manicpixiedreamgirl (20 page)

“Tyler?” Becky is saying. “Sparky? Mistah Dahcie? You still there?”

“What? Sorry. Yes.” Just thinking about her on that night made me zone out.

“If you don’t want to, it’s fine. Just say so, man.”

I shake my head, trying to focus. While I’m not drunk by any stretch of the imagination, the alcohol
is
still in my body, and it’s starting to make my eyes droop.

“Don’t want to what? Sorry, I must’ve had bad reception there for a second.…”

“I said if you weren’t serious about bringing me ice cream, that’s okay. I was joking.”

“Did you say that?”

“
You
did, you magnificent doofus. You offered, and I was taking you up on it. But you don’t have to, I was totally messing with you.”

“No, no, that’s cool,” I say, eyeing Robby and Justin at the table. I don’t like what I see: Robby is whispering to Justin, whose mouth is falling open in shock. They both look at me; Justin shakes his head; Robby shrugs as if to say,
Yeah, I know. It’s crazy, right?

“I can do that,” I say to Becky. “If you’ll be up.”

“I’ll be up,” Becky says.

“Okay. Maybe twenty minutes? You sure it’s okay?”

“I’m sure. Thanks, Tyler.”

“No problem. See ya.”

I hang up and rub my eyes.

I think about my story.

About Syd being gone.

And I make up my mind. Tonight. It’s going to be tonight.

“Becky?” I’d said quietly after about five full minutes in
which she made no move, said no word. Just lay curled
up on the bed, clutching her pillow.

It didn’t bother me, this silence. I listened to each
tiny breath in and out of her nose.

“Mmm?” she said, barely more than a squeak.

“Do you want me to go?” I whispered.

“… Mmm.”

Didn’t know what that meant.

“I’ll just let you sleep,” I said, hoping she’d tell me to stay.

She made no sound. She might’ve already been asleep.

The urge to lean over and kiss her cheek was unbearable, a thousand centipedes coiling in my guts.

But I couldn’t do it. Whether I couldn’t
make
myself or couldn’t
let
myself, I don’t know, not to this day.

I got up carefully from the edge of the mattress and walked to her door. My whole body shook. I shut off her overhead light but left the bathroom light on in case maybe she woke up later and needed to see or something. I don’t know.

I opened her door as quietly as I could. Her voice stopped me cold.

“Tyler.”

“… Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

As if I couldn’t have been more confused, that word scrambled what remained of my brains.

“Sure,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like an idiot.

“My keys are on the desk.”

Indeed they were. The light from her bathroom was plenty to see by.

“You want me to take your car?” I had figured on calling Gabrielle for a ride.

“Mmm. Drive safe. Bring it back whenev.”

“… Okay.”

“Night, Tyler.”

“Good night,” I said, trying to figure out what I should do.

What
could
I do?

I went out, shutting the door behind me. I did want to take Becky’s car, mostly to be able to sit and smell that intoxicating vanilla scent. But I’d also have to explain to Mom and Dad why I was driving someone else’s car, and without an actual license. Never mind if I got pulled over by the cops. That would be real fun to try to explain.

I hated doing it, but I texted Gabby to come get me.

It occurred to me as I sat on the sidewalk outside Becky’s house that for all the sexual things Syd and I had done—things I don’t need to describe because I’m sure you can fill in the blanks—for all those escapades, I swear: this, tonight, was the most erotic—

No.

No, that’s not the right word at all. It’s not inaccurate, but it’s not right, either.

Intimate.

It was the most intimate experience of my entire life.

There were a lot of things about that night I couldn’t figure out. Still can’t, really. But the one that sticks out the most? Her saying “Thanks.”

Thanks for what?

Gabby looked confused when she pulled up to the sidewalk.

“Whose house is this?” she asked right away as I climbed into the Honda.

“Becky’s.”

“
Seriously?
Tyler, what the hell are you doing here? I know you said you were going to hang out, but at her
house
?”

“We were just talking,” I said. “It’s no big. Relax.”

“But this is the chick who—”

“Yes, but it’s okay, all right? We’re friends.”

Gabby snorted. “Whatever, bro,” she said. “But you’re an asshole.”

“So’s your face.”

I walk to Robby, who’s tossing the empty cups and bottle into a trash can. Justin is staring at me as if in awe.

“Decided to join us again, compadre?” Robby asks. He looks and sounds as sober as I feel.

“I broke up with Sydney.”

Justin nods slowly while Robby freezes, eyes bugging, accidentally comical.

“You did? What, just now?” Robby says.

“Right before she left.” I sit on the concrete bench. “Actually,” I correct myself, “she broke up with me.”

Robby sits beside me. “And? How you doing?”

“About her? Fine. I guess. Maybe it’s just taking a while to sink in.”

Robby waves my comment off. “I don’t think so, Ty,” he says. “Gotta say, I’m surprised it lasted this long.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“So then, who you been on the phone with this whole … Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the deal?”

“I need to get going.” I stand up and hold out my hand for my keys.

“Whoa, back the truck up, cowboy,” he says. “You invited us out for a party and then spent most of the night chitchatting with your chicks. It’s my turn now, bitch.”

I’m impatient, itching to get to Becky’s, but he’s right; once the alcohol was gone, I sort of drifted. That wasn’t fair. I sit back down.

“Now,” Robby says, kicking back with his elbows on the table behind us, “what is it about Rebecca Webb that’s so—”

Justin’s knees are bouncing fast, kicking up dust devils at his feet. Without further ado, he bursts out, “You saw her naked?!”

“Whoa, what?”

“I told him about the shower thing,” Robby says.

“Naked?!” Justin demands again.

“Stop, no, I didn’t see her naked,” I say. “Just, you know … partial.”

“Dude!” Justin shouts. “Partial, full frontal, who cares, she took a shower with you in the room and changed her clothes in front of you and you don’t know if she freaking
likes you
or not?”

Robby breaks in before I can respond. “No girl—no
woman
—does something like the shower thing, putting her clothes on like that in front of you, all of it, unless she’s ready for you to make a move.”

“Okay, yeah,” I say, “I kinda wondered that at the time, but—”

“But you
didn’t
make a move,” Robby says, jabbing a finger at me. “And
that’s
why she said thank you.”

“Yeah, man,” Justin says. “That ‘thank you’ thing … she really said that?”

“Yeah …”

“So you were, like, a gentleman,” Justin says.

“Yeah, yeah, it was a test,” Robby says. “She was ready for you to do something, but she didn’t really want you to. Get it?”

“… Not by a mile.”

Robby rubs his forehead. “A girl’s not getting naked like that in front of a guy—a straight guy, anyway—without knowing that it’s risky. I don’t care what kind of ‘friends’ she says you are. She knew doing that would turn you on, and she wanted to see what you’d do with it. You didn’t jump her, so you passed the test.”

“And after something like that,” Justin says, “you seriously don’t think you have a shot with her?”

“I don’t know!” I say.

“Bull
shit
you don’t know,” Robby grumbles.

“What more do you want, man?” Justin asks. “A written invitation?”

“I want …,” I say, squinting at the dirt between my feet, “to breathe her in. You know?”

Justin’s nose wrinkles. “You wanna
smell
her?”

I can’t stop a short laugh. “No—well, yes, but—no, not like that. It’s like … possession. I want to possess her. I mean, not like a
demon
. And not like
property
. God, I really suck at this.”

“Okay, I get it,” Robby says. “You want to be a demon who sniffs her.”

I punch his shoulder. “Dick.”

“But you’re still not answering the question. Why her?”

“It’s—just—everything. I guess.”

My friends take this in for a minute. We sit in silence.

“So you’re meeting up with her tonight, huh?” Robby says finally.

“Yeah. At her house. I promised her ice cream. She’s had a rough night.”

Robby frowns and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers. “If that’s what you got to do,” he says. “But tell me something, Ty. You been going off about this chick for almost three years now. Is it that you just want to do her? Take her for a test drive? Is that it?”

“Not really,” I say. “I mean, I wouldn’t turn it down, but no. I don’t know, dude. It’s something else.”

“Something Sydney doesn’t have,” Robby says. “Because you’ve made it sound like Syd was pretty, uh, generous with you.”

True. Sydney wasn’t shy.

“My chances of hooking up with Becky are a trillion to one—”

“Never tell me the odds!” Justin cries.

We look at him.

“Empire Strikes Back,”
he says. “Han Solo? Um … sorry. Go ahead.”

Robby and I take a moment to laugh at Justin’s expense before I go on.

“So regardless of what the shower thing was supposed to mean, if it even meant anything, she’s been perfectly clear that we’re friends, and that’s it. Maybe she wanted me to make a move that night, or maybe she didn’t think I would because we’re only friends, I don’t know. And it’s … it’s
not
about sex, it never
was
about sex. You can believe that or not, I don’t care. It’s something else. Or
more
, I don’t know which.”

Of course
, I don’t say out loud,
according to my now ex-girlfriend, my chances of sleeping with her are actually pretty decent
.

The guy part of me, and I don’t mean anatomically, wants that to be true. The rest of me sometimes wants to forget everything I know about Becky, because I already know too much.

None of it is recognizable in the story sitting in my car right now.

On closing night of the one-acts, I ended up going to the
cast party at Ross’s insistence, since I left the one for
Mockingbird
so fast. And since Becky was going too … 
well, there it is.

I’d spent that afternoon before the one-act performances hanging out with Sydney.
And
Gabrielle. I kept waiting for one of them to ambush me about the night before, going to Becky’s and all, but they didn’t. So naturally, I had to bring it up.

We were kicking back on our patio so Gabby could smoke. It was one of the concessions Mom and Dad made during her whole grounding, or probation, or whatever she and my parents were calling it. She and Syd rocked back and forth on wicker chairs while I paced, and stood still, and paced again, listening to them going off about politics, religion, law. Stupid adult stuff.