I squeeze Junior’s hand before dropping it, bringing my rainbow Ring Pop to my mouth slowly, making sure Royce sees.
“Yup, you found us out,” I say, offering a lick to Junior. “Now that the whole town knows I’m pan, I’m dating everyone.”
Royce’s dull eyes widen, confusion warring with anger at the fact that I’ve confused him. He has no idea if I’m serious or not, and it feels so good to see behind the curtain, to see how small he is without the power our fear gave him.
“And I should say thank you,” I say, leaning toward him with a wink. “For being so pathetic that your girlfriend dumped you. I finally have a shot with Kendra now, and you know I have a thing for champions.” Kendra Kendall is nowhere in sight, but I wink and wave over his shoulder anyway, causing him to turn in circles like a dog.
“Have fun tonight,” Junior says, clearly dismissing him. “And Bradley? Stay away from my friends. Seems like I’m the only one who hasn’t had a chance to get a hit in, and I’m starting to feel left out.”
“Fuck you guys,” Royce says halfheartedly, and then, at long last, he leaves us alone.
Junior shifts in front of me, pulling me close. “Dance with me?” he asks, just as the song shifts to something slow and dreamy.
“Why, Junior Cortes,” I say. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Lita
“SUBTLE,” COLE SAYS as we walk away.
“When people are your friends, you don’t always need to be subtle,” I say.
“Then how about it?” Cole holds out his hand to me.
I notice the diamond white of his sister’s column dress.
“Just a minute.” I clasp his hand to tell him I’ll be right back.
“Kendra,” I call out.
She turns, her curls sweeping her shoulders.
“Congratulations,” I say.
“Thank you,” she says with a small, regal bow of her head.
I’m grateful she doesn’t add “you too.” Kendra isn’t one for polite gestures, at least not with girls like me. Everything she says to me, she means, so at least I know she means the “thank you” part.
There is meanness in Kendra. So much of it. But there is fear there too. I think about all the things she did to me, and somehow I cannot unhitch them from the memory of those red letters in that kitchen drawer.
Now the Kendalls can get their bills current, and Selena’s will still survive.
More than survive. With all the traffic coming to see the extraterrestrial rock formations, Selena’s has a new wave of tourists discovering their tostada burgers.
“Oh,” I say, “and congratulations again.”
Confusion spreads over Kendra’s face. “What?”
“On dumping a Royce-Bradley-worth of dead weight.”
It might be the first real smile I have ever seen out of Kendra Kendall. More than when she’s laughing at me. Even more than when she was crowned the newest Miss Meteor.
I decide not to press my luck. So I nod my goodbye and turn to leave Kendra to her public.
“You know, my grandmother would have been proud,” Kendra says.
I turn around and give her a smile I mean, for Cole if not for her.
“Yeah,” I say. “She would.”
“No, I mean of you.” Her eyes stay on me, flashing to Cole a few paces behind me just for a second. “You did her dress justice.”
The words flood into me, almost as warm as Sara’s perfume, or sitting on couch cushions with the other first-time girls.
I am not like the Kendall women. I am not cream or snow in this dress. In this dress, I am desert rock against the sky.
But I guess I wear it well enough for Kendra to look at me without shuddering.
With a little help from Uva and the corselette she pulled me into.
“Thanks,” I say.
Kendra tugs up the strapless top of the dress. “Just try not to show everyone your boobs again.”
She pulls me into a hug.
Why is Kendra Kendall hugging me?
She pats my back, smiling so that, to anyone else, she looks like she’s congratulating me. “If you break my brother’s heart, I will make sure they never find your short-ass little body, okay?”
Then she’s gone.
I turn back to Cole, breathing in the smell of the stars.
This night is the best kind of strange and wondrous, and I want to remember how it tastes.
I hold out my hand to Cole. “Where were we?”
It’s nothing particularly graceful, a girl in borrowed high heels dancing with a boy who can’t use one arm. But it’s us. And we are in front of this whole town and so many people from outside it, that it’s proof Cole has no fear of being seen with me.
Or close to me.
I slide my arm across his back, easing us a little closer. I wonder if I can get away with it without him noticing.
The same bubbly feeling I get about how beautiful polar equations are floods into me.
I feel my lips part, and I am too surprised to press them back together.
If you break my brother’s heart . . .
Even Kendra saw it before I did.
A boy giving me a bike meant for the girl he never was.
Me bringing him the only kind of galleta I knew how to bake right every time, because I wanted to say thank you for the bike that brought me to school each day.
Me kissing him on the cheek.
Him wiping it off with the back of his hand and then, one day, not.
Me climbing in the window of the Kendalls’ kitchen.
Cole coming in my bedroom window.
Him holding me against him with one arm and telling me I have friends on this planet.
Him holding me against him now.
“Oh.” I hear the sound in my own voice, more realizing than surprised.
I look up at Cole, who’s studying my face like he’s trying to follow what I’m thinking.
I will marry this boy one day. It’s not a wish. It’s something I know, the same way I know that, no matter how far I ever go from Meteor, New Mexico, I will carry around a heart made of stardust.
The way I know that I now have enough people who care about me and let me care about them to hold me to this planet.
“I love you too,” I say, the words filled with my own surprise. Not because I realize they’re true. But because I realize I’ve always known them.
Cole’s shock makes him completely still for a second.
But then the smile that comes is the bright, glowing rain of every meteor shower.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, laughing as I repeat his word.
And I kiss him on the cheek, closer to his mouth than I’ve ever done it.
But this time I pull away slowly enough to let him stop me.
This time, he catches my mouth with his, and I am every shower of light that has rained through the night sky.
My mouth against Cole’s is a soft brush of light across the sky. It’s a meteor blazing through the night.
And when we pull away, when we look at each other in that way that is both stillness and wonder, we are still lit up. We are light against the sky.
The first sound between us is the faint start of my laugh.
I’ve left a rose-gold lipstick mark on him.
He ducks his head a little.
“I’ve never seen you blush before,” I say.