“Three-thirty,” I stated. Again.
Mr. Dumpling said, “Were there boys at this party?”
Mr. Borscht said, “Arthur, this child should be out so late at night? Where boys might be?” Mr. Cannoli said, “I’ll kill the kid who …”
Mr. Curry turned to me. “A nice young lady, she does not …”
“Time for me to walk my dogs!” I said. If I spent any more time with these old men in their House of Co ee Woe, they’d conspire to have me locked in my room away from boys till I was thirty years old.
me locked in my room away from boys till I was thirty years old.
I left the gentlemen to their kvetching so I could play some catching with my favorite dog-walking clients.
I had my two favorite dogs with me in the park—Lola and Dude, a lit le pug-Chi mix and a giant chocolate Lab. It’s true love between them.
You can tell by how eagerly they snif each other’s but s.
I called Grandpa from my cell phone.
“You need to learn to compromise,” I said.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“Dude used to hate Lola because she was so lit le and cute and took all the at ention. Then he learned to play nice with her so he could have the at ention, too. Dude compromised, like you should. Just because Mabel turned down your proposal doesn’t mean you should break up with her over it!”
This concession was very big of me, I agree.
“I’m supposed to take love advice from a sixteen-year-old girl?” Grandpa said.
“Yes.” I hung up before he could point out how completely not qualified I was to dole out such advice.
I’ve got to learn to stop being so Lily sweet and transition myself into a hard bargainer.
For instance.
If I am forced to move to Fiji next September, which is when Langston said Dad’s new job would start if Dad decides to take it, I am going to demand a puppy. I’m realizing there is a lot of parental guilt to be mined from this situation, and I plan to use it to my animal kingdom benefit.
I sat down at a bench while Lola chased Dude in the dog park. From the next bench, I noticed a teenage boy wearing an argyle print beret tilted backward, squinting at me like he knew me. “Lily?” he asked.
I stared at him more closely.
“Edgar Thibaud!” I growled.
He came over to my bench. How dare Edgar Thibaud recognize me and have the audacity to approach me, after the living hell he made my elementary school years at PS 41?
Also.
How dare Edgar Thibaud have used the past few years to grow so … tall? And … good-looking?
Edgar Thibaud said, “I wasn’t sure it was you, then I noticed the weird boot on one foot and the beat-up Chuck on the other, and I remembered that red pom-pom hat. I knew it could only be you. ’Sup?”
’Sup? he wanted to know? So casually? Like he hadn’t ruined my life and killed my gerbil?
Edgar Thibaud sat down next to me. His (deep green, and rather beautiful) eyes looked a lit le hazy, like perhaps he’d been smoking from the peace pipe.
“I’m the captain of my soccer team,” I announced.
I don’t really know how to talk to boys. In person. Which is probably why I’ve become dependent on a notebook for creative expression of a potentially romantic nature.
Edgar laughed at my idiotic response. But it wasn’t a mean laugh. It sounded like an appreciative one. “Of course you are. Same old Lily.
You’ve even got the same black-rimmed glasses like you wore in elementary school.”
“I heard you got kicked out of high school for some conspiracy plot.”
“Just suspended. It was like a vacation, actually. And check you out, keeping tabs on me all this time.” Edgar Thibaud leaned into my ear.
“Anyone tell you that you grew up to be sort of cute? In, like, a misfit type of way?” I didn’t know whether to be flat ered or outraged.
I did know his breath in my ear sent very unfamiliar shivers through my body.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him, needing trivial conversation to distract me from the sordid thoughts my mind was starting to spin about Edgar Thibaud … with his shirt o . I could feel my face turning hot, blushing. And yet my dialogue was no racier than: “You didn’t go away for Christmas like everybody else?”
“My parents went ski ng in Colorado without me. I annoyed them too much.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“No, I did it on purpose. A week without their bourgeois hypocrisy is a week of paradise.” Was Edgar Thibaud even speaking? I couldn’t stop staring at his face. Just how exactly had it turned so handsome in the intervening years?
I said, “I think that’s a girl’s beret you’re wearing.”
“Is it?” Edgar asked. “Cool.” He cocked his head to the side, pleased. “I like girls. And their hats.” He reached to grab my hat from my head. “May I?”
Edgar Thibaud had obviously evolved over the last few years if he had the decency to ask for my hat, rather than snatch it o my head and then probably throw it to the dogs to play with, as the old Edgar on the school yard would have done.
I moved my head down so he could take my hat. He placed my red pom-pom hat on his head, then put his beret on mine.
His beret on my head felt so warm and … forbidden. I liked it.
“Want to go to a party with me tonight?” Edgar asked.
“Grandpa probably won’t let me go!” I blurted out.