by Jen Malone
I gape at him. “A pandemonium of parrots? Aside from being the best band name ever, that is just plain awesome on every level. How do you even know that? And remind me. Why aren’t we seeing them?”
He winks. “Fancy private school education. And because my idea is better than a pandemonium of parrots.”
“Now I’m extra curious. Wait. Do we have to get back on that death trap of a cable car?”
“Oh no, I have an entirely different death trap in mind for us.”
I raise my eyebrows, but he’s tight-lipped.
We cross the street and fall into step with a crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk. I try my best to take in the honking and the jackhammer and the snippets of conversation from people on their cell phones. I will miss this tomorrow when we’re back to listening to the clanging of halyards against the mast or occasional splashes as birds dive-bomb for lunch.
Jonah breaks into my thoughts. “Hey, speaking of hilarious animal terms, did you know a grouping of hedgehogs is called a prickle?”
I bump my hip against his again. “You are so weird.”
He bumps back. “Judgment-free zone, Sprite! Judgment-free zone . . .”
19
It turns out death trap is the exact proper term for the GoCar Jonah and I rent. GoCar, not go-kart, although it might as well be. The little yellow vehicle is small enough, and looks like one too, with no roof and only a U-shaped metal frame to lean back against. There aren’t even any doors, just a scooped-out opening. It has two wheels in the front, but only one in the center of the back. How this thing is even legal for street driving, I’ll never know.
“I thought you were supposed to leave your heart in San Francisco, not your spleen!” I yell as we careen around a curve on Lombard Street, the twisty, turny road I know from movies set here.
“Quit your moaning. You know you love it, Sprite,” he calls back.
He’s right. My stomach is in my throat the whole time, and I think that’s exactly what Jonah intended when he suggested it. It’s the perfect antidote to our serious conversation back at the farmers market; the carefree spirit of exploring comes right back.
We zip by AT&T Park and over to the Presidio, and then we take the car across the Golden Gate Bridge and down into Sausalito, where Jonah shows me the driveway leading to his summer house on the bay. He doesn’t seem to want to linger there, and after our talk, I totally understand why. My guess is his parents don’t even know Jonah is in the city.
I hate that this day has to end, but eventually it’s time to turn the GoCar in. We make one more pit stop back at Ghirardelli’s so he can stock up on tiny chocolate squares. Judging from the size of the bag he drags back to the marina, he’ll have enough to see him through an entire lifetime in Mexico.
I spend the last few minutes of our walk up Pier 39 having a very colorful internal debate with myself over whether or not I want Jonah to ask me to hang out with him and his friends later. I know he has plans, because he mentioned them after his phone call at the botanical gardens, and I’m really not looking forward to a quiet boat with just my mother and brother for company. Not after how exhilarating today’s been.
Except some time away from Jonah would let me get a handle on the strange ways I’ve been reacting to him today and shut it down once and for all. I might be willing to admit that maybe there’s more to him than I first assumed, and that it’s possible he might not be quite the player I made him out to be, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other very valid reasons to keep him at arm’s length.
For one, there’s still the matter of our forced proximity. If anything were to happen with Jonah and then it didn’t “take,” we’d still have to bump knees at cozy cabin meals for the next three months. It’s bad enough being trapped on a boat with one person I want to get distance from, but two?
Okay, and if it did work out, against all odds, that’s equally bad because anything we might have would come with an automatic expiration date. And then we’d have the lengths of two entire countries between us. My parents couldn’t even make things work under the same roof, which also doesn’t exactly give me much hope for relationships in general.
Definite lose-lose situation.
Or, what about this? Maybe this entire internal debate I’m having with myself is completely beside the point. Maybe Jonah only wants friendship from me. Despite all his flirty innuendos, he’s been perfectly platonic all day, aside from that one instance on the cable car, which could very easily be explained away. When I took his hand after he opened up about his parents at the farmers market, he was quick to drop it after one small squeeze.
See, now, this is exactly the boy drama I didn’t want and don’t need!
I’m startled by Jonah’s baseball cap settling on my head. “Earth to Cassie? Sorry if I’m interrupting a good daydream, but you’re off in la-la land. I’ve said your name twice. But if the fantasy is about me, please carry on and also narrate as you do, ’kay? Thanks.”
I laugh to cover how not that far off base he is. We reach the gate to the marina, and Jonah slips the hook free and slides it open. “Ladies first.”
“I thought it was brains before beauty,” I say.
“Oh, well, in that case.” He moves to pass by, but I shove him out of the way and step through ahead of him.
“I did say brains first,” I tell him, brushing off my palms.
“No, you said brains before beauty. But since you have both in equally staggering quantities, I figured I’d do the gentlemanly thing.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re so full of it.”
“Admit you love it.” He grins and resumes walking.
Sunny-Side Up is halfway along the dock and I can already make out the black hull, so I’m surprised when Jonah slows his pace. I stop and turn to face him.
“Hey,” he says, stepping forward so he’s inches away. “It turns out seeing my city through your eyes was pretty awesome. Thanks for that.”
He moves slightly closer, and when his hand accidentally brushes mine, I jolt involuntarily.
“Yeah. Really g-great,” I stammer.
My body and my brain need some time to get on the same page here, because one is this close to betraying the other right now.
When he shifts nearer yet, I stumble back a step.
Jonah’s eyes flash confusion, and he looks away briefly before returning them to my face. His smile is tentative as he reaches up and swipes the baseball cap from my head. “Just—just trying to grab this before you absconded with it. I know you’re San Fran’s number one fan after today, but the Giants are more of an acquired taste. These guys you have to earn the hard way.”
I force a casual grin and nod. He tucks both hands in his pockets and turns to leave, but then spins back. “Hey, any chance you’d want to head out again later? I’m meeting up with a group of friends from high school, so probably not much sightseeing on the agenda, but . . . they’re cool. Might be fun?”
After my big internal pep talk about why it would be good to get some space to better clamp down on my attraction to him, it turns out that I’m a monster fraud, even to myself, because the “Sure!” leaves my mouth faster than Drew can take out a Star Destroyer in his favorite video game.
Jonah’s eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiles, for real this time. “Great. I’ll swing by in a couple hours. Say, eightish?”
I nod.
“Okay, perfect. Bytes’ slip is the next dock over, so . . .” He lifts his chin in the direction he’s indicating. “See you in a bit.”
I nod again and watch him as he walks away. Then I turn and deliver a stern lecture to the jumping beans throwing a party in my stomach. Not cool, traitorous body. Not cool at all.
“Hey, stranger,” my mother says when I descend the steps. “Thanks for all those texts.”
“Oh crap,” I say. “Sorry.”
“You know, you say I need to treat you like an adult, but how am I supposed to do that when you act like a child?”
&nbs
p; “Mom, I—”
“No, Cassie. I’m not interested in whatever excuse you’re cooking up. You give no indication at all that you spare a thought for me, and whether I might be worried about your safety and well-being. Adults take responsibility and follow through on their promises.”
The jumping beans in my belly lie down and play dead, but my blood boils. What she’s saying might not be totally off base, but it’s nearly impossible to process her words when most of what I hear is the tone she uses to deliver them.
And, yes, maybe I did forget to text, but if only she knew how many thoughts I spare on her—and how miserable and conflicted they make me. Is it so wrong to have wanted just one day’s respite from them?
Still, I’m not up for getting into it, so I murmur what I consider a very contrite “I’m sorry.”
“Too late for that now, Cass. You’re grounded tonight” is all she says.
Grounded? She can’t ground me. Well, I mean, technically she can, but oh god, what am I supposed to tell Jonah? The guy’s twenty years old and completely on his own in the world and there is nothing more babyish-sounding than, “Oh, hey, I can’t hang out tonight after all. My mommy grounded me.”
“I have plans!” I say. “This isn’t fair!”
“Sorry you feel that way. I beg to differ.”
I gape at her, then brush past and into my berth where I nearly knock over Drew.
“Hey,” he says with a sympathetic cringe. No conversation goes unheard around here.
As if to demonstrate how well he’s aware of this, he holds up his cell phone, where he’s typed, She’s just in a mood because she heard back on that phone interview she had yesterday.
If I weren’t so angry I might feel bad for her, but now I’m the one paying the price. I grimace, and Drew and I exchange looks of understanding. He pockets his phone.
“Searching for something?” I ask, dropping my backpack on the floor.
“Charger,” he answers. “Still plugged into your laptop?”
I swing open one of my cubbies and point it out. “What’d you guys get up to today, Roo?”
In other words, please distract me before I’m tempted to go all Lizzie Borden on our mother.
“Dude, you missed out on Alcatraz,” he says. “They had this audio tour where you could hear from real inmates and prison guards. The cells are way smaller than this boat. I’m talking totally claustrophobic.
“Oh, and Mom and me took a Segway tour of Fisherman’s Wharf and then Christian took us to this digital arts center place that was whatever, but outside there was this fountain with a Yoda statue in the center. It was pretty cool. I took pictures. Oh man, and guess what else we found? One of those booths that does the photo strips! You know, like at that arcade near Nana’s? Here, check out the faces Mom and I made. We should totally go back there, the three of us. Hang on, lemme find the shots I took of Yoda—”
He takes his phone back out and begins scrolling through, leaving me to stare at the photo strip. In the bottom one Mom’s making the only silly face she knows, thumbs hooked in the corners of her mouth and pointer fingers pushing up her eyelids. Drew wiggles bunny ears behind her head.
It would be obvious to anyone how happy and easy with each other they are, and as much as I want to protect my brother from all the ugliness, I wish so hard I could tell him what she’s really like.
I wouldn’t have to be alone in feeling this way.
Drew turns his phone around, and I hand him back the strip and exclaim appropriately at the images he shows me, but as soon as he bounds off to check out a commotion above—which sounds a lot like a sea lion might have landed in someone’s boat—I flop down on my bed and close my eyes. It’s been a roller coaster of a day, emotion-wise, and I need for my world to stop spinning long enough for me to catch my breath.
I accidentally fall asleep, and when I wake the sun is definitely lower in the sky. Crap! It’s 7:37. Jonah’s supposed to be by in twenty minutes and I have to intercept him before my mother tells him exactly why I won’t be hanging out with him tonight.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I don’t have his cell. We never got around to exchanging numbers because at sea we use the radio to communicate, and at dock, we’ve usually been within easy shouting distance.
Being grounded means I can’t even walk over to Reality Bytes to talk to him in private. Instead I camp out in the stern of our boat, waiting for the first sign of him striding up the dock. When he appears, I have to fight back a groan. The universe is pure evil, because he looks good. Really, really good. He’s very obviously fresh from a shower: his hair is still damp and he’s wearing a lightweight button-down shirt that clings to him in a few patches. He must have put it on before drying off completely. Even if I’ve mostly managed to convince myself platonic friendship is where it’s at, I can still pause to pay homage to the guy’s genetic gifts.
I hop onto the dock, racing to meet him a few slips away, before he gets within earshot of Mom and Drew. The last thing I need is them eavesdropping.
“Hey. You look great,” Jonah says.
I glance down at the same outfit I had on earlier. “I—I didn’t change.”
Wow. So much for thinking any attraction might possibly be mutual. Clearly he didn’t even pay enough attention to me today to remember what I was wearing for the seven-plus hours we spent together.
“I know. I just didn’t want to make you feel bad about it when I clearly got all fancied up,” he says, adding a totally endearing one-shouldered shrug.
I grin back at him, but then let it fade as I shift my eyes to the wooden dock. “Um, so it turns out I can’t make it tonight after all. Sorry. I, uh, probably should have checked with my mom first because she made late dinner reservations for the three of us, like a family thing, I guess, and . . .”
I trail off after delivering the lamest excuse ever.
“Oh.” Jonah looks over my shoulder, then says, “Right. Yeah. No, I totally get it. Of course, you should spend time with them. Nothing more important than family.”
And now I feel a thousand times worse because we both know perfectly well he doesn’t exactly have one to speak of at the moment. Or at least not one that he’d want to grab dinner with. Which I’ve basically rubbed in his face without meaning to.
“I’m sorry. I—”
He interrupts. “No! Look, I completely understand. We’re only here for one night and you already ditched your mom and brother all day, so it makes perfect sense they’d want you along for a nice dinner out. Where are you guys headed?”
Oh crap. I definitely didn’t think this through enough to research restaurant names.
“Um, I’m not sure exactly.” I pretend to be very absorbed with watching the man a few slips down hose off his deck, so I can avoid Jonah’s eyes.
“Too bad my friend Chet isn’t around. He does this dead-on impression of the vice president you could use to score reservations anywhere in town. Kills with the girls.”
I shift my eyes back to him, squinting. “Wouldn’t the jig be up when a twentysomething kid showed up to claim the table, as opposed to a slew of Secret Service agents and an old white dude?”
“See, you identified the fatal flaw in his plan far faster than poor Chet.”
I relax a little. At least we’re joking around like normal, and he doesn’t ever need to realize I’m a totally lame high school kid who gets grounded for forgetting to register her location with her mother at regular intervals.
“What about you? Any party tricks of your own?” I tease.
He gives me an exaggerated wink. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Guess it’s your loss you’re not coming out tonight.”
I roll my eyes. “Something tells me you’ll get over it. There must be at least a few former conquests who aren’t immune to the Jonah Abrahmson brand of charm. I’m sure you could scrounge one or two of them up for a night on the town, couldn’t you?”
The evil, not-on-board-with-logic part of me hopes he’ll disput
e this, but he just grins and says, “Aw, now, you’re not jealous, are you, Sprite?”
I force a laugh and then pause when Jonah gives a casual wave to someone behind me. Turning my neck, I spot my mother climbing down to the dock. She walks up to us with a paper grocery bag in her hand.
“Cassie. Should you be out here?” she asks, her voice holding a note of warning. I send her silent pleas with my eyes, begging her not to say anything overt about my punishment. Miracle of miracles, she continues walking toward the pier without waiting for my reply.
A few feet away, she turns back to us, lifting the bag in her hand slightly. “Hey, Jonah, have you guys figured out where the trash area is? I want to get rid of the remains from tonight’s dinner before it attracts any hungry sea lions. Cass, you were sleeping, but we got you lo mein—it’s keeping warm in the oven.”
My eyes go wide, just as Jonah’s cloud. He looks at me, his confusion written all over his face. As I watch, his expression turns to something harder to interpret. I open my mouth, but he doesn’t give me a chance to speak.
Instead he spins and says, “I can show you where the trash is, Mrs. McClure,” while jogging a few steps to catch up with her. I stare after them their entire walk down the dock, but he never once glances back.
Damn it! The only reason I lied, instead of confessing my grounding, was so Jonah wouldn’t see me as some immature kid unworthy of spending time with. I loved today, and I wanted a whole series of days just like it, the entire way between here and Mexico.
And now? He sees me as a liar. Or, even worse, what if he thinks I decided I didn’t want to hang out with him because of everything he told me about himself today?
Nice going, Cass. The one person you actually want to spend time with on this trip and you just ruined it.
20
As quickly as we sailed into San Francisco, that’s how fast we leave it behind the next morning. If we had to get sidelined for days by a weather system, why couldn’t it be there, instead of in tiny anchorages that have zero amenities or signs of modern life.
