What are you doing the rest of the day?” I ask Sean after we finish practicing.
It’s a gray day. Grayday, grayday, grayday … the kind of day when you just feel sad even if you’re happy. I should be happy, happy, happy because practicing for our duet went super-well—“It’ll be a highlight of the show,” Rowena said—and also because Rowena didn’t mention anything about the New York summer program in front of Sean. I still haven’t decided what to do about that. But instead of being happy, I’m bummed about what Mom told me about Arnold. I don’t want to go home—particularly because I don’t want to have to go shopping with her on the biggest shopping day of the year.
“Um…” Sean fiddles with his car keys. “I’m meeting Rudy at around…” He stops. “What’s wrong, Caitlin?”
And that’s all it takes for me to pour out the whole pathetic Mom/Arnold story. Even while I’m doing it, I’m thinking, What are you, stupid? I’d never have told any of my old friends something this personal and embarrassing. On top of the Nick thing too. But I’ve known Sean and Gigi a couple of months, and they already know all the gory details.
When I finish, Sean says all the appropriate, It’ll be okays, then adds, “Know what I’m in the mood for?”
“A break from me and my problems?” But I’m hoping he’ll say, I’m in the mood to kiss you or I want to scrape the dust of this sorry town off my shoes and fly with you to Paris. Not likely.
He laughs. “A Slurpee. Is there a Seven-Eleven near you?”
We drive to a 7-Eleven near the beach. They have a machine with eight Slurpee flavors, but two spigots are broken. Sean says we should both get a large and both get three flavors, so we can try them all. So I get white cherry, Coke, and blueberry, while Sean gets what he calls a “tropical blend” of lime, banana, and Spongebob piña colada. “You should work for Seven-Eleven,” I say. “In the flavor development.”
“Right. And after I design the perfect flavor, they’ll pay me a lot of money and finance my opera career.” He holds out his cup to me. “Want some?”
I take a sip, wondering if sharing his straw is the closest I’ll ever get to kissing him. Pretty gross, right, wanting to suck someone’s spit off a straw … Most girls I know would rather sleep with a guy. “Try mine too,” I say.
“You kids plan on paying for those?” the counter guy asks.
We do, and we decide to cross the street and drink them on the beach. “Should we drive?” I ask. “The weather looks pretty bad.” The clouds are hanging low, making different shades of black against the sky, so it looks like steps to heaven.
“Nah, let’s walk. It’ll be okay.”
So we do, skipping across the six-lane highway toward the roaring ocean. The clouds seem dark and the breeze is cool, cooler still with the Slurpee. I shiver.
“You’re cold?” Sean asks.
“I don’t want to go home.” BIG understatement. My teeth chatter. “I’m f—fine.”
“Here.” He unbuttons the long-sleeved shirt he has on over his T-shirt and hands it to me. It’s old, soft, and smells like Sean, and as our feet crunch the sand, I hold the collar to my nose and know that, forever and ever, when I smell that smell, or even smell the ocean, or a piña colada Slurpee, I will think of him.
“But take your shoes off,” he says. “No point walking on the beach with shoes.”
I sit and remove them, obedient, and leave them by the roadside. I let my toes sink deep into the cold sand. Sean takes his off too. He stands and holds his hand out to me. I reach for his fingers, thinking, Kiss me. Kiss me.
He doesn’t. I take a sip of my Slurpee, a small one because I don’t want it to end.
“Know where I was Thanksgiving Friday last year?” I say.
“Where? Some football game with your cool cheergirl friends?” He mimes lame-looking pom-pom moves.
I make a face. “Close. In Key West with them. We went snorkeling one day. I remember one of the guys saw a shark under the reef.” I’d almost forgotten about this. It seems so long ago.
“Cool. Did you see it?”
I nod. “It was just this little lemon shark, but I was freaking out. I was petrified. And Nick, my boyfriend, he was telling me don’t worry about it, I didn’t have to dive down if I didn’t want to, but…” I stop. It’s hard to explain so Sean will understand, and I don’t even really know why I’m telling him this. “But I wanted to see the shark, even though I was scared. I didn’t want to let being afraid make me miss out on something. I wanted to face it and know that I would be okay. You know? So I dove down and saw it.”
“Yeah?” Sean offers me his Slurpee. “I like that story.”
“Yeah, I do too.” I take a sip of his Slurpee and give him mine. “It makes me sound sort of brave.”
“You are brave.”
I feel a drop of water on my face. I don’t say anything, hoping maybe it’s just a spray from the ocean. But I feel another drop—a fat one—then another.
“And … you were right,” Sean says. “We should head back.”
“Guess so.” I turn real slow, as four more drops splash my face and shoulders.
“We’d better run,” he says. “Sorry.”
We begin to run. The drops are harder now, too many to count. I feel them soaking through Sean’s shirt, making it cling to me. It’s hard to run in the sand—harder still in the rain—and we’re really far from Sean’s car. I stumble and drop the Slurpee. It falls to the sand, and I fall after it. “Sorry. You go ahead! I’m sorry.”
“Right. I’ll just leave you here.” He holds out his hand. The rain is getting into my eyes, my mouth. He pulls me up. I’m drowning, and Sean’s hand is pulling me to safety. “I don’t think we can get any wetter,” he says. “Let’s just walk.”
We stumble along, holding each other, giggling.
“I’m sorry,” he says again when we reach the car. “I’ll remember from now on—take Caitlin’s advice on weather issues.”
“I don’t mind. It was an adventure.”
“I was hoping you’d see it that way, instead of seeing it as stupid Sean making you get all soaked just to drink Slurpees on the beach.”
He turns on the car’s heater to dry us off. My shoes are still back on the sand, but I don’t bring it up. Instead, I move closer to the heat and to him. We’re so close, and I can feel how it was with his hand on me. Again, I think he should kiss me.
He says. “Great practice today, huh?”
“Yeah.” The rain is coming down outside, but the heat inside is warm and nice. I lean closer.
He sits straight instead, and aims the vent toward me. “Want some more of my Slurpee?”
“What?”
“Do you want some of my Slurpee—since you dropped yours?”
And suddenly it all comes together, and I get it: He’s never going to kiss me.
I pull off the now-soaked shirt he lent me and look out the window, letting that piece of knowledge sink in like a thousand raindrops. I don’t say anything. Sean doesn’t either, and I’m glad. It’s like a head-slap moment. I’ve figured out what was right in front of me the whole time. Duh.
I shake my head. “So you’re going out with Rudy today?”
“What?”
I’m still not looking at him—I can’t—but he sounds surprised, like he forgot I was there. “Oh, yeah. It’s his sister’s birthday. It’ll be me, Rudy, and a cast of thousands of his cousins.” He laughs. “I think they’re roasting a pig in the yard.”
“How long have you and Rudy…” I make myself look at him and finish the sentence. “… been together?”
He smiles. “Choral Camp last summer. We met the first day and it was … You ever meet someone and just click with them? Like, everything about them is interesting, and you know it’s the same way for them with you?”
“Not yet,” I say. Except with you. Outside the car, the rain’s still pounding, drowning us, and I feel so completely stupid I can barely speak.
“Well, someday you will, I bet. You’ll meet someone who even likes opera.” He grins again. “I wasn’t sure if you knew about Rudy and me.”
I have to say something. “Oh, sure. It’s completely … obvious you two are a … couple.”
He nods. “Well, at my old school, it wouldn’t have been completely obvious. It’s still pretty … weird there. Most people there thought Misty and me were together, since we were such good friends. And when I got here, I figured people in the arts are more, you know, accepting, but I still thought I don’t have to give people info they don’t need.”
I nod. It’s still hard to talk and look at him too. I mean, yeah, I figured it out, but I was still hoping I was wrong. So I put my arms around his neck and hug him hard and manage to get out, “I know.”
And I do.
But for some reason, I still feel exactly like that day with the shark.
Opera_Grrrl’s Online Journal
Subject: What Would a Diva Do?
Date: November 27
Time: 12:58 p.m.
Listening 2: “Avant de Quitter” (“Before I Quit”) from Faust
Feeling: Bummed
Weight: 115 lbs. and holding. I’m very proud of myself for not pigging.
Can you believe it? Sean’s gay! I’m *seriously* bummed......
In real life, when some1’s in love w/some1 unattainable (4 whatever reason), they sit around and mope. In opera, they take action. Maybe that’s better. Let’s see ............
What do people in operas do???
MADAME BUTTERFLY—Commit ritual suicide (but I don’t know any rituals).
RIGOLETTO—Step in the path of a hired assassin (don’t know any of those either).
PAGLIACCI—Murder (trying 2 find a solution that avoids jail and/or death).
CARMEN—Ditto
IL TABARRO—Ditto (Seeing a pattern here?).
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA—Get some1 else mad enough at the guy that *they* commit the murder.
In UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, Amelia goes 2 the graveyard & picks some special plants 2 make her forget the guy ....... but then he sees her & they make out ...... all of which leads 2 ............. MURDER.
It seems like an awful lot of operas end with murderers singing sorrowfully over the bodies of their beloved victims. I don’t want 2 kill Sean. He’s my best friend, and I love him.
Okay, so I’ll mope.