Lola and the Boy Next Door

chapter twenty-two

I’m discussing Max with the moon, but it’s supremely unsatisfying. Her beams are casting an eerie luminescence on Cricket’s window. “Max doesn’t like it when I dress down, but he throws my usual appearance into my face when we fight. I’m never what he needs me to be.”

The moon darkens by cloud cover.

“Okay, I’ve lied to him. But you saw how jealous he gets. It makes me feel like I have to. And I shouldn’t have to defend my right to be friends with another guy.”

I wait. The sky remains dark.

“Fine. The you-know-who situation is weird. Maybe . . . Max and Calliope aren’t so far off. But if I’m never given Max’s trust to begin with, how can he expect me to trust him in return? Do you see what I mean? Do you see how confusing it is?” I close my eyes. “Please, tell me. What do I do?”

The light behind my lids softly brightens. I open my eyes. The clouds have moved, and Cricket’s window is illuminated by moonlight.

“You have a sick sense of humor,” I say.

Her beams don’t waver. And without knowing how it happens, I find myself removing a handful of bobby pins from my desk. I chuck them at his panes. Dink! Dink! Dink dink! Seven bobby pins later, Cricket opens his window.

“Trick-or-treat,” I say.

“Is something wrong?” He’s sleepy and disoriented. He’s also only wearing his boxer briefs, and his bracelets and rubber bands.

OHMYGOD. HE’S ONLY WEARING BOXER BRIEFS.

“No.”

Cricket rubs his eyes. “No?”

DON’T STARE AT HIS BODY. DO NOT STARE AT HIS BODY.

“Did you go anywhere fun tonight? I stayed in and handed out candy. Nathan bought good stuff, name-brand chocolate, not the cheapo mix he usually gets, you know with the Tootsie Pops and Dots and those tiny Tootsie Rolls flavored like lime, I guess you got a lot of kids at your house, too, huh?”

He stares at me blankly. “Did you wake me up . . . to talk about candy?”

“It’s still so hot out, isn’t it?” I blurt. AND THEN I WANT TO DIE.

Because Cricket has turned into stone, having realized the practically naked situation his body is in. Which I am not, not, not looking at. At all.

“Let’s go for a walk!”

My exclamation unfreezes him. He edges out of sight, trying to play it cool. “Now?” he calls from the darkness. “It’s . . . two forty-two in the morning.”

“I could use someone to talk to.”

Cricket pops back up. He has located his pants. He is wearing them.

I blush.

He considers me for a moment, pulls a T-shirt over his head, and then nods. I sneak downstairs, past my parents’ bedroom and Norah’s temporary bedroom, and I reach the street undetected. Cricket is already there. I’m wearing sushi-print pajama bottoms and a white camisole. Seeing him fully dressed again makes me feel undressed, a feeling intensified when I notice him take in my bare skin. We walk up the hill to the corner of our street. Somehow, we both know where we’re going.

The city is silent. The raucous spirit of Halloween has gone to sleep.

We reach the even bigger hill that separates us from Dolores Park. Eighty steps lead to the top. I’ve counted. About twenty up, he stops. “Are you gonna say what’s on your mind, or are you gonna make me guess? Because I’m not good at guessing games. People should say what they mean to say and not make other people stumble around.”

“Sorry.”

He smiles for the first time in ages. “Hey. No apologizing.”

I smile back, but it falters.

His disappears, too. “Is it Max?”

“Yes,” I say quietly.

We walk slowly up the stairs again. “He seemed surprised to see me today. He doesn’t know we hang out, does he?”

The sadness in his voice makes me climb slower. I wrap my arms around myself. “No. He didn’t know.”

Cricket stops. “Are you embarrassed by me?”

“Why would I be embarrassed by you?”

He puts his hands in his pockets. “Because I’m not cool.”

I’m thrown. Cricket isn’t cool in the same sense as Max, but he’s the most interesting person I know. He’s kind and intelligent and attractive. And he’s well dressed. Cricket is REALLY well dressed. “How can you think that?”

“Come on. He’s this sexy rock god, and I’m the boy next door. The stupid science geek, who’s spent his life on the sidelines of figure-skating rinks. With his sister.”

“You’re not . . . you’re not a geek, Cricket. And even if you were, what’s wrong with that? And since when is science stupid?”

He looks unusually agitated.

“Oh, no,” I say. “Please tell me this isn’t about your great-great-whatever grandfather. Because that doesn’t mean any—”

“It means everything. The inheritance that paid for our house, that pays for Calliope’s training, that pays for my college education, that bought everything I’ve ever owned . . . it wasn’t ours. Do you know what happened to Alexander Graham Bell after he became famous? He spent the rest of his life hiding in a remote part of Canada. In shame of what he’d done.”

“So why did he do it?”

Cricket rakes a hand through his hair. “For the same reason everyone makes mistakes. He fell in love.”

“Oh.” That hurts. I’m not even sure why it hurts so much, but it does.

“Her father was wealthy and powerful. Alexander wasn’t. He had ideas for the telephone, but he couldn’t get them to work. Her father discovered that someone—Elisha Gray—was about to patent it, so they went to the patent office on the same day as Elisha, copied his idea, turned it in, and claimed they were there first. Alexander became one of the wealthiest men in America and was allowed to marry my great-great-great-grandmother. By the time Elisha realized he’d been had, it was too late.”

I’m astounded. “That’s terrible.”

“History books are filled with lies. Whoever wins the war tells the story.”

“But Alexander was still a smart man. He was still an inventor. You get that much honestly. Life isn’t about what you get, it’s about what you DO with what you get.”

“I build things that have no use.” His tone is flat. “It’s just as bad. I should be creating something that makes a difference, something to . . . make up for the past.”

I’m getting angry. “What do you think would happen if I believed genetics played that kind of role in my life? If I believed that because my birth parents made certain decisions, it meant that my life, my dreams were forfeit, too? Do you know what that would do to me? Do you have any idea what it HAS done to me?”

Cricket is devastated. “I wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry—”

“You should be. You have a gift, and you’re doubting it.” I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “You can’t let that kind of shame dictate who you are.You aren’t your name.Your decisions are your own.”

He stares at me.

I return the stare, and my senses surge. The energy between us ricochets so fiercely that it scares me.

I break our gaze.

We climb the rest of the way to the top, and the entire city stretches before us. The jutting houses, the golden hills, the highrises, the glittering bay. It’s stunning. We sit on an empty slab of asphalt overlooking the view. It’s someone’s driveway, but no one will see us. The eucalyptus tree dangling above us releases its soothing fragrance into the night air.

Cricket inhales, long and slow. He sighs his exhale. “I’ve missed that. Eucalyptus always reminds me of home.”

And I fill with warmth because, even with his second life in Berkeley, he still thinks of this as home. “You know,” I say. “When I was little, my parents were embarrassed by the way I dressed.”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

“They were terrified that people would think THEY were dressing me like that. That THE GAYS were corrupting me with false eyelashes and glitter.”

He laughs.

“But they learned it’s who I am, and they accepted it. And their support gave me some confidence. And then, that summer, you taught me how to accept it for myself. To not worry about what other people said. And then . . . things weren’t bad at all.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, you. So I’m telling you this now. I will never forget that mechanical bird you made. The one that only sang when you opened its cage door?”

“You remember that?” He’s mystified.

“Or the fifty-step Rube Goldberg machine that sharpened a pencil? Or that insane train of dominoes that took you two weeks to set up, but was over in a minute? It was incredible. Just because something isn’t practical doesn’t mean it’s not worth creating. Sometimes beauty and real-life magic are enough.”

I turn to face him, cross-legged. “It’s like my Marie Antoinette dress. It’s not practical, but . . . for that one moment, arriving at a dance in a beautiful, elaborate dress that no one else is wearing and that everyone will remember? I want that.”

Cricket stares across the city lights toward the bay. “You will. You’ll have it.”

“Not without your help.” I want to give him a friendly shove, but I settle for a verbal jab. “So are you gonna get started on my panniers tomorrow or what?”

“I already started them.” He meets my eyes again. “I stayed in tonight, too. I didn’t just hand out candy.”

I’m touched. “Cricket Bell. You are the nicest guy I know.”

“Yeah.” He snorts. “The nice guy.”

“What?”

“That was what my one-and-only girlfriend said when she broke up with me.”

“Oh.” I’m taken aback. The Girlfriend, at last. “That’s . . . a really, really stupid reason.”

Cricket scooches forward, and his knees almost bump mine. Almost. “It’s not uncommon. Nice guys finish last and all.”

There’s a dig at Max amid his self-deprecation, but I ignore it. “Who was she?”

“One of Calliope’s friends. Last year.”

“A figure skater?”

“My social scene doesn’t extend much further.”

The news makes me unhappy. Skaters are gorgeous. And talented. And, like, athletically gifted. I stand, my heart pounding in my ears. “I need to get home.”

He looks at his wrist, but he’s not wearing his watch. “Yeah, I guess it’s really late. Or really early.”

We descend the eighty stairs to our street corner before Cricket unexpectedly halts. “Oh, no. You wanted to talk about Max. Do you—”

“I think we were supposed to talk tonight,” I interrupt him with a glance toward the moon. She’s a waxing gibbous, almost full. “And I thought it was supposed to be about Max, but I was wrong. We needed to talk about you.” I point at my feet.

I’m standing over the word BELL.

It’s imprinted on the grate for Pacific Bell, the phone company. They’re everywhere, on every street. “See?” I say.

“Every time I see Dolores Street, I think of you.” His words rush out. “Dolores Park. Dolores Mission. You’re everywhere in this neighborhood, you are this neighborhood.”

I close my eyes. He shouldn’t say things like that, but I don’t want him to stop. It’s become impossible to deny he means something to me. I don’t have the courage to name it. Not yet. But it’s there. I open my eyes, and . . . he’s gone.

He’s walking swiftly up the stairs to his home.

Another vanished spirit on Halloween.