Beige (12 page)

Garth skates up to me, giving me a big dumb wave. As he approaches, he jumps off his board. He’s wearing his helmet. He doesn’t take it off. Secretly, I’m glad.

“I was kind of worried that you wouldn’t show,” Garth says.

“I had no plans today,” I say. I play it as though I
always
have plans. I don’t say I don’t have any plans these days. Besides babysitting, my calendar is totally free, which is why I even got here
early.

“Yeah, well, a lot of people are flakes,” Garth says. “They say one thing, but they do another. I always
do
what I
say
I’m going to do.”

“Always?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m a man of my word.”

Boy.
Boy
of his word, I think, as he goes over to the counter and orders a coffee. There is nothing about Garth that I would call
manly.
He spills some of his coffee on the floor on his way back to join me at the table. He makes an angry-with-himself face. I feel bad; he was walking so slowly and smoothly and yet he still couldn’t keep it from spilling.

I bet that is his lot in life, always spilling things, always tripping and falling. He’s done something like that every time I’ve ever seen him.

Garth removes his messenger bag off his shoulder and that’s when I notice it.

He has a
boner.

I want to say,
What is that?
I want to point to his crotch.

“What?” he says.

He follows my eyes. Then he gets two red spots on his cheeks. He’s really embarrassed. “It won’t go down,” he says quietly. “I’m not hot for you or anything. It’s biological.”

“That’s weird,” I say. I want to be the kind of girl who’s not embarrassed. But I am. I really am. It’s just there in front of me. Eye level. I wish he’d sit down so I wouldn’t have to see it anymore.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he says, kind of whispering. He finally quickly takes his seat. “I’m just nervous. If I liked you, or if I were facing bodily harm, I’d lose it.”

“Really? Isn’t it supposed to work the opposite way?” I am whispering now too.

“Yeah. I have no control over it,” he says, shaking his head, trying to shake it off, trying to play it cool, like it doesn’t matter. “I have no game. I’m probably going to be a virgin forever.”

The waitress comes over with the triple-decker sandwich and soup that he’s ordered. For a skinny boy, he’s ordered a lot of food.

“I’ve never seen you around before,” Garth says. “I mean, I have seen The Rat around for like, ever, but I’ve never seen you. What school do you go to?”

“I live in Canada. In Montréal.”

“Do you speak French?”

Garth is the only person so far here who knows that French is a language spoken in Canada.

“Oui,”
I say.

“Cool.
J’apprends à parler le français à l’école,
” he says with not too bad an accent. “I already speak Spanish. I aspire to be trilingual.”

He takes a big bite out of his sandwich, so we’re quiet while he chews with his mouth open.

“So, what’s it like?” he asks when he’s done.

“What?” I say.

“Canada. The Great White North.”

“Different.”

“How?” He smiles.

He pushes his plate of food toward me and indicates that I should eat something. I take an olive and put it in my mouth.

“I dunno. The food tastes different.”

“It does?” he says. I wish he’d shut his mouth when he chews.

“Yeah, it’s got more flavor. Everything here seems, like, bland.”

“Trippy.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“And you have
winter,
” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Do you live in an igloo?”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Hang out with Eskimos?”

“They are called Inuit,” I say.

“I’ve never seen snow fall in my life.”

“Never?” I ask. That just seems incredible to me.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen snow. On the ground. Or on those mountains over there. And I’ve seen it falling in movies, but I’ve never seen it fall in real life.”

“Well, it gets really quiet during a snowstorm. And it kind of warms up a bit. And in Montréal, it’s cold enough that they make, like, homemade ice rinks in the park. But it gets really cold. And dark super early. It’s actually kind of depressing.”

“Sounds nice,” Garth says. “I’m going to put Montréal on my list of places to visit.”

“Yeah, it’s a good place.”

We don’t say anything for a little bit. We just kind of sit there.

I am lost in my thoughts about my fake temporary home. Now that I’m staying for the summer, I might try Garth out as a friend. I can’t pretend to have fun for two months with no one to hang out with, and since I don’t have that many options, I do like Mom says. I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Finally Garth says, “I’ll wear tighter pants if that makes you feel more comfortable.”

That seals the deal. He’s kind of a keeper.

I’m lying by the side of the pool, my feet dangling in the water, looking up at the sunset. The sky is orange. Orange like an explosion. The light that falls on me makes my pale skin look tan.

“They call it the magic hour,” a voice behind me says.

It’s Leo.

He’s standing right above me, his bare feet almost stepping on my hair. His legs are shaved, a bit stubbly. His bathing suit, blue, doesn’t hide much.

I can’t breathe.

“You can swim if you want. I’m a lifeguard.”

Then, with the grace of a dolphin, he bends his legs and springs forward, diving right over me. For one half second he is parallel to my body. My heart beats wildly.

When he hits the water, the drops fly back and splash me.

I sit up and watch his long arms break the water as he does laps.

The sky has changed in a matter of seconds. The streetlights flicker on with a buzz, set off by the dipping sun.

Leo swims up to me. He puts his hands on my calf, then he pretend pulls, like he’s going to pull me in.

“Psych,” he says. His teeth are very white. Does he bleach them? Or does he just have good teeth? Who cares? They are perfect. Perfectly pearly-white teeth set in a perfect smile.

“You coming in?” he asks.

It is still hot despite the fact that the sun has set. The air is still. I slide into the pool. I begin to tread water, but I get tired. I hang on to the edge, to steady myself. Leo has continued with his swimming.

I hang on to the side and watch him. The water makes his arms and legs glisten, slick, wet. He swims half the length of the pool, and on the way back, he glides up my body, presses up against me, his arms around me. Pool water in his mouth, he spits it out on top of my head, slowly, like he’s a fountain, and then laughs a little. His skin is touching mine, his legs sliding over mine.

My heart is pounding.

I think he’s going to kiss me. He leans in close like he’s going to. Instead he says all low-like, “You’re all wet.”

Then he laughs again, and pushes away from me and swims away.

I think I’ll die.

“Beige. Get out of the pool.”

It’s Lake. Suddenly, she’s right there.

Leo eyes us from the other side. He juts his chin out in a greeting to Lake, then he dives under the water and swims almost the entire length of the pool.

I’m shivery. I climb out of the water.

“He’s not your type,” Lake says as she hands me my towel.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

I close the gate to the pool, but I look back over my shoulder at Leo as he continues to swim. His body is dissected into parts by his strokes and by the lines he makes as his arms and legs disappear under the water.

Head. Shoulders. Arms. Back. Bum. Legs.

Beautiful.

Trixie has asked me to come over so I can get acquainted with the apartment before I babysit for Auggie. I don’t even have to come over — she said it was
no big deal
and that she
trusted me,
but I am a good girl and, like Garth, I keep my word. I said I’d come over before I started sitting, so come over I do.

I knock on the door.

Trixie sticks her head out and puts her finger up to her lips.

“Auggie’s finally sleeping.”

The first thing I notice is that she looks great dressed in denim jeans, a 1940s shirt, and her black hair pulled back in a red bandana. She looks like the woman in that World War II poster, Rosie the Riveter. The second thing I notice is the whole place is filled with mermaids. Mermaids of every kind. And blue. The apartment is all kinds of blue.

“I’m kind of obsessed,” Trixie says. “I always liked that story. When I was young.”

“‘The Little Mermaid,’” I say.

“Yeah, but the real version. The sad one,” she says. “Not the Disney one.”

She shows me around, and I can barely hear her because the stuff in her apartment is more interesting than what she’s saying.

“Oh, and you can touch anything or try anything on. I always hated when adults would be freaked out about me touching cool shit. I have a lot of cool shit. If you break anything, well, I’ll be really bummed. But I’ll still have plenty of other cool shit.”

Immediately my hand reaches out and strokes two enormous plumed fans on the wall. I love that I can touch anything. I love that Trixie has no rules.

“Cool, huh?” she says.

I stroke the feathers.

“They’re soft.”

“They were Misty Temple’s. She was a burlesque queen in Los Angeles in the teens. I perform in this modern burlesque show once a month. Wanna see my feather dance?”

I nod.

Trixie removes the feather fans from the wall. She puts them on her couch as she moves some furniture around. She grabs a CD and puts it on, volume low. As the music fills the air, Trixie takes the feathers and opens them up and starts to dance.

“Imagine I’m just wearing pasties and a little G-string,” she says. “Of course, Misty Temple was really nude. But you can’t be nude in the revue that I’m in.”

Her body moves and gyrates as she wiggles in and out of the feather fans, never really showing more than her face. The feathers cover her gracefully. It’s mesmerizing.

“Wow,” I say.

“Want to learn?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you could learn to do the feather dance. I used to do it in the burlesque show. It was my act, but now I’m doing this Cleopatra thing. I like to switch it up. For a while I did a total mermaid thing. Come on, I’ll show you how to hold them.”

She puts them in my hand and begins to show me how to twist my wrist.

“They’re heavy,” I say.

“It takes a lot of strength to make it look effortless,” Trixie says. “That’s the big secret.”

She starts to sway next to me and I copy her as I move my body. I start to sway. She makes her hips, her arms, her shoulders, her legs pop and bend to the accents in the music. Trixie helps me twist and sway, occasionally putting a hand on my body to move me in the right direction.

Do boys like this? Would Leo?

I twist and dance more, kind of imagining eyes are on me. Leo’s eyes. I feel a little tingly.

“That’s it! You’re a natural! Burlesque is all about feeling sexy and being titillating,” Trixie says. “It totally gets your dad hot.”

Ew. Suddenly I don’t want her touching me. I don’t want her twisting with me the way she might twist to get The Rat all hot and bothered. I stop dancing, but the music continues without me.

Auggie’s voice crackles through the baby monitor. Trixie smiles.

“He’s awake!” she says.

I follow her into the other room as she takes him up into her arms.

“Look, Auggie — it’s Katy! She’s your new babysitter! Isn’t she pretty?”

Auggie hides his face in her shoulders. Shy.

“He’s just shy around new people. He just doesn’t want to be away from me.”

Me and Auggie, we feel the same.

I want to tell him. Warn him. That moms might leave for two weeks and stay away for two months.