Severed Heads, Broken Hearts

by Robyn Schneider

  “Oh, really?” Cassidy murmured, her lips against mine.

  When we came up for air, Toby was standing there, making a face. Cassidy and I shuffled toward the escalator, mildly humiliated at having been caught.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching into my back pocket. “I brought you something.”

  I handed Cassidy the iPod I’d borrowed off my dad, and she stared down at it, completely baffled.

  “It’s a loan,” I explained. “I put on some songs.”

  Cassidy’s lips curved into a smile.

  “You made me a flash-mob playlist?” she asked.

  “Sort of. You just hit play. I synched it to mine, so we can dance to the same songs.”

  I’d had the inspiration around midnight the night before, and had stayed up until two deciding on the perfect tracks to use. I’d pictured it quite romantically, the two of us in the middle of a crowd of strangers, dancing to the same music. But Cassidy’s smile disappeared, and I had the impression that I’d disappointed her somehow.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Ezra,” she said. “It’s a flash mob. The point is that everyone dances to their own music, and it’s so beautifully random that it works. Hundreds of strangers, all choosing a different song to encapsulate their own experience. It’s a dance floor where every genre of music is playing at once, and no one’s supposed to know what anyone else is listening to.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered, embarrassed.

  She handed the iPod back to me with a reassuring smile.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You didn’t know.”

  “You could put it on shuffle,” I suggested. “That way it wouldn’t be the same music as mine.”

  “That’s okay,” Cassidy said, her smile widening until it was genuine. “I’d rather dance to my own songs and watch you try and guess what they are.”

  Toby and Austin had walked down the escalator, and were waiting at the door of the bookstore. Austin had bought a book and was zipping the plastic bag into his omnipresent backpack.

  “Come on,” Toby said impatiently. “Two minutes!”

  We all crowded into the central courtyard, where tons of high-school and college students were milling around, trying to look nonchalant. Everyone had their phones out, waiting for it to hit five o’clock exactly. A group of hipster-looking guys nodded at us, informing Toby that his bow tie was “quality.”

  “See?” Toby said, grinning. “Bow ties are cool.”

  We staked out a place near the fountain that Toby judged would be right in the middle of everything. The Grove was packed, which was unsurprising for five o’clock on a Friday. Families with strollers and tourists with fancy cameras wandered along the pedestrian paths, going about their business of shopping and sightseeing. For another agonizing minute, we waited in the palpable collective anticipation of hundreds of strangers trying to pretend they weren’t up to anything out of the ordinary, until Toby whispered, “Now.”

  On an invisible cue, everyone put on their headphones and hit play. Teenagers began pouring out of shop fronts, running toward the central courtyard, joining the dance party.

  It was fantastic, strangers smiling at one another, break dancing or rocking out or swaying to some mysterious beat that only they could hear. I turned up the volume on my headphones, dancing awkwardly to the Clash.

  Cassidy was wearing a pair of expensive DJ headphones, gold-plated and glinting in the sunlight. She pressed them tightly around her ears, closing her eyes and dancing like no one was watching. The hem of her turquoise dress rose dangerously high, and the old pocket-watch necklace she wore bounced up and down over her chest, and she was so beautiful that I could hardly stand it.

  Toby was dancing ironically, doing “the sprinkler” and “the shopping cart,” having the time of his life as he cracked himself up. And Austin was performing some complicated hand contortions to what I guessed was techno.

  All around us, strangers paired up and danced together, laughing. I was overwhelmed by the number of people recording video of the event, unable to be present in the moment. There was an older guy in a banana costume doing pelvic thrusts, desperate for attention. I wondered what he did for a living, if it was some respectable bank job or something totally demeaning.

  But the flash mob wasn’t about the banana-suit guy, or the people standing awkwardly with video cameras, or the gawking crowds that had come out of the stores to see what was happening. It was about being able to dance like Cassidy did, as though no one was watching, as though the moment was infinite enough without needing to document its existence. And so I closed my eyes and tried.

  When I opened them, Cassidy was standing there, her headphones around her neck. She motioned for me to do the same, and when I did, the quiet of what was happening shocked me. I’d been so sure that my private soundtrack was a part of everything that I hadn’t realized what we looked like, hundreds of strangers dancing in absolute silence.

  We’d danced for maybe half an hour, until it became more of a spectacle than a flash mob. No one wanted to head back quite yet, so we drove over to Santa Monica and had dinner at some old-fashioned burger place. We walked around the promenade afterward, making up hilarious and tragic life stories for the guy who’d worn the banana costume. Los Angeles seemed to change into a different city at night, a more vibrant and mysterious one. I was quiet, because we’d done a lot of walking, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle. It was getting pretty bad when Cassidy squeezed my hand and said, “Hey, let’s go sit on a bench and people-watch.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, relieved.

  Toby and Austin ducked into a bookstore to track down some graphic novel the other store hadn’t carried, and Cassidy and I sat down to wait for them. I thought I’d done a pretty good job of pretending I was okay, but something must have given me away, because Cassidy sighed and shot me a stern look.

  “You could have said something,” she scolded.

  “I’m fine,” I lied.

  “No, you want everyone to think you’re fine. There’s a difference.”

  I shrugged and didn’t say anything. Cassidy shivered, and I pulled her closer against me.

  “Do you think they’re together?” she mumbled, her cheek pressing warmly on my neck.

  “Who?”

  “Toby and Austin.”

  I was fairly stunned by the question, because things like that just didn’t occur to me.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know.” Cassidy shrugged. “Just an impression I had. But I could be wrong. Austin doesn’t quite seem the type.”

  “And Toby does?” I didn’t realize it was a rhetorical question until I’d asked it.

  It was strange, thinking that Toby might be gay. It made an odd kind of sense, but it didn’t bother me, or anything like that. He was still Toby, our fearless captain.

  It wasn’t long before Toby and Austin came out of the bookshop.

  “We should head back,” I said, in case they were up for walking another mile or two.

  Cassidy kept giving me these glances out of the corner of her eye as we walked back to the Fail Whale, as though she thought I should say something, but no way in hell was I going to ask Toby to bring the car around.

  “Backseat!” Austin called, scrambling for it. He stretched out, folding his arms across his chest. “Don’t wake me.”

  Toby rolled his eyes. “I’m not driving back with all of you jerks sleeping. Faulkner, get up front.”

  I’d already reclaimed my seat from the drive up, and a nap sounded awesome, like maybe I could sleep through the ache in my knee.

  “Actually, I’ll keep you company,” Cassidy said, climbing into the passenger seat.

  Our eyes met in the rearview mirror, and I shot her a look of gratitude before tossing my hoodie over my lap like a blanket and drifting asleep on the crowded lanes of the 10 East.

  20

  CASSIDY TOOK ME shopping over the weekend at a secondhand
clothing store. It was in this group of vinyl shops and vegetarian restaurants a couple of blocks from the big luxury mall, a place I’d driven past dozens of times but never thought to stop and explore.

  There were weird sculptures everywhere, which Cassidy called “art installations.”

  One art installation in particular was made of rusted barrels, and I suggested that maybe they should uninstall it, which made Cassidy laugh. Her hair was down, the way I liked it best, falling over her shoulders in loose waves. She’d put on a pair of boots with big heels, and the extra height made holding hands feel different, as though she was closer, and easier to reach.

  She dragged me into a narrow store bursting with secondhand clothing. I halfheartedly flicked through a rack of T-shirts, more people-watching than shopping. There was a blonde girl with dreadlocks and a nose ring behind the counter, and an Asian guy with tattoo sleeves and stretched earlobes standing outside the dressing room.

  “Oh my God, perfect!” Cassidy exclaimed, holding up some sort of blue feathered monstrosity that might have been either a coat or a bathrobe.

  “No,” I told her.

  “You’re trying it on!” she insisted, laughing as she put it back.

  After a while, it became clear that Cassidy was teasing me with the worst things she could find.

  “That is a black T-shirt,” she informed me, looking at what I was holding. “Come on, Ezra, I’m not going to do it for you. You need to express yourself. You’re not an Abercrombie button-down and baggy jeans.”

  I stared down at the black T-shirt, realizing that Cassidy hadn’t dragged me to a shop so she could make me buy some new jeans. She was determined to help me figure out who I wanted to be, now that I sat with the debate team and participated in flash mobs and snuck into college lecture halls. And I could see her point. If I didn’t want to hang out with my old friends, I probably shouldn’t keep dressing like I did, especially since I’d dropped enough weight over the summer that nothing in my closet fit anymore.

  “Got any suggestions?” I asked, because that seemed safe.

  “Hmmm.” She sized me up as though enjoying a private joke. “How about a leather jacket?”

  When I dumped my pile of clothes onto the counter to pay, the girl with the dreadlocks smiled at me.

  “Awesome jacket,” she said, ringing it up. “You should wear it with the black jeans.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, taking out a credit card.

  “Just not with that shirt.” She laughed as she rang up my purchases and stuffed everything into a bag.

  “You’re sure you didn’t want the feathered bathrobe too?” Cassidy teased as we climbed back into my car.

  “Nah, it would just make Toby jealous.”

  “So jealous,” Cassidy agreed.

  A car was waiting for my parking spot, riding my ass so I could barely pull out.

  “Seriously,” I muttered. “Why is the world filled with douche-bag drivers?”

  “Well, you are under a tree. Maybe he’s just a schat tenparker,” Cassidy said, turning on the radio. She hit my presets, getting three stations of commercials in a row before giving up.

  “What’s a schattenparker?”

  “It’s German.” Cassidy grinned. “And it translates roughly as ‘someone who always parks their car in the shade so their interior doesn’t get hot.’ German’s full of really good insults.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Um.” Cassidy considered for a moment. “Vomdoucher. That means someone who can’t stand to take cold showers. And I like backpfeifengesicht a lot. That one translates to ‘a face that cries out for a fist in it.’ It’s very Shakespearean.”

  I shook my head. “Where do you learn this stuff?”

  “Don’t you ever get bored?” Cassidy asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t Google ‘German insults.’”

  “Why not? It’s fascinating.”

  I shrugged, merging onto the freeway. “I guess it just never occurred to me.”

  “Do you know what just occurred to me?” Cassidy asked playfully.

  “What?”

  “I’ve never seen your bedroom.”

  THANKFULLY, MY PARENTS were out shopping for new lighting fixtures or lamps or something. I hadn’t really been paying attention when my mom had explained it that morning, but the point was, they weren’t home, and wouldn’t be back for a while.

  “Should I be afraid?” Cassidy asked warily as I led her up to my room. “Is this going to be one of those messy boy bedrooms that smells like old cheese?”

  “Definitely. I’ve got posters of girls in bikinis, too. And like, a whole bedside drawer of lube.”

  “I would be disappointed if you didn’t.” Cassidy laughed.

  My room wasn’t all that exciting, except for the fact that it contained a large bed. Mostly, it was just really clean. If it wasn’t, my mom straightened up before the maid came on Tuesdays, which meant that she went through all of my stuff.

  I wasn’t allowed to put posters up or anything like that, so there were a couple of framed prints: McEnroe and Fleming at Wimbledon, plus some sailing stuff my dad had liked, even though we never went sailing. I had a big bookshelf that held photographs from school dances, a couple of game consoles, and the empty space where my tennis trophies used to sit before I put them in a box in the closet.

  I opened the door, and Cooper pushed past us and jumped onto the bed, laying his head down on my Wii controller.

  “Cooper, get out!” I said, laughing.

  “Awww, poor dog.” Cassidy sat down on my bed and scratched him behind the ears.

  “That’s not helping,” I said.

  “Why do you have a framed picture of a sailboat?” she asked.

  I shrugged and sat down next to her.

  “Let me guess,” Cassidy said, “because someone else picked it out and put it up in a room meant to encapsulate who you are, even though you have no interest in boats.”

  “If I say yes, do I get to kiss you?”

  “Not in front of the dog!” She pretended to be shocked.

  “Cooper, get out!” I said, prodding him.

  Cooper sat up, considered it, and then promptly lay back down.

  Cassidy finally coaxed him off the bed and shooed him out the door.

  “There,” she said. “We have successfully sexiled your poodle.”

  “Achievement unlocked.” It was a phrase I’d picked up from our lunch table, and it made Cassidy smile.

  She bent down to take off her boots, and then padded barefoot around my room, examining it.

  “Where are your books?” she asked.

  “Under the bed,” I admitted sheepishly.

  Cassidy got down on her hands and knees and peered under the bed.

  “It’s the lost library of Alexandria,” she said dryly.

  “I don’t get it, but okay.”

  “You should put them on your shelves. Unless you’re afraid the football team might come over and discover that you’re a giant nerd.”

  “I haven’t read many of them,” I said, in case she thought that I had. “They were my mom’s in college.”

  “You’re never going to read them if they’re under your bed.”

  “I’ll put on my new leather jacket and go read one in a coffee shop tomorrow,” I promised, grinning.

  “You’re so full of it,” Cassidy teased, scooting onto the bed. Her arms were goose bumped from the air-conditioning, and her tank top was askew, revealing a lacy bra strap.

  “Mmm, come here,” I said, pulling her on top of me.

  I’d forgotten to put on music to set the mood, but it didn’t matter. For once, we had a huge bed all to ourselves, and a lock on the door, and an echoing, empty house beyond that lock.

  I kissed her neck, slipping the straps of her tank top over her shoulders, and then kissed those too. I pushed her tank top down around her waist, hoping she’d get the hint that I wanted her to take it off.

  “Very subtle,�
�� she said, sitting up and wriggling out of her top. Stripes of late-afternoon sunlight seeped though the blinds, creating golden bands across her skin.

  “It’s purple,” I said stupidly, mesmerized by the appearance of her lacy bra and the soft curves of her waist.

  And then Cooper let out a pitiful whine and scratched his paw against the door. Cassidy glanced over, and Cooper whined again, louder this time.

  “Hush, Cooper!” she called, but if anything, the mention of his name seemed to encourage him.

  “Just ignore it,” I told her.

  And we tried to, for a while. But it’s pretty hard to pretend your dog isn’t sobbing his eyes out on the other side of the door.

  “It’s getting worse,” Cassidy said, trying not to laugh. “Can’t you do anything?”

  “He’s never like this,” I grumbled, getting up.

  I stuck my head out the door. Cooper stared back at me, his brown eyes quivering. He let out an experimental whine.

  “No!” I told him. “Hush, Cooper! Go away!”

  Not going to happen, old sport, his eyes seemed to say. He lay down, settling his head on top of his paws, and whined softly.

  “Better,” I said, shutting the door with a sigh.

  Cassidy was sitting up on the bed in her bra and jeans, her hair tumbling over her shoulders.

  “So where’s this drawer full of lube?” she joked.

  “We won’t need it,” I promised, and my T-shirt joined hers on the floor.

  We started kissing again. Cassidy was on top, straddling me. Her hair swished against my cheek, and she bit my bottom lip a bit as we kissed, and I pretty much wanted to die, it was so sexy. I reached for her bra and waged a brief but unsuccessful battle against the clasp, managing to get it thoroughly stuck in the Velcro of my wrist brace.

  “Um,” I said. “We have a problem.”

  “Did you, you know . . . finish?” Cassidy asked awkwardly.

  “Nope, still good,” I assured her. “But, um, I’m caught on your bra.”

  Caught was an understatement. My wrist was practically handcuffed to her back.

  “Oh.” Cassidy bit her lip. “Maybe I should—what if I—no, hold on, I’ll pull it over my head.”