Boy Shopping

by Nia Stephens

  Kiki laughed, the bell rang, and they ran the rest of the way to English class.

  Kiki was actually beginning to wonder if someone had used Jacob’s name and picture to pick up girls on the Internet, when the secretary paged Kiki to the office during fifth period European History class.

  “What have you done now, Kelvin?” Dr. Bonner asked. Everyone was staring at her, except for Mark. He refused to look up from the chapter on Charlemagne they were supposed to be reading. They might not be fighting anymore, but they weren’t on the friendliest terms either, not since he’d asked about Jasmine.

  “I haven’t done anything!” she insisted. She was expecting the worst, though, when she got to the office. Could it have anything to do with the hijacked PA system Monday morning?

  “Kiki, this has to be signed for.” The secretary handed her a long florist’s box, the kind that she’d only seen in movies, filled with roses.

  Kiki balanced the box of flowers in one arm as she scrawled her name on the form the delivery guy handed her. Then she opened the box. The roses were a strange bronzy-brownish-pink, almost the exact color of the skin on the inside of her wrist. Kiki had received plenty of roses in the last few years, from her fans and from RGB, but they were always white, pink, or red. She had never seen roses this color before.

  “Ooooh, chocolate roses,” cooed the secretary.

  “I can’t find a card,” Kiki said.

  “I guess you have a secret admirer,” the secretary said.

  “I guess so,” Kiki admitted. “Would you mind putting them in the fridge until two-thirty?”

  “Just don’t forget them.”

  “I won’t forget.” When Kiki stepped out of the office, Jacob Young was strolling down the hall. He turned to her, gave her a slow nod, and kept going. He was the one who had sent the roses—Kiki was certain. She felt a flush creeping across her whole body. Jacob Young really was into her. It was like hearing that instead of getting you a new ten-speed for your birthday, your parents decided to get you a Porsche: that unbelievable.

  The Pussycats all purred happily when they saw Kiki’s roses at the end of the day, except for Jasmine.

  “They might not even be from Jacob,” Jasmine said as they all walked to the parking lot.

  “You think those are from Jacob?” Mark asked, popping up behind them.

  “Did you send them, Mark?” Jasmine asked, turning on him as fast as a rattlesnake. “Is this your way of declaring your everlasting love for Kiki?”

  “I, um, no,” he said, turning purple.

  “That’s enough, Jazz. Come on, Mark. Let’s get going.”

  Kiki dragged him by the elbow to his car as the Pussycat Posse laughed behind them. Jasmine laughed loudest of all.

  “So, I, um, Kiki,” he began, but she cut him off.

  “Mark, forget what Jasmine said. She just likes messing with you.”

  “Um, yeah. So, um, are those really from Jacob?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. That’s . . . cool, I guess.”

  Kiki almost said, “You had your chance,” but why should she bother? If he had suddenly decided that she was the one, it was too late. She was going out with Jacob that Friday night no matter what. If Mark finally got it together to ask her out, he’d have his chance, too. Later. If Jacob wasn’t her soul mate.

  By the time Friday night rolled around, Kiki was having second thoughts about Jacob. Well, more like tenth or eleventh thoughts, since he kept ignoring her in the halls all week. What was his problem? He couldn’t possibly be embarrassed to be seen with her—could he? He was Jacob Young, who may or may not have been in Hustle and Flow, and was definitely the son of producer Andre “Too” Young, but she was Kiki Kelvin—she had been on the cover of Billboard twice before her seventeenth birthday! And if he really was embarrassed to be seen with her, then why were they going to Trip-Hop Triple Threat at the Maze, where half of Wentworth would probably turn up? Kiki had no idea what was going on, and she wasn’t about to ask him. Instead, she just laced up her lucky Doc Martens, tucked them under a nice new pair of low-rise jeans, checked her tank top to make sure her bra straps were covered, and went downstairs to wait for Jacob to show up.

  “Since when have you liked Jacob Young?” her dad asked, wandering through the living room on his way to the garage. For once, he and Kiki’s mom weren’t going to see her off on a date. Since they had known Jacob’s parents since Kiki was in kindergarten, they didn’t think he was much of a threat. This had less to do with any faith in Jacob himself than the fact that if Dr. Kelvin wanted to hunt Jacob down, he knew exactly where he lived.

  “I’ve always liked Jacob.”

  “No, you used to think he was nasty.”

  “That’s because he ate glue.”

  “Just for fun?”

  “I think it was a dare.”

  “Booger-eater?”

  “Maybe. I can’t remember.” It was hard enough believing that Jacob had anything to do with the faintly disgusting first grader he had been, much less remembering exactly what he had done. Kiki thought all boys were gross back then, except for Mark, and he’d had his moments too.

  “Right. Well, think about that before you let him stick his tongue in your mouth.”

  Kiki groaned. “Have a nice night, Dad.”

  “You too. I’ll see you at two o’clock, or I’ll come looking.”

  “Goodnight, Dad!”

  “Okay, goodnight.”

  Jacob showed up ten minutes later, looking like he did every day at school, but better. The sunglasses were gone, revealing a pair of eyes the color of old gold, eyes that were a lot more mesmerizing than they had been in elementary school.

  “Hey,” Kiki said, climbing into the passenger seat of a new Z3 convertible, perfectly black inside and out. He drove a black Mercedes sedan to school, which was nice enough, but this car was a work of art, especially the sound system. Gnarls Barkley was pouring through the speakers like molasses, dark and sweet.

  “Hey.” It was the first word he had spoken to her since they were twelve. And it was the last she heard for a while, since he reversed out of Kiki’s driveway fast enough to knock the breath from her lungs, then whipped through the curvy streets of Belle Meade, her quiet, tree-lined neighborhood, so fast that wind was all Kiki could hear. A quick glance at their reflection in the window of a car they passed told Kiki that they looked like a scene from a movie: the rapper who has just made it to the top, but can’t forget his past; the gold digger who may leave him for the next big star, but will always love him. It would be a movie with great beats and a sad ending—him dead, her pregnant, something like that. Kiki had to laugh, but that sound too was lost in the wind roiling around Jacob’s car.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked when they stopped at a light.

  “Just thinking about how different things look from outside.”

  “I know what you mean.” He nodded at the car stopped next to theirs, an elderly Cadillac full of elderly white people. “They probably think I’m a drug dealer and you’re some kind of ho.”

  “We’re not wearing enough jewelry.” Jacob wasn’t wearing any, and Kiki just had on a pair of tiny diamond studs.

  “Look at them. That’s what they see.”

  Kiki saw that he was probably right. The old man driving the car was staring at them as if staring might make their heads explode, and the three women in the car wouldn’t even look at them. Maybe the old man had some reason for giving them the look of death, but if he wasn’t an out-and-out racist, convinced that any young black couple driving around Belle Meade in a new BMW had to be drug dealers, Kiki didn’t know what his problem was.

  The light changed, and the chance for conversation was left back at the intersection with the old, slow Cadillac. When they got to the little Mexican place next to the Maze, they had plenty of time to talk, but Jacob had retreated into his shell of silence. At first Kiki tried asking him questions, easy, open-ended questions, like reporters always ask
at the beginning of an interview, but he would answer with as few words as possible, and that was that. If he was completely silent around a girl he had known his entire life, Kiki understood why he had tried HelloHello.

  Kiki stared at her burrito as if she could see Mother Teresa’s face burned into the tortilla, feeling her stomach jump around. When she was with Mark and Franklin, silence always meant something was wrong—most of the time the two of them talked nonstop.

  “Can I ask you a weird question?” Kiki asked. She knew, even before she asked, that she was being stupid. Guys don’t like having relationship talks when they are actually in a relationship, much less when they’re on a first date. But it wasn’t like Jacob could shut her out anymore than he was already, so what difference did it make? And it was something she’d been thinking about a lot lately—might as well get a guy’s opinion.

  “Do you think people can be destined for each other? A Romeo and Juliet sort of deal?”

  Kiki expected him to say no, or sit there in silence. Instead he put down his fork, pinned her with his golden eyes, and said, “Romeo and Juliet are the dumbest characters in that whole play. The only character with anything going on at all is Mercutio, and he dies for it.”

  Kiki cocked her head, considering his answer. “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” she admitted. She probably should have used a different example, or have phrased the question better. “But what about true love? Not love at first sight, or whatever, but the whole twin souls thing?”

  “Absolutely.” His eyes glowed like lamps. Kiki knew she was blushing. She couldn’t help it. Whenever he looked at her—really looked at her—she felt as if she was bathed in a golden spotlight all her own.

  “How do you—would you—know?” she asked. “How could you tell if it was the real thing?”

  He ate another couple of bites of his tostada, and Kiki thought at first that he was giving her the silent treatment again, but realized he was giving her question serious consideration.

  After a few minutes, he gave her the The Look again. “You remember reading Catcher in the Rye back in eighth grade?”

  “Sure.” Jacob may not talk in class, but he had obviously been paying attention.

  “Holden says that the thing about him and Jane is that he doesn’t have to talk when she’s around. They can just sit there and understand.”

  “I guess I had forgotten that part.”

  He nodded. “Most people are just talk. Not everything is about words.”

  Kiki nodded too, but she wasn’t sure she really understood. After all, Jacob didn’t really talk to anybody—how would he know whether someone understood him?

  At that point their waiter came by with the bill. He wasn’t much older than they were. “I was just waiting for a break in the conversation,” the waiter joked, winking at Kiki. La Rosa was small and cozy, and the tables were barely large enough for two placemats—perfect for a night of low-key romance. Every other table in the restaurant buzzed with romantic whispers or loud laughter. There had probably never been a date as silent as this one, at least not at La Rosa.

  “Man, you guys just can’t shut up,” the waiter teased. “I can tell you guys have been going out forever.”

  Jacob gave him a look that made him take a step back and begin stammering an apology.

  “Forget it, man.” Jacob handed him a credit card without even glancing at the bill. The waiter scurried to the back of the restaurant so fast the other diners probably thought Jacob had threatened him.

  It took all of three minutes to walk from La Rosa to the Maze, though Kiki wouldn’t have wanted to walk it by herself—it was on a sketchy corner near the edge of downtown. She had no fears walking with Jacob, though. It amazed her how he could say more with a look than someone like Mark could say with a hundred three-syllable words.

  Inside the club, Triple Threat had already begun. The cinder-block walls were thumping with complex beats overlaid by honey-sweet vocals and samples from what sounded like a string quartet.

  “The acoustics here are better than you would think,” Kiki said.

  “It’s not the building. It’s the speakers. They’ve got Khartoum speakers, this German company that makes movie theater sound equipment, and triplex placement.” Jacob went on, but that was the only part Kiki understood. And she wasn’t dumb about sound systems—after more than three hundred sound checks, you learn a thing or two about music amplification. But Jacob was an expert. He may not have normal conversations but he could definitely lecture her about various amps. Not that she minded—it was a subject that interested her almost as much as it fascinated him.

  Kiki was about to ask him if he knew what kind of equipment was necessary to pull the morning announcements prank at school, when they got to the head of the line and flashed their fakes. Kiki almost never used a fake ID, since most bouncers in Nashville knew exactly how old she was and were willing to let her in anyway, but she didn’t make it to the Maze often.

  “You want a drink?” Jacob asked.

  “Not really.” The Maze had beer, but no hard liquor. Kiki would drink a beer if it was cold enough and she was thirsty enough, but she would rather have Jack and Coke, or even a glass of water.

  “That’s cool.” Jacob bought two bottles of water, handed one to Kiki, then headed further into the dark, twisty halls that gave the club its name. To keep up with each other they had to hold hands, and from there the next step was dancing. Kiki had never danced with anyone who moved like Jacob. It figured, since his mother had danced in videos back in the ’80s—that’s how she met his father. But there was a world of difference between what Mrs. Young did in the background of Madonna videos and how Jacob moved across the Maze’s main dance floor. It wasn’t anything flashy or crazy—he didn’t crowd the other dancers, or make Kiki look like she was dancing by herself. He just always knew the right way to move: when to step right, when to pause, when to press Kiki so close she could feel his heart slamming against his ribs, when to give her a little space.

  Soon all of the little worries that had been knocking around Kiki’s brain—was Jacob too shy, too quiet, too weird?—were lost in the beat that moved Kiki, Jacob, and everyone else in the club. They danced through the end of the first set, danced to the recorded tracks that were played while the second group set up, and through the entire second set. They definitely didn’t need words for this kind of communication.

  Sweat glued dreads to the back of Kiki’s neck, and even after she finished off her bottle of water, she felt like she was overheating. Grinding against Jacob for the full six minutes of “Demonology” would have overheated Kiki in a walk-in freezer, much less in a hot, smoky club.

  “I think I need some air,” Kiki said. She had to repeat herself twice, she was so breathless.

  After making sure they hadn’t sweated their hand stamps clean off, they threaded their way back out of the Maze and into the parking lot.

  “‘Demonology’ is such a great song,” Kiki said, fanning herself with her empty water bottle.

  “It’s their best, except maybe for ‘Talking Pictures,’ on Fictional. That whole album drops it.”

  “You like it better than Triggerfinger?”

  “Too different to compare.”

  Jacob had as much to say about music itself as he did about sound systems, and not just hip-hop and trip-hop. He knew plenty about the local rock scene, and knew the Temporary Insanity playlists almost as well as Kiki did. She couldn’t stop smiling, even though Jacob hadn’t lost the closed-off look he’d worn all day. They really did have a lot in common. They really did understand each other. And if dancing with Jacob in a room full of people was enough to make Kiki light-headed, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be with him behind closed doors.

  Kiki was trying to maneuver the conversation from the show to where they might find a little privacy afterwards, when she heard giggles coming from somewhere nearby, probably behind a car, followed by three very familiar voices, raised in chorus
.

  “Kiki and Jacob, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Kiki with a baby carriage!”

  “All right, get out here,” Kiki growled. “Jazz, Sasha, Camille. I know it’s you.”

  The three of them, emerging from behind a VW Bug, were red as pomegranates, laughing so hard Kiki thought Jasmine might collapse.

  “How nice to see you, ladies,” Kiki said, making her friends laugh even harder. “Enjoying the show?”

  “The show hasn’t even started,” Jasmine gasped between giggles. “We were going to wait for you to make out, but we didn’t think you would get it on in the parking lot.”

  “Very mature, Jazz. Thanks.” Kiki rolled her eyes at Jacob, making a face, but he didn’t smile down at her. Instead, he glared at the Pussycats, giving them the same look that the old man in the Cadillac had given Kiki and Jacob earlier, then he turned and stomped off.

  “Are you guys done?” Kiki asked her friends.

  “We didn’t come here to spy,” Sasha insisted. “We just wanted to catch the show. We didn’t expect you and Jacob to be out here.”

  “Could you please, please find someplace else to go?”

  “Sure, sure,” Camille said, grabbing Jasmine’s elbow firmly. “We’re out of here.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Kiki said when she caught up with Jacob just outside the front door. She dragged him around to the side of the building—there was no need for every trip-hop fan in Nashville to witness this scene. “They can get a little silly.”

  “A little silly? Those girls don’t have the sense of a dumb kitten.”

  “Those are my friends you’re talking about, and they’re not stupid. They just like to have fun.”

  “That’s it—fun is everything to them.”

  Kiki stood as tall as she could, since she was half a foot shorter than Jacob, and put her hands on her hips.

  “What’s wrong with having fun? What else are they supposed to be doing?”

  He laughed at her. It was the first time Kiki had heard him laugh since grade school, but she was not amused.