Now would be the right time to kiss him, with everything rising and converging around us, and the universe basically pushing us into each other’s arms. Just as we begin to give in to the undeniable magnetic force, Brookes beats on the side of the truck. For one beautiful, terrible second, I mistake Doyle’s sigh for the brush of his lips.
“Thomas farm’s irrigation system backed up, and I gotta run out and take a look,” Brookes announces when Doyle rolls down the window with a vicious jab of his finger. “You don’t seem too bad at all. Wanna give me a hand?” He glances at me, swipes off his cap, and nods his head. “I’m Brookes, by the by.”
“Nes.” We exchange uncertain smiles/waves before I turn back to Doyle. “You should go help Brookes. I’ll drive over to your place tomorrow and pick you up so you can get your truck,” I offer, not even wanting to think about tomorrow until I sleep for about fourteen straight hours. Even my blood feels tired, like I went anemic overnight.
Doyle jumps out of the truck, sticks his hands deep into his pockets, and rocks back on his boots while a smile creeps over his face like molasses in December, as my abuela would say. “I was gonna say I was fine to drive, but I ain’t stupid.”
It should annoy me when he lays his good ole drawl on thick, but Doyle oozes this very specific kind of charm I find frustratingly irresistible.
“If you call before noon, I will delete you from my life forever,” I vow, popping open the truck door. Doyle and Brookes both race over to help me out, but Doyle speeds ahead and shoves his cousin back.
“You ain’t even serious right now, cuz,” Doyle warns, his hands firm and possessive on my hips as he helps me down.
“Just jokin’ on you, son. Hurry up with your girl, we gotta get going.” Brookes jogs back to his truck, and I shimmy from side to side, twisting out of Doyle’s grasp.
“Southern hospitality,” I gripe. “I’m either being chased down by a mob with pitchforks or I have two guys knocking each other over to prove how chivalrous they are. Y’all gotta make up your minds.”
“Damn, a twang’s hot on you, girl.” He leads me to my door and lays his hand flat on it when I reach for the knob. “You okay?”
I pop a shoulder against the frame. “I’m fine,” I lie.
“Liar.” He reaches out and traces his thumbs under my dry eyes like he’s searching for the memory of tears.
It’s sweet. God, it’s so sweet. But I don’t want to need his help to get through every little thing because it means I won’t be able to separate wanting to be with him from needing to. And that makes all the difference.
I loop my fingers around his wrists, pull his one hand from my face and the other from my door.
“Talk to you tomorrow.” I deliver the words firmly, to mask the jelly of my uncertain feelings about this sweet and dangerous thing we’re volleying back and forth.
Doyle reholsters his hands in his pockets and tromps backward away from the door and onto the street. His shuttered gaze locks with mine until I close the door and force a break.
My eyes flutter shut for a second, and I acknowledge I’m hard-core tempting fate. I might fall asleep standing up in the front hall.
My mother pads out of the kitchen in an old tank and a pair of comfy sweats. Her dark hair is growing out of its bob, so it swirls in soft waves around her neck. She’s wearing her librarian glasses and has one hand wrapped around an I Heart NY mug of steaming tea. How does she hold it without scalding the skin on her hands? I asked her once. She said, “Thirty-seven hours of back labor with your brother, and I think I developed a superhuman tolerance for pain.”
“Do you want a mug?” She holds up her tea, and I inhale. Mint. My favorite.
This is a substantial olive branch. “No.” The word nearly extinguishes the flicker of peace. I blow gently on the embers until they grow orange. “No, thank you. I’m really tired.”
The words, carefully free of any obnoxious tone, warm the air between us, and Mom stiffens like she might be afraid to make a move and break the spell.
“Fun day?”
A lot of culture shock and a little racism aren’t exactly my definition of fun. I’m relieved when it hits me that I probably wouldn’t have told my mother about being pulled over even if we were still as tight as we’d been before a few months ago, when everything fell apart.
The things out of her control—middle school mean-girl cliques, a broken arm while I was on a skiing trip with Dad in Switzerland, my heartbreak when Ollie’s dad was seriously considering moving to Vancouver for work—those always hurt her the worst. And there’s this whole thing with her where my being half-Dominican means I’m going to face things she can’t anticipate. To make up for that, it’s almost like she went into worry overdrive. Like if she couldn’t predict what might hurt me, she’d assume everything would.
“Really fun. Doyle’s friends are great.”
It’s a gray lie. Some of them are. Some of them hate me. And it may seem like I’m putting another wall between my mother and me, but that’s not it at all. I’m shielding her from unnecessary hurt.
“You two seem to be getting pretty serious pretty quickly. Maybe you can have him over for dinner sometime.” She’s pushing her luck, and she knows it.
I’m too tired for hate or peace or anything but sleep. Deep, sweet, merciful sleep.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Look, I’m going to…” I point to my room.
Mom nods. “Right. Okay. Good night, baby.”
I’ve already started walking down the hall. I turn my doorknob and am about to march into the dark and collapse on the mattress and into oblivion. But—
“Good night, Mom.”
A few pounds of weight slip off my shoulders after I utter those three simple words, and I start to tumble down the deepest rabbit hole of sleep with one fuzzy thought dominating my brain: anger is too damn heavy to keep lugging around.
SIXTEEN
For the next few weeks my life revolves equally around pretending I’m not falling hard and fast for Doyle Rahn and praying the end of term comes quick enough that I can tap out of all this convoluted emotional craziness and go back where I belong. The problem is, by the time Doyle is through being my personal tour guide in this wild, crazy, beautiful place that’s sort of slowly growing on me, I’m not sure how I’ll feel about leaving.
“Hey, slugger, how you feelin’ ’bout that old man and the ocean and the fish…?” Doyle’s popped up next to me in the sardine-can halls of Ebenezer High, and I seriously wonder if he’s a ninja. How does he always manage to appear out of thin air?
Not that I’m complaining.
“Like, a swordfish dinner would be delicious right now.” I moan. “Eating fish is cool. Swimming with fish is cool. Going fishing might even be cool. Reading an allegory about a fish? I’d rather sleep with the fishes.”
“Hear that. I’d much rather deep-sea fish for a giant, killer marlin than read about some old dude doing it.” He stays protectively close to my side, which has been his default stance since the night I got pulled over.
We walk to class in a comfortable tandem, grinning like fools whenever our shoulders bump. Ansley sits at the spirit club table, legs crossed, smoothing the pleats of her navy cheer skirt. Her corn-silk ponytail whips around the second she catches sight of Doyle’s golden hair, and she immediately throws her head back, laughing hard and long while the three guys in football uniforms crowded around her stare at each other with a mix of confusion and pride.
Sadly, it appears these lug heads actually believe they made an unintentionally hilarious joke. It doesn’t seem to dawn on them that Ansley is using them as gorgeous, muscled props in her quest to make Doyle jealous. Even more sadly, Ansley notices Doyle didn’t hear the first cackle and goes for round two. The guys around her puff their chests up, probably contemplating their future stand-up comedy careers.
“Are you ready for Lovett’s quiz? You know it’s going to be intense.”
“I hope. I read by fl
ashlight in the back of my pickup while Lee checked a field for cotton fleahoppers—”
“You are lying!” I interrupt. He keeps striding along, using his elbow as a kind of rudder to direct me around the crush of our classmates.
“Why would I lie about cotton fleahoppers?”
“Because that has got to be, like, a Yu-Gi-Oh! character or something. No way is that an actual insect.” I study his face, positive I’m going to see him crack a smile and tell me he’s just kidding. But nope. Apparently cotton fleahoppers are a real thing. “So, are they, like, a plague of locusts?”
“Naw. They’re brats when the cotton’s young, but they eat bollworm eggs when the cotton gets older, which is a blessin’. We’re way past cotton crop harvest now. This was an experimental plot at Armstrong we been monitoring. Trying to see if we can use fleahoppers instead of pesticide to control bollworms. They done ate the crap outta last year’s crops bad.”
“So you were collecting data about cotton fleahoppers who might become fierce predators of the evil bollworms? Exciting stuff. You might give Hemingway a run for his money, Doyle.”
“Funny you say so, smart-ass.” He reaches up and undoes my hair clip, holding it hostage above his head. He finally takes pity on my short-stack height and lets me have it back. “I was lying there, tired as hell, wonderin’ which I’d rather—be stuck on a boat deep out at sea, fighting storms and a bunch of sharks to bring in a monster marlin, or stuck in the bed of a truck figuring out how to fight a million crawlies with another million crawlies in a sad-lookin’ cotton field.”
I reclip my hair and look at him from under my lashes. “So which scenario won out? Because, honestly, they both sound so crappy in their own ways.”
“The truck and the field. I hate some of the pesticides they gotta use to keep the crops up, so I like knowing we help. It ain’t glamorous, but it makes a difference. Some of them pesticides hang in the air like a kinda sticky cloud. I breathe ’em in and think, ‘Nah, this can’t be good.’ So I like bein’ a cog in the machine run by the smart guys makin’ changes. Plus I knew I’d finish my chapter and get some shut eye, then come here and get to jaw ’bout all that lit’rature with you.”
“You know, I get you’re a cog right now, but you’re smart. Get a degree in botany and you can run the machine.”
“You ain’t saying it jest ’cause you think it’ll give you a better shot at getting in my pants?”
“Stop making this a joke,” I warn, and his smile loses some of its court-jester urgency. “You have some pretty amazing ideas in that overinflated head of yours. There are tons of ag programs at schools with rolling admissions. Oh, look what I found!” I tug the school list I printed for him out of my messenger bag, write APPLY NOW in capital letters, and pop the pen into my bun as I hand it over. “You’re welcome.”
Doyle pinches the paper between his fingertips like it’s coated in cotton fleahoppers. “Rolling admissions?”
“Yep. It means they don’t have a deadline for enrollment. You took your SATs?”
“ACTs.” A worried frown puckers his mouth.
“That’s fine. If you don’t show me proof that you actually applied, I’m cutting you off cold turkey. No more breakfasts, no mudding, no baseball, no nothing. I’m not playing with you, Doyle Rahn,” I warn, channeling Ollie.
“Hey now, we’re supposed to be friends. What you’re proposin’ sounds a whole lot like extortion,” Doyle mutters.
“Consider yourself extorted then.” We step into the classroom.
“Whelp, I better get to my desk so I can study s’more. Can’t get some fancy college diploma without finishin’ high school.” He holds his hand out so I can slide into my seat and winks. “Best’a luck.”
“You too, Rahn.”
Ansley flounces in and surveys the room, trains her laser gaze on me, smirks as she sits primly on her chair, then turns to Doyle. “I think it would be really cute if our class started a tradition where the senior Homecoming King and Queen gave out flowers together on Valentine’s Day.”
Doyle doesn’t look up from his paperback when he answers. “Homecoming was way back in the fall, Ansley. What’s that got to do with Valentine’s Day?”
“It’s got to do with you, fam,” Alonzo interrupts. Several of the guys around him snicker, and several of Ansley’s cheerleader cohorts scowl.
Ansley snorts and neatens the perfectly aligned books on her desk. “That’s plain stupid, Lonzo. Everybody knows me and Clint Fulton are a couple now, so I’m gonna go ahead and ignore you.” She flicks her fingers his way dismissively. “This is about our school and our senior year. I got to thinking that Ebenezer’s been lettin’ go of too many traditions lately, so why don’t we start some of our own?”
“Right, but why not some that actually make sense?” Alonzo presses.
“I’m not even talking to you, so mind your business!” Ansley snaps.
Alonzo sits back slowly and shakes his head. “Girl, the only one you’re yappin’ to is your fool self. Like it or not, we’re all Rebels, whether we got crowned in some dumb pageant or not. No one here cares about all this high school–royalty crap ’cept you.”
“Funny you claim you don’t care.” Ansley tries a nasty smile on for size. It’s a perfect fit. “You’re the one who decided to run against Doyle for Homecoming King as some sort of joke.”
Ansley cuts her theatrical laugh short when Alonzo’s face clouds over and his nostrils flare. “I was elected. It’s not like I put my own name on the ballot or something.”
“Bless your heart, Lonzo. So it wasn’t a joke after all? But you didn’t really think you’d win, right? I mean, no offense, but you? Homecoming King? Against Doyle?”
“Back down, Ansley,” Doyle warns. Alonzo gives Doyle a silent nod of thanks.
“Alonzo only lost by a few votes,” Khabria chimes in coolly. “My best friend’s the student council president, and they had to do a recount to make sure.”
“I heard the race for Homecoming Queen was just as close,” says Braelynn, her face as red as her hair. She and Ansley are locked in a furious stare-down that definitely hints at intrigue in the Mean Girl ranks.
“I don’t know why everyone is jumping down my throat for making a suggestion,” Ansley huffs.
“I got my own booth to run for Ag Club anyway,” Doyle announces, staring back down at his book. “So we can forget about homecoming.”
“You can wear your little plastic crown when you sell carnations if it makes you feel better, Ansley,” Lonzo says, sticking out his bottom lip as her eyes bug out.
“Just shut up, Lonzo! You act like you’re Ebenezer’s elected senior class mouthpiece. And I’ll remind you that it’s a free country, Doyle Rahn. I’ll talk when and about whatever I please.”
“There’s a big difference between talking and stirring the pot jest to cause trouble. You should know that better than anyone,” Doyle says in a low voice.
There’s a chorus of oohs, but the bell rings before Ansley can retort. Ma’am Lovett breezes in and drops quizzes still hot from the photocopier on the first desk of each row. Quiz time means silence in Lovett’s class.
I turn very slightly in my seat so I can see Doyle bent over his paper from the corner of my eye. I love the way he grips his ballpoint pen too tight, like it’s a fishing rod with a monster marlin at the other end. When Ma’am Lovett calls for the quizzes back, I’m pretty sure I did fine, but I would have gotten a perfect score if I’d given the questions the kind of attention I gave checking out Doyle Rahn.
And it’s like that for days. The sound of his laugh, his addictive smile, the way he leans against the lockers with this effortless cool—it all has me distracted and more head-spinny than ever.
So when a unique opportunity to do something other than ogle this guy I think I’m falling for presents itself, I grab it…even if it’s a Valentine’s mission.
Just because it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow doesn’t mean it has to be romantic. In fac
t, I have a history of activism aimed at downplaying the romantic social stigma of this greeting-card “holiday.” To combat the idea of Valentine’s as some couples-only romantic shindig, Ollie and I developed the Sisters Before Misters Valentine’s Day project as part of our feminist club at Newington. We basically ran a campaign by ripping off memes with cute sayings that made sense, like Fries Before Guys, and had girls buy each other little flowers-and-candy packs. They became the must-have Valentine’s accessory, and Ollie and I were able to buy a cake on March 15 with the proceeds. (To celebrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s birthday.)
I’m unsurprised to find Valentine’s Day in the South causes just as much angst as it did in the North.
“Wanna see somethin’ cool?” Doyle asks me on the way to lunch just before the big day. The cafeteria is already overfull, since no one is opting to brave the seventh-circle-of-hellfire temperatures outside. To add to the general sense of misery, fish sticks are on the menu, so there’s a decidedly unpleasant piscine aroma that mingles with too many deodorants, body sprays, and perfumes as well as some good old-fashioned BO.
I’d take a hard pass on eating in the cafeteria today anyway, but the fact that Doyle wants to show me something secret makes following him wherever he wants to take me the logical choice.
“All right.” He leads me to a large glass building that looks jungle hot through the condensation-laced glass. “Ready to see as close to heaven as you’re gonna get on Earth?”
“How can I say no to that?”
He sweeps open the door and we enter a hot, sticky room that’s impossibly bright from two distinct sources. One is the ever-present sun, baking the glass with a white-hot light. But the second is gorgeous, blooming pink flowers with delicate petals and a bright orange…
Rebels Like Us Page 20
