“Please, enlighten me.”
“I think on one of those faraway planets there’s a space version of me and there’s a space version of you. And I bet our space versions met earlier in life. In junior high. On the swings at the park or something. And they probably hit it off in about two point five. Like love at first sight or whatever. And since that day they’ve been all about each other.”
“Oh, is that right?” Carmen looked like she was about to bust out laughing, but Shy didn’t even care. Now that he was flowing, he didn’t want to stop.
“I bet they’re on a ship right now,” he continued. “Just like us. Only billions of miles away. And they’re drinking wine and talking about life.”
Carmen shook her head and tried to pour more wine into the empty cup. Nothing came out, though, so she set the bottle back down. “So technically,” she said, “you’re like my space Sancho, right? My other man in another world.”
“On that distant planet,” Shy heard himself say, “I’m your only man.”
Carmen leaned back against the hall wall and crossed her arms, looking all skeptical. “How do you even know if the space us gets along? We probably fight all the time.”
“Nah, we never fight,” Shy said.
“You sure?”
He nodded. “’Cause we talk about everything. Even sad stuff. And the space me always asks how you feel.”
Carmen grinned at Shy and shook her head.
He didn’t even know what he was saying anymore. Shit was just popping into his brain. “There’s actually a test people can do,” he told her. “Right here on earth. To find out if their space versions are compatible.”
“I’m sure there is.”
“See, most people get caught up in the kissing and the feeling on each other. But really it’s more simple than that. It’s about how two people fit when they hold hands.”
“You’re like a fifth grader,” Carmen said, rolling her eyes. “You know that, right?”
But Shy also saw her glance down at his hands. And now that he thought about it, he honestly believed you could decide if you were right with a girl by how it felt holding her hand. “Maybe we should check our fit,” he suggested. “Just to see.”
Carmen laughed him off and changed the song playing on her computer. When she looked up again, and saw that Shy was still staring at her, she said: “You’re being serious?”
Shy shrugged.
He couldn’t believe it. She was actually considering his test. Butterflies started flapping all around in his stomach. He never thought she’d really do it.
“Fine,” Carmen said, acting like it was no big deal. She held her right hand out to him, palm up.
Shy took it gently into his, pulled a nervous breath and said: “It’s a three-part test, all right? First we gotta check things out the regular way, like two people watching a movie in the theater.”
They held hands on Shy’s knee.
It felt more alive than anything he’d ever known.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “That’s pretty soft right there. I’m not gonna lie.” His heart was now trying to leap right out of his body. “What do you think?”
“I don’t see no fireworks, if that’s what you mean.”
Shy smiled a little, but quickly forced his face back to being regular. “Next we gotta check it with our fingers linked.” He slipped his fingers into hers and held her hand softly, looking in her eyes. The warmth of her skin spreading through his hand and into his arm, into his entire body.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s a pretty solid match. You feel it, right?”
Carmen didn’t answer this time.
Her face seemed serious all of a sudden.
Shy swallowed down hard on his nerves. He was sort of in over his head now.
“Okay, one last test,” he told her. “But it’s maybe the most important. You slip your index finger into my pinkie. Like this.”
He hooked Carmen’s index with his pinkie, their fingers now dangling there together. Shy’s breaths short and quick and uncertain. Both of them staring down at their hands.
They looked up at each other at the exact same time.
“Hmmm,” Shy said, rubbing on his chin, wondering if she could tell his whole body was actually shaking. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe our space versions are messing up—”
Carmen cut him off cold when she leaned forward suddenly and kissed him on the lips, kissed his words right back into his mouth.
Gently, though.
And quick.
Her lips slightly parted and her eyes closed and then it was over—Shy sitting there stunned, holding his breath, staring at her perfect brown face. Perfect soft lips. Her big brown eyes reaching deep into his chest, uncovering his lonely heart.
He let go of her finger and placed his hands on the sides of her face. And he looked at her for a few seconds. The way he’d always wanted to look at her.
Carmen.
His blood marching through his veins like a New Year’s parade and his breaths now quick and desperate.
He leaned forward and kissed her again. Longer this time. And more powerfully. Carmen’s fingers going through his hair and then her lips brushing against his ear as she breathed out his name.
“Shy.”
It came out quietly, sending sharp tingles all across his skin.
She pulled back to look at him again.
Shy’s chest going in and out and in and out as he tried to think about what was happening. But it was impossible to think.
He was here. With Carmen.
But at the same time it felt like he was far, far away, out on the ocean somewhere, bobbing on the surface, listening to its ceaseless chatter. Or farther still, all the way on that distant planet he’d just told her about.
She shoved him against the wall and kissed him again. Desperately this time. With an urgency he’d never experienced. Like they were wrestling. Gripping each other’s wrists and pushing and clawing, and Shy was lost in this fight, kissing her back with everything he felt and feeling her body against his body and breathing her into his lungs.
They toppled over, onto the floor.
Carmen above him now.
He accidentally kicked over the wine bottle, heard it slowly rolling down the hall. Her hair covering his face like a secret hiding place. Her hands gripping at his skin.
And then she stopped.
Just like that.
She pushed away and looked at him, out of breath.
Face of confusion.
Shy sat up, too. He started to say her name, to try and bring her back, but she covered her mouth and quickly turned away from him.
And that was when Shy knew.
He’d messed up everything with the only girl who understood.
Day 2
7
Towel Boy
Shy felt like he’d been asleep for about three seconds when his alarm started blaring in his ear.
He sat up quick and shut it off.
Six-thirty in the morning.
His first thought as he held his throbbing head: no way he’d make it through work today. He was too exhausted. Too hungover.
Then a second thought: Carmen.
His stomach dropped.
Last night when he said he was sorry, she had ducked back into her room without a word. He had to talk to her as soon as possible. Clear the air. Go back to being just friends or whatever they were supposed to be.
Rodney turned over on his cot, eyes still crusted closed, drool pooling on his pillow. Massive sock-covered feet hanging off the end of his cot. Seemed like the guy didn’t have a care in the world. Why couldn’t it be like that for everyone?
Shy forced himself out of bed to pop some aspirin. Then he dragged his Paradise polo and shorts into the tiny bathroom for a cold shower.