Love Songs & Other Lies(50)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THEN
CAM
“That!” Vee is yelling, pointing her spoon at the TV. Green flecks of ice cream splatter onto the beige carpet of my living room. Wearing a pair of faded jeans, and one of my Rolling Stones T-shirts (that’s four sizes too big for her) she’s in her usual after-school spot on my couch. “That is what I’m talking about!”
I have no idea what the yelling is about. I zoned out a while ago. Sitting at the dining room table, on the other side of the room, I’m scribbling lyrics and chords into my notebook. Vee is sitting cross-legged on my couch, watching a movie. A giant bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream is settled in her lap. There are at least two cartons of it in my freezer at all times now. One day, scientists will prove that Virginia Miller’s veins actually pump the stuff.
I look up to see that there’s a marching band prancing across a stadium, while playing a booming rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes off of You.” Trombones and trumpets gleam. Stunned students look on in bewilderment, and the band’s leader, a shaggy-haired late-’90s Heath Ledger, thrusts his baton while simultaneously singing and weaving through the stadium, evading security guards. Why are there security guards on the football field?
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s just the grandest of all grand gestures,” she says, sounding annoyed. Her eyes never leave the screen. I’m pretty sure she sighed. “You wouldn’t understand. None of you do.” She says it angrily, as if I’ve personally affronted her somehow.
“Excuse me? None of ‘us’?” I’m trying my best to sound offended, but she looks so damn adorable, pouting over her melting ice cream and waving her arms at the TV. It’s hard not to laugh at her. I keep the smile that’s threatening in check.
“Guys. Boys.” Her face twists into a scowl and I almost lose it. “Men,” she hisses, jabbing her spoon at me. “None of you.”
“Movies like this give you all unreasonable expectations.” I idly strum a chord. “As if we can actually commandeer a marching band, or set up a moonlit picnic on the Empire State Building.”
“Oh, ‘us all’?”
“Yes. Girls.” I try to look at her as seriously as she’s looking at me. “We can’t actually make that shit happen. It’s unrealistic.”
Another spoonful of ice cream slides into her mouth. “No one expects a guy to re-create this movie stuff, Cam. Grand gestures aren’t actually about scale.” The silver spoon twists in her fingers like a drumstick. “They’re about putting yourself out there and creating a moment.”
“A moment?”
“Yes, a moment. It’s about doing something outside of your comfort zone to show someone what they mean to you.” She’s looking at me as if this is the most obvious thing ever, and not girl-speak that basically requires a translator.
I give her an “I still don’t get it” shoulder shrug. Just to irritate her.
She rewards me with a dramatic eye roll. “Conducting a marching band in front of a football field of students,” she says, gesturing at the TV. “Or standing outside her bedroom window with a giant boom box, playing a love song?” She watched that one last week. Her eyes are fixed on me. She’s waiting for an aha! moment, but I’m not going to give it to her.
I shrug again.
“Ugh. It’s about creating a freaking moment.” Her spoon drops into her bowl with a loud clang.
I’m trying to play along and keep a straight face, but I can feel my lips betraying me now. “It’s unrealistic.”
“You’re unrealistic,” she says with mock anger, sticking her tongue out at me as I shake my head.
I finally give up a laugh.
The spoon is sticking out of her mouth and she’s facing the TV again, but I can tell she’s smiling. “Shut up and write your song.”
*
I’ve had plenty of girlfriends. A lot of the middle school, movie-date-with-your-parents kind, and just one of the sort of serious, I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours kind. I know all about remembering birthdays and favorite foods, and buying flowers on Valentine’s Day and presents at Christmas. Still, I’ve never considered myself a particularly romantic guy. Not like Anders. That guy’s always sending Cort flowers, or driving three hours after school to meet her at her college. He takes her out to the kind of restaurants that require reservations and clothes nicer than most of what he owns. That all seems forced and fake to me. I don’t want to do anything for Vee just because I feel like I’m supposed to.
This is definitely something I have to do, though. Before she finds out, I have to tell her. And when I found the light on in my spare room the morning after she slept over, I knew it was a matter of time. Weeks have already passed, and it’s felt like a bomb in my back pocket, just waiting to blow my legs off. I’ve put this off long enough, and I’m hoping if I make the moment semi-romantic, I can distract her from what a big deal it is. Vee is always swooning over romantic, grand gestures, but this is more of a romantic diversion.
The whole apartment smells like pepperoni pizza. I turn off the movie Vee’s playing—another one of her chick flicks—and flip to one of the music stations. I yell into the kitchen. “How long?”