finish the job up. It was sort of a
You're here and I'm here, and we're both kinda bored and curious
hookup. Didn't mean anything, y'know?"

Yeah, I do know. His name was Luis, but what does that have to do with anything?

Why does Shrimp have to be so honest all the time? Why can't he ever lie, just a little, if for no other reason than to prevent me from wanting to pounce on over to Autumn and claw her freakin' eyes out. And I wouldn't mind jabbing my hammock partner into a Shrimp étouffée right now either.

My arms crossed back over my chest and I could feel my mouth turning into a jut so mad that the expression was in danger of being permanently molded to my jaw. I said, "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do know. There was a guy in NYC who worked for my bio-dad. But it also wasn't an all-the-way situation."

I looked into Shrimp's eyes and thought,
Are we even now? Can we move on?

Apparently not. Shrimp just let it out: 'Are you over that crush on my brother?"

If Shrimp and I are ever going to get back on course, one of us eventually has to give, so as an experiment in aura improvement, I figured why not let it be me? I said,

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"That so-called crush is like a tumor, but a benign one, see? Do you get it?"

Shrimp's mouth turned into a slight, gnarly half-smile. "I guess," he said. "I kinda have a crush on your mom."

Payback is a bitch.

Iris plopped down next to our hammock, sitting on a stool made from a tree stump. Her presence saved me from responding to Shrimp's proclamation, which would have required me wading into an area so gross all I could picture was a Goya-type painting of me drowning in a boiling cauldron of icky worm-snake creatures wrapping themselves around my flailing self. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Cyd Charisse," Iris said. She took my hand in hers. "I'm so glad you were able to come tonight. A little surprised, too. Shrimp, Wallace, and Delia all had wagers going on whether your mother would let you back into this house." Iris shouted toward Delia, who was pumping the keg. "Dee, you owe Shrimp ten bucks!"

Shrimp patted my knee like he was my grandpa--what was that about?--and hopped off the hammock. "I'll catch up with you later," he said to me. Hmmph, maternal avoidance much?

I watched Shrimp from behind--he really has such a nice ass--small and round and just pert--as he walked away to join his brother. The view of Wallace and Shrimp standing together, identical ocean-wind-whipped hair, laughing the same laugh and smiling the same smile, made me turn to Iris, their creator. She was looking at the brothers too, with that mama lioness look of pride. "Blessings on their mama," were the words floating through my head, and from Iris's big smile back at me, I realized the words had traveled from my

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brain and out of my mouth. Iris reached over and ran her fingers through the front of my hair, like Nancy does when I let her. That simple Mommy touch helped downgrade my boiling-point temperature.

Iris said, "Do you have some room for me on that hammock?" She stood up from the tree-stump chair and wrapped the caftan edges of her long dress tight around her legs. I moved over to give her room but she said, "Oh, no, let's lie down and look at the stars. Of course, with all the pollution here you can't really see the night sky like you can in the South Pacific, but I'm betting we'll see something worthwhile."

Being fundamentally weird and prissy, I did not want to share the hammock with her, but Iris was also the mother of my manifest destiny so I figured better not offend her by suggesting she might be invading my personal space. Luckily Iris lay down in the direction opposite me so we were toe-to-head instead of head-to-head. I must admit, the gentle sway of our two bodies on the hammock was rather nice in the brisk night ocean air, and hey, those stars up there, the ones you could see through the slight fog haze, were right twinkly.

Iris said, "I'm not really a city person, but I do love San Francisco. The eucalyptus smell out here by the beach, it's almost intoxicating. And it's warm tonight, for San Francisco at least! The last time I was here, when we moved Shrimp into this house with Wallace, I had to wear a down coat to be up here on the boys' roof. And it was July!"

Next time I can corral Shrimp into a round of my Job for a Day game, I want to be a concierge at one of those fancy San Francisco hotels, as I am sure tourists would