I stare into his deep blue eyes, taking in the lighter blue flecks, watching the pupils respond to the shift in clouds, feeling like after all the worry about talk, words don’t even matter anymore. And then he says my name.
He smiles at me. Then he looks down and clears his throat. “Mabry, I wanted to—”
Buzz. It’s my phone. My stupid, stupid phone.
Sirina.
“Do you need to get that?” he asks.
“No,” I say, but that doesn’t feel right, so I hit the answer button anyway. “Hi,” I say.
“Hey. Guess what?”
“What? ’Cause I’m actually out with Nick.”
“Oh, right! Can you call me the minute you’re done?”
“Yesss,” I hiss into the phone.
“Okay, hurry up,” she says.
“Okay,” I say. I don’t wait for the good-byes.
“Sorry. You were saying?”
“Yeah,” he says. He smiles and picks at a thread in the blanket. He clears his throat. “I wanted to tell you something.”
Tell. Not ask. Can you just tell someone you want them to go to the Cotillion with you? It’s a bit rude. But maybe he just needs me that much. Come with me, my dear Mabry, to the Cotillion. I will likely die if you don’t.
Okay, it makes sense now.
He sits up and takes a breath. He looks at me with a pained expression on his face.
“What?” I say with a new urgency.
He sighs and shakes his head, looking away again.
“Nick?”
“I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“About the thing with my mom,” he says. “Her calling you that day and, well, you know.”
Oh. Ooooh.
“It’s just that she kept telling all her friends I had a girlfriend, and it just got embarrassing. So I told her that I was going to break up with you, you know, just to get her off my back, and when I didn’t, she thought she was doing me some sort of favor.”
I can’t help but feel thrilled. “So you didn’t want to break up with me?”
“I mean, not, like, totally break up. But you were kind of intense, you know. You’re different now,” he says. He goes back to picking a thread in the blanket.
I am struck again with not knowing what to say, and somehow asking his middle name doesn’t seem to be the thing to do.
He looks at me. I guess I have a weird look on my face, because his eyes go wide, and he says, “But I mean that in a good way! I like it. I like you. A lot.”
An entirely different expression takes over his face. A soft one. Dare I say, a loving one? Well, definitely a me too one. And then he says, “The reason I said green? When you asked me my favorite color?”
“Uh-huh?”
“It was blue until today.”
“It was?”
“Yeah. But green is the color of your eyes. So that’s my favorite color now.”
A sigh escapes me. My heart does a little leap, and slips—at last—soundlessly into the sweet, syrupy pool of love.
Nick looks up. “Great,” he says. “Storm clouds.”
My phone buzzes again.
“Four words,” Sirina says when I grudgingly pick it up. “I have an idea. Bring Nick back to your house, and I’ll meet you guys there.”
She’s gone over her quota, but I can’t help but be intrigued. “You want me to bring Nick?” Is it possible that she’s somehow seen the light of our love? That she’ll give us her blessing?
“Yeah. I need him to do something for us. It’s about the YoJo.”
So no blessing after all.
“So can you guys hurry?” she asks. The gall of her!
Even though I’m not ready for this date to end, I think of our little snit-snot thing the other day and don’t want a repeat of that. Plus, that heart-shaped cloud is starting to sprinkle rain, which is only good for worms. So I tell her, “Hold your horses, would you? We’re heading back now.”
Nick walks back to my house with me. Sirina’s already there when we arrive, playing Madden with Aaron. There’s a plate of nuked hot dogs sitting between them, bunless monstrosities that are bulging in weird spots. Hunter is resting his head on the couch, his big, begging eyes focused on the deformed hot dogs.
“Look at you, Martha ‘A-Bag’ Stewart,” I say to my brother.
“Hey, loser”—my brother says this in an upbeat way that makes it sound almost like a compliment. His eyes shift briefly from the screen to Nick—“and friend. Want a dog?”
“No, thanks. We just ate,” Nick says.
“I’m not talking about the hot dogs,” he says. “I’m talking about Sirina here. Woof, woof!”
Sirina wallops A-Bag in the face with a decorative pillow at a crucial point for A-Bag. He loses the game and practically cries about it. Sirina gets up to meet us in the foyer, and Hunter, as usual, follows.
“You’re not going to believe it,” she says to me and Nick. “I found something that might help us crack this case. A sketch artist!”
“What? How?” I ask.
“My dad’s friend used to work with the police department. He said he’ll do a sketch if Nick will meet with him. What do you think, Nick. Will you?”
He looks a little nervous. “What do I have to do?”
“Just tell him what you saw,” she says.
“But I already told Mabry what I saw. I didn’t get a great look,” he says. He turns to me. “You know that.”
“Don’t worry, Nick,” Sirina says. “Some of it’s like multiple choice. He’ll show you different features and you can tell him if it matches what you remember.”
He shrugs. “Okay, I guess.”
“It won’t be perfect,” Sirina says, “But it’ll be something. Which is better than nada. Which is kind of what we have. A whole lotta nada.” She smiles at him a little bit, and I find myself smiling pretty big. I’m happy to see her happy. It’s like that seesaw is finally balanced.
Nick’s mom pulls up in the driveway. “Thanks, Nick,” I say. “I had fun.”
And he meets my eyes, and holds my gaze. And then he says, without looking away, something that makes my heart get back on that hot-air balloon.
He says, “Me too.”
Aurelio is still in the desert. It has been treinta y un días—thirty-one days. His skin is dark, his hair is long, and he can barely crawl. The credits roll over a still shot of him lying facedown in the sand.
Thad’s phone buzzes. He turns off the TV and answers it. He hears the La Vida Rica theme song in the background. Mabry must have been watching, too.
“Hey, Salsa Breath,” he says.
“Hey, Cheese Face,” she answers.
“How was it?”
“How was what?”
“The show. I can hear the music.”
“Oh,” she says. “Stressful. I don’t think Aurelio’s going to make it.”
“Seriously,” Thad says. “I mean, can someone even survive thirty-one days with no water?”
“Well, I think he drinks from cactuses sometimes. I mean, he’s got to if—” She stops herself. “Wait a second. You’re still watching it?”
“I don’t watch it—I just sometimes turn on the TV, and there Aurelio is. So sometimes we just coexist.” It’s not too much of a stretch. It’s not like he watches it like she does. He sometimes needs a laugh. “Anyway, what do you need?”
“I’m calling to tell you I think we’re getting close,” Mabry says. “Nick just texted to ask me what my favorite flower is.”
That’s easy. “Roses!” Thad says. “Red, of course.”
She huffs into the phone, and then says, “No, you’re wrong. Yellow.”
“You’re lying,” Thad says.
“Okay, whatever. So red roses are my favorite. Sor-ry!”
“Dude.” He feels a laugh bubble up. “You can’t tell him that. Just cross off any flower you can get at 7-Eleven. You gotta make him work a little harder than that.”
“So what should I say?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I’m not a girl. I don’t do flowers.”
“Orchids?”
“I don’t know. Can you get them at the same place you can buy a Ding Dong?” Thad asks.
“Probably not?” It’s a statement, but she sounds unsure.
“How about this?” he says. “If I’ve heard of it, it’s too easy. Scratch it off your list. And I’ve heard of orchids.”
He listens to her breathing, thinking. Finally, she asks, “How about oleander?”
He makes a buzzing sound like eeeeeeh and says, “My great-aunt was named Oleander. I just didn’t know it was a flower. But that would still be a no.”
“Mums?”
“Uh, definitely no.” He remembers mums. Mums are a hospital flower. “No mums. Trust me. Bad choice.”
“What about gladiola?”
“Everyone’s heard of that. Too easy,” Thad tells her.
“Everyone hasn’t heard of that,” Mabry argues.
“Okay, well, I have.”
“How have you heard of a gladiola?”
“I don’t know. There’s like a Febreze spray of it or something.” Thad bites his lip to keep from laughing. He’s glad she can’t see him.
There’s another pause. For a second, he wonders if they’ve been disconnected. Then she asks, “Jerothium?”
Even though he’s never heard of it, he says, “Would you like a Slurpee with that?”
“Are you kidding me?” Now she’s laughing. “Jerothium’s not even real! I made it up!”
“Oh,” he says quietly. Then he rips into a laugh. “Okay, sorry.”
“What is your deal?” Mabry asks. “Why do you want me to make it so hard for him?”
“I just don’t want you to be so predictable,” he tells her. It’s an excuse, but it’s still true.
“You’re the predictable one,” she says. “I bet you’re going to sit around all night eating Cheetos in your underwear. No, wait—Funyuns!”
“Yeah, I wish, okay?”
“Well,” she says with a curious tone in her voice, “what are you going to be doing?”
“Ha! Having to go. See you tomorrow,” he says.
“Thad? About tomorrow, want to meet over here? My house or something?”
“Nope. I gotta go.”
But she keeps at it. “Don’t you ever get tired of the mall?”
What’s there to get tired of? The easiness of it? The frivolousness? Come on. Everything about it is optional. It’s hard to think much about life and death when you’re deciding between bean dip and guacamole. Peppermint gum or spearmint. Black shoelaces or red. But she won’t understand that, and he doesn’t want to explain it anyway, so he pretends not to have heard her, and hangs up.
yo encuentro
tú encuentras
ella encuentra
nosotros encontramos
ellos encuentran
That night, I’m having dinner with the family. By that, I mean my mom, A-Bag, and Stephen. Stephen’s made chicken Divan. It’s chicken with broccoli sauce, and A-Bag is busy picking all the teeny, tiny green buds out of his. My mom’s irritated.
“You can’t even taste it!” she says to A-Bag.
But I guess by saying that, she accidentally offends Stephen, who looks a little hurt, and says, “Well, it just requires a smart palate.”
“I hurl if I eat broccoli,” A-Bag says.
“That was once,” my mom says, “when you were four.”
“I’m serious,” A-Bag says. “I’ll yack.”
“Why don’t you and your dumb palate just go and rinse the sauce off?” I suggest.
He looks at me. “Good idea!” And he gets up to go into the kitchen. We hear the faucet turn on.
“Mabry,” my mom says, “don’t encourage your brother when he’s like this.”
“It’s fine, Ellen,” Stephen says.
A-Bag comes back, sits down with his naked piece of chicken, holds it above his mouth, and eats it like a fish going for bait.
“You’re disgusting!” I say.
My mom just closes her eyes and shakes her head.
“What? You said not to encourage him! That’s what I’m doing!” I say.
“Aaron, don’t forget about your squash,” my mom says.
“I already forgot about it,” he says, and starts practically choking on his laughter.
I try not to laugh. I mean, I think it’s funny, but there’s no way I want to give him that satisfaction.
My mom turns to Stephen. “I’m sorry.”
Stephen just pats her hand. “One day he’ll appreciate a nice Divan.”
“One day he’ll act like he has manners,” my mom says.
“I quite like the chicken Divan,” I add.
My mom smiles at me.
Stephen does, too. “Well, that’s very good to hear!” And then he goes into the history of chicken Divan, and how the word divan meant some kind of fancy sofa, and that the restaurant that came up with it was trying to make it sound like something rich people would eat. Which is okay-enough interesting, but then he starts going into the history of all poultry dishes, which is more than anyone should have to bear. My eyes start to feel glassy and my ears stop recognizing words.
I have to interrupt. It becomes a matter of survival, as it’s starting to feel very possible to be bored to death. “Can we possibly talk about flowers?” I ask, very politely.
“Can I possibly leave this table and never return, ever?” A-Bag asks, very impolitely.
My mom excuses him. She actually says, “You know what, Aaron? Just go. You’d be doing the rest of us a favor.” So I know she’s fed up.
When the attention is back on me, I ask, “What do you think is the prettiest flower in the universe?”
“Oh!” my mom says, looking pleased. “Are you doing a project on spring flowers?”
“Sort of,” I say.
“I like sunflowers,” my mom says.
“Yes, the sunflower is nice because it’s a good mix of form and function. They’re pretty, and you can eat the seeds.” That’s Stephen, of course.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, the sunflower’s cute, but I mean truly beautiful.”
“Practicality is true beauty,” Stephen says.
Which explains why he bought my mom a heating pad for her last birthday.
“Orchids are nice,” my mom says.
“Well, Ellen, sure, orchids are lovely, but you have to be more specific than that,” Stephen says, snickering. “There are twenty thousand species of orchids.”
She looks at him like she’s impressed. “Really? How’d you know that?” She gives him this stupid look of admiration.
“No orchids,” I say. “What else?”
“How about lily of the valley?” my mom suggests.
“Yeah.” I give a sarcastic snort. I mean, I may not know a ton about flowers, but I do know Hilda tried to get rid of Cristina by garnishing her drink with a lily of the valley. “If you want to kill someone! They’re poisonous!”
“That’s true,” Stephen says. Then he sits back. “You know, now that you mention it, I’d have to say the most beautiful flower in the world is the king protea. It’s a South African flower—when it opens up, it looks like a king’s crown!” He shakes his head and lets out a low whistle. “It’s stunning.”
“Sounds wonderful,” my mom says.
“I’ve never heard of it,” I say.
“Well, go look it up in the encyclopedia. Or is that so 2014?”
I don’t even know where to start with him. I just look at him, and he winks. “I’m kidding, Mabry. Just go put it in the Googler.”
And even though he’s said it that way, I think I will. I get up and start clearing the plates, enjoying my role as the Favorite Child.
As I go into the kitchen, I hear my mom say, in kind of a buttery way, “How do you know so much?”
And Stephen explains how it’s
the name of the South African cricket team, and how the name changed from something else, and then starts yammering on about some near shakeup with the South African flag. Blah, blah, blah.
I go up to my room and Google it, and sure enough, Stephen’s right. The king protea is a gorgeous flower. I finally have my answer for Nick.
I’ve got to hand it to Stephen. It’s elegant, and colorful, and unique. And it’s definitely not something you could get on a Slim Jim run, so take that, Thaddeus Bell.
Take that.
Good night, my strawberry-scented cantaloupe, Sirina texts me that night.
Good night, my sand-filled melon head, I text her back.
And then I put my phone down and try my very best to sleep, despite all my excitement. Despite the fact that The Love of My Life is nearly mine again. But it’s about as easy as crossing the Atacama Desert. No offense to Aurelio.
yo confío
tú confías
ella confía
nosotros confiamos
ellos confían
“King protea,” I announce when I join Thad at our food-court table.
“Queen Victoria,” he says back. “Um, what are we talking about, Collins?”
“My favorite flower. You’re right. I’m over roses.”
“Glad to hear it. Such a cliché. Hey, want to thumb-wrestle for a burrito? Loser buys.”
“Fine. Lefties?”
“No,” he says. “Right.” He removes his glove. It’s the first time I’ve seen his hand fully naked like this since, well, fourth grade. It’s pale, and still Frankenstein-y from his skating accident, with crisscrossing pink lines.
“Are you sure? Because it’s still kind of ugly,” I joke.
He just does his little half smile and cups his fingers around mine. “Ready, set,” he calls out, as our thumbs dance right, then left. “Go.” Our thumbs wiggle around in a standoff. He presses mine down, but the lotion I recently applied helps my thumb squirm free. But then he traps it once again and starts counting, “One, two, three.” And then he declares victory over our thumb match.
And I stomp on his foot under the table and declare victory over our toe match. Which leads to his foot landing on mine, and mine on his, and me using both feet, and—
How to Break a Heart Page 16
