19
ZINGER
Maybe this is what Dr. Flossdrop feels like when she does neighborhood action. A big, satisfying sense of accomplishment. Even though it was Milkshake I helped and not, like, a more developed lifeform. Say a lizard or houseplant.
I peek past the oleander hedge out in front of the duplex when I get there. There’s the yard, same as usual, with Dr. Flossdrop’s cactuses and succulents and other spiny, drought-tolerant plants. And then there’s Birch.
He looks normal in that he’s wearing plaid, but not normal in that he’s doing this strange dance routine around the yard. It takes me a minute to realize it’s not actually a dance routine; it’s the sidestep Lou always assigns his clients. The one I sometimes hear him chanting about from our side of the duplex: “Longer step, tummy tight, don’t forget to pump that knee!”
But Birch’s long-legged sidesteps are exaggerated, which makes it look like he’s dancing. Plus he’s trying to avoid getting stuck by a spiny plant as he does the routine, which makes it extra entertaining. He stops sidestepping when he hears me laugh.
“What are you up to?” asks Birch. “Besides laughing at me.”
“Going to Scoops. I just rescued Milkshake from a breathing attack, and I want to celebrate. Wanna come?”
Birch, of course, accepts.
“I’m going to run inside for a minute first,” I say. Saving a dog makes a person thirsty, and I need some water. “Do you want to come in and wait?”
Birch has never been inside our half of the duplex. But he accepts this invitation as well.
When I come out of the kitchen with two glasses of water, Birch is in the doorway of my bedroom. His mouth is open a little bit like it was when I showed him the bees.
“Whoa,” he says.
It’s been two and a half weeks, and I’ve managed to cover almost my entire room in yarn, either knit or just wrapped: the wooden parts of my bed; my nightstand, lamp, and alarm clock; everything on my dresser, including the cactus, the piggy bank, a couple of wooden boxes, a mug of pens, and some books. I’ve even wrapped the light fixture hanging from the ceiling above my bed with yarn and dangled a garland with pompoms from it.
“What is this?” asks Birch, taking the glass from me. “It’s like, like… your whole room molted a multicolored sweater.”
“It’s called yarn bombing. And that’s exactly how I think of it!”
“It’s amazing,” says Birch.
“Thank you.” I take a sip from my own glass since it feels like my mouth is as filled with wool as my room. Pretty weird, but it’s nice to share my yarn bombing with someone else, even if that someone isn’t Adam.
And if I’m perfectly honest with myself, I’m glad that someone is Birch.
Birch orders durian when we get to Scoops.
“What’s durian?” I ask.
“It’s a Southeast Asian fruit that supposedly smells really bad.”
“And you want to eat it as an ice-cream flavor?”
“I don’t think the fruit inside smells bad. Plus I’ve never tasted it.” Birch smiles like he’s on the greatest adventure of his life.
I order lavender lemon zinger because I’m now accustomed to eating flowery ice cream thanks to Mildred. There’s no way I’m willing to risk ordering mint chocolate chip again. Not after what happened last time I was here. It feels like forever ago that the bees landed, even though it’s only been eighteen days — but who’s counting?
I push the thought from my mind and focus on the ice cream I’m ordering. It’s swirls of purple and yellow and cream. I love how the spoon is more like a paddle than a spoon. I also love that they have a TV here. Since Dr. Flossdrop will never let us have one, it makes enjoying ice cream here all the more decadent.
Birch and I each pay and are walking away from the cash register when a teenage girl comes in with her friend. But it’s not just any teenage girl.
It’s Adam’s girlfriend.
I’d recognize her anywhere now. Her straight dark ponytail, the M.C. Escher birds drawn on the back of her neck that continue down her shoulder.
I immediately throw my cone and cup and spoon in the trash and march right over to her. I vaguely hear Birch asking me why I just did that, but I keep walking rather than answer.
Adam’s girlfriend is talking to a friend, but when a random twelve-year-old comes over, she gives me her full attention. “Zinnia?” she says.
OK, so maybe I’m not a random twelve-year-old to her. Maybe Adam actually mentioned me after all. Maybe she remembers me from the five-dollar-bill trick last summer, or Adam showed her a picture of me on his phone before he left.
I’m a little thrown that she recognized me, but I waste no time on pleasantries. “Do you know where Adam is?”
Girlfriend nods.
“Where then?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone,” she says, not meeting my eyes. She starts twirling her super-long ponytail in her hand.
“Not even me?” I ask.
There’s no answer, but she winces a little and shakes her head.
I look from the girl’s ponytail to her T-shirt-covered shoulder, down her arm to where her tattoo changes from birds to triangles. I feel myself transforming into a triangle. A gray, wavy triangle balancing on one point. Because this stranger knows where Adam is, and I don’t. He told her and not me.
Suddenly the whole world seems even shakier and more uncertain and upside down. And not in an inversion-table, best-ever kind of way. Not that way at all.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, when Birch and I are walking home, I see NML heading toward us on the sidewalk. It’s near the spot where the bees took up residence in my hair, and I can’t help but think that maybe this stretch of Sunrise Boulevard is cursed.
But then, maybe it’s just anywhere I go that’s cursed.
I’m run-walking, and Birch is slightly behind me, trying to keep up, yelling ahead about how good durian tastes despite the rumors about how pungent it smells. I can hear him hypothesizing that Scoops probably added a lot of sugar to the ice cream version, but I’m too busy fuming to respond. I can’t stop thinking about Adam’s girlfriend refusing to tell me where he is and, even worse, knowing that she knows and I don’t and that’s how Adam wants it.
So when I see NML, everything in my body speeds up even more. My lungs are inhaling and exhaling in this frantic turbo pattern that’s impossible to ignore but out of my control. I feel like Milkshake having his breathing attack earlier today. Maybe breathing attacks are contagious from dogs to humans.
“Durian ice cream is hard to pin down,” Birch is saying, still concentrating on his culinary commentary and the spoon heading toward his mouth. “Maybe it tastes a tiny bit like butterscotch.”
“Hurry,” I say, grabbing Birch mid-bite and dragging him along with me between the sneaker and art supply stores. There’s the tiniest cutout here, barely the size of an elevator. I pull us both inside, wishing desperately it had a front door so I could shut it. Or that it was like the elevator in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so we could blast off somewhere before NML walk by.
“No, it tastes like caramel maybe,” Birch is saying. “Or mango. But oddly kind of like cooked onions, too.” He’s apparently in an entirely different story than I am right now.
I place Birch in front of me and crouch down behind him and try to get my breathing to slow. Birch takes another bite and then finally seems to realize what’s happening.
“Are you hiding?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “And so are you. Shhhh.”
“Who are we hiding from?”
“NML.”
“But why? I thought you said you were wrong about NML.”
“Shhhh,” I say again. “I was wrong. But… I don’t know. I’m not ready, OK? I’m not ready to see them, and today is not the right day after everything that’s happened, and I’m tired and…”
“Shhhh,” says Birch.
“Why are you shushing me?” I ask, not whispering anymore.
“Because NML are about to walk by, and I assumed you didn’t want them to hear you. Isn’t that why you’re hiding?”
“Yes. Thank you. Shhhh,” I say one final time.
I can see NML out there, passing by. I pull Birch’s elbow so he turns around to face me, and he acts like he’s inspecting the paint job on the wall. I hide behind his plaidness, making myself as small as I possibly can.
It’s stifling hiding back here with the bees under my hood, but in another few seconds NML have passed by and are gone. I know because Birch says, “They’re gone” way too loud.
We step out, and Birch heads over to a trash can to throw out his ice cream cup and spoon. When he comes back to join me, my lungs are finally breathing at a somewhat normal speed, taking in regular amounts of oxygen.
“Maybe I should’ve said hello,” I say. “I panicked.”
“I’m sure you’ll have another chance to see them again,” says Birch. “You’ve seen them twice now this summer, right?”
“I guess so,” I say, relief and regret dueling to take the lead on how I should feel right now.
“Chin up,” says Birch, another phrase I’m not familiar with. It sounds like something Lou would say. It’s nice.
I try to hold my chin up the tiniest bit. But it feels pretty hard when there’s so much to weigh me down.