Lovestruck Summer (10 page)

154 Sebastian’s making me a mix of all his favorite songs from this summer.”I might be lying about that last part—I haven’t heard back from Sebastian—but I’m sure he’ll do that for me. I mean, 1) He’s a DJ, and 2) We’re pretty much dating. So why wouldn’t he? “That’s romantic,”says Jade. “Does he know he has competition in the mix department this summer?”“No,”I say. “He just wanted to make it.”I feel bad lying to Jade, but sometimes I present situations in the way I wish they were. Like, I wish Sebastian would think to make me a mix on his own . . . but he hasn’t. So I have to help it along. But Jade doesn’t need to know that detail. “Well, it sounds sweet,”says Jade. “And I bet there won’t be a single country song on it.”“Who knows,”I say. “Maybe Sebastian has broader taste than you think.”And I suddenly realize that I hope he does. This week, I go into Amalgam for a few hours each day, partly to help Jade out while Rick’s gone, but also—I admit to myself—to avoid any Russ run-ins. With all the driving I’m doing, I

155 can sing almost every song on his mix, lyric for lyric. On Thursday afternoon, when I skip out of the offi ce after a morning of unpacking boxes and mailing out CDs, I come home to fi nd Russ sitting on the couch watching baseball. “Priscilla!”he shouts when I walk in the door. My stomach fl ip-fl ops when I see his smile, but I will myself to be cool. Besides, it’s annoy- ing that he’s just over here, like he’s allowed to enter my world anytime he pleases. I drop my keys on the entryway table and give him an unenthusiastic “Hi.”“No thank-you for the mix?”he asks. “Thanks,”I say, lingering in the doorway. “That’ll do,”he says. “For now.”I roll my eyes and walk into the kitchen. “Ready to get wet?”he calls after me. And although Barton Springs on a hot day is amazing, I just can’t go back there with him. “Not really,”I say, opening the fridge to look for a snack. “I have some things to do.”“Like what?”asks Russ, calling my bluff. I panic a little because I have nothing that I

156 need to be doing. My eyes dart to the kitchen island, where there’s a half-used shell-pink polish that Penny was painting her nails with last night. “I have to, um, meet Penny for a manicure,”I say. Russ guffaws. That is actually the word I think of when he laughs—guffaw. It’s huge and loud and it comes from deep inside, like he truly thinks I just said the funniest thing in the world. “Come on!”he says. “We’re going tubing!”I wonder briefl y if he needs me to come with him to buy materials to build a robot, but I fi nd out soon enough that he’s talking about us going for a ride down the Guadalupe River, which is about half an hour outside of Austin. I’m about to protest some more, but then the phone rings. It’s Penny, who informs me that a bunch of the Tri-Pi sisters are coming over for chips and dips and fruity drinks before they go out tonight, so can I please make sure the living room is straightened up? “I’m in,”I tell Russ immediately after I hang up with Penny. The orange bikini I wore to Barton Springs is still hanging downstairs in the half bathroom,

157 and I change into it while Russ runs next door to get “supplies.”I meet him outside at his truck, completely covered in sunscreen. I brought the bottle with me so I can reapply all day and make sure he does too. I’m wearing my dark aviator glasses and wishing I had a hat. Luckily, Russ has a selection in his truck. “I don’t really want to wear a jock cap,”I say, looking at all the UT frat hats in the backseat. “That’s what you need in the river,”says Russ. “Anything else will fl y off your head. Besides, these you can dunk in the water and not worry about it.”Practicality wins, and I put on an orange UT cap that matches my bikini. I am fully aware of the fact that if I take off the band T-shirt that’s covering me, I’ll look like a damn cheerleader. When we get to the river and unload at the parking lot, Russ reaches into the back of his truck and grabs a dirt-covered pair of sneakers for me. “Put these on,”he says. “They’re river shoes. You’ll lose those fl ip-fl ops.”I have a lot to learn about tubing. Russ rents a black rubber tube for each of us, plus an extra

158 cooler-tube, which he fi lls with sodas and snacks from the store attached to the rental place. I help him carry our third-wheel tube out to the river, and then he ties it to his own tube with a cord. “Seriously?”I ask. “Seriously,”he says. “This is how we roll down the Guadalupe.”I keep my T-shirt over Penny’s bikini, which I still don’t feel comfortable in. As soon as I push off the ground and start fl oating, I realize I forgot my sunscreen. “Crap!”I shout. “I’m going to burn.”“Hey, ’Cilla,”says Russ, raising his sun- glasses to look me in the eye. “Relax, breathe, and try to have fun. You’re too uptight sometimes.”He guffaws at me—again—and sits back in his tube. Am I uptight? I don’t think I’m uptight. I think Russ thinks I’m uptight, but he doesn’t know me at all. He just met me and already he thinks he’s so smart about what I should think and say and be. He doesn’t even know—Whoosh! I drop down a sloping rapid and almost fl ip over in my tube. I manage to hold on to the sides and get myself upright before I go

Lovestruck Summer

159 entirely underwater, but the baseball cap that I borrowed from Russ is totally dunked. When I shake my head out and clear my vision, I see that he’s right behind me, laughing. And I start to laugh too. We’re outside, fl oating down a river on a hot, sunny day and I’m sitting here worrying about my skin (which is already covered in SPF 80 from before I left the condo), my footgear, my whole outfi t, for goodness’sake! Russ is right. I need to just let go and enjoy myself. We’re at a slow stretch of water, so Russ pulls the cooler to him as I paddle over to grab a Coke. Russ holds our tubes together with one hand and his soda with the other. He shares a bag of Doritos with me as we fl oat. “So, do you come here often?”I ask. “Sometimes,”he says. “I used to tube here when I was younger, with my dad. He loved to fl oat down the river.”“That’s cute,”I say. I look over and see a little boy on the edge of the water aiming a water gun at his mom, who’s sitting at a picnic table in their yard. She screams as he douses her. “Were you like that kid?”I ask.

160 “So much worse,”says Russ. “I used to set water balloons above the front door . . . inside the house.”“And have you matured since then?”I ask. He grins and wipes a Dorito-cheesed hand on my arm. “Gross!”I shout, leaning over to wash off the orange powder. He laughs and takes a sip of Coke. We fl oat quietly down the river like that for a while, and it’s nice. I sort of enjoy Russ’s com- pany when he’s not talking. Soon we go over a small patch of rapids, which is really just a quick drop to a lower sec- tion of the river, and Russ lets go of my tube and I drift ahead. “Are you over hanging on to me?”I joke. “You’re getting that song stuck in my head,”he says. “If that happens, I won’t be able to stop singing it for hours.”“What song?”I ask. “The one you’ve been humming all day,”he says. “‘Waltz Across Texas.’It’s the fi nal track on the CD I made you, or at the end of Side B, if it’s the tape you’ve been obsessing over.”

161 He smiles at me with a triumphant twinkle in his eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”I say, paddling my tube ahead of him so I won’t have to acknowledge that his songs are getting into my head. “Nothing to be ashamed of,”says Russ. “That’s my favorite song of all time. I’m glad you like it.”“I don’t like it,”I say stubbornly. “Admit it!”Russ calls out. “You love my mix!”I can hear him paddling from behind me and gaining speed. “I do not!”I shout, smacking my hand through the water to splash him as he pulls up alongside me. “Methinks she doth protest too much,”says Russ. I pout, looking off into the distance and pre- tending to focus on the next bend in the river. “I’m really getting to you, aren’t I?”asks Russ. “You’re starting to have a crush on me.”“No,”I say. “You’re just around a lot. If some- one’s constantly there, it’s like, you just think

162 about them because they’re around.”“Okay, Cleopatra, Queen of Denial,”says Russ, lying back on his tube. “I’m really into Sebastian,”I say, looking over at Russ to gauge his reaction. His sunglasses cover his eyes, but I see the muscles around his mouth twitch a little. “I’m happy for you,”he says, swinging the cooler around with his leg and opening it up for another soda. I’m a little preoccupied for the rest of our fl oat down the Guadalupe, but I try to push the awkward feelings aside and enjoy the cool water. I hum a hard-core London Rose song audibly, so Russ knows his mix is out of my head. Luckily, it’s going out of rotation soon. Sebastian texted me on Wednesday and asked me to come to Dirty’s Friday night. And he said he has a present for me. Russ and I don’t talk much as we get to the end of our fl oat and return the tubes. The drive home is quiet too, but it’s not a bad kind of silence. We listen to a Loretta Lynn CD that he has—and Jack White is singing on it, too, which is pretty cool.

163 * * * The next day, Jade and I are planning on going out to dinner when we leave Amalgam, and then heading over to Dirty’s to see Sebastian deejay. “Let’s stop by your house fi rst,”says Jade. “Why?”I ask. “You’ll see,”she says. Those two little words are ominous, but I duti- fully pull in to the condo parking lot anyway. When we walk in, Penny and Chrissy are racing around, cleaning. Penny has a bottle of Windex in one hand, and she’s spraying it on every possible surface. She’s also holding a wad of paper towels. Chrissy is vacuuming the rug under the couch, and all the chairs and tables have been moved to the walls. “What’s going on?”I ask. “Ooh, Quinny! We’re having a party!”says Penny. Chrissy squeals in delight. “Everyone’s been gone for a while, but now that it’s getting closer to August, people are coming back. The semes- ter starts in a month, and we’re throwing the fi rst big bash of the season.”“It’s, like, tradition,”says Penny.

164 I look over at Jade. “Did you know about this?”I ask. “Is this why you wanted to stop here?”“No,”she says. I see her staring at Chrissy. “Oh, Chrissy and Penny, this is Jade,”I say. “She’s a big roller derby fan.”I look at Chrissy pointedly. “We saw you play last weekend,”says Jade as Chrissy runs over to barrel her down with her signature-squeeze greeting. Jade smiles as she hugs Chrissy right back. “You were awesome.”“Quinn!”shouts Chrissy as she pulls away from Jade. “You didn’t tell me you were at my match!”She looks over at Penny, who shrugs. “I didn’t know Quinn liked all that bruiser stuff,”she says. I’m semi-relieved. I have feared that my cousin was going to reveal that her nickname was Penny the Punisher and I was going to have to reevaluate my impressions of all the Tri-Pis. But so far, only Chrissy has truly surprised me. Jade still looks starstruck. “The way you nailed Tess the Terminator

165 was incredible,”she says. “I broke a nail on that one,”Chrissy whines. She holds up her Tri-Pi purple manicure. “Anyway,”I say, looking at Jade. “What are we doing here?”“I actually planned to get your cousin to help me pick out some hot clothes for you and do your hair for tonight.”“What?”I ask. “Sorry, Quinn,”Jade says. “But you are screaming for a makeover.”Penny drops the cleaning spray and paper towels so she can clap her hands together with glee. “Party makeover!”she screams. Chrissy joins in. I glare at Jade, feeling betrayed by someone who I thought understood me and my dislike of superfi cial fashion-and-beauty crap. “Look,”she says. “If you want to seal the deal with Sebastian, and really make him your summer fl ing, you’ve got to work it a little bit harder.”I think back to her purple jumpsuit from Monday, and actually, all of Jade’s looks. She’s not pink-glossed and fake-lashed like Penny

166 is when she goes out, but she’s certainly got a style that I suppose is a notch up from my band tees and jeans. I look around the room at their faces. Jade has one eyebrow raised, probably worrying that she’s offending me. Penny and Chrissy share identical looks of hope, wide-eyed and ready to grab the curling iron. I stare down at my Converse. “Okay,”I say. “But no high heels.”Upstairs in the bathroom, I am subjected to all kinds of torture. First, they make me strip down to my bra and underwear. “We start from the bottom up,”says Penny as if this “party makeover”is a reality show that she’s hosting. They turn on the crazy light globes that frame Penny’s bathroom, and Chrissy pulls out a magnifying mirror that retracts from the wall—something I’d never noticed. “It’s for really look- ing at your pores,”she says. “And plucking.”Penny’s perfectly groomed eyebrows are inches from my face as she pulls stray hairs from my natural arches.

167 “Please,”I say. “Not Marlene Dietrich pencil brows.”Jade laughs and I catch her eye in the mirror. She mouths a sorry and I have to forgive her. She couldn’t have known the excitement that a makeover would cause in this condo. After a sudsy scrubbing that leaves my face a little raw, Chrissy gets out cotton balls and tones my cheeks while Penny waits in the wings with moisturizing cream. Then they start in on the makeup. “Here’s where I take over,”says Jade, tap- ping Penny on the shoulder. My cousin looks momentarily crushed as she hands over the foundation puff, but I’m so glad I won’t be made up to look like a Tri-Pi pledge. Jade grabs eyeliner and a dark lip stain, which she uses on my cheeks. “Uh, that’s for her lips,”says Penny. “Oh,”says Jade, shrugging innocently. “Well, it doesn’t know it’s for her lips. It looks good on her cheeks—Quinn isn’t really a Princess Pink girl.”I look up at Chrissy, but she’s just nodding

168 at Jade’s work. A few minutes later, after some close encounters with the mascara brush and one lipstick do-over (I turned my head at just the wrong moment), Jade steps back. “You look super pretty, Quinn,”says Penny, smiling in approval. “Totally,”says Chrissy. But they won’t let me turn around to see until they do my hair. Over the past few weeks, it has faded to a cool-but-weird aqua-blond color, and it’s growing out, so it’s a little messy. They mussed it with a bunch of mousse earlier, and Jade blew it dry while Penny and Chrissy were working on my eyebrows and skin care. I have no idea what it looks like right now. “Pin it back with clips?”asks Penny, grab- bing her basket of hair accessories, which is overfl owing with purple Tri-Pi bows. Jade shakes her head no. Since the makeup wonder she’s worked, Penny and Chrissy seem to be deferring to her expertise. “Headband?”asks Penny. “Close,”says Jade. Then she tugs a thin, stretchy band out of her back pocket. It’s a double-elastic and it’s black. So