How to Be Brave(23)

Liss shrugs. “We’re taking it slow. You know, slow but steady.”

Evelyn rolls a chocolate-covered cherry in her teeth. “Does he, like, you know, enjoy the taste of sweet, young, succulent fruit?” She swallows and licks the front of her teeth. “And yes, I’m talking about oral.”

“Uuugghh.” Liss and I both groan at the same time. “Evelyn, that’s disgusting!” She’s freakin’ obsessed.

“No! We are not doing anything like that!” Liss insists. She changes the subject by shifting her attention back to me. “Anyway, I don’t know what to tell you, Georgia. It’s not like I really know that much about guys or relationships. What I do know, however, is that we have a list of items to complete. What’s next? Trapeze school?”

I dig into my bag and pull out the list, which is now smeared and faded and wrinkled from being folded and unfolded so much. “Hm. Not so much. A) I called, and it’s pretty damn expensive, so it’ll have to wait until spring when I’ve saved enough. And B) they’re closed for the winter, so … it would have to wait until spring regardless.”

Liss leans over and rereads the list. “And I assume for the same reason skinny-dipping and fishing are out?”

“Indeed.”

“How about the tribal-dancing thing? There’s that place by your house that has classes, right? What are you guys doing next Saturday, after Thanksgiving? We could totally do it then…?”

I nod, but Evelyn doesn’t respond. She’s staring out the window, smiling weirdly at the sky.

Liss nudges her. “Um, earth to Evelyn. Hello? Saturday?”

Evelyn turns to us. “Sorry. What? I didn’t hear you. I was listening to the music inside my brain.”

Liss laughs, and I try my best to swallow down a smirk. “What song were you listening to, exactly?”

“Oh. It’s usually the Beatles. This time it was ‘Yellow Submarine.’ One of the best.”

“Are you ever not high, Evelyn?” Liss asks.

Evelyn’s face changes from stoned to serious. “Only when I want to sink into existential loneliness and despair. So yeah, I’m pretty much always high.”

Evelyn doesn’t talk too much about why she sinks into existential loneliness and despair, but I have a feeling that whatever she’s been through hasn’t been easy.

“Okay,” Liss says. “Well, are you around next Saturday?”

Evelyn shrugs. “It’s Thanksgiving weekend, the busiest travel weekend of the year, and my mom’s a flight attendant who never takes me anywhere unless it’s a permanent move, so what do you think? I’m here. Where else would I be?”

“Me too,” I say. “I can get a day off from my dad. It’s not like anyone’s here on Saturdays, anyway, and Nancy can cover, I think.”

“Cool. It’s a plan, then,” Liss says, scraping the bottom of the bowl. “Next Saturday, we shake our asses to some crazy tribal yoga shit. Perhaps the teacher will be hot and tattooed and have a thing for stretching out hips.”

Evelyn licks the front of her teeth again, and Liss and I both groan and feign nausea.

And then we look down at the sundae, which is mostly gone, and the real nausea comes to my throat. We’ve eaten a good two-thirds of it. I raise a paper napkin in defeat. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” I lean back in the booth. I ate waaay too much.

“I know,” Liss says. “They’re going to have to charge me for my extra weight when I board the plane.” Liss is going to Belize for two weeks over winter break as part of a study abroad program that’s open to the top-scoring students in AP biology. She says she doesn’t want to major in science, but she’s so good, she can’t help it. I’m so majorly jealous. She’s going to hike through the rain forests of Central America searching for monkeys and pyramids, while I’ll be stuck inside an empty apartment with five feet of snow piled up at my door. Why did I have to end up in remedial chemistry? The best trip they could offer would be a visit to Marie Curie’s grave.

“I feel worse than that time we got those two Party Packs from Taco Bell.” Liss laughs and holds her stomach. “I thought I felt sick then.”

“You were high,” Evelyn says. “You couldn’t feel anything.”

“You’re probably right.” Liss laughs. “That was some good shit that day.”

“Shut up, you guys!” I look over at my dad, and he smiles at me. He likes it when I bring my friends to the restaurant. He thinks it means he doesn’t have to worry about me, that someone’s taking care of me. If only he knew.

He walks over to our table, grabs a clean spoon from a nearby table, and takes a bite of some melting ice-cream salad. “Ah, girls! How delicious! You are all chefs of the very finest quality,” he says. “I will hire you tomorrow!”

Liss and Evelyn giggle, smitten by my father’s Greek accent.

“So, tell me some news.”

“Mr. Askeridis”—Liss leans toward my dad—“how did you and Georgia’s mom fall in love? Did you go after her or did she go after you?” She places her chin in her hands like she’s five. “Was there passion from the very start?”

I snap a dirty glance at Liss. What is she doing? We don’t ask my dad these types of questions. We do not discuss love or dates or anything involving passion. These words do not exist in my father’s world.