My Tiki Girl (19 page)

“I wish. Don’t tell me you’d actually want to see my stupid old boring house and meet my geeky dad.”

“Sometimes, LaSamba,” she says as she finishes braiding my hair and lets it slide from between her fingers, “I don’t think you have any clue what I want at all.”

She brushes my cheek with her fingers, gives me this sly smile, and my heart, which is going about ninety miles an hour now, drops like a bowling ball into my stomach.

I think—no,
I’m sure
—Dahlia feels it, too.

17

“There’s no smoking
in this house,” my dad says as soon as Dahlia pushes her plate away and goes for her cigarettes.

My dad hates her. I can tell. He knew right off that she wasn’t the goody-goody, straight A student I’d made her out to be. Then, during dinner, there was this terrible moment when he was passing her a slice of pizza and said, “I hear your mom’s quite a gourmet.” I held my breath. Dahlia just said, “Huh?” and my dad dropped the subject without even shooting me a look.

“I guess I’ll have to smoke outside then,” Dahlia says—politely, but giving him a pursed-lipped smile. She gets up from the table and Troy is right behind her, flashing my dad a grin and saying, “Excuse us,” leaving me in the kitchen with my dad and Joey, who has said maybe two words all night.

“Bathroom?” Joey asks. That is word number three.

I tell him where it is and he practically runs off down the hall.

“It’s nice of you guys to let him be in the band,” my dad says.

“We’re not just being nice. He can really play, Dad.”

“I’m sure he can. Poor kid.”

“He doesn’t need your pity. He kicks ass on the drum. And you should see the stuff he makes. He can fix damn near anything. He’s way smarter than a lot of people I know.”

“Mmm,” my father says, clearly not buying it.

When Troy and Dahlia come back in, Troy says to my dad, “Do you still play the piano, Mr. Keller?” and my dad’s face just lights up.

“Why, yes, I do as a matter of fact. I took a little hiatus, but I’m back at it.”

“I’d love to hear something,” Troy says. He is such a suck-up. I grab Dahlia’s arm and lead her to my bedroom while Troy and Joey follow my dad into the living room.

I spent yesterday and today getting ready for this. I took down the pink curtains in my room, moved the clown lamp to the basement. My dad took me to the mall, where I picked up lots of candles, an Indian print bedspread and black sheets, a beaded curtain to hang in the tall window, and a poster of Jim Morrison. I packed away the
World Book
encyclopedias and replaced them with some slim volumes of poetry I picked up at the used-book store.

Here I was imagining that we’d light some candles, read some poetry, and she’d look around my room and think that I must be her soul mate. What really happens is that Dahlia takes one look at my room and just gives a noncommittal “Huh.” She doesn’t even lean down to check out the poetry.

In the living room, my dad starts hammering at the piano. He’s playing “Anything Goes.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask Dahlia. I sit down on the bed, hoping she’ll sit beside me, but she just hovers near the door.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve been in a crappy mood all night.”

My dad is singing now, and Troy joins him. I look at Dahlia, thinking she must surely find the singing amusing, that we’ll at least get a good laugh out of it, but she’s stone-faced.

“I’m gonna go get a soda,” she says, and is gone before I can stop her.

Now here we all are in the living room gathered around the piano, where my father and Troy are side by side on the bench, playing and singing. Who knew Troy could even play the piano? Dahlia is thumbing through my dad’s jazz CDs, looking pissed off and disgusted by god-knows-what. Joey is perched on the edge of the couch cushion, listening to my dad and Troy.

At last it’s over, and my dad gives Troy a hearty pat on the back. “Where’d you learn to play, Troy?”

“Well, Mr. Keller, my parents had me taking lessons when I was six. I took them until I was ten or so, then took up the guitar.”

“I hear you’re a whiz at that, too.”

“I do okay,” Troy says.

“I’m surprised a kid with your talent isn’t at Cedar Brook.”

“Yeah,” Troy says, “we looked at it. But Cedar Brook didn’t have a football team. And you know what they say about the guys who go to an arts school like that,” he adds, smiling.

“My friend Simon went there,” I say, remembering my old pal the Cowardly Lion.

“I’m sure he fits in fine,” my father says. “As I recall, Simon’s kind of a . . . sensitive type.” My dad and Troy exchange knowing glances. Troy laughs, and my dad grins at what a funny guy he is.

I’m going to puke.

It’s suddenly crystal clear that my dad doesn’t get anything at all. I can’t believe I was once actually considering telling him how I felt about Dahlia.

My dad went to college. Played jazz in clubs. He married my mom, who was pretty much the coolest, most open-minded person I know. And now here he is calling Simon sensitive, which is code for he’s a big fag, which is apparently hilarious.

If a gay guy is
sensitive
, what stupid stereotype would he use to describe a gay girl?

My stomach hurts.

“I’ve gotta go,” Dahlia says. “Thanks for the pizza, Mr. Keller.”

My dad smiles and waves, thanks her for coming. Joey gets up to go, too. Then Troy’s running around fetching coats. He gets Dahlia’s and actually helps her into it.

“I’ll give you guys a ride,” he says. I shoot laser beams with my eyes, frying a hole right through his muscled chest.

“That would be great,” Dahlia says. “ ’Night, Maggie.”

My dad slaps Troy on the back, says, “Come by again, son. We’ll tickle the old ivories.”

Son.
He called Troy Farnham
son
. Troy smiles and says he will. Then he shakes my dad’s hand like a man’s man. Joey is dancing nervously from one foot to the other by the door, which Dahlia opens, and just like that, they’re gone, leaving us with empty cups and pizza crusts. My dad looks so disappointed, like he hates to see Troy go. He starts picking up glasses and plates, putting them in the sink. I decide to help.

“It was good to see Troy again,” he says. “Kind of strange to have him here without Sukie. He and Dahlia are a cute couple, though.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“They’re not a couple!” I throw the plate I was holding into the sink.

My father just smiles. “Oh come on, Maggie. I’m not blind.”

“God, Dad, you just don’t get it, do you?”

“What? What don’t I get?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Forget it.”

I limp-stomp my way out of the kitchen and get my coat in the hallway.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Dahlia’s.”

“Now? She just left.”

“Exactly,” I say, and then I’m out the door.

18

When I limp
up to Dahlia’s building, I see Troy’s Trans Am parked on the curb, and Dahlia and Troy are still inside. Joey either walked or jumped out already. I stay in the shadows and watch a minute.

They’re talking. Then Troy leans in and they kiss.

They actually kiss!

I’m ready to smash the windshield, firebomb the car.

KAABOOM! If I can’t have her, you can’t either, Prince Charming.

Dahlia jumps out of the car and goes into her building. I wait for Troy to pull away before I follow, making a trail through the Trans Am’s exhaust.

Dahlia opens the door and doesn’t seem surprised at all to see me.

“What’s up, LaSamba?” Her voice is all low and secretive.

“Nothing, I just thought—”

“Shh. My mom’s asleep. I don’t want to wake her. Let’s go to my room,” she says, and I follow.

She lights a bunch of candles on her bureau, bookshelves, and floor. She’s got a small CD player in her room, and only one of the speakers works, but it sounds okay. She puts an early Rolling Stones CD on, then goes over and lies down on her bed.

She reaches over and gets a cigarette from the pack on the milk crate next to the bed, which is a futon on the floor covered with a blanket from Mexico and an Indian tapestry bedspread. She lights the cigarette by picking up a candle and pulling it to her, and I’m about to tell her how nervous it makes me when she does this, how I’m just sure she’s going to set her hair on fire one of these days, but I don’t want to seem like a geek. She sets the candle down, then lies back with her head on the pillow, looking up at the poster of Jim Morrison while she smokes.

“So what is it? Why’d you follow me all the way back here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me. You wanted to come to my great apartment and be entertained by my quirky mom and wizard brother, right? It’s all just a regular funhouse here, isn’t it? Dolls and magic powers and trips in a gypsy wagon.”

“What is wrong with you tonight?” I ask.

“What’s wrong? Gee, I don’t know . . . what could be wrong? Could it be that you have a piano in your living room? That you and Troy live in these beautiful, perfect houses with huge bedrooms and the fridge full of whatever you want, and I have to come back here to
this
?” She laughs harshly. “You think it’s all so exotic and exciting, don’t you? Well, it’s not so exotic when the food stamps run out. When my mom won’t leave her room. When the landlord comes by, like he did this afternoon, to say the rent is two months late and we have to pay it all by the first or get out.” Dahlia’s got tears in her eyes now and her voice is starting to shake. “I had no idea you lived in a house like that, Maggie. Do you know how hard it was to have to sit through dinner in your perfect yellow kitchen with your father looking at me like some trash dragged in on the bottom of your shoe? Knowing that we’re about to get evicted? God, you’ve got it so easy and you don’t even know it.”

“That’s bullshit!” I said. “Don’t talk to me about easy. You have no idea what it’s like to walk around with this stupid leg, which is like this constant reminder that I’m the one responsible for my mom dying. Yes, my dad has money, but he’s totally clueless and half-dead himself, and living in that house with him is like torture. Then, on top of that, I have to watch you and Troy day after day. To see you kiss him in the car tonight. Jesus, Dahlia!” I’m crying, and I can’t even look at Dahlia.

“Oh, what?” Dahlia snorts, all pissed off. “You’re in love with Troy now?”

My head is going to explode. I picture the top of my skull coming unhinged and flipping open, all the unspoken words I’ve been swallowing for months pouring out.

“No. I’m in love with you.” I thought I was going to shout it, but I barely whisper it.

The only thing to do now is get out fast and not look back. I’ll try to forget the whole thing. It’s not like I haven’t had experience letting go of one life and hobbling off into another. I’ll go home and tell my dad I changed my mind about Cedar Brook, that I dropped out of the band and am never seeing Dahlia or going back to Sutterville High again.

But as I turn to go, I feel a hand on my shoulder, turning me around. I look up, and Dahlia is staring right at me, moving closer until she’s just inches away. Her breath is hot and sweet on my face, and her tear-filled eyes have this strangely frightened look.

“How long have you . . .”

“Forever,” I say.

Then she kisses me.

Her lips touch mine, and inside I feel this crazy explosion like the old dynamite factory has just gone up in a big bang. I hear roaring in my ears.

The only other person I’ve ever kissed is Albert Finch, and it was nothing like this. Our kiss quickly becomes this crazy, desperate, feverish thing, and Dahlia’s pulling me over to the bed. She lays me down and I’m freaking out, terrified and ecstatic all at once.

“Dahlia, I—”

“Shhh,” she says. “Close your eyes.”

I do. I’ll do whatever she tells me to. I’d jump off a building now, stop a bullet with my heart if she asked.

“What do you hear?” she asks.

I listen carefully.

“I hear the music. I hear you breathing.”

“Don’t you hear the waves? Smell the salt water. Tiki and LaSamba are on the beach. We’re lying on the sand.”