The Predicteds (9 page)

“We should go,” January says standing up abruptly. “I need to get home.” My stomach begins to settle down.

“See you, guys,” Jesse says, but he's looking at me.

“Bye.” I watch them walk away.

Dizzy leans across the table and lightly slaps my arm. “You bitch!” she says gleefully. “Why didn't you say something? I knew it! You
are
into someone.” She leans back and crosses her arms. “Jesse Kable. I'll admit, he seems like a decent choice, if you don't know him. Smart, great body, hardly talks to anyone, so he's got the whole mystery thing going on. I can see it. I can really see it.” She rubs her fingers on her chin as if she were Dr. Freud himself. “So tell me, Daphne Wright, are you jealous of January Morrison? Because she's, like, Jesse's best friend? There's probably no reason to be jealous. Everybody thinks it's weird, but they swear they are just friends. And only friends. Personally, I think that January has, like, a secret boyfriend or something, because she' s so, like, cryptic whenever she talks to me. After Jesse started going out with January at the beginning of this school year, everyone thought they were, like, the greatest couple. And then he just dumped her.”

Dizzy plays with her giant hoop earrings while she thinks. “Personally,” she takes a breath, “I wouldn't get too excited about him. Jesse's just sort of different. And maybe not in a good way. You know? Before January, he dated this girl who was a couple years older than us. That's who we were talking about at the lake. They went out for, like, forever. Like six months or something. They broke up when she went to college. Texas Tech. Blech.” Dizzy makes a face. “Quiet High people all want to go to the University of Oklahoma. The partying is better.”

“The girl he supposedly stalked?” I remember that Dizzy was the one who cut off this conversation at the lake.

“Well, granted, that's just a rumor. But there was something weird about that whole situation. He was never quite the same after her. He's, like, so…distant sometimes. Like he's better than us or something. You probably don't want to count on this going anywhere. Even though,” she admits, crinkling her eyebrows with approval, “he did seem pretty into you.”

“I don't even know him,” I say. “I've only talked to him a couple of times. We're practically strangers.”

“Doesn't matter,” Dizzy responds. “That's not how romance works. Clearly, you've never been in love.” She says this a bit scornfully.

“And you have?”

“Yes. Well, sort of. A little bit. I was with Josh for a long time before we broke up. Like three months. I felt like we really had this spark, you know?”

I try to imagine Dizzy with red-haired Josh—and his biceps, Lefty and Right-Man—but my mind comes up blank.

“Romance, Daphne, happens because of a little something called chemistry—when two people are drawn together for reasons that nobody can explain. It's like putting magnets together. You can pull them apart, but they still want to be together. Nobody knows why. One of life's great mysteries.”

“Actually,” I correct her, “I think we
do
know why magnets are attracted to each other.”

She waves her hand in front of her face. “Sometimes, two things just can't be apart.”

“So do you believe the rumors? The thing about him stalking that girl?”

She drains her Diet Coke. “I only believe what I see. And I didn't see that.”

We sit quietly for a minute or so until she asks, “Do you think you'll end up calling him, or what?”

“I thought you said I should forget about him.”

“Daphne,” she says in a very serious tone, “it's human nature or something to go for the guy who is bad for you. And you
are
human, aren't you?”

She has a point.

Yeah, we broke up when I graduated. It just wasn't working anymore, and I didn't want to go off to college with a high school boyfriend. That's just dumb. And Jesse is so, like, deep. Intense, I guess you'd say. That got old real fast. It was like there was something inside of him that he was constantly fighting. There was good Jesse, and then there was dark Jesse. I just wanted to have fun, and dark Jesse was a real pain in the ass. And if you want to know the truth, he scared me. I was scared of him.

—Brit Gormley, in an interview with the
Quiet Daily News

At the last minute, I impetuously throw a tan chenille newsboy cap on my head. I've never worn it before, because it seems cooler than I am. I nod at the mirror on my way out of the bathroom to the kitchen where Jesse is talking to Melissa.

“Did Jesse tell you he is planning to get a PhD in psychology?” Melissa asks me with excitement.

“Or go to med school,” he adds.

“How could you keep this secret?” she asks me. “I could give you some tips for getting into a good grad school,” she tells Jesse.

“Melissa, please. I'm sure Jesse doesn't want to talk about grad school right now.”

“It's fine,” he says. “Melissa is really interesting.”

When he turns his back, I roll my eyes at Melissa, and she gives me a look that says,
See? He
does
want to talk to me.

Jesse and I head for the door. “Come back without a head injury,” Melissa calls to me.

“Very funny,” I say.

Jesse and I aren't on a date, exactly. But I'm not sure what it is. Nevertheless, I'm so nervous that my hands are shaking—something that's totally unlike me. For a second, I fear I'm turning into one of those girls named Tiffani who dots the
i
's in her name with hearts and writes
Mrs. Boyfriend's Last Name
all over her notebook. I try to shake it off.

“Where are you two kids off to?” Melissa asks.

“The lake?” Jesse asks me. “Unless you want to hit the game—QH is playing our big rival, the Enid Plainsmen. It's going to be a blowout.”

“I hate baseball,” I say.

“It's actually soccer. Weren't you paying attention at last week's pep rally?”

“Hardly. I hid in the bathroom during the pep rally so I wouldn't be swallowed up by all that cheesy school spirit stuff. The sight of pompoms makes me gag.”

“It's probably genetic—the thought of cheerleading makes me break out in hives,” Melissa adds.

“So you two are saying that I'm not going to win you over with my impressive ability to name every team member of the Dallas Cowboys or my all-state tennis cred?”

“Never,” I say, just as Melissa says, “No,” rather dramatically. Jesse laughs.

“Be home before dawn,” Melissa calls as we walk out the side door. “Look for the
Viola sagittata.
They are in bloom right now! You might know them better as arrow-leaved violets,” she adds confidentially to Jesse who, to his credit, nods politely and salutes her on his way out.

“We'll keep an eye out,” he promises.

***

We walk halfway around the lake until we get to one of docks on the west side. The barks from giant pickup trucks and the frequent whizz of souped-up cars off of Lakeview Road provide background noise. The sounds of Quiet traffic: boisterous, insistent, and completely unnecessary, since no one ever really has anywhere to go. Jesse suggests we sit for a while. When the wind blows, I can inhale the outdoors and him at the same time: it's a happy cross between freshly mowed lawn and the Gap. We sit next to each other with our feet hanging off the dock. I think of last Friday night, when we hung out in almost the same place, but something feels different now. My stomach is in knots—the kind you have when you're just about to stand up to give a speech that you memorized five minutes before. What is happening to me?
Get a grip
, I order myself. I've never felt this way before with a guy.

Jesse's hair is curling slightly from the humidity in the air. He smiles when he sees me looking—pushing that one rogue hunk of hair out of his eye—but his face conveys something that I can't identify. It's not the first time I've thought he is unreadable. His teeth are perfectly white, like a toothpaste advertisement. I instinctively close my mouth, wondering if maybe I should've begged Melissa for veneers. My teeth are okay, but not inhumanly white like his. He's wearing jeans and a plain, blue long-sleeved shirt. He looks put together somehow, like someone who never has a bad hair day or wrinkled pants or bad breath in the morning. He's intimidating, I decide. But when has a boy
ever
intimidated me? I recite NPR commentators' names in my head until I can calm down.

“Warm,” I say offhandedly, because I always talk about weather when I can't think of anything else to say. It's a side effect of living in Minnesota.

“Yup,” he says agreeably. “How's your head?”

“Functioning,” I say and then inwardly cringe. What a dumb thing to say.

We sit quietly, watching the breeze blow ripples across the darkening water. The wind was out in full force earlier this evening, and it apparently scared away the joggers and dog walkers. The sky is a shiny gray, the color of monkey bars, and the air feels weird—there's a stillness in between the breezes that makes everything feel surreal.

“Tornado weather,” Jesse says, holding his hands out as if to grasp the air. We watch one lone figure—a skinny girl in black spandex pants and a dark pink sports bra running sprints around the lake. She shoots down one side and then comes to a complete halt at the corner. She walks for a while with a hand on her side. I wait until she sprints again, and I can't see her anymore as she passes through the trees on the south end of the lake. I play with my purse—an embroidered bag that Melissa got at One World—it's a free-trade product made in Guatemala. I feel stupid for having brought it, but I'm one of these people who feels naked without a purse, like I just might need an extra pen or a pack of Trident at any moment.

“Should we leave?” I ask.

“Nah, not yet. Do you feel how warm it is?” I reach out to touch the heavy air as he did. “It's going to have to turn cold first. You'll feel it.”

I nod. I know about tornadoes. I remember spending summer evenings in my grandmother's basement, listening to an old radio spewing out reports about tornadoes touching down in all those small Minnesota towns: Park Rapids, Osage, Walker, Henrietta, Nevis, Akeley. Old-people names for old-people towns. It's not tornadoes in general that frighten me—it's Oklahoma tornadoes, a special brand of disaster. I remember seeing the news when the last really big one hit—people blown away were the lucky ones. It was the stories of people crushed to death, slowly, underneath cars and bathtubs and tractors that made everyone cringe. It was the people who were covered with hundreds of puncture wounds from flying nails and screws and other debris. In Minnesota, tornadoes are made of wind and air—in Oklahoma, they are made of fury.

I cautiously watch the gray sky, hopeful for the sliver of fading sunlight hanging out in the background.

“So I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says. His tone is ominous—his serious-talk tone. I imagine him practicing it alone in front of the mirror. Except Jesse isn't the kind of guy who would do that.

“Okay,” I say just as a car engine revs in the distance. This is also the same moment that I accidentally drop my purse into the water. I've been fidgeting with it, and I should've known that I'd eventually drop it. I'm not a clumsy person, but Jesse's presence is turning me into some kind of squirming mess. I feel like a kernel of popcorn in an air popper.

The strap of my purse gets caught on some of the weeds near the dock, so I bend over to grab it. When I do, I fall forward—in slow motion. I land on my stomach in an amazingly gentle belly flop. My face is immersed in the grimy water, and I have the urge to throw up, but I float there for a minute, wondering if I should just pretend that I've drowned. Surely that would be less embarrassing than this. But before I can float away and disappear, Jesse is in the water behind me, pulling me up with his arms around my waist. He's acting like a real lifeguard, which is probably fine if someone is actually drowning.

“I'm fine,” I tell him, sputtering dirty lake water, grabbing for my hat, which is floating next to me.

The whole scene feels stupidly overdone—comical in the lamest way possible, like a Will Ferrell movie, something that my grandfather would've found hysterical. He always used to say to me, “Pull my finger, kid.” That was the kind of stuff he found funny and that embarrassed me to death.

Jesse helps me get back up on the dock, even though I could've done it myself.

Probably.

This time, we sit on a park bench rather than the edge of the dock. My chances of drowning have significantly decreased. I try to avoid thinking about how I've probably contracted some sort of parasitic disease from the mucky water.

“Sorry about your shirt,” I say, touching the soaking wet material, which is clinging tightly to him.

“Well,” he replies, “it
was
new—to replace another shirt. Because of the blood from your head.”

I want to jump off the dock again and swim away to the other side of the lake, where I can sulk in embarrassment by myself. The sprinting girl slows to a walk when she goes past our dock. She waves at us before resuming her run.

“We should go back,” I say, but neither one of us makes a move to stand up. I shiver loudly, but not on purpose. My wet clothes and the drab air feel cold and clammy as they mingle together.

He puts his arms around me, even though he is damp too.

“I think I got water in my purse,” I say, shaking the bag out in front of me, although I'm surprised to discover that it's held up quite well—the water seems to be rolling right off the fabric.

Guatemalan craftsmanship is everything Melissa believes it to be. She'll be thrilled.

He presses his lips tightly together, looking exactly the way he looked right after I threw up that first day in chemistry. “Do you want to be here? With me, I mean?”

“What I want is…” I'm trying to think of it, but he suddenly puts his hand on my wet hair, near the back of my head, but nowhere near my stitches, fortunately. The gesture is so spontaneous that even he seems surprised. I wince for no real reason. He moves his hand to my back.

“Yes,” I say, simply and easily. The truth comes before I even consider lying. The closer he sits to me, the more I want to stay like this. Forever. What is wrong with me? Am I morphing into a girl like Brooklyn? Will I be wearing a one-piece bathing suit and talking into a fake microphone about world peace for baby chickens next?

“I suppose we should go home now,” I tell him, because I sometimes say the opposite of what I feel. My stomach actually sinks when I think about leaving him. “The weather might turn.” Damn my weather talk! I start to get up, but he grabs my arm. His grasp is hard, although he loosens up when I slump back down on the bench in a squishy puddle. He slides his hand down my arm, toward my hand, and holds onto it. He tugs gently, moving me closer, and I move where he's pulling me until I'm in his arms. He turns my face toward him. My awful wet hair is on full display, still dripping at the ends but already drying in odd shapes on top. Jesse pushes a wet hunk from my cheek with his free hand and then holds that hand against my cheek.

“Your hair is wet,” he says. His hand is warm and smells like mints or gum. The whole thing is so absurdly romantic that I start to shiver again, and I'm afraid he'll think I'm having a seizure. He feels me shaking, and he pulls me toward his chest, my head resting on a part of his shirt that has somehow miraculously stayed dry. He puts his chin on my icky lake water hair.

“I don't know what it is about you, Daphne.” He says this quietly, but I hear every word, soft and warm. His hand runs against my back, and for the first time ever, I know what it feels like to want to be with someone—really
be
with him. I can't get any closer to him, and I feel the frustration rising in my stomach. I want to feel his hands all over me. I've never thought that about anyone before.

He stands up, pulling me with him. It's the first time we've ever stood face to face, and I notice that he's very tall, taller than me, and I'm a healthy Midwestern five-foot-nine—just tall enough to feel gawky and giant. But in my water-filled, stud-covered heels, I am staring directly at his nose, the perfect height difference. He puts his hands on my shoulders, and I know he's going to kiss me.

Our lips come together like two pieces of a puzzle that you know are going to fit perfectly. We pause for one incredible moment, as if we are fighting the force of it. I hold my breath. And then suddenly, he pulls me even closer—so close that I'm not sure where he ends and I begin. He kisses me hard, and I respond without thinking. In fact, I'm so far outside myself that I can barely remember my own name anymore. It's only after we pull apart—reluctantly—that I finally understand what it's like to
want
someone. This is nothing like how I've felt with any other guy.

“Daphne,” he says softly with his lips still close to mine. I have to fight the attraction. I want my lips back on his. He whispers to me, “I need to tell you something. Something about January.”

I shake my head. I don't want to hear. Not now. Not right now.

He leans over and kisses me again—the first guy to
really
kiss me since Michael, one of the sort-of-boyfriends I had back at Academy. But kissing Michael was like kissing a puppy: nice, but sort of gross, because Michael always seemed to have more spit than lips. When I used to make out with him, I spent most of the time thinking about other stuff, like how people first discovered not to eat the banana peel, or an English paper coming due, or things like that. Kissing Jesse is totally amazing. It's sweet, but passionate, and I pull away before I really want to, because I am afraid of what might happen if I don't. I sigh.
This
is a moment. I feel electricity in my toenails. In my spleen. Radiating through my liver. I lean back into him, and we kiss again until my lips feel raw.