Lola and the Boy Next Door

“She’s me,” Lindsey says.

Max finally acknowledges her presence. “So you must be Lola. Well. Can’t say I’ll be sorry when this holiday is over.”

I’m aghast. Cricket’s presence has made him reckless.

“I think they look terrific.” Cricket straightens to his full height. He towers over my boyfriend. “I think it’s cool that they do it every year.”

Max leans over and speaks quietly so that only I can hear it. “I’m gonna load some stuff into the van.” He kisses me, quickly at first, but then something changes in his mind. He slows down. And he REALLY kisses me. “I’ll text you when I’m done.” And he leaves without saying goodbye to anyone else.

I am so mortified. “Groups . . . make him uncomfortable.”

Calliope looks disgusted, and my insides writhe, because I know she thinks I’ve been stringing along Cricket to keep dating that. But that was not my boyfriend. The disdain in Cricket’s expression makes me feel even more humiliated. I imagine conversations in which Calliope uses this as proof that I’m shallow and not worthy of his friendship.

I turn to Lindsey. “I’m sorry. I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “You know he hates me. I’m not crazy about him either.”

I lower my voice. “Max doesn’t hate you.”

She shrugs. I can’t bear for the twins to hear any more of this, so I take Lindsey’s hand and lead her away. “We have to go, sorry. There’s a band on stage six I’ve been dying to hear.”

“Good, we’ll follow,” Calliope says. “You know these local bands better than us.”

I’m howling on the inside as they follow a dead-silent Lindsey and me across the grass and through the skeletons, ghosts, and pirates to stage six, where a mediocre punk band is butchering “Thriller.” I squint at the bass drum. My colored contacts are an old prescription. “The Flaming Olives?”

“The Evening Devils,” Lindsey corrects, annoyed.

“That’s a stupid name,” I say.

“Olives would be worse,” Calliope says. “I thought you were dying to hear them.”

“I thought they were gonna be someone else,” I grumble.

“Ah,” Cricket says.

It’s a disbelieving ah, and it furthers my shame. I stand my ground and try to lose myself in the band, but I can’t believe my boyfriend just treated Lindsey like dirt. I can’t believe Cricket just saw him treat Lindsey like dirt. And I’m glad he stepped in before Max could do further damage, but why did it have to be him? It should have been me. The orange sun beats down, and I’m sweating again. My wig is trapping heat. I wonder how bad my hair looks underneath, and if I can get away with removing it. At long last, I catch a break as a cloud passes over the sun. I release a tiny sigh.

“You’re welcome,” Cricket says.

And then I realize that he’s standing behind me. Cricket is the cloud.

He gives an oddly grim smile. “You looked uncomfortable.”

“This band blows, and my feet are killing me,” Lindsey says. “Let’s go.”

My phone vibrates in my pocket. A text from Max:

@ marx meadow near first aid. where are you? 

The plan was to hang out with Max and Lindsey for a few hours and then go home at dusk. I love Halloween. The Castro used to close off the streets and throw an insane party that attracted over a hundred thousand people, but a few years ago, someone died in the fray. The city stopped closing it off and urged people to stay in their own neighborhoods. Still. As far as places to be on October thirty-first, a crowd of drag queens can’t be beat.

But now I don’t want to hang out with Lindsey and Max together. And I want to stay with my friend, but I haven’t been alone with Max in two weeks.

No. I should stay with Lindsey.

“Max?” she asks.

“Yeah. He’s ready to meet up, but I’m gonna tell him we’re going home early.”

“He’ll be pissed if you don’t show.”

“He won’t be pissed,” I say, with a nervous glance at Cricket. Even though Lindsey’s right. But the way she said it makes it sound worse than it is.

“Yeah, well, you haven’t seen him in forever. Don’t let me stand in the way of your amorous pursuits.”

I wish Lindsey would stop talking in front of Cricket.

“It’s fine,” she continues. “I’ll hang out with them for a little while longer”—she gestures to the Bells—“and then I’ll catch the bus home. I’m tired.”

She’s pushing me away out of spite. There’s no good way of dealing with her when she’s like this, except to give her what she wants. “So, um, talk to you tonight?”

“Go,” she says.

I sneak another glimpse at Cricket before leaving. I wish I hadn’t. He looks tortured. As if he’d do anything to stop me, but he’s being held back by his own invisible demons. I mumble my goodbye. As I walk to the meadow, I take off the wig. I don’t have a purse—Lindsey never carries one—so I drape it on the branch of a Japanese maple. Maybe someone will find it and add it to their costume. I shake out my hair, unbutton the top of my shirt, and roll up the sleeves. It’s better, but I still don’t look like me.

Actually, I look more like me. I feel exposed.

Max is leaning against the first-aid station, and his shoulders relax when he sees me. He’s glad I’m alone. But when I lean up to kiss him, he hardens again, and it sends a chill down my spine. “Not now, Lola.”

His rebuke stings. Is it because of how I look?

“You’re still hanging out with him,” he says.

No, it’s because he’s jealous. I’m sweating again. “Who?” I ask, buying time.

“Grasshopper. Centipede. Praying Mantis.”

It makes me cringe to hear Max mock his name. “That’s not funny. And that wasn’t nice what you said to Lindsey earlier either.”

He crosses his arms. “How long have you been seeing him?”

“I’m not seeing him. We just bumped into him and his sister, I promise.” His silence intimidates me into blabbering. “I swear, Lindsey and I ran into them, like, three minutes before you showed up.”

“I don’t like the way he stares at you.”

“He’s just my neighbor, Max.”

“How many times have you seen him since Amoeba?”

I hesitate and decide to go with a slant truth. “Sometimes I see him through my window on the weekend.”

“Your window?Your bedroom window?”

I narrow my eyes. “And then I close my curtains. End of story.”

“Lola, I don’t believe—”

“You never believe me!”

“Because you lie your ass off all the time! Don’t think I don’t know you’re still hiding things from me. What happened at Muir Woods, Lola?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Nathan was trying to get you to tell me something at dinner. He was there, wasn’t he? The neighbor boy.”

“Ohmygod, you’re crazy. It was a family picnic. You’re getting paranoid, and you’re making things up.” I’m panicking. How does he know?

“Am I?”

“YES!”

“Because one of us is getting pretty worked up right now.”