She shrugs.
“Pro-health?” I ask. “Pro-environment? Anti-cruelty?”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t look away.
I sip my orange juice and also don’t look away.
“I’m Jewish.”
I choke. Now I have to wipe orange juice off my chin.
Ms. Li laughs loudly and slides over her spare napkins.
“Not really,” David says. “It’s all those other things.” Then he cocks his head and asks, mock-innocent, “But what’s so funny about me being Jewish?”
Damn, he’s good at this. I have to step up my game …
“You could be,” I say, leaning in. “But I assumed you were Catholic.”
“Uh …” He draws back. “Why?”
“She said you go to Blessed Heart. Though I guess it could be because it’s the best private school around.”
“Oh, right.” He smiles, as if to say I won that round.
I say, “Does the fact that I love bacon mean we can’t be friends?”
“It only means you can’t be friends with pigs. Certain pigs, anyway. And don’t worry …” He leans forward again. “You liking different things is fine. It’s no fun talking to a mirror.”
I laugh, but he doesn’t. Wait … did he really mean that last part?
Ms. Li laughs and blurts something in Chinese.
David grins big—the first I’ve seen from him. Nope, not serious. His grandmother told me he’s hardly ever serious but his poker face is amazing. He laughs and bows his head, and this instantly triggers my bright smile. That almost never happens on its own.
“What?” I say. “I thought you didn’t speak Chinese?”
“I understand some Mandarin. Mostly things she says to me a lot. She said I’m full of shit.”
I laugh. “Are you?”
“Completely,” he says. “But I promise you, it’s good honest shit.”
It’s funny, but it also feels true. I expect him to look away, like how people do when they admit things. He doesn’t. In fact, the whole time we’ve been talking, except when he briefly bowed his head, David’s dark brown eyes haven’t looked away from mine. Not even a flicker.
*
A couple of hours later I’m playing cribbage in the Beachfront Lounge. I can hold my own, meaning I don’t embarrass myself, but Mr. Terrance Knight usually wins. At all games, not just cribbage.
I get a phone call. The buzzing stops the moment I see it’s from Zumi.
“Something wrong?” Mr. Terrance Knight asks.
“No,” I say. “I …”
No voice mail pops up but it’s only been a few seconds. It didn’t ring enough times to go to voice mail anyway. She must have hung up.
“It’s fine,” I say.
It’s not fine. I want to call her back. But if she hung up, then maybe she doesn’t want to talk after all. Or the call might have dropped—that happens sometimes here on the coast— Mr. Terrance Knight says, “This can wait if you want to call ’em back.”
I do, though not if she changed her mind. But I also don’t want her thinking I’m ignoring that she called.
I text her:
Want to talk?
I set the phone down and resume the game.
We finish ten minutes later with no more signs of life from my phone. I excuse myself and head for the Sun Room.
Maybe she didn’t see my text. I try again: Zumi?
No reply. I sit on the sofa facing the south window and text Connor: You with Zumi?
Connor texts back:
Not going well got to go
I text him:
Should I come?
I’m sure Judith wouldn’t mind me leaving now since I came to work early. I’m not really on that strict a schedule anyway.
No answer. Maybe I should just go. That’s what Zumi would do.
*
July after freshman year, Annie’s in Connecticut with her family for a week. When we’re with her, we’re always doing stuff like crawling the mall or walking the beach or riding our bikes somewhere. It’s like she always wants to be seeing other people, or be seen by them, even if we’re not actually with them. While she’s away, we hang out all day at Connor’s. His house has the best food and the fewest number of other people; just his mom, and she hits the perfect mix of giving us snacks and leaving us alone.
Often we’re all three together on the living room sofa, talking or watching TV, but today we’re in Connor’s room. He sits at his desk, Web surfing, trying to ignore us while Zumi and I sprawl on the bed and make fun of his shelves: how his books and DVDs are mixed together but they’re all in alphabetical order, and how he has every Disney movie ever made, including stuff like The Little Mermaid. He says we’re just jealous that he has them all, and he’s right.
“What are you even doing over there?” Zumi asks him.
“Checking for new doppelg?ngers.”
Zumi rolls her eyes. She sees me looking confused and says, “He’s Googling his name again.”
“Ha,” I say. “The Internet doesn’t know who you are, Connor.”