25 Happy Birthday #2
As soon as I stop celebrating, Will gets ready. I notice the small details about him: his concentrated stare, how he bites his lower lip, how he places one foot in front of the other, how smoothly he tosses…
And how he misses three times.
He shrugs off the loss and tells me to pick a stuffed animal.
I choose an ugly dog because I know no child in their right mind would take it home and I feel bad thinking how long it must have been sitting on the shelf.
We walk deeper into the fairground, past stalls with claw machines, cans you’re supposed to knock over, basketball hoops, and that thing you hit with the sledgehammer to show how strong you are.
It’s wonderful.
It smells like fried food and cotton candy; the lights are glowing and blinking all around. I stop at the stalls selling T-shirts, preserves, and handmade jewelry.
It’s dark and starry overhead when we decide to eat something.
“You want a burger, a hot dog, or a sandwich?”
“I’d vote for a burger,” I respond.
“Birthday girl picks.”
We get in line and order two with extra cheese and pickles. We find a little green area behind a stall selling homemade beer and sit there on the ground. The horror house is close by, and you can hear the kids going inside and screaming and laughing.
“Well, you lost, Greta, so now you have to tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Are you sure? It’s not interesting.”
“It doesn’t matter. I won. I’m not just going to let you off the hook.”
I eat a french fry before responding. “I was thinking about what the perfect crime would be.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I mean, I was looking at the house of horrors over there, and I thought, imagine someone decided to commit a murder and hide the body in there along with the decorations. How creepy. And that led to me wondering whether the perfect crime really exists. You know how many people in history must have killed someone and gotten away with it? Imagine what it must be like, living with the burden of what you’ve done but also the fear that someone will catch you. ”
Will shakes his head, amused. “You’re taking away my appetite.”
“I asked if you were sure!”
“I won two rounds, so I get to ask you one more time. But I’ll wait and give it time to marinate,” he says, then bites into his burger and chews pensively. “Anyhow, the perfect crime would have to be on the high seas, far from the coast. The fish eat the body, the water takes care of the rest.”
“Not bad, Tucker.”
We chat awhile more, finish our dinner, and stand up, going to buy cotton candy to eat as we stroll. We stop in front of a house of mirrors and look at our twisted reflections. I bring my hands up to the wig.
“I feel like the girl in Lost in Translation.”
“Wasn’t her hair pink?”
“Yeah. Have you seen it?”
Will grins and says, “‘Let’s never come here again because there’s no way it will be this much fun.’”
I answer, my nerves on edge, with another quote from the film: “‘Everyone wants to be found.’”
His eyes are intense as I pull off a puff of cotton candy, stuff it in my mouth, and wait for it to melt. Then I look at the lights spinning farther off.
“Should we hop on the Ferris wheel?”
Will nods. He’s pensive as we buy our tickets and wait for our turn. We get in one of the compartments and he tests the safety rail twice. Then he takes off his wig, drops it in the seat, and shakes his dark hair.
“I need a break,” he says.
“I’m surprised you lasted this long, Rapunzel.”
The wheel starts moving. It’s not big, and the compartments are open, and the night air clears my head.
As we rise, I feel fully aware for once of how fortunate I am to be here, now, alive.
But as we descend, I think about death. I guess life and death are part of the same thing.
They’re opposites, but they need each other.
“I’m going to go ahead and go for it, I think,” Will says softly, “because I want to know what you’re thinking right now.”
“It’s your last freebie.”
“I know.”
I try to smile, but it doesn’t work. We rise slowly to the sound of grating music, and I observe the immensity around me, the roofs of the nearby city, the dark fields on the other end, the fairground below, full of visitors thinking things I can’t even imagine.
I ignore it all and turn to Will.
“It’s weird for me to realize when I look at someone that they’ll die one day, and the same goes for you.
We don’t know how or, more importantly, when.
It bugs me out to think that if we had a stopwatch and could count down our days and I realized mine were almost over, I wouldn’t know what to do with my last hours or who to spend them with. ”
He waits to respond as we turn in circles under the starry sky. “If it’s any consolation to you, I don’t know what I’d do, either.”
“It is. Even if it’s sad.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“People have so many plans…” I bite my lip and look at him.
His eyes are on me and me alone, as though the rest of the world didn’t exist. “There are people who know from the time they’re little what they want to do.
At thirty they’ll have kids and at forty they’ll buy a second home and at fifty…
You know what I mean. Me, if someone asked me whether I’ll want fish or pasta tomorrow, I’d have trouble deciding.
I mean, I guess the protein’s healthier, but turning down a plate of pasta… It’s a dilemma, right?”
Will wraps an arm around my back, leaning back in the compartment, but then it must feel too intimate for him because he pulls away.
I can still feel the vibrations from his flesh.
His movement was brusque enough to nearly knock off my wig, but neither of us pays attention to it as our stares intertwine.
Will finally speaks again. “People who act like they’ve got it all figured out, they’re lying, I’m sure of it. ”
“That’s kind of cynical…”
“Yeah, probably,” he admits.
“I read somewhere that cynical people have a heart full of scars.”
The green of Will’s eyes seems to darken, and for an instant—for exactly one instant—I imagine this moment might become something else. But no.
“Where did you read that, at some corny T-shirt shop?” Will is almost scoffing at me.
“Well, you just confirmed my theory.”
He smiles. I do too. The Ferris wheel keeps spinning. It’s perfect. I want to remember this feeling of peace and movement with Will while the world is so tiny and insignificant below us. I want to remember it forever.
Like everything in life, the ride ends, and we get out. We walk around awhile longer before looking for the exit. We find a wide, dark street. The scent of popcorn and grilled corn and other foods is behind us, the glimmering, colored lights, that place that always makes you think of childhood.
I hurry ahead of him and turn around, walking backward.
“This was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. The wigs, the games, the Ferris wheel—why’d you do it all?”
“Lucy told me to come up with something fun.”
“Yeah, but this… Will, it was perfect.”
I watch his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallows. “You deserve for someone to find you.”
“What if that someone is you?”
“Greta…”
“Remember what I told you about memories affecting the past and the future, and hot stoves and all that? Because I’ve been burned a lot of times. Too many. But you’re a person, the only person, I’d be willing to take that risk for again.”
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
We stop. We’re so close that the tip of my shoe is touching his.
If I looked up, I’d see his eyes, and when I do, I hope, hope, hope.
But I don’t know what I’m hoping for. And maybe that’s my mistake.
Maybe you shouldn’t expect what you want, maybe you have to go for it.
I remember those words from Lucy’s letter: Do something crazy without thinking!
Will’s tense as I reach out my hand and cup the back of his neck and stroke his hair. Slowly. Very slowly. The rhythm of his breathing changes.
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
“I’m not someone you can count on,” he says.
I let my hand drop to my side. “You owe me a thought, a sincere one,” I remind him. I want that, at least that, before we have to get back in the car and the night reaches its end.
Will thinks it over a bit before saying, “There’s a part of me that wants you to listen to me and for us to keep walking and go home. But there’s another part that wants you to ignore each and every reason why you and I shouldn’t take even one more step toward each other.”
I suppress a smile and step forward. Just a bit but enough to reveal my intentions.
He reaches out and touches my cheek so tenderly I can hardly stand it.
Then his index finger traces the outline of my lips and stays there for a few electrical seconds.
I wonder if anyone’s ever tried to measure the chemistry between people, if there’s a magic formula that can explain what I feel.
Our mouths collide, and then I stop thinking.
I’m just here, in this instant, in his arms around me, in the moisture of his lips, in this kiss that tastes like cotton candy, in my stomach as it constricts, in our saliva, our teeth, our tongues, in all those things that would mean nothing with someone else but turn to lust when I’m with him.
Kissing Will is like hearing a rock song for the first time, with all the instruments blending in a perfect melody. And when it’s over, all you want to do is keep listening to it and memorize every chord, every drumbeat, every guitar solo, every corner of his mouth.
I don’t know how, but we continue down the street between one kiss and the next. We reach the car. Will feels in his pants pockets for the keys while I kiss his neck and nibble and lick.
“Fuck, Greta.” He turns back to me and we kiss again. He tries to pull away, and finally says, his lips pressed to mine, “I can’t find the keys.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“We can just stay in this parking lot forever.”
“That’s a good plan. Now we know what to do with our lives. We have a goal,” he says, picking me up and squeezing me into his chest.
I wrap my legs around him. He leans me against the car and we kiss again until my lips are swollen and my skin burning and my heart pounding so hard I’m not sure if I can take it much longer.
“But if we did find the keys…”
“What?” I ask.
“We wouldn’t get arrested for indecent exposure.”
“True. Let me see.” I reach into his back pocket and pull out the key chain. “I guess they were there the whole time.”
“It’s your fault. You distract me.”
“I distract you?” I smile.
Will hits the button to open the car and the lights turn on.
I slip down his firm body until my feet touch the ground.
He sits in the passenger seat and pulls my hand until I fall in his lap.
The lights go out when he shuts the door.
I throw my wig in the back seat. Even though I love the idea of having purple hair, right now, more than ever, I need to be me.
I touch his face. I want to memorize every wrinkle, the texture of his skin, the arch of his eyebrows.
He closes his eyes as I do it, almost as though he were yielding to my caresses.
I remember for a moment the woman from The Kiss, the way she seems to collapse into her lover’s arms. Is that what love is?
Feeling safe in someone else’s arms? Knowing that they can break your heart and you’ll still never look back?
Could this be a beginning, or do I just want it so bad that I’m willing to let my imagination carry me away?
All I know for sure is I want to find the key to Will’s heart, turn it in the lock, open it, and see inside.
I press my lips into his and then whisper, “I think I could fall in love with you. Or maybe I already have. I don’t know, it’s impossible to say when…”
“Why?” He opens his eyes. He doesn’t look surprised or bothered by what I just said. His face is almost hauntingly calm as he rubs his hand up and down my back.
I rest my nose against his cheek. “Because you see me.”
“What else?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What do you like about me?”
“This.” I touch his head. “And this.” I touch his heart. “And just…you, Will. All of you.”
His expression darkens. “What if I’m not the person you think you’ve fallen in love with?”
“We all have our hard edges, our dark corners. No one’s perfect.”
I kiss him passionately, as if I needed to see how tightly our bodies could fit together, to make the borders between us disappear.
I want… I realize I want him to stop talking.
I don’t want to think. What I want is him.
Him, him, him. What we’ve created, God knows how, it really exists—I know this because I can feel it inside me, underneath my ribs, where it’s protected from the rest of the world.
Will kisses me just as passionately, grunts, grabs me around the waist, but then something else overtakes him, and he stops. “Wait. Wait.”
“I hate waiting.”
“I know. But I can’t.”
This rejection shatters me. I move back, but the space is too tight to do much. When I open the door, Will grabs my hand to keep me from getting out. “Give me a chance, okay?”
“For what?”
“Don’t you want to know my story?” As he asks this, he toys with the key hanging from my chain. I don’t think about how risky it is, opening doors that have been locked for so long. I just nod. “Okay. I think, then, I should start, and tell you who I was sixteen hours before the disaster…”