Текст книги "Lola and the Boy Next Door"

Автор книги: Stephaie Perkns

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“Forget it,” Lindsey says. “Okay, call what’s-his-name. St. Clair.”

“Too embarrassing. Don’t you have access to school records or something?”

“If I had access to something like that, don’t you think I would have used it by now? No, you have to use a source. Your source is St. Clair.”

“It’s not you?”

“Bye, Lola.”

“Wait! If my parents call, tell them I’m in the bathroom. We’re eating pizza and watching

Pushing Daisies.

”

“I hate you.”

“I love you.”

She hangs up.

“All right,” an English accent says to me. “(A) You’re not in the toilets, (B) You’re not eating pizza, and (C) Whom do you love?”

I jump up and throw my arms around him. “I don’t believe it!”

St. Clair hugs me back before prying me off. “What are you doing at my dormitory?”

“I chose the right one?You live here? Which building?” I look around wildly as if it were about to light up.

“I don’t know. Should I trust a lying girl wearing a yellow raincoat on a sunny day?”

I smile. “Why are you always in the right place at the right time?”

“It’s a particular talent of mine.” He shrugs. “Are you looking for Cricket?”

“Will you show me where he lives?”

“Does he know you’re coming?” he asks.

I don’t answer.

“Ah,” he says.

“Do you think he’ll mind?”

St. Clair shakes his head. “You’re right. I sincerely doubt it. Come along, then.” He leads me across the courtyard to a brown-shingled building in the back. We climb a set of stairs, and he unlocks another door, which puts us inside the building’s second floor, in an ugly, battered hallway. He struts ahead of me, but his scuffed boots make heavy clomping noises on the carpet. Cricket doesn’t make any noise when he moves.

Does Max make noise?

“Here’s my room.” St. Clair nods to a cheap-looking wooden door, and I laugh when I see the worn drawing taped to it. It’s him wearing a Napoleon hat. “And here . . .” We walk down four more doors. “. . . is Monsieur Bell’s room.” There’s also something taped to his door. It’s an illustrated miniposter of a woman thrusting a battle-ax toward the heavens and straddling a white tiger. Naked.

St. Clair grins.

“Are you . . . sure this is his room?”

“Oh, I’m

quite

sure.”

I stare at the naked tiger lady. She’s skinny and blond and doesn’t look anything like me. Not that it matters. Not that I should care for the opinion of someone who’d hang that on his door. But still. “And now I have a train to catch,” St. Clair says. “Best of luck.” He darts out the building.

If he’s screwing with me, I’ll kill him.

I take a deep breath. And then another.

And then I knock.

chapter twenty

“Lola?” Cricket looks astonished. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” Now that I’m standing before his door, my excuses sound ludicrous.

Hey, I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d drop by to hang out. Oh! And I wanted to get back that embarrassing binder, which I only lent to you because you were nice enough to offer to make something that would enable me to attend a dance with another guy.

“I came to see if you had any ideas for the panniers. I’m . . . in a bit of a time crunch.”

Time crunch?

I have never used the phrase time crunch before.

Cricket is still in shock.

“I mean, I came to see you, too. Of course.”

“Well. You found me. Hi.”

“Everything okay?” A girl pops out her head behind him. She’s taller than me, and she’s slender. And she has golden hair in natural waves and a glowing tan that says surfer girl rather than fake-and-bake.

And she looks totally pissed to see me here.

She places a hand possessively on his arm. His sleeve is pushed up so her bare skin is touching his. My stomach plummets. “S-sorry. It was rude of me to show up like this. I’ll see you later, okay?” And then I’m speed-walking down the hall.

“LOLA!”

I stop. I slowly turn around.

He looks bewildered. “Where are you going?”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was in the neighborhood, um, shopping and . . . and of course you’re busy.”

Stop freaking out. He can date or make out with or—oh God—sleep with whomever he wants.

“Is it raining?” The girl frowns at my raincoat and rain boots.

“Oh. No. They matched my dress.” I unsnap the coat to expose a pretty dress in the same shade of yellow. Cricket startles like he’s just noticed the girl’s hand. He slides from her grasp and into the hall.

“This is my friend Jessica. We were working on our physics homework. Jess, this is Lola. The one . . . the one I told you about.”

Jessica does not look pleased by this information.

HE TOLD HER ABOUT ME.

“So you came to work on the dress?” he asks.

“It’s not a big deal.” I move toward him. “We can do it later.”

“No! You’re here. You’re never here.” He glances at Jessica. “We’ll finish tomorrow, okay?”

“Right.” She fires me a death glare before storming away.

Cricket doesn’t notice. He opens his door wide. “Come in. How did you find me?”

“St. Cla—OH.”

“What? What is it?”

Two beds. Beside one, a constellation chart, a periodic table, and a desk crowded with papers and wires and small metal objects. Beside the other, more naked fantasy women, a gigantic television, and several gaming consoles.

“You have a roommate.”

“Yeah.” He sounds confused.

“The, um, picture on your door surprised me.”

“NO. No. I prefer my women with . . . fewer carnivorous beasts and less weaponry.” He pauses and smiles. “Naked is okay. What she needs are a golden retriever and a telescope. Maybe then it would do it for me.”

I laugh.

“A squirrel and a laboratory beaker?”

“A bunny rabbit and a flip chart,” I say.

“Only if the flip chart has mathematical equations on it.”

I fake-swoon onto his bed. “Too much, too much!” He’s laughing, but it fades as he watches me toss and turn. He looks pained. I sit up on my elbows. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re in my room,” he says quietly. “You weren’t in my room five minutes ago and now you are.”

I pull myself up the rest of the way, suddenly conscious of both the bed and its lingering scent of bar soap and sweet mechanical oil. I glance at a space close to his head but not quite at it. “I shouldn’t have barged in on you like this. I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m glad you’re here.”

I find the courage to meet his eyes, but he’s not looking at me anymore. He reaches for something on his desk. It’s overflowing with towers of graphing paper and partially completed projects, but there’s one area that’s been cleared of everything. Everything except for my binder. “I did some sketches this weekend in Pennsylvania—”

“Oh, yeah.” I looked up Skate America, and it was held in Reading this year. I ask the polite question. “How did Calliope do?”

“Good, good. First.”

“She broke her second-place streak?”

He looks up. “What? Oh. No. She always gets first in these early seasonal competitions. Not to take anything away from her,” he adds distractedly. Since he’s not bothered by the mention, I gather that he doesn’t know we spoke. Best to keep it that way. “Okay,” he says. “Here’s what I was working on.”

Cricket sits beside me on his bed. He’s in scientist inventor professional mode, so he’s forgotten his self-imposed distance rule. He pulls out a few illustrations that he’d tucked inside, and he’s rambling about materials and circumferences and other things I’m not thinking about, because all I see is how carefully he’s cradling my binder in his lap.

Like it’s fragile. Like it’s important.

“So what do you think?”

“It looks wonderful,” I say. “Thank you.”

“It’ll be big. I mean, you wanted big, right? Will you have enough fabric?”

Oops. I should have been paying closer attention. I study the dimensions. He hands me a calculator so I can punch in my numbers, and I’m surprised at how perfect it is. “Yeah. Wow, I’ll even have the right amount of spare fabric, just in case.”

“I’ll collect the materials tomorrow so I can start it this weekend at my parents’ house. I’ll need . . .” His cheeks turn pink.

I smile. “My measurements?”

“Not all of them.” Now red.

I write down what he needs. “I’m not one of

those

girls. I don’t mind.”

“You shouldn’t. You’re perfect, you look beautiful.”

The words are out. He’s been so careful.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” Cricket sets aside my binder and jolts up. He moves as far away from me as possible without stepping on his roommate’s side. “I’m sorry.” He rubs the back of his head and stares out his window.

“It’s okay. Thank you.”

We’re quiet. It’s grown dark outside.

“You know.” I snap and unsnap my raincoat. “We spend a lot of time apologizing to each other. Maybe we should stop. Maybe we need to try harder to be friends. It’s okay for friends to say things like that without it getting weird.”

Cricket turns back around and looks at me. “Or to show up unannounced.”

“Though if you gave me your number, I wouldn’t have to.”

He smiles, and I pull out my cell and toss it to him. He tosses his to me. We enter our digits into each other’s phone. The act feels official. Cricket throws mine back and says, “I’m listed under ‘Naked Tiger Woman.’”

I laugh. “Are you serious? Because I entered myself as ‘Naked Tiger Lady.’”

“Really?”

I laugh harder. “No. I’m Lola.”

“The one and only.”

I walk his phone to him and place it in his open palm. “That’s a mighty fine compliment coming from you, Cricket Bell.”

His eyebrows rise slowly in a question.

And then the bedroom light flicks on.

“Whoops.” A guy half the height of Cricket and twice as wide tosses a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos onto the other bed. “Sorry, man.”

Cricket springs backward. “This is my roommate, Dustin. Dustin, this is Lola.”

“Huh,” Dustin says. “I thought you were gay.”

“Um,” Cricket says.

“You’re always in the city, and you ignore Heather whenever she comes by.”

Heather? There’s another one?

“Guess I was wrong.” Dustin shakes his head and flops down beside his chips. “Good. Now I don’t have to worry about you looking at my junk anymore.”

I tense. “How do you know he’d be interested in

your

junk? It’s not like you’re attracted to every girl in the world. Why would he be attracted to every boy?”

“Whoa.” Dustin looks at Cricket. “What’s the deal?”

Cricket throws on a coat. “We should go, Lola.You probably need to catch the train.”

“You don’t go here?” Dustin asks me.

“I attend school in the city.” I slide my binder into my bag.

He looks me up and down. “One of those art students, huh?”

“No. I go to Harvey Milk Memorial.”

“What’s that?”

“A high school,” I say.

Dustin’s eyebrows shoot up. He turns to Cricket. “Is she legal?” His voice is tinged with appreciation and respect.

“Bye, Dustin.” Cricket holds the door open for me.

“IS SHE LEGAL?” he says as Cricket slams the door shut behind us.

Cricket closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey. No apologizing. Especially not for

him

.” We head outside, and I shudder. No wonder Cricket comes home most weekends. “Besides,” I continue, “I’m used to it. I get stuff like that alllll the—”

Cricket has stopped moving.

“—time.” Crud.

“Right. Of course you do.” With excruciating effort, he pushes through Max’s ghost. Always present. Always haunting us. “So what’s the boyfriend doing tonight?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him today.”

“Do you usually talk to him? Every day?”

“Yeah,” I say uncomfortably. I’m losing Cricket. His body is moving physically farther from mine as his mind rebuilds the barrier he built to protect us. “Do you want to get dinner or something?” I blurt. He doesn’t answer. “Forget it, I’m sure you have things to do. Or whatever.”

“No!” And then, with control, “Dinner would be good. Any particular craving?”

“Well . . . Andy gave me money for pizza.”

Cricket tours me through his campus, pointing out the various buildings—all grand and immense and named Something-or-Other Hall—where he takes classes. He tells me about his teachers and the other students, and once again, I’m struck by how strange it is that he has this other life. This life I’m not a part of.

We wind up Telegraph Avenue, the busiest street in downtown Berkeley. It’s the most San Francisco–like place here, with its bead stores, tattoo shops, bookstores, record stores, head shops, and Nepalese imports. But it’s also overrun with street vendors selling cheaply made junk—ugly jewelry, tie-dyed shoelaces, bad art, and Bob Marley’s face on everything. We have to walk through a group of dancing Hare Krishnas in sherbetcolored robes and finger cymbals, and I nearly run smack into a man wearing a fur hat and a cape. He’s draping a supertiny table with velvet for tarot readings, right there on the street. I feel relieved that Norah’s distaste for costumes means at least she doesn’t look like this guy.

There are homeless everywhere. An older man with a weatherhardened face comes out of nowhere, limping and staggering in front of us like a zombie. I instinctively jolt backward and away.

“Hey,” Cricket says gently, and I realize that he caught my reaction. It’s comforting to know he understands why. To know I won’t have to explain, and to know he’s not judging me for it. He smiles. “We’re here.”

Inside Blondie’s, I insist on paying with Andy’s twenty. We sit at a countertop overlooking the street and eat one slice of pesto vegetarian (me) and three slices of beef pepperoni (him). Cricket sips a Cherry Coke. “Nice of Andy to give us dinner money,” he says. “But why pizza?”

“Oh, the pizza place was on the way,” I say. He looks confused. “On the way to Lindsey’s house. They think I’m with Lindsey.”

Cricket sets down his drink. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“No. It was easier than explaining to Andy . . .” I trail off, unsure of what the rest of that sentence is.

“Explaining that you wanted to hang out with me?”

“No. Well, yeah. But I don’t think my parents would mind,” I add quickly.

He’s exasperated. “So why didn’t you tell them? Jeez, Lola. What if something happened to you? No one would know where you were!”

“I told Lindsey I was here.”

Well, I told her later.

I push the Parmesan shaker away. “You know, you’re starting to sound like my parents.”

Cricket hangs his head and runs his hands through his dark hair. When he looks up again, it’s sticking up even taller and crazier than usual. He stands. “Come on.”

“What?”

“You have to go home.”

“I’m eating.

You’re

eating.”

“You can’t be here, Lola. I have to take you home.”

“I don’t believe it.You’re serious?”

“YES. I’m not having this on my . . . permanent record.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means if your parents find out you’ve been here without their permission, they won’t like me very much.”

Now I stand. He’s nearly a foot taller, but I try to make him feel as small as possible. “And why are you so concerned about my parents liking you? Is it necessary to remind you—AGAIN—that I have a boyfriend?”

The words are cruel, and I’m horrified as soon as they leave my mouth. Cricket’s blue eyes become startlingly angry. “Then why are you here?”

I’m panicking. “Because you offered to help me.”

“I

was

helping you, and then you just showed up. In my bedroom! You knew I was coming back next weekend—”

“You didn’t come back last weekend!”

“And now I require your permission to go somewhere? Do you take pleasure in knowing I’m over there . . .

pining

for you?”

I throw my half-finished slice in the trash and flee. As always, he’s on my heels. He grabs me. “Lola, wait. I don’t know what I’m saying, this conversation is moving too fast. Let’s try again.”

I yank my arm from his grasp and resume my race toward the train station. He’s beside every stride. “I’m going home, Cricket. Like you told me to.”

“Please don’t go.” He’s desperate. “Not like this.”

“You can’t have it both ways, don’t you get it?” I jerk to a halt and sway.

I’m talking to myself, not to Cricket.

“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m trying so hard.”

The words shatter my heart. “Yeah,” I say. “Well. Me, too.”

Confusion.

And then . . . “You’re trying? Are you trying in the same way as me?” His words rush out, toppling over each other.

Life would be so much easier if I could say that I’m not interested, that he stands no chance with me. But something about the way Cricket Bell is looking at me—like nothing has ever mattered more to him than my answer—means that I can only speak the truth. “I don’t know. Okay? I look at you, and I think about you, and . . . I don’t know. No one has ever so completely confounded me the way you do.”

His difficult equation face. “So what does that mean?”

“It means we’re right back where we started. And I’m back at the train station. So I’m leaving now.”

“I’ll go with you—”

“No. You won’t.”

Cricket wants to argue. He wants to make sure I get home safely. But he knows if he comes with me, he’ll cross a line that I don’t want crossed. He’ll lose me.

So he says goodbye. And I say goodbye.

And as the train pulls away, I feel like I’ve lost him again anyway.

chapter twenty-one

I love watching Max onstage. He’s playing his current favorite cover. The first time he sang “I Saw Her Standing There”—

Well, she was just seventeen/You know what I mean

–with a mischievous glance in my direction, I thought I’d die. I was one of

those

girls. Girls who had songs dedicated to them.

It’s still thrilling.

Lindsey and I are at Scare Francisco, an all-day, twelve-stage Halloween rock festival in Golden Gate Park. It’s Saturday, and I’m still grounded, but we’ve had these tickets for months. Plus, Norah is inescapable. After being denied every low-income apartment in the city, she made arrangements to move in with her friend Ronnie Reagan. Ronnie stands for Veronica, and she is a he, and the only problem is that Ronnie’s old roommate won’t be moving out until

January.

My parents feel rotten and guilty about this. So they let me come today.

Per annual tradition, I’m wearing jeans, a nice blouse, a black wig with straight bangs, and red sneakers. Lindsey is wearing a fifties housewife dress, a vintage apron, four-inch heels, a blond wig with a flip, and large sparkly clip-on earrings.

We’re dressed as each other, of course. I wear pretty much the same thing every year. She’s always something new.

Amphetamine finishes on stage four, and they take apart their gear while the next band, Pot Kettle Black, sets up. I fan myself with a flyer for a haunted house, trying not to draw attention to the fact that I’m fanning my armpits more than my face. But I don’t want to smell gross for Max. He hasn’t seen me yet. The sun beats down, and my nose is burning, despite my SPF 25. The city tends to get its rare heat waves in the autumn.

“I can’t wait until you’re a detective, and I get to wear your badge,” I say. “I’d totally arrest any girl who came here dressed as a sexy cat. Snooze.”

“I can’t wait until your podiatrist forbids you from wearing heels.”

“But you look

fabulous,

darling.”

“Lola?” a girl calls out from behind us.

I turn around to find Calliope, head tilted to the side. “That

is

you. You were right.” She looks over her shoulder, and I follow her gaze as the other Bell twin appears from behind a monstrously large Hell’s Angel. Or a guy dressed as a Hell’s Angel. I fan my cheeks with the flyer, feeling hot again. I’m not sure which twin is more troubling “How could you tell?” Calliope continues. “She looks so . . . normal.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Lindsey whispers to me.

“She always looks like Lindsey on Halloween,” Cricket says. Neither twin is costumed, but Cricket’s hand

does

say BOO. “Cool outfit, Lindsey. You look great.”

For all her I-don’t-care-ness, Lindsey looks pleased by the compliment. “Thanks.”

He’s having trouble looking directly at me. Did he see Max’s band? What did he think of them? The only contact I’ve had with him since Berkeley was that same night when I received a text from NAKED TIGER WOMAN asking if I’d made it home okay. If anyone else had done that after a fight, I would have found it insufferable. But Cricket seriously cannot help being a nice person.

I can’t tell if Calliope knows that I visited him. I assume not, since she’s speaking with me. Thank goodness for small miracles.

“Hey,” I say, kinda sorta meeting Cricket’s eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Same thing you are.” Calliope’s voice is clipped. “Listening to music. Practice was canceled. Petro is sick.”

“Petro?” Lindsey asks.

“My coach. Petro Petrov.”

Lindsey and I stifle our laughter. Calliope doesn’t notice. It’s odd, but I suddenly realize that I haven’t seen the twins stand beside each other in ages. They have a similar body shape, though Calliope is the petite version. This still means she’s taller than her competitors. After her growth spurt, it took several years for her to adjust on the ice. Cricket once told me that when you’re tall, your center of balance is also higher, and this accentuates mistakes. Which makes sense. But now her confidence and strength are forces to be reckoned with. She could kick my ass any day of the week.

I feel her noting the extra space and awkwardness between Cricket and me, and I have no doubt that she’s considering it.

“Why didn’t you guys dress up?” Lindsey asks.

“We did.” Calliope cracks her first smile. “We’re dressed as twins.”

Lindsey grins back. “Hmm, I see it now. Fraternal or identical?”

“You’d be surprised how many people ask,” Cricket says.

“What do you tell them?” Lindsey asks.

“That I have a penis.”

Oh God. My cheeks burn as they all burst into laughter.

Think about something else, Dolores. ANYTHING else. Cucumbers. Bananas. Zucchini. AHHHH! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

I turn my face away from them as Calliope fakes a yakking sound.

“Definitely time to change the subject,” she says.

“Hey, are you guys hungry?” I blurt.

SERIOUSLY?

I’m so thankful that mind readers aren’t real.

“Starving,” Cricket says.

“Says the guy who just ate three taco salads,” Calliope says.

He rubs his stomach. His bracelets and rubber bands rattle. “Jealous.”

“It’s so unfair. Cricket eats all day long, the most horrendous things—”

“The most delicious,” he says.

“—the most horrendous

and

delicious things, and he doesn’t gain a pound. Meanwhile, I have to count calories every time I swallow an alfalfa sprout.”

“What?” Lindsey says. She’s as baffled as I am. “You’re in perfect shape. Like,

perfect.

”

Calliope rolls her eyes. “Tell that to my coach. And to the commentators.”

“And Mom,” Cricket says, and Calliope cuts him a glare. He glares back. It’s spooky to see that they have the same glare.

And then they burst into laughter. “I win!” Cricket says.

“No way.You laughed first.”

“Tie,” Lindsey says authoritatively.

“Hey.” Calliope turns to me, and the smile disappears. “Isn’t that your boyfriend?”

Oh. Holy. Graveyards.

I’ve been so thrown that I forgot Max would be here any second. I want to shove Cricket back behind that Hell’s Angel, and he looks like he wouldn’t mind a disappearing act either. Max slinks through the crowd like a wolf on the prowl. I raise my hand in a weak wave. He nods back, but he’s staring down Cricket.

Max pulls me into his tattooed arms. “How’d we sound?”

“Phenomenal,” I say truthfully. His grip is tight, forcing me to point out the well-dressed elephant in the room. “This is my neighbor Cricket. Remember?” As if any of us could have forgotten.

“Hi,” Cricket says, shrinking up.

“Hey,” Max says in a bored voice. Which isn’t even his regular bored voice. It’s the mask of a bored voice that says,

See how much I don’t care about you?

“And this is his sister, Calliope.”

“We saw your show,” she says. “You were great.”

Max looks her over. “Thanks,” he says after a moment. It’s polite but indifferent, and his coolness disconcerts her. He turns back to me and frowns. “What are you wearing?”

The way he says it makes me not want to answer.

“She’s

me,

” Lindsey says.

Max finally acknowledges her presence. “So you must be Lola. Well. Can’t say I’ll be sorry when this holiday is over.”

I’m aghast. Cricket’s presence has made him reckless.

“I think they look terrific.” Cricket straightens to his full height. He towers over my boyfriend. “I think it’s cool that they do it every year.”

Max leans over and speaks quietly so that only I can hear it. “I’m gonna load some stuff into the van.” He kisses me, quickly at first, but then something changes in his mind. He slows down. And he REALLY kisses me. “I’ll text you when I’m done.” And he leaves without saying goodbye to anyone else.

I am so mortified. “Groups . . . make him uncomfortable.”

Calliope looks disgusted, and my insides writhe, because I know she thinks I’ve been stringing along Cricket to keep dating

that

. But

that

was not my boyfriend. The disdain in Cricket’s expression makes me feel even more humiliated. I imagine conversations in which Calliope uses this as proof that I’m shallow and not worthy of his friendship.

I turn to Lindsey. “I’m sorry. I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “You know he hates me. I’m not crazy about him either.”

I lower my voice. “Max doesn’t hate you.”

She shrugs. I can’t bear for the twins to hear any more of this, so I take Lindsey’s hand and lead her away. “We have to go, sorry. There’s a band on stage six I’ve been dying to hear.”

“Good, we’ll follow,” Calliope says. “You know these local bands better than us.”

I’m howling on the inside as they follow a dead-silent Lindsey and me across the grass and through the skeletons, ghosts, and pirates to stage six, where a mediocre punk band is butchering “Thriller.” I squint at the bass drum. My colored contacts are an old prescription. “The Flaming Olives?”

“The Evening Devils,” Lindsey corrects, annoyed.

“That’s a stupid name,” I say.

“Olives would be worse,” Calliope says. “I thought you were

dying

to hear them.”

“I thought they were gonna be someone else,” I grumble.

“Ah,” Cricket says.

It’s a disbelieving

ah,

and it furthers my shame. I stand my ground and try to lose myself in the band, but I can’t believe my boyfriend just treated Lindsey like dirt. I can’t believe Cricket just saw him treat Lindsey like dirt. And I’m glad he stepped in before Max could do further damage, but why did it have to be

him

? It should have been me. The orange sun beats down, and I’m sweating again. My wig is trapping heat. I wonder how bad my hair looks underneath, and if I can get away with removing it. At long last, I catch a break as a cloud passes over the sun. I release a tiny sigh.

“You’re welcome,” Cricket says.

And then I realize that he’s standing behind me. Cricket is the cloud.

He gives an oddly grim smile. “You looked uncomfortable.”

“This band blows, and my feet are killing me,” Lindsey says. “Let’s go.”

My phone vibrates in my pocket. A text from Max:

@ marx meadow near first aid. where are you?

The plan was to hang out with Max and Lindsey for a few hours and then go home at dusk. I love Halloween. The Castro used to close off the streets and throw an insane party that attracted over a hundred thousand people, but a few years ago, someone died in the fray. The city stopped closing it off and urged people to stay in their own neighborhoods. Still. As far as places to be on October thirty-first, a crowd of drag queens can’t be beat.

But now I don’t want to hang out with Lindsey and Max together. And I want to stay with my friend, but I haven’t been alone with Max in two weeks.

No. I should stay with Lindsey.

“Max?” she asks.

“Yeah. He’s ready to meet up, but I’m gonna tell him we’re going home early.”

“He’ll be pissed if you don’t show.”

“He won’t be pissed,” I say, with a nervous glance at Cricket. Even though Lindsey’s right. But the way she said it makes it sound worse than it is.

“Yeah, well, you haven’t seen him in forever. Don’t let me stand in the way of your amorous pursuits.”

I wish Lindsey would stop talking in front of Cricket.

“It’s fine,” she continues. “I’ll hang out with them for a little while longer”—she gestures to the Bells—“and then I’ll catch the bus home. I’m tired.”

She’s pushing me away out of spite. There’s no good way of dealing with her when she’s like this, except to give her what she wants. “So, um, talk to you tonight?”

“Go,” she says.

I sneak another glimpse at Cricket before leaving. I wish I hadn’t. He looks tortured. As if he’d do anything to stop me, but he’s being held back by his own invisible demons. I mumble my goodbye. As I walk to the meadow, I take off the wig. I don’t have a purse—Lindsey never carries one—so I drape it on the branch of a Japanese maple. Maybe someone will find it and add it to their costume. I shake out my hair, unbutton the top of my shirt, and roll up the sleeves. It’s better, but I still don’t look like me.

Actually, I look

more

like me. I feel exposed.

Max is leaning against the first-aid station, and his shoulders relax when he sees me. He’s glad I’m alone. But when I lean up to kiss him, he hardens again, and it sends a chill down my spine. “Not now, Lola.”

His rebuke stings. Is it because of how I look?

“You’re still hanging out with him,” he says.

No, it’s because he’s jealous. I’m sweating again. “Who?” I ask, buying time.

“Grasshopper. Centipede. Praying Mantis.”

It makes me cringe to hear Max mock his name. “That’s not funny. And that wasn’t nice what you said to Lindsey earlier either.”

He crosses his arms. “How long have you been seeing him?”

“I’m not seeing him. We just bumped into him and his sister, I promise.” His silence intimidates me into blabbering. “I swear, Lindsey and I ran into them, like, three minutes before you showed up.”

“I don’t like the way he stares at you.”

“He’s just my neighbor, Max.”

“How many times have you seen him since Amoeba?”

I hesitate and decide to go with a slant truth. “Sometimes I see him through my window on the weekend.”

“Your window?Your

bedroom

window?”

I narrow my eyes. “And then I close my curtains. End of story.”

“Lola, I don’t believe—”

“You never believe me!”

“Because you lie your ass off all the time! Don’t think I don’t know you’re still hiding things from me. What happened at Muir Woods, Lola?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Nathan was trying to get you to tell me something at dinner. He was there, wasn’t he? The neighbor boy.”

“Ohmygod, you’re crazy. It was a family picnic. You’re getting paranoid, and you’re making things up.” I’m panicking.

How does he know?

“Am I?”

“YES!”

“Because one of us is getting pretty worked up right now.”

“Because you’re accusing me of horrible things! I can’t believe you think I’d lie to you about something like that.”