“But Alexander was still a smart man. He was still an inventor.
You get that much honestly. Life isn’t about what you get, it’s about what you DO with what you get.”
“I build things that have no use.” His tone is flat. “It’s just as bad. I should be creating something that makes a difference, something to . . . make up for the past.”
I’m getting angry. “What do you think would happen if I believed genetics played that kind of role in my life? If I believed that because my birth parents made certain decisions, it meant that my life, my dreams were forfeit, too? Do you know what that would do to me? Do you have any idea what it HAS
done to me?”
Cricket is devastated. “I wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry—”
“You should be. You have a gift, and you’re doubting it.” I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “You can’t let that kind of shame dictate who you are.You aren’t your name.Your decisions are your own.”
He stares at me.
I return the stare, and my senses surge. The energy between us ricochets so fiercely that it scares me.
I break our gaze.
We climb the rest of the way to the top, and the entire city stretches before us. The jutting houses, the golden hills, the highrises, the glittering bay.
It’s stunning. We sit on an empty slab of asphalt overlooking the view. It’s someone’s driveway, but no one will see us. The eucalyptus tree dangling above us releases its soothing fragrance into the night air.
Cricket inhales, long and slow. He sighs his exhale. “I’ve missed that. Eucalyptus always reminds me of home.” And I fill with warmth because, even with his second life in Berkeley, he still thinks of this as home. “You know,” I say.
“When I was little, my parents were embarrassed by the way I dressed.”
“Really? That’s surprising.”
“They were terrified that people would think THEY were dressing me like that. That THE GAYS were corrupting me with false eyelashes and glitter.”
He laughs.
“But they learned it’s who I am, and they accepted it. And their support gave me some confidence. And then, that summer, you taught me how to accept it for myself. To not worry about what other people said. And then . . . things weren’t bad at all.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you. So I’m telling you this now. I will never forget that mechanical bird you made. The one that only sang when you opened its cage door?”
“You remember that?” He’s mystified.
“Or the fifty-step Rube Goldberg machine that sharpened a pencil? Or that insane train of dominoes that took you two weeks to set up, but was over in a minute? It was incredible.
Just because something isn’t practical doesn’t mean it’s not worth creating. Sometimes beauty and real-life magic are enough.”
I turn to face him, cross-legged. “It’s like my Marie Antoinette dress. It’s not practical, but . . . for that one moment, arriving at a dance in a beautiful, elaborate dress that no one else is wearing and that everyone will remember? I want that.” Cricket stares across the city lights toward the bay. “You will.
You’ll have it.”
“Not without your help.” I want to give him a friendly shove, but I settle for a verbal jab. “So are you gonna get started on my panniers tomorrow or what?”
“I already started them.” He meets my eyes again. “I stayed in tonight, too. I didn’t just hand out candy.”
I’m touched. “Cricket Bell. You are the nicest guy I know.”
“Yeah.” He snorts. “The nice guy.”
“What?”
“That was what my one-and-only girlfriend said when she broke up with me.”
“Oh.” I’m taken aback. The Girlfriend, at last. “That’s . . . a really, really stupid reason.”
Cricket scooches forward, and his knees almost bump mine.
Almost. “It’s not uncommon. Nice guys finish last and all.” There’s a dig at Max amid his self-deprecation, but I ignore it.
“Who was she?”
“One of Calliope’s friends. Last year.”
“A figure skater?”
“My social scene doesn’t extend much further.” The news makes me unhappy. Skaters are gorgeous. And talented. And, like, athletically gifted. I stand, my heart pounding in my ears. “I need to get home.”
He looks at his wrist, but he’s not wearing his watch. “Yeah, I guess it’s really late. Or really early.”
We descend the eighty stairs to our street corner before Cricket unexpectedly halts. “Oh, no. You wanted to talk about Max. Do you—”
“I think we were supposed to talk tonight,” I interrupt him with a glance toward the moon. She’s a waxing gibbous, almost full.
“And I thought it was supposed to be about Max, but I was wrong. We needed to talk about you.” I point at my feet.
I’m standing over the word BELL.
It’s imprinted on the grate for Pacific Bell, the phone company.
They’re everywhere, on every street. “See?” I say.
“Every time I see Dolores Street, I think of you.” His words rush out. “Dolores Park. Dolores Mission. You’re everywhere in this neighborhood, you are this neighborhood.” I close my eyes. He shouldn’t say things like that, but I don’t want him to stop. It’s become impossible to deny he means something to me. I don’t have the courage to name it. Not yet.
But it’s there. I open my eyes, and . . . he’s gone.
He’s walking swiftly up the stairs to his home.
Another vanished spirit on Halloween.
Chapter twenty-three
I like to try new things. Like when I went vegan my freshman year. It only lasted three days, because I missed cheddar, but I tried it. And I’m constantly trying on hats in stores. They’re the one item I can’t make work for me, but I keep trying, because I’m positive that someday I’ll find the right one. Maybe it’ll be a vintage cloche dripping with faux peonies, or maybe it’ll be a Stetson laced with a red bandanna.
I’ll find it. I just have to keep trying them on.
So it annoys me when Lindsey suggests I’m not trying hard enough to find something to curl my hair. My fake hair. She’s balancing chemistry equations while I borrow her parents’
handheld steamer to bend my white hair into the appropriately sized curls. Later, I’ll spray-glue them to my Marie Antoinette wig. But first I need to curl the stupid curls.
“Don’t you have anything bigger? Or smaller?” I gesture to the cylindrical shapes—pens, markers, glassware, even a monocular spy scope—
spread before me. None of them is the right size.
She flips a textbook page. “Got me. It’s your wig. Try harder.” I search her room, but I know I won’t find anything. Her bedroom is so well ordered that I would have already seen it if she had it. Lindsey’s walls are painted classic Nancy Drew–
spine yellow. Her complete collection of the novels is lined up in neat rows across the top shelves of her bookcase and below them, alphabetical by author, are titles like History’s Greatest Spies, Detecting for Dummies, and The Tao of Crime Fighting.
Beside her bed are meticulously organized magazine holders with four years’ worth of back issues of Eye Spy Intelligence Magazine and a dozen Spy Gear catalogs tabbed with sticky notes marking wishlist items.
But her room is devoid of any further cylindrical objects.
“And in the closest race of the night, New York senator Joseph Wasserstein is still fighting to hold on to his seat,” the toupee-d newsman says. It’s Election Day, and since the Lims don’t get cable, every channel is filled with boring coverage. The only reason the television is on is to drown out the sound of Mrs.
Lim blasting Neil Diamond. He’s this superold pop singer who wears sequined shirts. Even the sparkles aren’t enough to sway me, though I’d never tell her that. When she’s not cooking killer Korean barbecue at the restaurant, she blogs for his secondlargest fansite.
I point at the newsman. “I bet that guy could help me. Does he seriously think that rug on his head looks real?” It switches to a clip of Senator Wasserstein and his family waiting for the final tallies. His wife has that perfectly coiffed hair and that toothy political smile, but his teenage son looks uncomfortable and out of place. He’s actually kinda cute. I say so, and Lindsey looks up at the screen. “God. You are so predictable.”
“What?”
“He looks miserable. You only like guys who look pissed off.”
“That’s not true.” I turn off the television, and Neil’s vibrato shakes the floor.
Lindsey laughs. “Yeah, Max is known for his charming smile.” I frown.Two Sundays have passed, and we didn’t have brunch on either one. Max called the morning after Halloween and told me he wouldn’t be coming—that day or any Sunday after. I can’t blame him for being tired of the scrutiny. I told my parents that he had more shows scheduled, and
they’re still too frazzled by Norah to inquire further. Truthfully, I hope my parents will just sort of forget that brunch was ever a requirement.
I’ve been seeing Max at odd times—before a weekend shift at the theater, during a dinner break, and once at his apartment after school. My parents thought I was at Lindsey’s. But I’ve seen a lot of Cricket. It only took him one more night to finish the panniers, plus an afternoon at my house with final fittings.
They’re gigantic and amazing. It’s like wearing the framework of a horizontal skyscraper.
And I’ve finished the stays, so I’m working on the best part now: the gown itself. Cricket helped measure and cut the fabric.
It turns out that not only is he handy because of his math and science skills, but he also knows a little about sewing because of Calliope’s costumes, which are in constant need of repair.
I’ve only had one more run-in with Calliope, another beforeschool incident, although this was accidental. She actually ran into me when she was leaving her house and didn’t see me coming. At least, I think it was accidental. “You just can’t stay away, can you?” she grumbled, before jogging away.
“I LIVE HERE!” I said, rubbing my bruised arm.
She ignored me.
But since Cricket and I have been busy with my project, it’s been easier to be friends. There was only one awkward moment, when he came over the first time. I hadn’t thought to clean up my room, and there was a hot pink bra thrown on the center of my floor. He turned the same shade of magenta when he saw it.
To be fair, I did, too.
Cricket. Wait a second.
I know EXACTLY what I need to curl my wig. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Lindsey, and I pop downstairs, where Mrs. Lim is at the family computer. I raise my voice above Neil’s. “Where do you keep the broom?” Then I add, “I didn’t break anything.”
“In there.” She gives a distracted gesture to the hall closet.
“Troll on the message board. He’s saying Wayne Newton is better than Neil Diamond.