Not Okay, Cupid

by Heidi R. Kling

  And Jay cared about this kind of stuff, too!

  He golfed!

  He loved Polo shirts!

  He was a thirty-year-old stuck in a seventeen-year-old body!

  He got it. He got me. Well, he used to anyway.

  Pintrest was my jam. I have so many homey pictures saved up, you’d think I was a thirty-year-old already married and pregnant.

  Yep, I had everyone figured out. Except I didn’t have anyone or anything figured out. I thought I’d figured out Jay. Look how that turned out.

  And I thought I had Felix all figured out, too.

  Those mean, labeling words I’d used to describe him before— to his face even!—Flake. Manwhore. Player—I was so mean. So catty and awful. I was so embarrassed now. Ashamed even, because here he was perfecting a pesto mayonnaise sauce for sweet potato fries. The guy was working extra shifts to help his mom pay the bills and protect his spoiled little sister from worrying about money problems. Taking all that extra worry on himself instead.

  Who was Felix? Then I flashed on that Eminem song and thought, Will the real Felix James please stand up, please stand up, please stand up. And it made me laugh. Felix would think it was funny, too. Maybe I’d tell him about it when I saw him next.

  Here I was thinking about Felix James again.

  I flopped down on my bed and stared at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers that were starting to peel off. I guess they’d been up there for too long. They still produced a small glow. Just enough to see. The pattern was my horoscope. Pisces.

  Jay’s sign was up there too: Virgo.

  I wondered what Felix’s sign was.

  What was his birthday again? Oh yeah. End of April. Maybe an Aries or a Taurus? I’d have to look it up.

  Argh. Stop thinking about Felix, Hazel!

  This was just a game.

  A revenge game.

  He didn’t kiss me when he dropped me off after the diner in his beat up Jeep.

  He didn’t need to. There was nobody watching—and after all, it wasn’t a real date.

  But if it wasn’t a real date, why hadn’t I wanted it to end?

  Chapter Twenty

  Felix

  “Hey Ma, I’m home,” I hollered as I walked through our beat-up screen door. I needed to replace the screen part. It was peeling in the upper right corner, probably from Kimmy slamming in and out all day long. I dropped my backpack off on the folding chair by the door. “Ma?”

  “In here,” Mom said. She was sitting at our round pine hand-me-down table with her hair wrapped in plastic.

  “Dye day?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Come gimme a hug.”

  I did. I held on to her an extra second. All this cheating stuff brought back so many memories for me. My poor mom! I hated to tell her what her daughter was up to.

  She held me tight. “I just read this article that says when your kid hugs, you should never be the first to let go.”

  “Does it say that you need to squeeze with the strength of an Amazonian python?”

  She held me even mightier. “I just love my boy!”

  I didn’t even try to resist. “I love you too, Ma.”

  “Sit, sit.” She let me go and patted the chair next to her. “How was your day?”

  “Good.”

  “Anything new?”

  “Kinda,” I admitted.

  “Kinda?”

  “Kinda.” I nodded.

  “That sounds promising.”

  “You’re nothing if not a proud gossip, Ma.”

  “That’s how people connect, Felix! I read an article that said women gossip, not to be catty, but to connect with other women. It’s how we’ve been doing things since the beginning. Around the campfire, whilst gathering nuts and berries…”

  “Okay, Ma. You and your articles,” I said, this time with a grin.

  “I have to do something while my blond reclaims the gray back from my hair follicles.” She leaned back in the chair and scrubbed her hair like she was in a salon.

  “You don’t have gray hair, Ma.”

  “See, this is why you’re my favorite son.”

  “I’m your only son.”

  “Details.” She grinned. “Pour me a drink, will you?”

  Inside I sighed. I wish she wouldn’t drink so much.

  “What do you want?” I gave in. Dutiful son.

  “Surprise me. Also, grab the deck of cards if you have time for a round.”

  “I always have time for a round.”

  I poured her a drink in the kitchen, grabbed the ratty, old Yosemite deck with Yosemite Falls streaming down the front—her favorite—sat across from her, and shuffled the cards. When Kimmy wasn’t home, this was our routine: quiet, fun, relaxing. Mom and I had always gotten along, but since Dad had moved in with flight attendant Shirley, I’d realized I was the man of the house and stepped up, not only financially, but also in Mom-taking. She was fine, of course, but I wanted to make sure she stayed fine. Kimmy didn’t seem to notice when Mom was lonely. But sometimes I’d catch her curled up at night, sipping her drink, staring out at the black night with only a crocheted blanket on her lap to give her comfort. I knew I had to do more.

  It wasn’t like it was a huge sacrifice. In case you couldn’t tell, my mom is actually pretty cool.

  We played for an hour or so. She won, then I did, then she did again—when the door swung open and Kimmy entered. Mom and I both just set down our hands.

  “Oh my God, what in the world is going on between you and Hazel, Felix?”

  “Hello to you, too.”

  “Mom. Felix is out of control. You have to help me.”

  Mom shot me a look like, Here we go, but she replied appropriately, “How so, Kimmy?”

  “Well, first off. He’s going around with Hazel—making out with Hazel at school twice—and they don’t even like each other. It’s just totally weird and embarrassing, and then they confronted me and Jay at the diner today…”

  “You and Jay?”

  She flushed. “I thought Felix would’ve told you.”

  “Not really. Do you have something you’d like to share about your best friend’s boyfriend?”

  “Um.”

  Mom pointed at the chair across from her, next to me, and Kimmy slunk into it.

  “So, it’s no big deal really, like, at all, but Jay and I started liking each other, and now we’re, like, going out. And Hazel is obviously miffed about it and…”

  “Miffed?” I had to interject. “I’m not female, but I can imagine your best friend stealing your boyfriend would make me plenty pissed off.”

  Mom looked at Kimmy. “I agree with Felix. Why would you do that to Hazel, Kimberly? You know how this family feels about cheaters.”

  Kimberly.

  How this family feels about cheaters.

  Somebody was busted. B-U-S-T-E-D. BUSTED.

  I almost felt bad for her. Almost.

  Say good-bye to that bejeweled iPhone for the next week, little sis.

  This was about to get real.

  Their last big knuckle fight, Mom had chased Kimmy around the house with a wooden spoon, which I’d found hysterical, because Mom had never hit either one of us in our life. She’d been stirring a sauce when Kimmy had walked in and announced she’d used Mom’s credit card (without permission) and bought a leather jacket she just “had to have.” Cue Mom and the wooden spoon. Kimmy had run into her room squealing and hadn’t come out until morning.

  They didn’t talk for three days, and Kimmy’s cell phone was disconnected until her usage minutes (or, in this case, nonuse minutes) paid Mom back for the leather jacket, which was apparently “nonreturnable.”

  I didn’t know where Kimmy came from.

  This spoiled princess with bright blond hair and blue eyes and rosy-pink cheeks born into a lower-middle-class family of dirty-brown-haired folks who’d rather play cards than go shopping.

  When I was little, I swore she was adopted.

  She’d read al
l these fairy books about little girls left in wet tulips, and I figured that’s how we’d ended up with her.

  Anyway, she had her good points, but this week they weren’t really on display. Mom and Kimmy, as predicted, yelled and hollered until Kimmy burst into tears, screaming that Mom and I “didn’t understand love” and that Jay “was as special as Jack in Titanic.” I thought Mom’s eyes would roll back into her head.

  “Except one small thing,” I noted, and they both stopped hollering and looked at me like they just remembered I was there.

  “What?” Kimmy’s face was all red and her hairline sweaty.

  “Jack would never cheat on Rose.”

  “Jesus, Felix.”

  “Language!” Mom interjected.

  “What? I’ve seen the movie umpteen times with you and Hazel. I know Jack,” I shouted.

  “You’re an idiot.” My sister was shaking her head at me. “And besides. Titanic was about True Love Cheaters. You can cheat if it’s true love.”

  “You’ve just crashed us into an iceberg. We are currently sinking under your rhetoric.”

  My mom laughed through her fury.

  Kimmy ignored her. She always had been good at ignoring something when it was obvious. “Rose was cheating on that guy she was engaged to,” she said. “Because Jack was, is, forevermore shall be, her true love.”

  “The weird killer with the dark eyebrows?” I said. “The part where the Titanic turns into a random action film with that guy running with a gun in slow-mo, is pretty special.”

  “Yes! She didn’t belong with him,” Kimmy said emphatically. “She belonged with Jack. She always knew it; it just took her meeting Jack to realize how much she didn’t belong with him.”

  “What’s his name, anyway?” I asked.

  “No one ever remembers his name,” Mom said.

  “Regardless of his name, you’re a sleazy friendship killer.” I waggled my finger at my sister. “And you aren’t Rose DeWitt Dawson any more than that doofus ex of Hazel’s is Jack Dawson.”

  “Kids,” Mom warned, her half-laughing, half-yelling voice rising to a tenuous edgy point. Who knew which way her mood would go.

  “It’s true, Ma! She’s an embarrassment to the family name!” I blurted out in more defense of Hazel than myself. I turned to Kimmy. “How could you do that to her? All she’s been is a great friend to you all these years, and all you’ve been is a royal pain in the rear!” Not the word I wanted to use, but you know how Mom is about language.

  “Why do you care?” my sister demanded, looking frazzled and frenzied. “I thought you didn’t even like Hazel.”

  “I…like her fine,” I mumbled into my drink, feeling my ears heat up. “And even if I didn’t, I’d defend her because what you did was wrong with a capital W.” More finger waggling from me while I silently wondered what in the hell I’d just said.

  Wrong with a capital W? I was turning into my mother.

  I was losing my mind! What was with all this righteous finger waggling?

  I flashed on Hazel’s hands digging through my hair by the lockers. Her warm body pressed against mine.

  Her surprised smile at the diner, her head tilt as she listened to Fred. The full feeling expression in her eyes when she realized I wasn’t the dick she thought I was.

  How she wanted to taste my pesto mayonnaise.

  “What’s with him?” Kimmy asked Mom, suddenly calm and staring at me.

  Mom was looking at me funny, too. Like she noticed something she hadn’t before.

  “What? Stop looking at me like that you two and return to your fight. Unpause! Go, go, go!” I yelled.

  They both stared at me.

  Now I was acting like the crazy one.

  I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged at the tips.

  This. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid. This was what casually meeting up with the Barbies helped me avoid.

  Feelings.

  Feelings made people crazy.

  They made you run with guns and jump back onto sinking ships. (Maybe I should hide the wooden spoons.)

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hazel

  The roof wasn’t cutting it—not tonight—so after a few antsy minutes, I slipped back through my window, changed into my bikini, snatched my wet suit off the back deck where I’d hung it out to dry a few weeks ago, grabbed my surfboard—and headed to the beach!

  After sticking my board in the back of my Jeep, I contemplated zipping the top up, but the sun was bright and the sea air surprisingly warm for this time of the day. Usually by this time of the day, most families and kids on the beach were huddled together wrapped in big colorful towels or thick hoodies around one of the only legal campfire spots in the state.

  But not tonight. Tonight was warm. Hawaii-warm. And it felt delicious on my face as I cruised the mile or so to the coast.

  Perk of Global Warming? One positive side-effect, anyway.

  While I was obviously extremely upset and concerned about the worldwide implications of greenhouse gases and melting polar ice caps—the polar bears floating on pieces of ice along at sea devastated me!—today, I’d take it.

  I cruised to the spot on the point where I liked to enter, parked, and carried my board down the sandy-rocky trail. Both sides were littered with beer cans and candy wrappers. Surfers were the worst kinds of junk-food addicts. I set a reminder on my phone for me to alert my Green Team at school to come down here for a cleanup afternoon.

  Green Team was one of the three afterschool clubs I ran. My involvement wasn’t just to look good on college applications, either, though that was certainly a plus. I liked being involved with local causes. I liked feeling useful. I liked getting stuff done.

  Just like Mom.

  Making a list and checking off the items one at a time felt good.

  Productivity was the key to escape—no, avoid—boredom. And sadness. Sadness, too. If I was constantly doing things, I didn’t have to face the things that truly bothered me.

  Jay and I agreed about this.

  It was one of the things that had united us early on. I was drawn to his meticulously detailed schedule and his goal-oriented mind that was so like my own. I never had to offer up excuses or apologize for all my time spent away from him, and he never had to do it with me either. After school, if I had a leadership meeting and Jay had tennis practice, no problem. Fine. We’d meet up later.

  Neither one of us minded in the least.

  Hmm. I looked out at the surfers bobbing around in the cool blue sea. Could that have been part of the problem? Weren’t you supposed to want to be with your boyfriend/girlfriend all the time? At least some of the time? I’d always enjoyed seeing him. He’d wave, pull me in for a quick hug, and then be off, and I’d be fine.

  But each time he left, seconds later…

  I’d already forgotten about him.

  I’d be on to the next thing on my list.

  I was more obsessed with fake Felix than I’d ever been about my real cheater ex-boyfriend, Jay. God, I was a mess.

  I left my things on the shore, tucked my board under my arm, and trotted out into the ocean. The waves were thigh-high today—a good day, but not great. Doable. I was a pretty decent surfer, I could hold my own, but I definitely wasn’t in contention to win any contests or anything like that.

  For some reason, when it came to surfing, that didn’t bother me.

  It was the only sport I did that wasn’t for anything other than me.

  No one else really knew I surfed. I didn’t talk about it much. I wanted something only for me.

  I scooted up on the board and waited my turn, bobbing up and down, up and down over the waves. The water was choppier than I’d realized. Much choppier. But I was pretty good at this. Choppy water meant bigger waves.

  Bring. It.

  When I was next up, I paddled hard, so hard my biceps burned, and I caught the wave. Squatting in perfect position, I cupped the sides of the board, thinking everything was fine,
when I heard a scream, and then something hard hit my side.

  My first thought was shark. I’d just seen that viral video of the Australian surfer who had a run-in with a great white shark during a contest. Felt it by his side and just started punching it in the face.

  Well I didn’t come out here to get eaten by a shark!

  My instincts flew into action.

  Fists closed!

  Reared back!

  No hesitation!

  Pow!

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Felix

  After the household drama between Mom and Kimmy, I couldn’t calm down. Studying for my pre-Calculus test was definitely on my should-do list, but it wasn’t anywhere on my to-do list. Not that I had a to-do list. I was thinking like Hazel again. This couldn’t happen.

  I needed…some air.

  I grabbed my board, tossed it into the back of my pickup truck, and headed to the beach. It was the one place, the ocean, that always soothed me no matter what else was going on.

  Out in the middle of the ocean, or what felt like the middle of the ocean, the view of the town didn’t seem so ominous. In fact, everything on land seemed small from that vantage point. Doable. Easy, even.

  Of course I knew it wasn’t. Of course everything was complicated as hell. But I needed that illusion from time to time. I needed that illusion today.

  I couldn’t shake the conversation with Hazel out of my mind. I’d tried thinking about something else. One of the Barbies, one of my recipes—but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Hazel’s smile.

  I shook out my hair and slapped myself upside my head.

  This thing with Hazel wasn’t real.

  She went for guys like Jay. Organized, studious, college-bound types. Guys like her.

  Hazel in Real Life would never go for a guy like me. Hazel in Real Life and Felix the Cat had nothing in common outside of a shared interest in Kimmy, and now that Kimmy had betrayed Hazel with Jay, we didn’t even have that in common anymore. Next year, Hazel would leave for school, and that would be it. Which was for the best. She deserved a big future far away from here. She deserved better.