by A. E. Cannon
I now understand why I have been dissatisfied, and I also realize what it is that I really want.
I want people coming at me, trying to put me off my shot.
I want to make a shot in spite of it.
I want heat.
I want dust.
I, Quentin Andrews O’Rourke, want complications.
THE EMAIL ELLIE WANTED TO SEND
SUBJECT: What I want…
To J.
Mary’s boyfriend, Rick, taught me how to say the words in Portuguese.
Eu quero. “I want.”
The words look so bold, so naked, so daring and demanding somehow when you say them straight up like that.
Eu quero.
But there they are, dancing through my head as I sit on Mary’s balcony in the dark. I came outside hours ago to watch the moon climb over the mountains and wonder if this hurt in my heart will ever go away, when suddenly a single dragonfly appeared. It hovered on glassy wings in front of my face and it was like I could read its mind.
Where are the others? I want the others.
I was so startled, I yelped. Still, the dragonfly hovered so close that I imagined I could hear the hum and feel the flutter of its wings against my cheek. And then out of nowhere—more dragonflies! A whole quivering bouquet of them! My dragonfly darted toward the others, and together they all flew off—straight into the face of the moon. I watched until they disappeared, and then for the first time in a long, long time, I burst out laughing.
Eu quero.
For the months we were together, of course, I wanted you. More than anything. With you I thought I’d finally found what I’d always been looking for—someone who understands me and my dreams.
The truth is, I’ve never had a lot of friends who were my own age, which is how I know there’s something a little “off about me—that and the fact that I’m the only teenager in Washington County (apparently) who enjoys listening to opera. I’m like that pair of jeans that are a half inch too short to be in style. Close. Just not close enough.
It’s not that I haven’t tried. I’ve always done the things people do to make friends—join school clubs, try out for things, say hi to everybody in the halls. But when Saturday night rolls around and I want to do something, I’m the one who always has to call.
“Why don’t people like me?” I asked Mom once when I was in the fifth grade.
She pushed my hair out of my eyes. “Everyone loves you, Ellie.”
Grandma nodded hard as she stood over the sink, peeling peaches. “That’s because you’re as pretty on the inside as you are on the outside.”
Later that week I heard Mom talking to my teacher, Mrs. Lauritzen, after school. They didn’t see me standing there in the class doorway, a soccer ball tucked beneath my arm.
“Ellie says she doesn’t have any friends.” Mom flashed a quick, apologetic smile.
Mrs. Lauritzen paused—long enough to make my stomach plunge.
“That’s not exactly true,” she said. “The other children do like and respect Ellie. What I would say is that she doesn’t have close friends right now.”
I could see Mom’s face in profile, highlighted by sunlight streaming through the window. She knit her brows together like she was trying to figure out a clue for the crossword puzzle in Sunday’s paper.
“Why exactly is that, do you think?” Mom asked. “I know she’d give anything to have a best friend.”
I would have, too. A best friend I could always sit by at lunch so I never, ever have to sit down again by someone, not knowing for sure if they were saving the seat for somebody else.
“She will one day,” Mrs. Lauritzen said. “Right now they don’t know what to do with her because she’s very intense…”
Intense? What did that even mean?
I felt shame spread through me. If I looked in a mirror, I was afraid I’d see an “I” branded in the middle of my forehead.
“Intense.” Another word for “loser.”
Eu quero.
What do I want this very minute?
I want what I thought I had.
Still wanting,
Ellie Fenn
JUNE 18
ED’S TURN
Ellie walks into Reel Life early tonight.
“Hi, Sergio,” she says in that voice of hers that’s shy and friendly at the same time.
“Alô, Ellie,” I say. “Como vai?”
She giggles a little and answers. NOT in English.
I’m pretty much stunned.
Ellie smiles at me. “You look surprised, Sergio.”
No kidding. I probably have the exact same look of surprise that movie stars have when paparazzi cameras go off unexpectedly in their faces. Especially if they’ve been caught stepping out with their English nanny instead of with the wife.
“That was Portuguese, right?” I ask weakly. Like I would know anything at all about Portuguese.
Ellie looks pretty crushed. “Is my accent that bad?”
“No!” I rush to reassure her with kindness and also suaveness. “Your accent is muy, muy bien!”
Which (technically speaking) is Spanish. But then maybe Sergio is trilingual.
Ellie’s face brightens. “Do you really think so?”
“Sim,” I say. “I really think so.”
She gives a modest shrug. “My voice teacher says I have a good ear for language. But he probably says that to everybody.”
“Voice teacher?”
Ellie nods, her eyes shining. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here this summer—to study with this amazing, practically legendary teacher who lives here in Salt Lake. I’m studying Italian, too, because you ought to know Italian if you want to sing. I’ve already taken French and German, but you know how high school classes are.”
“Sim,” I say again. “I know.” Frankly, I feel like I’m being strangled to death by my own bow tie.
“And now that I’ve met you, I’m getting my aunt Mary’s boyfriend, Rick, to teach me”—here Ellie glances over at Scout, who’s busy checking in DVDs, and whispers—“some Portuguese.”
My stomach drops a little. “Rick? This is short for ‘Ricardo,’ perhaps? Is this Senhor Ricardo from Brazil too?”
Ellie shakes her head. “No. He went on a Mormon mission there—just like Scout’s brother. Only it sounds like he’s in the north, whereas Rick was in Florianopólis, which is in the south.” Ellie looks at me. “What part of Brazil are you from?”
“Somewhere between the north part and the south part,” I say. “Most Americans haven’t heard of it.” Including me.
“Well, Brazil is a huge, amazing country, isn’t it?” Again she smiles. “Hey! Maybe you and Rick can meet someday. Maybe you and Rick and Mary and I can all do something together!”
“That would be great!” I say, secretly praying that Ellie will quickly drop the idea of a social hour with me and Senhor Rick.
“Anyway,” Ellie continues, “I just wondered if I could hang around the store until you go on dinner break. Maybe we could eat together. I promise I won’t bother you until then, Sergio.” She glances over at Ali, who is entertaining a customer with a new magic trick. “I don’t want to get you or Scout into trouble.”
I immediately stop worrying about the prospect of meeting Senhor Ricardo. Instead, I nearly do an end-zone victory dance in my frilly Reel Life shirt, right there on the spot.
Ellie is asking me out!
Me!
Ed! Otherwise known as Sergio!
Yes!
Ali gives me a half-hour dinner break, which means Ellie and I will have to chow down fast.
“Do you want to go to Burger King?” I ask. Scout hates BK. She prefers customized burgers, like the Big H pastrami at Hires or the double cheeseburger at B & B Burgers up by the university. Burger King, however, does have the virtue of being fast. And nearby.
“I have an even better idea.” Ellie smiles. “Follow me, Sergio.”
“I hear and obey,” I say.
“It’s Mary’s. She let me borrow it tonight,” Ellie explains as she unlocks the door, crawls inside the cab, and invites me to join her.
On the seat between us is a very full picnic basket.
“Hey, Boo Boo! Let’s grab this pic-a-nic basket and run for it before Mr. Ranger gets here!” I say.
It does cross my mind that cracking Yogi Bear jokes would be something that Ed—not Sergio—would do. But Ellie just laughs and starts up the engine.
“Okay, I figure it will take us five minutes to drive to Liberty Park and five minutes to drive back. If we had more time, we could ride the Ferris wheel there. As it is, we’ll have twenty minutes to eat and whatever. Interested?”
“Sim,” I say. “I’m muito interested.”
Especially in the “whatever” part.
Although the park is crowded—it’s always crowded on a summer evening—Ellie immediately finds a place to dock Mary’s truck. Not only that, but we have an excellent view of the pond, which gleams black and silver at twilight.
That is just how incredibly right things go for you when your name happens to be Sergio.
Ellie and I get out of the truck and spread a blanket on the grass. Then she reaches into the picnic basket and produces something on a pretty china plate wrapped in plastic.
“Recognize this, Sergio?”
I squint. It looks like a peeled banana with caramel stuff drizzled all over it.
Ellie’s face falls a little. “Maybe I didn’t get it right. It’s a banana frita for you. Rick showed me how to make it.”
“Of course I know it is a banana frita,” I say. “My grandmother, she made me banana fritas all the time when I was small. I was just too overwhelmed to speak. Obrigado, Ellie. Thank you for this banana frita.”
Ellie smiles broadly. “Rick promised to teach me how to cook all your favorite dishes, Sergio.”
The more I hear about this Senhor Rick, the less I want to meet him.
Ellie, however, sighs happily as she gives me the food she has prepared with her own hands. She watches me eagerly for my reaction.
“This is terrific,” I say over and over, thinking how much Scout would enjoy this meal.
After we finish eating, Ellie leans back on her elbows and looks up at the sky. “It’s beautiful tonight, don’t you think? Look at those shadows over there, leaping across the grass. It makes me think of things…unseen.”
Things unseen. I have no idea what Ellie is talking about, quite frankly. But I agree with her anyway. Wouldn’t you, if you were me?
I do know this. It’s amazing how comfortable I feel right now. If I were still the Dork McIff, I would be asking myself silent desperate questions about sweating: Am I sweating? Is it sweat you can smell or sweat you can see? Or (worst-case scenario) is it sweat you can smell and see at the same time?
If I were still Ed, I would be wondering if I should keep my arms at my sides from the elbows up, in case I had sweat stains, and I would also be wondering if my palms were growing unnaturally moist, like stuff growing in a Petrie dish. Sometimes my palms get so wet, you could use them for sprouting things in science classes, such as beans and bacteria.
But now that I am Sergio from central Brazil, I am not worried. Sergio rarely sweats, and when he does sweat, it is a good manly sweat.
“It’s almost the twenty-first of June,” Ellie is saying. “Midsummer’s eve.”
She watches the leaping shadows with a faraway look. “‘Over hill, over dale / Thorough bush, thorough brier / Over park, over pale / Thorough flood, thorough fire / I do wander everywhere, / Swifter than the moon’s sphere.’”
“Come again?” I say.
She laughs a silvery laugh.
“It’s one of the fairy speeches in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Ellie sighs happily.
I digest the fact that I’m sitting in a park on a blanket with a beautiful girl who memorizes Shakespeare for fun.
A dragonfly flits by.
“I used to pretend that dragonflies were fairies when I was a little girl.” Ellie giggles. “You probably think I’m a total geek now.”
“A geek? You? Never.”
“Do you like Shakespeare too?” she asks me hesitantly.
“DO I LIKE SHAKESPEARE?” I say. “Sim! I love Senhor Shakespeare!”
Ellie grows radiant beyond words. “I knew it! Which play is your favorite, Sergio?”
Very fortunately for me, Mrs. Stensrud, my sophomore English teacher, made us listen to a recording of Macbeth in class. Also, I read most of the Spark Notes.
“Macbeth,” I say. And then, for Ellie’s listening enjoyment, I toss off a line. “Out, out damn spot!”
“Lady Macbeth.” Ellie nods knowingly, then shivers at the thought of that wicked woman caught up in her own deceit, just like an Orc caught in Shelob’s web.
Sounds of the growing night wash over us. Ellie reaches for the picnic basket, and without thinking I take her hand.
If I were Ed, I would have pounced on her hand. Clumsily. Like a slobbering overeager puppy pouncing upon a bedroom slipper. Yes, master! Look at me, master! I have your bedroom slipper now, master! Watch me chew it up and shred it into tiny useless bits because I adore you so, master!
But now that I am Sergio, I confidently take Ellie’s slim white hand and hold it lightly in my own.
My palms, in case you’re interested, are dry. Like the desert. Where Sergio has ridden camels with the sons of many sheiks.
Ellie looks at me. “I just knew there had to be somebody else like—” She stops as though her own words have taken her by surprise. “Somebody exactly like you, Sergio.”
And then she kisses me and I almost stop breathing. But not quite, because I definitely kiss her back.
In public.
On a blanket.
In a park.
Beneath a white, rising moon.
Scout doesn’t look at me when I return, but Ali actually slides his sunglasses down his nose and fixes me with a stare as I sail through the door.
“What are you grinning about?” he asks.
“I’m grinning because I am just so very happy to be a Reel Life employee, sir!” I say, wondering where I’d suddenly found the courage to smart off in front of Ali. “In fact, I’m so happy to be a Reel Life employee that I feel like doing a little dance to the happiness gods, right here in the middle of your store!”
And I do. Sort of. I sing, sort of, too. “‘Do a little dance! Make a little love! Get down tonight! Whoa! Get down tonight!’”
On the “whoa” part I actually drop to my knees and slide across the floor. Or I would if it weren’t for the carpet. As it is, I drop to my knees and stay there.
Ignoring me completely, Scout picks up a load of DVDs for shelving purposes and walks to the back of the store. Ali, however, stares at me for a few seconds before coolly sliding the sunglasses back up his nose. Then the most amazing thing happens. A smile breaks out on Ali’s face. He gives a long, low chuckle.
“Not bad, McIff,” he says.
I spring to my feet like an actor who’s just received an Oscar. “Does this mean you like me, Ali? That you really, really like me?”
“Cut the Sally Field crap,” he says. “Follow me. I want to show you something.”
I follow Ali to the back office. He reaches into his desk and pulls out a deck of cards. He shuffles it quick and clean like a Vegas dealer, then holds it in front of me.
“Pick a card. Any card,” he says.
I pull one out from the middle of the deck.
“Now look at it,” Ali commands.
Queen of hearts.
“Put it back.”
I put it back. Ali reshuffles the deck with lightning fingers, then pulls out a card. He shows it to me.
“Yours?”
Awed and amazed, I nod.
“Queen of hearts, baby,” Ali says.<
br />
“How’d you do that? That was great!”
He dismisses me with a grin.
“Are you mad at me or something?” I ask Scout as we leave the store after closing up. I always walk her to her car even though she says it’s not required—she can take care of herself.
Scout shakes her head no.
Call me psychic, but I’m not convinced.
“You’ve been avoiding me tonight.” I persist.
“I have not.”
“Remember that time I called your name, and you turned your back on me? That pretty much looked like avoidance to me.”
Scout gets ready to respond, but a horn blares and makes us both jump.
“Scout! Sergio!” Ellie is waving from the passenger window of Aunt Mary’s truck. The driver is another very beautiful girl who looks exactly like Ellie, only a few years older. She waves too. Only it’s one of those tight constipated little waves that queens in carriages give to peasants shortly before running them over.
FOOTMAN:
I regret to inform Your Majesty that we just ran over another peasant.
QUEEN:
Fortunately for us there are so many more where that one came from…
“It’s Ellie,” I say to Scout. “Let’s go over and say hello.”
The memory of Ellie’s sweet kisses lingers on my lips. Like honey, except not sticky.
“These are the friends I was telling you about, Mary,” Ellie says as we approach. “This is Scout and this is Sergio. Scout and Sergio, this is Mary, my mother’s baby sister. She’s the one I’m living with this summer.”
Aunt Mary smiles warmly at Scout, who starts to thaw like a Popsicle right there on the spot.
“Aunt?” I say in the mocha-smooth tones Sergio would use. “You don’t look old enough to be an aunt.”
Is it just my imagination, or does Mary’s smile grow chilly as she turns her attention to me.
“So,” she says, “you’re the famous Sergio.”
“Sim,” I say. I almost bow but decide that would be over the top.
“What did Ellie tell me your last name is?”
