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Cricket Bell remembers everything.
My face burns. Without thinking, I push away my plate. “I need to . . . get ready for work.”
“Come on.” Lindsey grabs my hand. “You’ll be late.”
Andy glances at the Frida Kahlo wall calendar where I post my schedule. He frowns toward Frida’s unibrow. “You didn’t write it down.”
Lindsey is already pulling me upstairs. “I’m covering for someone!” I say.
“Am I supposed to pick you up?” he hollers.
I lean over the banister and look into the kitchen. Cricket is staring at me, parted mouth and furrowed brow. His difficult equation face. As if
I’m
the problem, not him. I rip away my gaze. “Yeah, the usual time. Thanks, Dad.”
Lindsey and I run the rest of the way into my bedroom. She locks my door. “What’ll you do?” Her voice is low and calm.
“About Cricket?”
She reaches underneath my bed and pulls out the polyester vest. “No. Work.”
I search for the remaining pieces of my uniform, trying not to cry. “I’ll go to Max’s. He can drive me to work before Andy gets there.”
“Okay.” She nods. “That’s a good plan.”
It’s the night before school starts, and I’m working for real this time. A
It’s another slow evening. A
“I know you like him,” St. Clair says to me, leaning back in his chair. “But he’s still far too old for you.”
Here we go again. “Max isn’t
old,
” I say
.
“He’s only a few years older than you.”
“Like I said. Too old.”
“Age doesn’t matter.”
He snorts. “Yeah, maybe when you’re middle-aged and—”
“Golfing,” A
“Paying the mortgage,” he says.
“Shopping for minivans.”
“With side air bags.”
“And extra cup holders!”
I ignore their laughter. “You’ve never even met him.”
“Because he never comes in here. He drops you off at the curb,” St. Clair says.
I throw up my hands, which I’ve been mehndi-ing with a Bic pen. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to park in this city?”
“I’m just saying that if it were A
I stare at him, hard.
“Obviously.”
“Obviously.” He grins.
I scowl back. “Get a job.”
“Perhaps I will.”
A
And they’re off in their own world again. As if they don’t see each other enough as it is. He stays in her dorm on weekdays, and she stays in his on weekends. Though I do admit that their trade-off is appealing. I hope Max and I share something like it someday. Actually, I hope Max and I share
one
place someday—
“Oy !” St. Clair is talking to me again. “I met your friend today.”
“Lindsey?” I sit up straighter.
“No, your old neighbor. Cricket.”
The ornamental ceiling tilts and bends. “And how do you know that Cricket Bell was my neighbor?” My question is strangled.
St. Clair shrugs. “He told me.”
I stare at him.
And?
“He lives on my floor in my dorm. We were talking in the hall, and I mentioned that I was on my way to meet A
His girlfriend beams, and I’m struck by a peculiar twinge of jealousy. Does Max tell people about me?
“—and he said he knew someone who worked here, too. You.”
One week, and already I can’t escape him. It’s just my luck that Cricket would live beside my only Berkeley acquaintance. And how does he know where I work? Did I mention the theater? No. I’m positive that I didn’t. He must have asked Andy after I left.
“He asked about you,” St. Clair continues. “Nice bloke.”
“Huh,” I finally manage.
“There’s a story behind that
huh,
” A
“There’s no story,” I say. “There is definitely NOT a story.”
A
He raises an eyebrow. After a moment, he says, “Ah. Of course.” He swoops in for a kiss goodbye, and then she watches his backside leave before turning to me with a mischievous smile.
I huff. “You’ll just tell him later, when you guys are alone.”
Her smile widens. “Yep.”
“Then no way.”
“Dude.” A
She’s right. I spill it.
chapter six
When I was five years old, Cricket Bell built an elevator. It was a marvelous invention made from white string and Tonka truck wheels and a child-size shoe box, and because of it, my Barbies traveled from the first floor of their dollhouse to the second without ever having to walk on their abnormally slanted feet.
The house was built in my bookcase, and I’d desired an elevator for as long as I could remember. The official Barbie Dream House had one made of plastic, but as often as I begged my parents, they wouldn’t budge. No Dream House. Too expensive.
So Cricket took it upon himself to make one for me. And while Calliope and I decorated my bookcase with lamp shades made from toothpaste caps and Persian rugs made from carpet samples, Cricket created a working elevator. Pulleys and levers and gears come to him as naturally as breathing.
The elevator had completed its first run. Pet Doctor Barbie was enjoying the second floor and Calliope was pulling down the elevator to fetch Skipper, when I stood on my tiptoes, puckered my lips, and planted one on her very surprised brother.
Cricket Bell kissed me back.
He tasted like the warm cookies that Andy had brought us. His lips were dusted with blue sugar crystals. And when we parted, he staggered.
But our romance was as quick as our kiss. Calliope proclaimed us “grody” and flounced back to their house, dragging Cricket behind her. And I decided she was right. Because Calliope was the kind of girl you wanted to impress, which meant that she was
always
right. So I decided that boys were gross, and I would never date one.
Certainly not her brother.
Not long after the elevator incident, Calliope decided that I was grody, too, and my friendship with the twins ended. I imagine Cricket complied with the arrangement in the easy way of anyone under the sway of someone with a stronger personality.