by Paloma Meir
…
After a very quiet drive to school with Carolina I discovered her words were true. Zelda’s foul-mouthed take down of Liza was all anyone I knew wanted to talk about. By nutrition, I had heard the story four times with more detail in each retelling.
By lunchtime I heard a frothing at the mouth Zelda had been carrying a knife. I decided the story needed a little social engineering. I understood the psychology of group dynamics, and I used it to defend my old friend by telling a very gossipy girl that Zelda had a restraining order in place against Liza who had been stalking her for years, and that she was only defending herself from the mad stalker that was Liza. By the end of the day, I heard my version repeated back to me from one of my friends in Physics Club.
“Fucking Zelda. Who knew?” Brendan yelled out as I entered the locker room to gear up for Lacrosse. “I’m sorry she’s in rehab, but she dominated Liza. I must have heard that story ten times today. Getting her man back. I didn’t even know she could speak.”
“Where’s Danny?” I looked around the locker room thinking he wouldn’t appreciate our choice of conversation.
“He went home already. Won’t even talk about it, but he said we should go over to his house after practice. You know he didn’t break up with Liza yet?"
“It’s like you’ve turned into a girl with all this gossip,” I laughed.
“Watching one of your best friends brood over a girl for what? Nine years? Will do that to you. Are you going to pretend you’re not curious about how this is going to play out? The hot girl turning into the hobo girl turning in to the wino girl?”
I felt sick at the idea of anyone referring to her as “the wino girl”.
“Chill out, Serge. I wouldn’t say this to anyone, but you. I’m on her team, okay?”
“Let’s go.” I picked my gym bag back up knowing I was just as curious as he was about "how this is going to play out”.
We found Danny at his home in a state of manic energy. He insisted we play tennis in the street, then on to a run, and then as he called it “study time”. Every activity he did to the fullest without talking about anything other than what we were doing in the moment. Brendan and I got pretty sucked up into it, going hard especially with the tennis, almost turning it into a game of dodge ball. Danny would usually calm us down when we would get out of control, but on that day and the rest of the time Zelda was away, he went for it, pelting us hard. Great times.
We ate dinner at his house, which I liked, not just because of his family but also for the actual food. My family had been living on take-out or frozen meals since my mother had gone away. His parents brought up Zelda at dinner, but Danny gave them a look, silencing them. I was surprised by their response. His family had always been open in the past.
After her first week in rehab, he visited her every day making his mood more intense. He hadn’t broken up with Liza, and he let me know Zelda and him were now just good friends as if I thought he would disrespect her in some way. Brendan and I wanted to reassure him or do something for him, but he was so weird and noncommunicative we figured our presence was enough. Maybe they were just friends? It didn’t matter to me one way or another. I was just sick of seeing him so broken.
While he visited Zelda, I would visit my mother. On the long drives up the canyon in Malibu to her rehab center I would think of Zelda in a personal way, not in relation to Danny. I realized there wasn’t any great mystery to her problems. She had gotten carried away with the drinking, that was all there was to that.
I grew nervous as my mother approached thirty days of sobriety in her rehab center. She sensed this because in our own way, we were close. She reassured me she wasn’t going to slip up, and she would be home soon. She reached out to Carolina not knowing how speak to her. Even worse was watching my sister struggle to put away her own anger. Rebuilding or maybe just building a relationship was going to be work.
My father brought my mother home in the last week of April. We had all fallen into different schedules in her months away. We ate at different times from whatever we could scavenge from the kitchen. We had kept the home neat and clean, but the unused rooms were dust covered. I realized as she walked in the door with a warm smile on her face that our home had a haunted feel without her presence. As disordered as she had been, she had also been our center, keeping Carolina and myself focused on our future and each other.
My mother went straight to the kitchen and somehow made a dinner from our near barren pantry. She told us stories of the friends she had made while away and how she planned to stay in touch with them all. She would need a car to get to all of her meetings.
My father laughed as she spoke and even conversed with her, unheard of before she went away. I tried to pretend this was the way we always we were with each other, a close happy family like Danny’s. Carolina didn’t say much. It was like she didn't know her role in our family dynamic after having spent the majority of her life as our mother’s sparring partner. It would take time but I was sure we were going to be all right.
…
I sat on my bed stripped down to my boxer shorts overheated from a long run. I picked up my guitar and strummed a song Celena had always liked. I was interrupted by noises outside my window.
I put down my guitar and looked outside to find the source of the disturbance on my otherwise quiet street. Danny and the recently released from rehab Zelda were outside dressed in running clothes arguing. Zelda seemed to be dominating, as Brendan had put it, with her arms waving around delivering what looked like a soliloquy.
I watched Danny meekly respond to her. I had no idea what was going on, but it was by far the most interesting thing I had ever seen from the vantage point of my window. She grabbed him and squeezed his face while kissing him because why not?
She pushed him away, turned around and stomped into my house slamming the door. I laughed as Danny sat on the curb across the street, and put his head in his hands, not at him but at the way the whole scene had unfolded.
I ran to the top of the stairs desperate to see the now cured and feisty Zelda only to hear her sassing my mother. I worried for a moment she would upset her equilibrium, pushing my mother to drink. I let go of the thought. I knew even a mouthy Zelda wasn’t anything to be scared of. My mother could definitely handle her.
I went back to my room, picked up the guitar and played my music with thoughts of Celena gone from my head. I thought of getting dressed and going downstairs but couldn’t be bothered with the heat of the day. I made a plan of going down to her house after dinner to welcome Zelda back home, maybe bring her some flowers.
My door flew open as I thought of climbing the magnolia tree in my backyard to cut some of the blossoms for her. Her hair and skin were so much like the color of the petals. I looked over to remind my sister to knock in the future only to see Zelda and not Carolina standing in the doorway.
I put my guitar down to take in the loveliness of the healthy Zelda. Her short choppy hair was clean and shiny again, falling around her face accentuating her large dark eyes and cheekbones. Her skin glowed with the slightest pink on her cheeks. Her smile showed white teeth again.
“Zelda, I’m sorry I didn’t visit you.” I hugged her and she hugged me back in a way she had never done before, pressing her body against mine, moving her head across my chest. She pulled away from me but didn’t really step away, more looked up at me, confusing me.
“No apologies please.” She took a deep breath and looked at me as if I were a stranger. “I belong to a group and we have a checklist.”
“A group?” I felt as if I were in a dream.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry. I would say that even if it weren’t part of my checklist. I’m sorry I said those things. I like when you’re condescending. I know you’re not part of the Patriarchy. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”
Okay she was “making amends”. I pulled myself together to give her the respect her words deserved which wasn’t easy. The cuteness of her was a h
eavy distraction.
“It was hard not being there for you, Zelda.”
“I know that. Thank you.” I froze as her lips lingered on my cheek after giving me a kiss good-bye. And then she was gone.
I knew she had somehow in her two-minute visit developed a crush on me. I ran to my window and opened it. I wanted her in my room. I wanted her on my bed. I wanted to roll around with her. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted that badly. I opened my mouth to yell out to her but stopped as I saw her almost skipping down the road, singing a song and kicking a rock, presumably off to right all the wrongs in her life.
No matter what she had been through, she was still herself, a naive girl who had only been out of rehab for maybe six hours. I couldn’t take advantage of her vulnerable state no matter how much it seemed she wanted me too. Maybe I had misread her? No, I hadn’t misread her.
I sat on my bed and considered my options. What did I want from her? I wasn’t having the graphic lewd thoughts of her the way I had been having about Celena. I couldn’t imagine anything beyond lying with her and kissing her. Pretty tame stuff for me.
I couldn’t factor Danny into my desire for her. Going after her would be the ultimate betrayal. In that moment, I didn’t care. I knew myself well enough to know, however, that a few days down the line, I might care very much. He was a good friend, loyal like a dog. I didn’t even want to contemplate how Brendan would react. He would beat me with his Lacrosse stick, and I would deserve it.
What was I thinking? Apparently about her willowy body with her handful of breasts and come-hither eyes, and the hair I wanted to run my fingers through. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I couldn’t let it go. This was Zelda. Sweet sexy Zelda.
If I was going to be honest with myself I had always wanted to kiss her. What was a kiss? Innocent enough. It would hardly be disloyal to Danny or hurtful to Zelda. I came up with a plan. I would go to her the next day, take her into her room, and set the timer on my phone for fifteen minutes, lay her on her bed, and have my way with her. I would lie on top of her kissing her and when the timer went off, we would go our separate ways and back to being friends.
In retrospect I can see I had lost my mind thinking Zelda would agree to let me set a timer and kiss her for an allotted amount of time. I almost wish that I could have gone through with asking her, just to see how she would have reacted to my idea.
I woke early the next morning for my run invigorated by my plan. I would pick her up after school to go over the details. I decided it would be best for us and best for our friendship if we took off our shirts to get the full experience. I wouldn’t touch her boobs with my hands or mouth but it seemed important to feel them against my body. I knew she would see the logic in this.
As I ran down the road I thought that maybe full nudity would be the way to go. I had no plans beyond kissing her but again in the best interest of the full experience, and to put all of this behind us, maybe we should feel our bodies pressed together. It was really up to her of course. I wouldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.
I completely got what I deserved for thinking those insane thoughts as I rounded the bend to see Danny standing outside of her window. He wore his white bathrobe, his arms around a nude Zelda kissing her. She pulled away from him, talking a mile a minute, her shyness gone. He laughed at whatever she said and kissed the tip of her nose.
I slowed down to a walking pace, my eyes glued to them, without realizing it until they caught sight of me. Zelda raised her arm exposing the breast I had just imagined against my chest and yelled out good morning to me. Danny laughed and wrapped the white muslin curtain around her body, kissing her lightly on the lips and walked up the road to me.
“Hey Serge, sorry about that. We didn’t get much sleep last night.” I noticed he was oily and smelled of roses as he laughed. “That sounded bad. We talked all night. She’s a talker now.” His face stretched into the big smile it always did when he was with her. “I’ve never missed a day of school, have you?”
“Not one.” I picked off a rose petal that was stuck to the back of his neck and handed it to him.
“Good because you and me? We’re not going. Breakfast time buddy. Canter’s?” He put the petal in his pocket. I wondered if he was going to keep it forever.
“Sure. I’ll run home and get my wallet.”
“Forget about that. It’s a celebration. On me.” He patted my shoulder as we walked towards his house. I didn’t want to ask what we were celebrating.
“Danny... Zelda’s beautiful but even more than that, sweet, there’s no one sweeter.” As I began to confess my conflicted feelings about her, I knew I would never have asked her to kiss me, nude with a timer running. I would have taken one look at her and laughed at myself. What I needed to do was to get over my twisted sorrow for the loss of Celena. I needed to “get laid” as Brendan had said. The world would be a better place if we all just listened to him.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m done with Liza. I was weak. I didn’t know.” His voice trailed off. I didn’t need to look at him to know that his eyes would be teary.
“Good,” I wondered again why he always felt the need to defend himself with me. I opened my mouth to let him know I never questioned his intentions but stopped myself. The relief of not having confessed my embarrassing thoughts about splitting Zelda was strong. I could reassure him some other time.
“You’re quiet this morning.”
“Need to do my run. Are you up for that? Or breakfast first?”
“Run. I need to wake-up. Let’s head down to do the beach... Up to Malibu.” He said as we opened the door to his house.
“Back to the late night visits? Morning Serge.” His father stood in the foyer and laughed.
“Good Morning, Mr. Goldberg.” I replied as Danny held up his hand to give his father a high five.
“We decided it would be easier if we lived together. I’ll tell you the plan later. We’ve got to get going now.”
“No, Danny.” His father laughed again and lowered his hand, rejecting his son’s high five.
“Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll go back and forth. I would rather we stay here, but, you know, Anthony.” He shrugged, “She gets scared.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” His laughter suddenly stopped, “I respect what you’re trying to do, but it’s too much for you take on... She has doctors helping her.”
“I’m built for it. She’s making a spreadsheet. You’ll see. We worked it all out. Come on Serge.” He gestured his head for me to follow him upstairs.
I wished I hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning as we walked into his room. I had no idea why he thought they would be able to live together or why his father had backed down from his refusal. The one thing I knew? I didn’t want to spend the day talking about her.
“Have you started your applications yet? BU still your pick?” I sat down on his bed and waited for him to get dressed.
“Finals first, study time then applications. I’m going to stay here for freshman year, maybe UCLA or Occidental, wait for Zelda to graduate then we’ll go to Boston. I have to find her a school there, something artsy I guess. Thanks for reminding me.” He took off his robe and pulled his gym shorts on. He had two rose petals stuck to his back. I didn’t pick them off.
“How deep does the spreadsheet go?” I laughed hard almost doubling over, “You know you’re planning two, three years in advance?"
“I didn’t wait eight years for a couple of weeks with her. Long term buddy." He put the shirt over his head.
“We’re going to be talking about her all day?” All roads led to Zelda in his mind, I gave up on changing the subject. He had never been open about his feelings for her before. I’ll admit I was interested in where his thoughts were going. “I’m not used to it. You spent most of those “eight years” pretending you didn’t know who she was.”
“You noticed? I thought I was stealthy. Let’s go.” I followed him back down the stairs “Are you done wi
th your applications? MIT? We’ll be across the river from you. Good times we’ll have. Do they have sports?”
“I don’t know where I’m going... Whichever college offers up the most money I guess, but yes MIT has sports. All Division lll but I wasn’t going to go there to become a professional athlete.”
“Dude, you’re going to MIT. Why are you so down? You’re going to be Valedictorian...” He gave me a pep talk listing all my accomplishments as we drove down to the beach. There wasn’t any traffic, but it was still a forty-minute drive. By the time we got to Malibu Country Mart he had me winning the Nobel Prize.
I jumped out of his car pumped up with thoughts of the gold medal and prize money. A thoughts of Celena gone from my head. My perverse fantasies of his girlfriend? A funny vague memory. He was like that, a one-man motivational team.
We ran the back roads behind the marketplace past all the estates set into yards of country living. It was as if they were “just folks” instead of insanely rich people. Danny didn’t get why anyone would live across from the beach with that kind of money instead of on the beach.
