When Everything Is Blue(16)
“You know how it is. I’m never not looking.”
“You should let me buy you one for your birthday.”
I smile at that and also feel a little bad for lying to him. He’s so damn thoughtful. “I’ll let you know if I see something I like.”
“You were really shredding it out there. You could probably go pro, you know?”
I shake my head. “I doubt it.”
“Seriously, Theo.”
Chris talks to me like a proud parent sometimes. Feels a little dangerous to believe him, like when your mom tells you you’re the most handsome boy ever.
“Might take all the fun out of it, if it were, like, a job,” I say.
Chris scowls at that. “Yeah, skateboarding for a living, what a drag. Mowing lawns is so much more fun.”
“Mowing lawns is just to get my foot in the door. Maybe I’ll take over Lawson’s Lawns one day.” He shakes his head, and I smile. It’s really not the worst job in the world. I like being outside, and there’s a lot of satisfaction in taking a rangy, overgrown lawn and making it look neat and tidy. I don’t even mind the chore of picking all the dead petals from the flowers for our more affluent clientele. I’m kind of a neat freak in that way.
“You’d better aim higher than that, Killer.” Chris reaches over and messes up my hair so that I have to finger comb it to get it out of my eyes. I pretend to be irritated even though I secretly love it.
We used to talk all the time about what we were going to do when we grow up. Chris wanted to swim with sharks on camera. Then, for a spell, he wanted to own a resort in Costa Rica that catered to surfers. I told him surfers are broke or else too cheap to pay for a room, and Chris argued that he’d go for the older crowd, surfers with families, and make it an all-inclusive destination vacation. I could never settle on something, so Chris decided I was going to be a pot farmer in California, because I’m the only one of our friends who can resist smoking the product. Chris said he’d run the store, appropriately named Potheads, and we’d recruit some of the other guys to help with harvesting and baked goods—value-added products. Chris practically had a business plan laid out for it.
But we haven’t talked about it lately, maybe because neither of us wants to grow up. The thought of being an adult is pretty terrifying. I’m still figuring out how to be a teenager.
“How about you?” I ask him. “You going to be a pro surfer, or is Potheads still the plan?”
He chuckles. “Maybe. But if Potheads doesn’t work out, I was thinking I’d go into finance like my dad.”
From what I understand, Chris’s dad shuffles rich people’s cash from one money-making venture to another and makes a killing doing it.
“Sounds boring.” And not very much in keeping with Chris’s larger-than-life personality.
“Good money, though. You know how I like nice things.” He smiles his thousand-watt smile, the one I cave to every time.
I try to imagine it. Corporate Chris in a business suit, closing the deal with his firm handshake. Weekender Chris with his classic good looks, wearing a polo shirt and loafers with no socks, golfing with his colleagues, a blonde wife waiting for him at home with a few towheaded shorties running around. Neckties and minivans and weekend barbecues. The American dream, man.
Kind of makes me sad as hell. I’m not sure there’s any way I fit in there.
“Just don’t start wearing Crocs,” I tell him.
He laughs and shakes his head. “Where do you come up with this shit?”
We finish eating and head back home. There’s this spot on the sidewalk between our driveways where we always say goodbye. I’m about to tell him I had a good time or something even stranger when his phone rings. Chris pulls it out of his pocket and glances at it. “Kelli,” he says simply.
Kelli Keyhoe, the blonde wife in Corporate Chris’s American dream.
“Go get her, tiger,” I tell Chris with a fist-bump, the bro-est form of affection I can muster, and one that I secretly hate.
“Yeah,” he says, distracted, and turns away to go answer it.
I watch Chris navigate the landscaped path up to his house. There is no hope for Chris and me. We’re friends and that’s all we’ll ever be. I’ve got to get that through my thick skull. I will beat the just friends drum until the feelings have been forced back into that deep, dark cave where they belong. A cave so deep and twisted, a spelunker would get lost and perish before ever discovering those forbidden thoughts.
Game On
THAT NIGHT I decide to text Dave. We don’t text for long and it’s nothing scandalous, just a Hey, what’s up, how’s it going? He tries to get me to send a picture of myself, but I politely decline—who knows what he’d do with it. We do make plans to get together over the weekend.
I work until about three on Saturday, and when I get home to shower and change, I can hear Chris and Tabs out by his pool, likely going over plans for the birthday party I didn’t agree to. I glance out the window to see them deep in discussion. My sister can get pretty serious about party planning. Chris catches me looking down and waves. I lift one hand. He motions for me to come down, and I turn away from the window like I didn’t see him.
I’m not up for watching my sister flirt with Chris under the guise of planning a birthday party, not that it’s her intention, and not that I blame her for it. It’s actually pretty clever. Still not something I want to take part in.