Lovestruck Summer

by Melissa Walker

  219 fi lm major, so he knows a ton about movies—his favorites are those Armageddon ones, like old stuff from the seventies that I’ve never really seen. He’s planning a full marathon of infl uen- tial sci-fi for us this weekend.”“Sounds fascinating,”I say sarcastically. “Shut up!”Raina laughs. “Okay, so he’s a little nerdy, maybe not as ideal as Mr. Perfect Sebastian.”“Well, we can’t all have the Supreme this summer,”I say. “I kind of think he is my Supreme,”says Raina, and I can hear the giddiness in her voice. “At least, for right now. I’m serious, Quinn—I couldn’t be happier with anyone.”“Really?”I ask. “You’re falling hard for a sci-fi geek?”“Yeah,”she says. “I guess I am.”“Okay, so tell me what else you love,”I say. Raina answers without hesitation. “He holds the popper doors open for me when I’m scooping popcorn, and he always asks me how my day’s going. He recommends books to me because he noticed I’m a big library girl. Oh, and he does this really cute thing where he’ll

  220 wait for me to close at night, even though his shift sometimes ends a couple of hours earlier. He just sits in the lobby reading a paperback until I’m done.”I think about how, when Sebastian isn’t spending the night, he doesn’t even wait in the parking lot to see that I get in the door safely. He’s slept over four times now, but he’s never once stayed for breakfast. And he’s rude to waiters. “Quinn?”asks Raina. “Are you there?”“Yeah,”I say. “Sorry. Um, Penny’s calling me, so I’d better go.”“Okay,”she says. “I’ll upload a picture of Eddie tonight, so check my profi le later.”“Cool,”I say. “Bye.”When I hang up, I don’t want to feel jealous of my friend, but I do. How did she get the guy, while I ended up with someone who looked like the guy?

  221 Chapter 20 On Friday afternoon, I’m spread out at the dining room table, organizing demos I took home from Amalgam. I’ve had one partic- ularly angsty band, the Gas Station Horrors, playing on repeat as I ponder my mess of a love life. Penny comes in carrying a bunch of poster board and a bag full of art supplies. “It’s time to make signs for Rush!”she says excitedly. Then she notices the drawn blinds and the somber tunes. “Quinn,”she says, “the brooding thing is getting old. Between you and Russ I can’t deal. Can’t we listen to something upbeat?”“What do you mean?”I ask. “Is he upset about something?”

  222 “I’m not getting in the middle of this,”says Penny. “Middle of what?”I ask, stopping the Gas Station Horrors in the middle of a dark song called “Pain at the Pump.”“Are you some sort of vampire?”asks Penny, ignoring my question. I’m too emotionally exhausted to argue as she opens the blinds and lets in the way-bright sun. Then she starts laying art supplies out on the table, pushing my demos to the side. “Dude!”I say. “I’m working here.”“Don’t you want to help me make signs?”she asks. “If you don’t, there will be hearts and stars all over these posters. Maybe you can create something that will draw in a different crowd this year?”“Do you want a different crowd, Penny?”I ask a little snottily. “I thought Tri-Pi was all about tradition and sameness. As in, perky smiles, glossy hair, and possibly fake boobs.”She frowns at me. “You really think that’s all there is to me, don’t you?”she asks. “What?”I ask.

  223 “I’m the sorority girl who is completely one- dimensional,”she says. “I was half kidding,”I say. “Yeah . . . half,”says Penny, looking back down at her blank board. “You know, I think Russ was right about you.”“What do you mean?”I ask, defenses up immediately. Can I spend one second not thinking about him? “He told me when you fi rst got here that he thought you wouldn’t hang out with us much because you’d be afraid of how it looked,”she says. “Why would he say that?”I ask. “I guess he had a hunch after our fi rst night at Shady Grove,”she says. “You can be a little prickly sometimes, Quinn.”“Was that because I said I didn’t like coun- try music?”I ask. “Well, soooorry.”But even as my instinct is to react like this—defensively—it doesn’t feel right. Penny’s not trying to insult me, she’s trying to tell me something. And I recognize that she’s not all wrong, that I do have my own preconceptions about sorority girls and boys in big buckles. Not to mention fl oppy-haired DJs.

  224 Penny frowns. She starts to make glue swirls on her poster board, presumably for glitter to stick to later. I think back to the time I’ve spent with Chrissy, who completely surprised me with her roller derby action, and who is so genuinely herself in a way that most people aren’t. I remem- ber how excited Penny was when she fi rst picked me up at the airport. Okay, her excitement scared me a little (as did her bright white teeth), but it was real. And then I think about how eager my cousin was to console me after Russ left me cold. I’m acting like an ass. “Penny,”I say, “I’m sorry.”“You are?”she asks, pausing in midair with a glitter shaker in her hand. “I am,”I say. “Why are you sorry?”she asks, being coy. She wants me to acknowledge some wrongs. “Well . . .”I say, not really wanting to admit to specifi cs. “I guess I have kind of been assum- ing things about you.”Penny doesn’t look up from her glitter sprink- ling, but she nods in agreement. “Like I immediately thought you would be annoying and superfi cial and have bad taste in

  225 music,”I say. “I pretty much assessed that in the fi rst second of seeing you again after two years.”“Hey!”shouts Penny, shaking the blue glit- ter at me. I watch it sparkle softly in the air, fl oating onto the table. “I’m not saying I was right,”I say. “Well, except for the music part. Your CDs are awful!”Penny looks up at me and laughs. I know I could stop there—that I’m back in my cousin’s good graces—but I want to earn that position, so I say what’s at the heart of the thing I’ve been dancing around. “I haven’t given you much of a chance to show me who you really are. Penny, you are not a stereotype.”“I’m not?”she asks. “You have a cross-dressing dog!”I say. “If that isn’t defying the norm, I don’t know what is.”“I’m just trying to keep Austin weird,”Penny says, reciting the slogan that’s on every other bumper sticker around this town. She smiles at me. “You’re doing it,”I say, “in the best pos- sible way.”

  226 “Thanks, Quinn.”Penny picks up a bright purple marker and starts drawing the Tri-Pi let- ters. Then she pauses. “I think you being here makes Austin even weirder. And I know you secretly like The Bachelor and are completely in love with Russ.”She laughs like she’s kind of kidding as she looks up at me. I smile at my cousin, and then I feel a tear run down my cheek. It’s like when it rains but the sun’s still out—completely confusing. I stare hard at the blue glitter, trying to hold in the tears I’ve been fi ghting for days now. “What is it?”asks Penny, reaching out to give me a hug. And with her arms around me, warm and caring, I let the fl oodgates go. I start rambling as I snot on her shoulder. “Sorry,”I say, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “It’s okay,”says Penny. She stands up and hands me a tissue from the kitchen island. “Is this because of that Sebastian guy?”she asks. “Sort of,”I say.

  227 “Did he take advantage of you?”she asks. “Because if he did I will kick his butt from here to Pluto!”She’s holding her glue in the air and waving it around like a samurai sword. “No, no,”I say. “Did you see us the other morn- ing? Did it look like he was taking advantage?”“It looked cute,”she says, slowing down her glue weaponry display. “You guys were, like, ensnared.”“We were tangled,”I say. “And it was just what I wanted. It’s like this dream for me because I have the perfect summer fl ing right in front of me.”“Then why are you crying?”asks Penny. “I don’t know,”I say. I’m lying, but I’m also not ready to say it out loud. I do know what’s making me feel full of regret. And he lives next door. After an hour helping Penny with the Rush signs, which I insist need to have some skull stickers and a black outline around the letters’edges, if only to cut the sweetness of Penny’s bright pink bubble-heart drawings, I head upstairs and dial Raina.

  228 “Hey,”I say. “Hey!”she says. “Did you get on Facebook to see Eddie yet? What do you think?”“I haven’t been on in a few days,”I say. “I just called to apologize.”“Oh,”s
ays Raina. “Why?”“I lied when I said I had to go the other day,”I say. “I was feeling this major rush of jealousy.”“Really?”says Raina, sounding fully sur- prised. “Yeah,”I say. “And I know why. It’s because you have the guts to be with a guy you like, even though he’s kind of a dork and not what you thought was your Supreme.”“I never had a Supreme, Quinn,”says Raina. “That was you, setting your expectations high as always.”“What?”I ask. “Do I do that?”“Of course!”says Raina. “Remember that time in fi rst grade when you dressed up as a punk? Your mom tried to get you to just put your hair back in a ponytail but you pitched a fi t until she fi gured out how to get it into a per- fectly straight, pointy mohawk?”“Well, spiky hair is pretty much the make-

  229 or-break for that costume,”I say, defending my six-year-old self. Raina laughs. “Yeah, but at the end of the day, did anyone really care whether your hair looked perfect?”“It’s nice if things look perfect,”I say. “And Sebastian does,”says Raina. “So what’s the issue?”“Russ,”I say, admitting it out loud. “The cowboy neighbor?!”Raina screams. “Is that dumb frat boy still bothering you?”“Yeah,”I say softly, looking out the window of Miss Tiara’s bedroom. Part of me wants to shout at Raina and tell her she sounds really judg- mental and narrow-minded. That maybe Russ does have something to offer, and just because he looks all J.Crew catalog doesn’t mean he’s an empty-minded goon. “Hey,”she says, sounding serious. “Are you upset?”“I don’t know,”I say. “I guess I think what you just said about Russ isn’t really fair. I mean, he helped me buy a car, he makes really good burgers, and he’s trying to show me Austin and new music.”

  230 “Whoa—that’s the fi rst time I’ve heard you say something nice about him,”says Raina. “You do realize that I’ve never met him. I’m totally going off of what you’ve told me.”“And what I’ve told you is that he’s a loser frat boy?”I ask. “Uh, in short, yeah,”she says. I’m silent as Miss Tiara walks into the room and gives me a cocked-head look like, What are you doing in my space? I shoo her out and shut the door. Raina has a point: I have been completely writing Russ off, not to mention talking badly about him. “I’m sorry,”I say. “I’m just really confused.”“It’s okay,”she says. “But you kind of need to decide who you like. Maybe you shouldn’t idealize anyone, Quinn. Follow your instincts. Go for who you really want.”I stare out the window into the parking lot. “But Sebastian is—”I start. “He’s what you thought you wanted,”she interrupts. Raina’s right. And I think maybe I’ve been wrong all along.

  231 Chapter 21 I run downstairs and don’t even stop to tell Penny where I’m going before I open the sliding glass doors and rush over to Russ and Chrissy’s patio. Chrissy’s out by the picnic table, cleaning her roller skates. “Is Russ home?”I ask. “No,”she says, not looking up. “Why?”“I need to talk to him,”I say. She sighs heavily. “What?”I ask. She squints in the sunlight as she gives me a sideways look. “Quinn, you kinda broke him,”she says. I sink down on the picnic bench across from her. “Really?”I bite my lip. “He was, like, devastated when Katie left,”

  232 says Chrissy, looking back down at the skate she’s polishing. “So I heard,”I say. “Yeah, well, he got over it really quickly when he saw you,”she says. “It was like someone stuffed a lightning bolt up his butt. The derby girls wanted me to recruit him for our team with the way he was racing around, supercharged.”She looks at me and then smiles, and I can’t help but grin. “But you went for that DJ,”she says, smile fading as she refocuses on one particularly stub- born dirt streak near the top of her left skate. “I didn’t think—”I start. But I realize I’m about to say I didn’t think Russ liked me, and that’s not the truth. I guess I didn’t think I could like him, and when I picture his face with a wide, mocking grin, I can’t even remember why. The fi rst time we met I felt electrifi ed. With Sebastian, I was excited because he fi t the part. But with Russ, I felt a jolt just because of him, of who he was. “Chrissy, I know I don’t deserve your approval,”I say. And then I think of a way to appeal to her in her own language. “But I think

  233 Russ and I might be like Mark Darcy and Bridget in Bridget Jones’s Diary, and all I have to do is just fi nally tell him that I feel the same way, and then we’ll be together and live happily ever after.”I can’t believe I just cast myself as Bridget Jones. She looks up at me, and stares hard. Like she’s trying to fi gure out who I am—really. And that makes two of us. But I also see her eyes start to sparkle slightly. And I know she’s giving in. “He’s working on the truck,”she says. “You can fi nd him out at Albie’s.”“Thank you!”I say, rushing around the table to give her a squeeze. Then I’m racing back through Penny’s condo, grabbing my keys, and, soon, cranking up the Festiva. As I back out of my spot, I reach down absentmindedly to tune the radio, pressing the button to seek through the dial and wishing I hadn’t destroyed Russ’s mix. I drive confi dently for the fi rst ten minutes, through town and out into the fl at plains, which look familiar in their middle-of-nowhere-ness. But after half an hour without hitting Albie’s, I

  234 think I might be lost. And I haven’t seen a gas station or anywhere I can ask for directions in about twenty miles. I pull the car over to the side of the road and open the glove compartment, hoping against hope that Albie places some magical “free gift with purchase”map in the cars he sells, because I know I sure as H didn’t buy one. I lean over and reach in, but I don’t fi nd anything that feels like a map. What I’m touch- ing is a cassette case. I pull it out and turn it over in my hand. It’s Russ’s mix. The one I destroyed. The one I smashed and de-taped and completely annihilated. I look over the song list, and it’s the exact same. But when I peek at the narrow edge of the case to read the title, I see that there’s some- thing different. INDIE + COUNTRY, THE RE-MIX, it reads. It’s a replacement tape. But how did it get in here? I hear a knock on my window and I jump. I turn and see Russ, smirking. I smile back. I’ve never been so happy to see that pair of mock- ing dimples.

  235 He moves out of the way and I open my door. When I shut it and turn around to face him, I realize I have no idea what I want to say. “You lost, Quinn?”he asks. And the way he says it—Quinn—makes me nervous. Like something else is lost, not just me. “I was trying to fi nd Albie’s,”I say. “I guess I took a wrong turn.”“Or didn’t take the right turn,”he says, turning to point down the road. “You missed it about fi ve miles back.”“Oh,”I say, feeling silly. “Is there trouble with the Festiva?”asks Russ. “I’m actually heading out this way to pick up a part for the truck right now, but I can check under your hood if your Sebastian isn’t handy with cars.”“No,”I say. “I was looking for you, actually.”“For me?”he says. “What for?”And here it is: My chance to say what I couldn’t in the kitchen the other day because I was still tangled up in Sebastian, and I was afraid. I’ll tell him that I’m glad I’m the reason he’s not with Katie, that I love the things he’s shown me in Austin. That I can’t get his songs

  236 out of my head. But I’m having trouble voicing the specifi cs, so I just say, “I’m ready.”Russ tilts his head and looks at me funny. “Ready for what?”“Ready to go out with you,”I say. And he starts to laugh. At fi rst, it’s a quiet chuckle, but it grows into a giant hooting sound, and it’s infuriating. I kick the dust at our feet, and a cloud rises up to interrupt his guffaw-fest. “What is so funny?”I ask. He’s holding his stomach, but he gets him- self under control for a second. “The fact that you think it would be that easy,”he says. “You had your shot, Miss Priscilla. This bird has fl own.”I cross my arms across my chest. “Then why did you leave this replacement mix in my car?”I ask. “Why did you want me to have it so badly that you’d record it again?”“I can’t have you going back to Carolina uneducated,”he says. “You need that music, honey. And you need to open your mind. More

  237 than anyone I’ve ever met.”He turns then, and walks back to his truck. He gets in and drives up next to where I’m lean- ing on the Festiva, a little dumbstruck.
“So your car’s running fi ne?”he asks. I nod, frowning and refusing to look at his face. “See you around then, ’Cilla,”he says, driv- ing off in a big roar and a mini-cyclone of dust. I get back into the Festiva and stew for a minute before starting up the engine to turn and go home. Who the eff does he think he is? I have a date with Sebastian tomorrow night, and I might as well keep it. I guess any kind of fl ing is better than none. I feel a little bit empty as I drive home, though, and I don’t let myself pop in Russ’s mix until I’m about halfway there and can’t resist any longer.

  238 Chapter 22 The next evening, I hear a honk outside—Se- bastian’s signature call. He can’t even walk up to the door, I think. I step outside and climb on the back of his Vespa, snapping my helmet in place. As we zoom away, I turn back, and I see Russ stand- ing in front of his condo with an arm leaning on the door frame. He watches us go, and I give him a tiny wave. I’m not even sure he notices it, let alone the feeling behind it. I wish . . . but I try to block that thought out of my mind. We go to this place called the San José. It’s a hotel, but there’s an outdoor patio where you can sit next to a small swimming pool and order food. The trees provide a pretty, dappled shade, and the people here all look really stylish.