Thirteen Plus One (18 page)

“Right,” he said, saluting. Alphonse was a saluter, I was discovering. Some people were.

He loped off to the beach house. The rest of the group broke apart soon after, wandering back in two’s and three’s. Ryan and Mark joked loudly in their Chicago accents. Brooklyn reached the ramp of the deck, paused, and craned her neck to see the stars. She closed her eyes as if she were making a wish, then opened them and blew a kiss to the sky.

Up in the rainbow room, as Dinah put on her summer PJs and Cinnamon slipped into a long T-shirt, I checked my iPhone for messages.

WINNIE THE POOCH! the first text said. It was from Lars. WHERE R U, GIRL? “
Pooch” indeed,
I thought.
I am pooch-free, Lars
-
O
,
as you well know.

The next four texts were variations of the same: He wanted me to call, he wondered where I was, he missed me already.

“Aw,” Cinnamon said, peeking over my shoulder. “He’s in
lurrrrrve.”

“Shut up,” I said, twisting away.

I saw that there were three voice mails from him, too, and while part of me was touched, another part wondered if so many calls were necessary.

But isn’t this what you want?
an annoying voice said inside my head.
Doesn’t this count as wooing?

I don’t know,
I said back to that voice.
Does it? Or is he just worried by the idea of me being off with potentially hot beach boys?

I tapped the VOICE MAIL icon and brought the phone to my ear. His voice was so familiar.

“Hey, Win. Call me.”

“Winster! At the beach yet? Call me.”

“You must be having fun. Maybe you’re riding the back of one of those huge sea turtles, and that’s why you’re not answering your phone. So, uh ... right. Call me!”

I sat on my rainbow-quilted bed and called him. As his line rang, I scooched back and leaned against the rickety headboard.

“Winnie!” he answered. “Hey! ”

“Hey,”
I said. “Omigosh, you would not believe how hectic everything’s been. I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to call till now.”

“No worries,” he said. I’d been afraid he was going to be pissed, but he seemed to be in a great mood. “So how are you? Still popping those wicked Junior Mints?”

“Ha ha, and no, but only because I don’t have any. But Lars ... the beach is so gorgeous! We saw dolphins! I mean, porpoises! And the house we’re staying in? A
ma
zing. It’s got all these nooks and crannies, and at the way top there’s—”

“Guess what? ” he interjected. “I’m not going to Germany. My mom lost her funding.”

My eyebrows shot up. “For real?” His announcement took me by surprise, and I didn’t know how to respond. “Wow. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m stoked.”

“Oh,” I said, still trying to figure out how
I
felt. Mainly, I was confused, but also a little miffed that he cared more about his big news than my own.

“O-kay,”
he said, chuckling in a way that suggested my reaction wasn’t good enough. “Don’t jump up and down with joy or anything.”

Well, you cut me off, I
wanted to say
. I was all excited to tell you about the Crow’s Nest, and you totally cut me off.

“Win, you’re not getting it,” he explained. “You don’t have to stay in South Carolina. You can come home.”

“What?!”

Cinnamon glanced over. I twisted my upper body toward the wall.

“You just got there, I know. But you never really wanted to go in the first place, right?”

“What are you talking about? Yes, I did.”

“You only decided to go after I told you about Germany,” he said. “And now Germany’s off.”

“Lars ...” I felt a whirlwind of emotions. It was strange and wrong for my boyfriend to expect me to come trotting home just because his plans had changed. Wasn’t it? It verged on slightly psycho, like Edward from
Twilight
and how he watched Bella sleep. The guy sat in her room by her bed and
watched her sleep
—and since she was
asleep,
she didn’t even know it.

Plus, Edward was so ... pale! And he was always
smelling
Bella! Sorry, but I found that unsettling.

Bella:
“Hello, Edward! I’m home!”

Edward closes his eyes, flares his nostrils, and inhales deeply. “Ah, Bella. Yesssss.” He inhales even more deeply, shudders uncontrollably, and pierces Bella with his stare. “You look tired, my darling. You should rest. And please, don’t worry: I’ll be right here ... smelling you for all of eternity...”

“Winnie? You there?” Lars said.

“Oh. Sorry.” I drew my knees to my chest. “But Lars ... I’m having fun here.”

“At Camp Sea Turtle?” He laughed. “Ah, Win. You’re a good friend to Dinah to not want to abandon her. But she’ll understand. Anyway, Cinnamon’s there to take care of her.”

Oh no you dih-un’t,
I thought, my confusion transforming into anger. Anger was easier and gave me the courage to say, “Okay, first of all, Dinah doesn’t need ‘taking care of.’” My mattress dipped, and a sideways glance told me that Cinnamon and Dinah were perched on the side of my bed. “And secondly: How did you know Cinnamon was here?”

“I told him,” Cinnamon whispered.

“She told me,” Lars said. “She wanted me to download my Spearhead CD.”

Cinnamon, who apparently could hear Lars through the tiny speaker, nodded. “
Love
Michael Franti,” she said in rasta-speak. “Perfect for da beach, yah?”

I gestured for her to get off my bed. Dinah, too. They smiled with pretend confusion and stayed where they were.

“And C,” I said, “I don’t want to go home.”

“Go
home?
” Cinnamon said, her voice rising. She grabbed my phone. “Lars.
Dude
. What kind of crazy pills are you taking?!”

“Cinnamon!” I said.

She kept my phone out of my grasp. “Uh-huh ... uh-huh ... so?”

“You’re not helping,” I said through a clenched jaw.

“You? Hush,” she said, pointing at me as she rose from my bed. “And
you”—
this time, to Lars—“I don’t know
what
to say to you, except we’re at the beach, dude. The
beach.
And we’re in a house full of hotness monsters—”

I groaned and covered my face.

“—and we’re having the time of our lives—”

“Yeah,” Dinah said.

“—and I have nothing more to add, other than ... well ...” She worked her forehead, and then smoothed her expression and threw back her shoulders.
“Nobody
puts Baby in the corner. Dig?”

Oh. My. God.
I got off the bed, strode to Cinnamon, and held out my hand.

She spoke quickly into the phone. “I believe I’ve made my point. And now, farewell.”

“Sorry, Lars,” I said. “She’s got sun poisoning.”

“Do not,” Cinnamon muttered.

Lars cleared his throat. “Hotness monsters?”

“That’s just Cinnamon,” I said. “You know Cinnamon.”

“I thought she swore off guys.”

“Yeah, well ...” I shrugged, not that he could see it.

There was silence. I walked to the far end of the room, leaned against the wall, and slid down.

“So you don’t want to come home?” Lars said.

“My parents have already paid for me to be here,” I said. “How would I, anyway? Mr. Devine
just
dropped us off. It’s a six-hour car ride from here to Atlanta.”

“My brother could come pick you up. I’d come with him.”

“Lars ...”

“All right, fine,” he said, abruptly backing off. “I get it.”

“I made a commitment.”

“I said I get it.” There was another silence, and it was tense. When he next spoke, his voice was tense, too. “So, it’s good? You’re having fun?”

“Yeah, I guess. So far.” I glanced at Cinnamon and Dinah and lowered my voice. “That doesn’t mean I don’t miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” he said stiffly. “But if you’re having fun—hey, that’s all that matters.”

“Um ... thanks.” I felt itchy with the pressure of not living up to his expectations. It was awful, and the thought of caving crossed my mind.
But, no. No way.

“So, talk to you tomorrow?” he said.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “Only, it might possibly be slightly complicated, because we’ve, like, got this whole schedule, and—”

“Not a problem,” he interrupted. “Say no more.”

“I
want
to call you. It just might be hard.”

“Like I said, I got it.”

“Lars ... now I’m worried I’m making you feel bad,” I said anxiously. He
sounded
solid, but in a way that wasn’t exactly
him
.

“Well, don’t,” he said, shifting his tone to give the slightest tint of,
Hey, babe, you’re kind of exaggerating your own importance here.

Subtle, but a cold splash of water nonetheless.

“Call when you can,” he said coolly. “Or text. Whatever.”

“Ok-a-a-y,”
I said. “I probably
can
call every night. I’m just not positive.”

“Whatever.”

We said our good-byes. We were very cordial. And then I hung up and let my head fall back against the wall.

“Is everything okay?” Dinah asked.

“You got me,” I said, staring up at the skylight. We’d cranked it open since it was nighttime, but the inky, starry sky seemed millions of heartbeats away.

Make Friends with. Someone New

O
VER THE COURSE OF MY LIFE, I have spent a fair amount of time considering what it would be like to be a boy instead of a girl. Some things would be great: Sitting all sprawled and casual and taking up all the room you wanted, without even a whisper of needing to keep your legs together or be “ladylike.” Belching with impunity. Being a smart aleck in school and having teachers (well, female teachers) find you delightful.

Other things would be interesting, like peeing while standing up, or not having to wear a shirt if you weren’t in the mood.

Other things would be just plain awful. Namely, erections. I mean, maybe they wouldn’t be awful in certain situations, but I’d read Judy Blume’s
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t.
I knew all about how erections could happen totally out of a guy’s control and in the most embarrassing of places. Like in math class, say, when you’ve just been called to the board to work out an equation.

When it came to erections, I was definitely glad to be a girl. I was glad to be a girl most of the time, actually, though I suspected I’d always be fascinated by the squillions of boy/ girl differences out there.

This morning, as I silently got dressed while Cinnamon and Dinah slept blissfully on, I found myself contemplating hair. Plenty of guys had long hair, but the majority had normal, short
boy
hair. As I put on Bo’s baseball cap and pulled my own hair through the hole in the back, I thought about how those short-haired boys never got to experience the comforting jounce of a ponytail. I loved the feel of a jouncy ponytail. It just made me happy.

On my way downstairs I made a pit stop at the bathroom, where I did not pee standing up, thanks very much. I didn’t squat, either. I was so not a squatter. But when it came time to flush, I had a small crisis of conscience. Or of prudishness? Because there was a framed sign above the toilet, and it was needlepointed, and it said, IF IT’S YELLOW, LET IT MELLOW. IF IT’S BROWN, FLUSH IT DOWN. And there were butterflies and sweet little flowers.

Last night, Dinah had gone into the bathroom, promptly reemerged, and with tightly knitted lips, dragged me in and said, “Look.”

She pointed at the needlepoint sign. I read the curlique letters, and my eyebrows shot up.

“What does that
mean?”
she said, but the panic in her tone suggested she knew full well.

I could either giggle or be mortified. I wasn’t yet sure which was going to win out. “Um ... well ...”

“Cinna
mon
!” Dinah bleated. “Get in here right now please! ”

She wandered in, brushing her hair. “Yeah?”

For the second time, Dinah pointed. She was like one of those hound dogs that stood rigidly “at point” when they sniffed a rabbit. Dinah wasn’t sniffing rabbit, however. The tingle in my own nostrils prompted a quick peek into the pot, where—gross!—the mellowing of somebody’s yellow was already taking place.

“Whoa, ripe,” Cinnamon said. She pushed past me and Dinah and flushed the toilet.

“Uh-oh, you naughty kitten, now you shall have no pie,” I said. The giggling had won out, though the mortification hovered just below the surface.

“You didn’t
read
it,” Dinah said. She jabbed her finger, still in pointing position, at the needlepoint sign.

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow,” Cinnamon said. “If it’s brown—” She broke off, overcome by chortles.
“Dude! Wrong-
ness! We’re not supposed to flush when we pee?”

“Only if your pee, um, has a friend,” I said.

Cinnamon pondered. “Well, when I take a crap—”

“Please
,” Dinah begged, possessed by a rising hysteria.

Cinnamon eyed her to say
Wait your turn, young lady.
“When
I
take a crap, there is usually pee-age as well.” She furrowedherbrow. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever just plainly crapped. I
do
plainly pee, though. Quite a lot, actually.” She patted her stomach, presumably in the general vicinity of her bladder. Her air was that of a farm girl complacently admiring a flock of geese.

Dinah’s chest heaved. “I
can’t.
I can’t go to the bathroom and just ...”

“Leave it for all the world to enjoy?” I said.

She paled.

“Whose do you think that was that we just flushed?” Cinnamon said.

“Ryan’s?” I said, hazarding a guess. “Out on the beach, he drank a
lot
of Mellow Yellow.”

“You mean Mountain Dew,” Dinah corrected me.