Lola and the Boy Next Door

  We wind up Telegraph Avenue, the busiest street in downtown Berkeley. It’s the most San Francisco–like place here, with its bead stores, tattoo shops, bookstores, record stores, head shops, and Nepalese imports. But it’s also overrun with street vendors selling cheaply made junk—ugly jewelry, tie-dyed shoelaces, bad art, and Bob Marley’s face on everything. We have to walk through a group of dancing Hare Krishnas in sherbetcolored robes and finger cymbals, and I nearly run smack into a man wearing a fur hat and a cape. He’s draping a supertiny table with velvet for tarot readings, right there on the street. I feel relieved that Norah’s distaste for costumes means at least she doesn’t look like this guy.

  There are homeless everywhere. An older man with a weatherhardened face comes out of nowhere, limping and staggering in front of us like a zombie. I instinctively jolt backward and away.

  “Hey,” Cricket says gently, and I realize that he caught my reaction. It’s comforting to know he understands why. To know I won’t have to explain, and to know he’s not judging me for it. He smiles. “We’re here.”

  Inside Blondie’s, I insist on paying with Andy’s twenty. We sit at a countertop overlooking the street and eat one slice of pesto vegetarian (me) and three slices of beef pepperoni (him). Cricket sips a Cherry Coke. “Nice of Andy to give us dinner money,” he says. “But why pizza?”

  “Oh, the pizza place was on the way,” I say. He looks confused. “On the way to Lindsey’s house. They think I’m with Lindsey.”

  Cricket sets down his drink. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “No. It was easier than explaining to Andy . . .” I trail off, unsure of what the rest of that sentence is.

  “Explaining that you wanted to hang out with me?”

  “No. Well, yeah. But I don’t think my parents would mind,” I add quickly.

  He’s exasperated. “So why didn’t you tell them? Jeez, Lola. What if something happened to you? No one would know where you were!”

  “I told Lindsey I was here.” Well, I told her later. I push the Parmesan shaker away. “You know, you’re starting to sound like my parents.”

  Cricket hangs his head and runs his hands through his dark hair. When he looks up again, it’s sticking up even taller and crazier than usual. He stands. “Come on.”

  “What?”

  “You have to go home.”

  “I’m eating. You’re eating.”

  “You can’t be here, Lola. I have to take you home.”

  “I don’t believe it.You’re serious?”

  “YES. I’m not having this on my . . . permanent record.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means if your parents find out you’ve been here without their permission, they won’t like me very much.”

  Now I stand. He’s nearly a foot taller, but I try to make him feel as small as possible. “And why are you so concerned about my parents liking you? Is it necessary to remind you—AGAIN—that I have a boyfriend?”

  The words are cruel, and I’m horrified as soon as they leave my mouth. Cricket’s blue eyes become startlingly angry. “Then why are you here?”

  I’m panicking. “Because you offered to help me.”

  “I was helping you, and then you just showed up. In my bedroom! You knew I was coming back next weekend—”

  “You didn’t come back last weekend!”

  “And now I require your permission to go somewhere? Do you take pleasure in knowing I’m over there . . . pining for you?”

  I throw my half-finished slice in the trash and flee. As always, he’s on my heels. He grabs me. “Lola, wait. I don’t know what I’m saying, this conversation is moving too fast. Let’s try again.”

  I yank my arm from his grasp and resume my race toward the train station. He’s beside every stride. “I’m going home, Cricket. Like you told me to.”

  “Please don’t go.” He’s desperate. “Not like this.”

  “You can’t have it both ways, don’t you get it?” I jerk to a halt and sway. I’m talking to myself, not to Cricket.

  “I’m trying,” he says. “I’m trying so hard.”

  The words shatter my heart. “Yeah,” I say. “Well. Me, too.”

  Confusion.

  And then . . . “You’re trying? Are you trying in the same way as me?” His words rush out, toppling over each other.

  Life would be so much easier if I could say that I’m not interested, that he stands no chance with me. But something about the way Cricket Bell is looking at me—like nothing has ever mattered more to him than my answer—means that I can only speak the truth. “I don’t know. Okay? I look at you, and I think about you, and . . . I don’t know. No one has ever so completely confounded me the way you do.”

  His difficult equation face. “So what does that mean?”

  “It means we’re right back where we started. And I’m back at the train station. So I’m leaving now.”

  “I’ll go with you—”

  “No. You won’t.”

  Cricket wants to argue. He wants to make sure I get home safely. But he knows if he comes with me, he’ll cross a line that I don’t want crossed. He’ll lose me.

  So he says goodbye. And I say goodbye.

  And as the train pulls away, I feel like I’ve lost him again anyway.

  chapter twenty-one

  I love watching Max onstage. He’s playing his current favorite cover. The first time he sang “I Saw Her Standing There”—Well, she was just seventeen/You know what I mean—with a mischievous glance in my direction, I thought I’d die. I was one of those girls. Girls who had songs dedicated to them.

  It’s still thrilling.

  Lindsey and I are at Scare Francisco, an all-day, twelve-stage Halloween rock festival in Golden Gate Park. It’s Saturday, and I’m still grounded, but we’ve had these tickets for months. Plus, Norah is inescapable. After being denied every low-income apartment in the city, she made arrangements to move in with her friend Ronnie Reagan. Ronnie stands for Veronica, and she is a he, and the only problem is that Ronnie’s old roommate won’t be moving out until January. My parents feel rotten and guilty about this. So they let me come today.

  Per annual tradition, I’m wearing jeans, a nice blouse, a black wig with straight bangs, and red sneakers. Lindsey is wearing a fifties housewife dress, a vintage apron, four-inch heels, a blond wig with a flip, and large sparkly clip-on earrings.

  We’re dressed as each other, of course. I wear pretty much the same thing every year. She’s always something new.

  Amphetamine finishes on stage four, and they take apart their gear while the next band, Pot Kettle Black, sets up. I fan myself with a flyer for a haunted house, trying not to draw attention to the fact that I’m fanning my armpits more than my face. But I don’t want to smell gross for Max. He hasn’t seen me yet. The sun beats down, and my nose is burning, despite my SPF 25. The city tends to get its rare heat waves in the autumn.

  “I can’t wait until you’re a detective, and I get to wear your badge,” I say. “I’d totally arrest any girl who came here dressed as a sexy cat. Snooze.”

  “I can’t wait until your podiatrist forbids you from wearing heels.”

  “But you look fabulous, darling.”

  “Lola?” a girl calls out from behind us.

  I turn around to find Calliope, head tilted to the side. “That is you. You were right.” She looks over her shoulder, and I follow her gaze as the other Bell twin appears from behind a monstrously large Hell’s Angel. Or a guy dressed as a Hell’s Angel. I fan my cheeks with the flyer, feeling hot again. I’m not sure which twin is more troubling “How could you tell?” Calliope continues. “She looks so . . . normal.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Lindsey whispers to me.

  “She always looks like Lindsey on Halloween,” Cricket says. Neither twin is costumed, but Cricket’s hand does say BOO. “Cool outfit, Lindsey. You look great.”

  For all her I-don’t-care-ness, Lindse
y looks pleased by the compliment. “Thanks.”

  He’s having trouble looking directly at me. Did he see Max’s band? What did he think of them? The only contact I’ve had with him since Berkeley was that same night when I received a text from NAKED TIGER WOMAN asking if I’d made it home okay. If anyone else had done that after a fight, I would have found it insufferable. But Cricket seriously cannot help being a nice person.

  I can’t tell if Calliope knows that I visited him. I assume not, since she’s speaking with me. Thank goodness for small miracles.

  “Hey,” I say, kinda sorta meeting Cricket’s eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “Same thing you are.” Calliope’s voice is clipped. “Listening to music. Practice was canceled. Petro is sick.”

  “Petro?” Lindsey asks.

  “My coach. Petro Petrov.”

  Lindsey and I stifle our laughter. Calliope doesn’t notice. It’s odd, but I suddenly realize that I haven’t seen the twins stand beside each other in ages. They have a similar body shape, though Calliope is the petite version. This still means she’s taller than her competitors. After her growth spurt, it took several years for her to adjust on the ice. Cricket once told me that when you’re tall, your center of balance is also higher, and this accentuates mistakes. Which makes sense. But now her confidence and strength are forces to be reckoned with. She could kick my ass any day of the week.

  I feel her noting the extra space and awkwardness between Cricket and me, and I have no doubt that she’s considering it.

  “Why didn’t you guys dress up?” Lindsey asks.

  “We did.” Calliope cracks her first smile. “We’re dressed as twins.”

  Lindsey grins back. “Hmm, I see it now. Fraternal or identical?”

  “You’d be surprised how many people ask,” Cricket says.

  “What do you tell them?” Lindsey asks.

  “That I have a penis.”

  Oh God. My cheeks burn as they all burst into laughter. Think about something else, Dolores. ANYTHING else. Cucumbers. Bananas. Zucchini. AHHHH! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. I turn my face away from them as Calliope fakes a yakking sound.

  “Definitely time to change the subject,” she says.

  “Hey, are you guys hungry?” I blurt. SERIOUSLY? I’m so thankful that mind readers aren’t real.

  “Starving,” Cricket says.

  “Says the guy who just ate three taco salads,” Calliope says.

  He rubs his stomach. His bracelets and rubber bands rattle. “Jealous.”

  “It’s so unfair. Cricket eats all day long, the most horrendous things—”

  “The most delicious,” he says.

  “—the most horrendous and delicious things, and he doesn’t gain a pound. Meanwhile, I have to count calories every time I swallow an alfalfa sprout.”

  “What?” Lindsey says. She’s as baffled as I am. “You’re in perfect shape. Like, perfect.”

  Calliope rolls her eyes. “Tell that to my coach. And to the commentators.”

  “And Mom,” Cricket says, and Calliope cuts him a glare. He glares back. It’s spooky to see that they have the same glare.

  And then they burst into laughter. “I win!” Cricket says.

  “No way.You laughed first.”

  “Tie,” Lindsey says authoritatively.

  “Hey.” Calliope turns to me, and the smile disappears. “Isn’t that your boyfriend?”

  Oh. Holy. Graveyards.

  I’ve been so thrown that I forgot Max would be here any second. I want to shove Cricket back behind that Hell’s Angel, and he looks like he wouldn’t mind a disappearing act either. Max slinks through the crowd like a wolf on the prowl. I raise my hand in a weak wave. He nods back, but he’s staring down Cricket.

  Max pulls me into his tattooed arms. “How’d we sound?”

  “Phenomenal,” I say truthfully. His grip is tight, forcing me to point out the well-dressed elephant in the room. “This is my neighbor Cricket. Remember?” As if any of us could have forgotten.

  “Hi,” Cricket says, shrinking up.

  “Hey,” Max says in a bored voice. Which isn’t even his regular bored voice. It’s the mask of a bored voice that says, See how much I don’t care about you?

  “And this is his sister, Calliope.”

  “We saw your show,” she says. “You were great.”

  Max looks her over. “Thanks,” he says after a moment. It’s polite but indifferent, and his coolness disconcerts her. He turns back to me and frowns. “What are you wearing?”

  The way he says it makes me not want to answer.

  “She’s me,” Lindsey says.

  Max finally acknowledges her presence. “So you must be Lola. Well. Can’t say I’ll be sorry when this holiday is over.”

  I’m aghast. Cricket’s presence has made him reckless.

  “I think they look terrific.” Cricket straightens to his full height. He towers over my boyfriend. “I think it’s cool that they do it every year.”

  Max leans over and speaks quietly so that only I can hear it. “I’m gonna load some stuff into the van.” He kisses me, quickly at first, but then something changes in his mind. He slows down. And he REALLY kisses me. “I’ll text you when I’m done.” And he leaves without saying goodbye to anyone else.

  I am so mortified. “Groups . . . make him uncomfortable.”

  Calliope looks disgusted, and my insides writhe, because I know she thinks I’ve been stringing along Cricket to keep dating that. But that was not my boyfriend. The disdain in Cricket’s expression makes me feel even more humiliated. I imagine conversations in which Calliope uses this as proof that I’m shallow and not worthy of his friendship.

  I turn to Lindsey. “I’m sorry. I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “You know he hates me. I’m not crazy about him either.”

  I lower my voice. “Max doesn’t hate you.”

  She shrugs. I can’t bear for the twins to hear any more of this, so I take Lindsey’s hand and lead her away. “We have to go, sorry. There’s a band on stage six I’ve been dying to hear.”

  “Good, we’ll follow,” Calliope says. “You know these local bands better than us.”

  I’m howling on the inside as they follow a dead-silent Lindsey and me across the grass and through the skeletons, ghosts, and pirates to stage six, where a mediocre punk band is butchering “Thriller.” I squint at the bass drum. My colored contacts are an old prescription. “The Flaming Olives?”

  “The Evening Devils,” Lindsey corrects, annoyed.

  “That’s a stupid name,” I say.

  “Olives would be worse,” Calliope says. “I thought you were dying to hear them.”

  “I thought they were gonna be someone else,” I grumble.

  “Ah,” Cricket says.

  It’s a disbelieving ah, and it furthers my shame. I stand my ground and try to lose myself in the band, but I can’t believe my boyfriend just treated Lindsey like dirt. I can’t believe Cricket just saw him treat Lindsey like dirt. And I’m glad he stepped in before Max could do further damage, but why did it have to be him? It should have been me. The orange sun beats down, and I’m sweating again. My wig is trapping heat. I wonder how bad my hair looks underneath, and if I can get away with removing it. At long last, I catch a break as a cloud passes over the sun. I release a tiny sigh.

  “You’re welcome,” Cricket says.

  And then I realize that he’s standing behind me. Cricket is the cloud.

  He gives an oddly grim smile. “You looked uncomfortable.”

  “This band blows, and my feet are killing me,” Lindsey says. “Let’s go.”

  My phone vibrates in my pocket. A text from Max:@ marx meadow near first aid. where are you?

  The plan was to hang out with Max and Lindsey for a few hours and then go home at dusk. I love Halloween. The Castro used to close off the streets and throw an insane party that attracted over a hundred thousand people, bu
t a few years ago, someone died in the fray. The city stopped closing it off and urged people to stay in their own neighborhoods. Still. As far as places to be on October thirty-first, a crowd of drag queens can’t be beat.

  But now I don’t want to hang out with Lindsey and Max together. And I want to stay with my friend, but I haven’t been alone with Max in two weeks.

  No. I should stay with Lindsey.

  “Max?” she asks.

  “Yeah. He’s ready to meet up, but I’m gonna tell him we’re going home early.”

  “He’ll be pissed if you don’t show.”

  “He won’t be pissed,” I say, with a nervous glance at Cricket. Even though Lindsey’s right. But the way she said it makes it sound worse than it is.

  “Yeah, well, you haven’t seen him in forever. Don’t let me stand in the way of your amorous pursuits.”

  I wish Lindsey would stop talking in front of Cricket.

  “It’s fine,” she continues. “I’ll hang out with them for a little while longer”—she gestures to the Bells—“and then I’ll catch the bus home. I’m tired.”

  She’s pushing me away out of spite. There’s no good way of dealing with her when she’s like this, except to give her what she wants. “So, um, talk to you tonight?”

  “Go,” she says.

  I sneak another glimpse at Cricket before leaving. I wish I hadn’t. He looks tortured. As if he’d do anything to stop me, but he’s being held back by his own invisible demons. I mumble my goodbye. As I walk to the meadow, I take off the wig. I don’t have a purse—Lindsey never carries one—so I drape it on the branch of a Japanese maple. Maybe someone will find it and add it to their costume. I shake out my hair, unbutton the top of my shirt, and roll up the sleeves. It’s better, but I still don’t look like me.

  Actually, I look more like me. I feel exposed.

  Max is leaning against the first-aid station, and his shoulders relax when he sees me. He’s glad I’m alone. But when I lean up to kiss him, he hardens again, and it sends a chill down my spine. “Not now, Lola.”