Little & Lion Read online

  The warmth I felt earlier returns, creeping from my chest all the way to my cheeks this time. Emil has never actually asked me out, but I have the feeling that he would have, if I’d paid him more attention. Has he realized that I’m noticing him in a different way now?

  “Yeah,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t give away my trepidation—not because I don’t want to go out with him but because I very much do, and it’s still a surprise, the way I see Emil now. Not only because I’ve always kept him at arm’s length but because I like him more than I’ve liked any other guy, and it feels the way it did with Iris, like it could be something real. “Can we do sushi? That place over on Hyperion?”

  He grins. “We can go wherever you want.”

  We won’t leave Dee’s for a while but we’ve still got a car ride ahead of us, and if the way I feel now is any indication, there’s a possibility I might flush furiously the whole way home.

  When we get back to the pool, Alicia and Grace are sitting off to the side, away from everyone. Alicia has her arms crossed while Grace silently picks at the grass. Part of me wants her to leave already, but another part is satisfied that she’s forced to live with the uncomfortable aftermath.

  The game of chicken fighting has stopped, but a few people are back in the pool again, throwing around an inflatable ball. DeeDee included. She sees us and sort of waves, but makes no attempt to get out and join us, which annoys me.

  “Getting back in,” Emil says. His tone is a little defiant, like he’s still intent on proving Grace wrong, even though she saw us swimming long before she made her comment. “Coming?”

  “I’m gonna talk to DeeDee for a minute. But promise you won’t leave me here.”

  “Never that,” he says, and he’s smiling again.

  I sit on the edge of the pool and dip only my feet in. DeeDee swims over a few seconds later, clearly aware that I’m here for her.

  “Well, that was awkward,” she says, wiping the water from her eyes.

  “Yeah, I mean, who’d’ve thought someone could actually be worse than Catie?” I try to say it lightly, but there’s an edge to my tone.

  DeeDee swallows. “Are you mad? I don’t think… I mean, Grace wasn’t thinking. Clearly.”

  “What made it really awkward was that nobody said anything besides me and Emil.” I keep my voice low, because this isn’t a conversation we need to be having with anyone else. I wish someone had spoken up, but DeeDee is my best friend, not them. I don’t expect as much from them as I do her.

  She looks down at the pool and over at Alicia and Grace before she meets my eye. “I guess… I didn’t know what to say. Nothing like that has really happened in front of me. Grace has never said anything like that when I was around.”

  “Well.” I pause. Sigh. Maybe nothing she said could have made it better, but I want to know she cares enough to try. “I need you to have my back. I know Grace is your friend, but I’m your best friend.”

  She blinks at me a couple of times and I wonder if she’s going to cry, but she doesn’t. And I’m glad. That would make this more about her than me, and that wouldn’t be fair. She lifts herself out of the pool and plops down next to me and wraps her dripping arms around me until my skin is almost as wet as hers.

  “You are my best friend and I always have your back and I’m sorry.” She pulls away to look at me, her hands still pressed against my spine. “Want me to kick her out? I’m getting pretty good at that, you know.”

  “Alicia would kill you. And no, I don’t want to make things worse. She looks pretty miserable anyway.” I swish my feet through the water. “Maybe one good thing came of it.… Emil asked me out.”

  DeeDee’s grin is so big it makes me smile, like a reflex. “Finally, you guys are getting together!”

  “Finally?”

  “Don’t play dumb. You know he’s always had a thing for you.”

  “I guess. But… I still don’t know how I feel about all of that. Guys. Girls.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” she says. “And would it be so bad if you had the best of both worlds?”

  I know that’s supposed to make me feel better, but right now I feel like I’m floating between both worlds with no idea of where I’m supposed to land.

  nine.

  Emil Choi and I have spent holidays together, taken joint family trips, and eaten more meals at the same table than either of us could count, but I’m still nervous Saturday afternoon, a few hours before we’re supposed to go out.

  “Ooh, a date,” Mom said as soon as I told her, when I got home from the pool party. Because there was no way to not tell her. If she didn’t find out from me that same night, Emil’s mom surely would have said something, and I wanted my mom to hear it from my mouth—so I could stop her before she’d married us off and named our future children.

  “We’re just getting sushi,” I said, leaning against the doorframe of her office. It’s a little room off the kitchen, smaller than our bedrooms but bigger than a walk-in closet. Large enough to hold a love seat and her small wooden desk. The mint-green walls are decorated with photographs from her childhood in Chicago and her years at Wellesley with Emil’s mom.

  “Okay, sweet pea,” she said, and I knew she didn’t believe I was as relaxed as I sounded. For good reason. “I hope you two will have fun ‘just getting sushi.’”

  “How’s the writing going?” I nodded toward the laptop opened on the desk in front of her.

  She pursed her lips. “Well, it’s sort of like bleeding words from my fingers at this point. Thanks for asking.” She followed that up with a smile. Then, “Everything okay since you’ve been back, Suz?”

  “Everything’s fine. It’s great, being back here. I missed everything—everyone—more than I’d realized.”

  “We missed you, too, baby.” She brought her legs up so she was sitting cross-legged in her good-luck seat, which is really just a shabby chair from our old dining room set. She’s written all of her screenplays in it. “I’ve been meaning to ask you… did it hurt?”

  She was pointing to my nose ring.

  “Not too bad.” I paused. “Do you like it?”

  “I think it suits you quite well.” She smiled. “Let me know if you want to go shopping before your—sushi thing.”

  “Wouldn’t that counteract the casual nature of a sushi thing?” I said before I left her alone with her latest project.

  But now, staring into the closet of my bedroom tower, I wish I’d taken her up on that offer. Emil has seen me in most of these outfits; I haven’t been shopping for new summer clothes since I’ve been back. I’ve narrowed down my choices to four pieces I don’t completely hate when my phone buzzes.

  I walk over to my bed and retrieve it, only to find a text from Emil saying he’s sick: Ménière’s kicking my ass today. So sorry but should stay home. Rain check?

  I respond that of course we can postpone and I hope he feels better, but I realize then how much I was looking forward to seeing him, because my chest instantly feels weighed down with stones. And I’m glad Mom isn’t around to see my face because she’d know for sure I was thinking of tonight as a date, that I wasn’t feeling nearly as casual about it as I sounded.

  I lie down, across the clothes stretched over the top of my bed. It’s very warm up here and I suddenly feel sleepy, so I close my eyes. I think about Emil—all the times we’ve hung out together alone in the past, if I ever thought about him the way I do now, even for a second. If…

  When I open my eyes an hour later, there’s another text. This time from Rafaela: The job is yours if you want it

  I sit up and look at the flowers across the room. They’re dead now, the water thickened and murky, the petals dried out and drooping. But I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. I guess I sort of understand why people are so into flowers now that I have some of my own. Even if Rafaela didn’t give them to me of her own accord, they’re still the first flowers I’ve gotten from someone besides family. They’re still just for
me, and that feels special.

  I try to think of something clever to write back, but I simply confirm that yes, I want it, and she tells me to show up at ten o’clock Monday morning. I think of her fingers typing out the text, long and pale with chipped black polish on the ends, and the rocks in my chest turn to backflips in my stomach.

  A welcome distraction from the pill bottles hidden in my nightstand, inside a half-empty box of tissues. My eyes can’t stop inspecting the box from up close and afar, checking to see if the pills are still there, though no one has been in my room to move them.

  I decide to check on Lionel. I never said this to him, but ever since his decision, I feel like it’s my responsibility to make sure he’s okay. I’m the only one who knows he’s stopped taking his meds.

  He doesn’t have therapy today, so I expect him to be stretched out on his floor or his bed with his increasingly worn copy of Infinite Jest, but the book is lying open, spine cracked, on top of his rumpled bedclothes. His car is parked out front, but he’s not in the kitchen, living room, or dining room, either.

  When I get up to the tree house, he’s vigorously sweeping at the dirty floor with a broom. I barely avoid catching a dust bunny in the eye as I pull myself up.

  “This is exactly what it looks like,” he starts before I can say anything. “I figure we might as well make this thing presentable this summer, while you’re here.”

  Panic zaps through me, and it’s only a moment, but I can’t forget last year, when Lionel’s hypomania kicked in. He had so much energy it was like he didn’t know what to do with himself. A lot of times he just seemed irritable, like someone had interrupted him when he had a brilliant idea on the tip of his tongue. But often it was just a buzzing in the air, constantly surrounding him. The need to be up and about, always talking, always coming up with something new to achieve.

  He never went full-on manic—that’s not the form his bipolar takes. I know the real challenge is when he’s feeling down and doesn’t want to do anything at all—especially when that apathy turns inward. I know that without his meds that challenge could come sooner rather than later.

  I look at his eyes to see if they tell me anything, but they’re clear. Not brimming with too much energy, nor are they so dazed that I wonder if he’s even aware I’m in front of him. So I send the panic back to its place and walk across the room to get out of his way.

  “Looking good up here.” I take a seat on the futon, curl my legs up beneath me. “Almost like the palace it once was.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for your date?”

  He didn’t say anything about the girl I’d mentioned when I told him Emil asked me out, and I’m glad because I wouldn’t know what to say to him. I thought I might never hear from Rafaela again, so I’ve tried to forget about her and concentrate on Emil. But now I’m going to be working side by side with her, and thinking about that makes me want to take deep breaths.

  “He’s sick, from his Ménière’s,” I say, trying not to sound as disappointed as I feel. Of course I want to see Emil, but I don’t like that he’s ill. He must be feeling really bad to have canceled.

  “Ah, yeah.” Lionel leans on his broom. “He missed a bunch of school when he was first diagnosed. Kind of made me feel like I wasn’t such a freak for a while.”

  “But…” I pause. “Do you feel like that now, since you’re not on your meds?”

  “I felt like a freak after the diagnosis,” he says, clasping and unclasping his hands around the broomstick. “When there was a name for it, and all these things to look out for.… Before that, I was just me.”

  I want to ask him how he’s sure which him is the real him, but I shouldn’t be asking questions I can’t answer myself. I don’t even know if I like girls or guys better or if it’s really and truly both.

  “Well, you’re not a freak. Then or now,” I say definitively. “How are you feeling… since you’ve been off your meds?”

  He shrugs. “Do I seem any different?”

  He doesn’t, but he doesn’t seem as lighthearted as the day he told me he was going to stop taking them, either. Maybe it’s not working out like he wanted, and Lionel can be stubborn. What if he wants to take them but doesn’t want to go back on his word?

  “No, you don’t.” The reluctance swells through in my voice, but I can’t help it. If he actually would have been fine without his meds this whole time, that means the last year was all for nothing. All the excessive worrying over his moods, and Mom worrying about my excessive worrying, and going away three thousand miles to Massachusetts.

  But that’s not true. His mood could swing so low so quickly, and I know how serious that is.

  At least he’s still seeing Dr. Tarrasch. He wouldn’t be able to get away with missing their appointments—she’d call Saul right away if he didn’t show. Lionel genuinely likes her, and if he doesn’t dread going, maybe he’ll want to take his meds again. They’ve gone hand in hand since the beginning, his pills and Dr. T.

  “Good,” he says, the word clipped and final, as if that wraps up this conversation, and maybe any future conversations, about his mental health.

  The air feels awkward and so, like most times we talk about this, I know the way to clear it is to change the subject.

  “I got a job,” I say. “I’m going to hawk flowers.”

  “What?” He laughs, and then, as if someone snapped their fingers between us, the tension fades. “You hate flowers.”

  “I don’t hate them,” I say, and I’m surprised at how genuinely defensive I feel. “Peonies are nice.”

  “Peonies, huh? Is that what’s dying on your dresser?”

  “They were better when they were alive.”

  “Aren’t most things?” And he sends the broom swishing across the floor once again.

  ten.

  My first day of work feels a bit like my first day of school.

  Lionel offers to drop me off. The drive from our house to the flower shop is short, and my heart pounds faster the closer we get. I rest my palms on my jeans so the fabric will soak up some of the perspiration. I tell myself it’s new-job anxiety, that I’m not actually so nervous about seeing Rafaela again.

  But I am. I’ve only been around her twice, and each time was just a few minutes. Maybe I won’t be attracted to her now that I’ve had some time away. It was the opposite with Emil; the months away from him made me realize how cute and sweet and strong he is, so maybe it could work the other way with Rafaela.

  The sun is hitting the front window of the shop at the perfect angle for sunbathing, so I’m surprised to see the orange cat’s spot empty as I walk up to the store. The coffee shop next door is bursting with customers, including two bearded guys at a wrought-iron table out front, holding a painfully intense conversation over a pair of iced lattes.

  Rafaela is staring down at her phone when I walk in, absentmindedly stroking the cat. He sits complacently next to the cash register, his gravelly purrs traveling all the way to the door.

  She looks up when the bell jingles. “You made it,” she says, her mouth turning up in a small smile. Same plum lipstick.

  I smile back and wonder if she can read my energy. Because her lips, they unnerve me. Being away from her a few days didn’t make a difference. The way I like Emil is different from the way I like Rafaela. I can’t explain it, but I know it’s not the same. And yet I didn’t expect that if I ever liked another girl it would feel so different from what I felt for Iris… and it does. Maybe it’s because I don’t know Rafaela well, but Iris reminds me more of Emil. Gentle and kind and a little bit serious.

  Rafaela seems… very much her own person. Like she doesn’t care what people think of her. Maybe if I were more like her, I’d still be with Iris instead of wondering if returning to Dinsmore in the fall will ruin her entire year.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I stand by the door because I’m not sure where I should be standing. I’m awkward, like my first day at Dinsmore, when I constantly felt
like I was in the wrong place and doing the wrong thing, no matter where I went. “It was cool of you to get me the job.”

  “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you.” She scratches under the cat’s collar and I look at her nails, at the polish still hanging on with jagged edges. “There was an incident.”

  I wait for her to go on, but instead, she reaches under the counter and pulls out a folded piece of navy-blue cloth and holds it out in front of her. I walk over to take it—it’s my apron—and am reminded of how good she smells. Not any scent I’m used to. DeeDee is partial to floral fragrances, and Emil—well, he always smells like plain soap and I always notice that I like it. Iris wore nothing at all, but sometimes the scent of citrus would linger on her skin from the shower.

  “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?” Rafaela’s eyes briefly flick to the ginger kitty still purring by her side. “Because Tucker kind of rules the roost around here.”

  “Not allergic.” I set my leather messenger bag on the counter and carefully unfold the apron. “But my family isn’t really into animals. I mean, we like them, but Saul is allergic to dander, so we’ve never had any.”

  “My aunt is a model cat lady. Tucker lives here at the shop, and she has two at home.” Rafaela is wearing a white tank top, ribbed and fitted. She plays with the strap on her right shoulder, the part that covers the burst of daisies inked onto her skin.

  “Do you live with Ora?”

  “I do.” Her voice changes, takes on a brusqueness I don’t understand. “For now.”

  “Oh,” I say, because there is nothing else to say. She has secrets of her own and clearly doesn’t give them away so easily.

  “I’m not a crazy cat lady like her, though.” And just like that, her tone returns to normal. “I’m not a dog person, either. Don’t you think it’s weird, how there are so many beautiful, intelligent animals out there and we’ve confined ourselves to two species?”