The Fixer Upper by Judith Arnold

He’d noticed her.
    She was glad she’d already dropped the dollar bill into his guitar case. Her hands were suddenly so slick with perspiration the money might have disintegrated in her palm.
    She had to say something. He was still smiling at her. “I love listening to you,” she said, hoping she wasn’t blushing or oozing sweat in her armpits. She didn’t have any zits, did she? Was her hair sleek and shiny? Did she look fat to him? She really wasn’t fat, regardless of what Bony said, but next to Kim she resembled a porker.
    Fortunately, she wasn’t next to Kim. Kim was standing with Ashleigh in the crowd, watching her.
    “Well, thank you,” he said.
    So polite! No tattoos and polite—but African-American and cornrowed and earning money by playing music in the park, so it wasn’t as if he was exactly safe. Plus his being years and years older than her, of course.
    But his smile seemed safe, almost. Safe and sexy both. She felt more of that cider warmth slide down from her face into her chest and through her whole body.
    She had to say something. She couldn’t waste this moment. It might be the only time she ever talked to him. “I should thank you,” she said, sounding much calmer than she felt. “Because your music is really cool. I think you should be making records. You’re that good. My name is Reva.” Shit! She’d been doing so well, and suddenly she was blurting out My name is Reva, as if she were brain damaged or something.
    “Well, hey, Reva,” he said affably. “I’m gonna play another song now.” In other words, bug off.
    He was too polite to say Bug off, of course. He had to be polite because she’d stuck a dollar bill in his guitar case. But now he knew her name. And maybe he wasn’t just being polite. Maybe he was actually pleased to have met her. Maybe, just maybe, he’d go home tonight, to wherever his home was—she wanted to imagine him in some tiny, artsy flat on the Lower East Side or an interesting old brownstone in Harlem—and fall asleep remembering thegirl who thought he should be making records, who had that much faith in him.
    She smiled, hoping her expression didn’t seem forced, and strolled back to where her friends were standing. “Omigod!” Kim squealed softly.
    “He’s really cute,” Ashleigh declared once again.
    “Do you think he likes you?” Kim asked.
    “Shh.” Reva clung desperately to her poise. She didn’t want them to know how rattled she was, how wet her hands were, how fluttery her heart felt, beating like a ticking time bomb in her throat. “He’s playing a song.”
    Darryl J swept the crowd with his gaze and then zeroed in on her. “This one’s for my new friend, Reva,” he said, then let loose with a rowdy flurry of guitar chords.
    He was singing this song for her! Just the way she’d dreamed, just the way she’d fantasized. He was singing to her…and she could scarcely even listen to the song because she had to concentrate all her energies on remaining upright when she was this close to fainting dead away.
     
    The girls stormed the apartment in a tumble of chatter, laughter and stomping feet. They shouted a chorus of “Hi’s” at Libby on their way to the kitchen, where they armed themselves with a two-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi and a bag of cheddar-cheese popcorn, and then they vanished into Reva’s bedroom. Hearing Reva’s door slam shut, Libby shook her head and grinned.
    She would rather die than have to relive her thirteenth year. Her memories of that year were ghastly. She’d been gangly and mismatched, her nose suddenly too big for her face, her chin too small, her figure devoid of curves and her knees and elbows as rough as sandpaper. And as much as she would have liked to ignore her appearance altogether, her mother had constantly harped on it: “Don’t eat that, it’llgive you pimples!” “Don’t wear that skirt, it makes you look chubby.” “I wish you’d let me do something with your hair, Libby.” Her