Is there anything better than liking someone you never thought you could like? Karissa says, and it’s perfect and I’m left wondering why I can’t say these things to my sister anymore.
Bernardo’s hair ends up being way brighter than mine. My dirty blond is still partially visible under the veil of color. Bernardo’s hair, on the other hand, is a brilliant, deep pink, since we stripped it of all color before re-creating him. He is all neon insanity. Mine is a brown-blond-pink-beachy-messy color, but his is a statement.
“Yes,” I say, in answer to nothing, because there’s no other word for how it feels to look at him.
He doesn’t cry or anything, looking at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t gasp. He doesn’t blush.
“Well, here we go,” he says.
June 6
The List of Things to Be Grateful For
1 When Tess moved out three months ago, she left her blender, three pairs of silver shoes, a fancy Pilates machine, and the so-ugly-it’s-pretty painting of roses hanging in the living room. These will be placed, as always, into the Closet of Forgotten Things.
2 Knowing that the pizza at Ben’s on MacDougal has the perfect ratio of melty cheese to doughy crust. The ratio being: mostly melted cheese, minimal sauce, thin crust.
3 Boys with pink hair. Boys with pink hair. Boys with pink hair. (Boys who dye their hair pink because of me.)
six
A couple of days later, getting a bagel, I’m on high Bernardo alert. It’s summer in the way it’s only ever summer in New York for about three days a year, so everyone’s in the park. I slow to a stroll and hope he appears. I’m expecting him and his buddies, draping themselves over their bench. One of the guys always has a harmonica. The other talks so loudly that people walking by get uncomfortable. So they’d be hard to miss if they were here. I could text and ask him if he’s in the park.
I have Bernardo’s number, but he doesn’t have mine.
“I dyed my hair pink,” he said before he left my place. “So you know where I stand. Text me when you want, okay?”
I haven’t texted yet. Karissa said to wait a few days, but I don’t think my fingers will let me hold out much longer.
I start up at a normal gait again and think about words I could text him. I come up with hi and pretty much short out after that. I could ask him how his hair’s holding up. Or if he’s liking the weather. I make a pact with myself to say something by the end of the day.
Preferably something not about the weather, because I’m not fifty and I’m not boring.
When I’m past the benches, on the far side of the park near the arch, I see a flash of neon pink.
It’s him.
He’s far enough away that he won’t be able to see me, especially since my hair isn’t so spectacular. I don’t stand out like him.
I don’t call out. I watch him from here.
He’s running. In circles. Like a pink dog. His striped scarf flies out behind him, and man, Arizona would hate that he’s wearing a scarf on such a warm day.
Then there’s what he’s running from: little kids. Little Bernardo look-alikes, two boys and two girls who I assume are his siblings. They scramble and kick up grass and cigarette butts and pant behind him. They screech and swat at his torso.
When Janie lived with us, she brought her two tiny sons, Frank and Andy. Arizona and I taught them to play Chutes and Ladders and how to speak in pig Latin. Bernardo’s family looks like that but better. More real. Something that lasts.
Whatever Arizona and I get never lasts. We have it for a few years and then are asked to adjust to something else. And at the end of the day, even Arizona and I didn’t last. Not the way I thought we would.
There’s a woman with dark hair and a kind smile watching. His mother, I’m sure. I almost can’t bear the sweetness. She has probably never gone anywhere, never changed anything. Her shirt looks like it is from ten years ago. Her haircut too.
I wonder what it would be like to have the same family your whole life. Or to even have one person who is always yours. Always close and connected and familiar.
Today Arizona is going to something called Pure Barre class with a girl named Esther, and afterward they’re going to make dinner together. Every bit of that sentence sounds strange and imaginary. We’ve never made dinner together. We order dinner. The only things we make are sandwiches.
I’d assumed Bernardo was like me—lost and from something off and unsettled.
I don’t send a text. I don’t linger to watch the whole perfect family summer scene or wonder whether he’s already regretting his hair. It’s obvious, when he pulls a ski hat out of his pocket and puts it on, that he is. It’s June, after all. And he already has a scarf on. Weirdo.
I try Natasha, because a few hours with her makes me feel like I’m not as messed up as I feel when I’m at our apartment with Dad and all the things his ex-wives left behind. She doesn’t answer. She’s out with her real family and I’m not part of it, no matter what she says, no matter how vehemently she insists I am always going to be her stepdaughter.