Somewhere between my second cup of sangria and a long session of singing Beatles songs with Manuel, Max, and a guy named Fresco, Max and I fell onto the hammock. And little by little, our limbs began to intertwine, as if by some will of their own. I’m still thinking about my dad, but less and less. A little girl named Felipa, dressed in a Spider-Man costume, crawled into the hammock with us. She curled up at our feet and fell asleep.
This is probably the closest, physically, I’ve ever been to a boy other than Jake or Will. So far, it’s all pretty innocent, except for a few mildly scandalous thoughts (I’m sure only on my part). Thanks to a nice sangria buzz that I’ve managed to keep going by pacing myself, I’m not nervous. At all. I am wondering what happens next, though.
“I’ve eaten Mexican food my whole life and never once had turkey mole. Are you sure it’s the national dish of Mexico?” Max asks a woman sitting on the grass nearby. They’ve been having an on-and-off conversation for the past few minutes. I’ve been listening in.
“I’m sure. I teach history in high school,” she tells Max.
“Well, then, I guess you’d know. I always assumed it was tacos or burritos,” Max says.
The woman laughs. There’s that easy rapport again. Hanging around Max, I think a little has rubbed off on me. I’ve been chatting it up with everyone here, as if that’s what I normally do.
As Max talks to the woman, I study his face, committing every detail to memory. I may not pass this way again. His thick, wavy locks are the color of straw. His eyebrows arch perfectly and then taper down ever so subtly. He has a tiny mole on his left ear, right above his earlobe. And he has lovely long eyelashes that make him look like he’s always slightly sleepy.
I hear a click.
“This one’s definitely going in,” Max says, pointing at his iPhone. He’s been taking pictures since we got to Mexico. He’s creating an album as a kind of record of the trip. He shows me a photo of a baby gecko clinging to the side of the tree where the hammock is hung. The gecko is looking right into the camera, completely ready for his close-up. It’s really a brilliant shot.
“Let me see what you’ve got so far,” I say, taking his phone. He’s been clicking away, but I’ve barely seen anything he’s taken.
I scroll through the photos. There are so many of me, it’s a little freaky—mostly when I wasn’t aware he was taking them. I can’t help wondering what Lily will think if she sees them.
There’s one of me standing in the bus station, pissed. One of me driving the truck, with my hair whipping in my face, the window down. One of a road sign with an image of a giant rotisserie chicken dripping juice into the mouth of a man. Each picture is artistically angled, deliberate and striking. A perfectly captured moment. Max is way talented. I know it’s condescending, but I’m surprised by this revelation.
“That’s a keeper too,” Max says, peering over my shoulder to look. It’s a photo of me wearing my dad’s yellow soccer jersey. Number twenty-seven. Manuel gave it to me, and I’ve been wearing it ever since.
“I don’t know. I think I look fat.”
“Why do girls always say that? You do not look fat.”
“My arm is bulging out there, and I look like I have a double chin or something.”
“You look great. Even in a thirty-year-old soccer jersey.”
Because of the way he says it, I believe he means it.
I turn the phone around and snap a picture of the two of us. We both stare at the shot. It’s just our faces tilted toward each other. Neither of us is smiling, but we look relaxed and comfortable. Good together. It’s almost too intimate; something about it makes me feel awkward. I’m about to say something snarky to diffuse the moment, but I change my mind when I turn toward Max. He’s staring at me so intensely, I swallow my words.
It hits me hard how attracted I am to him. And not just because he’s gorgeous, which is undeniable. I’m liking the whole package, much to my surprise. He’s not an asshole. It’s funny I couldn’t see it. Makes me wonder how often I’m missing stuff. Or maybe it’s just that Freiburg brings out the worst in people.
We’re friends now, I guess. The way hostages bond during capture, maybe. How long it will last, once we’re free, remains to be seen. But right here, right now, this feels right. It’s just too trippy to even make sense of. He was always the arrogant, silver-spooned, dim-witted jock that ruled the school as a result of his good looks and good fortune. I don’t know how to square that image of him with the Max I’m with now, the smart, funny, kind Max. Was he there all along? Or is it just a temporary deviation from form, a Mexican morphing effect? I think about all the times I watched him strut around campus with his arm draped over Lily’s shoulder, looking so entitled and cocky, and my infatuation deflates a little.
“You always seemed like such an arrogant prick. How is it that you’re not really like that?” Even I’m surprised that I just said that. Nice work. Really subtle. I’m destined to be single forever.
“I’m sure you mean that in the best possible way.” Max laughs. “You always seemed like a psychopathic loner. How is it that you’re not like that?”
“Is that really what you thought of me?” That stings. Is that what I’m putting out there?
“Not really. To be honest, I didn’t think much about you, Kylie. I was into my boys, Lily, and squash. I didn’t have much interest in anything else. Which I guess makes me kind of an arrogant prick. The moral of the story is, always go with your first impressions.”
“You said it.”
“That’s kinda splitting hairs. You said it ten seconds ago.”
“I qualified it.”
“Yeah, but you were hedging. You think I hang out with assholes, so I must be an asshole.”
“No comment,” I say, because, why bother? We’ll never find common ground on this issue.
“You act like you hate everyone. Except Will. And these are people you’ve never spent any time with. So how do you know they’re such jerks?”
“Those were your words, not mine. I don’t hate everyone. It’s just, I don’t find your crowd particularly interesting.”
“But it’s not like you’ve tried with any of us.”
How did I manage to turn what was a perfectly lovely, intimate moment into something closer to an argument? I have a real skill at driving people away. Like father, like daughter.
“It’s not like anyone’s tried with me, either. I know you say Charlie’s a great guy, but I’ve just never seen it. He practically called me trailer trash on the squash court the other day.”
“Yeah. That was way off base, knee-jerk. He was just defending me. He gets pretty territorial about friends. He’s like a big bear, loyal to the core. He once beat the shit out of a squash player who called me a guido fag after I beat him eleven–zero in three straight sets.”
“You’re Italian?”
“That wasn’t really the point of the story.”
“It’s just, you don’t look Italian. And Langston doesn’t sound Italian.”
“My mom’s half Italian. Her last name is Gradassi. I guess the guy knew that somehow. Anyway, the thing is, Charlie is a good guy. You would like each other if you actually hung out.”
“’Kay. If you say so.” I seriously doubt it.
“Look, you’re right, plenty of people at Freiburg are dicks. Like Richie Simson and Lacey Garson. Even I don’t love hanging with some of them. But you can’t just write off most of the class.”
I’d like to agree to disagree, but if I don’t offer more than that, it ends here. We never go into deeper waters, we never get close to bridging the chasm. We’ve come this far, might as well travel the rest of the way.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s easier for me to write people off instead of getting to know them. And then having to deal with them. And their stuff. And my stuff. And all the other stuff that goes along with that.” I’m rambling now. I should stop, but I don’t. I keep going, much to my chagrin. “With Will, I know what to expect. He doesn’t judge me. I don’t judge him. And, honestly, I don’t really want people judging me, and I feel like Freiburg is a really judgmental place.” As soon as I’ve vomited it all out, I regret it. It sounds incoherent and psychobabbly. I feel pathetic and defenseless.