Текст книги "Lola and the Boy Next Door"

Автор книги: Stephaie Perkns

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

“They’re only bad because they’re lame,” St. Clair mutters. He pins the button to his own outfit, this fabulous black peacoat that makes him look very European, indeed.

“Just because, once upon a time, you guys had issues with someone,” I say, “doesn’t mean I do. Max and I are fine. Don’t—don’t do that.” I shake my head at St. Clair. “You’re ruining a perfectly good coat.”

“Sorry, did you want it? It might balance out your collection.” He gestures at my own maroon vest. In between the required Royal Theater buttons, I have several sparkly vintage brooches. Only one manager has complained so far, but as I politely explained to him, my jewelry only attracts

more

attention to his advertisements.

So I won that argument.

And thankfully no one has said anything about the vest itself, which I’ve taken in so that it’s actually fitted and semiflattering. You know. For a polyester vest. My phone vibrates in my pocket. “Hold that thought,” I tell St. Clair. It’s a text from Lindsey Lim:

u wont believe who i saw jogging in the park. prepare yrself.

“Lola!” Anna rushes forward to catch me, but I’m not falling. Am I falling? Her hand is on my arm, holding me upright. “What happened, what’s the matter?”

Surely Lindsey saw Calliope.

Calliope

was the one exercising in the park, as a part of her training. Of course it was Calliope! I shove the other possibility down, deep and hard, but it springs right back. This parasite growing inside of me. It never disappears, no matter how many times I tell myself to forget it. It’s the past, and no one can change the past. But it grows all the same. Because as terrible as it is to think about Calliope Bell, it’s nothing compared to the pain that overwhelms me whenever I think about her twin.

They’ll be seniors this year. Which means that despite the no-show this morning, there’s no reason why her twin

wouldn’t

be here. The best I can hope for is some kind of delay. I need that time to prepare myself.

I text Lindsey back with a simple question mark.

Please, please, please,

I beg the universe.

Please be Calliope.

“Is it Max?” Anna asks. “Your parents? Oh God, it’s that guy we kicked out of the theater yesterday, isn’t it? That crazy guy with the giant phone and the bucket of chicken! How did he find your numb—”

“It’s not the guy.” But I can’t explain. Not now, not this. “Everything’s fine.”

Anna and St. Clair swap identical disbelieving glances.

“It’s Betsy. My dog. Andy says she’s acting sick, but I’m sure it’s prob—” My phone vibrates again, and I nearly drop it in my frantic attempt to read the new text:

calliope. investigation reveals new coach. shes back 4 good.

“Well?” St. Clair asks.

Calliope. Oh, thank God, CALLIOPE. I look up at my friends. “What?”

“Betsy!” they say together.

“Oh. Yeah.” I give them a relieved smile. “False alarm. She just threw up a shoe.”

“A shoe?” St. Clair asks.

“Dude,” Anna says. “You scared me. Do you need to go home?”

“We can handle closing if you need to go,” St. Clair adds. As if he works here. No doubt he just wants me to leave so that he can tongue his girlfriend.

I stride away, toward the popcorn machine, embarrassed to have made a public display. “Betsy’s fine. But thanks,” I add as my cell vibrates again.

u ok?

Yeah. I saw her this morning.

Y DIDNT U TELL ME???

I was gonna call after work. You didn’t see . . . ?

no. but im on it. call me l8r ned.

Lindsey Lim fancies herself a detective. This is due to her lifelong obsession with mysteries, ever since she received the Nancy Drew Starter Set (

Secret of the Old Clock

through

Secret of Red Gate Farm

) for her eighth birthday. Hence, “Ned.” She tried to nickname me Bess, Nancy’s flirty, shop-happy friend, but I wasn’t pleased with that, because Bess is always telling Nancy the situation is too dangerous, and she should give up.

What kind of friend says that?

And I’m definitely not George, Nancy’s other best friend, because George is an athletic tomboy with a pug nose. George would never wear a Marie Antoinette dress—even with platform combat boots—to her winter formal. Which left Ned Nickerson, Nancy’s boyfriend. Ned is actually useful and often assists Nancy during life-threatening situations. I can get down with that. Even if he is a guy.

I picture Lindsey parked in front of her computer. No doubt she went directly to the figure-skating fansites, and that’s how she knows about the new coach. Though I wouldn’t put it past her to have walked up to Calliope herself. Lindsey isn’t easily intimidated, which is why she’ll make a great investigator someday. She’s rational, straightforward, and unflinchingly honest.

In this sense, we balance each other out.

We’ve been best friends since, well . . . since the Bells stopped being my best friends. When I entered kindergarten, and they realized it was no longer cool to hang out with the neighbor girl who only spent half days at school. But that part of our history isn’t as harsh as it sounds. Because soon I met Lindsey, and we discovered our mutual passions for roly-poly bugs, sea-green crayons, and those Little Debbies shaped like Christmas trees. Instant friendship. And later, when our classmates began teasing me for wearing tutus or ruby slippers, Lindsey was the one who growled back, “Shove it, fartbreath.”

I’m very loyal to her.

I wonder if she’ll find out anything about the other Bell?

“Pardon?” St. Clair says.

“Huh?” I turn around to find him and Anna giving me another weird look.

“You said something about a bell.” Anna cocks her head. “Are you sure you’re okay?You’ve been really distracted tonight.”

“I’m great! Honestly!” How many times will I have to lie today? I volunteer to clean the fourth-floor bathrooms to stop incriminating myself, but later, when Andy shows up to take me home—my parents don’t like me riding the bus late at night—he eyes me with the same concern. “You okay, Lola-doodle?”

I throw my purse at the floorboard. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Maybe because you look like . . .”Andy pauses, his expression shifting to barely masked hope. “Did you and Max break up?”

“Dad!”

He shrugs, but his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, a dead giveaway that he feels guilty for asking. Maybe there’s hope for Max and my parents after all. Or, at least, Max and Andy. Andy is always the first to soften in difficult situations.

Which, by the way, doesn’t make him “the woman.” Nothing annoys me more than someone assuming one of my dads is lessthan-dad. Yeah, Andy bakes for a living. And he stayed at home to raise me. And he’s decent at talking about feelings. But he also fixes electrical sockets, unclogs kitchen pipes, squashes cockroaches, and changes flat tires. And Nathan may be the resident disciplinarian and a tough lawyer for the ACLU, but he also decorates our house with antiques and gets teary during sitcom weddings.

So neither is “the woman.” They’re both gay men. Duh.

Besides, it’s not like all

women

fit into those stereotypes either.

“Is it . . . our neighbors?” Andy’s voice is tentative. He knows if it is about them, I won’t talk.

“It’s nothing, Dad. It was just a long day.”

We ride home in silence. I’m shivering as I climb out of the car, but it’s not because of the temperature drop. I stare at the lavender Victorian. At the bedroom window across from my own. There’s no light on. The cold gripping my heart loosens, but it doesn’t let go. I

have

to see inside that room. Adrenaline surges through me, and I jolt up the stairs, into the house, and up another flight of stairs.

“Hey!” Nathan calls after me. “No hug for your dear old pop?”

Andy talks to him in a low voice. Now that I’m at my bedroom door, I’m afraid to go in. Which is absurd. I’m a brave person. Why should one window scare me? But I pause to make sure Nathan isn’t coming up. Whatever waits for me on the other side, I don’t want interruptions.

He isn’t coming. Andy must have told him to leave me alone. Good.

I open my door with false confidence. I reach for the light switch but change my mind and decide to enter Lindsey Lim style. I creep forward in the shadows. The rows of pastel houses in this city are so close that the other window, the one that lines up perfectly with my own, is mere feet away. I peer through the darkness and search for habitation.

There aren’t any curtains on the window. I squint, but as far as I can tell, the bedroom is . . . empty. There’s nothing in there. I look to the right, into Calliope’s room. Boxes. I look down, into their kitchen. Boxes. I look straight ahead again.

No twin.

NO TWIN.

My entire body exhales. I flick on my light and then my stereo—Max’s band, of course—and turn it up. Loud. I sling off my ballet slippers, tossing them onto the shoe mountain that blocks my closet, and yank off my wig. I shake out my real hair and throw down my work vest. The stupid short-sleeved, collared shirt they make me wear and the ugly boring black pants follow the vest to the floor. My red silk Chinese pajama bottoms come back on, and I add the matching top. I feel like myself again.

I glance at the empty window.

Oh, yes. I definitely feel like myself again.

Amphetamine blasts from my speakers, and I dance over to my phone. I’ll call Lindsey first. And then Max, so that I can apologize for being such a space case at the Tea Garden. Maybe he’s even free tomorrow morning. I don’t have to work until two, so we could go to brunch on our own terms. Or maybe we could

say

we’re going to brunch, but we can

really

go to his apartment.

My eyes close, and I jump and thrash to the pounding drums. I spin in circles and laugh and throw my body. Max’s voice is pissed off. His lyrics taunt. The energy of his guitar builds and builds, and the bass thrums through me like blood. I am invincible.

And then I open my eyes.

Cricket Bell grins. “Hi, Lola.”

chapter four

He’s sitting in his window. Literally sitting in it. His butt is on the windowsill, and his legs—impossibly long and slender—are dangling against the side of his house, two stories above the ground. And his hands are folded in his lap as if spying on his unsuspecting female neighbor was the most natural thing in the world.

I stare, helpless and dumbfounded, and he bursts into laughter. His body rocks with it, and he throws back his head and claps his hands.

Cricket Bell

laughs

at me. And

claps.

“I called your name.” He tries to stop smiling, but his mouth only opens wider with delight. I can practically count his teeth. “I called it a dozen times, but your music was too loud, so I was waiting it out. You’re a good dancer.”

Mortification strips me of the ability to engage in intelligent conversation.

“I’m sorry.” His grin hasn’t disappeared, but he visibly squirms. “I only wanted to say hello.”

He swings his legs back inside of his bedroom in one fluid motion. There’s a lightness to the way he lands on his feet, a certain grace, that’s instantly recognizable. It washes me in a familiar aching shame. And then he stretches, and I’m stunned anew.

“Cricket, you’re . . . tall.”

Which is, quite possibly, the stupidest thing I could say to him.

Cricket Bell was always taller than most boys, but in the last two years, he’s added half a foot. At least. His slender body—once skinny and awkward, despite his graceful movements—has also changed. He’s filled out, though just slightly. The edge has been removed. But pointing out that someone is tall is like pointing out the weather when it’s raining. Both obvious and irritating.

“It’s the hair,” he says with a straight face. “Gravity has always been my nemesis.”

And his dark hair

is

tall. It’s floppy, but . . . inverted floppy. I’m not sure how it’s possible without serious quantities of mousse or gel, but even when he was a kid, Cricket’s hair stood straight up. It gives him the air of a mad scientist, which actually isn’t that far off. His hair is one of the things I always liked about him.

Until I didn’t like him at all, that is.

He waits for me to reply, and when I don’t, he clears his throat. “But you’re taller, too. Of course. I mean, it’s been a long time. So obviously you are. Taller.”

We take each other in. My mind spins as it tries to connect the Cricket of the present with the Cricket of the past. He’s grown up and grown into his body, but it’s still

him.

The same boy I fell in love with in the ninth grade. My feelings had been building since our childhood, but that year, the year he turned sixteen, was the year everything changed.

I blame it on his pants.

Cricket Bell had always been . . .

nice.

And he was cute, and he was intelligent, and he was older, and it was only natural that I would develop feelings for him. But the day everything fell into place was the same day I discovered that he’d become interested in his appearance. Not in an egotistical way. Simply in a “maybe baggy shorts and giant sneakers aren’t the most attractive look for a guy like me” way.

So he started wearing these pants.

Nice pants. Not hipster pants or preppy pants or anything like that, just pants that said he cared about pants. They were chosen to fit his frame. Some plain, some pinstriped to further elongate his height. And he would pair them with vintage shirts and unusual jackets in a way that looked effortlessly cool.

So while the guys in my grade could barely remember to keep their flies zipped—and the only ones who DID care about their appearance were budding homosexuals—here was a perfectly friendly, perfectly attractive, perfectly dressed straight boy who just-so-happened to live next door to me.

Of course I fell in love with him.

Of course it ended badly.

And now here he is, and his dress habits haven’t changed. If anything, they’ve improved. Both his pants and his shirt are still slim-fitting, but now he’s accessorized. A thick, black leather watchband on one wrist, a multitude of weathered colorful bracelets and rubber bands on the other. Cricket Bell looks good. He looks BETTER.

The realization is surprising, but the one that follows stuns me even more.

I’m not in love with him anymore.

Instead, looking at him makes me feel . . . hollow.

“How’ve you been?” I give him a smile that’s both warm and cool. One that I hope says,

I’m not that person anymore.You didn’t hurt me, and I

never

think about you

.

“Good. Really, really good. I just started at Berkeley, so that’s where my things are.You know. In Berkeley. I stopped by to help my parents unpack.” Cricket points behind him as if the boxes are right there. He was always a hand-talker.

“Berkeley?” I’m thrown. “As in . . . ?”

He looks down into the alley between our houses. “I, uh, graduated early. Homeschooling? Calliope did, too, but she’s skipping the college thing for a few years to concentrate on her career.”

“So you’re staying there?” I ask, hardly daring to believe it. “In a dorm?”

“Yeah.”

YES. OH MY GOD,YES!

“I mean, I’ll bring a few things over,” he says. “For weekends and school breaks. Or whatever.”

My chest constricts. “Weekends?”

“Probably. I guess.” He sounds apologetic. “This is all new to me. It’s always been the Calliope Parade, you know?”

I do know. The Bell family has always revolved around Calliope’s career. This must be the first time in Cricket’s life that his schedule doesn’t revolve around hers. “I saw her on TV last year,” I say, trying not to sound distressed by the idea of seeing him regularly. “World Championships. Second place, that’s impressive.”

“Ah.” Cricket sags against his window frame. He scratches the side of his nose, revealing a message written on the back of his left hand: REVERSE CIRCUIT. “But don’t let her hear you say that.”

“Why not?” I stare at his hand. It’s surreal. He always wrote cryptic reminders there and always in that same black marker. I used to write on mine sometimes just to be like him. My stomach clenches at the memory. Did he notice? Did Calliope tease him about it when I wasn’t around?

“You know Cal. It doesn’t count if it’s not first.” He straightens up, on the move again, and holds out both hands in my direction. “But how are you? I’m sorry, I’ve completely taken over this conversation.”

“Great. I’m great!”

I’m great?

Two years of revenge fantasies, and

that’s

what I come up with? Of course, in my daydreams, I’m never wearing matching pajamas either.

Oh, no. I’m wearing matching pajamas.

And my hair! I have wig hair! It’s totally flat and sweaty!

Everything about this moment is wrong. I’m supposed to be dressed in something glamorous and unique. We’re supposed to be in a crowded room, and his breath is supposed to catch when he sees me. I’ll be laughing, and he’ll be drawn toward me as if by magnetic force. And I’ll be surprised but uninterested to see him. And then Max will show up. Put his arm around me. And I’ll leave with my dignity restored, and Cricket will leave agonizing that he didn’t go for me when he had the chance.

Instead, he’s staring at me with the strangest expression. His brow has creased and his mouth has parted, but the smile has disappeared. It’s his solving-a-difficult-equation face. Why is he giving me his difficult equation face?

“And your family?” he asks. “How are they?”

It’s unnerving. That face.

“Um, they’re good.”

I am confident and happy. And over you. Don’t forget, I’m over you.

“Andy started his own business. He bakes and delivers these incredible pies, every flavor. It’s doing well. And Nathan is the same. You know. Good.” I glance away, toward the dark street. I wish he’d stop looking at me.

“And Norah?” His question is careful. Delicate.

There’s another awkward silence. Not many people know about Norah, but there are certain things that can’t be hidden from neighbors. Things like my birth mother.

“She’s . . . Norah. She’s in the fortune-telling business now, reading tea leaves.” My face grows warm. How long will we stand here being polite? “She has an apartment.”

“That’s great, Lola. I’m glad to hear it.” And because he’s Cricket, he

does

sound glad. This is all too weird. “Do you see her often?”

“Not really. I haven’t seen Snoopy at all this year.” I’m not sure why I add that.

“Is he still . . . ?”

I nod. His real name is Jonathan Head, but I’ve never heard anyone call him that. Snoopy met Norah when they were both teenagers. They were also alcoholics, drug addicts, and homeless gutter punks. When he got Norah pregnant, she came to her older brother for help. Nathan. She didn’t want me, but she didn’t want to get an abortion either. And Nathan and Andy, who’d been together for seven years, wanted a child. They adopted me, and Andy changed his last name to Nathan’s so that we’d all have the same one.

But yes. My father Nathan is biologically my uncle.

My parents have tried to help Norah. She’s hasn’t lived on the streets in years—before her apartment, she was in a series of group homes—but she still isn’t exactly the most reliable person I know. The best I can say is that at least she’s sober. And I only see Snoopy every now and then, whenever he rolls into town. He’ll call my parents, we’ll take him out for a burger, and then we won’t hear from him again for months. The homeless move around more than most people realize.

I don’t like to talk about my birth parents.

“I like what you’ve done with your room,” Cricket says suddenly. “The lights are pretty.” He gestures toward the strands of pink and white twinkle lights strung across my ceiling. “And the mannequin heads.”

I have shelves running across the top of my bedroom walls, lined with turquoise mannequin heads. They model my wigs and sunglasses. The walls themselves are plastered with posters of movie costume dramas and glossy black-and-whites of classic actresses. My desk is hot pink with gold glitter, which I threw in while the paint was drying, and the surface is buried underneath open jars of sparkly makeup, bottles of half-dried nail polish, plastic kiddie barrettes, and false eyelashes.

On my bookcase, I have endless cans of spray paint and bundles of hot glue sticks, and my sewing table is collaged with magazine cutouts of Japanese street fashion. Bolts of fabric are stacked precariously on top, and the wall beside it has even more shelves, crammed with glass jars of buttons and thread and needles and zippers. Over my bed, I have a canopy made out of Indian saris and paper umbrellas from Chinatown.

It’s chaotic, but I love it. My bedroom is my sanctuary.

I glance at Cricket’s room. Bare walls, bare floor. Empty. He acknowledges my gaze. “Not what it used to be, is it?” he asks.

Before they moved, it was as cluttered as my own. Coffee canisters filled with gears and cogs and nuts and wheels and bolts. Scribbled blueprints taped up beside star charts and the periodic table. Lightbulbs and copper wire and disassembled clocks. And always the Rube Goldberg machines.

Rube was famous for drawing those cartoons of complex machines performing simple tasks. You know, where you pull the string so that the boot kicks over the cup, which releases the ball, which lands in the track, which rolls onto the teeter-totter, which releases the hammer that turns off your light switch? That was Cricket’s bedroom.

I give him a wary smile. “It’s a little different, CGB.”

“You remember my middle name?” His eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“It’s not like it’s easy to forget, Cricket

Graham Bell.

”

Yeah. The Bell family is THAT Bell family. As in telephone. As in one of the most important inventions in history.

He rubs his forehead. “My parents did burden me with unfortunate nomenclature.”

“Please.” I let out a laugh. “You used to brag about it all the time.”

“Things change.” His blue eyes widen as if he’s joking, but there’s something flat behind his expression. It’s uncomfortable. Cricket was always proud of his family name. As an inventor, just like his great-great-great-grandfather, it was impossible for him not to be.

Abruptly, he lurches backward into the shadows of his room. “I should catch the train. School tomorrow.”

The action startles me. “Oh.”

And then he bounds forward again, and his face is illuminated by pink and white twinkle lights. His difficult equation face. “See you around?”

What else can I say? I gesture at my window. “I’ll be here.”

chapter five

Max picks his black shirt off his apartment floor and pulls it on. I’m already dressed again. Today I’m a strawberry. A sweet red dress from the fifties, a long necklace of tiny black beads, and a dark green wig cut into a severe Louise Brooks bob. My boyfriend playfully bites my arm, which smells of sweat and berry lotion.

“You okay?” he asks. He doesn’t mean the bite.

I nod. And it

was

better. “Let’s get burritos. I’m craving guacamole and pintos.” I don’t mention that I also want to leave before his roommate, Amphetamine’s drummer, comes home. Johnny’s a decent guy, but sometimes I feel out of my depth when Max’s friends are around. I like it when it’s just the two of us.

Max grabs his wallet. “You got it, Lo-li-ta,” he sings.

I smack his shoulder, and he gives me his signature, suggestive half grin. He knows I hate that nickname. No one is allowed to call me Lolita, not even my boyfriend, not even in private. I am not some gross old man’s obsession. Max isn’t Humbert Humbert, and I am not his nymphet.

“That’s your last warning,” I say. “And you just bought my burrito.”

“Extra guacamole.” He seals his promise with a deep kiss as my phone rings. Andy.

My face flushes. “Sorry.”

He turns away in frustration but says softly, “Don’t be.”

I tell Andy we’re already at the restaurant, and we’ve just been walking around. I’m pretty sure he buys it. The mood killed, Max and I choose a place only a block away. It has plastic green saguaro lights in the windows and papier-mâché parrots hanging from the ceiling. Max lives in the Mission, the neighborhood beside mine, which has no shortage of amazing Mexican restaurants.

The waiter brings us salty chips and extra-hot salsa, and I tell Max about school, which starts again in three days. I’m so over it. I’m ready for college, ready to begin my career. I want to design costumes for movies and the stage. Someday I’ll walk the red carpets in something never seen before, like Lizzy Gardiner when she accepted her Oscar for

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

in a dress made out of golden credit cards. Only mine will be made out of something new and different.

Like strips of photo-booth pictures or chains of white roses or Mexican

lotería

cards. Or maybe I’ll wear a great pair of swashbuckling boots and a plumed hat. And I’ll swagger to the stage with a saber on my belt and a heavy pistol in my holster, and I’ll thank my parents for showing me

Gone with the Wind

when I had the flu in second grade, because it taught me everything I needed to know about hoop skirts.

Mainly, that I needed one. And badly.

Max asks about the Bell family. I flinch. Their name is an electric shock.

“You haven’t mentioned them all week. Have you seen . . . Calliope again?” He pauses on her name. He’s checking for accuracy, but, for one wild moment, I think he knows about Cricket.

Which would be impossible, as I have not yet told him.

“Only through windows.” I trace the cold rim of my mandarin Jarritos soda. “Thank goodness. I’m starting to believe it’ll be possible to live next door and not be forced into actual face-to-face conversation.”

“You can’t avoid your problems forever.” He frowns and tugs on one of his earrings. “No one can.”

I burst into laughter. “Oh, that’s funny coming from someone whose last album had

three

songs about running away.”

Max gives a small, amused smile back. “I’ve never claimed I’m not a hypocrite.”

I’m not sure why I haven’t told him about Cricket. The timing just hasn’t felt right. I haven’t seen him again, but I’m still a mess of emotions about it. Our meeting wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was . . . unsettling. Cricket’s uncharacteristic ease compared to my uncharacteristic

un

ease combined with the knowledge that I’ll be seeing him again. Soon.

He didn’t even mention the last time we saw each other. As if it didn’t matter. More likely, it didn’t affect him. I’ve spent so many dark nights trying to forget about Cricket. It doesn’t feel fair that he could have forgotten about me.

It’s too much to explain to Max.

And I don’t want him to think Cricket Bell means something to me that he doesn’t. That chapter of my life is

over.

It’s over, unlike my conversation with Lindsey the next day, the same one we have every time we talk now. “I like Max,” I say. “He likes me. What’s wrong with that?”

“The law,” she says.

It’s the last Friday of our summer break, and we’re squished together on my tiny front porch. I’m spray-painting a pair of thrift-store boots, and she’s scoping out the lavender Victorian. Lindsey supports my relationship for the most part, but she’s relentless when it comes to this one sticking point.

“He’s a good guy,” I say. “And our relationship is what it is.”

“I’m not saying he isn’t a good guy, I’m merely reminding you that there could be consequences to dating him.” Her voice is calm and rational as her eyes perform a quick scan of the neighborhood before returning to the Bell house.

Lindsey never stops examining her surroundings. It’s what she does.

My best friend is pretty, bordering on plain. She wears practical clothing and keeps her appearance clean. She’s short, has braces, and has had the same haircut since the day we met. Black, shoulder length, tidy bangs. The only thing that might seem out of place is her well-worn, well-loved pair of red Chuck Taylors. Lindsey was wearing them the day she tripped a suspect being chased by the police on Market Street, and they’ve since become a permanent wardrobe fixture.

I laugh. Sometimes it’s the only option with her. “Consequences. Like happiness? Or love? You’re right, who’d want a thing like tha—”

“There he is,” she says.

“Max?” I swivel mid-spray, barely missing her sneakers in my excitement.

“Watch it, Ned.” She slides aside. “Not everyone wants shoes the color of a school bus.”

But she’s not talking about my boyfriend. My heart plummets to discover Cricket Bell waiting to cross the street.

“Oh, man.You got it on the porch.”

“What?” My attention jerks back. Sure enough, there’s an unsightly splotch of yellow beside the newspaper I’d spread out to protect the wood. I grab the wet rag I brought outside, for this very purpose, and scrub. I groan. “Nathan’s gonna kill me.”

“Still hasn’t forgiven you for dyeing the grout in his bathroom black?”

The splotch smears and grows larger. “What do you think?”

She’s staring at Cricket again. “Why didn’t you tell me he was so . . .”

“Tall?” I scour harder. “Unwanted?”

“. . . colorful.”

I look up. Cricket is striding across the street, his long arms swinging with each step. He’s wearing skinny mailmanesque pants with a red stripe down the side seam. They’re a tad short—purposely, I can tell—exposing matching red socks and pointy shoes. His movements suddenly become exaggerated, and he hums an unrecognizable tune. Cricket Bell knows he has an audience.

There’s a familiar clenching in my stomach.

“He’s coming over,” Lindsey says. “What do you want me to do? Kick him in the balls? I’ve been dying to kick him in the balls.”

“Nothing,” I hiss back. “I’ll handle it.”

“How?”

I cough at her as he leaps up the stairs with the ease of a gazelle. “Lola!” His smile is ear to ear. “Funny meeting you here.”

“Funny that. You being on her porch and all,” Lindsey says.

“

Your

house?” Cricket stumbles back down the top steps and widens his eyes dramatically. “They all look so similar.”

We stare at him.

“It’s good to see you again, Lindsey,” he adds after a moment. Now there’s a touch of genuine embarrassment. “I just passed your parents’ restaurant, and it was packed. That’s great.”

“Huh,” she says.

“What are you doing here?” I blurt.

“I live here. Not here-here, but there-here.” He points next door. “Occasionally. On the weekends. Well, my parents told me they set up my bed, so I assume it’s a go.”

“They did. I saw them move it in yesterday,” I say, despite myself. “There still aren’t any curtains on your window,” I add, not wanting him to think that I’ve been