The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried(61)

“Yes it is,” Dino says.

I flash Dino an eye roll. “How about this, Zora. If I’m still not-dead in a week, we’ll talk.”

“Deal.” Zora climbs into her truck and takes off.

Dino’s giving me an ugly face, which, to be fair, could be one of the many in his repertoire. But this one’s vastly uglier than the rest. “Are you seriously going to play zombie for Zora?”

“Maybe,” I say. “If I end up stuck like this forever, I’ll have to find a way to have some fun.”

Dino and I get in the car. As he starts the engine, he mutters, “We have got to find a way to rekill you.”





DINO

THE UNIVERSE HAS SHIFTED. I feel it the way some dogs can sense earthquakes or seizures. The change is minute, but recognizable. And I don’t know what it means.

“Can we go to the beach?” July asks, and I don’t answer, but I take the next U-turn and make my way there.

July’s never met a silence she didn’t want to fill, but since we left Truman High she’s been pretty quiet, and I might have imagined it, but I think I saw her yawn.

I park on the side of the road, and we walk down to the water.

“You know?” I say, “I really hate the beach.”

July barks out a laugh. “Tell me more, Florida boy.”

“Seriously. The water smells like you half the time, seaweed is disgusting, sea lice are even worse.”

“You ever gotten them . . .” July motions at my crotch.

“More often than I want to think about. And it itches so much worse than you think.” Dino shrugs. “Then there’s the sand. It’s a giant human litter box. You wouldn’t believe the crap, literal and figurative, people bury in the sand.”

July mumbles something, and when I ask what, she says, “I guess you and your boyfriend see a lot of that down here cleaning the place up.”

She says “your boyfriend” with a bit of an edge that confuses me. “What’s going on?” I ask. “Are you pissed that I made up with Rafi?”

“No,” she says. “And yes.”

I throw up my hands. “What the hell, July? You’re the one who told me to do it. You’re the one who forced me to drive to his house and be honest with him.”

“Like I had to put a gun to your head,” she says. Her words are bitter and her tone biting, but I get the impression they’re a smoke screen to hide what she’s actually feeling.

“Are you going to take Rafi to the wedding tomorrow?” July asks, making it clear she’s not interested in finishing our previous conversation.

“He already has the suit.”

July lets out a sigh, but it doesn’t sound like a sigh. Instead it sounds like someone blowing across the top of an open bottle, dry and dusty. “Look, when you have sex with him, it better be your choice. Don’t let him make you feel guilty for wanting to wait or tell you that you owe it to him or any of that stupid shit guys say.”

Now I’m really confused. “What the hell are you talking about? Sex is the furthest thing from my mind.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying, but I am becoming annoyed.”

July turns from me and covers her mouth with her hand.

“There!” I shout. “What was that? What are you doing?”

“I yawned, Dino,” she says. “Alert the media.”

“But you don’t need to yawn due to your lack of a functioning set of lungs. And it’s not like you sleep, either. So what was that?”

July stops walking and I stop walking, and she looks out across the ocean, but I’m looking at her when she says, “The end. I think.”

“The end?”

“Yes. And I’m trying to tell you what you need to know so that you don’t screw up the rest of your life.”

“But what do you know about sex?”

“More than you.”

“That bored hand job you gave Kris Waterson on the bus to Universal Studios in eighth grade makes you an expert?”

She shakes her head. Glances up at me with iron in her eyes. “You’re not the July Cooper expert you think you are. A lot can happen in a year.”

“Did you do it with someone? Who was it? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you weren’t around!” she shouts. “You weren’t there before to talk me out of it, you weren’t there after to listen to me talk about it, and you weren’t there for the horrifying three days I thought I was pregnant to help me get through it!” Her voice softens. “You weren’t there.”

“I’m here now.” I take her hand.

“And how much good does that do me seeing as I’m dead?” She pulls her hand away and starts walking again.

I lag behind, unsure if I want to chase her or if she wants me to catch up to her. But it’s not like I can abandon her out here.

“I do think about sex,” I say. “With Rafi. Sometimes.”

“Obviously,” July mutters.

“Not as much as you think. But the idea of it makes me nervous.”

“The special considerations that might be involved with sleeping with Rafi?”