Tell Us Something True (10 page)

“I'm a terrible dancer.”

“So who's the lucky girl?” Mom asked.

“There is no lucky girl. I'm just going with friends.”

“Well.” She reached over and brushed my hair out of my eyes: her not-so-subtle way of letting me know I should have gotten a haircut before the dance. “I'm just glad you're going and not moping around the house.”

“Have I been moping?” I thought I'd gotten the pity party under control.

She straightened my tie. “I know you're hurt, River. But it's a good time for a reset. Time to dig back into your own life. It's the last months of your senior year. You've worked hard. You shouldn't have a care in the world.”

I thought about Daphne and all her problems. About Christopher, Mason and the others. Mom was right. I should have been carefree, but I couldn't help it; I still felt like I was alone in a boat in the middle of a lake.

Natalie came bounding into the room. “Your tie is too fat. You should wear the other one.”

I only had two and that Natalie knew this shouldn't have come as a surprise, though I never in a million years could have told you how many headbands or barrettes or pairs of tights she had.

“Come on.” She took me by the hand and led me back to my room. She opened my closet and pushed my clothes out of the way so that she could reach the hook in the back where my other tie hung.

“Just how often do you go snooping in my closet?”

“Pretty often,” she said.

I removed the red tie with the dolphins on it. She took the blue-and-black-striped one and put it around my neck and then tied it in a regular knot like she was tying her shoelace.

“There.” She stepped back. “You look different. Better. You look like a River Marks, not a River Dean.”

I pulled her to me and kissed the top of her head. “Thanks, Nat. I don't know what I'd do without you.”

Will honked and I said my good-byes. I was his first stop, so I grabbed the front seat.

“Nice tie,” he said. I was in the process of undoing Natalie's knot. Will was wearing an open shirt and a blazer with black jeans.

I reached over and changed the radio station. Will liked what I can only describe as girl music, mushy ballads and sugary pop.

“So before we get Maggie,” he said. “You wanna tell me what the real story is with this girl?”

“There is no real story.”

“So you're totally not into her?”

“Nope.”

“So, like, if there was a massive chemical attack and everyone in all of greater Los Angeles perished, but somehow the two of you survived, you'd start walking toward Bakersfield in search of another living female because you just aren't into her at all?”

“In that scenario, I suppose I could be into her.”

“Ha. Got you! You like this girl.”

“No. I still love Penny.”

Will sighed. “But Penny died in the massive chemical attack,” he said glumly.

Maggie was waiting outside in her driveway in a long red dress with her hair tied on top of her head in a style that looked both like she'd spent hours on it and like she'd done it in two seconds without a mirror. She wasn't big into makeup, but tonight she had on enough that she seemed five years older. A college woman come back to humor some high school boys by accompanying them to a silly dance.

“Whoa,” Will said as we pulled to a stop.

“Yeah. She looks awesome.”

She wobbled over to the car, trying to manage her high heels. I unrolled my window.

“I look amazing.” She twirled in a circle. “Don't I?”

She started to open the back door and Will shoved me hard.

“Dude. Give her the front seat. What's wrong with you?”

Will never made me give Maggie the front seat, but she was technically his date, so I jumped out and held the door for her.

She climbed in. “I could get used to this.”

Will looked at me in the rearview mirror. “So are you going to tell me where this Internet friend of yours lives?”

I'd been avoiding this moment. Daphne lived not only east of Fairfax, but so far east, it might as well have been another country.

“Boyle Heights.”

“Boyle Heights.” Maggie thought it over. “Okay. So we should take the 10.”

Will shifted out of park. “Let's do it.”

Just as I was about to unlatch the front fence, Daphne stepped out of her house and closed both doors behind her. There was only one streetlamp and it cast a weak yellow glow in her yard, just enough for me to see the electric purple of her dress and the way it fit her. Perfectly.

“Purple Rain?” she said as if she owed me an explanation, probably because I just stood there dumbstruck.

“Right. Yeah. Cool.”

“So you decided to abandon the theme and go, like, young corporate executive?”

“What? You don't like my tie?”

She took it in her hand and looked at me. “I hate it.”

I slipped it off as I led her to the car. I introduced Will and Maggie, who grinned at her stupidly, unable to hide their elation that she was anyone but Penny.

As we merged onto the freeway, Maggie turned down the radio. “So did anyone do any research on tonight's theme?”

“Actually, yeah,” Daphne said. “I did.”

“Really?” I stared at her.

“ ‘Purple Rain.' It's a Prince song. Also a wacko movie. He's a musical genius, or so people say. I listened to some of his stuff. It's pretty damn good.”

Maggie smiled. “I checked him out too. He's tiny!”

“Yeah,” Daphne said. “I could, like, wear him in a baby carrier. He's even skinnier than River.”

“Leave me out of this.”

Daphne grabbed my bicep. “You've got some skinny-ass arms, River.”

Maggie laughed. “You should see him in shorts.”

Again, the Eastside proved much closer than it was on my mental map of LA. We pulled into the lot and I could see a crowd gathered outside the gym, boys in suits and sports coats, girls in dresses, flowers pinned to shoulders and strapped to wrists (why hadn't I thought of flowers?), and somewhere in that crowd Penny probably stood, maybe with Evan's arm around her waist or his hand clasping hers.

Will put the car in park and Maggie turned to face us.

“Daphne,” she said. “You should know there's gonna be this girl here tonight. And River is under the misconception that the sun shines and the moon glows out of her ass. Sorry for being crude.”

“No apology necessary.”

“Thanks. Anyway, she is not made of unicorns and rainbows and all things pretty and sparkly and perfect. She's just a girl. Kind of average. Not super nice, not super mean. And what we need to do, the three of us, is to take River in there and show him a great time and prove that life goes on when your girlfriend stops loving you, if she ever loved you in the first place, because to me it seemed more like she just loved having a boyfriend she could totally control.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“Cry me a river, River.” Maggie never tired of this joke.

We got out and Maggie took Will's arm and glanced back over her shoulder and glared at me, so I offered Daphne mine and she took hold of my elbow with the hand with the wrist tattoo, and I took a deep breath and we walked from the parking lot up toward the gym doors and the purple light glowing from inside.

I scanned the crowd while trying hard to look like I wasn't scanning the crowd.

“So where is she?” Daphne asked.

“Where's who?”

“Don't play dumb, River. I know you're looking for her. Just point her out when you see her.”

And right then, like Daphne had cued her up for me, I saw Penny: head tossed back, laughing. She was wearing her hair in my favorite style—down—and a dark purple dress, almost black. She had on lipstick. Bright red. Like she was playing dress-up.

“There,” I said without pointing. Penny stood on the dance floor, not dancing, surrounded by a group of girls that hovered close to a group of boys including Evan Lockwood. Also not dancing.

“Where?”

How could she not see Penny? It was as if a spotlight shone directly on her from someplace high above.

I turned my back to the dance floor. “The one in the purple dress.”

“Well, that helps a lot.”

“The one with the reddish hair and the freckles and the red lipstick.”

Daphne peered over my shoulder. “Oh. Her.”

She took my hand and led me to the dance floor a few feet away, right in the thick of the crowd. I felt totally vulnerable. A zebra in the Serengeti.

“Let's dance,” she said.

“But I told you…”

“I know, you said you're a terrible dancer. I'll be the judge of that.”

The song was something from one of Will's radio stations. Fast and tinny with a guy who sounded like a girl on lead vocals. Daphne started moving and I stood and watched. She gave me a
come on
motion and so I started swaying back and forth a little.

She stepped closer and took both of my hands. “Okay. This is way worse than you said.”

“I believe I used the word
terrible
.”

“There has to be a stronger word than
terrible
to describe whatever it is you're doing.”

She placed my hands on her waist and put her arms around my neck. The song was fast, but she moved me along with her slowly. Penny used to wear a light, flowery perfume I loved, but Daphne smelled like a tropical forest, fruity and earthy and amazing. Her dress felt soft and slippery.

I looked at Daphne but also concentrated on my peripheral vision, where I could see we were being watched. She pulled me closer.

“Much better,” she said. “Look at you. You're dancing.”

The song morphed into another fast song with androgynous vocals. The dance floor filled, and during the chorus everyone jumped up and down and sang along while Daphne and I still moved slowly, only a few inches separating us. Penny and her circles of girls and boys all danced together now and I wanted to believe she noticed us, but I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing I cared, so I didn't look over to make sure. Instead, I shut off my peripheral vision and focused all of my five senses on Daphne.

Sight: she looked stunning.

Touch: the thin material of her dress meant I could feel her body heat warming up my palms.

Sound: the music annoyed me less than I thought it would.

Smell: tropical forest.

Taste: N/A. I had no idea how she tasted, though if I had to guess, it would be something like cinnamon, but sweeter.

The song ended and she took a step back.

“Okay. We can go now.”

“What?”

“Our work here is done.”

“But—I want you to have a good time. You said you hadn't done anything fun in forever.”

“I'm having fun. But trust me, we should leave now.”

Another song was starting. A slow one. I looked around the gym. Penny was definitely watching us. I kept scanning the dance floor until my eyes landed on Will and Maggie, dancing almost as close as Daphne and I had been, though Will was leading Maggie, not the other way around. He dipped her and she laughed and grabbed hold of her bun, keeping it in place.

Daphne pulled me over to them.

“Um, I guess we should go,” I said.

Will stopped, midmove, with Maggie still in his arms. “You're not going to get any argument from me.”

Maggie looked at Daphne. “It's time to go?”

“Yes.”

“Then it's time to go.”

I put my arm around Daphne's shoulder. She slipped her arm around my waist. We started heading toward the exit. I didn't look back. I knew who was watching.

The next night I took the bus to A Second Chance. I did the reverse of the route Daphne had taught me and arrived at the meeting twenty minutes early, puffed up with a sense of accomplishment.

I hung around on the sidewalk waiting for Daphne to show until Everett stuck his head out the door and said we were getting started.

“Don't you want to come in, River?”

I didn't. I wanted to tell her about the bus. She'd smile at me and say I'd done well. Her community service project.

I watched the door. Halfway through Mason's story about eating a roll of cookie dough and then feeling too depressed about it to leave the house, Daphne walked in. Rather than taking the empty seat next to me, she crossed the circle and squeezed in next to Christopher.

Maybe before the day Penny broke my heart I wouldn't have interpreted a move like that as some sort of statement, but now I was hyperattuned to the small actions of others, and as I sat there next to that empty seat I thought:
Daphne is mad at me.

I went back over the night before.

After the dance we went to a diner in Hollywood Maggie knew about where Daphne explained our abrupt departure. “Now she's going to spend the rest of the night wondering why we left so early. Like, we had someplace better to be. A party, maybe. Or you just couldn't wait one more minute before trying to get me out of this dress.”

“That dress does beg to be taken off,” Maggie said.

“Let's have a look.” Will motioned for her to stand up.

“You didn't notice her dress?” Maggie asked. “How on earth could you not have noticed her dress?”

Will shut her down: “I was too busy looking at
your
dress.”

Daphne did a walk up and down the aisle of the diner like she was on a fashion runway. Maggie whistled and Will and I applauded. People's heads turned: it was simply not possible to look away from Daphne as she sauntered past tables and turned on her platform heels, and I said to myself,
Yep, this girl went to the Purple Rain dance with me. Me! Take that, world!

Will spilled ketchup on his nice white shirt. Maggie tried to wipe it clean with a napkin dipped in seltzer. I sat next to Daphne, with my arm draped on the booth behind her, and at one point I almost moved it onto her shoulders because I forgot for a second that she was just a friend. Then I wondered what it was that made this night feel like a double date: was it me and Daphne or was it Will and Maggie?

Will asked Daphne questions about my tattoo photographs and she told him they were works of art and that I should show them in a gallery, which I thought was maybe taking it a little too far. And I held her arm out—her skin was so soft—and turned it to the right and to the left, letting Will and Maggie admire her wrist tattoo.

They asked about her school and her family and she lit up when she talked about her little brother. The burgers weren't overcooked. The fries were extra crispy. Will and I split the bill. There was some of the milk shake left over and we took it to go and Daphne and I shared it in the backseat on our drive to Boyle Heights. I walked Daphne to her door and I thanked her for at least the fifth time for agreeing to go to the dance and I hugged her, breathing in one last scent of the tropical forest.

The night was pretty damn close to perfect.

So why did she sit near Christopher?

After we dropped Daphne off, Will and Maggie told me I was crazy for not dating her, but I continued to insist we were just friends, and when they asked why, I said: “One: she's probably out of my league. Two: I still love Penny. And three: I'm not ready to date anyone.”

“One: she's not
probably
out of your league, she's
totally
out of your league,” Maggie said. “And three: it's a good thing you don't want to date anyone, because you need to learn how to be alone. But that brings us to two: why you still love Penny. Seriously, River. Why do you still love Penny? Give me one good reason.”

I thought about this as I sat alone in the backseat of Will's car, unable to reach the radio, where the kind of sad song played that made you want to walk through rain with tears streaming down your face. Since Penny broke up with me, I'd relived what it felt like to kiss and touch her, to run my hands through her hair, to make her laugh or smile. I was happy when I made Penny happy, and I'd never questioned whether or not that was a good thing. I'd never questioned us, or her, and maybe this was what Penny meant when she said I didn't think about things, but why would I think about what was wrong when everything felt right to me? And now I worried that I could never love someone else in the same way, and then wondered if I even wanted to love someone else in the same way.

“She was my first love,” I said.

“I know, dude,” Will said. “But at some point it'll be time for your second love. And it'll be better.”

I thought about how Penny had watched us tonight and how maybe she'd gone home and turned away from Evan as he tried to kiss her. And maybe she went into her closet to retrieve a box she'd put high on a shelf, full of all the things that reminded her of me—the necklace with the heart on a string, the portrait I'd paid a hippie in Venice Beach to draw of her, the ticket stubs from Imagine Dragons, a band I didn't love but got tickets to because Penny did. Maybe through the experience of holding each object, our life together started to come back to her, her regret like a visitor in the room whispering:
It's not too late.

Or…no such box existed because she'd thrown everything that reminded her of me into one of the black bins Juana dragged to the street, and at that moment she was in the backseat of Evan Lockwood's car tangled up in his magnificent thighs.

Penny and Evan. It made me slightly less sick than it had the day before. I didn't want to walk in the rain with tears streaming down my face, I just wanted to go home and go to bed.

Will dropped me off first, which didn't strike me as unusual until later, and I slept fine and woke up wishing the day would go by quickly so that I could take two different buses and see Daphne again.

Now here I sat with her half a circle away and my hands felt itchy and jittery with the yearning to touch her arm again like I had in the diner.

When her turn came she said she didn't feel like sharing. Everett rarely allowed anybody to take a pass, but her body language screamed:
Leave me alone.

“Just make sure you seek out help and support if you need it.”

She nodded.

I tried to catch her eye.
You okay?

No luck.

I was last to go and I kept it brief. I'd read an entry on
itainteasybeinoffgreen
about wanting something so badly that you can never have again, something that you must deny yourself forever. When I'd read that earlier in the week, I'd thought of Penny. Now it seemed a little crazy. I had room for more in my life than Penny Brockaway.

Daphne made a quick exit and I slipped out after her.

She speed-walked toward what I knew was her bus stop, her purse swinging wildly at her side, the bracelets on her wrist clanging together. I called after her but she didn't turn around. I didn't run to catch her. From what I'd learned of bus schedules, I had time to spare.

The shelter had no place to sit, so she stood studying a faded, peeling map she knew by heart.

“Daphne,” I said.

She didn't turn to face me. “What do you want, River?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because you didn't sit near me.”

“Believe it or not, River: everything isn't about you.”

“I…I don't think everything is about me.”

“Really?”

I stretched out my hand to touch her shoulder, but I stopped just short, letting it hover. I thought of diverting to her hair, putting my hand on the back of her neck and taking a fistful of it. “What's wrong? Please. Tell me.”

She turned to face me. None of the toughness was gone and yet she looked like she was about to cry.

“My life,” she said. “All of it. That's what's wrong.”

I wasn't prepared for that. What was I supposed to say?
Your life is great!

“I think…I like you, Daphne,” I said.

She laughed, not kindly.

“I mean…it turns out I can't stop thinking about you, and when I'm thinking about you I'm not thinking about…her.”

She stared at me like there was a language barrier or something, eyebrows pulled together, struggling to follow.

“So…I've distracted you from the girl you've been crying yourself to sleep over for months—”

“It's only been, like, one month.”

“Oh, okay. I see. So it's only been a month.”

As much as I didn't want to be thinking about Penny right then, I remembered taking her hand on the sidewalk in front of the house where the lights had just gone out and saying
I'm going to kiss you now,
and remembered her saying
What are you waiting for?

I reached out and took Daphne's hand. “I'm going to kiss you now,” I said.

She yanked her hand away and shoved me hard in the chest. “The hell you are.”

“Ow.”

“Did that hurt?”

“Sorta.”

“Good. Now can you please just go away? I don't need this. Or you.”

“Daphne—”

“What?”

“I had a really great time with you last night. Like, the best time I've had in a long time. And I'm not sure I made that clear.”

“Yeah, I know. We went to the dance and we made your girlfriend jealous. It was a big success.”

“Daphne—I like you, okay? You.”

“You like me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what I did today, River?”

“No.” Crap. I should have called her after the dance. Or texted her. I should have asked her about her day.

“I stole three CDs from Walgreens.”

“Why?” I sounded like Natalie.

She laughed. “Because sometimes I just want things to come easy. And sometimes I just can't do everything I'm supposed to.”

Again I fought the urge to touch her. “What you did…what you do…that doesn't change a thing.”

“You like me. Why do you like me?”

“Because…you're smart. And you're funny. And you're beautiful. And you know more about how the world works than anyone I know. And when I'm with you…I…”

“You don't think about her?”

“No, I don't. But that's not what I'm trying to say. When I'm with you…I want time to slow down.”

Just as I said that I heard the gasping sound of the bus's brakes. I turned around and there it was. Its headlights like monster eyes.

“Well, I gotta go.”

“Can I ride with you?”

“No. Go home, River.”

She stepped onto the bus and swiped her fare card. She turned to look at me.

The doors started to close.

“I like you because of who you are,” I blurted out.

She waved her hand at me. Maybe saying good-bye. Maybe brushing me off. Or maybe, I hoped, trying to say that she connected what I'd said to something true inside herself.