Silent. Waiting.
“That song you were playing…” Evie took a few tentative steps towards him, flip-flops sinking in the damp, dark pebbles. A whiff of something skunky, like the inside of his car, filled her nostrils. Things clicked together then—another layer of Oskar’s mystique unveiled. Definitely a joint. Not only was she spying, she was catching him in the middle of illegal activity. She struggled to stay calm.
His blank expression remained as placid as the water in the volcanic crater behind them. Great. Where did she put that translation dictionary? She dropped it on the ground during the quake and hadn’t seen it since. Evie held her hands up, miming playing an instrument.
“Beautiful.” That was a pretty common word, right? She tried to simplify. “Good.”
His lashes cast shadows on his cheeks as he drew the joint to his mouth, full lips curling around it in a gentle embrace. The fiery end brightened as he pulled a slow drag. Oskar blew a thick white puff into the air, and then outstretched a long, tattooed arm toward her. A curl of smoke extended from the cylinder between his fingers. It took Evie a second too long to get that he was offering it to her. God, she was so lame.
A nervous lump lodged in her throat. Last year, she had befriended her Biology Two lab partner, a girl named Angel, who made her love for marijuana no secret. Angel is bad news, Loretta had warned her. Total drug addict, and she’ll just try to pull you down with her. I mean, gawd, look at those awful dreadlocks, clashing with her Saint Bart’s uniform like she stole it or something. You know you have to stop washing your hair for like, months, to get it to look like that.
But there was never any pressure from Angel. Not that Evie got the chance to hang out with her. Loretta had always made sure to account for every waking moment of Evie’s time at school. Funny how that used to piss her off, but now she would’ve given a pinky toe for a mere scrap of communication with her.
Oskar’s eyes brightened to a silvery blue, joint dangling like a question mark in the air between them. This must’ve been the peer pressure the all-wise Loretta had been talking about. Loretta, the—air quotes—friend who was probably getting drunk and making out with Ben at the FloRida Fourth of July event in Miami at this very moment.
Evie stepped closer to Oskar. Screw it. When she took the joint from him, their fingers brushed, and the atmosphere grew twenty degrees warmer. It’s the fire, she lied to herself.
Sinking to the coolness of the rock next to him, she left a foot or two of personal space. Then she put the end of the joint in her mouth. The minty sweetness of spearmint lingered on the end where his lips had touched it. Almost like kissing him, she thought to herself.
She took a puff, not even sure if she was doing it right, and held the smoke in her mouth, deciding that it wasn’t that much different from the cigarettes she’d tried at a party last year. But she’d never inhaled those. Would he know if she didn’t inhale? Her fear intensified as he watched her and waited. She took another bigger puff, just in case. And then she breathed in.
Razor blades.
Air with claws.
Fire.
Shit.
The smoke scraped down her throat into surprise-attacked lungs. She blew ragged puffs of pain through her mouth and nose, coughing like her Abuela’s assisted living neighbor, the emphysema patient. In that moment, she wished she had her own clunk clunk clunk oxygen tank. She rocked harder than the earthquake and, in the process, accidentally dropped the joint on the ground.
Double shit.
They both dove for it at the same time, heads colliding with a thwack mid-air.
Awesome.
Oskar sat up, joint in one hand, rubbing his head with the other—just above the butterfly bandages closing the wound on his forehead—another injury he’d sustained because of her. His jaw clenched, and the fire lit the contours of his face. Shaggy loose curls, thick blond brows, and heavily lashed eyes. Oskar may as well have been a sculpture. If a mad scientist spliced DNA from ancient Vikings and Paul Bunyan, it might’ve rendered someone with a resemblance to Oskar. He was a living, breathing work of art.
As Evie’s coughing fit died down, she searched her brain for a word or sign he might understand. Something that said, I’m new at this. In case he couldn’t already tell. She gave him a double thumbs-up. Best she could do. “The rookie survived,” she croaked, voice gritty as the rock beneath her. A grin cracked through his stern expression. His dimples glinted, and his eyes narrowed to amused slants as he pulled the joint to his lips again.
Those dimples. Mother Mary.
“Oh don’t look so smug, Mr. Expert.” Evie rolled her eyes, trying to stop the heat rising in her neck. His smile withered and he looked away. Withdrawing. A chilly breeze passed between them. Desperate to get it back, Evie extended her hand. Oskar glanced down at it and raised an eyebrow, eyes trailing upward until they met hers.
“What? I don’t get another chance?” She wiggled her fingers in a gimme gesture.
Oskar smirked but relented.
A swimmy-headed residue lingered between them as minutes drifted by. Evie slid down into a nook on the rock. Sharp edges began to soften. Objects adopted a pleasant, gauzy glimmer like the tip of the flames. The horizon brightened to a more vivid version of itself, a chroma effect against the gray sky. Time lost its authority.
Oskar’s hands rested on the knees of his worn-out jeans, long fingers dangling. A coiling spiral of smoke rose between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. The muscles in his arm squeezed as he drew his hand to his mouth. Evie’s gaze made the slow crawl up his neck, over a prominent Adam’s apple, past the dark blond stubble on his jaw, and then…
He pinned her in place with his stormy eyes, exhaling sheets of clouds into the air, colors blurring through them. His lips parted further when the smoke dissipated, and he hesitated, as if on the cusp of confession.
She noticed his teeth then, for the first time. The top ones were straight and pearly, but the bottom ones sprouted from his gums at odd angles—crooked in an imperfect way that seemed like an afterthought, like God realized he made him too perfect and had to screw things up a little to even the score. They leaned into one another, like a white picket fence blown around by the wind. It somehow made him even more attractive. As she stared, she couldn’t help wondering what they’d feel like beneath her tongue. What it’d be like to stumble over them, to trace the space between the two middle ones.
Had she felt Ben’s teeth when they kissed? She couldn’t remember. Oskar smiled then. An open-mouthed, purposeful smile. Something clenched in her belly, and the rest of her melted into a puddle of molten rock around it. Ben who?
“Sorry to stare.” Evie shrugged, voice thick with a confidence she only had in her dreams. “You’re really nice to look at.”
Oskar sat motionless. She giggled, flooded with that same strange sense of bravery she’d felt when she’d tested him that day in the orchard. She sprawled across the rock like it was a hammock. She could say anything she wanted to him. Maybe she’d tell him she had been thinking about him nonstop since the day she first saw him. Maybe she’d walk right over and kiss him.
Then the reality occurred to her. Bolting upright, paranoia took the reins. She was freaking stoned. It was nothing more than false courage, courtesy of Bob Marley’s favorite plant. Evie risked another glance at him. Oskar’s face held no hint of recognition. He had no idea what she’d said anyway, so it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to be self-conscious. But if she kissed him… she bet he would understand that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Oskar’s Journal
Have you ever heard of Bob Marley?
she asks, dark eyes glazed over.
I open my mouth,
then close it again.
I have to be more careful.
I almost let myself slip and speak,
which I promised myself I wouldn’t do.
Of course I know who Bob Marley is.
Wait, she says, giggling,<
br />
Waitwaitwait—
She holds her hands up in the air,
I can totally explain this.
Rasta! she says,
flitting her fingers around her hair,
imitating dreadlocks.
Nothing?
Okay, I got this, hang on.
She holds an invisible guitar to her chest
and sings.
Adorably off-key.
Don’t worry, bout a thing,
’cause every little thing, is gonna be alright.
Her hazy smile overpowers the fire.
You know that song?
Bob Marley?
She talks with her hands,
turns the volume of her voice up
as if that will make things clearer to me.
Me home is in Jamaica, mon.
She does the accent,
contorts her expression
playing a game of charades.
It takes massive amounts of willpower
to keep from laughing.
She goes back to the song,
mimicking the chorus,
This is my message to you-hoo-hoo.
She bobs her head in time with her words.
I can’t keep a straight face
one second longer.
So I pick up the ukulele,
stick the joint in the corner of my mouth,
and play the melody.
She sits up straight and claps with glee.
Yes! I knew you’d know!
Everyone knows that song.
Even my abuela loves that song.
She watches me as I strum.
The way she looks at me
messes with my head.
Most people spare me pitying side-glances, at best.
She doesn’t look at me.
She looks straight into me
and takes all the answers without asking.
Something tells me she enjoys it.
Shoving the thought away,
I let the embers jumping off the drying wood distract me.
When I peek up, she looks at her feet.
Caught again.
Even Sana—the only girl I’ve ever been with,
or even kissed—
doesn’t look at me this way.
Being with her was never something to write about.
Sure, I wanted to do it at the time.
It was a sick curiosity,
a desire to know something everyone else already knew.
To be in on the joke.
But even the kissing was weird and wet.
Nothing I’m dying to relive.
If it was Evelyn…
Her upper lip forms a perfect lowercase m.
Mmmm.
A sound I can never play on my broken strings.
Her bottom lip puckers out,
a little indention squeezes the flesh where she bites it all the time.
She draws it between her teeth,
tempting me,
I’m certain.
Somehow I know kissing her
would never be awkward.
But it’s not like I can ever find out.
I can’t kiss her
after I’ve let this lie go on so long.
I can’t tell her the truth
and double back on
the agreement I made with myself.
I flick the rest of the joint on the fire
and resume my strumming,
hiding between the notes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Evie
Evie’s emotions zinged all over the place as he finished the song.
One moment, she wanted to crawl in a hole from the embarrassment of getting herself into this situation. Two seconds later, she had to fight a tsunami of giggles that dammed up in her chest and tickled her throat to the point of pain. When Oskar caught her staring at him for about the fiftieth time, she lost control and let them bubble out in an endless string of silliness. His brows reached for the sky—which only made her laugh harder.
“You should see your face!” Evie cackled, grasping her midsection and doubling over. The rational part of her brain knew this was a side effect, but she couldn’t reason it into submission. “It’s like, whoa, who is this crazy American girl and why is she eye humping me to death?”
As if contagious, Oskar laughed. First a low rumble, then a sprawling richness that made the air around Evie sigh. Each chuckle encouraged another, a cacophony of ridiculousness that echoed well past expiration. When contented breaths replaced their laughter, the moment floated away. A deafening silence replaced it.
Paranoia taunted her—say something!
“I don’t know why I just did that with you,” she told him, feeling like she had to pierce the quiet, kill it like an enemy. “My abuela would be so disappointed if she knew.” Evie stared at the ground, drawing circles in the black pebbled dirt with the toe of her flip flop. “She’s not like, one of those holier-than-thou Catholics, but she’s really big on the whole body is a temple thing. She loves Bob Marley, but she’d never like, smoke a doob with him. If he were still alive, I mean.”
Evie glanced up at Oskar. He sat quietly, watching her. Seeming totally content to listen to her blab. “I stopped talking to a friend back home because someone told me stoners were bad news. But you know what? This is the best I’ve felt in a long time.” Evie shook her head, imagining the friendship she might’ve had with Angel if she hadn’t listened to Loretta. Angel probably wouldn’t have moved in on her boyfriend, either. “Anyway, minds are changing about it in the States. It’s already legal in some places. Once the economy gets bad enough, everyone’ll embrace it. Because America has these so-called morals until there’s money involved.”
Oskar studied her through squinted eyes, probably trying to figure out what the hell she was even saying, but she couldn’t stop flapping her jaws—safe in the promise that she could say whatever she wanted, and it’d be lost in translation.
“Americans are total money whores, you know. They’ll do anything for it. My mother, for example, would rather force me to start over my senior year in New York City than give up her alimony.” She threw her head back and let a bitter laugh escape, like releasing the carbon dioxide from a soda. “She left us when I was thirteen, approximately the moment I needed her most. But hey, at least she’s getting paid, right?”
Oskar’s face remained expressionless. Evie became more animated, talking with her hands. “This woman is ten years younger than my dad. They weren’t even a couple. Just some random hookup, which is really gross if you think about it.” She shook her head like she could wiggle the thought loose. “I try not to think about it. Anyway. Little ole me came along and almost ruined them both. Neither of them ever wanted kids.”
She sighed, letting the harsh truth of that sink in for the millionth time in her life. Glancing up at Oskar, Evie continued. “She knocked on his door and asked for abortion money. So he married her and convinced her to have me. He’s Catholic, too, you know. Catholics don’t kill babies. The body is a temple. Good thing for me, huh?” Evie felt the overwhelming urge to cry, but instead, she laughed. Oskar studied her, so she looked away.
“She tried to be a housewife, but she sucked at it. She wanted to be an actress. I guess having a family made her miserable or whatever. She sunk into this deep depression and pretty much slept through my childhood. I’d come home from school some days and knock on her bedroom door for hours. If she answered at all, she’d just yell. So I started going over to Abuela’s after school and on the weekends while Papá was working.”
Evie’s confession spun wildly out of control. She hadn’t meant to tell him so much, but once she started talking, she couldn’t stop. She was never this candid, even in confession with her priest.
She picked at her fingernails, risking a glance at Oskar. Through bloodshot eyes, he studied her, as if listening intently. The illusion of having someone listen, actually give a shit, gave her the
courage to go on.
“She finally got in-patient counseling a few years ago, but afterward, she went to New York instead of coming home. To pursue her forgotten dreams, she said. She works as a stagehand now. I hope it’s worth it to her, settling like that.” The easy laughter turned to a bubble of regret in her throat. She didn’t realize it would still hurt to say it all out loud.
“My dad actually gave me the choice: come here with him, or go to New York to live with her. So I chose him, like always. But as it turns out, he’s done nothing but ignore me since we got here, and he’s going to make me go live with her, anyway. And if that wasn’t already a big fat bucket of suck, my friends back home have already forgotten me too. Not one message from them since the first week I got here. You’re the only person who’s ever listened to me, and you don’t know what a mess I am or you wouldn’t, either.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
Oskar leaned forward, invading her bubble of personal space. Something new settled into his features as he examined her. Her words may not have made sense to him, but her nuances must have. Maybe her teary eyes made him feel sorry for her.
Ugh. Pity. Not at all what she was going for.
On the bright side, though, he kept glancing at her lips. Six inches separated their faces. Maybe five. Four if she leaned forward a little more. Then three. Yep, he was definitely looking at her mouth. Two…
“Oskar! Come here for a minute, lad!” Agnes’s voice boomed through the valley. Oskar jumped up like he’d been caught committing a felony. He darted to his feet and jogged away, toward the barn, without so much as a backward glance.
Mother Mary full of grace. She’d almost kissed him! A boy even less capable of getting to know her than Ben Benson.
Don’t do drugs, kids.
When he disappeared from sight, Evie clambered to her feet and crept away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Oskar’s Journal
Was she going to kiss me?
Or am I just baked?
Guilt churns in my gut as I stalk inside the barn.
The Language of Cherries Page 10
