Anyone but You

by Lara M. Zeises

  My fever broke early the next morning, not that I felt any different. I spent the night on the couch, soaked in sweat. My skin, which Critter and I had recoated with the ointment just before bed, kept sticking to the sheets we’d draped over the cushions. I couldn’t sleep— couldn’t even find a pain-free position to curl my body into during this state of hyper-awakeness. Late-night infomercials and the pint of Ben & Jerry’s kept me semi-sane, even though Critter’d bought Phish Food (his favorite flavor), instead of the Cherry Garcia I’d asked for.

  Layla stumbled in at six a.m., looking rougher than I felt. “You’re up early,” she said, kicking off her regulation rubber-soled shoes.

  “More like late,” I told her. “I hurt too much to sleep.”

  She frowned. “When’s the last time you checked your temp?”

  “Few minutes ago. It’s back to normal.”

  With a suspicious “hrm,” Layla scooped up the digital thermometer from the trunk we used as a coffee table, stuck it inside one of those plastic sleeves that protects the tip from people’s germs, and said, “Open.”

  I didn’t see the point, but it never does much good to argue with the Nurse. The edges of the plastic sleeve tickled my tongue and annoyed the piss out of me, but I waited the requisite minute. When the digi-beep went off, Layla removed the thermometer from my mouth and read the number—ninety-nine degrees. “Better,” she said, “but not quite back to normal.”

  Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I asked her if there was something I could take that would kill the pain long enough for me to visit dreamland for a spell. I was really asking her if she’d give me a couple of her special pink pills, the ones she was pretty much forced to take when her anxiety was bad and insomnia set in. But the thing about Layla was this: even though she was a nurse, she was all about the New Age healing crap. With the exception of aspirin, she rarely allowed meds—even over-the-counter ones—into the house. One time she caught me with a pack of Midol and I had to sit through a thirty-minute lecture on how if I only took my vitamin B complex regularly, I wouldn’t have cramps to begin with.

  I must’ve looked really pathetic, because Layla simply reached into the white canvas tote that doubled as her purse and fished out a couple of her pinks. “My burnt bod and I thank you,” I said, and threw the pills down my throat.

  “I don’t know how you do that without liquid.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “It’s something,” she said, chuckling. She reached behind her head and unclenched the plastic clip that kept her long hair up while she was at work. Layla’s hair was the ashy-black color of cooled lava, and it slid all the way down to the middle of her rib cage. It was thick, too, and although she weighed at most about 110, I’d say at least 20 pounds of that was hair.

  “Good night, my love,” Layla cooed sleepily, and then planted a soft kiss on my tender forehead. “I’m back on at four, and I am exhausted.”

  “Me too.”

  The stairs creaked under Layla’s feet, but the sound was distant, like I was hearing it through a glass. Suddenly my head felt like it was filled with jelly, and my eyelids closed like they had a mind of their own.

  Let There Be Air

  I slept hard and long. Next thing I knew, it was already dark again, and I was scooped up into Critter’s arms.

  “What’re you doing?” I mumbled, my tongue thick and not exactly moving the way I wanted it to.

  “Go back to sleep,” I heard Jesse say from behind.

  “Critter, put me down.”

  “No way,” he replied. “I’m under strict orders.”

  We bounced up the steps, each bounce making more of my skin scream in pain. Critter kicked open the door to my bedroom and we moved inside.

  Something was wrong.

  “Cold?” I said.

  “Cold,” Jesse said.

  The boys lay me down gently on the bed. It was too dark and I was too muddled to understand what was going on, but in a few seconds I registered the sound of a cranky rumble that could mean only one thing: air-conditioning.

  Critter flicked on the light. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw it perched in the peeling wood pane of the window. It was bigger than our television and it shook so hard it made the glass rattle. But I didn’t care about the awful sound. All I could focus on was the delicious arctic wave rippling across my tender skin.

  “You like?” Jesse asked, with a big grin.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How?”

  “Jess took pity on you,” Critter explained. “Bought it off that crazy lady at the Farmer’s Market, the one who’s always got like a hundred View-Masters on her table.”

  “We carried it home on the bus,” Jesse added. If he’d been a cartoon character, his chest would’ve puffed out about a foot.

  “You guys . . . you didn’t have to do this.”

  “Of course not,” Jesse said. “But Sea, you were moaning something awful. We tried putting all the fans in front of you but you wouldn’t stop. And the sweat! Man, it was starting to stink.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Hey, now,” Critter said. “It wasn’t your fault. It’s the burn.”

  “Besides,” Jesse added, “I sleep here, too. So it’s not like the AC was entirely for your benefit.”

  “Speaking of,” Critter cut in, “mind if I bunk on your floor? Just until this heat wave breaks.”

  “No way,” I said. “You snore too loud.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse said. “That’s why I moved into her room in the first place, remember?”

  “You guys suck.” Critter lifted his chin like he was offended.

  Ignoring him, I asked Jesse for the time. It was almost ten, and I hadn’t eaten in what felt like a million years. “Hungry,” I said. “Somebody feed me.”

  But the cold air felt so good, none of us wanted to leave the room. Critter got the idea that we should pool our spare dollars and call for pizza, because then only one of us would have to go back into the steamy parts of the house, and only for as long as it took to pay the delivery man. Except the phone was downstairs, so after a quick round of rock-paper-scissors, it was decided that Jesse would go get it and plug it into the jack in our room. Critter came in dead last, so it would be his job to pay the pizza guy upon arrival. They made me play, too, but God must’ve taken pity on me, because all I had to do was get waited on.

  That’s how we started moving everything into the twelve-by-twelve-foot room that Jesse and me shared. First the phone, then the big TV, and finally, the VCR and the stereo. We stayed in there as long as we could, except for taking bathroom breaks, grabbing more food and cold beverage from the kitchen, and in Jesse’s case, going to work. It was like some kind of bizarre-o summer camp, only with electricity and better snacks.

  This lasted a few days before Layla decided it was unhealthy for the three of us to be spending so much time in one little bedroom. She’d been weird about the living quarters since the winter before, when Jesse decided he should move into my space. Layla was totally against it, even though Critter’s buzz saw snoring was keeping Jess up all night. Layla said if it was that bad, I should bunk with her, and Jess could have his own room. When that didn’t work—Layla’s highly irregular sleep schedule kept me from getting any real shut-eye —we went back to the original plan and Layla learned to deal. But she really put her foot down on this latest brainstorm. Our air-conditioned bliss ended with her ordering the boys to relocate the unit to the living room, along with the rest of our camp toys.

  “This sucks,” Critter said, wiping a band of sweat from his forehead. The two of us were on the couch, watching the copy of Mallrats that Shelli had stolen for Critter from the Movie King. Even with the air conditioner, the living room was muggy, because downstairs you couldn’t really harness the cold.

  “Agreed.”

  Critter cleared his throat. “What do you say we hit the pool again tomorrow?”

  “Why?”

  “For . . . you know, swimming. Tanning.
Or in your case, blistering.”

  I sat up. “For peeping Penn Acres princesses, is more like it.”

  “Oh, will you stop?” Critter slid off the couch onto the floor. “She wasn’t all that cute. And she has a boyfriend, you know.”

  “Never stopped you before.”

  “You’re the one who loves to swim,” he said. “But whatever.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Are you forgetting that I’m still pretty sizzled?”

  “Not so much anymore,” he said. “Just a little. And have you ever heard of a nifty thing called sunscreen?”

  I sighed. “Fine. I’ll go. But only if you can get Layla to loan you the car. I’m not taking three buses just so you can drool all over Miss Thang.”

  “Done,” he said. “Just so you know, though . . . I don’t give a smack about Sarah.”

  And in that one simple sentence, I knew. He used her actual name. Didn’t even refer to her as “that Sarah chick” or some other variation, as was his style. No, she was simply “Sarah,” and he simply had to see her again.

  critter

  Rock My Plimsoul

  She was like a great song you hear on the radio but you don’t know what it’s called so you’re not sure when—or if—you’ll ever hear it again. A full week had crawled by and I couldn’t shake her from my brain. Twice I’d gone to the Movie King for videos, and both times Shelli had made it clear she was available and I had actually declined. Told her I had strep throat. Told her it might be a while before I’d be clear to engage in that kind of activity again.

  See, I didn’t want Shelli; I wanted her. Sarah. And it wasn’t just because she was hott-with-two-t’s. She had the kind of eyes that asked questions instead of passing judgments. I liked that. There was this other thing, too. Right before the Sea Monster had woken up from her sun scorcher of a nap, Sarah had been telling me about this song—a cover of Genesis’ “Follow You, Follow Me” by Red House Painters—and she’d said, “It’s so haunting and beautiful. . . . I just want to live in that song, you know?”

  I told her she spoke my language, and she laughed. But I’d meant it. I had a feeling that this girl “got” me. Like she could see under my skin, find the place I kept hidden from almost everyone else, except maybe Seattle.

  I had to see her again. Had to. Even if it meant bringing Sea along. What choice did I have? We did everything together. If I tried to sneak off, she’d get all suspicious and want to know who and why and what. Sea would do what she always did: point out exactly why I was attracted to this particular girl, why she was the worst possible choice I could make, and why the relationship (if it ever got to that stage) was doomed to fail in x number of months.

  The worst part? Sea was usually right.

  This time, I wanted to prove her wrong.

  Let the Day Begin

  I’d set my alarm for nine but woke up way before the buzzer went off. Totally unlike me, but so were the twitchy spasms in my suddenly nervous stomach. To ease them I sang my personal anthem—“Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”—in the shower four full times before the water ran cold. It pumped me up, made me feel electric, like the spirit of Rod was running through my veins. It was working, too, until I realized that I was out of deodorant, and instead of grabbing Jesse’s, I accidentally applied Seattle’s, which smelled like baby powder. Goodbye sexy!

  We set out just after eleven. I’d wanted to leave earlier, obviously, but Sea was dragging her ass. She said it was because she wasn’t used to getting up before noon, but I think it was her way of trying to piss me off.

  It worked.

  “Why are you in such a rush?” she grumbled. “It’s not like the pool’s going anywhere.” I told her I wanted to catch the prime tanning hours and she snorted. “I had sun poisoning, remember?”

  “Yeah, but you’re better now,” I said. “And you can butter yourself with sunscreen every fifteen minutes, okay? Let’s just go.”

  After twenty minutes and a side trip to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee, we were on our way. The cracked leather seats in Layla’s Cougar burned through my cargo pants and into my legs. The car was such a piece of shit, but Layla didn’t believe in owning one you couldn’t pay for outright. She made an art of driving junk cars into the ground. This one, though, was especially bad. Because it was in desperate need of a new muffler, it roared down the highway. Plus, both the AC and the radio were busted. And the bastard was so old, it actually had an eight-track tape player built into the dash, which meant if we wanted any music, we had to listen to Layla’s vintage collection of Southern-fried rock.

  “Think she’ll like your ride?” Seattle said. “Or is the princess expecting you to roll up on a great white steed?”

  “You better cut that out,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked snottily. “You afraid I’ll embarrass you in front of your new girlfriend?”

  I didn’t answer; I just turned up the volume on some Steely Dan song I wasn’t particularly fond of.

  “C’mon, Romeo. Why’s it so hard for you to admit you want to get in this girl’s pants?”

  “Because I don’t,” I said, feeling my jaw tighten.

  “You’re a liar.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I heard you,” she said flatly. “This morning. Your concert in the shower? I heard you.”

  Busted. I felt the corner of my left eye starting to twitch and I saw the smirk forming on Sea’s face. So I shook my head and said, “Quit being stupid.”

  We didn’t talk the rest of the way there.

  Dynamite

  The place was hopping. Two fat old men were sprawled out on lawn chairs, smoking stogies, their greased-up skin shining like freshly glazed Krispy Kreme donuts. Next to them lay a leathered forty-something chick with champagne-frosted hair, who, between puffs of her cigarette, erupted in this nasty, phlegmy cough. In the shallow end, there were three Golden Girls wearing loud floral-print suits, decked in full-on makeup and jewelry, their mouths moving like the moto-gossips I knew they had to be.

  But where was my girl? The door to the pool supply closet was open, so I guessed she was poking around in there. I wanted to wait by the gate until she came out and I could catch her attention, but Sea wanted to turn around and go right home.

  “This is stupid,” she muttered. “She’s not gonna let us in with all these people.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Even if she did,” Sea continued, “what kind of fun could we have, surrounded by the Geriatric League?”

  Just then, Sarah emerged from the closet, her skin still radiating that soft golden glow. She was wearing a two-piece bathing suit this time, and the tank top was cropped a few inches above her belly button, showing off a stomach so tight that it would make even Halle Berry jealous. She’d pulled all of her hair into a messy bun, and there was a daisy stuck behind her right ear. It was more than sexy.

  Sarah saw us and girly-jogged over to the gate. “Hi, guys!” she said, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind the unflowered ear. “I was wondering if I was ever going to see you again.”

  “We can’t stay long,” Sea informed her. “My skin is still recovering.”

  Sarah frowned. “What happened?”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” I said. “Just a little burn and a whole lotta complaining.” Sea shot me a death glance but I ignored it and asked Sarah if we could come in. She looked around for a second, then grinned and said, “Screw it.” I unlatched the gate and followed Sarah to her red canvas chair. There was an empty lounger a few feet away and I dragged it over to her spot and backflopped onto it, which made Sarah laugh—exactly the reaction I was going for.

  “Thank God you showed up today,” Sarah said in a low voice. “The old biddies have been cranky since we opened. I needed some distraction.”

  I smacked a quick drumbeat on my belly and said, “I do what I can.”

  She grinned. “You do plenty.”

  It was like a well-scripted episode of one of those teen d
ramas on the WB, only it didn’t star some thirty-year-old blonde playing a character half his age. It starred me.

  Me and Sarah and a premenstrual Sea Monster determined to ruin my show, that is.

  Seattle stormed over to where we were sitting and dropped her olive drab messenger bag at my feet. She was clawing at the contents like she was a rat and there was cheese hiding at the bottom, and I watched her for a few seconds before losing interest and turning back to Sarah. I was about to tell Sarah that I wanted to do a mix trade—a collection of underappreciated Rod Stewart gems in exchange for a grab bag of songs she wanted to “live in”—when Sea grunted loudly and dumped whatever was in her bag all over the hot concrete. Then she stamped her foot and barked, “Where did you put the sunscreen?”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I believe I was having a conversation?”

  “Listen, jackass,” she spat. “The stupid sunscreen? It’s not here.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe it’s in the car.”

  “Well, can you go look for it?”

  What was her deal? I wasn’t about to let her embarrass me like that. So I said, “You got legs,” and tossed her the keys.

  As Sea stormed off, Sarah pretended to be interested in the Golden Girls, still yakking it up in the shallow end. This girl had class. “My sister,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s got more issues than a magazine rack.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  Sarah reached into her knapsack, retrieved her bottle of Coppertone sunscreen, and started applying a thin layer to her face. For a second I wondered why she hadn’t offered it to Sea, but then I got sidetracked by the way her skin was glistening in the light. “So how’s Boyfriend doing?” I asked.

  She locked the cap back into place. “Why are you so interested in Duncan?”

  “I’m not,” I said. “But I hear he’s seeing this really fantastic girl, so . . .” I let my voice trail off meaningfully, but was confused when Sarah’s smile twisted into an angry knot.

  “Who?” she demanded. “What have you heard?”