by Paloma Meir
…
The next day I had to go down to the flea market on Fairfax to get Zelda a birthday present. I only had twenty dollars. I noticed over the summer that Danny, Brendan and all my other new friends had a lot of money with them all of the time unlike me. We didn’t do much that needed money, so it was okay.
I looked through the racks of vintage clothes trying to find her something. She seemed really into the cheerleader look. I didn’t find anything.
“Why are we here?” Danny asked as we sat down at the benches for our lunch of tacos. I hadn’t told him why I needed to go to the marketplace and a stall of vintage muskets had distracted him when I was looking through the racks of clothes. “Where’s Brendan? He's always late.”
“It’s Zelda’s birthday tomorrow. I have to get her a gift.” He would have figured it out once I found her something anyway.
“Oh, is she having a party?” He looked down at his tacos as if he didn’t care one way or another. I almost felt bad for him.
“No. Family brunch, family time that’s all. I only have twenty dollars. I don’t know what to get her.”
“I’ve got eighty in my wallet.” He reached into his pocket, his eyes bright. “Let’s go find her something.”
I wanted to explain that whatever he thought about her was wrong. Her and Carolina weren’t like the other girls. They were in their own little world, and that’s how they were going to stay as long as I was around.
“I’m a nice guy, Serge...” He said as if he could read my mind.
“Thanks for the gift, my manly man,” Brendan screamed out as he patted me on the shoulder and landed in the seat beside Danny, “I have a hot new girlfriend, Cara.”
“Who’s Cara? You don’t even want a girlfriend."
“Serge, didn’t tell you? Cara had the right idea about starting high school. Smart girl. I don’t know why we didn’t think about that.” He laughed. “I assisted her if you know what I mean.”
“Serge didn’t tell me anything,” He looked at me as if I had betrayed him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Brendan. Let’s go find Zelda a present.” He got up from the table.
“I don’t know anything. I introduced him to Cara. That’s it.” The poor guy was falling apart.
“I did it, Danny. Where’s my high fives?” He held up his hand, but the mood was too tense for anyone to slap it. “It is a victory for all of us.”
I had no idea what he meant by it being a victory for all of us but it was a nice thought, so I slapped his still open hand as hard as I could.
“It should mean something,” he said more to himself though we both heard him.
“Well let’s see, Danny. I told you she was my girlfriend. You were clear on me not wanting one before, so that would mean Cara means something to me. I’m not posting it on the Internet. I’m telling my best friends. Get it together.”
“You’re right.” He slapped his hand. “It’s hot out here... You’re the man, Brendan.” He smiled. It seemed genuine. “Let’s go find Zelda a gift so we can get out of here.”
Danny kept picking up jewelry to show me as we wandered around the flea market prompting Brendan to tell him that Zelda was more like a sister than a girlfriend to me. Danny would nod his head and then find another piece of jewelry.
I found an old bookstall and knew whatever I was going to get her would be found there. There was a pile of pulpy romance novels from the sixties with brightly colored dramatic illustrations on the cover. I kneeled down and read the backs of the books to make sure there wouldn’t be any Byronic heroes as my mother called them. Some of them seemed heavy on the sex. I put those aside and built a small pile of the more chaste titles. She would love them. I bought eight of them for five dollars.
“That’s what you’re getting her? Some old books? I would get her...” Danny said.
“We saw what you would get her,” Brendan said.
“She’ll love it. Let’s get out of here. It is hot.”
Two buses later, and we were at the foot of our canyon. We walked silently up the hill to our houses. Danny went home alone telling us he had something to do with his brother. Brendan had time to kill before he met up with Cara, so he continued up the road with me.
“Why doesn’t he just talk to her?” I asked Brendan. “I don’t get it. He’s bold with the other girls. Two minutes with her, and he would be over it. Why does he pretend that he doesn’t know who she is sometimes?”
“Is she that bad?” he laughed. “She’s like six inches taller than him. He’s probably waiting it out. He’s a persistent guy. Ten bucks says he ends up with her.”
“She’s like your sisters Sarah and Claire. She’s just a kid. That’s all.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “What about Cara? Tell me about her but leave out the “victory” moments.”
“I don’t know where she got that weird idea from... She doesn’t get out much. She does dance for two or three hours a day. She goes away to dance competitions on most weekends. She’s perfect I guess.”
He didn’t seem comfortable with his sensitive side though he kept smiling so I didn’t push it with more questions. He would find ways to incorporate his wayward nature in the weeks ahead by chasing her around school in what looked like jealous fits. I asked him about it once, and he told me that he completely trusted her. He said she liked the drama, so he provided it. Okay Brendan.
…
I had problems wrapping up Zelda's present the next morning and was running a little late. I entered her home to find Carolina, her family and two new friends sitting around her at the long dining table. I wouldn’t be sitting next to her. In my life I had never sat away from her before.
She stood up from her seat and tried to walk over to me but was boxed in by the people around her. She nervously played with her hair as she introduced me to her friends from her school, Theodora and Veronica. I hadn’t met them before, though she had talked about them a lot. Everything Zelda was, they were too. If you glanced at them quickly, you would think they were triplets. Zelda was taller than them at the time, but not by much. Long blond hair swirled around their ethereally beautiful faces. Theodora looked more like a painting than a person. Veronica had a wilder look with the way her wavy golden hair framed her cat like blue eyes and pouting lips.
“Happy Birthday, Zelda.” I handed her the gift.
“I have yours in my room. Everyone is leaving after breakfast. Will you stay, and we can open them together?” She seemed so anxious.
“Okay, but I’ll have to leave after that. I have plans.” I couldn’t say no to her though I already wanted the breakfast to be over so I could head down to Danny’s house.
I sat down next to Veronica who turned out to be as chatty as Zelda was quiet, telling me her life story. She had grown up outside of London in what sounded like a castle with her father who married a different woman every couple of years and had a child with each of them. Her mother had been a model like Zelda’s mother and apparently Theodora’s. She hadn’t spent much time with her before moving to Los Angeles with her father three years before.
There was more to her story, but it was so much odder and even weirder than Zelda’s birth story, that I began to think she was making it up as she went along. I would learn in the future she had actually underplayed it. Theodora’s life was even crazier growing up with tutors traveling across the world before also settling down in Los Angeles with her family at the same time as Veronica.
Of course, she started in with my eyes. I wondered if it was a subject they taught girls in a secret class at school on how to talk to boys. I had looked in the mirror, my eyes were a dark brown and that was all there was to that.
“Your eyes are so dark, it’s like you don’t even have pupils." She stared into them which was ridiculous. I certainly wasn’t going to have anything to do with one of Zelda’s friends.
“Thanks,” I said to her and turned to Zelda's father. “Mr. Moreau, I won the competition.” He liked to talk
about physics with me. He had dropped out of high school in Paris to start his line of clothes. Like other people whose education in a specific subject wasn’t completed to their satisfaction, he pursued a casual interest in it.
“I knew you would. We’re proud of you, aren’t we Natalie?” Mrs. Moreau looked over to me with an encouraging smile but was too wrapped up in calming a pouty Anthony to speak. He would always get that way when Zelda wasn’t paying attention to him.
“You didn’t tell me that, Serge,” Carolina said from down the table.
“Serge is the smartest person in the world,” Zelda loudly whispered to Theodora. I couldn't help but smile. She was so childish when she spoke in such extremes.
“I just found out this morning,” I said to my sister.
“No thanks needed, dark without pupils isn’t necessarily a compliment,” Veronica said.
“Well that’s the way I’m taking it.” She was funny.
“Serge, would you want to tutor Anthony? He’s having some problems getting organized,” Mr. Moreau asked me. “Maybe twice a week. Twenty-five dollars an hour?”
“Yes,” I screamed out making the table laugh. “I have a tight schedule this fall with Lacrosse and my classes. Is his time open?”
“I want to watch you play,” Veronica said with a wink, an actual wink. I ignored her.
“Can Serge tutor me?” Zelda asked her father.
“Aren’t you getting straight A’s?” he replied to her and turned to me. “We can work around your schedule. Call the house tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said with a pout like Anthony’s. She corrected herself and whispered something to Carolina.
Veronica took my phone and programmed all of her information it as everyone was leaving. I deleted it after she left. Carolina said she wanted to talk to me later at home. Zelda and her both behaved in a needy way. I hoped their problems weren’t coming back.
“Come on, Serge. Come back to my room with me. I want you to see your gift.” She jumped up with her typical juvenile bounciness and reached out for my hand. I didn’t take it.
“I have to be quick.”
“Okay.” She stared at the floor as we walked side by side to her bedroom.
She had a large basket filled with fabrics, threads of different colors and embroidery rings. I picked one of them up to see what she was doing with her new hobby as she went into her closet to retrieve my gift. The ringed cloth showed a gradation from red to pink with tiny stitches, very intricate work. I put it back without complimenting her.
“Here, Serge.” A blinding smiled filled her face as she held out a tall rectangular box wrapped in butcher paper and braids of fabric, I guessed from her fabric basket. A lot of work had obviously gone into it. Again I didn’t comment on it. I opened it with a sigh as if I were doing her a great favor by accepting the gift.
I tossed aside the wrapping. I felt her staring at me, but I didn’t look up. It was a Lacrosse stick. Top of the line, and she had even bought the right one for my position which was attacker. It was a better gift than even my parents had given me.
“Thanks,” I got up to leave.
“Don’t go, Serge. I haven’t opened my present yet.” She tore it apart with all the joy I lacked.
“I love them.” She read the backs and looked at the covers. “It’s my favorite gift. Thank you, Serge.”
I looked at her bed. It was covered in gift boxes from Barney’s. I found her words hard to believe. She looked up at me. Her face so open and her eyes bright. I walked out of her room, gift in hand.
“Serge where are you going? What did I do wrong?” She called out to me.
“I told you I had plans. Thanks for my gift. Happy Birthday.” I continued walking. I wanted to be away from her, out of her house. Zelda growing up was not something I was handling well.
“I’m sorry Serge.” She cried out with tears behind her voice. “I don’t know what I did wrong.”
I turned to look at her. She stood in the hallway between her room and the kitchen with her hands over her face crying. She wore a lime green cheerleader skirt and t-shirt. A happy outfit that clashed with the tears I had caused.
I ran back to her and held her in a hug. I didn’t speak because I didn’t know why I had been so dismissive of her. I hadn’t been mad at her in weeks by that point.
“You never talk to me anymore. I’m sorry I was noisy.” Her tears soaked through the shoulder of my t-shirt. “You haven’t said more than hello to me in two months.”
“You’re forgetting sometimes I said good-bye too,” I whispered into her ear. She laughed through her tears, “Come on birthday girl. What do you want to do?”
“You’re not mad at me any more?” She lifted her head to look at me. Sometime over the previous month, she had started wearing make-up and her tears had washed it down her face.
“I could never be mad at you Zelda, but if we’re going to go outside, you’re going to have to wash your face. You look like a raccoon.” She put her head back down on my shoulder, and we stood in her hallway silently hugging for a very long time.
We didn’t go out, and she wouldn’t let me be more than a few feet away from her. I asked her if I should call Carolina to have her come down and join us. “No,” she said. She scampered around her kitchen baking me the chocolate chip cookies she thought I loved though I only liked them.
She ordered pizza from her good friend Saul who for some reason knew it was her birthday and insisted the pizza was free of charge, and the driver would not accept a tip. She told him about her day and her favorite gifts, my books to her. They were on the phone so long I began to worry about other customers trying to call in their orders.
We ate the pizza in the living room while watching a Julia Roberts movie. I won’t even comment on the implausibility of the plot. She read her books as we watched.
Occasionally, she read a particularly meaningful, to her at least, passage to me.
I told her about my summer with Danny and Brendan omitting certain details. She didn’t seem to know who they were, which was very funny to me. She was more excited I had won the contest and apologized again for being noisy again. She had no idea of the turmoil she had put me through which suddenly embarrassed me. I had put so much thought into her having bad motives as if that were possible.
Her and Carolina had worked on their demon book, other art projects, and pretty much spent their summer in her pool. Which is exactly how I wanted them to spend the rest of their lives. I knew that wouldn’t be possible. I promised myself that I wouldn’t turn on them again over their inevitable changes, but I would do my best to keep them safe.
We fell asleep on her sofa while watching the movie which was nice but not particularly smart. The next day was our first day of school. I woke around 5:00 wondering why her parents hadn’t woken us up the night before. I worried I was in trouble for not letting mine know I was sleeping out, not that that had been my intention anyway. I looked at my phone, no texts or missed calls.
I got up quietly not wanting to wake her up, but not wanting to leave her I sat down on the floor beside her and watched her sleep. She was a beauty. Her insides and outsides were so at odds with themselves, such a goofy shy girl, she was stuck in that body of exquisiteness. Either way, she was my friend, as she always had been before.
It was hard to pull myself away from her, but I did. I put some blankets on her as she had done for me many times in the past when I had fallen asleep where she now slept. I went to their coffee table and took a flower from the vase and laid it on her stomach, kissed her gently on the forehead and went home.
In my room lay a sleeping Carolina. The creak of my door opening woke her up. Her planned confrontation was not the warmth, gifts and cookies of Zelda’s at all.
“Where were you? We have school. Are you dropping out to play sports with those idiots down the street?”
I knew I had been unfair to them, so I didn’t respond to her anger with more anger. She could be very much
like our mother sometimes.
“I fell asleep on Zelda’s sofa. I am going to get ready for our first day back. Brendan and Danny are my friends down the street, and they can carry on a conversation without name calling, therefore they are not idiots. I’m sorry I ignored and treated you and Zelda in a bad way this summer. Are we okay now?”
“Yes.” She looked disappointed our conversation hadn’t turned into an argument. She got up without another word and left my room to get ready for school.
Chapter Three
All the bad things that were to come started on Zelda’s fifteenth birthday. I would love to say they started on my sixteenth birthday which was only a few days before hers, but that wouldn’t be true.
She spent much of her time on her greatest art project that was herself. She kept up with her embroidery and drawing but perfecting her already flawless beauty came first to her. She wore layers of make-up that only served to enhance what she already possessed. I wouldn’t have even known she wore it if I hadn’t seen her put it on.
