My Name Is Venus Black(48)

“Oh?” I say, curious.

“It’ll be fun. I’ll see you then.” He hangs up before I can object. I sigh as I place the receiver back in the cradle. I’m tempted to call back and cancel, but that seems so rude. Or is Danny the one who is rude? He’s pushy, for sure, but he also seems genuinely kind and, yeah, maybe a little desperate.

I wander over to the fridge and, for some reason, grab one of Mike’s beers and snap it open. The sound reminds me of Raymond, who was always demanding someone bring him a beer. Raymond, with his stinky socks, the TV remote plastered to his hand, his ass planted in his La-Z-Boy. Raymond with his eyes growing lazy and bloodshot as they followed me. Raymond getting all goopy and sweet, calling me Veenie.

I shudder. And then I realize the reason I’m thinking of Raymond is that I’ve been thinking about Danny. It’s almost like the two subconsciously overlap in my mind in a bizarre, unfair way. Suddenly feeling sick, I pour the beer down the sink.





The next evening, I overhear Mike talking on the phone to a friend about how it’s strangely balmy outside. I step onto the back porch to check, and he’s right. The rain has left everything damp but clean. What surprises me more than the mild temperature is the clear night sky. The two don’t usually go together in Seattle in the winter. Suddenly I feel Piper at my side, looking up with me.

“Do you see Venus?” I ask, pointing it out to her.

“It’s such a pretty star,” she says. “Like you,” she adds with a self-conscious giggle.

“You think I’m pretty?”

“Of course!” she says. “You’re as pretty as one of Charlie’s Angels.”

“Yeah, right,” I say. “But thank you, Piper.” I sit down on one of the crumbling cement steps and she joins me. “Actually, Venus isn’t a star,” I tell her. “It’s a planet. But lots of people call it a star—the Morning Star.”

“Why can’t it be both?”

“It kind of is,” I say, enjoying her interest. “The only thing that shines brighter than Venus in the night sky is our moon.”

Piper tells me she’s been learning about space at school. She wants to talk about the Space Shuttle Challenger and how that one teacher was going to get to go into space even though she wasn’t an astronaut, just a teacher.



“If it happens when we’re at school, we might get to watch it on TV,” she says.

“Wow, Piper. That would be so great. I’ll probably be at work, unless it happens on a Monday.” I don’t bother sharing with Piper how I used to want to be an astronaut. I know now that they don’t send people like me into space. Still, I’m so jealous of that teacher—Christa McAuliffe—that I’m not even sure I’ll watch the launch.

“So can you find the Big Dipper, Piper?” I ask.

“You work there, silly!” she says. “It’s not in the sky.” Then she laughs and I suspect she knows better.

“You’re right,” I tell her. “But it’s in the sky, too. You know that. The real Big Dipper is a constellation of stars.”

“What is a con-sul—”

“A constellation is a group of stars that make a picture in the sky,” I explain, trying to keep the science on her level. “Like Taurus is a group of stars shaped like a bull. Or at least that’s how it looks to us. But the stars themselves aren’t actually related to one another; they just look like they belong together.”

“Kind of like our family,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

She takes a second to swallow a bite of cookie, which she snuck after I cut her off hours ago. “You said the stars aren’t really related, they just belong together. That’s just like us.”

I smile in the shadows. “You’re a smart girl, Piper.”



* * *



—

I DON’T PLAN it, don’t even realize I’m going to do it until Danny shows up on Thursday at the Dipper. He begins to flirt with me first thing—and I stiffen. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “About tomorrow night…I can’t.”

“Okay, so how about the next night?” he says, trying to humor me along.



“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” I blurt out. “I appreciate the movie and dinner. That date was great. But I was only being nice. I think it’s probably time for you to give up, you know? Would it help if I tell you there’s no hope?” I can hear a hint of disdain in my voice, which I totally didn’t mean to be there. By the surprised look on his face, I can tell he heard it, too.

“Okay,” he says. He doesn’t stay to order anything. Just walks out the door. For the rest of my shift, I feel sick to my stomach and totally devastated. I can hardly plaster a smile on my face for customers. By the time I get home, I want to cry or scream or punch something, because I’m so disappointed and embarrassed, too. I was so rude!

What does it mean for my future that I just shot down a guy I really like? I had hoped that once I was free, if I met a guy I felt attracted to and liked, I’d be able to have a boyfriend. But my reaction to Danny seems to prove true one of my worst fears—that I’ll never be able to really be with a guy.