Olivia Christakos and Her Second First Time (11 page)

I smile, quite embarrassed that I’m again being treated like a child, and now in front of Wyatt. “Achilla?”

“Greek,” he says. “Feminine form of Achilles. Like, Achilles’ heel?”

I stare at him. “Exactly how Greek am I?”

“Very Greek.”

“Are you Greek, too?”

He shakes his head. “Non-practicing Jew.”

“What in the hell are you doing out here?” Cora shouts from the front door. “You’ll be back in the hospital with pneumonia! You’re supposed to rest until your ribs feel better!”

Despite the fact that it’s more than warm outside and I am sweating my boobs off and there is no way I’ll catch pneumonia, I don’t argue. “She does know that I’m twenty, right?
Twenty
.”

“Her daughter has just been through a horrific accident,” he says with a smile. “I bet if she could swaddle you up and put you in her bed for the rest of her life, she would.”

He’s probably right, but still. “It’s just...” I sigh. “Grating on my nerves.”

“Maybe you could deal with it for a few more days? And then talk to her about it? She does care about you. A lot.”

“Maybe I will.” I hesitate and then lean in, giving Wyatt an awkward, one-arm hug. He returns it. He smells like soap and something like rain.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says, pulling away. “Maybe I’ll pick you up this week...say Wednesday...to um, hang out.”

I’m walking backward toward my house when I say, “Why Wednesday?”

He smiles, shrugs. “You’re going to have to say yes first.”

Hanging out with Wyatt would be a good idea. It would open more doors to who he really is. Who Old Liv was. “Yes, okay? So what’s Wednesday?”

His smile widens. He straps his camera around his neck and jumps onto his board.

“Let’s just say we’ll be...” he twists up his face in thought. “ Picking up groceries.”

Chapter Eighteen

Tenth Grade

I couldn’t hear my music over the banging on the roof. It had started yesterday afternoon after Wyatt and I got out of school, continued late into the night, and started up again right after dawn. It was just after lunchtime and I’d had enough of it.

After I stomped over to my dresser to turn up the volume for the fourth time, I went back to the mirror to check out my outfit. James, Tyler and Bo would be here any second to pick me up. Then we were going to meet Chloe and Amy Bradford at Stearn’s Wharf. I wanted to take my camera to take pictures of all of us, but Chloe said that would look nerdy. So I decided not to bring it.

I was wearing a blue sundress with a ruffled, low-cut collar and black heels, but I wanted to be a little more dressed up. From the massive pile of clothes on my bed, I plucked my “little white dress” from the middle. It was dressier and showed more leg, my best asset.

My hair was long and straight and I wore hoops in my ears and a silver anklet. The heels seemed too dressy now, so I swapped them with red ballet flats. They would work better for the wharf, anyway.

Just then a loud honk sounded outside. The banging on the roof paused just for a second and then started up again.

I sprayed some perfume in my hair and checked my makeup one last time.

Outside, Tyler’s Jeep was parked at the curb, James manning the wheel. His thick arm dangled out of the window, the bright sun cooking his skin into the color of freshly baked bread. I wanted to tear a chunk off with my teeth.

Dad, from the roof, said, “Don’t your friends want to come inside and meet the ‘rents?”

I glared up at him, horrified, and shook my head slowly. The sun blazed behind him and I had to bring a hand up to my eyes to shield it. Wyatt was up there with him, hammering in new shingles like they pissed him off. He didn’t look at me.

“Do you have your phone with you?”

“Um...
yeah.
”

“Okay. I’ll call you in an hour. If you don’t answer, you won’t be going anywhere ever again.”

Without answering, I stalked to the Jeep and climbed in the back. James raised his eyebrows at me through the review mirror. My stomach flopped.

* * *

We parked on State Street and walked down to the dolphin fountain, where we were supposed to meet Chloe and Amy. They were there, laughing and pointing at people. Chloe had been so jealous when she found out James and Tyler would be picking me up instead of her and Amy, but she didn’t seem put out or anything right then. Plus, James and I were the ones who made the plans in English, so it wasn’t like we were trying to exclude anyone. We were including them, just in a different vehicle.

Palm trees and people lined the streets, mostly tourists, mostly much older people, and some even on motorized rides. We continued up the walkway, toward the ramp, where we could see out into the ocean. Boats dotted the water, which was glazed in orange by the sun. It would have been a perfect day except for the wind; I kept having to tug my hair back and I knew I wasn’t looking very graceful doing it.

Chloe pointed out fashion dos and don’ts on our walk. “Ooh...that lady has the most gorgeous wings tattooed on her back,” or “That lady’s hat is way too big and floppy,” and even, “I would kill to be able to walk around in a thong. She has the nicest ass. Oh, no! Haha. That’s a dude.”

“Still has a nice ass,” Amy pointed out. She’d started hanging out with Chloe and me last year when we joined volleyball. She was cool, but quiet.

“Have you been to this restaurant up here?” James asked, slowing down to so I would catch up to him. “The Harbor?”

I had, about a million times with my family, but I shook my head. I considered myself a confident girl, not shy, but super outspoken, but something about James unnerved me. In a good way. Butterflies exploded into my belly just looking at him. He was pure bulk with blond hair and ocean-blue eyes. I wanted to go skinny-dipping in them.

“I’d like to take you there one day,” he whispered and all of my nerve endings burned with excitement.

“Okay. I’d like that.” My voice was mousy and little.

We passed the restaurant then and I peeked in, spotting cool blue tiles on the floor, beckoning me like they never had, making me daydream of my first real date. I mean, I’d hung out with guys before, but not one-on-one in an intimate setting. I couldn’t wait.

We passed more people, some on bikes and some sporting cameras, making me itch for mine. I had taken plenty of pictures of the wharf before, but not with cute boys. Amy was talking to Tyler, Chloe was talking to Bo Harris, the football star, and James was walking so close to me that our arms touched. Then he grabbed my hand. Wrapping my fingers around his, I thought,
this is the first time I’ve really held a boy’s hand.
Except, you know, if you counted Red Rover and other games we played in elementary school. Which I totally wasn’t counting because this was the real thing.

We passed a couple more restaurants and a place that sold souvenirs called Old Wharf Trading Company. Maybe on our trip back to the car I’d stop in there. Get something to remember my first not-really real date with James. At the end of the wharf, we sat on a large log that was chained down. James and I were on the west log, Chloe and Bo, Amy and Tyler were on the east log.

“You know what I like about you?” James said over the lapping of the water.

“Hmm?” I said, because I’m so good with words around him. The sun was warm on my shoulders and I was holding hands with the cutest guy in school. I had no words.

“That time you came up to me at that dance? What was that...sixth grade?”

“Oh, yeah...” I said, trying to act casual. Like I could forget.

“I really liked your balls, you know? How you could just come up to someone you like and ask for what you want...” He looked off at the water, all wistful-like. “A lot of girls I know aren’t like that.”

“They aren’t?” I wasn’t looking at the water. I was staring at our intertwined hands sitting in his lap. My hand was in James Declan’s lap.

“Are you always like that?” he asked.

“Like what, exactly?”

He cleared his throat like he was actually the nervous one and our eyes met. “So...confident...like you were that day.”

I opened my mouth, about to say no, but then I’d have to explain that he made me feel nervous. I didn’t do that. Instead, I pretended he didn’t make me nervous. I pictured kissing someone less exciting—like Wyatt—and my nerves calmed.

I smirked, leaned and pressed my lips to his. Then I thought,
I
can’t believe my first kiss is with James Declan.

James eagerly accepted the kiss. He pushed his face to mine and opened his mouth a little. I mirrored his movements. His tongue slipped in and I melted into a pile of goo. I had to keep Wyatt’s image in my mind to keep from getting too nervous again and only later did I think it odd that I was kissing James and thinking about someone else.

Chapter Nineteen

Now

It’s too early to be awake and I don’t know why Wyatt has insisted that our non-date kick off at 7:00 a.m. I didn’t want to ruin my good record of being on time, so I made sure I laid out clothes—comfortable ones, at Wyatt’s suggestion—the night before. Jeans, a gray-and-blue silk blouse and red ballet flats. Looking at the shoes causes this weird flip in my belly. What’s up with that?

I sit awkwardly on the sidewalk, my hair tied back into a braid and my face devoid of makeup, wondering if Wyatt is taking me shopping. What else could “picking up groceries” mean? Despite the rules I set, I feel nervous. Maybe it has something to do with my agreeing to hang out, like I’d lowered the drawbridge to my heart a tad.

So far, my feelings with Wyatt have been a constant pull and push, like a game of tug of war. When he’s wearing his Scouts uniform, I’m pushed from him. When he’s smiling confidently and joking around with me, I feel a pull toward him.

Push.

Pull.

Push...

Pull...

Wyatt pulls up and I finally get to see his “hooptie”: a faded and rusted orange Datsun truck, mid-eighties, maybe. When I climb into it, I wonder what Old Liv’s opinion of it was. I’m still trying to figure her out. She liked clothes, celebs and random classes in college. It’s not much to go on. I want to know what she was
like
. What made her tick.

Wyatt’s hair is a tangled mess, but he smiles sleepily at me when I fasten my seatbelt. “Morning,” he says, and hands me a white paper bag. I open it and inside is a couple of large chocolate donuts. “Uh, I actually got those for me, but thought I’d offer them anyway. I don’t know if you like the same foods you did before your accident.”

My mouth waters when I reach into the bag for one.

“But I also got you this low-cal Greek yogurt.” He tosses me another bag. “I think it’s pineapple? But it’s your choice. Unless you’ve already eaten.”

I had—a small bowl of Natalie’s Cocoa Roos, but I kinda wanted a donut. So I grab both of them, handing him one. He takes it from me with his fingertips and digs his teeth in.

“Thank you,” I say, leaning back into a seat that smells like decayed cologne. “So where are we going?”

After a look over his shoulder, he pulls away from the curb, swallows his bite, and heads down my street. “Well, I can tell you there’ll be boxes, people and a lot of driving involved.”

I squish up my nose as I stuff another hunk of donut into my mouth. I’m not sure, but I don’t think Old Liv liked surprises.

* * *

As we head out, I watch the scenery outside of the windshield like a tourist. Palm trees and cars choke the streets, people mill around in front of the many shops, sometimes being led by a dog, and sometimes by a paper cup of coffee. The streets are hilly, the skies blue and the mountains are fluffed in green and pocked with brown. Large, ornate churches pop up every few blocks or so and I wonder which one my family attends. The street opens up now and then to great open spaces for parks and walkways and there must be a hundred plants for every person in the city’s population.

It’s a hilly wonderland.

I realize I haven’t seen the ocean since I “woke up” and hope that Wyatt’s going to drive by it. But he doesn’t. He takes a dirt road that winds up a steep hill, and when we pop over the top of it, the scenery’s changed. It’s deserty and dry and only a cactus grows here and there.

And Wyatt’s still driving. Like fifteen minutes worth of it, deeper into Nowhere Land.

We pull up to a large, white, unmarked warehouse and my first reaction is,
ohmygod
,
Wyatt plans to kill me
, because we’re on the outskirts of town, deep in a cactus-and-trash-riddled desert, with only a trace of a dirt road leading back to civilization. But when my mind settles down, I realize there are several other cars outside this warehouse, and even a few people mingling around. Most of them are dressed like me in T-shirts and jeans but a dark-skinned woman stands near the entrance, dressed in a heavy, navy-blue suit and four-inch heels. If I had worn something like that in this heat I’d be sweating my boobs off, but the woman looks poised and comfortable in her skin.

A little girl about five or six with a blaze of red hair circles the woman, making train noises.

Wyatt presses a hand gently on the small of my back and leads me toward them. When the girl sees us approaching, her face beams and she runs to Wyatt. Hops into his arms. He lifts her into the air and spins her around while she cries out in joy.

“Mr. Rosen,” the lady says, walking over to us, “I tried to call you.”

After Wyatt deposits the little girl back on the ground, he pats his pockets. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry. I must have left my phone somewhere.”

“Your mom told me you’d be here,” she adds, without any acknowledgement that I’m standing there. “And it looks like you’ve got plans today. But Charlotte’s mom isn’t feeling well this morning and called us to...um,” she looks down at the little girl who’s untying Wyatt’s shoelaces. “Relieve her for a little while.”

Wyatt nods eagerly.

“Her mother isn’t in any shape to take care of Charlotte this morning.” The woman jangles her car keys in her hand, like the second she’s free of this kid, she’s out of here. I look at Wyatt, expecting him to tell the woman not to talk that way in front of Charlotte or to explain who exactly these people are, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he says, “Of course! The more the merrier.” Then he bends down to the girl.

When she looks up from her task of tying Wyatt’s shoelaces together, she watches him intently as he begins to sign.

He also says what he’s signing aloud. “Would you like to spend the day with me and Olivia?” He points to me and for some reason I blush. The woman is already gone, so Charlotte will be spending the day with us whether she likes it or not.

The girl nods vigorously and signs something back, making only a few noises as she speaks with her hands. Then she takes Wyatt’s hand and my heart melts all over my guts.

Pull...

Wyatt pretends to trip when he takes a step forward because his laces are tied together and Charlotte laughs so hard her face turns red. She signs something that might be
sorry
and helps him fix his shoelaces.

“Wyatt,” I whisper, “who is this?”

“This is Charlotte. I’m her Big Buddy.”

“Big Buddy/Little Buddy? Like the volunteer organization?”

He nods. “Yep. We’ve been together for a few years now.”

“And you know sign language?”

“I’m slowly still learning it,” he admits, standing up and wiping the dirt off his butt. “For her.”

And my heart-melty guts explode. Pullpullpullpullpullpullpull.

I’m not sure how spending the day with a mischievous preschooler is going to go—especially since I don’t know what Wyatt has planned for us today. But when we walk into the dimly lit building, he looks calm and serene, so I’m not worried. Plus, him
wanting
to hang out with Charlotte, to volunteer his time with her, makes me want to reach over and stick my tongue down his throat.

I resist, but just barely.

The first thing I see upon entering the building is mountains of canned food in brown grocery bags. The next thing I notice is that the warehouse is huge and very open and that there are at least fifty people inside. Almost all of them are chatting and it creates a comforting hum about the place.

Without letting go of Charlotte’s hand, Wyatt greets some of these people—with a hug or a handshake, or just a wave. I nod to the ones he’s able to introduce me to, but mostly I’m quiet. I don’t recognize anyone and I don’t know if they know me.

Long white tables are lined up in the middle of the warehouse, topped with large cardboard boxes and lists. Wyatt walks up to one, scooping up Charlotte, and then sets her down on the tabletop. He signs and says, “We need to fill up these boxes with food and deliver them to the names on these lists. Do you want to help?”

Charlotte nods and begins to work. She picks up a can of creamed corn and sets it in the bottom of the box.

I pick up a list and read some names. “Ralph & Edith Sumner, Robert Packer, Emanuel Rosada, Josie Martin...who are these people?”

Wyatt sets a can of meat into the box. “Hungry people,” he says.

I look back to the list. Most of the names have addresses also listed, but one, toward the bottom says:

Chuck Walters—usually resides behind the mall

I point to the name and show Wyatt. “What’s this mean?”

He looks. “Means we need to take his box of food to the mall. We might have to buy him a can opener too.”

“What is this place?”

“The Knights of Columbus,” he says, picking up a large paper grocery bag nearby that has just been emptied of its canned contents. “We drop these bags off in different neighborhoods, collect them and then distribute the food inside to people in need.”

Taking the bag from him, I read the note that is stapled on one side:

THANKSGIVING IN JULY!

The Knights of Columbus will be collecting food for Santa Barbara’s homeless and hungry the morning of July 6th.

Place food/nonperishables to be picked up in this bag and place it outside your front door.

“So, you guys are like Robin Hood,” I say, pulling grocery bags closer and studying how Wyatt sorts so all of the boxes get a variety of food and following suit.

He smirks. “Something like that, I guess.”

“Olivia Christakos!” A voice over my right shoulder says. I glance at him—a large guy with a crooked noise, thin brown hair, about my age. “Imagine. You, helping people out.”

I say nothing because I don’t recognize him, but I look to Wyatt to help me fill in the blank. He’s giving the guy a look of death.

When I glance over at the guy again, he seems sheepish. “He-he. Just kidding.” He shrugs and walks off.

I turn to Wyatt. “What did he mean?” I ask.

“He was just joking. You guys used to tease each other back and forth at school.”

“Why did you look at him like that, then?”

“Like what?” He starts tying Charlotte’s shoe, not meeting my gaze.

“Like you were going to rip his head off.”

A long minute passes. “I told him to tone down the teasing while you were here, because you wouldn’t remember him. But I guess he forgot.”

I leave it alone, but something in the back of my mind niggles at me.

When we push the twelfth box into Wyatt’s Datsun, we load into the front—Charlotte in the middle. She leans her little body on me. She’s hot and her eyelids look heavy. “She worked hard today,” I say, running my fingers over her hair. It’s weird that little kids don’t mind being touched this way after only meeting a person a short time ago. I wish I had that kind of trust with people.

Wyatt nods. “She sure did.” He turns the key in the ignition and then bends down to her. “Thank you for your help,” he says, signing at the same time.

Charlotte puts a palm on his cheek, her eyes full of love.

“Do you have the list?” Wyatt asks as we’re backing out.

“Yep,” I say, breaking my eyes away from the super-cute-heartbreaking scene. I shake it in the air. “First stop, Maria Sanchez on Laguna Street!”

“Alrighty then,” Wyatt says, pointing the truck in that direction.

* * *

Maria Sanchez’s house looks like a hallway with a door, squished between two other hallways with doors. It’s a row of apartments, I know, but they’re the smallest ones I’ve ever seen.

Wyatt does the first delivery alone because: a) I’m too nervous. Something about giving out charity to strangers squeezes at my stomach and b) Charlotte is sleeping on me and if I move she might slide down the seat onto her face.

I roll the truck window down as he knocks. A short, slender woman answers the door, an annoyed, tired expression hanging from her face. “
Cómo está?
” Wyatt asks her, but she just nods and grabs the box. Obviously she’s gotten a donation before. She closes the door before anything else can be said. I don’t know if I think she’s rude or proud. Maybe a little bit of both.

“That seems easy enough,” I say to Wyatt after he buckles.

“Most of them are. They’ve been through this before.”

I wonder if I’ve been through this before. “Did I come with you on these trips before my accident?”

Wyatt is very still. “No...” he drifts off, like he’s about to say something else and then decides against it.

“Why not?”

“I guess it wasn’t your thing.”

A seed of anger plants itself in my stomach. Not my thing? What, did I not like helping people or something? “What
was
my thing?” I ask, turning toward him enough that I can see him better, but not too much to disrupt Charlotte.

“Well, you like clothes, partying, friends, shoes, tanning, reality shows—”

“Reality shows? You’re kidding me, right? You’re telling me that reality shows were my
thing
?”

He opens his mouth, but I don’t let him speak.

“I never like, helped you sell cookies for the Cub Scouts or packed up boxes of food for people? I’ve never hung out with you and Charlotte before?”

“The Cub Scouts don’t sell cookies,” he says, keeping his gaze out the windshield. “I think you’re thinking of the Girl—”

“That’s not the point and you know it.” I don’t mean to direct my anger toward him, but I can’t help it. “Did I really not help you do any of this stuff?”

He hesitates and then shakes his head.

“So I was shallow.” I don’t ask this. I’m stating a fact to myself. Feels like I’ve taken a gulp of warm curdled milk.

“No. You weren’t—”

“Can you name something I’ve done that’s not shallow? Or for purely selfish purposes, for that matter?”

Again, he hesitates. Too long. “You really love Natalie.”

“Natalie? Who doesn’t love their little sister? That’s not the kind of thing I mean.”

He opens his mouth but then shrugs.

I growl at him, and either my anger or the vibrations of the growl through my body disturbs Charlotte. She wiggles around and then leans on Wyatt, falling back to sleep instantly.

“It’s not too late to change things,” he says, and I look at him. Like I can’t believe a guy this nice was interested in Old Liv. I mean, I still don’t know that much about her, but if I was Wyatt and my girlfriend didn’t support all the volunteer work I was doing, she’d be gone.