On an adrenaline high, I lose control of my bike in the dark. A patch of slick grass over mud. The next thing I know, I’ve wiped out for the first time since I was six, my bike slipping out from under me and dumping me onto the wet ground.
“Are you okay?” A girl’s voice.
I was okay, until I realized my private humiliation was actually a public exhibition. The voice comes from the back porch of a house. Not just any house, though—it’s the house where I watched the mover arguing with the new owner.
A dark shape moves, backlit by the porch light. I hold up a hand to eclipse the glare. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I lever myself off the ground, then I realize I’ve planted one hand on the muddy spot for support. With a sigh, I flap the hand, shaking off the mud. I’ll have to wipe it on my pants.
“Don’t do that,” she says suddenly, reading my mind. Or, more likely, my body language. There’s a clatter of feet on steps, and then she’s right there, right in front of me, holding out a handkerchief, and I try not to stare at the scarf wound around her head. It’s not that I’ve never seen this before. I’ve just never seen it live, in person. Especially here, in Brookdale, the place crowned three years ago as the “Whitest Town in Maryland.”
“Want a picture?” she asks. Not testily, to her credit and to my shame.
“I’m sorry.” I take the handkerchief and focus mightily on the complex task of wiping my hands clean. When I look up to return her handkerchief, I can’t help but stare at her, all light brown skin and quirked lips and arched eyebrows.
“I’m Sebastian.” I hold out a now-clean hand in what suddenly feels like a retrograde and archaic gesture.
The hand hangs there in the air for a too-long moment. She considers it, hesitates. I withdraw my hand, which now burns as though it’s been caught at something.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out immediately. “Really sorry.”
She laughs and the tension evaporates, just like that. “You’re apologizing for what I did? Do you always do that?”
“I don’t know.” And I don’t. But I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I can’t believe that I’m standing here, talking to her. Her face is almost perfectly round, utterly smooth, bordered by the scarf such that there’s nothing to distract from those eyes, from her. No ears, no hair, no earrings or neck. Just that face and that gaze. She could have asked me if I always climb the waterspout to the rooftop during a full moon, and I would have said, “I don’t know.”
It’s not that I’m smitten. Or in love. I am, rather, stunned. Last year in Advanced English Lit, we read part of an old, old poem called Paradise Lost. In it, the word astonied was used, which apparently is similar to astounded, but it has to do with turning to stone from shock. Metaphorically. And right now, I am astonied.
Wait. How long has it been since I said anything? What’s wrong with me?
“I’m Sebastian.” I tell her, not offering my hand.
“You said. I’m Aneesa.”
“Aneesa.”
“Yep.”
I say it one more time, tasting it before letting it spill out of my mouth. “What does it mean?” I ask, and immediately feel like a jackass, because isn’t that what people always say to people with foreign-sounding names? Ugh.
She stares, irritation and insouciance dancing together in those blacker-than-black eyes. “I’ll tell you,” she says, not unkindly, “if you can tell me what your name means.”
“It’s… it’s just a name.” I hand back the handkerchief. We don’t actually touch, but for a moment we’re both touching the cloth. This conversation is officially off to a screeching halt. I let go of the handkerchief, and my hand suddenly feels lonely.
“Thanks for the handkerchief,” I say as lamely as humanly possible. “Good luck moving in.”
“‘Good luck moving in’? Is the house haunted? Is the neighborhood watch coming after us?”
“I saw your dad arguing with the mover, is all.”
“Oh. Right.” She shrugs. “They left something like three boxes at the old house. And they were like, ‘It’s our policy that another truck will redeliver in two days.’ And Dad said, ‘It’s not Timbuktu—it’s Baltimore. It’s literally less than an hour away. Just go get them.’”
“So what happened?” I don’t know why I care. This is the most boring anecdote I could ever imagine. Yet I’m captivated for some reason. Astonied.
“Dad got on the phone with the people at the office and sounded all confused and said something like, ‘Am I really supposed to tip these guys for not getting the job done?’ And the guy with the truck was suddenly like, ‘We’ll go get those boxes.’ And they did.” At the end of her tale, she smiles dimples into her cheeks and spreads her hands as though she’s just performed a magic trick. Even though it’s just a Story About Some Boxes, I can’t help it—I grin back at her, as though we’ve just conquered high-level algebra together.
“I’m glad that turned out well for you.”
She shrugs again. “It was three boxes of kitchen stuff. No big.”
In the ensuing silence, I realize I’m staring at her and that she is, of course, intensely aware of this. I could stare even longer, but it could become more uncomfortable than it already is, if that’s even possible. I stoop for my bike, right it, and throw a leg over. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at school. Or on the bus. You’re in high school, right?”
“Yeah. But I finished freshman year at my old school, so I won’t start up again until fall.”
“Lucky you.”
And I ride off.
I actually ride off on that.
Lucky you.
I am genuinely stupid.
By the time I’ve coasted down the hill off of Route 27 and stashed my bike among the trees, I’ve forgotten all about Aneesa and her kitchen boxes, her sly dad, her dimples, and my Lucky you.
I lurk at the tree line, staring out at the rusty hulk of the trailer. Then, gnawing on my lower lip, I sink to the ground and sit and contemplate my plan.
When I’m with other people, I usually don’t think about it. Sometimes, it catches me off-guard, but I usually don’t.
When I’m alone, it’s all I can think about.
Later, I slip into the house. Mom watches TV on the sofa. It’s ten after ten, but she says nothing, rising and turning off the TV before heading to her room without a word.