Lexie stood up suddenly. “I need to freshen up.” Moxie rose when she did, but she went off without him.
Even though Lexie knew this restaurant inside and out, there were enough people moving around to make navigating to the bathroom like flying through an asteroid field. I got up to escort her.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Kjersten, who smiled at me politely. “I gotta go to the bathroom anyway.”
As Lexie and I neared the restroom, I heard Kjersten’s phone ring again. I glanced back just long enough to see her answer it.
“I like Raoul,” I told Lexie. “He’s kinda cool.”
“If he ever stops talking about himself.” We were at the restroom doors, but Lexie didn’t make a move to go in. “Having a special ability is all fine and good. But there’s got to be more to a person than sonar.”
“Yeah ... I guess if he didn’t have that, he’d be pretty boring, huh.” I thought about how the conversation was all about him and his uniqueness back at the table, and I realized it wasn’t because he was conceited; it was because he had nothing else to talk about.
“Kjersten seems very nice,” Lexie said. “I’m happy for you ...” I knew Lexie well enough to know there was an implied “but” at the end of that sentence. I waited for the but to present itself.
“But... there’s something about her,” Lexie finally said. “I don’t know, it’s not quite right.”
“You barely said a word to each other—how can you tell anything?”
“I have a sense about these things.”
“Being blind doesn’t make you psychic,” I said, sounding more annoyed than I intended to. No—actually I intended to sound exactly like that.
“There’s something in her tone of voice,” Lexie said, “something in the silences. It’s ... off.”
“So what? She’s got family stuff going on, that’s all,” I said. “Her brother’s illness.”
“That may be part of the reason.”
“The reason for what?”
“For why she’s going out with you.”
I didn’t like the way this conversation was heading. “Maybe she just likes me—did you ever think of that?”
“Yes, but why does she like you?”
“Why does she need a reason? She just does! What—you think it’s strange that a girl who’s two years older than me, really smart, and looks like a supermodel would want to date me?” There are some things you just shouldn’t say out loud. “Okay, maybe it is strange. But what’s wrong with that? So she’s strange. So am I—so are you—since when was there a law against that?”
“Maybe it’s not you she likes. Maybe it’s the idea of you.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Well, maybe you should take the idea of yourself into that bathroom, because I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
She stormed into the bathroom without anyone’s help, and with the grace of someone who knew exactly where they were going. Any human asteroid in her way had better watch out. Well, I wasn’t going to walk her back. I pulled aside the busboy who couldn’t pour water right and told him to escort Miss Crawley back to the table when she was done.
She was jealous. That was it. Had to be. Just like I was jealous of her and her clicking celebrity boyfriend. But that would pass. Things were just getting started between Kjersten and me, and I wasn’t going to let Lexie ruin it.
When I got back to the table, Kjersten was putting on her coat.
“What’s the matter? You cold?”
“I’m sorry, Anthony. I’ve got to go.”
My first response was to look at Raoul. “What did you do?” I asked, figuring maybe he clicked her cleavage, and told her the size of her bra.
“Nothing,” said Raoul. “She had a phone call.”
“It was my father. I’m grounded.”
I just looked at her for a while in stunned denial, like the time I was a kid and my mother told me we’re not going to Disney World, on account of the airline suddenly decided to go out of business.
“What? You can’t get grounded in the middle of a date. That’s like ... that’s like against the law.”
“I was grounded before the date,” she admitted. “I’m not supposed to be out, but my mom doesn’t care, and my dad wasn’t home.”
“Exactly—he’s never home, so that voids the grounding, right?”
“He’s home now.” She zipped up her jacket, sealing away the view of her amazing dress from me and the paparazzi.
“Can’t you be like ... rebellious or something?”
“I was rebellious—that’s why I’m grounded.”
I found myself wondering what she had done, and coming up with things that were probably much more exotic than what really happened. Then I said in a voice far more whiny than I meant it to be, “Can’t you be rebellious with me?”
She looked at me, and I could tell that she really did want to stay. But I could also tell from that look that she wouldn’t. Then she kissed me, and by the time I recovered from the kiss, she was gone. The waiter, totally clueless, brought the meals and set them down, but right now it was just me and Raoul—and it was anyone’s guess if Lexie would come out of the bathroom after what I said to her.
I sat down, dazed by the crash-and-burn of it all, and Raoul says, “So do you want me to echolocate the number of people in the room, or not?”
10. Collateral Damage, Relative Humidity, and Lemon Pledge in the Dust Bowl of My Life
I want to make it absolutely clear that what happened to Gunnar’s neighbors was an accident—and for once, I get to share the blame with someone else.
With our dust-bowl due date just a few days away, Gunnar and I were under a time constraint, and we were working too hard on this Steinbeck project to get marked down for being late. I have experience in that department, and know for a fact that there are teachers who measure lateness in microseconds on that world clock they got in England. And there’s no bottom to this pit. I actually once got a Z-minus on a late paper. I pointed out to the teacher that she coulda marked me even lower if she used the Russian alphabet, on account of it has something like thirty-three letters instead of twenty-six. She was impressed enough by the suggestion that she raised my grade to a Z-plus.
To avoid letter grades in the lower half of the alphabet, Gunnar and I needed to kill off the plants quickly to get our dust bowl rolling, so we used a lot of herbicide. Now Gunnar’s next-door neighbors were all ticked off because their yards were smelling like toxic waste. It was Sunday morning. The day after my not-quite-a-date with Kjersten. I really didn’t want to be there and have to face Mr. Ümlaut, who I held personally responsible for ruining my evening. And I didn’t want to face Kjersten just yet, because it was too soon after the walkout. But I had to go through the house to get to the backyard. I was hoping Gunnar would answer the door, but he was already working out back.
Kjersten answered the door.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Nice day.”
“Sunny.”
“Sun’s good.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway...”
“Right.”
I tried to put an end to the misery by moving toward the back door, but she wasn’t letting me. Not yet.
“Sorry about last night,” she said. “We’ll do it again, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, no problem.”
“No,” she said. “I mean it.”
And I could tell that she really did mean it. Deep down, I had kind of felt that a ruined evening meant ruined hopes. It was good to know that another, better date was still on the horizon.
“When’s your grounding over?” I asked.