“We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.”
“I’m sure you’ll feel great.” Then he farts some more, and I officially decide there would be no benefit to discussing my love (or lack of) life with him. But I do sit there with him, watching SportsCenter and texting with Bryan about Zee.
BRYAN
She’s in love with you, isn’t she?
ME
No. But I think we’ll be great friends.
I cannot trust Bryan with too much information on the subject of Zee.
BRYAN
But not better friends than we are.
ME
Of course not.
Of course yes. Zee is the second half of my soul.
BRYAN
Hang tomorrow after your shift?
ME
Yes.
Unless Zee wants to hang. Duh.
When I hear Abigail and Cam descending the stairs, my SportsCenter torture watch is over. Before I leave, I do say, “Dad, why don’t you sleep in your bed tonight?”
“No.”
“I’m sure you’ll sleep better. Then I can vacuum in here tomorrow morning before you get up.”
“I don’t like sleeping in there without your mom.”
Oh. Because my parents are not terribly great parents, I forget sometimes that they’re still human with actual emotions. I decide to start Operation “Reunite the Crazy Adams Clan” by texting my mom:
ME
Dad needs you.
MOM
I need to be alone right now.
Ugh. I give my dad a hug because someone should. “Yeah, okay,” he says to get me to let go. Carrying what plates and trash I can, I leave my dad to his fart-filled den.
* * *
Abigail is begging Cam to spend the night by the front door when I try to sneak past them upstairs. “Please stay, please? Please don’t leave me, baby. Please?” In the weeks since my mom moved out, Abigail’s neediness has ballooned to ten times its already massive size. The look on Cam’s face suggests he loves being around this new hyper-attention-seeking Abigail. When I say he loves it, I mean he might prefer being trapped in a tiny submarine with my dad’s frozen food gases than endure another minute of her pleading. “Why are you going to leave me? You just wanted me to kiss your penis and then you leave me? Is that all you love me for? Is it, Cam? If you loved me for me, you would stay.”
“Your brother is still on the stairs, Abigail. Come on.”
“I don’t care! He should know that some men just pretend to love you so they can get sex!” And that’s the last I hear before I close my bedroom door behind me, find my earphones, and let Lana Del Rey transport me to another time and place.
* * *
After I wash my face, brush my teeth, and get into bed, I decide I have waited long enough to text Zee back. It has to be a great text. One that isn’t dramatic or high maintenance—oh-my-god, I’m never being needy again after listening to Abigail!—but a text that is still sincere. That still communicates how much Zee means to me. How much this night with her means to me. I think about just texting, So … movie? because that’s our inside joke now. But I think my brilliant sense of humor is already well established. So instead I keep it simple and sincere:
ME
You’re a beautiful person
And then I turn off my phone because I don’t want to stay up the next three hours waiting for her to respond when I know she never will. Maybe she’ll respond tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Maybe a week later. But whenever it is, I can handle waiting because I knew Zee is worth waiting for.
* * *
And then, oh, approximately four point two minutes later, I have to turn my phone back on BECAUSE I CANNOT HANDLE THE TENSION.
Guess what?
Are you sitting down?
Zee has texted me back.
Already.
And guess what she texted?
If you were sitting down, you should probably stand because YOU ARE GOING TO WANT TO JUMP UP AND DOWN LIKE I AM DOING RIGHT THIS MOMENT!
She texted:
ZEE
So tomorrow … movie?
ZEE
So, yeah,
I end up hanging out with Art the next day.
Then the next.
Then for two weeks straight. We even watch fireworks together in the back of my truck on the Fourth of July.
art
On the Fourth, I think about maybe, possibly asking if I could kiss her. We’re sharing french fries and milk shakes, lying next to each other on a blanket in the bed of her truck (a bed!), staring up at the night sky as it explodes every few seconds in spectacular light. It’s so romantic.…
ZEE
It’s not romantic at all. I never think about kissing him once.
art
I can tell Zee thinks about kissing me all the time.
Okay, maybe not all the time. But definitely a lot. Or at least once—
ZEE
Okay, maybe I think about kissing him once. We’re watching a movie in my room and Michael has been an asshole to both of us after we walked in on his poker game with his former frat brothers.
Yeah, and so, look, I don’t know … I was feeling alone … because Cam’s a bigger asshole than Michael! And I’m thinking maybe we can just make out to pass the time. It isn’t a big deal. It wouldn’t have to mean anything. Just something to do. Like playing video games or watching Netflix or something.
So I give him that look, you know that look—
art
She gives me that “I’m in love with you but I don’t know it yet” look, but I had promised myself I would be patient, that I wouldn’t kiss her until I knew she knew she loved me and not Cam. So I give her the look that says “I love you so much that I won’t even use my magical lips to make you fall in love with me.”
(Because clearly my lips are that magical.)
ZEE
But he gives me a look that says he has no idea what my look is. Probably because he really is gay or maybe asexual or who knows. The point is he doesn’t kiss me the one time I think about kissing him. Which is good. We would have sexualized something that didn’t make any sense to sexualize. I probably would have hated both of us if we’d kissed.
Listen, Art’s great—funny, smart, buys me dinner, sees the movies I want to see—but maybe we are spending too much time together for a friendship that probably will end once school starts. I mean, Jesus, we must have seen each other almost every fucking day in July. That just can’t be healthy.
art
When you see someone every day for a month, even if you don’t kiss them, this means you’re falling in love with them. Of course it does! So I start planning where Zee and I will get married, where we’ll live, what the names of our children will be—
ZEE
So, yeah,
this is not going to end well.
art
Suddenly it’s August and school is going to start soon and I’m beginning to have mental meltdowns that we won’t be able to see each other as much because we won’t have any classes together. So I pretend to be my mom (I can fake her voice better than my dad’s) and call the school and switch around my schedule so that Zee and I have the same lunch period.
We’ll probably go out to lunch every day and we’ll probably be boyfriend and girlfriend by then and be able to hold hands and kiss in her truck and it will be the best thing since sliced bread except better than that because who cares about sliced bread compared to Zee and me being in love?
ZEE
Thinking about Cam seeing me going out to lunch with Art even once, let alone all the time, made me think it was time to cool off this weird thing the kid and I had. It would crush him, but it had to happen at some point and better now than after school started.
So as I’m dropping him off after our twentieth movie of the summer (not exaggerating), I tell him we can’t see each other for a couple days. He’s devastated but pretends he’s not.
art
/> When Zee tells me she can’t see me for a cruelly unspecified amount of time—AFTER WE WERE PRACTICALLY MARRIED—I act like it’s no big deal. I doubt she has any idea that her words ripped open my chest and strangled my heart until all hope of love for anyone ever was murdered. Yes, everyone ever!
I’m not being overdramatic. If anything, I might be understating the seriousness of the situation.
ZEE
So the next morning, I try to make myself read my mom’s letter but I am a fucking coward and can’t even get it out of the envelope without feeling like I’m going to pass out. By noon I’m practically twitching from Art withdrawal. The kid is like a drug that (almost) makes me forget how much my life sucks.
But I’m still determined not to see him for a while.
At least not today.
Maybe tomorrow.
Not today, though.
Probably.
* * *
Then I get this:
UNKNOWN NUMBER
Zee: I’m texting because your mom said I should
start with a text. This is Arshad. Your father.
That must be as strange for you to read as it is for
me to type. I would love to see you or talk or whatever
you feel comfortable doing. But I also respect your
choice not to. You have my number now (just in case
you didn’t) and I hope to hear from you.
So I send this:
art
ZEE
if you don’t hate me—dinner tonight?
I was never worried. Ha.
ME
Yes times infinity.
(p.s. to hate you would be to hate
all that is beautiful in the world)
Too much? Always.
ZEE
I tell Art to meet me at Penelope’s Pizzeria even though it’s Cam’s and my place. Maybe because it’s our place. I haven’t heard from Cam besides more fucking baseball updates and him not being around has made me hate him and want him more. Which is such a typical chick thing to do and I hate being anything a typical chick would be.
While I’m waiting for the kid to arrive, the hostess Pen comes over, lays down the menus, and says, “Sorry to hear about your mom.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“My friend Iris lost her mom, too. If you want to talk to her … Or the three of us could hang out. Just let me know.”
“Okay, yeah, thanks.” This is the longest conversation we’ve ever had and I’ve been coming to her dad’s pizzeria forever. Dating that Benedict dude has made her a different person. Which is great, I guess. She’s much nicer now. But I’d never let a dude change me. Then, two seconds later, her boyfriend shows up and she says bye and I nod and they sit at a table by the kitchen. Even though I could never date anyone so awkward like Benedict, the two of them look so fucking in love, it makes me jealous. And, crap, I hate thinking this, but if Cam said, Change for me and I’ll love you back, maybe I would.
When Art arrives, I feel like I haven’t seen him in a month instead of a day and that’s fucking stupid. Then he does that too-pretty smile of his as he’s sitting down and I don’t like him, I don’t, I like Cam, I do, but for some reason Art’s looking handsome tonight too.
Can someone be handsome and pretty?
Why am I suddenly not stressed about my dad’s text? I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. I just want to bask in the high that only happens in the company of Art.
Then he says, “What you’re feeling right now is called Art ecstasy. It’s the best drug ever made, all natural, and I’m the only dealer.” I laugh but, fuck, we’re thinking the same thoughts. This can’t be normal.
art
After I get home from pizza, I get a text from Bryan:
BRYAN
Let me know if I should find a new best friend.
Ugh. Because I still love him (as a friend) even when he’s being passive-aggressive, I meet him for lunch the next day at Uncle Josh’s Sandwich Shop. He asks me about Zee, but all he wants to hear is that I hate her or that she’s moving to the moon. Then not even thirty minutes after we’re there, my phone beeps.
I say, “Hold on—”
“IF YOU DITCH ME FOR THAT GIRL, I WILL DISEMBOWEL YOU!”
“I would never.” And by never, I mean I would absolutely ditch him. I’m a horrible human being. My brother, Alex, once told me that all boys ditch their friends when they get their first girlfriend because “getting a hand job is a lot better than hanging out with a bunch of jerk-offs.” I would have phrased it more eloquently, but I do think Alex had the right sentiment. He also said eventually you go back to your friends and they forgive you because they would have done the same thing. My only challenge is Bryan is my jerk-off friend who also wants to jerk me off. Ha.
ZEE
Do you want to go to crossfit with me at 4 pm?
I haven’t been back since my mom died
and I don’t want to go alone.
She’s being so needy! I love it. But then I look at Bryan and, ugh, I guess I’m not that horrible of a person because I ask him,
“Do you know what CrossFit is? Do you want to go, and explain it to me on the way?”
ZEE
After Art tells me he (and Bryan) can meet me at the gym, I text Coach Dish:
ME
Can I come to class today with some new friends?
And I know she’ll say yes, but maybe I need to hear it:
COACH DISH
Fuck Yeah! The dudes are getting weak
without the Vajayjay there to kick their ass
I’m the only girl that regularly went to the four p.m. class at GPCF (Gladys Park CrossFit, on the border with Riverbend), so Coach Dish started referring to me as the Vajayjay. If Dish wasn’t a girl, it might be weird her calling me that, but I love my nickname. And I kind of do beat the guys most of the time, so my nickname makes me feel like even more of a badass.
* * *
When I walk into the gym—even though I get there early—all the regulars are already there (including my hookups matinee idol Bill and mucho macho Glen, and my super-buried obsession Taylor, who’s this private school kid with the sickest abs in the gym) and they all circle around me and give me a big group hug and tell me they love me. They’re still being meatheads and teasing me a bit, but it’s sincere, and awesome, only I’m here to sweat not cry so I say, “All right, fuckers, thank you, but let’s get to the part where I demolish you.”
Art and Bryan show up two minutes later and immediately I realize I’m a fucking idiot for inviting them. Art’s dressed in a neon-white Adidas tracksuit he bought five minutes ago. It’s bad but not nearly as bad as Bryan, who’s in cargo shorts, a blue sweater, and brown leather dress shoes. Who the hell wears dress shoes to work out? I’m about to say something to him, but Art beats me to it.
“I already told him we would pretend not to know him if he wore those shoes.”
Bryan explains, “I didn’t have time to buy lifting shoes, and I read that shoes with these heels are good for lifting.” I turn to find Dish so she can explain he’s an idiot, but she’s already opening her mouth.
To say, “He’s right. It’s cool.”
“THANK YOU!” Bryan yells, and hugs Dish. Then he fires a mean fucking glance my way. Dude wants to destroy me. And Bryan is such a dude. Gruff, angry-looking. Thick head, thick legs, thick chest. But he’s gay, right? Yeah, he’s out. So maybe Art and him are secret lovers but Art doesn’t want anyone to know so he pretends he’s in love with me? Because it makes no sense that surly Bryan is gay and peppy Art is straight and they’re best friends.
art
The CrossFit trainer is five foot two, all muscle and freckles and spunk, and if Bryan was ten years older and straight, she’d probably be the love of his life. She makes us sign these waivers so that if we die while working out, our families can’t sue them.
The trainer, whose real name is Meredith but everyone calls Dish for reasons no o
ne has clarified, starts explaining what the workout is going to be, says we have to practice our “handstand push-ups.” So I say, “I have no idea how those two things could be related.” The class laughs because my comic timing is impeccable. Then I watch Zee walk over to the wall, throw her hands down on the ground, her legs up in the air, and do these mythical handstand push-ups. She looks so fluid and strong and sexy, I start to wonder if maybe she should be with another athlete like herself. I immediately forget this ridiculous notion and think about our wedding on top of a mountain overlooking an ocean.
Everyone is impressed that Bryan can do these silly handstand push-ups as well as anyone in class—except me, because I already knew Bryan was this weird superhuman—but then Dish asks me to try them.
I say, “If I tried to stand on my hands, my arms would break, then my face would break, then I would no longer be flawlessly handsome.” I wink at Bryan and Zee. “And then I wouldn’t be able to sue you, so I don’t see the point.”
She gives me a disapproving look and I feel like she’s the mother I don’t have or want anymore and, ugh, this was a terrible idea to come here and I wish I was gay because no gay person would ever be expected to be good at this sort of thing. Except Bryan. He’s not really gay. Of course he is, but he’s more Bryan than he is gay, so he doesn’t count.
The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy Page 7
