Two of Mac’s old friends show up for dinner and afterward take over the stretch of lawn between the patio and the woods so they can toss a Frisbee around. He introduced them when they arrived, but I’ve already forgotten their names so I ask Duke.
“Matt and Mark? Mike and Marty?” he suggests. “I don’t remember. They need nicknames. Something foodie and funny so I don’t try to flirt too much.”
“Mac and Cheese,” Kinz suggests.
“We already have a Mac and that seems unfair to whichever one we call ‘Cheese,” I point out. “Same problem with Sweet and Sour.”
“Ham and Eggs?” Jay offers.
“Should be fancier,” Camden tells her. “We have a Culinary Club rep to maintain.”
Duke snorts. “How about Gnocchi and Risotto? The thick one’s Gnocchi and the tall one’s Risotto.”
“Dibs on Risotto,” Jay says with a grin.
There’s a huge, tarp-covered hole by the edge of the patio and top part of the lawn, where the construction people are digging to put in a hot tub. Mac almost tumbles into it and switches them to a lawn bowling game. Jay joins in and dominates with her amazing aim.
As if reading my mind, which isn’t hard because I’m thinking of Avery one out of every two minutes, Kinz calls across the patio, “Too bad Avery isn’t here.”
“She made her up,” Mac hollers from the lawn bowling arena. “Synclair’s always had a ton of imaginary friends. She probably saw a pic of Avery from back in the day and got thinking what if she grew up hot.”
“I didn’t,” I tell him. But he’s not saying anything I haven’t wondered myself the last two weeks. If all that happened, where is she? I can’t be that hard to find.
“Leave Synclair alone,” Jay insists. “Can’t you see she’s heartbroken that she might’ve run into the love of her life and lost her again? If we weren’t so self-absorbed, we’d be helping her look.”
“Ten bucks says she’s made up,” Mac replies. His taller friend, the one we nicknamed “Risotto,” starts putting together a betting pool about whether or not Avery exists and when we’ll figure this out.
“Flood you all,” I say and go into the house pretending I need a drink but really to get away from them.
I wash my face in the bathroom then swing through my bedroom to see if there’s anything I’d rather be doing. There isn’t. I stand in the middle of the room wishing for Avery.
The doorbell rings so I head for the front door. More kids from Culinary Club, probably—there are three lacrosse guys Jay is hoping will show up. I really hope they brought ice cream. I swing the door wide.
Avery grins at me.
It’s like someone stepped on my lungs and mashed them down into my pelvis. I know my mouth is open and I’m blinking at her, but I can’t move.
Her clothes still resemble pajamas: a cream-colored shirt with two-inch blue stars on it, plus flowing navy pants with little flowers. There’s a silver pendant around her neck, a tree in a circle, hanging below the dip between her collarbones. Hair blacker than I remember, eyes exactly the same: one deep brown, one keen blue.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m here for the party.”
I push air through the words, not sure my lips are forming them right: “How did you know?”
“You invited me.”
“In that dream?” I ask.
“On my phone,” she says, looking as puzzled as I am. I am definitely getting good at meditation if I could project an invite onto her phone!
Avery breaks our confused silence by saying, “I hope it’s okay that I invited Nadiya. We brought pop and ice cream.”
“She needed my car,” Nadiya says with a smirk.
I should really say hi to the shorter, rounder, dark-haired girl standing next to Avery, but instead I ask Avery, “You’re not a telepath?”
“Not yet.”
I step back from the doorway, feeling loose and floaty, as if we’re back in the dream. In no way do I understand what’s happening here. I’m worried that when we get to the backyard, she’ll vanish. Brain tumor? Hallucinogenic mushrooms in the burgers?
“Come on in. Both of you. Nadiya, welcome.” I lead the way through the living room. I should treat this as real until proven otherwise. “It’s great you both came. My folks are redoing the house. Also, my brother thinks I made you up. And I’m not sure I haven’t.”
“I can poke you later if that’ll help,” Avery says and her cousin laughs, a higher bell sound than Avery’s.
I step onto the back patio. Since there isn’t a door to slam open or a pot to bang, I yell, “Hey everyone!” When they’ve all turned toward me, I step aside. “This is Avery.”
Kinz falls over herself coming to say hello and then everyone is crowding around, introductions being made, Mac helping Nadiya stow the ice cream and pop, Duke proudly talking up the food options.
I lean against the back wall of the house, enjoying being right and watching Avery—how real she is and, especially in the golden light of the afternoon, beautiful. She’s almost as tall as Kinz and Jay; as kids, she was always smaller than me. She’s still thinner, not stick-skinny, but slender, except for her chest, which I’m not checking out except to the degree that I completely am.
She seems older than me too. She is, by three months, but her gracefulness and fancy pajamas style give her a sophistication that seems older. Maybe that’s from living on a coast. Duke, Camden, and Jay are as intentionally dressed as Avery, but the rest of us look like we just grabbed some things at Target, which is provably true in my case.
Avery gets a veggie burger from the grill with salad and sits at the smaller patio table, patting the seat next to her. As I’m on my way over, Kinz catches my eye and waggles her eyebrows at me.
“Is it really okay that I brought Nadiya?” Avery asks. “You didn’t say.”
As if I’d said anything? “I didn’t text you. I don’t have your number. I can’t figure out how you’re here. How do you know where I live?”
“You gave me your address,” Avery insists. “I’ve been texting you for days.”
“No.” I open the messaging app on my phone and show her the names next to my most recent conversations: Kinz, Duke, Mac, my parents.
She shows me her messaging app. At the top is a contact named “Em” and a photo of someone in ski goggles. I can’t tell if the goggles are ironic, because it’s summer, or if this person is that hardcore about skiing. Wait! There is a bratty kid at my school who loves to ski and hates that she keeps getting mistaken for me because our names are so similar.
I lift the phone out of Avery’s hand and tap the conversation to confirm my guess. Yep, that’s not my phone number. And I don’t talk like that.
“You texted Emily Sinclair, not Emma,” I tell Avery. “She’s a sophomore at my school and kind of obnoxious, at least about me. She gets lots of emails from teachers that are meant for me. She must’ve figured out you were looking for me and gave you my address thinking it’d be awkward for you to show up here expecting a party. Joke’s on her. She should’ve picked a day that isn’t one everybody’s going to have a party on.”
“Maybe she couldn’t help it,” Avery says. “Greater forces at work.”
I cannot in the least argue with this. In fact if Jesus or God or Goddesses want to prove to me that they’re real, I can think of no better way.
Avery is chuckling, shaking her head. “I thought you were being weird, stalling about having longer conversations. Figured it might be the crush thing. I searched and found an Em Sinclair at the local school and couldn’t really see her face but what are the chances there’d be two?”
“One hundred percent, apparently. I’m just Synclair on my accounts now, with a y,” I tell her. “I looked for you—online and stuff. But I don’t even know your last name anymore.”
“Hamidi. I changed it with Mom when she went back to her family name. I wasn’t going to keep that asshole’s last name,” she says, face clouding for a moment. “You’re just Synclair? One name, like Beyoncé?”
“I wish. But yeah, as much as I can.”
She taps the back of her phone, still in my hand. “Put your number in my phone.”
I do.
She takes her phone back and texts me: Hi, real Synclair.
I reply: Hi real Avery Hamidi. I’m glad you could come to my party.
Kinz and Camden drop into the chairs across from us and Kinz asks, “What are we doing?”
“Texting each other to make sure we have the right numbers.” I explain about Emily Sinclair sending Avery over here as a joke.
“Coincidence or divine intervention?” Avery asks, eyes shining.
“Are you sure there’s a difference?” Camden asks.
“It’s not as if God answers everyone’s prayers or we’d live in really different world,” Kinz grumbles.
“Prayers aren’t wishes,” Camden tells her. Her eyes have a burning brightness that suggests she has a whole lot more to say on the topic and is trying not to.
“But you think God sent Avery over here by using some girl?” Kinz asks.
“Maybe that girl is good at hearing God’s calling.” Camden puts a hand on Kinz’s arm and turns to Avery. “I promise you we’re not always this way.”
“I don’t mind,” Avery says. “How does God’s calling work?”
Camden explains, “God calls to us with the best possibilities given any individual situation and we can choose to follow that or not, because of free will and all.”
Kinz snorts. “Then why doesn’t God call people to be less hateful and evil? Who’s pulling them toward evil? The devil?”
“Evil is a possibility in the system,” Camden tells her.
“But God made the system, so God made evil. If God’s all love and great possibilities why is the world a Dumpster fire?”
“You don’t even listen,” Camden says. “I’ll explain it again if you’ll listen.”
“I don’t need it. But go ahead and tell them.”
“As if I need your permission?”
“Synclair was my friend first,” Kinz points out.
Camden closes her eyes and I’m pretty sure she’s praying. Slowly, she says, “God calls us to follow the best possible paths to good futures and we still have free will. We can choose differently. Because we’re all connected in this world, those choices have consequences—some of them create evil in the world.” Camden takes a breath and opens her mouth to continue, but doesn’t get a chance to.
“So stuff that happens to me is my fault,” Kinz says.
“Why did you tell me to explain it if you were going to come at me about it again?” Camden asks her.
“She’s not,” I say and now everyone is looking at me intensely. No way am I explaining all Kinz’s religious baggage to Camden.
Camden opens her mouth, pauses, peeks sideways at Kinz. Into that silence, Duke yells, “Éclairs!”
“God’s calling?” I ask.
Camden grins. “Kind of like that. But different. Come on, you have to taste these.”
Camden and Avery get up from the table. Kinz says, “Be right there.” She and I watch two beautiful girls walk across my patio and everything is right with my summer.
When I do get up, I clear a round of paper plates and cups, biodegradable of course. I would use our regular dishes, but they’re all packed up since the contractors have been tearing out the kitchen cabinets.
Avery stands by the eclairs talking with Duke. I want to watch them more even than listen to them. She’s here. She is here. And real. And came to my party even though I’m certain that Emily Sinclair’s phone game is terrible, especially with girls, since she’s straight.
I go into the kitchen for another trash bag and more napkins but the storage cabinet has been torn out. Basement? There’s a crowded jumble at the foot of the stairs. I spot a box of construction-grade paper towels and grab that.
In the kitchen, Avery is pulling ice cream out of the freezer. I step next to her and she sets pints on top of the paper towel box. We carry all that out together.
“We’re one pint short,” she says, so we go back inside.
That pint is the very aptly named Karamel Sutra Core—caramel ice cream on one side and chocolate fudge chip on the other with a solid caramel core.
“I have strong feelings about caramel,” I say.
“Pro or con.”
“Extremely pro.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t let anyone else know we have this,” Avery suggests.
We fill bowls and sneak the rest back into the freezer.
“Come on.” I lead her into my bedroom. I sit at the head of my bed so she can take the desk chair or the foot.
She puts her ice cream on my desk and turns slowly, examining my books and photos, my posters and art, all the silly things on my desk. Then she grabs her bowl and sits at the foot of the bed.
“How’s your meditation going?” she asks.
I want to tell her about trying the awake-dreaming state in the middle of the day and flying on a winged horse to meet her amid the ancient trees, but I don’t know how to do that. I settle on saying, “I dreamed that a winged horse took me to find you, so that seems like progress.”
“Winged horse? That sounds symbolic.”
“Really? I’ll look it up.” I type into my phone: “dream interpretation winged horse.”
A common theme in mythology, the winged horse is a symbol of unrepressed sexual desires.
“What does it say?” Avery asks.
It says I should’ve taken the teleportation, but I can’t say that out loud. I scan down the entry to find something I can say.
Sexual drives are rising to join with your consciousness desires. Having sex will cause the fulfillment of this energy and it will fall. However, if this energy is maintained without full sexual release, it will continue to build and rise, carrying your awareness upward and outward to greater knowledge of life itself.
While I skim, she crawls up the bed, bowl in hand, to sit between me and the wall. Her fingers curl around mine and tilt the phone so she can see it. Her fingers are so warm, stronger than when we were kids, and I imagine them on my waist, pulling me closer. Realizing what she’s reading, I jerk my phone away and put it facedown on my bedside table.
“Aww,” she says. “What was the part after they tell you not to have sex with your rising energy? That’s as far as I got.”
“It keeps building and, you know, more stuff. I’m sure that’s not what it meant in my dream.”
“What were you doing with the horse? Riding it?”
If it’s possible to die of blushing, I’m going to find out.
“That’s kind of what people do with horses,” I say.
“Some people use them to pull carriages, carry heavy burdens, plow things. Not everyone wants to ride their desires to higher consciousness.”
“That’s not…” But actually I do want that. It sounds amazing. “Is that a thing?”
“Yes. You draw the energy in your lower belly up the inside of your spine. Except it’s not that simple. You have to be careful with it—with the kundalini energy. It’s the energy of Shakti in your body. Oh and stop at the heart for a while. If your heart isn’t open, you’re not ready to go higher.”
“Is yours?” I ask.
“It’s getting there,” she says and takes my fingers in hers.
She tugs at me and I’m not sure if we’re going for a kiss or not. I lean in but she’s going the other way. We hug awkwardly, pelvises side by side, upper bodies together. Her hair falls in a silken wave over my face, smelling of mandarin and rose, coriander and juniper, and burning sweet sage. I want to kiss her but I can only reach her neck or the edge of her cheek and that seems presumptuous before her lips, so I press my cheek to hers and she returns the pressure.
I’m hot all over, except my lap, which is strangely cool.
As I’m working out how to turn this hug into a kiss, my bedroom door bangs open against the wall. I jerk out of the hug to see Camden pressed against my door, being kissed hard by Kinz.
“Hey!” I yelp.
“Whoa, kids,” Kinz says, pulling back a fraction. Camden’s glasses are askew and two braids have come out of their thick ponytail.
“You two are busy.” Camden points somewhat lower than our faces.
I look down. My lap is full of melting caramel ice cream from where Avery’s bowl tipped over when we hugged.
Avery crawls to the foot of my bed, lithe as a cat, and pads out of the room.
“Having a good time?” Kinz asks.
Rivulets of ice cream are soaking through my shorts and I’m afraid if I stand up, it’s going to glop all over my comforter and soak through to my sheets. My lap makes a bowl, containing the mess. I scoop up with my fingers the parts that aren’t completely liquefied and put them in Avery’s bowl, setting it on the bedside table.
Avery pushes by Kinz again and climbs back into my bed, towel in hand. She presses it into my crotch to soak up the freezing ice cream, then realizes what she’s doing—but not before I feel energy shoot up the inside of my spine and think that this kundalini thing is going to be a breeze after all—and pulls her hand away.
I endeavor to get more ice cream into the towel than in my pants.
“Is Synclair in there?” Mac asks. “Did she take the—” He’s come up behind Kinz and can see me sitting in bed with a towel pressed to my crotch and Avery next to me.
Once he starts laughing, he can’t stop. Or doesn’t want to. I hear his laughter echoing in the living room. He is definitely going into the backyard to tell his friends whatever he thinks he saw, and not caring if the rest of my friends hear.
I change into clean shorts and go rinse off the ice cream in the bathroom sink. I take my time wringing out the shorts and hang them over the towel bar to dry. Am I ready to go face my friends after this? With Avery out there I sure am.
When I open the bathroom door, she’s standing against the wall beside it, waiting. Her posture is loose, her pajama-like clothes hanging gracefully, but worry wrinkles her forehead. She’s worried about things being okay with me. I grin.
She grins back. “You okay? Are your shorts going to make it?”
“That’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to them,” I tell her.
She holds out her hand and I take it, expecting that she’s going to pull me closer, but we stand there, grinning. I should pull her toward me and my bedroom, assuming Kinz and Camden didn’t claim my bed.
“Do you want another bowl of ice cream?” I ask. “You didn’t get to eat most of it.”
“Can I come back for it? Nadiya wants to leave. She’s got some party she wants to go to tomorrow and can’t be out late on sequential nights or our grandparents think we’re misbehaving. But you have my number now for real, text me, okay?”
“Can you come over again?” I ask.
“Of course.” She squeezes my hand and I slide a half step closer. I want to kiss her but we’re in the hall outside my bedroom with an open archway between us and the living room.
Avery releases my hand and goes to find Nadiya. I walk them to the front door and when I’ve shut it behind them, I’m left with that feeling that she’s not quite real.