by Kasie West
“It is a pretty cool poster,” she admitted. “But the paint is what I was talking about. So much paint.”
I had painted over the bottom half of the orange backdrop from before, and it was now various shades of blue, melding together to create the effect of movement. Then I had painted encouraging words over the top.
I snatched the angled brush out of her hand. “A painter has to paint, Mom.”
She went to the window and opened it. “I thought we talked about airflow when you’re painting. You need better ventilation in here. The fumes aren’t good for your lungs.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“That’s because you’ve desensitized yourself to them.”
“Mom, painters have been painting for centuries without good ventilation.”
“And they probably all got lung cancer.”
It was useless to argue with her sometimes. “Okay, I’ll open windows. But then what if I get hypothermia?”
She smacked my back playfully, then looked at her watch. “I thought the race started at two.”
“It does. Wait. What time is it?”
“One forty-five.”
“What? Crap.” I added the final black words under what I’d already written and yanked the board off the easel. “I can take the car, right? You don’t have big plans for this afternoon?”
She gave me a little shove instead of responding to my sarcasm. “Text me right when you get there. And when you’re leaving.”
“How about I text you if there’s an emergency.”
She leveled a stare at me.
“Fine, I’ll text you.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll clean up when I get home,” I called over my shoulder as I rushed for the door.
“Sunscreen!” she yelled after me.
I wheeled back around, made a pit stop in the kitchen at our drawer of sunscreen, grabbed one of the twenty bottles there, and left.
I carefully placed the poster flat in the trunk, hoping that the heat from the day would help it dry on the way over, then climbed into the car.
I was still wearing my painting shirt, a long-sleeved plaid button-down covered in old splatters of every color, over a tank top and shorts. I wiped my hands on the shirt and started the car. Hopefully Cooper’s race wasn’t the first one.
I cheered wildly from my spot toward the finish line. I had arrived just as he started, so I hadn’t had time to find his parents or sister, but I was sure they were there somewhere. I held my sign up nice and high. Cooper wore a bright-green helmet, and he took the dunes at breakneck speed. I always worried about him when he raced, but he always told me that he was born on the dunes so I had no need to worry. To which I would always reply, gross, and no you weren’t. But I knew what he meant—he’d been riding since he was little. And it showed. He won nearly every race, and this one was no different.
After he crossed the finish line in first place, he stood up and pumped his fist in the air. I wove my way through the watching crowd, mostly made up of tourists, to his trailer, where he’d load up the quad. Cooper and his family were already there when I arrived.
Cooper’s helmet was tucked under his arm, and when he saw me, his smile widened. “Abby! Over here!”
I nodded and finished the walk to him. “Hi!”
“Hello, Abby,” his mom said. His dad nodded at me. His sister, Amelia, hugged me. I’d never met a family that looked more similar to one another than Cooper’s. They were all tall and lean and blond.
“Hi, everyone. Great race, Coop.”
Amelia looked at my sign. Cooper was studying my sign now too. He read it out loud: “‘Cooper is number one.’ Yes, I am.”
I pointed to the part he was ignoring. The smaller words inside a pair of parentheses. “Or number two.”
He shoved my arm. “But I wasn’t.”
“I like to come prepared.”
“You also like to come covered in paint, I see.”
I looked at my outfit to make sure I had, in fact, taken off my paint shirt and left it in the car. “Do I have paint on my face?”
“Yes, you do.” He ran a finger down my right temple, then my left cheek, sending tingles down my arms. I shook them out.
“Cutting it close today?” he asked.
“I made it,” I said, wiping at my face. “I saw your whole race and brought a sign.”
His dad patted his back. “You did so good today, son.” Cooper’s parents hadn’t always been so supportive of his racing, but when they realized how much he loved it, they started coming to more events.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Should we get your quad loaded up on the trailer?”
“Sure.” He gave me a nod and patted the seat. “Come on, Abby, you want to go for a ride?”
“Nope, I refuse to get on that death trap.”
His sister laughed. “I’ve ridden it.”
“You must trust your brother more than I do.”
In a loud whisper behind his hand, Cooper said, “Abby is a huge wimp.”
“I will ignore that comment and take you out for a bacon burger to celebrate your win,” I said.
“My parents are taking me out to celebrate this time, but come with us. That’s okay, right, Mom?” he asked.
His mom smiled, but I couldn’t tell if it was real. “Yes, of course.”
It wasn’t that I thought Cooper’s parents hated me. In fact, much like him, they liked me as a friend. I knew they were happy we weren’t a couple, though. They wanted something different for Cooper—better. Not the girl with the hand-painted signs, weird mom, and always-gone dad. Cooper had never said that’s how his parents felt, but I could see it in the way they reacted to stories about my life, about my art, about my mom.
“Okay,” I said, not sure if I should accept the invitation, but wanting to celebrate with him.
“We’ll be at Cheesecake Factory at five,” his mom said. “That will give us all plenty of time to go home and clean up.”
She meant that would give me plenty of time. But she was right. I didn’t need to show up at a restaurant with paint face. “Yes, okay . . . I’ll see you all there then.” I walked away, but Cooper caught up with me.
“What?” he asked.
“What?”
“You have your sad face on. What happened?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” He jogged back toward his family.
“Don’t be a baby,” I called after him.
“But being a baby is my favorite.”
I knew I’d have to tell him what Mr. Wallace had really said eventually, but right after he won a race didn’t seem like the right time. Maybe after dinner.
FIVE
Or maybe I’d never tell Cooper about Mr. Wallace. The denial thing was working out okay too.
I had put on my nicest sundress, pulled my bleached-by-the-sun hair into a loose braid, and put on makeup, even though I rarely wore more than a swipe of mascara in the summer. It was too hot for more than that.
Cooper’s mom kissed my cheek when I arrived at the table, and his sister patted the empty chair in between her and Cooper.
“I love it when you dress up for my parents,” Cooper whispered when I sat down.
“Shut up,” I mumbled back.
Cooper wore shorts and a faded blue T-shirt that made his eyes look even bluer. His skin was bronzed to a perfect tan from all his time outside. His blond hair, still slightly damp from his recent shower, curled up on the ends. Yes, he was still as adorable as ever. I scolded myself for noticing, then opened my menu and looked over the options.
I was so busy trying to distract myself from Cooper’s cuteness by burying myself in my menu that I didn’t notice someone was standing over me until I heard a “Hey, Abby.”
I looked up and saw a guy I recognized from school—Elliot Garcia. “Hi. I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Just for the summer,” he said.
�
�Awesome.”
“Hi,” Cooper said to Elliot. “Why don’t I know you?”
I punched his shoulder. “You don’t know everyone in the world.”
“You know what I mean,” he said. I did. Cooper and I knew the same people, and they knew us. It was Cooper, Abby, Justin, and Rachel. Or Rachel, Cooper, Justin, and Abby. Whatever the order, usually people didn’t know one of us without knowing the others. But we did have separate classes, so occasionally, like with Elliot, I knew people they didn’t and vice versa.
“I know of you,” Elliot said. “You’re Cooper Wells. We’ve just never met before.”
“Now we have,” Cooper said.
I analyzed the two of them as they spoke. Elliot was cute, but in the nearly exact opposite way as Cooper. Where Cooper’s eyes were blue, Elliot’s were brown. Cooper’s hair blond, Elliot’s curls were nearly black. Cooper was tall and muscular, Elliot was lean and an average height. The differences were so noticeable seeing them side by side like this.
“I think we’re ready to order,” Mr. Wells said, pulling my attention back to the moment.
Elliot straightened up. “Oh, your waiter will be right here. I’m just a host. I’ll grab you some waters.” He smiled at me. “I’ll be right back.”
As he walked away, Cooper said, “You should take Abby out.”
I gasped.
Elliot turned back. “What?”
“Nothing. Ignore him,” I said. Cooper fancied himself a matchmaker at times. He was not good at it.
Once Elliot left the table I shot Cooper my meanest look.
“Sorry,” he said. “But that guy has a crush on you. It was obvious. I was trying to help him out.”
“You can never just let me do my own flirting, can you?”
“Were you going to flirt? Because it was looking pretty questionable.”
I wasn’t going to flirt. I had no interest in Elliot or any other guy right now. I had just gotten horrible news about my art and my heart still picked up speed when Cooper smiled at me. I was not in the proper emotional place to be dating.
I ignored Cooper’s super-sarcastic question by asking a question of my own. “Have you heard from Justin?”
He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of a halfway-finished stone wall. “Did he send you this text?”
“No. Why is he not sending me texts?” I read the words he had sent with the picture. Working on a schoolhouse for the local children. I could picture Justin there, speaking Spanish, the language he spoke all the time at home, and playing with the kids.
I pulled out my own phone and sent a text to Justin. Where are my update pics, punk?
“Ah. I’m sure that will inspire immediate obedience,” Cooper said, reading over my shoulder.
“I’ll be equally happy with obedience or guilt.”
Cooper chuckled.
Elliot came back with our waters, followed by the waiter, who took our orders.
“How is your art going?” Mr. Wells asked from across the table as soon as the waiter left.
“It’s good.”
“Will you paint something for me?” Cooper’s sister asked.
“Of course,” I said at the same time his mom said, “No, that’s not polite to ask, Amelia.”
“Why not?” Amelia asked.
“Because Abby doesn’t have time for that.”
“It’s true, Amelia,” Cooper said, reaching behind me to tug on his sister’s hair. “Abby wants to paint five brand-new pieces for an art show she’s going to be a part of in six weeks.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“Yes, that’s what you said to me. You said none of the pieces you already had were good enough.”
“They aren’t,” I said. “Can we not talk about this right now?”
“I completely disagree. They’re amazing. But whatever, you’re stubborn, so you’ll paint new ones.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“So are you going to use some you already painted? Which ones?”
“No.”
Now he was confused. I could tell. “You can’t both paint and not paint,” he said.
“There is no show.”
“He canceled it?”
“For me. There is no show for me.”
“I thought he was considering. He’ll say yes.”
“He said no.”
“Oh.” His smile immediately slid off his face.
“Yeah. But whatever, it’s not a big deal. I’ll find another show.” I could feel my cheeks go hot and I wanted to move on as fast as possible. I pulled my water glass close and took a long drink.
His parents looked at each other and then back at me. One of them was about to ask a follow-up question to clarify what I meant. Or say something like, but it is a big deal, or but your work should be in the show. His dad even cleared his throat, getting ready for whatever was coming next. I knew if he said one more word about it I’d break down in tears before the sentence was through. The tears were already threatening, clinging to the backs of my eyes, causing them to sting.
That’s when Cooper said, “You’re right, it’s not a big deal.” He squeezed my knee once, under the table, then dropped his hand. “Tell me I wasn’t awesome today out there on the dunes?”
His sister took the bait first, probably realizing as much as Cooper did that I needed a subject change. “You caught air on that back jump.”
His parents were a little slower to let go, his mom meeting my eyes and holding them before turning her attention to Cooper. “Yes, we are here to celebrate your amazing race. Let’s celebrate.”
By the time the waiter came back with our food, everyone had moved way past my failure and was well into celebrating Cooper’s success. I was grateful Cooper knew that was exactly what I needed.
“Abby’s going to bring me home,” Cooper said at the end of dinner, when the bill was paid and we’d all stood to leave.
“I am?” I asked. I really just wanted to go home and crawl into bed. I’d managed to push the thoughts of Mr. Wallace and the art show to the back of my mind (or at least the middle of it) for the last couple of days, but admitting the truth out loud had brought them flying back. What he’d said, and what, through all my anger and denial, I knew I believed.
“Yes, you are.”
“Be back by curfew,” his dad said, then took his wife by one hand and his daughter by the other and headed out of the restaurant.
“Cooper, I’m tired. Can we just talk tomorrow?” I asked when they were halfway to the door.
“Nope. You have to talk now. I can tell it’s bothering you. Come on.” He led the way toward the exit.
“Of course it’s bothering me, but I’m fine. I’ll get over it. Let’s get cheesecake instead.” I stopped at the lit glass case and surveyed all the beautifully displayed cake.
Cooper stopped beside me. “It looks like they don’t have white chocolate raspberry.”
“Maybe I want to try a new one.”
“You never try something different. Once you find the best, that’s all you ever want.”
“So true, Cooper, so true.”
He gave me a sideways glance, like he thought I was talking about something other than cheesecake. I was.
He shook his head with a breathy laugh, grabbed hold of my hand, and led me outside. His hand was warm and slightly callused, and I always thought it fit perfectly in mine. My car was parked in front of the restaurant, but he walked past it and toward the pier. He must’ve realized I was going to follow him without force, because he let go of my hand, much to my disappointment.
After a block and a half he said, “I got something for you.”
“You did? What?” Without my permission, my heartbeat sped up.
He pulled a white napkin out of his pocket and handed it to me. There was a phone number written on it. I swallowed my disappointment.
“I already have your number,” I said.
“Ha-ha. That is Elliot’s number. You’re welco
me.”
“You still think you’re some sort of matchmaker?”
“I’m an excellent matchmaker.”
“Elliot gave me his number six months ago, but thanks anyway.” I knew Elliot had been interested back then. I’d kind of blown him off, exchanging a few texts but nothing more. I shoved the napkin back into Cooper’s pocket, then walked ahead of him. The planks on the pier were warped and I had to slow down once I got there so I didn’t trip.
Cooper caught up. “Did you ever call him?”
“We texted a little. I’m not interested, Cooper.”
“Did you ever tell me about this?”
“I’m sure I did.”
“Huh,” he said.
When we reached the end of the pier, I leaned against the wood railing and looked out into the water. At first glance, the ocean appeared black at night, but between the skyline and the shoreline there were so many variations of color and movement that it always made me itch for a paintbrush.
“Talk to me, Abigail. I hate it when you get inside your head. What happened? You said Mr. Wallace was considering you. What did he really say?”
“That I have no heart.”
“He said you were an android?”
I draped my arms on top of the railing and laid my forehead on them with a moan. The smell of salt and fish and seaweed overtook me.
Cooper rubbed my back. “He said you have no heart? What does that even mean?”
“He said I have no depth. That my paintings are basically one-dimensional. They don’t make him feel anything.”
“Oh. So he’s an android. Got it.”
I buried my head deeper in my arms.
“But seriously, he obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
But doesn’t he? I wanted to say. You feel the same way. You’re missing that piece when you look at me too. The piece that makes you feel something.
I turned my head sideways and looked at Cooper. “I have an agoraphobic mom and a war-zone dad.” And I couldn’t forget the unrequited-love thing I had going on. “How much deeper can a person get?”
“Not much.” Cooper chuckled, a sound that made my heart thump hard in my chest.
I groaned again and reburied my head. Several waves crashed against the supports below before he spoke.
“Your mom isn’t agoraphobic.”
