“Running headlong into a sand storm isn’t exactly an … adventure,” says Seth, and it sounds like he is chiding me. Then he lowers his voice. “It felt like you were running away … away from me.”
No, not from him, but from the inevitable thing we are tipping toward. I want to fight time; I want us to stay exactly as we are right now, howling in the wind, covered in sand, dancing with the stars. But I know that Seth wants more from me than desert escapes. He wants for us to exist in real time, not just out here.
We drive back to his trailer in silence and I cut the lights just as we pull up next to it so we don’t wake his mom.
“Well, good night,” I say.
Seth doesn’t get out. Instead, he reaches down into his backpack. “I got you something.” He hands me a small white box. I eye it like it is a snake.
“What for?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Why are you so suspicious?”
Because I’m worried that accepting the present will be accepting … something else.
“It’s just a little thing. A belated birthday present for you.” His voice catches on the word “birthday”. “Your birthday was right before we met at Joshua Tree. May ninth.”
He’s right and it makes me uneasy because what else does he secretly know about me? What other facts is he hoarding, waiting for the right moment to unveil them?
“A pretty belated gift then, huh?” I say, smiling, like I always do to mask my unease. I take the box, tilting it slowly to the side, and hear something clink.
“Careful,” he says, watching me with wide wide eyes.
I open the lid warily, like there really might be a snake inside.
There isn’t.
Instead there is a crescent moon charm, a silver one, hung on a silver chain so fine it looks like it might disintegrate.
“Oh!” I say, because it is so unexpected, so beautiful, so delicate, like when a hummingbird flutters close to you.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, because it is. “But, Seth…” We both know he can’t afford something like this.
“My mom found it,” he says quickly. “Well, she found the moon and the chain, but I put them together.”
The fact that he made it from something his mom scavenged in the desert only makes it worth more to me.
“Are you sure your mom doesn’t want to sell it?”
His lips close in a tight frown, and I immediately regret what I said.
“If you don’t want it, just say so.”
“Of course I want it.” I take it out of the box. “Help me put it on?”
When his hands brush my hair away from the back of my neck, they are trembling. He swears under his breath as he fiddles with the clasp. I sit still, so still that I’m not even breathing.
“There,” he says, sounding proud.
The moon hangs from my neck, glinting and shimmering in the dark. I don’t ask him if he remembers what I said about getting me the moon.
I know he does.
Seth swallows, and the sound is loud in the quiet car. “So … next week? The Fourth?”
“Sure,” I say, keeping my voice steady as I can. Because I know we are hurtling toward something I can no longer stop.
And his smile lights up the night.
CHAPTER 20
I wake up on the Fourth of July feeling apprehensive. Celebrating Seth’s birthday with him feels like we’re cementing our friendship, our relationship, our whatever-this-is-ship, in the real world.
And I don’t like it.
I can’t shake the feeling that as much as I want to keep us existing either in the moonlit-desert-night world or a sun-scorched-delirious daydream, he wants the opposite. He wants to pull whatever we are into reality.
But I text him happy birthday, because I’m not a monster. He says thanks, and then asks me to prepare a feast for tonight. I’m not too surprised. His mom never cooks and Seth doesn’t even know how to make pasta, whereas my parents – and by default, me – are seriously into food. My dad taught me how to cut sashimi properly when I was eleven. I know how to put together a perfectly composed cheese platter. I can break down a whole chicken, and stuff it too. I even know how to use the kitchen blowtorch to make crème brûlée.
I grab a picnic basket (and when I say picnic basket, I mean picnic basket – we’ve got these designer “Red Riding Hood” ones, which are also super modern and double as a cooler). I fill it with stuff from the fridge: a block of cheese, some crackers, a bottle of apple juice, avocados, chips, some leftover duck breast, chocolate-covered cherries, carrots, and hummus.
I snap a picture for Seth before I remember that he has an ancient phone, the kind that can’t receive pictures. So I list everything out in a text, ending with: Satisfactory?
He replies: Perfect.
Then Dre’s face pops up on my phone. I answer and before I can even say hello, she’s shouting down the line. “Rei-Rei! I’m baaaaack! Did you miss me? I missed you!”
“Hey! How was Mexico? How is your family?” I say. I don’t tell her that I’ve been so busy going on adventures with Seth I have barely noticed she’s been gone. It took me a minute to even remember where she’s been.
“It was amazing but, oh my God, my cousin, the one who was getting married? Well, turns out that my Aunt Carmen – you know Aunt Carmen, she came out for my quinceañera – anyway, she knows the mother of the guy that my cousin is marrying, and apparently they had some issues way back when, and then my Aunt Carla got involved…”
I zone out as Dre launches into a long, complicated story about her extended family, only snapping back to attention when she says, “… anyway, it was crazy. I love my family, but I am so ready for no drama! And I’m so glad we got back in time for the party tonight.”
“What party?”
“What party? Even I know about the party tonight and I’ve been in Guadalajara for the past two weeks! Down at the old track. It’s gonna be sweet. Tori’s boyfriend is even going to hook us up with drinks.” Tori is nineteen, but her boyfriend is twenty-one.
“Oh yeah,” I say, like I’d just forgotten, not that I hadn’t known about it. I press my hand on my chest to calm the anxiety starting to snake its way up my throat. Why didn’t you know about the party, Reiko? it hisses in my head. The world has carried on while you’ve been out with Seth Rogers in the desert. Who do you want to be, Reiko? A weirdo who hangs out with Seth Rogers or someone who gets invited to the biggest party of the summer. Someone who will be crowned homecoming queen.
“What time is everything getting started tonight?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Probably around nine. I’ll come over to your place first to get ready?”
I pause. I want to go to the party, but I’ve promised Seth I’ll spend his birthday with him. Maybe there’s a way to do both. “Oh um, actually, I’ve got … a family dinner tonight. So I’ll meet you there later?”
I can practically hear Dre’s eyebrows go up. “A family dinner on the Fourth of July?”
“Yeah, um, my dad is really into it, remember?” It’s plausible. As proud as my dad is of his Japanese heritage, he also loves to embrace being American.
“What time should I come over? We can hang with your fam and then sneak off for the real party. Your parents will be cool with that, right?”
“Actually, I think … this is just family.”
“Oh. All right! I’ll see what the other girls are up to. I guess I’ll get ready with them and see you at the track?”
I’m annoyed, mostly at Seth. And I know that is irrational and unfair because it’s me who’s just lied to Dre and bailed on her, but I’m still jealous of whatever she is going to do without me. School is starting soon and I don’t want everyone to get used to doing stuff without me. I wonder how late Seth wants us to hang out. Maybe we can wrap up his birthday dinner early.
“I can’t wait to see you,” Dre says. I can tell she thinks something is off, but can’t
figure it out.
When I hang up, I see I have another text from Seth: Pick me up at 7?
What about 6?
It’s got to be 7.
Why?
You’ll see. It’s a surprise.
I feel a twinge of guilt that I don’t have a surprise for Seth, considering it is his birthday. He shouldn’t be planning the surprise. The least I can do is go along with it.
And maybe bake him a cake.
On second thoughts, it’s too hot to bake. I’ll just buy one.
CHAPTER 21
“Can you guess where we’re going?” Seth is practically bouncing in the front seat. I’m driving, but he’s directing. We’re heading out of Palm Springs, up toward Cabazon. I can only think of one thing in this direction: Morongo, the hotel and casino where his mom works.
“Morongo?” I guess. “Are we going to meet up with your mom for dinner?” I can’t decide if that would be better or worse than doing something just the two of us.
Seth snorts. “No, we’re not going to Morongo, and we’re not meeting my mom. And you brought dinner.” He reaches back and pats the picnic basket that is sitting in the back seat. He hasn’t seen the cake. All the grocery-store bakery had were Fourth-of-July-themed cakes, so it is decorated like an American flag. At least I convinced them to pipe Happy Birthday, Seth across it in frosting.
“You really don’t know where we’re going?” he says.
I shake my head.
“I’ve got the keys to the dinosaurs,” he says, right as they come into view.
When I was little, I thought the dinosaurs were real. I remember the first time I saw them, how they rose up out of the landscape, life-size. I named them Betty and BoBo. BoBo was the longneck and Betty was the T. rex. I found out later that the artist who created them had originally named them Dinny and Mr. Rex. They were how I marked time – on our way back from the LAX Airport, I knew that we were almost home when we passed the dinosaurs.
The desert is full of all kinds of weird stuff and weird people. People go a little funny after being in the sun all the time. Being in the heat. The Cabazon Dinosaurs are just one other strange thing out here. Enormous dinosaur sculptures, out in the middle of the desert. They look like they are just part of the landscape. Like they’ve always been here.
Inside the belly of the longneck one is a museum. It isn’t a dinosaur museum, or even a desert museum. No, inside these man-made desert dinosaurs is a creationist museum, run by a pastor. This drives my father nuts. For him, a sculpture of a dinosaur with a creationist museum in it goes against everything he stands for.
And now Seth is saying he has the keys to get inside.
“How did you get them?” I ask as we park between Betty and BoBo.
“My mom found them when she was out scavenging around here. And I remembered how much you liked them as a kid, but you never got to go inside.”
“So … you want to spend your seventeenth birthday in a creationist museum in the belly of a dinosaur?” I say as I get the picnic basket out of the back seat.
Seth grins again, a brighter, bolder grin than before. “We’re not going into the museum,” he says. “We’re going to the top of the T. rex.”
It’s dark inside the T. rex. Dark and empty and hot. I’m not scared of the dark, and nothing is darker than desert dark, but I don’t like being in here. I feel trapped.
“Just head up the stairs,” says Seth, switching on a flashlight. The insides of the T. rex, the walls, are painted blood red. The staircase is steep and goes up so far I can’t see where it ends.
“Seth, what if we get caught?” I say as I start to climb the metal steps, holding onto the railing with sweaty fingers. The stupid fancy picnic basket is hanging from the crook of my arm and I’m worried it’s going to knock me off balance.
“We won’t get caught. They don’t even have a security system. There’s nothing in here. The actual museum and gift shop are where everything is kept.” He’s climbing up below me, and it makes me wish I was wearing shorts instead of a short dress. The dress isn’t that fancy, just a blue halter neck, but it feels completely out of place in here. It isn’t meant for this; it is meant for the party tonight.
It feels like the two parts of me are on a collision course: the part that wants to be with Seth and the Reiko that needs to be at that party. I really don’t want to miss it. People will wonder where I am.
By the time we reach the top of the T. rex, where its head is, the sun has gone down and the sky is turning inky. There’s a small viewing platform up here and the gaping mouth of the T. rex is the window. The teeth block the view a bit, but the mountains and the desert are still an impressive sight, even in the darkening night.
“Wow,” I say. “This is pretty cool.”
“I told you,” Seth says. “And it is going to get cooler in just a few minutes.” He gets an old beach towel out from his backpack and spreads it on the floor. “Thanks for bringing dinner.”
Now that I realize this is it, this is the birthday event, a picnic in the mouth of a T. rex, I start to think I should have done more to make it all a bit more special because however much I want to deny it, or pretend it isn’t happening, Seth and I are friends, and I do care about him. I wish I hadn’t just raided our fridge for leftovers, and I should have got an actual birthday cake instead of a Fourth of July one.
“I should have brought steak sandwiches, or something,” I say, as I start to unpack the picnic basket. “Something more carnivore-appropriate.” The jumble of food that I thought looked good this morning now looks random and unappetizing. I get out paper plates and pour apple juice into plastic cups. “Cheers,” I say, passing Seth one. “And happy birthday!” My excitement sounds forced. It is forced.
We eat in silence for a few minutes, staring out of the mouth of the dinosaur. This doesn’t feel like one of our usual adventures. There’s more behind it somehow, like Seth has pinned all his hopes on it.
I can see why Seth thought this would be fun and cool and interesting, though. I mean not many people can say they have had a picnic in a dinosaur head, and maybe if it wasn’t his birthday, if we were just up here having fun, I would be enjoying it more. But it is his birthday. And that changes everything.
Seth peers into the picnic basket. “What’s that?” he asks, pointing at the cake box that is looking slightly smushed.
“It’s a birthday cake! And” − I rummage around in the basket until I find the birthday card − “this is for you.”
“You got me a cake? And a card?” I wait for him to make a crack about the fact that it is an American flag cake, or say something sarcastic about the smashed state it is in. “Thank you,” he says. So sincerely I have to look away.
“I don’t have candles,” I say, taking the cake out of the box. I am officially the worst friend ever. “But umm…” I take a deep breath and quickly sing the words of “Happy Birthday”.
“Can I make a birthday wish without any candles?”
“Hey, I don’t make the rules,” I say, and he closes his eyes tight and blows all over the candle-less cake. “Happy birthday,” I say again when he opens his eyes.
“This is one of the best birthdays I’ve had in a long time.”
This? This is one of his best birthdays? A smushed cake with no candles and fridge leftovers? And just … me? There’s a weight pressing down on me now. His expectation, his hope, it is getting heavier by the second and I’m trapped in here with it.
Seth keeps looking out the mouth of the dinosaur and back to his watch like he’s waiting for something and just as I realize what his big plan is, why he wanted us to come up here—
The fireworks go off. Of course, fireworks for the Fourth of July. I was so stressed out about this whole birthday evening that I forgot about the fireworks. The sky is an explosion of red, white, and blue. We scoot forward, leaving the cake behind us, and peer between the teeth at the sparks dancing in the air.
“I thought we’d have a good view
from up here,” Seth says, looking at me with so much hope it makes me feel a bit sick. Like when you walk through the perfume section of a department store and there is just so much perfume in the air that it is in your nose and on your skin and in your hair and in your mouth and you can’t get away from it.
Seth’s hope is like that. It is all around me and it is making me dizzy, making me want to get out of here.
My phone pings. It’s a tipsy text from Dre. She’s already started drinking.
Reikoooooo! where r u? Tonitds is gorging to be the breast xoxoxoxoxo
And then: hahahahha the best!
And then a picture of her cleavage: the best breasts hahahaha
She’s being an idiot, but it makes me smile.
“You’re missing the fireworks,” says Seth. “Who is it?”
“Just Dre,” I say. “She got home from Mexico yesterday.” Then: “She’s out tonight,” I say, deliberately keeping my voice casual. “I might … I might meet her later.”
“Later?”
“Yeah, there’s this party…” My voice trails off.
“But … aren’t we hanging out?”
“We are hanging out…” I know what he’s saying, but I play dumb because it’s easier.
“I thought…” He looks out at the fireworks, still blasting into the night. “I thought we were going to hang out, like, all night. Maybe go on a drive, or something.”
“I haven’t seen any of my other friends all summer, Seth. I’ve only seen you. Is it so bad that I want to see my friends?” My tone is snippier than I meant it to be.
“Is it so bad that I want to spend my birthday with you?”
“Stop telling me it’s your birthday! I know it’s your birthday! That’s why we’re up here! Dre is already at the party, OK? Everyone is already there and I’m not because I’m spending time with you on your birthday!”
My words echo in the dinosaur skull. I didn’t mean to yell, but it all feels too much and it’s hot and close in this dinosaur head and everything is pressing in on me. I don’t like how nasty I’m being, but it’s like all my frustration with him and this night and my anxiety about missing the party have joined forces inside my head and are making me be this ugly person I don’t want to be, but I can’t stop myself.
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Page 9
