Heart the Lover (17)

‘Okay, Mr. Cautious,’ I say. ‘I think you may proceed.’

He chuckles. He likes to be teased.

We park and walk down the little alley to get to the back of the bar. The music blares. Elvis Costello’s ‘Welcome to the Working Week.’

‘I haven’t been here since freshman fall.’

‘Let the farewell to youth begin,’ I say.

He stops and looks at me. ‘That story,’ he starts to say, and the rest is drowned out by Claudette, who is screaming my name. She comes running up, beer sloshing out of her big cup.

‘Yash! You’re Yash,’ she says and I lean back so he can’t see me and glare at her to tone it down. She gives me a wicked little smile then hugs us both and tells him very loudly and way too close to his ear that the couch cushions are very very clean. ‘Come, come,’ she says and grabs our hands and leads us to her group by the fence.

‘Hey you,’ a guy named Billy says to me as we pass his table. Another, Cody, points at me and says, ‘We’re dancing to Guns N’ Roses tonight.’ All the sidekicks are here.

Yash is amused. ‘Well, Miss Popular certainly hasn’t been at home moping. Can I get you a beer?’

He goes off to stand in one of the keg lines. Claudette grabs me and pulls me down onto a picnic bench with her. ‘That guy is in love with you.’

I don’t believe her, but all my muscles weaken anyway.

‘I wish.’

‘Trust me. He is.’

‘Nothing can—’

‘Oh, I know. Nothing can happen because he’s such a good guy. Good guys are human. He just needs a signal from you.’

I put my head on the picnic table. ‘I’m not good at signals.’



‘I know. That’s what’s so cute about you. But in this case you’ll have to give him one.’

I rock my head back and forth.

‘A small one.’

‘What’s going on?’ Yash says, back with three beers in a precarious cluster.

I straighten up.

He squeezes in on the other side of me. It’s tight. Our sides are touching and I feel him trying to not press too hard against me. He’s cooler than I am. How do I give him a sign when I can’t breathe? Another beer is only going to make it worse. Unlike the rest of the population, I get more awkward with alcohol. I put the cool plastic cup against my cheek.

‘Have you ever spent a summer down here before?’ he asks.

I shake my head.

A guy named Buck and two Seans are vying for Claudette’s attention. She leans over me and grills Yash about why he came back from Knoxville, where’s he’s going to look for work, and who was from India, his mother or his father? Her questions reveal how much I’ve spoken to her about him. I’m relieved when Buck interrupts and we start playing a game that involves placing one, two, or three fingers at the edge of the table. I think they must have been playing it earlier because everyone understands how to play but Yash and me. One of the Seans shouts the rules to us but they make no sense.

‘Uno, dos, tres, fire!’ Buck says.

Fingers go on the table. Yash and I both put out two.

Buck looks at all the fingers. ‘Crack crack,’ he says to me then to Yash, and he bashes our fingers with his fist. It stings and we laugh. We play many more rounds and no matter what we do we get cracked every time and we’re laughing too hard to figure it out.

The song ‘Africa’ comes on.

‘It’s Toto!’ I yell at Yash and we all get up to dance. He’s a very cute dancer. I didn’t know this. The way his hips move, his body still boyish. I can’t quite take my eyes off of him. He looks happy. His hair swings loose. His smile is enormous. ‘This is the stupidest song I’ve ever heard,’ he says.

‘Give him a sign,’ Claudette says.

I shake my head.

‘What did she say?’ he says.

‘I couldn’t hear her.’

He doesn’t believe me but he’s still smiling.

We dance to Madonna and Roxy Music. One of the Seans takes Claudette’s hand and pulls her in close as if it were a slow song and says something that makes her laugh a long laugh. This is the Sean she likes.

Brent and Cole come through the back alley. I haven’t seen them since the semiformal.



Yash glances in their direction and puts his lips close to my ear. ‘Should we go?’

The house on Pye Street is dark when we pull up. I don’t want to go in. There will be no sleeping for me, with him downstairs on the couch.

We walk up the porch steps. ‘I didn’t know what to do, after the senior party,’ he says.

‘What was there to do?’

He gets to the top step and sits. ‘I didn’t know what happened.’

I sit too, but not close, not where I want to. It would have been an easy sign, to sit closer. ‘You and Lara were inside.’

‘We came out and you were gone.’

‘I’d wanted to go in but Sam said I should leave you alone. And then—it doesn’t matter. My biggest regret is not getting to hear how it went with you and Lara.’ It occurs to me that maybe Lara is still here, maybe he’s come back for her.

‘She wasn’t my type.’

‘Really?’ The relief is instant, buoying. ‘After all that?’