Not Anything

by Carmen Rodrigues

  “Man…” Marisol shifts indecisively. “Okay.”

  We open the door. The monster is crouched down next to Lucy, his mask pulled up.

  “Isn’t that Danny Diaz?” Marisol asks, turning her head sideways.

  And it is. It’s Danny Diaz, standing in Marisol’s doorway in a puddle of pee.

  “Wow. Weird,” Marisol says.

  “Yeah,” I say, because what else can I say? What are the chances of this ever happening to anyone else but me? “Weird.”

  “i really am sorry,” danny says apologetically. “that was completely gross.”

  It’s true, something as small as fifteen minutes can really make a difference in your life. Just look at me now. Here I am sitting in Marisol’s living room with Danny Diaz staring at me and Marisol kissing a five-year-old’s butt in the kitchen. And all of that happened in just fifteen minutes.

  And two weeks ago, I was sitting in my living room across from Danny Diaz, having the most intimate conversation of my entire life—and that experience really only lasted like fifteen minutes, too.

  And every Wednesday at three thirty, I sit across a library desk and stare at Danny Diaz for an hour. And every fifteen minutes, I can’t help thinking, What if…?

  It’s just a weird coincidence, is all I’m saying.

  Sprinkles of laughter tumble out of the kitchen, where Marisol and Lucy are playfully fighting over the exact location to wedge a Snickers bar in the enormous ice cream sundae that they’ve concocted. Guilt always turns Marisol into the ideal host.

  “My aunt should be here soon.” Danny looks at his watch. His gaze wanders over his shoulder, toward the kitchen. “You think they’re okay—alone and stuff?” He looks nervous. I’m pretty sure he’s wondering what other accidents Lucy’s planning on having tonight.

  “Don’t worry,” I reassure Danny, “Marisol’s got her covered. Thank God her old ballet clothes fit Lucy. I can’t believe how loud she can scream.”

  “Yeah, she can be real loud sometimes. It’s a Latin thing,” he says with a wink.

  “Don’t let Marisol hear you say that,” I tell him. “She’s totally against the idea that Hispanics are loud.”

  “What is she? Cuban American?” he asks.

  “Two hundred percent,” I tell him.

  “Me, too. How about you?” he asks me.

  “With a last name like Shannon? Puh-leeze.” I give him a look. “I’m a combo—half Irish from my dad’s side, half Puerto Rican from my mom’s side.”

  “That’s weird,” he says. “Shannon, huh? Your dad is pale like Casper.”

  “No, he’s not.” I toss a throw pillow at him in protest.

  “Yeah, he is.” Danny grabs the pillow and tosses it back. I duck so that it doesn’t hit me. “But”—he leans forward and takes in the features on my face—“you have a little bit of color. You must look more like your—”

  “So, do you watch Lucy a lot?” I change the subject quickly.

  “Sometimes.” Danny gives me an odd look. He glances toward the kitchen. Lucy’s is asking Marisol a thousand and one questions about our costumes and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “Lucy’s father left when she was like two, and my Aunt Ana likes for her to have some, you know, male role models around.” He shrugs his shoulders like he’s embarrassed.

  “That’s real sweet of you,” I say.

  Danny tilts his head to the side, and the light rests fully on his face. I notice that he’s shaved. His curly hair is barely wavy, flattened by the weight of his mask.

  “That wig makes you look different,” he says.

  Automatically, I tug on the ends to straighten it. I like the way I look in this wig. My hair isn’t so crazy, and my face looks less angular.

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Yeah, it does.” He looks at me, and I feel like he can almost see right through me, which is stupid, I know. It’s just sometimes I feel like I might be able to be comfortable around him, which is a huge step for me. I can barely be comfortable around myself.

  He closes his eyes, rubbing his temples. “Would you mind dimming the lights a little?”

  “Do you have a headache?”

  “Feels like it,” Danny says.

  I turn off the lights, and we sit in the dark. He rests his head on the cushion. With his eyes closed, I take in the contours of his face. I imagine what it would be like to run my fingers through his hair, to inhale his scent, to see if he tastes like Zest, to do all those things that I read about in Leslie’s Cosmo magazines.

  “It’s nothing.” He opens his eyes and catches me staring at him.

  “Huh?”

  “The headache is nothing, really.” He closes his eyes again and massages his temples.

  “Is it a tension headache?” I ask. “Because if it is, there’s this point between your eyebrows here”—I point to the indentation in the center of my eyebrows between my nose and my forehead—“called the third eye, and if you press it just right, the tension should go away.”

  “Yeah?” He shakes his head at me. “How do you know?”

  “It’s called acupressure. It’s ancient,” I say, my confidence in this subject suddenly shaky. “It’s Chinese.” I add for clarity, “Like from China.”

  “That’s like Asian. Like in Asia?” He asks with a smile.

  I nod my head stupidly, even though I know he’s teasing me.

  “Can you do it?” His voice is low and slippery.

  “Me? No…” I shake my head. What have I gotten myself into? “I’ve never actually done it. I’ve just seen it done…to my dad—”

  “By a real doctor?”

  In the family room, Marisol and Lucy are laughing over a Charlie Brown cartoon special, and I wonder why I’m not with them. Why am I here? ALONE? With Danny?

  “No, my mom. She studied holistic medicine in nursing school. She used to do it to my dad.”

  “Used to?” He rolls his head along the side of the cushion and opens his eyes. The noise from the television fills the space between us, and I look away slowly.

  “Do you think you could do it to me?” he asks.

  “Now?” I whisper.

  “Yeah,” he says, his voice catching in his throat. “Now.”

  “I don’t know,” I retreat farther into the cushions of my seat. “It works on my dad, but I’m not sure that it would work on you.”

  “Why don’t we try?” I watch him eliminate the safe space between us. He sits on the floor and, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, rests his head on my thigh.

  We are touching.

  “I…don’t think I can…” The missing pieces of my sentence float out the open window into the cool October air.

  “Here.” He reaches back for my hands. He places them on his forehead between his eyebrows. “Please…” His voice is as thick as honey.

  I press my finger on his third eye and hold. My thighs squeeze together. I think, There is a boy shuddering between my thighs.

  And like that—I stop breathing. My heart stops beating. My body takes one huge pause. And I wonder how things like this, unexpected things, can happen so quickly and make me feel so alive.

  that’s how marisol finds us. five minutes later, when the doorbell rings, she passes through our moment and finds Danny still sitting at the base of my feet. When she reaches to unlock the front door, we untangle ourselves.

  I turn on the lights. Marisol takes charge. She speaks to Lucy’s mother, makes the proper introductions, returns Lucy’s wet clothes, and ushers Danny out the door. Then she flicks off the light and tells me to follow her. But I can’t. If I move, I might lose the feeling of Danny’s body so close to mine.

  So I sit alone in the dark, and, for the first time in my entire life, I experience what it is to ache.

  ELEVEN

  truth or dare

  around midnight, marisol persuades me to play truth or dare. It’s a game that we play on a regular basis. It’s our way of catching up with each other. But
tonight it feels dangerous. I make sure to go first. The plan is to steer the conversation past Danny Diaz, past his head resting on my thigh.

  “Truth or dare,” I begin, lighting several candles perched delicately on Marisol’s nightstand table.

  “Truth.”

  “Do you think your mom likes my dad?”

  “Yes,” Marisol replies quickly. “My turn. Why was Dan—”

  “Really? You think so?” The answer makes me feel uncomfortable. “Why?” My dad is a hermit crab. Why does she like him?

  “It’s my turn,” Marisol says, ignoring my question.

  “But, it’s a quick question to answer.”

  “The rules,” Marisol snaps. “Stop breaking the rules.”

  “Fine,” I say with a glare, “but I don’t appreciate your tone.”

  “Whatever. Truth or dare?”

  “Dare.”

  “Huh?” Marisol gives me a suspicious look. “You’ve never picked dare before.”

  “Dare,” I repeat.

  “Okay, I dare you…”—she gives me a wicked smile—“to drink water from the toilet bowl.”

  “What?” Secret or no secret, I wasn’t drinking water from a toilet bowl. “That’s crazy.”

  “No.” Marisol stands up. “It’s a dare. It’s supposed to be daring.”

  “Well, I’m not sticking my face in a toilet bowl.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No,” I tell her, “I’m not! You can’t give me something really gross as a dare.”

  “It’s not gross. My dog drinks water from the toilet bowl, and dogs have the cleanest mouths in the world.”

  “Your dog eats her own shit!”

  “And she washes it down with toilet water.” She pauses dramatically. “Okay, I dare you…to make out with Danny Diaz.”

  “You can’t dare that—”

  “Why? Because he’s super-ugly, right?”

  “I didn’t say that!” I protest.

  “So…then he’s cute?”

  “The whole school thinks he’s cute. It’s not my opinion,” I exclaim. “It’s a fact!”

  “Well,” Marisol says calmly, “according to the rules you can’t back down on a dare that’s not gross. So this Wednesday when you tutor him, you have to absolutely make out with him—”

  “You can’t force me to make out with some guy on a dare.” My voice rises. “And you know that we have a professional relationship. A professional relationship!” I scream so loudly that Lola, their dog, starts howling outside.

  “A professional relationship? Hah!” Marisol points accusingly in the direction of the living room. “Since when does ‘professional tutoring’ involve sitting with your pupil between your thighs?”

  “He had a tension headache! I was applying my fingers to his third eye.”

  “More like his third leg—”

  “Wh—what?” My mouth flops to the floor. “That’s just gross.”

  “Well, hey,” she says in a whiny voice, “where can I get a dumb, hot soccer player with tension headaches? I want one of those!”

  “So you admit he’s hot?” I thrust my finger accusingly in her face.

  “Hellooooo?” Marisol flicks me in the nose, and the tension cracks.

  “You’re such an über-bitch,” I tell her.

  “I know.” Marisol plops down on her bed, and we both bust out laughing.

  “Were you really going to make me drink toilet water?”

  “Yep.”

  “Make out with Danny Diaz?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why do you think whenever we use his first name in a sentence, we follow it with his last?”

  “Because it sounds cool,” she says.

  “Yep.”

  “So, scoop.” Marisol curls up in a ball and tucks her pillow between her thighs. “What’s going on between you and Danny Diaz?”

  “Nothing…”

  “C’mon,” she prods.

  “Nothing…I mean it.”

  “Then take truth,” she says.

  “Okay”—my upper lip trembles—“truth.”

  “Do you,” she asks quietly, “like Danny Diaz?”

  I hesitate, which is all but verbal confirmation of my feelings. A part of me wants to say yes, but the feelings are so new that I’m not exactly sure how to own up to them.

  “I like tutoring him.” I give her the safest reply I can muster.

  “Hmm…” She fixes her eyes on me. “Okay, just answer yes or no to the following questions. Okay?”

  I nod yes.

  “You liked touching him?” she asks slowly.

  Did I like touching Danny Diaz? I think about my hands coursing through Danny’s soft hair. I inhale the palm of my hand to see if I can still smell him. I nod yes.

  “Did he touch you?”

  “Yes.” I look up at the ceiling. I remember Danny’s hand reaching for mine.

  “So, duh”—a grin flashes across her face—“you like him.”

  I nod my head because it’s true. I like Danny Diaz.

  “Now,” she says with a wicked smile, “the question is, does he make you tingle?”

  “Don’t be stupid.” I throw a stuffed animal at her, which she skillfully dodges. “People don’t tingle.”

  Marisol gives me a doubtful look.

  “Have you ever tingled?” I ask.

  “This isn’t about me. This is about you.”

  “Whatever,” I say, because of course Danny doesn’t make me tingle. But when I’m around him, I do feel something else. I guess I feel okay, like really, really okay, which is saying a lot.

  “Why are you so excited about who I like?” I bury my face in the part of her comforter that smells like strawberries.

  “I’m not.” She purses her lips like she’s thinking.

  “Are you coming off a sugar high?”

  “No…I’m just happy for you. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “No, except there’s nothing to be happy for.”

  “Not yet”—she gives me a strange smile—“but soon.”

  In the candlelight, Marisol looks a lot like her mom. They both have eyes like saucers, long narrow noses, and swollen pink lips. But it’s the symmetry of their faces that makes it work. It just all adds up. And sometimes, like now, as the light flickers across her face, Marisol can be breathtaking.

  Not like me.

  “Do you think I look like my mother?” I ask Marisol.

  “Huh?” Marisol rolls over on her bed and looks at me. “What brought that on?”

  “Oh”—I stare at my reflection in the mirror opposite me—“I don’t know. Do you think that I do?”

  “Well…” Marisol stares at me for a long time. “I don’t know.” She tilts a candle so that the melting wax drips onto her skin. “It’s been a long time, you know.”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly, “I know.” I close my eyes and try to conjure up an image of my mother. But I can’t.

  I can’t.

  TWELVE

  secrets

  wednesday, november ninth.

  IT HAPPENS. The world, specifically Ryan Rosenbloom, figures out the one thing that I already know. Marisol is beautiful.

  “I said yes,” Marisol sighs and smiles. She is in heaven. We’re eating lunch in Siberia, which, technically, is a canal five minutes away from school.

  Her head rests on her book bag. Her hand stretches to the sky, tracing a cloud that passes overhead. All around us ducks screech, diving after crumbs thrown from the old man’s bag.

  “What do you think his name really is?” Marisol nods toward the old man.

  “I thought we agreed it was Carlos,” I tell her impatiently. I want to get back to our prior conversation. I want to know more.

  “God. What is it with you and your stereotypes? His name could be Bob. How do we even know he’s Hispanic?” She raises an eyebrow inquisitively as if we’re discussing philosophy or some other great big mystery of the universe.

  “
You’ve seen the way he dresses. The guayabera, the straw hats…I guess he could be Bahamian or Jamaican.” I shake my head. “Stop trying to change the subject.”

  “The lake is absolutely lovely today.” Marisol eyes Siberia. She’s practically glowing.

  “It’s a man-made canal,” I tell her. “There’s nothing lovely about it.”

  “Yes, there is.” She smiles again, and I want to shove my sub down her throat. What right does she have to be so happy? What right does she have getting asked to homecoming? I didn’t know the thing existed until today when Marisol told me that Ryan Rosenbloom asked her.

  “You should go,” she tells me all casually. “It’ll be fun.”

  I look at her eager expression, and I want to crush her. “Let’s see,” I say, my tone equally casual, “I’ll just select one lucky guy from my many admirers, find the perfect dress, and have an absolutely lovely time.”

  “You don’t have to make fun of me.” Her voice oozes deflation.

  “You’re right, I don’t, but I am.” I choose my next words carefully. “Marisol, what’s happening to us? We don’t do dances.”

  “We,” she says, her voice slightly clipped, “don’t do anything. That’s the problem.”

  “That’s so not true!” I say, but maybe it is? “Besides, didn’t Ryan’s best friend call you ‘brace face’ for all of seventh grade?”

  Marisol’s eyes narrow. “Ryan hasn’t been best friends with Jeff Henderson since eighth grade. So what’s your point?”

  “Well, Ryan never defended you. That’s my point. Seriously”—my voice drips with false concern—“how can you trust a guy like that?”

  “Well”—Marisol squishes her eyebrows—“correct me if I’m wrong, but you never defended me either.”

  “Yeah”—I squish my eyebrows back at her—“but that’s because Jeff used to call me ‘caterpillar face.’ And”—I rub the now hair-free space between my eyebrows—“that was a very traumatic experience for me.”

  “Whatever.” Marisol smiles victoriously. “That makes Ryan and you one and the same.”

  “Whatever.” I pout in silence.

  “What’s your problem?”