I Believe in a Thing Called Love

by Maurene Goo

  “Too bad,” I said through gritted teeth while keeping my grip on the markers firm.

  Her green eyes suddenly welled up with tears. Uh-oh.

  A third pair of hands enclosed mine, warm and firm. “Okay, why don’t we compromise?” I looked up at Luca standing over us, a literal halo of sunlight lighting him up from behind.

  “Reese, if you promise to only use the markers on paper, I’ll draw you Elsa from Frozen,” he said with a little wink.

  Her tears seemed to retreat into her eyeballs. She sniffled. “Okay.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me. I rolled my eyes and let go of the markers, reluctantly disentangling my hands from Luca’s.

  Luca turned to Reese and held his hand out for a high five. She shyly gave him one, then scurried back to the table giggling. No one was immune to Luca’s charms.

  “Same goes for the rest of you, okay? Draw on the paper or you’re dead meat!” Luca pointed at each of them to accentuate the point. They all giggled and immediately went back to work on the paper.

  Well, Maria von Trapp I was not. I turned to Luca. “You’re good with kids.”

  He shrugged. “I used to babysit a lot.”

  “You did?” The incredulity slipped out before I could help it.

  “Yeah. Why, is that so hard to believe?”

  “A little?” I smiled. “I imagine it was hard to squeeze in babysitting while being an art genius.”

  He pressed his lips together but a laugh escaped anyway. “Okay, so you’ve done a thorough Google search on me.”

  What was the point in pretending I hadn’t? It was my turn to shrug. “Kind of.”

  Our eyes met and while it was a bit uncomfortable, I felt some of the weirdness between us thaw.

  I gulped nervously. “Luca, I—”

  “Teacher, teacher! I don’t know how to draw a hairy jellyfish!” Micah shouted.

  “That’s my cue,” Luca said, turning on his heel to sit down next to Micah. Micah, you little—!

  The next couple of hours flew by, and I barely had time to talk to Luca while trying to help Christine paint a seven-horned unicorn, then embellishing Jessie’s very detailed portrait of Steph Curry with glitter. But every once in a while I would sneak a peek at Luca with the other kids as he patiently showed them how to draw perspective or mix paint colors to create other colors. But it was his ease with them, his absolute faith in their creativity that made me want to scramble across the table and plant a kiss on that mouth of his. He was in his element, and the kids adored him.

  And then it was suddenly five o’clock and parents started picking up their children. They took their artwork with them, proudly showing it off to their parents. It was very sweet and I was pretty touched by it all—even if the good deed had been inspired by the K drama list, it felt nice to have spent an afternoon making these kids happy. The Art Club members seemed to feel the same way, and everyone was grinning as they cleaned up and said bye to the kids.

  When the last of them had left, I fell back into a small chair. “Man, they’re high-energy,” I said to Fiona.

  She picked up some scraps of paper off the floor. “I know, right? It was nice to have other people help out today.”

  “Let me know when you need it again. I think everyone enjoyed it.”

  Fiona laughed. “And add another extracurricular to your life?”

  Before I could answer, I saw Luca walking toward the door. And while things had thawed slightly between us today, I would hardly call my attempts to be a beatific maternal type a success. Not only did I want to apologize for the closet incident, but I also had no idea if any of this had worked.

  “Luca!” I called after him. He turned around and I walked over to him while Fiona oh-so-subtly shot across the room to clean up another table.

  He looked at me expectantly. Just do it, Des. “Hey … so, um, I meant to say earlier that I’m really sorry about the other day.” I was dying with every word. “I didn’t realize I was going to overhear that conversation. And neither did Violet,” I added, glancing over to the back of the room where Violet was gathering her things. “We just kinda got stuck there.” This was true for Violet. Just a teeny white lie on my part.

  Luca appeared mortified for a second, too, and we just stood there, two statues of awkward. He finally broke the silence. “Okay.”

  “Also, sorry if you got in trouble for the boat incident.”

  He shot me a questioning look. “Why? It wasn’t your fault.”

  Guilt zap. “Oh, but still … didn’t you get grounded again or something?”

  “I was when I was with my dad over the holidays. And now I’m at his beck and call for chores.”

  I smiled. “Oh! That doesn’t sound so bad!”

  “Also, I have to walk my stepmom’s dumb dogs every day.” He pouted.

  “That sounds horrible. Do you also have to give up your weekly allowance?” I asked with a straight face. He laughed, not the big honky one, but still a little laugh.

  And then I suddenly remembered. “Hey! And congrats on your early acceptance to RISD! That’s awesome.”

  He stared down at his shoes for a bit and my heart started sinking lower into my stomach. Did I just remind him of the closet incident again?! Then he looked up with a small smile. “Thanks, but I still can’t go until I figure out the scholarship stuff.”

  I nodded. “Right. Well, hopefully—”

  Mr. Rosso yelled out, “All right, everyone back on the bus! Thanks for planning this, Desi and Fiona. It was great, we’ll have to do it again!”

  Luca tugged at his beanie and walked away, saying, “See ya.”

  And that was that. My face flushed as I hastily helped Fiona finish cleaning up. I fought back tears so that Fiona couldn’t see my disappointment.

  And that’s when I spotted a pile of drawings by Luca.

  I stopped to flip through them. One was an excellently rendered SpongeBob. Another, a pair of shoes that I remembered Micah wearing. A robot cat. A ninja princess. I flipped through various hilarious sketches until I reached one that made me freeze.

  It was a drawing of me, sitting at a table with my head slightly bent, resting on my hand. Who knows when he caught that moment. But it wasn’t just the fact that he’d drawn me that made me pause. It was how he’d drawn me. The careful and sensitive lines, the quiet moment captured.

  It was so intimate, so studied. So … knowing. A little smile grew into a huge grin.

  I drew out the K drama list and stared down at it lovingly. Fiona walked up to me and looked over my shoulder at it. “Everything work out okay?”

  I kissed the list with a smack. “Crisis averted. Saved by the list once again.”

  STEP 12:

  Life-Threatening Event Makes Him/You Realize How Real Your Love Is

  “I can’t even believe we’re doing this right now.”

  It was maybe the first time in my life I had ever seen Fiona sweat. Physical exertion and she were not the best of friends. We were walking in the middle of Stony Point Drive with the sun beating down on us, a mile away from my house, while Wes was setting up cones and yellow tape at either end of the street.

  It was the week after the Art Club visit to the youth center. After seeing that drawing Luca had done, knowing that he had feelings for me whether or not he wanted to admit it, I was impatient to get rolling. I wished I could just skip to our first kiss, but I knew I still had some work ahead of me. So all weekend I had brainstormed to figure out step 12: Life-Threatening Event Makes Him/You Realize How Real Your Love Is. I had watched a few dramas with my dad and had finally come up with a plan.

  I scattered a handful of nails on the street while Fiona dropped one and darted her eyes. Not a soul to be seen on this quiet side street in one of the eerie empty neighborhoods of Monte Vista. For a city with near-perfect weather year-round, people hardly ever stepped out of their air-conditioned homes.

  Pulling her hair into a high ponytail, Fiona stared intensely at me. “Des, how
exactly are you going to pull this off again?”

  I tried to remain patient while explaining the plan to her. “We’ll get a flat tire, hit the curb, and I’ll pretend to hit my head. Then I can go into this damsel-in-distress mode and Won Bin will be overcome with his concern for me. Thus realizing he loves me.”

  Those large amber eyes pierced through me. “Wow. That’s some high hopes. Also, what if someone gets hurt? Out of all the steps, this one seems the most extreme.”

  There was that little tug of guilt that had been increasingly persistent lately.

  “Yeah, I know, this one is over-the-top. But they’re just teeny nails, the worst thing that can happen is we get a flat tire. Which is what I’m counting on. And man, I am so close. I can feel it. That drawing he did of me … I think this will be the clincher. Plus, don’t you know that going through stress causes the body to emit certain endorphins that can create intense bonding with whoever else you go through it with?”

  She walked up ahead, throwing a few nails carelessly into the wind. “Yes. I, too, watched Speed.”

  I looked at our handiwork, hands on my hips. “It’s really nuts. I might actually graduate high school with a boyfriend.”

  Fiona turned around and shot me a level stare. “Desi. You are someone who is going to go to Stanford to become a doctor. Not having a boyfriend in high school is freaking small potatoes. Boyfriends are overrated.” She paused. “So are girlfriends, for that matter.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I said with laugh, glancing at my phone. “Okay, we’re cool, let’s head back.”

  Fiona threw one last fretful look behind us as she said, “Okaaay. So, you’re really not worried someone else might drive over this?”

  “Fi! I told you, people in Monte Vista will obey the cones.”

  I linked my arm through Fiona’s, even though I knew this sort of girlie BFF behavior drove her nuts. “So what’s new with you?”

  She made a face. “Why?”

  “What do you mean? I’m asking how you’re doing!”

  “Is this a ploy to get me to help you with more weird shit?” she asked, stopping abruptly to look at me.

  My heart sank a little. Life had been K drama steps 24/7, and it hit me now that this was the first time in a few weeks that I was actually asking Fiona about what was going on with her. I squeezed her arm extra-tight. “No, it’s not a ploy. And sorry that it’s been all Won Bin all the time around these parts.”

  She shrugged. “I get it. First-boyfriend stuff. I forgive you.” But she gave my arm a squeeze back, and I knew she appreciated it nonetheless.

  “So how are things with Leslie?” I asked as we walked down the middle of the empty street toward Wes and her car.

  Fiona made a very unladylike fart noise. “She’s getting so clingy. Over it.”

  “Fi!” I admonished her. “You’re every girl’s worst nightmare, you know that?”

  “I think you mean dream,” she said in her sultry way, leaning her head in toward mine. I moved it away with a rough push on her temple.

  “I’m being serious! My worst freaking nightmare is Luca thinking that way about me.”

  Fiona’s eye lasers sliced through me. “There are worse things than having a relationship fail, you know. And speaking of … if there’s one thing I’ve learned with all my girlfriends, it’s that you eventually have to stop playing games. How much longer are you going to keep this up?”

  Why was she being such a Negative Nancy about this? I unlinked my arm from hers. “When it’s done.”

  I strode ahead of her, annoyed. Couldn’t she see how close I was? There was no stopping now.

  * * *

  Wes stayed behind to guard the cones and Fiona drove me back to school where she spied on Luca while I helped the student government crew set up for a pep rally. At 5:02 she texted me from her hideout that Luca was leaving the art studio and heading toward the parking lot. I took a deep, shuddering breath. Like, my body shuddered inwardly into itself. Here goes nothing.

  My clomping footsteps hid the apprehension that was bubbling up inside me as I walked rapidly across the parking lot in my sandals.

  “Luca!”

  He froze in the middle of a cool-guy stretch, his arms above his head so that his shirt rose up ever so slightly to reveal a peep of tan abdomen. “What?”

  I was momentarily distracted by that one inch of skin. Perv. “Hm? Oh. By any chance, can you give me a ride? Fiona was supposed to take me home but she had to bail. Something about her cat.” Fiona’s family had a twenty-year-old cat named Chubbins who was basically always on the brink of death. So my lie wasn’t that much of a stretch.

  Luca looked like a cornered animal for a second. Geez. Getting him to warm up to me again would be no easy task.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, well, I don’t know if we live close to each other.”

  “What! We both live in Monte Vista, how freaking far could I possibly be from your house?” My nonchalant act evaporated as I frowned at him.

  You’d think I’d asked him to make a colonoscopy appointment, the way he dragged his feet. “Fine. Whatever. My ride’s over there.”

  We walked over to a battered old blue Honda Civic. I ran my hand over the dented hood. “Sweet ride.”

  He shot me a haughty look. “You OC people and your devotion to the new.”

  Oh, Mr. Mister. He had no idea what he had just unleashed.

  “Actually, I was being completely devoid of sarcasm. The Si is the crown jewel of Civics, at least here in the U.S. Five-speed trans, tight suspension with stiffer sway bars, and even a strut bar.” I walked around it, surveying the little masterpiece. “Lower profile and wider wheel-and-tire setup make this a great-looking and -feeling daily driver, but also an awesome platform for a tuner,” I said as I glanced at him.

  I was in the zone and prattled on. “I mean, for a car to get around thirty miles per gallon with this kind of performance back in ’99 was really impressive. I guess that’s the beauty of VTEC, huh?”

  That’s when I noticed that Luca was staring at me. Oh crap. I had unleashed another layer of nerd on Luca. I flushed but then remembered Hae-Soo from It’s Okay That’s Love, and how she was always so badass whenever she shut people down with her doctor knowledge. For ultimate crush-baiting, be very, very, capable or informed about an unexpected thing to shock and awe those around you in a very cool manner.

  I mustered a smile, as if I was super-proud of the car talk. Confidence, Des. Exude who you wanna be.

  “Why do you know all this?” Luca yelped, yanking open the passenger-side door for me. That little gesture did not go unnoticed, and I mentally thanked his hippie mama for raising him right. He continued ranting. “Do you also read the Kelley Blue Book in your spare time when you’re not building robots in your creepy basement?!” The incredulity made his voice a little honky, like his laugh.

  I slid into the seat and waited until he got into the car before answering. “My dad’s a mechanic. Duh.” Although there was that one summer in middle school when I studied the Kelley Blue Book out of curiosity.

  Luca did that car-backing-up thing where you twist your entire body to the right and drape your arm across the back of the passenger seat. Where I was sitting. His hand brushed lightly against my hair and I got a whiff of boy sweat and breath mints. Somehow an intoxicating yet gross cocktail.

  “A mechanic. That’s kinda cool.”

  “I think so.”

  “Not a job that a lot of the parents of people at this school have.”

  I shrugged. “No, but it’s not like anyone really cares. I think the most redeeming part of California is that there’s a spirit of true meritocracy here that’s absent in older parts of the country.”

  Luca laughed again, his hand deftly maneuvering the steering wheel and his eyes moving rapidly between mirrors and windshield. Huh, he was a very meticulous driver. Why I found that so hot, I don’t know. Daughter-of-a-mechanic weirdness.

  He glanced at me br
iefly. “You have this way of talking…”

  “Yeah, yeah, like a Vulcan.”

  He laughed. “Exactly.”

  “Make a left,” I said with a smile. I was suddenly aware that we were both in a small car together. Alone. And it felt really, really intimate. Like, could he smell my breath? I breathed into my palm subtly.

  A couple of turns later and we were almost to the street where Fiona and I had dropped the nails. Oh, man, it was about to happen.

  “Gotta tell my dad to pick up some milk,” I lilted as I pulled out my phone and began furiously texting Wes, who was waiting to hear from me. Just turned on Linda Vista. Be there in less than 1 min. That was his signal to move the traffic tape and cones. I got an immediate text back: Done.

  And then I directed Luca to turn left onto Stony Point Drive. I fiddled with my phone nervously. We were right about to drive over the nails …

  Smooth sailing.

  What the heck? I craned my neck to look out the window at the road. The nails were there, they were even visible as we drove right over them, glinting in the fading sunlight. I glanced at Luca, but he didn’t seem to notice anything.

  Well. Okay, let’s just do this again. “Oh crap! I just realized I left something at school.” Lightning-quick thinking, Des. “My calculus book, which I need to do my homework tonight. Can we pretty please go back to school? Sorry.”

  Luca seemed unfazed. “Oh, okay, sure.” As I hoped, he quickly pulled a U-turn and when we had driven back far enough, I smacked my forehead with my palm. “Oh, I’m such an idiot! I actually forgot I left it at home, so we’re good.”

  “Are you sure?” Luca glanced over at me, and I could almost feel his faith in me leaking out of him.

  “Yup, I’m sure! Sorry.”

  So we U-turned again.

  I held my breath. We’d be coming up on those nails right about—

  And then I heard an explosive pop—the unmistakable sound of a tire blowing out. Holy crap, that was way more intense than I thought it was going to be! But before I could even really register that, the car immediately skidded to the right, and Luca clutched the wheel with an “Oh, shit!” But he couldn’t control the car fast enough and we bumped violently up onto the curb, a loud crunch piercing the air as something beneath the car scraped against the curb.