The Sun Is Also a Star(12)

“Jesus Christ bleeding on a Popsicle stick,” I whisper under my breath.

Rob gives me his patented stupid half smile and a wave. I almost give him the finger. How did I date him for eight months and four days? How did I let this accomplice hold my hands and kiss me?

I face Red Tie. “Is he coming over here?”

“Yup.”

“Maybe we should make out or something, like spies do in the movies,” I suggest.

Red Tie blushes hard.

“I’m not serious,” I say, smiling.

He doesn’t say anything, just blushes some more. I watch the color warm his face.

Rob’s there before Red Tie can pull himself together to respond.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is a deep, reassuring baritone. It’s one of the things I liked about him. Also, he looks like a young Bob Marley, only white and without the dreadlocks.

“Why are you and your girlfriend stealing things?” Red Tie cuts in before I can say anything to Rob.

Rob holds his hands up and takes a step back. “Whoa, dude,” he says. “Keep your voice down.” He pastes the stupid half smile back on his stupid face.

Red Tie gets even louder. “This is an independent record store. That means it’s family-owned. You’re stealing from real people. Do you know how hard it is for small businesses to survive when people like you just take stuff?”



Red Tie is righteous, and Rob even manages to look a little chastened.

“Don’t look now, but I think your girlfriend just got busted,” I say. Two store employees are whispering furiously at Kelly and tapping the front of her jacket.

Rob’s stupid face finally loses its stupid smile. Instead of going over to rescue Kelly, he shoves his hands into his pockets and walk-runs out the front door. Kelly calls out to him as he bolts, but he doesn’t stop. One of the employees threatens to call the cops. She begs him not to, and pulls two records from her jacket. She has good taste. I spot Massive Attack and Portishead.

The employee snatches them from her hand. “Come back in here again and I will call the cops.”

She bolts from the store, calling after Rob.

“Well, that was fun,” Red Tie says after she’s gone. He’s smiling a big wide smile and looking at me with happy eyes. I get a sudden sense of déjà vu. I’ve been here before. I’ve noticed those bright eyes and that smile. I’ve even had this conversation.

But then the moment passes.

He sticks out his hand for a shake. “Daniel,” he says.

His hand is big and warm and soft and holds on to mine for a little too long.

“Nice to meet you,” I say, and take my hand back. His smile is nice, really nice, but I don’t have time for boys in suits with nice smiles. I put my headphones back on. He’s still waiting for me to tell him my name.

“Have a nice life, Daniel,” I say, and walk out the door.





Would-Be Casanova Shakes Cute Girl’s Hand, Offers Her Home Loan with Reasonable Interest Rate I shook her hand. I’m wearing a suit and a tie and I shook her hand.

What am I? A banker?

Who meets a cute girl and shakes her hand?

Charlie would’ve said something charming to her. They’d be having a cozy coffee someplace dark and romantic. She’d already be dreaming of little half-Korean, half–African American babies.





OUTSIDE, THE STREETS ARE MORE crowded than before. The crowd is a mix of tourists who’ve wandered too far from Times Square and actual working New Yorkers wishing the tourists would just go back to Times Square. A little ways down the street, I spy Rob and Kelly. I stand there staring at them for a little while. She’s crying, and no doubt he’s trying to explain that he is not an unfaithful, disloyal jerk. I have a feeling he will be successful. He’s very persuasive, and she wants to be persuaded.

He and I sat next to each other in AP Physics last year. The only reason I noticed him at all was because he asked for help on the isotopes and half-lives unit. I’m something of an overachiever in that class. He asked me out to the movies after he passed the following week’s quiz.

Coupledom was new to me, but I liked it. I liked meeting at his locker between classes and always having plans for the weekend. I liked being thought of as a couple, and double-dating with Bev and Derrick. As much as I hate to admit it now, I liked him. And then he cheated. I can still remember feeling hurt and betrayed and, weirdly, ashamed. Like it was my fault he cheated. The thing I could never figure out, though, was why he pretended. Why not just break up with me and go out with Kelly instead?



Still, getting over him didn’t take that long at all. And that’s the thing that makes me wary. Where did all those feelings go? People spend their whole lives looking for love. Poems and songs and entire novels are written about it. But how can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?





THE HALF-LIFE OF A SUBSTANCE is the time it takes for it to lose one half of its initial value.

In nuclear physics, it’s the time it takes for unstable atoms to lose energy by emitting radiation. In biology, it usually refers to the time it takes to eliminate half of a substance (water, alcohol, pharmaceuticals) from the body. In chemistry, it is the time required to convert one half of a reactant (hydrogen or oxygen, for example) to product (water).