Cross Me Off Your List (11 page)

“One order of coral please,” Noah says to the
girl in the small booth.

“Oh my God,” the girl says. “You’re Noah
Winters. Oh my God.”

Noah puts his finger over his mouth to
silence her. Then he nods. Her co-worker, who may be her mom, fills
a bucket full of “mermaid’s coral” which is actually blue popcorn.
Noah signs an autograph for the girl – Meaghan, with an extra A and
‘make sure you don’t forget the H’ – and then she steps outside for
a brief selfie with him. Luckily no one else seems to be in line
for blue popcorn, so we go unnoticed.

“That was covert,” I say, popping some coral
in my mouth. “I thought for sure you were screwed after she said
‘oh my God’ the second time.”

Noah chews a few pieces of popcorn and then
shrugs. “What can I say? I’m good with the ladies.”

For the next thirty minutes, I window shop
while Noah reminds me that I’m not actually a mermaid. After seeing
the dresses, bikinis, and oh my God the jewelry, I’m pretty sure
I’m ready to grow a tail and splash with the dolphins. I make a
mental note to come back to this jewelry stand for a ring of
encased mermaid tears. I don’t even care if it’s really aqua
glitter – those are freaking mermaid tears now. Who’d thought I’d
ever want something with glitter? It’s so messy, so fake. If anyone
in this world is anti-glitter, it’s me. But the mermaids may
convert me.

We finish off the mermaid’s coral before Noah
asks if I’m too scared to ride the ferris wheel.

“Are you kidding?” I’m shocked he’d even ask.
“I’m not scared of anything…except maybe Great Whites after seeing
those photos in the surf shop.”

He hands over the tickets, and we settle in –
closely – on the two-seater metal cup.

“Alright, now that I’ve got you trapped, it’s
my turn to ask all the questions,” he says. “I want the real story.
What happened to your spring break plans?”

Seriously? I’ve already told him. I had a
fight with my friend. Most of my friends sided with her. I didn’t
go on the Los Angeles trip. I went to Crescent Cove with Erin, who
promptly injured herself and went home. I repeat this story, but
Noah shakes his head.

“You had a fight with your friend,” he
repeats. “Why? What was it about? It had to be huge to divide a
clique and send you to the cove. Spill.”

I wish I could wiggle out of this little
metal seat and wash away with the mermaid tears. I haven’t talked
about the Hilary drama aside from the week it happened. I’d just
rather not think about it. When I do, I realize how stupid it was
to throw away a friendship over something that won’t matter in the
future, but then again, she tried to sabotage my future. Who knows
what could’ve happened if Hilary had just left well enough
alone?

“It’s stupid,” I say, looking into the crowd
of people to avoid eye contact. “I’d entered a competition that she
had no interest in – or skill in, might I add – and then she
entered and copied exactly what I did.”

He asks about the competition, which only
makes it worse. He wants me to spill? Okay, I’ll spill. I tell him
about the fashion show and its desire to find upcoming designers
who think outside of the box. If anyone thinks outside of the box,
it’s me.

“We had to do a three-piece collection, and I
chose to do mine out of candy wrappers,” I explain. “The Skittles
dress was my favorite.”

Noah laughs. “Nat said you had an eye for
fashion, but I had no idea it was this serious.”

“Oh, it’s serious. Last year, I made a formal
dress out of coffee filters. I wanted to wear it to prom, but my
mom threw an absolute fit about it, so it’s still hanging in my
closet,” I say.

The ferris wheel jolts up a few feet while
the festival worker accepts tickets and lets two more people on the
seat below us.

“Was Hilary not into fashion?” Noah asks.

I’m not quite sure how to answer that. She
had an ongoing subscription to every beauty and fashion magazine
she could possibly get her hands on. She could window shop like no
other, and her ability to match makeup to an outfit was exquisite.
But designing? No. Sewing? Definitely not.

“She was sort of like your brother in a way.
She had great fashion sense and knowledge of the industry, but she
wasn’t into design, and she can’t even work a sewing machine,” I
explain. “She likes the glitz and glam but not the work it takes to
create glitz and glam.”

When Hilary entered the contest, she swore
she just wanted to give it a try, to see what she could come up
with. I even offered to help – to bounce ideas, talk about fabrics,
whatever she needed. I mean, yeah, it was weird that she suddenly
wanted to create clothing, but who was I to say she couldn’t?

“Her mom works at this high-end fashion
boutique back home, and her dad is a city councilman, so they have
some pull,” I say. The ferris wheel jerks up again. “Her mom put
together an entire team who could design, draw, cut, sew – whatever
Hilary needed. You can put a price on anything, and trust me, her
family can afford it.”

“I’m scared to find out where this is
heading,” Noah says.

“I don’t even want to elaborate on her
collection because it wasn’t her collection – it was mine.” The
words burn my tongue when they leave my mouth, like the piercing of
the knife she rammed through my back.

“She stole your collection?” Noah asks.

I nod, absolutely hating reliving the memory.
I’ve convinced myself for weeks that if I don’t think about it,
eventually I’ll forget. That would be the dream anyway.

“She replicated everything I made,” I admit.
“My sundress made of Skittles wrappers, the formal ball gown made
of Peanut M&M wrappers, everything. Her designs were slightly
different, but if we’d both sent those designs down that runway,
we’d have made jokes of ourselves.”

Noah shakes his head. “Are you seriously
telling me you pulled out of the competition because of her? You
let her steal your designs and walk them down a runway?”

I shrug because I don’t want to say yes. But
that’s exactly what I let her do. I let her sabotage my dream. I
didn’t stand up for myself. I cowered in the corner like a scared
kitten while she roared like a lion down the catwalk with
my
collection. I’ll never forget what she said to me when she unveiled
“her” designs.
“I hope you don’t mind. I was just a bit
inspired.”

“Marisol, what the hell?” Noah asks, more
sympathetic than angry.

“What was I supposed to do?” I ask.
“Honestly? We were lined up by our last names, and her collection
would’ve hit the runway first in that order. I couldn’t face all
those critics and fashion industry icons with a replicated
collection, regardless of the truth. They didn’t know the truth.
They knew only what they saw, and they would see me as an
unoriginal copycat.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. He wraps his
arm around my shoulder and hugs me to him. “It’s hard to speak up
for yourself when someone steals your thunder, especially when you
know they’re faking it.”

Something tells me we’re not discussing
Hilary and candy clothes anymore. I glance at Noah’s face but can’t
see his true expression through his Oakleys.

“Who would dare steal Noah Winters’s
thunder?” I ask.

He laughs but his smile quickly fades.
“Julian Rossi, the ‘resident bad boy’ of Spaceships Around Saturn,”
he says, mocking Jules’s title. “He doesn’t act, look, or live the
lifestyle of a bad boy. He dyes his hair because he’s naturally a
dirty blonde. He smokes as a nervous habit. He’s not a badass in
any way, shape, or form. Aralie’s the dominant one in that
relationship because he’s a…”

He doesn’t say the word, but I can think of a
number of choices to fill in that blank. I guess Jules has the
cliché signs of a bad boy – dark hair, piercings, a few tattoos,
and a cigarette in his mouth. From my few days of Saturn stalking
online, he doesn’t seem to say much in interviews. He’s kind of
standoffish.

“All the fans are so quick to label us, and
that just pisses me the fuck off,” Noah says. “Don’t get me wrong.
I love our fans. They’re the best, and I wouldn’t be where I am now
if we didn’t have them, but they don’t
know
me. I see all
this bullshit about how I’m such a bad boy wannabe because of my
tattoos, but I’m so sweet and such a great friend. What the
ever-loving fuck? I’m not
friends
with any of those
people.”

The metal seat rocks in the air. I’m not sure
this is exactly the safest place for us to be while we’re spilling
our souls about ex-friends and band mates we dislike. But then
again, we may not have found the courage to say these things on
solid ground.

“It just pisses me off,” Noah says again.
“Milo’s the mature one. Benji’s the face of the band. Tate’s the
prankster. Jules is the bad boy, and I’m just whatever they want to
say I am, but I’m so sick of being called the cute BFF type. It’s
not like I’ve sat down in interviews saying I like having slumber
parties or something.”

The very thought of Noah at a slumber party
sends me straight into hysterical laughter. The girls in the seat
below us look up, but I can’t stop laughing even if I wanted
to.

“I’m glad you’re humored by this,” Noah says.
He cracks a bit of a smile. Then he shakes his head. “You know,
there are so many days where I sit back and I’m like, this isn’t
what I signed up for.”

“What? Sitting on a ferris wheel with a girl
laughing at you because she’s imagining you at a slumber party?” I
ask.

Noah laughs. “Actually, if I could’ve signed
up for sitting on a ferris wheel with you, I would’ve been the
first name on that list.”

Nothing else is said once the ferris wheel
begins moving. The afternoon sun glistens on the ocean’s surface in
the distance. Palm trees sway along the outskirts of the festival.
The mermaid parade is setting up in the distance, a few blocks
over.

Noah tightens his arm around me. “You can’t
let Hilary win like that,” he says.

“Well, the competition is over, and she
definitely made the contacts she needed to get in the door of the
fashion world,” I say.

“But you quit because of her. You backed
down. You let her intimidate you and take away your dream. You need
to fight back – but not in a snarky Taylor Swift kind of way. I
hate that innocence bullshit. You need to be like, I don’t know,
Katy Perry,” he says. “You need to roar.”

Back on the ground, I silently curse Noah for
getting Katy Perry songs stuck in my head. I wonder if I should
give Noah the speech about needing to roar in return. I’m not quite
sure who he’s angry with, though – the fans or Jules or maybe
both.

“So do you and Jules just avoid each other or
what?” I ask, hoping he’ll shine a little light on the answer for
me.

He shrugs. “We can get along,” he says. “It’s
just, we’re so different. We have different dreams in life. We want
different things out of this band. We’re both labeled incorrectly,
but he doesn’t seem to mind that part. When I fight with anyone,
it’s usually him.”

“Like fist fight or argue fight?” I
question.

We walk toward the route of the mermaid
parade to stake out a decent spot. I have no idea what a mermaid
parade is, but I’m excited for it.

“Both,” Noah says. “We’ve had a few shoving
matches, but I only punched him that one time during lockdown. I’m
quick to fight. It’s one of my not-so-cute flaws.”

“And you dared to leave Big Tony at the hotel
today?” I ask. “I guess you weren’t very concerned for
my
safety.”

He rolls his eyes. “I don’t hit girls,” he
says. “Unless you attack my brother and then all bets are off. He’s
the reason I’ve always fought. He wouldn’t stand up for himself,
and he wouldn’t tone down the flamboyant queerness, so someone had
to fight off the assholes.”

“Good thing I adore Nat, huh?” I elbow Noah
in the ribs, and he quickly wraps his arms around me, pulling me to
him.

While we wait for the parade to begin, Noah
talks quietly about how amazing it is to be out in the open without
everyone attacking him. A few girls have done double-takes today,
but they brush it off as a look-alike or maybe their imaginations.
I guess without the other guys and a security team, Noah can blend
into the crowd. Or maybe it’s just the Oakley sunglasses.

“I think they’re getting started,” he says,
nodding toward the street. “Take notes. Maybe you can prepare a
line of mermaid clothing someday.”

For the next hour, I’m engulfed in the
costumes of sea creatures, the girls sitting in gigantic clam
shells, and all the dresses and jewelry that the Sunrise Valley
Mermaid Festival has to offer. I wonder if I can just purchase the
entire wardrobe. The formal gowns shimmer in hues of silver,
turquoise, and every blue the ocean could offer. The girls wear
crowns of rhinestones, seashells, and pearls. The bikini tops range
from tattered to spectacular, from dark mermaid to mermaid royalty,
and I wish Noah hadn’t joked about mermaid clothing because I want
to make it all.

“This is incredible,” I say, not turning
toward him even though I know he’s watching me. “I can literally
see the blue eyeshadow from here.”

“And the blue hair,” Noah adds. “Isn’t that
on your list? Something about a crazy hair color?”

I nod. It’s item number seventeen – crazy
color in your hair. “Remind me to get some kind of hair dye from
one of those vendors,” I say. “I’ll have to bleach part of my hair
first. There’s no way those colors will show up on this.”

That’s the thing about having a dad of
Hispanic descent. His traits are more dominant than anything that
floats around in Mom’s English DNA. I never had a chance of having
her white-blonde hair. It would’ve been more convenient for
experimenting. When your hair is darker than tree bark, you’re
limited.