Boy Shopping

by Nia Stephens

  Sasha ducked to avoid three dusty pillows sailing her way.

  “Yes, Sasha, we know exactly how smart, and charming, and sweet Thomas is,” Camille said wearily. “You’ve already told us all about it.”

  “I was just saying that just because Joshua likes sports doesn’t mean he’s dumb.” Seeing the disbelieving look on Kiki’s face, Sasha changed the subject. “What do you think he has in mind for your first date? Hiking? A picnic, maybe? That would be romantic.”

  Kiki chewed on a dreadlock nervously. “He’s probably going to try to teach me how to play lacrosse.”

  Jasmine sniggered. “That ought to be pretty funny. Remember when Coach Peter tried to teach field hockey in gym? You managed to bruise his ankle and give him a black eye!”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Just relax and see what happens,” Sasha advised, still shaking dust out of her hair from the thrown pillows. “Maybe Joshua will surprise you.”

  He did. He showed up at Wentworth on Friday afternoon, looking just as good as he did in his picture. His hair had grown since the photo was taken, a dark curtain shading his eyes, and his teeth were an almost fluorescent white against his golden skin. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a health class textbook.

  Instead of a lacrosse shirt, he was wearing a black thermal undershirt, shredded jeans, and a tool belt, weighted down with tools that Kiki could not even name, except for the hammer.

  “Car trouble?” Kiki asked, joining him inside his neat little Camry.

  He laughed, a nice, quiet laugh, not at all like the hooting Kiki associated with the boys of Wentworth football. But Joshua’s school, Kenwood, was even preppier than Wentworth, and lacrosse a little more refined than football. Or so she guessed; she really didn’t know much about it.

  “You don’t know much about cars, huh?” he said, starting his up.

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Automotive maintenance 101: this is a hammer, and you don’t want to use it on much of anything inside a car.”

  “I’ll try to remember that,” Kiki said, watching Wentworth shrink in the rearview mirror. The Pussycat Posse had wanted to see her off, but she had promised a slow, horrible death to anyone who spied.

  “I guess you don’t have much experience with construction either?”

  Kiki tried to keep from grimacing. She was a seventeen-year-old girl. Why would she know anything about construction?

  He interpreted her annoyance as fear. “Don’t worry,” he said, patting her knee. “It’s not that hard.”

  “Why would I be worried about construction?” she couldn’t help asking.

  “’Cause we’re going to build a house.”

  After waiting a minute to see if he was going to burst out laughing, Kiki said, “I don’t think I understand. Did you say we are going to build a house?”

  “Exactly.” He grinned. Under any other circumstances, Kiki would have liked his smile. It was confident, but not especially cocky, and he had dimples. But at that point she was trying to decide whether or not he was a lunatic, and the smile didn’t help.

  “I thought you said that you had to get home early tonight. I’m pretty sure it takes more than seven or eight hours to build a house.”

  “It does. But people have been working on it all day.”

  “Okay, okay, I give up,” Kiki said, holding up both hands in surrender. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  It turned out that Joshua volunteered once a month with Habitat for Humanity, a group that builds homes for people who cannot afford to buy them on their own. By the time Kiki and Joshua arrived, the frame was up, the roof was done, and the walls were beginning to look like walls. People cheered when Joshua showed up, since it turned out he was especially good at wiring. The volunteers welcomed Kiki too, even though she had never swung a hammer and thought that a screwdriver was something made with vodka and orange juice.

  Kiki spent most of the afternoon bringing people plastic cups filled with Gatorade, though Joshua showed her how a fuse box really worked, and the basics of running electricity through a house. Kiki was impressed, not just that he knew how to do this, but that he wanted to. She gave plenty of clothing to the Salvation Army, played charity concerts, and donated cans to the yearly Wentworth food drive, but volunteer work had never been a part of her life. She was just too busy.

  When she admitted that to Joshua, who was carefully screwing a wall socket into place, he just shrugged.

  “If something matters to you, you make time for it.”

  Kiki couldn’t argue with that. She started to slink away, feeling embarrassed, but he caught her hand.

  “You can’t do everything all the time, though,” he continued. “Some months I spend eight hours a week tutoring immigrants in English and sixteen doing stuff like this. Other times, I only do eight hours a month. Then I feel bad, because people like Phil—” He waved at a man installing the front door, who waved back. “Phil does some form of volunteer work thirty hours a week. It’s like another full-time job, and Phil’s a banker, which keeps him pretty busy. You just have to do whatever feels right for you, right now.”

  “Thanks.” Kiki smiled shyly. “My schedule is really crazy at the moment.”

  “Tell me about it.” Josh rolled his eyes. “Could you hand me a few more screws?”

  By the time the sun went down, tremendous progress had been made toward completing the house. Kiki was amazed that so much could happen in one day.

  “Teamwork,” Josh said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “It’s an amazing thing.”

  The volunteers went to dinner at a nearby spaghetti place. The family who would be moving into the new house was there, a Vietnamese family that had moved to New Orleans just a year before Hurricane Katrina hit: a shy father, sniffling mother, and three adorable kids who ran around asking everyone what color their new rooms were going to be. Kiki was afraid that she would be left out, since everyone else seemed to know each other so well, but Joshua never stopped talking to her. He even tried to show her the rules and strategies of lacrosse with salt and pepper shakers, silverware, and one of his meatballs.

  He dropped Kiki off at Camille’s house at 7:30, where the girls were gathering before going together to the Trip-Hop Triple Threat at the Maze. He gave her a kiss goodbye, which began as a gentle brush of lips and ended with caressing tongues, though he didn’t try to caress anything else.

  Kiki was so happy when she came in, Jasmine asked if she was high.

  “High on life,” Kiki squealed, giving one of Camille’s ridiculous heart-shaped pillows a hug. “High on love!”

  “And what about Mark?” Jasmine asked with one raised eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to be at the Maze tonight.”

  Kiki was so giddy she didn’t even wonder why Jasmine would know something like that. “Mark who?”

  Two hours later at the Maze, when Kiki heard the insistent beep of an incoming text message, she didn’t feel the usual flip-flop of her heart, accompanied by the inevitable question: is it Mark? But her heart soared when she saw that it was, in fact, Joshua, inviting her to his tournament the next day, beginning at 8:00 AM.

  She responded instantly, with her regrets: she was dying to see him, but not that early. If he made it to the finals, maybe she would make it then.

  No worries. Will b in finals. C u @ 2.

  “Wow,” Jasmine said, peering over Kiki’s shoulder. “Pretty cocky, huh?”

  “He’s just self-confident. He knows he’s good—why should he pretend he doesn’t?”

  Camille, Jasmine, and Sasha all burst out laughing, making everyone else in line to get into the club stare at them.

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing,” Sasha said, still laughing. “It’s just that—”

  “It’s just that Joshua sounds a lot like you,” Jasmine finished. “A lot more than seventy-seven percent compatible.”

  Kiki couldn’t say it wasn’t true—she did know her s
trengths, and she didn’t see a reason to pretend otherwise. So she just tossed her hair over her shoulder like Franklin did when he was feeling especially arrogant and said, “You guys are ridiculous.”

  “I know you are but what am I?” Camille giggled.

  “If you don’t get yourselves under control, I won’t take you to the tournament with me.”

  It was an empty threat, but it kept the teasing to a minimum for the rest of the night. And that was the best Kiki could hope for.

  Chapter 5

  In the Pink

  In the end, only Camille came with Kiki to the lacrosse tournament. This wasn’t a big surprise for Kiki—Jasmine and Sasha’s black lace and high heels would have been out of place in the stands. Even Kiki had chosen blue jeans and sneakers to wear with her black sweater. Camille was wearing her usual uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. She blended in perfectly in the stands packed with fans, most of them dead silent, completely focused on the game. The two girls sitting in front of Kiki were the exception, whispering nonstop.

  Kiki ignored them at first, looking for Josh. It was easy to pick him out, since his golden skin glowed in sharp contrast to his white uniform. He was almost dancing across the field, as if he were seeing the whole game from above, like a spectator in the stands. Even if Kiki didn’t entirely understand all the rules, she could see that he approached lacrosse the same way she approached music: when he was on the field, his whole universe was the game. And that impressed her almost as much as his dedication to volunteer work. She had finally found a guy outside of the music world who could understand her devotion to it. She was beginning to think she might be in love.

  Soon Kiki realized that the whispering girls in front of her were following Josh’s every move too, on and off the field. She elbowed Camille, mimed zipping her lips, then pointed to the two girls.

  “I heard on Friday that Jessica wants to get back together with him, but he says he’s totally done with the girls here. He thinks we’re all boring,” one of the girls moaned sadly.

  “Where’s he going to meet girls? All he does is practice, practice, practice, and do his homework. He’s up for the Stillman prize, did you know?”

  “I heard someone from Harvard already called guidance about him. Can you believe it? I would die to marry someone like him.”

  Camille made a face at that, forcing Kiki to cover her mouth with both hands. Her laugh died, though, at the girls’ next comment.

  “Yeah. If it weren’t for the whole getting-arrested-for-selling-heroin thing, Josh Cheng would be absolutely perfect.”

  Kiki felt her stomach twist. She couldn’t have heard right. She looked at Camille.

  Camille frowned, then mouthed, “Heroin?” Kiki’s stomach twisted harder. She just shook her head. She had no idea what that was about.

  Josh’s team won the game. He broke away from the crowds flooding the field, taking the stands two at a time to reach Kiki. He swooped down for a quick kiss before she could say anything. When he was done, all thoughts of drugs had completely fled Kiki’s mind. It helped that the girls who had been gossiping about him before had joined the other Kenwood fans rushing the field, lost to Kiki’s view.

  “We’re having a victory party tonight, after the official dinner,” he said, one sweaty arm still wrapped around Kiki’s waist. “You’re welcome too,” he told Camille.

  “I’m actually in the studio until ten-thirty,” she said regretfully. And after that she had planned on going to see the Jennifers, or maybe to Laura Keller’s party. But the thought of spending more time with Josh was very tempting.

  “I can pick you up,” Camille said helpfully, bobbing to her feet. “I mean, if the party’s still going on by the time we get there.”

  Josh laughed his quiet laugh. Kiki loved to hear it.

  “The party will definitely be going on at eleven. Let me give you the directions.”

  While he and Camille hashed that out, Kiki’s mind went back to the comment about drugs. She could not think of a single way to subtly bring it up, and she couldn’t just come out and say, “So, did you sell heroin or what?”

  Josh leaned down for a goodbye kiss. Unlike their goodbye from the night before, this one was fast and a little rough—Kiki was as conscious of his hand at the base of her skull as she was of his tongue and teeth. It left her a little breathless, wondering what it would be like to be alone with someone so forceful, especially since his strength was usually so contained. Kiki’s mind was still reeling as she and Camille headed over to the recording studio.

  “So what do you think?” Kiki asked, after she was once again capable of speech.

  “He seems awesome.” Camille bubbled with happiness for Kiki, almost as bubbly as Kiki was herself.

  “But what about the heroin thing?” Kiki asked, more than a little worried. She knew plenty of kids who smoked pot, and musicians who snorted coke before going onstage, but she didn’t know anyone who messed with heroin.

  “I’m sure it’s just some sort of misunderstanding. Josh doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would smoke pot, much less deal heroin. See you tonight,” Camille said cheerfully, dropping her off.

  Kiki had to spend the first five minutes of their studio time hiding in the bathroom, doing breathing exercises to clear her mind, which was seesawing wildly from being completely taken by Josh and terrified that he really was a drug dealer. RGB would drop her instantly if they thought she might become a liability—and a boyfriend with a record for heroin possession did not look good in the press. Amazingly enough, her breathing exercises worked. When she walked into the recording booth, put on her headphones and settled in behind the drum kit, Josh and the possible felony record slid right out of her brain, replaced by thoughts of production values and sound quality. Mark and Franklin were already there, also in professional mode. They nodded hello to her, and the three of them had a brief chat with the sound engineers, producers, and both of their managers on the other side of the glass. Then they rocked out, studio-style, for the next few hours.

  Once 10:30 rolled around, they wrapped the session. There were smiles all around, especially on the faces of Frederick and Charlie, their managers. While they packed up, Charlie asked, “So what are you kids up to tonight?”

  “Party in Belle Meade,” Franklin said. “How about you guys?”

  “I think I’ll go over to Laura’s,” Mark said, glancing at Kiki from beneath his long, dark lashes. “At least for a little while.”

  “Not me,” Kiki said cheerfully.

  “Where are you off to?” Mark asked, his voice a little too sharp. Kiki was still high from the intense session, and the thought of spending more time with Josh was more than enough to take away the sting in Mark’s tone.

  “I’m going to a lacrosse party. Kenwood Prep lacrosse,” she told him, tucking her drumsticks into her back pocket. She pretended not to see Mark and Franklin’s identically shocked faces, or Frederick and Charlie’s identically amused expressions. “See ya!”

  Camille was already waiting when Kiki skipped down the studio stairs, giggling a little at what had sounded suspiciously like jealousy from Mark. How like him, Kiki thought, to decide he likes me just when I decide I like somebody else more.

  “You want to stop by your house to change?” Camille asked her.

  “Just stop at a Starbucks; I’ll change in the bathroom. You look great, by the way.” She really did. Camille had traded her usual jeans and T-shirt for a baby-blue sweater that hugged her curves, and a flouncy white skirt that showed off her long legs.

  Camille giggled. “Since this is a jock party, I went for the cheerleader look.”

  “You are so silly,” Kiki sighed.

  “True. But I look good!”

  “Now who’s cocky?”

  “I just know my strengths, Miss Missy, just like you.”

  Kiki wasn’t sure that her outfit actually showed her own strengths, at least the physical ones. She had chosen black jeans and a blood red sweater with a deep
V-neck for the evening, along with a pair of black kitten heels. It was the closest thing to preppy clothes that she owned. She didn’t think there was much chance that she would fit in with Josh’s friends, but this was the best she could do.

  Kiki sent Josh a text message when they left the studio, so he was waiting in front of the massive white clapboard farmhouse, rattling with Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack,” when the girls arrived. Joshua gave Kiki a hello kiss that rattled her to her bones. She would much rather spend the evening getting to know Josh a little better in the back of his car, but he wanted her to meet his friends. They walked arm in arm, with Camille on Kiki’s other side, up the long drive to the house.

  Kiki never went to Wentworth jock parties, but she imagined that they were a lot like the Kenwood lacrosse victory party. Plenty of hot, preppy boys drinking beer, playing poker, and making out with cheerleader types. Someone called Carter was doing a keg stand in the middle of what looked like a living room when Kiki walked in. A guy holding one of Carter’s legs dropped it when he saw Camille. One look at her long, bare legs and Carter wound up lying in a puddle of spilled beer.

  “Hey, everybody,” Josh said, stepping over Carter to get to a stack of empty Styrofoam cups. “This is Kiki and Camille. They go to Wentworth.”

  Everyone wandered over to say hello, except for the girls, who eyed Kiki and Camille with suspicion, and the boys playing cards. Josh handed each of them a can of Bud. Camille downed hers, and Kiki’s too, when Josh wasn’t looking. Kiki knew there would be some vodka or rum around somewhere, probably in a freezer. But she never even saw the kitchen, because Josh led her to the backyard where more of his friends and teammates were watching a vast bonfire. The conversation wasn’t much different from any other party, except that the gossip was all about people Kiki had never met. After twenty minutes of utter boredom, Kiki went looking for Camille, but couldn’t find her anywhere. When she got back to the fire, Josh had also disappeared.