Thirteen Plus One (25 page)

I closed my eyes.
You have got to get over yourself,
I commanded.

Right, then. I pushed the ON button—again. I unlocked the screen—again. This time, I went to the FAVORITES page and tapped his name. A message flashed on top of the screen: CALLING MOBILE.

I brought the phone to my ear. What if he wasn’t there? Would that be good or bad? Did I want him to answer, or would it maybe be better to get his voice mail? I could leave a nice message. I could be bright and chirpy and say—

“Winnie. Wow.”

I drew my crossed legs more closely in, because that wasn’t what I would say. That’s what Lars would say. That’s what Lars
did
say, his voice alive and real even though he was miles and miles away.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he said.

Was I making it up, or did he sound weird? And the way he first answered:
Winnie. Wow.
When used nonironically, “wow” was a great word. But when used any other way? Not so wow.

I didn’t know what to do—or say. It was as if I’d gone gluey inside, and the only part unaffected was my rapidly beating heart. Oh, and my sweat glands. I was stinky all of a sudden. Gross.

“Um ... hi,” I said. I winced. I already said that, didn’t I?

“What’s up,” he said. There was no question mark implied at the end; he was doing the guy-flatline thing of saying “what’s up,” but not actually meaning it.

He
definitely
sounded weird.

“I got to see some baby turtles today,” I said tentatively. “Tons of them.
Hundreds
of them.” I shifted my position. “They were hatching. Um, from their eggs.”

“Cool.”

“It’s really rare to get to see something like that. It was ... pretty amazing.”

“That’s great, Winnie,” Lars said, and I bowed my head. He
did
think it was great, I suspected, but what I heard in his voice was that even so, he was having to make an effort to be happy for me.

I was hurting him.

He was hurting me.

This sucked.

You could call it quits and walk away,
a whisper said inside me.
Could be the kindest thing to do....

But, no. To break up with Lars would be ... would be like dying inside. I gripped the phone.

“Lars—” I said.

At the same time, he said, “Winnie—”

I made a noise that someone might have called a laugh, I suppose. “Sorry. You go.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “You first.”

“No, you.”

“No,
you.”

Oka-a-a-ay,
this was going nowhere fast.
Don’t be a shriveled violet,
I coached myself.
You only live once. Don’t waste it being stupid.

“Lars?”

He hesitated. I thought I heard him swallow. “Yes?”

“There’s something I need to tell you. It’s, um, stupid, but I need to say it.”

He waited.

“It’s kind of been on my mind for a while.”

He still didn’t say anything. It was freaky to be having this conversation without seeing him.

“It’s just ... like I said, it’s
stupid,
but ...”

“Just say it, Winnie,” he said gruffly.

I felt scolded. I also felt feverish, and I knew I
had
to say it, or I would throw up or faint, or both. “On my birthday—you gave me a Starbucks card.” My voice hitched,
not
on purpose. “And it made me feel bad. That’s all.”

There was silence on Lars’s end ... and then he laughed. He
laughed
! I’d opened my heart to him, I told him what I’d been holding in all this time, and he laughed?!

I hunched over, wrapping one arm around my ribs and pressing my phone to my ear. “Stop laughing,” I said.

“That’s what you needed to tell me?” he said. He sounded downright
jolly,
and it pissed me off.

“Yes, and
stop laughing.
I
told
you it was stupid ... but now you’re making me feel worse.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been mad this whole time over a Starbucks card,” he said.

“So you
knew
I was mad? Since when?”

“Mad, cold, whatever.” He laughed again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you
ask?”
I said. Flecks danced in front of my eyes. My breaths were shallow and fast. “Since apparently I’ve been such a drag to be around.”

“Win, you’re not here. You haven’t been a drag to be around, because you
aren’t
around.”

“You were the one who originally wasn’t going to be around! It’s not my fault your mom’s fellowship got canceled.”

“I never said it was. Listen, Win ... this is stupid.”

“Duh! I said it was stupid from the beginning!”
And you don’tget to call me Win while things aren’t good between us, Larson!

“Calm down,” he said, which—big surprise—didn’t turn my hurt feelings into a cloud of butterflies that disappeared merrily into the sky. “What
did
you want for your birthday? ”

“I don’t want to tell you anymore,” I said.

“Come on, I won’t laugh.”

I tightened my jaw. This was a no-win situation. I couldn’t
not
tell him, not after making such a drama out of it. But if I
did
tell him, he’d think it was dumb. Which it was, and which I fully admitted! And maybe he wouldn’t laugh out loud, but secretly he would think I was “being a girl.” He might even think it was
cute,
and if he said anything—anything at all—that smacked of, “Oh, poor Winnie, let me pat you on the head,” I would fling my phone at him all the way from South Carolina and hope it struck him right between the eyes.

“I have to go,” I said. “They’re waiting on me for breakfast.” Not true, but he didn’t know better.

“Win,” he coaxed.

“Forget it. It doesn’t matter, okay?”

He sighed. And then,
because he was an idiot,
he took my words at face value. “I can’t wait to see you,” he said in his thinking-about-kissing voice. “I miss being able to hold you.”

And I miss being held,
I thought. A lump formed in my throat because it was all so wrong. A kiss
wouldn’t
make everything better. Neither would a hug.

“I wanted a cupcake,” I said. “From Sugar Sweet Sunshine.”

“Sugar sweet ... huh?”

“And you
knew
I did, or you should have known, because I only dropped five thousand hints.” Tears welled in my eyes. “But, no. You thought, ‘Oh yeah, it’s my girlfriend’s birthday. Hey, I know—I’ll give her a stupid piece of plastic.’”

“A stupid piece of plastic,” he repeated.

“Pretty much,” I whispered. It was awful, the grayness pressing in on me on this beautiful, sky-blue day at the beach. My last beautiful, sky-blue day at the beach.

I lowered my phone and hit END CALL.

Figure Out Who I am ...?

B
ABY TURTLES AND THEIR UNCERTAIN FUTURES—that’s what I thought about on and off throughout the rest of the day. And Lars. Of course Lars. Except thinking about him made my stomach hurt, so I tried not to.

It was my last day at the beach. I didn’t want to waste it.

Last walk to the point, last search for sand dollars, last porpoise-sighting, last swim. So many “lasts”—and others, possibly, that I didn’t even notice as they happened. (Lars and I ... had we kissed for the last time? Life wasn’t supposed to happen like that. Big things, important things—a person should know when they happen.)

Don’t cry,
I ordered myself as I showered off in the bathhouse. I didn’t know for sure that Lars and I had broken up; I didn’t even know for sure if I wanted us to. And maybe—I wasn’t sure—but maybe I’d been unfair to him? When we talked, and I got my feelings hurt, and kind of ... hung up on him?

Oh, go ahead if you have to,
I told myself as tears mixed with the water from the showerhead. And if I had to cry, the shower was a better place than most.

But up in my room, getting ready for the cookout with Dinah and Cinnamon, I held it together. I didn’t tell them about Lars. Why should I put a damper on their good time, or make them feel as if they had to take care of me? I could take care of myself. I’d be fine. So I smiled and said thanks when Dinah complimented my yellow sundress with the blackbirds on it.

“Ty packed it for me,” I said. I blinked a few times. “Isn’t that so cute and so
Ty?”

Dinah tilted her head. “You miss him, huh? Oh,
sweetie.”

She moved to hug me, but I stepped away. If she hugged me for missing Ty, when actually I was missing Lars (or something), then I would lose it.

No losing it.
Cookout. Fun. That was the plan.

“You’ll see him tomorrow,” Dinah said, confused.

“I know. I’m fine.” I tried the whole smile thing again. “Want me to do your hair?”

 

The cookout was lovely. It really was. There was something about staring into a fire that smoothed my mood, and when the bonfire was on the beach, as this one was, it was magical. The ocean, the sand, the twilighting sky ... it was the perfect backdrop for the pop and crackle of the fire. The flames looked like they were dancing. They flickered and swayed, and each flame burned with so many colors. I would hate to fall into a fire, or be burned at the stake, but I could stare at one forever.

“You didn’t eat your hot dog,” someone said.
Alphonse.
He stood above me, and his bronze skin glowed. If there were such a thing as Greek gods anymore, he would be one, except he’d be Jamaican. A Jamaican Greek god. The day I’d first met him, he hadn’t been wearing a shirt, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt now. Only his long surfer trunks.

“Not hungry?” he said.

“Huh?”
Oh, right. Hot dog.
I lifted my paper plate from my lap, and together we regarded my charred hot dog with its bubbling black blisters.

Alphonse furrowed his brow. “Utter failure, huh?”

I laughed ruefully. “Epic.”

He indicated the empty spot beside me. “May I?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He sat down beside me, leaning back on his elbows and taking up space the way guys did. He smelled good, like salt.

The sun was almost down, and Virginia said it was time to douse the fire, so Mark and Ryan went at it with two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew. Swear to God, they had an endless supply—and judging by how hyper they were, they’d poured as much into their mouths as they were now pouring on the fire.

“You think maybe water would work better?” Virginia suggested.

“No way,” Ryan said, circling the fire like a deranged cannibal and spraying Mountain Dew in exuberant arcs. “Dis is da bahm!”

“Duffenetly,” Mark said. “Youse guys gotta try it!” He tried to get everyone up. Cinnamon and James were easy sells; so was Erika. Dinah and Milo glanced at each other, and then made the exact same Oh-why-not expressions.

Milo was wearing a T-shirt that said, HARVARD—BECAUSE NOT EVERYONE CAN GET INTO MIT. It was so dorky that it was beyond dorky. It was so dorky that it went around the bend and was somehow cool, at least on Milo. Or maybe I just liked him for making Dinah so happy.

“Winnie,” Mark coaxed, holding out a Mountain Dew bottle and waggling his eyebrows. “You know you want to.”

I crinkled my nose. “Nah, I’m okay.”

“Oh, come
on,”
he said, as if he couldn’t believe my lameness. He turned to Alphonse. “Alphonse. Buddy. It’s Mellow-Yellow-licious.”

Alphonse glanced at me, which I saw out of the corner of my eye. I’d returned to staring at the fire, drawing my legs to my chest, and resting my chin on my knees.

“I’ll pass,” he told Mark.

Mark started to give him a hard time, then changed his mind. He looked from Alphonse to me and chuckled. He held up his hands, palms out. “All right, man. All right.”

By the fire, Cinnamon shook a bottle of Mountain Dew as if her life depended on it.

“This one’s for the guppy!” she shouted, untwisting the cap to unleash a fizzing spray.

“I think she means the Gipper,” Alphonse commented.

“I don’t think she knows what she means,” I replied. “And I have never understood what ‘the Gipper’ is.” I looked at him from under my bangs, which were clumpier than normal in the moist ocean air. “What
is
the Gipper?”

“Football,” he said. “Notre Dame.”

Uh-huh. And I
still
didn’t understand what the Gipper was. I sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Alphonse asked.

I hesitated. Was there an answer to that question? An answer I could give to Alphonse, at any rate?

Before I could put any thoughts into words, the maniacs around the dying fire started belting out a mambo-cha-cha song I recognized from the radio station my mom listend to. Or rather, the guy maniacs sang the mambo-cha-cha song. The girl maniacs giggled.

“A little bit of Erika in my life,” they crooned. “A little bit of Cinnamon by my side. A little bit of Dinah in the sun. A little bit of Winnie all night long.”

Normally, I’d have been giggling, too. They were attempting a sideways sway that involved leaning at the waist and snapping to the beat. Not that they were
on
the beat, but they were trying.

But tonight ...

It wasn’t happening for me, that’s all. I felt like a buzzkill, sitting stony-faced while everyone else was enjoying themselves. Forget that—I
was
a buzzkill. Even in my pretty sundress, I was a buzzkill.

“Wanna get out of here?” Alphonse asked.

“And go where?” I asked.

“I don’t care. Down to the water?”

I didn’t know if I should. Alphonse wasn’t doing anything weird, or wrong. But a muscle in his jaw twitched, and I knew that his offer wasn’t as casual as he wanted it to seem. And being aware of that meant that I couldn’t respond casually back. That crazy electricity was jittering between us again.