We walked slowly toward the corner. I wanted to take her hand but was too nervous to try it. Sort of stupid considering she talked about kissing me the first day of school, but I didn’t want to screw things up. She bumped into me three times before I realized she was doing it on purpose and finally got up the nerve to grab her hand.
We wandered through the blocks of McMansions surrounding Morgan’s house, talking about school and California and how different things were. Ani told stories about her old friends and laughed in a way I’d never heard a girl do, sort of unself-consciously.
“So my new art teacher said I could use the studio after school if I wanted,” she said as she led us back toward Morgan’s house.
“That’s cool. Have you met a lot of arty people?”
“Some.”
“Yeah? Have you met other people?”
“Sure. Why?”
I shrugged. “Just curious.”
“Oh, Beez, are you worried I’m not making friends?” she teased.
“No. You probably have a hundred friends already and it’s only the first week of school. You’re sort of contagious.”
Ani barked out a laugh. “Contagious? Gross. Do you mean infectious?”
I turned red. I fricking hated when I didn’t get words right and looked stupid. “Yeah. Infectious.”
She squeezed my hand, and the warmth of her made me feel like less of an idiot. She was so completely disarming, like all of the usual stupid crap about liking a girl didn’t apply with her.
“Well, I don’t know about being infectious. But I’ve met a lot of nice people.”
“Like art people?”
Ani raised her eyebrows at me. “Why do you care what kind of people I’m friends with?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s just, those art types are kind of elitist.”
“Oh. So you’re worried what they’ll think of you? What they’ll say about us?”
I looked down. I didn’t care what they thought of me, but I cared if it threatened the possibility of Ani and me. And I really liked the idea of us.
Ani tugged on my ear and I met her eyes. “I don’t care what they think. I make my own decisions about people.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. What the hell was my problem? No girl had ever affected me as quickly as Ani did. Of course, no girl I’d ever known was anything like her.
She laughed and pulled me back toward Morgan’s front door. I could hear a bunch of people chanting Kevin’s name and shook my head at the certainty he was on his second or third beer bong.
“So,” I said, stuffing my hands into my pockets.
Ani bit her lip and smiled. I wanted to kiss her, but something stopped me. It didn’t feel right standing in front of Morgan’s house, knowing I’d have to peel Kevin off the floor in an hour and pray he didn’t puke in my car on the way home.
“Now would be the time you ask me on a date,” Ani prompted. God, this girl ruled.
“Would you like to go on a date tomorrow night?” I asked.
“Yes, Ben, I would very much like to go on a date with you.” She smiled and opened the door into the shouting and cheering of the party. I looked up at the starry sky and closed my eyes as a rush of adrenaline poured over me.
4
I spent an embarrassing amount of time getting ready for my first official date with Ani. I shaved my head and sat on the toilet for forty-five minutes so I wouldn’t be caught off guard when I was with her. Michael banged on the door and told me I was stinking up the whole hallway.
“He has a nervous stomach,” Mom chided him.
“You both need to go away,” I yelled through the door. “What kind of family hovers outside the bathroom when a guy is taking a dump?”
Michael laughed and I heard Mom hissing at him.
My dad was sitting on the sectional couch working on his laptop when I finally came downstairs. His shirt was rolled at the sleeves and he’d slipped his shoes off and stretched his feet on the coffee table. His shoulders slumped as he typed. He looked fifty years older since he started his new job. His hair had more gray than black. I thought about suggesting he go bald, but decided against it. I didn’t want feedback from my parents about how I looked, the least I could do was keep my mouth shut about their aging.
Dad turned to me when he heard the squeak of my shoes on the hardwood floor. His eyes widened and he sniffed.
“Took you a while to get ready.”
“First date,” I answered.
“The new girl you told us about?” He scanned my jeans critically. My dad didn’t leave the house without dress pants on. But showing up in khakis on a first date was for amateurs. Ani would see right through it. In the end, I’d decided the best course of action was to go with jeans, but I threw a collared shirt on for balance.
“Yeah. The girl from school.” I grabbed my keys from one of the hooks by the door. Mom’s anal organization of the house reached deep.
“The one who makes jewelry?”
I nodded. Date conversations were awkward and I tried to keep my information to my parents to a minimum while still making them think I was sharing things about my life.
“Where’d you say she was from?” he asked, shutting his laptop and placing it on the coffee table.
“California.”
“And her mom teaches art?”
“Yeah.”
He looked me over again. I could tell he was holding back a dad lecture. I stared up at the front hall light and jiggled my keys in my hand. Dad smoothed the shirt bunched over his stomach. I counted in my head and waited.
My parents would probably spend most of the night speculating about what I was doing. And when I got home Michael would bust into my room and recap the entire humiliating conversation. Dad glanced at his watch and finally nodded.
“You look good. I’m sure you’ll sweep her off her feet.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, and moved toward the door.
“Honey,” Mom called to my dad from the kitchen, “your sister’s on the phone.”
My dad released a sigh and stood up.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. I think so. Tati Marie’s having a hard time right now.” The wrinkles on my dad’s face looked more obvious as he moved into the hall light.
“Again?” I loved my aunt, but she was a mess and always popping in and out of our lives. I hated how it left my dad depleted.
“She lost her job and needs some help finding a new one.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I have the resources and she’s family, Ben.”
I nodded and placed my hand on the doorknob. “Okay. Tell her I say hi.”
“Ben,” my dad called before walking to the kitchen phone, “don’t drink. And be home by curfew. I’ll be up, so come talk to me when you get back.”
“Sure.” I opened the door.
“And you may want to grab some of those wet wipes before you pick her up. The cologne’s a little heavy.” He chuckled and walked away.
I sighed, shut the door, and headed back upstairs for the packet of wipes. I considered starting over with a new shower, but it was too chicky and I’d already stressed about the date enough.
•••
Ani stood outside Studio Pink waiting for me when I pulled up. The three-story brick building had large gallery windows full of colorful wire sculptures. I’d been inside a few times when I was younger and my family did the holiday art walk, but it’d been years.
“Anxious?” I asked, circling the Jeep to open the door for her.
“Hardly,” she answered as she slipped inside the car. “Just tired of all my mom’s pesky questions. You’d think it was her date. She kept making all these suggestions about makeup and wardrobe. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
&n
bsp; I stood at the open door and looked her over. Jeans and a T-shirt, no makeup.
“So . . . I guess you decided not to take her advice,” I said.
“Hell no. I’m not that kind of girl. What would be the point of making you think otherwise?”
No games. This girl should be cloned.
“I like your collared shirt, though,” she continued. “It shows you care enough to look nice, but your jeans say you aren’t so presumptuous that you assume you’ll be getting some play later. Nicely done.”
I opened and shut my mouth. Ani made me dizzy, like I’d been on a Tilt-A-Whirl too many times at a carnival. I circled to my side of the car and got in.
“I thought we’d see a movie,” I said, starting the Jeep.
“No. That’s a total first-date cop-out. I can’t have a conversation with you if we’re watching a movie.”
“Okay. Do you have a better idea?” I asked. I wasn’t that interested in seeing a movie either, but almost every first date anyone at school went on was at the Lake Street Theater.
“Zoo,” she said.
“The zoo? For real? Isn’t that for little kids and tourists?”
“You’re so judgmental. You have no idea how awesome the zoo is for people watching. And I haven’t been to the one out here yet,” she said, adjusting the seat belt across her shoulder. I tried not to glance at the T-shirt stretched over her chest, but it was practically impossible.
She shifted toward me. “Can you wait until we’re at the zoo to ogle me? It’d be sort of embarrassing to explain to the police we got in an accident because you were checking out my boobs.”
My head whipped to the front and she patted my thigh like I was a little kid she’d just reprimanded. Suck.
We parked near the front in the zoo visitor lot and Ani took my hand before I could even stress about the whole hand-holding thing. We passed a bunch of crap souvenir shops, a ten-dollar photo booth, and a carousel of cheesy painted animals, but Ani didn’t stop. The paved zoo pathway was sticky with spilled drinks and Canada goose poop, but I powered through, avoiding the obvious droppings.
Ani tugged me toward the elephants and then proceeded to bore me with inane facts about pachyderms. I barely registered what she was saying. I was too busy trying to breathe through my mouth to avoid the smell and worrying that my palms were sweating too much.
She walked us toward a giant building with a sign that said “The Swamp” in painted red letters. I slowed my steps.
“What’s wrong?” Ani asked, dropping my hand.
“You want to go inside there?” I pointed to the fake wooden door and the half a dozen baby strollers parked next to it.
“Definitely. Best part of the zoo. The alligator only has one eye. I read it on the website.” She nudged me.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll just wait here for you.” I leaned against the rail beside the strollers.
“Come with me.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and batted her eyes at me.
“Ani, I’m not that interested in smelling like ass at the end of the night, and going into any of these buildings is sort of a surefire way.”
Ani laughed. “You are adorable. Now let’s go. I promise it won’t decrease your chances of an end-of-the-date kiss.”
I hesitated again, but Ani pushed me inside and made me watch river otters while she enthusiastically extolled the virtues of animal play. And it was sort of cute and playful at first, but then two of the otters started getting pretty frisky, which led to a whole new level of awkward. Ani snorted through the entire thing and I had to practically carry her outside.
“Can we get something to eat?” I asked when we finally exited the building.
“Shit, sorry. I’m sort of making this date suck, aren’t I? The otter thing was a bit much, huh?” she asked. Her face opened like she was genuinely curious. She seemed to be looking for some kind of feedback on her dating skills. Crap, it was a classic girl test.
“No, it’s fine.” Only an idiot would fall for the “be honest with me, am I boring you?” line. Girls never really want to hear an honest answer to that question.
“Don’t lie to me, Ben. You don’t have to bullshit. I can sometimes go overboard with my enthusiasm for animals.” She took my hand again and led me toward the food area.
“It’s okay. It’s sort of cute.” And it was, but only because it was Ani. “Do you have any pets?”
She shook her head. “I’m allergic and my mom’s a little flaky about things like remembering to feed fish. Pets don’t really work with our lifestyle. You?”
“No. They don’t really work with our lifestyle either. Plus, my dad always says that animals should be free to roam, not cooped up in a house. His grandparents in Haiti have chickens, but he said they’re for eating or selling.”
“That’s right, I heard you were half Haitian. Have you ever been?” she asked, hopping onto a picnic bench.
“To Haiti?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, a few times. My dad went every summer when he was a kid. But then things got kind of unsafe travelwise so he stopped going when he was sixteen. I’m not exactly sure what happened. I think one of his cousins was mugged at the airport or something. He and my mom went back again after I was born. I haven’t been since I was fourteen. It’s kind of hard with my mom’s grad school schedule and swimming.”
I ordered us hot dogs, a hot pretzel, and two Cokes. We sat at the end of the only remotely clean picnic table of the dozen in the food area. Ani ate most of the food. When we finished, she dabbed the mustard off her lips and leaned across the table.
Her kiss startled me and I almost pulled back, but she grabbed the back of my head and tugged me closer. She tasted delicious and kind of gross at the same time.
“What was that for?” I asked, taking a sip of my Coke to wash away her mustard taste.
“I wanted to get it out of the way so you didn’t get all weird at the end of the night. And I didn’t want you to worry that you smelled like the Swamp, because you don’t. You smell yummy, sort of like baby wipes, but in a good way.”
I bit my lip and looked down. Stupid-ass cologne.
Ani didn’t say anything about my embarrassment. “But then I just realized you don’t like mustard on your hot dogs so that probably wasn’t very appetizing for you. Sorry.” She rooted in her back pocket and pulled out a packet of mints. She unwrapped four of them and popped them into her mouth. She bit down without even sucking on them.
I watched her chew and she offered me the packet. Did this mean she was going to kiss me again? She smiled and unwrapped one of the mints. Her hand shook slightly and I held back a grin. Nervous, like me. She handed me one of the mints. I put it on my tongue.
“Not a biter, huh?” she asked as the mint shrank in my mouth.
“Not with mints,” I answered, and then blushed. Tiny beads of sweat formed on my head. Damn bald head showed everything.
She laughed and pulled me up from the table. She linked her fingers behind my neck and drew me toward her. Her tongue slipped into my mouth and she sucked the rest of my mint onto her lips. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. She grinned and started crunching on the mint. I wanted to keep kissing her, but she moved away and I realized we were less than ten feet from a very entertained zoo cashier.
“Let’s play a game,” she said, directing me toward the large dolphin statue fountain in the center of the zoo. “For every person we see, let’s try to figure out where they’ll be in ten years.”
“Oh-kay.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun. What about those guys?” she said, and pointed to three guys in baseball caps, big T-shirts, and baggy pants. “Where do you think they’ll be in ten years?”
“Prison,” I answered.
“What?” She slapped my arm. “What kind of answer is that? Come on, Bumble. Where’s your faith i
n mankind?”
I looked the guys over again. “Well, they could be out on parole by then. They may only be petty criminals.”
She opened her mouth but then saw my grin and laughed. Her laughter was more of a guffaw and it wrapped itself around us in a shell of realness. I nearly stumbled.
“What about you? Where are you going to be in ten years?” I asked.
She looked at the cloudy night sky for a second and then shut her eyes, like she was waiting for the answer to rain over her. She took a deep breath and I watched her chest rise. I took a step toward her, but then her eyes popped open and she smiled at me.
“Hopefully not in prison,” she said. “I guess . . . I don’t really know. I don’t need to be famous or anything, but it’d be nice if I could get paid for my art so I don’t have to get some crappy job where I’m forced to wear grandma panty hose and answer phones every day. What about you?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to think so far ahead. I guess I’ll be out of college, but really, I’m not sure what I want to do with my life.”
It was a disappointing answer, but Ani didn’t seem to mind. She nodded and rubbed the top of my head like it was a Magic 8 Ball, taking all the seriousness out of our conversation. I ducked out of her reach and she jumped on me from behind, tackling me onto a patch of grass and dragging her tongue up the back of my head. I flipped her and straddled her hips.
Her teeth bit her bottom lip and she gave me an evil grin. “This is a bit of a compromising position, Ben. I think you better hop up before you embarrass yourself and pop wood in front of half the zoo,” she said, and bucked her hips.
I leaped to my feet and she followed, grabbing my hand again. Being with Ani was like being smacked upside the head. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t say. It was like hanging out in the locker room with a bunch of guys, only she was wrapped up in a package of gorgeous.
We played the “Where Will They Be in Ten Years” game for a little bit longer, but when I kept answering “prison” to all the people she pointed out, she got frustrated and quit. I didn’t want to ruin her fun, but really, these people were hanging at the zoo on a Saturday night; if that didn’t point to a future with the Department of Corrections, I didn’t know what did.
Fault Line Page 3
