Soon my stomach reminded me that I hadn't eaten though.
"What's the time?" I asked, lifting my head off her shoulder for the first time in ages.
"Um..." Maria pulled her phone out of her bag. "One o'clock."
"Seriously, have we been sitting here for two hours?" I was shocked. Time flies when you're having fun.
Maria looked at me, her hair was strangely flat on the one side from where my head had been pushing into her. It looked totally ridiculous, but so Maria.
"Yup. Two hours." She pocketed her phone and with one swift movement swung her legs and jumped out of the tree. "I'm starving."
"Me too." Within seconds I joined her and we both started walking through the park and instinctively toward my house. When we're hungry, we always go to my house, on account of her mother's less that appetizing cooking and the fat free, fun free, taste free pantry that she has. But I didn't feel like going home.
"Let's go somewhere." I turned around to face her, walking backwards while I spoke. "I don't feel like going home."
"Giovanni's?" Maria asked, a huge smile spreading across her face.
I smiled back. It's our other favorite place. It's this dodgy pizzeria at this old crappy strip mall just a few blocks away that has seen better days. No one from our neighborhood dares to eat there, not since the Chinese restaurant next door made it into the papers for suspicion of dog meat, or cat or rat meat. I can't remember what pet it was, but that was it, instant doom for any restaurant nearby.
Maria and I have a theory about Giovanni's though. It's never full, instead there's always a group of old Italian men that sit in the corner smoking and playing cards all day. We're convinced the place is actually run by the mafia and is just used to launder money. How else would it be going if we were the only two people that ever eat there?
Brett, Maria and I went there for her birthday last year and the guy didn't think twice about plying us all with Sangria, he didn't care that we were clearly underage. After the Sangria, he brought out the Grappa and the three of us proceeded to get pissed, properly pissed for the first time in our lives. The whole place was empty, apart from the Italian card playing suspicious looking smokers. They all started toasting Maria's birthday and it suddenly got loud and rowdy and we all found ourselves pushing the tables aside and dancing all night. The memory puts a smile on my face.
"Oh my God." She buried her face in her hands. "I know what you're thinking about. Stop it."
I smiled at her playfully. "I still can't believe you danced with that guy."
I burst out laughing at the memory of Maria and that old sixty-year-old guy doing the Rumba, or whatever it was that he was trying to teach her.
"Well, it's not like there were lots of willing dance partners that night. I had to take what I could get."
"You could have danced with me." I winked at her and she stopped walking for a second and looked at me strangely again, as if she was trying to figure something out.
"What?" I stopped walking too and faced her.
"You didn't ask me to dance."
"I shouldn't have to Maria. I'm game to dance with you anytime."
"Mmmm..." She looked like she didn't believe me.
"I'll dance with your right now if you want. On the pavement, in front of the passing cars."
"Dude, you're crazy."
"My parents are getting divorced. I'm allowed to be."
Maria shook her head but before she could finish, I grabbed her by the arm and spun her as hard as I could, and then tried to dip her like they do on all those reality TV dance shows. It didn't quite work and she crashed into my chest. Hard.
Um....
A strange feeling ploughed into my chest as she did. We both stopped laughing at the same time and quickly moved away from each other.
What was that? But I didn't have time to think about it -
"Come. Lets go." And Maria was off.
**
When we finally got home that afternoon, after sharing a huge pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, Maria was in crap for bunking school. Her mother was having a rather dramatic shit fit because the school had phoned and now she was threatening to send her to that all girls boarding school again and wanted to know if she was doing drugs. Her mother has to be one of the most dramatic people that have ever existed. She's the queen of overreacting.
I felt bad, so I reluctantly told her about my parents and explained that Maria was just being a good friend- best friend. And that was it. Her eyes lit up like the th of July. Like Las Vegas at night flickering in the desert. She suddenly grabbed me and pulled me close for a hug, which was odd.
"Mike, I am so sorry. So terribly, terribly sorry." She was saying the words, but I could tell that she was secretly pretty happy. This was juicy fucking gossip. Because other then being
