"Hey, Kristi," Dad says. "Want to play air hockey?"
I stare at him. All the emotions I'm feeling are writhing in a mass on my face.
"What's wrong?" He wraps one arm around me. "You okay?"
"Can we just go, please?" I say.
"Sure thing, honey. Sure." He guides me through the arcade. Preteen-boy thoughts ricochet around me, but they're blocked by Hildie's and Evil's mean voices in my head.
Why do I care what they think? I knew I had no chance with Gusty—it's not as if they've given me a big news flash. I still feel like I have a hatchet in my heart.
Dad leads me through the mall, past all the stores Aunt Ann wishes I would shop in, and sits me down in the food court. "Want some lunch?" he asks gently. "Corn dogs?"
I used to love corn dogs when I was a kid. That was before I discovered funnel bread. But of course Dad wouldn't know that. "Whatever."
He rushes off as though corn dogs are the key to secure familial relationships.
I sit staring at the shapes passing by me: Legs covered by corduroy, denim, twill, gingham, jersey. Feet covered by leather, nylon, Vibram, and canvas. Among them I see one familiar-looking pair of legs, semiobscured by a skateboard carried at waist level, at the bottom of which dirty, unlaced sneakers skip around, weaving through the crowd.
I know those legs as well as I know my own erotic dreams.
Of course he's here. Just when I'm at the low point in my life, as if on cue, Gusty is wandering through the mall carrying his skateboard. He works his way through the lines of people waiting to get their pictures taken and made into key chains and heads right into the arcade. He looks like he's on a mission of some kind.
My brain clicks through the chain of causality, and I know what probably happened: Gusty called my house like he said he would. Mom answered and told him I was at the arcade with Dad. Now here he is, looking for me.
I feel too confused to move. None of it makes sense. He told Hildie I have real problems. He thinks I'm sick and psycho. He's hanging out with Eva to help train her dog. But he keeps trying to find me, and patch things up, and get together. Maybe he just wants to get the character education assignment done, but everyone knows that it's a totally bogus project and they're not even grading us on it. He seems to want to see me, so much that he's willing to come to the mall to look for me.
"Here we are!" Dad cries just as I get up. He proudly holds out a tray with four corn dogs and two large Cokes.
"I'll be right back!" I yell, and I take off running.
I dodge through the mall, maneuvering through families with screaming babies and married people fighting with each other. I break through a group of kids all wearing identical T-shirts and someone yells, "Hey!" but I'm already gone. I take a sharp right and suddenly I'm wrapped in the cool, crowded darkness of the arcade.
I see him at the back of the room, searching the faces for mine. I like the way he's holding his skateboard, because it makes the muscles in his arm strain against one another. His other hand is shoved into his pocket, and he's turning in a circle, squinting as he looks for me. For once he's not wearing a baseball cap, which is nice because his dark gold hair is overgrown and starting to curl around his face. When he finally turns in my direction and sees me, he breaks into a smile that frames his teeth perfectly.
He is so effortlessly gorgeous that he makes me gasp.
I smile at him. I don't even think about smiling—it's not like it's a plan or anything. I just do.
He weaves his way toward me, and I wait for him.
"Hey. You look different," he says.
I forgot I don't have on my makeup. "Um, I—"
"You look good. Natural is good." His eyes seem to get tangled up in my hair, which is messily cascading over my shoulder and tickling my arm.
"Thanks," I say, grateful for the darkness in here because I'm blushing so much, my ears are on fire.
"Your mom said you were here, so I thought—"
"That's good," I tell him.
And it's like we run out of words. Whatever is supposed to happen next seems unreachable. I don't know what to say, and I can tell he doesn't, either. The only thought I sense in the air is a nameless, wordless, glowy kind of feeling, but I can't tell if it's coming from him or from me. Maybe it's coming from both of us.
"My dad's in the food court," I tell him, because I'm so nervous that I can't not talk. "We have corn dogs," I say, and immediately cringe. "We have corn dogs"? Did I actually just say that?
"I love corn dogs," he says quickly.
So now the next step is to go to the corn dogs. This I can handle. Corn dogs. Okay.
Gusty doesn't make sense to me, but right now I make even less sense. I am insanely happy that he's here in the mall about to have corn dogs with me and Dad. I should be more careful, but I don't want to be careful. Even if I'm pretending that all his actions add up to something special, I want to pretend.
Dad looks surprised when we get to the table. "Oh! Hi! Aren't you"—he snaps his fingers at Gusty, trying to remember his name—"Gus? You're Hildie's brother, right?"
"Yeah, I'm Gusty." When they shake I notice that Gusty's hand is as big as Dad's.
"Have a seat," Dad says, and hands Gusty a corn dog. He gives me a quizzical look, and I dare him with my eyes to make one teasing comment. Dad gets the picture and makes like he's casual. "Nice board—is that a Tony Hawk?"
"Yeah, a Falcon." Gusty says. "You ride?"
"I used to, back in the seventies on those puny little boards with the roller-skate wheels."
"Old school!" Gusty says, and starts talking about some documentary he saw about skate punks in California, and suddenly those two are all over the greatness of the sport and how it's unappreciated by the establishment, and I'm invisible while I nibble on my stale corn dog.
As far as I know, Dad was into Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager and basically spent his youth in darkened basements practicing magical spells and vanquishing creatures of the night. So either Dad has been keeping his love of the skatepunk scene from me all these years or he's totally faking it.
As the conversation progresses, Gusty seems to be less and less interested in what my dad has to say, and finally he casts me a quick little confused glance. I catch his thought: Why is Kristi's dad trying to impress me?
Before Dad embarrasses himself any further, I break in. "Dad, Gusty and I have some homework to do, so..."
"Oh. Okay." He seems totally crestfallen as he looks first at Gusty, his new best friend, and then me, his long-lost daughter. "I understand. That's cool. I'll give you a ride."
Dad gets quiet while the three of us walk to the parking garage, and I can feel he's mad at me. She won't even give me a chance, he's thinking.
Maybe you don't deserve a chance, I think back at him. But he can't hear thoughts. He's too wrapped up in his own coolness to receive the vibes of others.
It's weird—all this time he's been away, I've been super pissed at Mom, but now that he's back, I've totally forgotten about being mad at Mom and I focus all my spite right at Dad. I'm glad he feels crestfallen. I'm glad he's frustrated that the arcade ploy didn't magically bring us closer together. He hasn't even told me how long he's staying or if he's staying. And he hasn't mentioned Mom or even asked how she is. So he can take his disappointment and use it to plug up the huge leak in his chest where his heart is supposed to be. I've got better things to worry about than him.
He pulls up in front of the house and I open the car door, but he puts a hand on my arm. "Gusty, mind giving us a second?" he says into the rearview mirror.
"Sure. Thanks for the corn dog," Gusty says before getting out of the car and standing on the lawn to wait for me.
Dad blinks his eyes at me. I feel in his mind a vague fear and I don't like it, because with Dad fear means he is about to disappoint someone. "Honey, there's something I wanted to talk to you about today."
I search his dark eyes for some clue as to what he wants me to do with this inform
ation. I get a flash of Africa, but that's it. "Why didn't you—"
"I was hoping that playing together would help us break the ice and we could spend the afternoon talking. I'm guessing as I go along here."
"Guessing what?"
"How to—" His eyes drop to my chin as if he's studying a manual on how to operate alienated teenage daughters. "I just don't know how to talk to you anymore, you know? I'm not sure what to say to you."
"Spit it out. Just say what you have to tell me."
"Not now. I can't now."
"Are you moving back home? Is that it?"
"No," he says as he rubs his hand over his face. "That's not it."
"So you're what? Staying in Africa forever?"
He looks up like a deer in headlights, and I read him effortlessly. He is realizing for the first time that his staying or going might actually be what I'm most interested in talking about. I try to read him, but all I can see are shadowy pictures of Africa and an outline of someone, someone with long hair. "I'm staying in Africa, at least for a while yet."
"Fine. Now I know. Goodbye." I get out of the car and slam the door so hard that the shocks squeak from the force. I walk toward the house, right past Gusty, who is looking at the ground as though looking at anything else is punishable by castration. I hear the buzzing of an electric window behind me and Dad calls, "Kristi!"
"What?" I reel around.
"Let's get together tomorrow, okay? I'll see if Ann will lend me her house for a couple hours. So we can talk?"
"Whatever," I tell him. We stare at each other until finally Dad looks away, starts the engine, and drives off.
Why did this have to happen in front of Gusty?
GUSTY THE COWARD
After Dad leaves, I take a couple deep breaths before I can speak to Gusty calmly. "Sorry."
He waves his hand at the ground. "Hey, don't worry about it," he says, but I hear him thinking real problems.
But maybe this isn't what he's thinking. Maybe I'm just remembering what Hildie said.
Somehow, when I'm with Gusty, I can't tell my thoughts from his.
I shake my head to clear it as we go into the house.
"Did you guys have fun?" Mom rushes from the kitchen, but stops when she sees Gusty with me. "Hi!" she says, surprised. She looks really disappointed as her eyes trail after the sound of Dad speeding off in Aunt Ann's car. She's wearing overalls and a tank top, and her big curly hair is pulled into a ponytail on top of her head. She's holding a spatula in one hand and a potholder in the other.
"What are you doing?" I ask her. I have rarely seen my mother interact with kitchen tools, so I'm a little destabilized.
"I thought I'd crack open one of our neglected cookbooks. Osso buco. My mom used to make it all the time." She musters a smile at Gusty. "I'm Serena."
He smiles at her shyly. I can tell by the way he won't totally look at her that he thinks she's pretty. I need an escape now, before another parent embarrasses me. Mom is standing in front of the sliding glass door, barring our way to the backyard, so I grab Gusty's T-shirt and lead him into the garage. I try to pull him through the back door, but he stops at Dad's old workbench. "What's this?" He points at the box Dad started for me.
"It's a jewelry box," I say.
Gusty's fingers travel over the carved letters on the lid that spell my name. "It's nice. Did you make it?"
I let go of his T-shirt even though I don't want to. "My dad did. It doesn't close right."
He taps on the warped lid, cocks his head. "That would be easy enough to fix."
"Yeah, that's what my dad said four years ago." I can't help the bitter tone in my voice.
Gusty looks at me. There's so much sympathy in his eyes that I have to turn my back on him and walk out the door to the yard. He notices too much. It makes me nervous.
We sit on our big wooden furniture that we never use. Gusty looks at our lawn, which is very spotty even though Mom pays a kid from down the street to take care of it. She pays him too much, if you ask me. "You have a nice house," Gusty says.
I shrug. "It keeps the rain off my head."
His eyes wander over the rickety wooden fence behind me. "So how's it going?"
"I'm okay."
"I mean with your dad."
"Oh. I don't know."
"Is it weird to see him after two whole years?"
"Weird isn't the word."
"If I were you, I'd be seriously pissed at him."
"Yeah," I say. I don't really want to talk about this and Gusty understands, because he pulls a piece of folded paper out of his hip pocket.
"Ready to get down to it, Kristi Carmichael?"
"I was born ready."
He hands me the paper, and I read our assignment. Choose one of the negative traits you listed for last week's assignment and talk with your partner about its impact on your life. Then create a plan for how you will improve this aspect of your character. I look at him over the edge of the paper. "Is this for real?"
"You don't like it?"
"It's not their business what my problems are."
"Well, I don't think you have to tell the faculty about your problems. You just have to tell me." He pulls a pencil stub out of his hip pocket, checks the point, and then pulls out his Swiss Army knife and opens a blade.
"You still have that?" I ask him.
He lifts his eyes to mine, his eyelashes fluttering. "You remember the day I showed it to you?"
I nod.
He stares at me absently before remembering why he pulled the knife out in the first place. With a few quick strokes his pencil is razor sharp, and he folds the knife back up. "Good as new," he says. He slips the knife back into his pocket and takes the paper from me. "I'll go first because I know exactly which of my traits I want to work on."
"Which is that?"
"My worst trait. The one trait that ruins my whole life." He hesitates, but then says heavily, with great seriousness, "I'm a coward."
"No you're not. And remember last time I wouldn't write it down for you because you already had ten."
"I wrote it down."
"I don't see how you're a coward."
"You don't?"
"No."
"Kristi, you—" he starts, but he seems suddenly incapable of making his voice work. He takes a deep breath and forces out the words: "You of all people should know I'm a coward."
"Why me of all people? What are you talking about?"
His face turns a dark red, and he says quietly, "Never mind."
I watch as he folds in on himself. The look of mortification on his face is the same one he had that day I came to his house all those years ago when I thought he was going to kiss me. The memory sends a sharp physical pain through me, and for a second I feel angry at him. "If you want to say you're a coward, say so. It's none of my business."
"Fine, I will," he says quietly, and writes it down on the piece of paper: Gusty is a coward.
I watch, quietly, as he writes out a whole paragraph. With each word he sets down, his face gets redder and redder. Then suddenly he stands up, shoves the paper at me, and marches to the other end of the yard to wait while I read.
One day two years ago a girl came to my front door, and I wanted to kiss her and ask her to be my girlfriend, but I didn't. I chickened out. I haven't dated anyone since, partly because I'm too much of a coward, but mostly because I feel like I have unfinished business with this girl, and until I finish it, I can't do anything else.
I read it through twice to make sure my eyes aren't playing tricks on me, and then I look up at him.
He has turned toward me, one hand shoved into his pocket as always. He has his head down, as though looking directly at me would be painful.
First my hands start to shake, then my arms, and when I stand up and try to walk over to him, my legs shake. I take in breath to speak, but there aren't any words in my mind. I'm remembering that day when I thought he was going to kiss me and how badly I wanted it, and I'm plunged back int
o that time in my life when I was discovering things I had no words for.
I take a step toward Gusty, and he takes a step toward me. Then we stop. We're still across the yard from each other, but somehow there's less distance between us than ever, as if we are almost touching.
I smile at him, and he lets out a huge gush of air. I realize he has been holding his breath for a long time. This makes me laugh a little. He shakes his head, embarrassed, but he laughs at himself, too.
Any second now he's going to finish what we started two years ago on his front step. He's going to come over to me and put his arms around me, and he's going to kiss me. I know it as surely as I can see him standing there, looking at me.
Just looking.
He begins to take a step, but freezes when the doorbell rings.
When the doorbell rings, every bad feeling I've ever had in my life washes through me because I know who's at the door. Oh God, no.
I look at the sliding glass door, and I can hear Mom saying to someone, "She's in the backyard."
I see the whiteness of his outfit through the glare of the windowpane as slowly his image becomes more solid and sharp. And oh God. He's carrying flowers, and he's dressed up in a white sweater and white khakis and new white sneakers, and he's got a big smile on his face. He opens the sliding door, walks through it, closes it, and before I can open my mouth to stop him, he says, "Ready for our date?"
I turn and look at Gusty, who is staring at my feet, shaking his head barely perceptibly. Desperately I try to find his mind with my own, but all I get is an ice cube of shock.
"Gusty," I say, and Mallory turns to see him for the first time.
"Oh. Hi," Mallory says, utterly confused. He looks at the flowers he's holding.
I stare at Gusty, who rallies some kind of self-possession. "We were working on our character education assignment," he explains as he crosses the yard and snatches the paper out of my hand.
"I thought we could have spaghetti at Lou's. Or if you want, Chinese," Mallory says bravely. It is so obvious he interrupted something. It is so obvious that I forgot our date. Everything about everything is obvious to everyone.
Gusty clears his throat. "I guess we can finish your part on Monday," he says to me quietly, and brushes by Mallory on his way out. "Have fun," he tells him.