I Believe in a Thing Called Love

by Maurene Goo

  “Why? Did you know you’d get a hankering for some graffiti time at a party?” I whispered loudly.

  He shook the can until the little metal ball bearings clinked around. “I’ve been to this marina before and I spotted this graffiti a while back. So I hid this stuff ahead of time.” Then he started spraying directly onto the graffiti—meticulously painting around the graffiti, not touching it, but extending it. First, a light-as-air layer of indigo lines curling out of the letters. Then, as he stood closer to the wall, the lines grew darker, more solid, and the edges were crisp, like calligraphy.

  He turned to me, and I scooted back. He raised an eyebrow and then picked up another spray can. He shook it, then sprayed tiny gold dots along some of the indigo lines. I watched silently as the nonsensical letters with vines turned into a small piece of a mural. A graphic, gorgeous piece of art.

  After what seemed like years, he was finished. And it was beautiful. Shimmering, layered, and equal parts intense and light.

  Luca stepped back and took a photo of it with his phone. Then he gathered the cans, gloves, and his mask into a trash bag, and tossed it all into a large Dumpster by a little café across the dirt road. He leaned against the café wall and looked at me. I felt unnerved by his challenging gaze. What was he thinking?

  “I don’t … I don’t know how you want me to react?” I asked, keeping my voice calm, my arms crossed defensively.

  He shrugged. “I don’t expect anything. Especially from someone whose view of what’s art and what’s not is so narrow.” My head throbbed. Why did I like this guy again?

  “Well, that’s too bad. Because I think what you just did is pretty cool.” Despite hating the halting tones of my voice, I continued. “And, I mean, it’s kind of gorgeous.”

  He tilted his head and continued to look at me—not challenging this time, but that familiar expression I couldn’t quite read. As if he was trying to register an emotion that he didn’t quite understand himself. And when the butterflies hit again, it was pretty easy to remember why I did like him.

  As I stood there burning, dying, under his gaze, his eyes suddenly darted past me and he straightened up and cursed.

  I turned around to see two security guards coming out of the trees behind us. The kind that patrolled fancy neighborhoods like this and would love any excuse to badger us out of boredom. My blood froze when I saw one of them dangerously close to the graffiti, the paint still fresh. But before I could react, Luca grabbed my hand and whispered, “Run!”

  I hesitated for about a second before I bolted down the road with him.

  * * *

  “No way.”

  I stared at the small yacht that Luca was trying to convince me to get on.

  “If you don’t hurry up, I’m going in on my own—those security guards aren’t far behind,” Luca said as he abruptly let go of my hand and hopped onto the boat, somewhat clumsily.

  I was so frazzled that I couldn’t even appreciate the fact that we had held hands as we ran away from the guards.

  “We can’t hide there! What if the owners—”

  “This is my dad’s boat. Just get on.”

  Why was I not surprised. I glanced at the name painted along the side. Carpe Diem. Are you for real.

  Luca had a leg propped up on the edge, one hand holding onto the rail, the other held out to help me get on.

  His hand was warm and strong when I grabbed it and stepped on. The boat swayed a bit and I lost my balance immediately, falling into him. His arms wrapped around me to prevent us from toppling over and my face pressed into his shoulder.

  We stood like that for a second, him holding me, the breeze off the ocean whipping my hair around, raising goose bumps. I was terrified to look up at him, to ruin this tiny, perfect moment.

  “Um, we should get inside so they don’t see us.” He cleared his throat and let go of me gingerly, making his way toward an entrance in the middle of the boat. “We won’t stay long, just until those guys pass us.” Wait. I needed to maximize this situation. But how?

  Seconds later, I found my answer. As Luca headed below deck, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye—two ropes on the side of the boat tied tautly to the pier. They were the only things that seemed to be anchoring the boat as it bobbed gently in the water. Just two measly ropes.

  I knew I was moving into nutjob territory. I thought of Nae-Il in Cantabile Tomorrow, and how she was so determined to get the guy that she even moved random things of hers into his house, slowly and over time, so that she eventually found herself living there. Wacko, but got the job done of being “intimate” …

  I looked at the ropes again. The boat could easily float out beyond the marina, buying me some time before Luca noticed what was wrong and drove us back. As quickly as I could, I stepped over to the rail, untied the two knots on the ropes (thank you, Girl Scouts!), and dropped them over the edge of the boat.

  Oh man. Before I could register the craziness of what I had just done, Luca popped his head out from the doorway. “Desi?” he called.

  I dashed over. “I’m here! Sorry.” And as I walked down the stairs, I felt the boat shift slightly. My heart roared in my ears.

  He switched on some lights and immediately dimmed them to the lowest level so the cabin was barely lit, then pulled the curtains shut. “So the guards can’t see the light if they’re still looking for us,” he explained.

  When my eyes adjusted I looked at my surroundings. Everything was white leather and dark, gleaming wood—there was a sofa, a dining nook, a bar, and a couple of doors leading off to other rooms. Your typical fancy-boat fare as seen on TV shows about rich people.

  Luca peered out between the closed curtains. “Shouldn’t take long to lose them.”

  “Mm-hm,” I said, my voice only squeaking a little. That’s when I realized my feet were throbbing. I sat down on the sofa and kicked off my booties to look at my blistered toes. “Ugh.” I poked at one of the blisters curiously.

  Luca looked over at me. “What’s up?”

  “Just some gross blisters—I’m not used to wearing heeled stuff, let alone running in them.”

  Expression unchanging, he didn’t respond but opened a door that led into a bathroom and rummaged around. After a few seconds he came out with some Band-Aids in hand.

  “Here.” He held them out in front of me, and I couldn’t tell if he felt annoyed or guilty.

  “Thanks,” I muttered as I tore the packaging off one. This wasn’t exactly him wrapping my ankle in a bandage but it would have to do.

  He squinted down at me. “Did you also get hurt when you fell down those stairs?”

  I shook my head. “No, Wes stopped us, luckily.” Hm. “He’s, like, so athletic, thank God, or it could have been a disaster.” I held back a wince, knowing that pointing out Wes’s athleticism was rudely highlighting Luca’s lack of it.

  Luca gave me a funny look. “So was Wes your date or something tonight?”

  I bent my head, pretending to be preoccupied with the Band-Aid while smiling under my curtain of hair. Heh-heh-heh. “Yeah.”

  “Isn’t he going to wonder where you are?” Irritation laced his words.

  It took all my willpower to hide my smile. I already had an excuse handy, too. “Oh, I told him I needed some air and was taking a walk by the marina.” I was relishing this obvious display of jealousy. I finished putting the Band-Aid on and glanced around the boat again. “So this is your dad’s boat? The Carpe Diem?”

  Luca hopped onto the bar counter. “Yeah, like, ‘O Captain! My Captain!’” he said with a scoff. “He’d love to know I was hiding out here. If I got caught by those guards, it would, uh, further tarnish his reputation with the upstanding community of Monte Douche-sta.” The boat moved suddenly and Luca glanced around in slight alarm, clutching the edge of the bar.

  Nope, he can’t know we’ve floated out to sea yet.

  “Monte Douche-sta. Ha-ha. Wordsmith,” I said with a hearty laugh, trying to distract him. “So
why’s your dad so worried about his reputation? What does he do?”

  That seemed to work. Luca leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “He invented some kind of machine that helps do something in ambulances. It’s still used in every ambulance in the country.”

  “What? Really? That’s so cool!” I quickly did a mental rundown of what emergency procedures were used by paramedics. “Wait, is it the external auto-resuscitator? Or is it the CPR device? Oh, wow, it can’t be the—”

  I stopped short when I noticed Luca’s slack-jawed expression. He shook his head quickly like a little terrier. “Why do you even…”

  “I want to be a doctor one day,” I said matter-of-factly.

  His expression turned to bemusement. “A lot of people want to be doctors. Not all of them know the names of every piece of medical equipment.”

  I flushed. Why couldn’t I keep my know-it-all mouth shut?

  Luca shook his head. “Anyway. I don’t even know what the thing’s called. My goal in life is to never pay attention to anything related to my dad. It’s bad enough I have to live with him in this crappy place.” He glanced at me quickly. “No offense.”

  I rolled my eyes. He continued. “Besides, he didn’t do it out of, like, the goodness of his heart and a desire to save people’s lives.” His feet kicked at the bar beneath him. “He did it because he knew he could make a lot of money. And despite being a terrible human, he could live out the rest of his life being able to come off as some genius Saint. While being obscenely rich.”

  Whoa. Daddy issues. I was careful with my next words. “So … he’s not a big fan of your, uh, subversive artwork?”

  “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” he said, his voice finally losing its edge, a hint of humor creeping back in. And when it did, I was surprised by how relieved I was to hear it, to have the Luca I liked back. Even if that Luca was an insufferable smart-ass when he wanted to be.

  Then I remembered that day in Art Club, when he’d hinted that he had a secret project for the gallery show. “Wait, is this your project for the show?”

  “Yup. I’ve really been into this idea of unwanted collaboration,” he said, growing animated. “Basically, I find other people’s graffiti, the ones I think are interesting, like the one at that bait shop, and imagine that they started something that I was meant to finish. But of course the artists didn’t intend that. So it’s unwanted, a kind of violation, you know? They violate buildings, and I violate their art.”

  Words were coming out of his mouth at record speed. He was energized in a way that I’d never seen him before. It reminded me of … me. When I was in full-on school mode, running for class president or explaining a particularly badass chemical reaction to my dad to help diagnose a car’s troubles. “But how? I mean, you can’t actually show it in a gallery…” My voice trailed off lamely. There I go again, thinking literally like some devoid-of-creativity square.

  He held up his phone. “Photos. Anyway, I was doing that last week, to this completely weird tag I saw in one of those cages at the zoo. I went back that night and snuck in to finish it. But I got caught by some security guard there since there’s obviously nothing else going on in this entire town. But I didn’t get arrested like everyone thinks. The security guard just called my dad, who worked his super-bro strings to get me out of trouble.”

  “Was that the first time you got caught?” I asked, remembering Fiona’s comment. This wasn’t his first time.

  He paused, taken aback for a second. “No, I was arrested once in Ojai.” A deep exhale. “That’s why I had to move here to live with my dad. To keep me out of trouble, since my hippie mom was clearly incapable of disciplining her ‘wild artist son.’ Quote unquote, by the way. As if I’m not his son, too.”

  “What did you do then to get arrested? More graf—uh, art experiments?”

  “Kind of.”

  I tilted my head. “Hm, if he’s so worried about you, how are you at this party?”

  He flashed a smile at me. Zap. “He grounded me for a week, so duty done.”

  “A week? That’s it?!”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t fun being stuck in a house with him, don’t worry. I was properly punished.”

  That coaxed a smile out of me. “So can I see the photos?”

  He hopped off the bar and and was walking over to show me when the boat lurched again—making Luca fall right on top of me.

  Mrrmm, okay. Laid back on the sofa, I was smushed under Luca, who was straight-up stretched out on the entire length of me. He raised himself up on his elbows and stared down at me. “Whoa, sorry.” His legs shifted and one of them slipped between mine.

  My mouth moved, but there were no words. This was it … I could feel The Kiss coming. It was ahead of the K drama schedule, but who cared?! His eyes were searching mine, a little line forming at his brow. Then the boat moved again and he scrambled off me, opening a curtain. “What the … Where are we?”

  Mother! I sat up and looked out the window—the marina lights were in the distance now.

  “What the hell, how did this happen?” he yelped, fleeing up the stairs. I heard his heavy footsteps above me. “Holy shit!”

  I grabbed my shoes off the floor and made my way up to the deck. I saw Luca standing stock-still at the top of the stairs. And sure enough, we were out at sea …

  Kind of. The marina wasn’t that far, actually.

  Straight ahead was a black sea meeting an inky-blue sky scattered with stars. Behind us were the twinkly dock lights and Gwen Parker’s blazing mansion in the distance.

  A perfect romantic moment setting if ever there was one.

  “I can’t believe this,” Luca breathed.

  “You know how to drive one of these, right?” I asked.

  Luca shook his head, pulling his beanie down over his eyes. “N-o-o-o, man, I hate this stupid boat.”

  Aw, God. Okay, don’t panic. “Let’s go see if we can figure it out?” I asked hopefully.

  After a couple of seconds of beanie hiding, Luca pushed the hat out of his eyes. “No,” he said, pulling out his cell phone. “I’ll call for help.”

  Oh shit. I just stood there while he made the call to who-knows-what and started to panic. This could not get to my dad.

  When Luca hung up I stammered, “Who did you just call?” My voice was shrill and he looked at me with alarm.

  “I called the coast guard,” he replied.

  Visions of emergency vehicles and local news vans made me cringe. “Really? Do you think that’s necessary?”

  He looked at me incredulously. “Are you joking? We’re freaking lost at sea!”

  “Lost at sea?! We’re, like, two feet away from civilization!” I pointed toward the marina. “Do you think they’ll call our parents?” I crossed my arms tightly.

  “Probably?” He peered closely at me as I started to wring my hands. “Are you okay? Do you have super-strict parents or something?”

  I raked a hand through my hair. “No, it’s just … I can’t have my dad get some kind of scary in-the-middle-of-the-night call. It would just upset him too much.”

  Luca glanced at his watch. “But it’s only ten-thirty.”

  I barely heard him. Instead, I was suddenly seven years old again, refusing to eat the tiny marinated stir-fried anchovies my dad was forcing on me. “I don’t like the crunch!” I yelped.

  My dad pushed his chair back from our dining room table and stood up. “Desi, you have to at least try it. If you don’t like it, then you don’t have to eat it. I’m going to get you some water but Appa knows if you didn’t eat because I memorized how many are in bowl.”

  I was marveling at my dad’s ability to do that and staring into the bowl of dozens of tiny fish when the phone rang. Our house line, which no one but telemarketers ever called. He glanced at the caller ID and said, “Your mom’s hospital?”

  He picked it up with a cheery “Hello?” I was poking at the little bowl of sweet, crunchy anchovies with my mint-green wo
oden chopsticks when I heard a muffled cry coming from my dad. I dropped the chopsticks and turned around to see him clutching the kitchen counter, phone still up to his ear.

  “Desi?”

  And then I wasn’t in my kitchen anymore. I was on a boat with Luca.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let them call your dad, okay?” he said, hand on my shoulder, head bowed down so that he was looking into my eyes.

  I blinked and tried to smile. “Okay, thanks. I mean, you don’t have to handle that, I’ll make sure they don’t.”

  With a jerky, very unsmooth movement, he pulled his hand away from my shoulder and shoved it into his pocket. “Um, okay,” he said.

  Before I could answer, lights flashed and sirens blared toward us.

  * * *

  Luca and I sat on the boat in silence, side by side, blankets draped over us. We were being towed to the dock, enveloped by the smell of the ocean and the sound of lapping water. And of course the emergency coast guard crew. I had convinced them to let me call my dad myself, so I fake-dialed from my silenced phone and gave a very persuasive performance of being chastised by my strict Korean father. Satisfied, the crew had left us alone for the rest of the ride back.

  Luca broke the silence by clearing his throat. “So … uh, what’s the story with Wes?”

  Again? This was what he was thinking about? All tension dissipated and I started to laugh.

  “What?” he asked defensively.

  I couldn’t believe it—all this craziness, and yeah, the love-triangle step had really worked. I took a breath and responded, “I don’t know what our story is yet. We’ve been friends for a long time. Why?”

  Luca’s shoulders stiffened visibly. “Do you normally go to a sex party with your friend?”

  Heh-heh.

  I pulled the thin blanket around my shoulders tightly. “It wasn’t a sex party, geez. And yeah, he was my date tonight, but … I don’t know. We’re just friends for now.” For now. I let that hang in the air for a moment. “What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He didn’t answer right away and I was suddenly aware of how ridiculous this entire conversation was—how everything was wrapped up in so much damn subtext. Why couldn’t we just say what we were feeling?