* * *
Sunday seems like the longest day of my entire existence. I stay busy with homework, and even help my mom mop all the floors in the house, and then I head to Siesta Beach with Ashley to kill some time. The thought of Anthony is in the back of my mind all day; when I do my homework, he’s there; and when I mop the floors, he’s there. I want to understand what’s happening to me—if I’m attracted to him because I genuinely am interested in him or just because I’m going through a phase as a Huldra so I’m compelled to like him. I want to believe the former, but I worry that it could be the latter.
“Hey—what’s up with you?” Ashley asks. The sand that feels like powdered-sugar stretches on for miles and long orange and peach clouds streak the blue sky as the sunset approaches. It’s hot outside and I see beads of sweat on Ashley’s forehead. I’m glad I don’t sweat.
“I’ve asked you three times now, and you pretend like everything’s okay, but you should know by now that I know you better than to believe you.”
“What? What you said doesn’t even make any sense,” I say. “You lost me at ‘you should.’”
“I don’t care if it makes sense or not because I know you know what I mean.” Ashley digs her blood red polished toenails into the sand. “Does your mood have anything to do with, what’s his bucket, Anthony?”
“Yes,” I admit begrudgingly. I need a confidante and know that it’s either Ashley or my mom and there’s no way I’m going to tell my mom that I’m interested in a boy. “Yesterday at lunch, I actually kissed him on the cheek.”
“So now the truth comes out,” she says. “Anything else?”
Our eyes connect.
“You can tell me everything, you know. I won’t tell your mom or anyone else.”
I know I can trust Ashley to keep quiet. “He kissed me on the collarbone.” I pause. “It was the most romantic experience of my life.”
She laughs heartily. “Wow, that’s great, but we have really got to get you some more action if that truly was the most romantic experience of your life.”
I laugh, half-terrified at the thought of getting more action with Anthony, half-overwrought by excitement. I hardly dare think the thought; it’s too risky, too delicious. My mom would skin me alive.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Ashley pushes me so I have to catch myself from falling face first into the white sand. I don’t really like the beach for the reason that there’s sand everywhere, and I can never get rid of it. It’s like a magnet, sticking to everything for months after.
“I don’t know. My mom is so paranoid about me kissing anyone that I just wanted to keep it a secret.” I rub my hands together, trying to get rid of the sand.
“You know I’d never tell your mom.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” I say.
Ashley’s eyes sparkle with mischief. “But you want to kiss him, don’t you?”
I glance at Ashley and then back at the sand. “Yes,” I say faintly, my eyebrows furrowing. I want to kiss him a lot more than I’m willing to admit and it’s so stupid because I just met the guy.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re upset about him kissing you?” A puzzled look crosses her face.
“Well, after I got home, he called me and apologized for what happened.” I tuck my knees under my chin and wrap my arms around my legs. I feel vulnerable admitting to this and I hadn’t anticipated how much rejection would hurt.
“What? Why?”
“He says we can only be friends and that we shouldn’t even keep weeding together,” I say.
Ashley’s eyes widen and she gasps. “What a jerk!”
“I don’t think he’s a jerk. I just think he’s confused,” I say.
“Oh puh-lease, don’t make excuses for him. He knows what he’s doing. He probably has a girlfriend—the one he’s taking to the prom—and just wants to flirt with you because he thinks you’re beautiful, like all the boys at our high school do, and then plans to, after he conquers you, dump you and get back with his girlfriend, pretending nothing ever happened between you two.”
I look at Ashley, wide-eyed and in shock. I had never thought of that. “You think?”
“Maybe,” Ashley says, looking out onto the blue ocean. “You like him a lot?”
“Yes.” For the first time in history, I’m the girl with her heart exposed, the pathetic girl who can think of nothing else but Anthony, and it is pathetic, because I barely even know him. I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself. I should be tougher than this, but for some reason Anthony has completely spellbound me.
“What happened to ‘I’ll never fall for anyone?’” Ashley says, quoting what I said just a few weeks ago.
Before I can respond, a volleyball collides with my skull.
“Ouch!” I exclaim, standing up.
“Sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to—”
Anthony stands in front of me in nothing but his beach shorts. “Hello Anthony.” I try not to stare at his sculpted physique and I hone in on his blue eyes instead. That doesn’t prevent my heart from pounding and my cheeks from blushing.
“I didn’t expect to meet you here,” he says. “Sorry about the volleyball. Are you okay?”
Anthony reaches for my head, but I knock his hand away. “I’m fine,” I say, but what I really want to say is: ‘Looks like you suck at volleyball just as much as you do at making late night phone calls.’ I don’t bother though, knowing what a lame comeback that would be.
“Is this a friend of yours?” Anthony asks, gesturing to Ashley.
“Yes. This is my best friend Ashley. Ashley, this is Anthony. The weed guy.”
“Thanks for the compliment, Sonia.” Anthony chuckles and reaches his hand out to greet her.
I smile sarcastically.
Ashley doesn’t take his hand, but crosses her arms in front of her chest instead. “Anthony? Do you know him? I’ve never heard of him.” Her hazel eyes glare at him with the power to melt metal, and I’m pleased to see how uncomfortable he is under her unrelenting scrutiny. I know I can always count on Ashley to have my back.
If I had known I’d bump into Anthony today, I would have made a plan to see if my flair had worked on him, but improvising on the spot will do no good—especially since I’m unable to focus because he’s so ridiculously distracting with his shirt off. I glance at him from the corner of my eye when he turns around to look for someone. His back is broad and he has a tattoo of a beast on his right shoulder, and though I can’t tell what kind of a beast it is, it looks dangerous.
Anthony picks up the volleyball, turns around again and smiles at me like he’s really happy to see me. “Come join us,” he says, bouncing the volleyball in his hand. I’m tempted to accept, but before I can give an answer, a blonde girl in a tiny lavender bikini shows up and grabs his arm.
“Come on, Anthony, we’re waiting for you,” she says, pulling him along. Of course she has to be gorgeous and have a body that looks like she paid for it.
Bimbo. My jaw tenses and I have to do everything in my power to not say something rude. Deep down, I know it’s not a fair assessment, and I wonder whether it’s my own jealousy that makes me hate her so suddenly or if being a Huldra has this kind of effect on my emotions.
“No thanks, we’ll pass,” I say, squeezing my hands into my faded jean short pockets. I’ve never really been good at sports. Well, that’s not totally true. I’m not good at team sports, but for some reason, I never miss a goal whether I’m throwing, batting or kicking a ball. But either way, my passion is for classical ballet, though I’ve taken a break from it my senior year to focus on getting my grades up.
Anthony squints at me for a second, his eyes almost looking like they care. “We’d really like for you to come join us,” he says as if I hadn’t heard him the first time.
“No,” I say so firmly that the bimbo by his side jumps. Then she looks at me like I’m mass-producing spit bubbles like an angry crab or something.
For a split s
econd, Anthony looks shocked, but he quickly regains his cool demeanor. “See you at school then.” He jogs off. In the distance he glances back at me one more time and seems to be baffled by the fact that I turned him down.
“What a prick!” Ashley yells. Then she says at a normal volume, “I told you that’s what he was up to, but he’s hot though. Really hot. Maybe you can just chalk the whole experience up to a steamy encounter, no strings attached?”
I don’t want to admit it, but Ashley’s probably right. Why does the first guy I’m attracted to have to be the maestro of all players? I should have known that he was that type of guy. The signs are all there, but I thought maybe he was different, especially since I, a Huldra, am attracted to him.
Why did my plan fail so miserably? Why didn’t my kiss work? I think back to the meeting with Principal Jenkins where my mom only had to grace her finger with saliva and touch Principal Jenkins’s hand and then he conformed to her wishes nicely and in an instant. I, however, planted a kiss on Anthony’s cheek, so it should have been more potent. Maybe it’s harder to use my flair than I thought, or maybe there’s such a thing as an immune human.