A Sense of the Infinite

“What is it?”

“Jack Daniel’s and Gatorade.”

“Classy,” I said. “What are you, an alcoholic football coach?”

“You’re mean,” he said. He bumped my knee with his knee. “I bet you’re one of those girls who like the fruity drinks with the little umbrellas.”

“Nah,” I said. “Hand it over.”

My hand was shaking as I took the sports bottle and squirted the drink into my mouth. What was I doing? Whatever it was, I liked it. Already I could see myself on Noe’s bed, telling her everything. Hey, man, it’s a jungle in there.

“You still working at the Gardens?” I said.

“Three more weeks,” said Oliver.

“Then what?”

“Then I’m going to Alaska.”

“No shit.”

Oliver took a squirt of Gatorade and handed the bottle back to me. “Yeah, a buddy of mine has an uncle up there, he’s going to get us on with a crew fishing king crab. Most dangerous job in the world.”

“Wow,” I said.

“They made this whole TV show about it. Fuckin’ sick. It pays like a thousand bucks a week.”

“I want to go to Alaska someday.”

“That’s why you’re reading that book, huh. Maybe you can give me some advice. What do I do if a polar bear attacks me?”

“I don’t know,” I giggled.

“Come on, you’re the girl with the book.”

“Throw it some king crab.”

“I’m not giving my crab to the fucking polar bear, that shit’s worth a hundred dollars a pound.”

We kept talking like that until the bottle was empty—about Alaska, whose job at the Botanical Gardens sucked worse, impressions of Mr. Beek, the principal, who was the person responsible for getting Oliver expelled last year.

“So are you going back in there or what?” said Oliver.

“I don’t know,” I said, my cheeks pinkening with the admission that I was open to more exciting possibilities.

“Want to go for a walk?”

“All right.”

We slipped off the ledge and started across the grass toward the Gardens. My high-heeled shoes felt tippy and strange on the knobby grass, like walking on the moon.

“Easy there,” said Oliver, and slipped an arm around my back.

We crossed the parkway and walked right past the ice-cream shop and into the Gardens. I paused and wrestled my shoes off, clutching Oliver’s arm to keep from falling over. I put them on top of a garbage can, which my slightly tipsy brain assured me was a responsible choice of location, where I would be sure not to forget them.

“Want to see something cool?” said Oliver.

I murmured yes. He took my hand and we walked through the damp grass, threading our way between beds of coneflowers and banks of roses. It was strange to think that a month ago, I was here as an employee, sweating in my uniform shirt and scooping cone after cone. So much had already changed since then, and now here I was, on a walk with Oliver, moonlight on my bare arms and neck, having the kind of night you remember forever.

We walked down a path to a backstage part of the garden, with storage sheds and a fleet of golf carts parked under a metal hangar. I’d never been there before, but as a groundskeeper Oliver knew it well.

“It’s right over here,” Oliver said.

He led me to a small greenhouse, more of a crystalline shed. He opened the door and we stepped inside. It was filled with orchids nodding on wiry green stems. The air was warm and damp and fragrant, like a shower when someone’s just turned the water off.

“Pretty cool, right?” said Oliver.

He put his hand on my hip and I made an acquiescing motion. Our mouths met and our tongues began to move against each other like Siamese fighting fish dropped into the same bowl. We did a dreamy stagger from the middle of the orchid house to the wall, and from there a slow collapse to an accommodating stretch of ground.

“Do you want to stop?” Oliver said.

Did I want to stop? No, I wanted to keep going.

“Still okay?” Oliver said. “Still okay?”

“Yes.”

Some maneuvering. More maneuvering. An embarrassed mumble from Oliver, an encouraging word from me, and then—

I gasped, and my foot kicked a flowerpot.

“Still okay?”

In response, I kissed him.

The orchids peered down like little faces.

Fallen flowerpots spilled soil on the ground.

Moonlight slanted through a broken section of greenhouse glass.

Oliver tasted just like the waterfall.

17

AT HOME, IN MY BEDROOM, I spun around three times, kissed the orchid I had stolen, and pressed it between the pages of my Spanish-English dictionary.

I lay on my bed and felt the ceiling whirl.

I opened the window and let the night air creep in, let it envelop the older, wiser, worldlier person I had just become.

18

“SO WHAT’S THE BIG SECRET?” said Noe.

We were sitting on her bed. It was early afternoon, and Noe was still in her pajamas, purple fla

“I went to the orchid house with Oliver Mazetti,” I blurted.

As soon as I said it, I could feel it all over again—the moonlight, and the dew on my skin, and the low, rumbly, squee-inducing timbre of Oliver’s voice when he asked if I was sure I wanted to. My toes curled, and I brought my fists to my mouth and rocked back and forth a little, as if the fact of it was so momentous that to think about it left me physically incapable of staying still.

“Wait, what?” said Noe.

“I went outside to cool off, and he walked past the place I was sitting, and we ended up drinking Jack Daniel’s and Gatorade and talking forever, and then he asked if I wanted to go for a walk, and we snuck into the Botanical Gardens, and he took me to this secret place that only the groundskeepers know about, and we—um . . .” I trailed off, trembling in anticipation of Noe’s reaction.

“You made out with him?” Noe screeched.

“We did more than that.”

It took a second for that to sink in.

“Ohmigod,” screamed Noe. “A

She threw a pillow at me. I made a squawk of surprise, and then we both started laughing, a juddering, unstoppable laughter like a machine gone out of control. It filled Noe’s bedroom and seemed to rock the entire house. The fact of it was too huge. There was no sensible thing to say.

“I feel like I should ask you questions, but I don’t know what to ask,” said Noe when she recovered her breath. “Was it thrilling?”

I picked up the pillow she’d thrown at me and hugged it to my chest. “Um. Yes.”

“Did he seduce you or did you seduce him?”

“It was a mutual seduction,” I said.

We both started cracking up again, the giddiness of the conversation too much for the small bedroom.

“Are you going to see him again?” said Noe. “Or was it, like, a crazy one-night thing?”

The question had been buzzing around in my head all morning. I’d imagined every possible scenario—from never seeing Oliver again and keeping our night at the orchid house as my wildest, most fabulous memory, to starting a whirlwind romance involving three weeks of orchid house escapades before Oliver’s tragic departure for Alaska.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We traded numbers, but it was more of a thanks-for-a-great-night thing than a hey-let’s-be-boyfriend-and-girlfriend thing. I don’t think we’d have much to talk about.”