“Well, if you change your mind…” Linds drifts off before snapping another carrot between her perfect teeth. I flinch at the noise and her words.
In three weeks, all of us will be dressed to the nines in my backyard, surrounded by the roses I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into, wondering how prom, the final peak of teenage experiences before adulthood, came so quickly. Either Sammie or Wesley will have his hands wrapped around Lindsay’s waist, while Agatha and I will pose off to the side for our photography-loving parents.
But lately I’m a little haunted by the image I’ve always had of me dancing with a pretty boy in a tux. There was a time, when I was much younger, that I pictured Sammie next to me. Then it was Jackson from sixth-grade English, then Adam from Honors bio, then Ethan from the nursery on Main Street, then both Franklin and Nathan from PE (messy deal, crushing on twins), dozens of other boys—tall, short, kind, mean, sporty, nerdy, and so on and so forth. And finally: Lucas, the one I really thought would work out. He lingers there, even now.
Occasionally, as my mind wanders during class or while gardening, someone stands out against the collection of boys I’ve dared to want. Even considering Sammie and Lucas, this face has taken the strongest presence, especially as prom approaches.
But she shouldn’t—doesn’t—belong there.
* * *
The air-conditioning in government feels heavenly on the back of my neck as I take my seat. The desk before mine is still empty, thankfully. I adjust the straps of my top and wipe at my undoubtedly shiny forehead, then busy my hands with twirling my pen.
I hear her before I see her, surprising given her usual shyness. But the tan work boots she wears every day, even days as hot as today, are heavy on the classroom tiles. Her tall figure casts a shadow in the doorway.
Talia Sanchez walks into class the way she always does, eyes trained on her bootlaces, thick, dark curls bouncing around her long, brown face. My pen slips from my sweaty fingers, tumbling to the ground. Before I can grab it, she’s already bending down.
“Thanks,” I say, throat dry. She smiles, tight-lipped, and takes her seat in front of me.
I pull out my notebook and flip it to a clean sheet, scratching down today’s date so my fidgeting hands will have something to do other than, you know, fidget. When I finally find my voice again, it comes out shakier than I hoped. “Did you finish the mock DBQs?”
She turns around and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Almost,” she says quietly. “Zaq and I are going to finish them after school. You?” She slides her notebook out of her bag, the one with the funky doodle of the White House I’ve always assumed Wesley drew for her. She and her best friend, Zaq, an artsy boy Agatha knows from our school’s Black student union, are Wesley’s other friends, i.e., the ones he actually makes an effort with. He spends lunch with them in the art studio on Tuesdays and Thursdays, sitting with us at the bench the rest of the week.
“I meant to work on some yesterday but had a gardening issue I had to deal with first. I forgot to ask my dad to buy fertilizer this week, so I had to steal bananas from Sammie’s house to compensate. It took longer than expected to convince him to give them up though.” Sammie made me promise he got first pick on corsage and boutonniere flowers. But joke’s on him, I was going to give him first pick anyway. Next-door-neighbor privileges.
“I didn’t know bananas were good for roses,” she says. It’s refreshing to talk about my roses with someone who hasn’t known me for years. Strangers are always in awe of my knowledge, while my close friends only care about my garden when they need flowers for Mother’s or Valentine’s Day.
“Oh yeah, they’re fantastic for them, but just the peels. They decompose really quickly and release phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium into the soil, which the roses love,” I explain, shedding the cracks in my voice. “Plus, my dad loves freezing the leftover bananas and using them to make plátanos maduros.”
“Now I’m hungry,” she laughs, starting to turn back around.
“I can show you updated garden photos!” I showed her the first of this season’s blooms a few weeks back, but the Midas Touch bushes were her favorite and they’ve drastically blossomed since.
The final bell rings before I can get to my phone. Ms. Fell clears her throat and asks us to get ready for a pop quiz.
“You can text them to me later,” Talia whispers, then turns away. My face warms, but I clear everything in my head that doesn’t have to do with checks and balances.
Talia finishes her quiz after me, flashing me a small smile on her way back to her seat. It’s impossible not to notice the way the harsh overhead lighting illuminates the golden ring hooked around her nose and highlights the lighter tones in her dark hair. As she sits, she pulls her thick curls into a bun with such ease, it almost looks like a magic trick. All that volume being condensed to defy gravity within seconds. When she drops her hands, the light catches on her glittery red fingertips.
When I formally met Talia at the start of senior year, I only knew four things about her:
1. She is friends with Wesley Cho and Zaquariah Field.
2. She is quiet.
3. Her nails are always painted a sparkly red color.
4. She once kissed a girl and liked it.
I never went out of my way to learn these things about her. But I’ve seen her around school enough that it was inevitable for me to recognize her face in a crowd and learn her name. Especially after Wesley started hanging out with both of us. I only noticed her nails because she and Lindsay had a math class together sophomore year. Lindsay thought it was weird that a girl who rarely wore makeup and whose closet seemed mostly comprised of flannels and khakis always had such pristine, glittery, in-your-face nails.
Our first real conversation happened in this class at the start of the year, after we were seated near each other alphabetically and coerced into an icebreaker about our summer break. It wasn’t as awkward as it could have been, both in spite and because of the events the week prior, at Lindsay’s end-of-summer party.