“He told it so much better than I could.” She took a bite of her leftover pizza, dipping it in the Tupperware of Dave’s chipotle salsa. “Then, when most of the food has been eaten, the feast spontaneously quiets down, and everyone turns their attention to the chief, who’s standing up over the Nutella platter. The ambassador and his wife are shitting bricks. Then the chief very deliberately”—Julia imitated Marroney imitating the chief—“sticks his hand into the platter so that his fingers are covered in Nutella to the second knuckle. And then”—she mimicked the chief bringing his hand into his mouth and tasting the Nutella—“he spits it out!”
She started laughing hysterically, cackling so that everyone at the tree house was giving them weird looks. Tears were actually coming out of her eyes, and it took a while for her to notice that Dave was not laughing along with her. She wiped her eyes and sat up straight.
“That was it? That was the end of the story?”
“You don’t get it,” Julia said disappointed. “He spits it out!” She widened her eyes and leaned forward, as if repeating the punch line would help the story make more sense.
Dave shrugged and looked at his phone again, opening the text message to respond to Gretchen. “Sorry, Julia, but that guy is as bizarre as that story was.”
“He’s not bizarre! He’s a romantic. That whole story was a metaphor.”
“For what?”
Julia just shook her head and picked up her pizza again. “It doesn’t matter.” She chewed for a while, looking dejected. Then she brushed the pizza crumbs from her hands. “We’re going to his house tonight, by the way.”
“His house? There’s a weird feeling in my stomach that tells me you’re not referring to me in the third person.”
“You have such good instincts. We’re going to Marroney’s house. This courtship is a little too slow and Jane Austen for me. I’m a woman of action, and it’s time to put myself out there.”
“Reciting erotic slam poetry to his face doesn’t count as putting yourself out there?”
“That was all innuendo. It was too indirect,” Julia said, pouring out the rest of the salsa on her second slice. “I’m going to woo him with baked goods. We’re going to his house tonight.”
Dave looked down at his phone and back at Julia, who was now finishing his torta. He picked up his phone. Only if we can go GPS drawing after, Dave responded to Gretchen, slipping the phone back into his pocket. “I knew at some point in our friendship you were going to get me arrested.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, and it hasn’t happened yet,” Julia said, throwing away her napkin into a trash can that the school had placed inside the tree house. Administration had turned a surprisingly blind eye to the structure that had suddenly appeared on school grounds. “You should probably wear black, though. Just in case.”
o o o
They made the cupcakes at Julia’s house. Though Dave had been texting back and forth with Gretchen throughout the day, watching Julia make cupcakes again—Nutella, this time—it almost felt like nothing had changed. He kept his phone in his pocket and forgot about it, as if his world still belonged to Julia entirely.
“How can I help?”
“Clean up after my mess?” She motioned toward the obscene pile of dirty dishes scattered around the counter. “The dads will kill me if they come back home to that.”
“What if I’m a hit man and this was all part of my plan when I befriended you?”
“Who the hell would hire the world’s nicest thirteen-year-old as an assassin?”
“A criminal mastermind,” Dave answered. “Plus, how do you know I was nice before I met you? Maybe it was all an act.”
“Dave, you are the best-hearted person in the world. Even if you were a murderer, you’d still be introducing yourself to homeless people and getting them cups of water from the coffee shop. Maybe you’ve been plotting my doom all these years. But the niceness is not an act.”
“Well, shit. Now I feel bad about fooling your dads into murdering you.” Dave turned on the faucet, taking his time with the soiled mixing bowls, shutting the water off while he scrubbed to avoid wasting water, to listen to Julia’s movements.
“David Beth Kacinski, are you blushing?”
“What? No. It’s all the steam from the water.”