the pounds of sunscreen his mother smeared on his face; he hears the splashing waves; he tastes the sweet cherry flavor of his then-favorite drink, the Shirley Temple.
Levon feels the warm sun beaming down on him, and he can hear Chloe’s giggles as she frolicked in the ocean.
The doorbell sucks him out of his Fontainebleau bliss. It’s a rush of Madeline’s friends who have made a pact not to leave her alone. They come in pairs throughout the day, carting an assembly line of home-cooked meals. The house is filled with an endless stream of women coaxing her out of bed, persuading her to eat, urging her to shower, to change her clothes, to brush her teeth. The women take minimal interest in Levon, and whether it is their loyalty to their pain-stricken friend or their inability to find a pleasant word, a quiet permeates the house and banishes Levon to the safety of his room.
No one even mentions the fact that he is not in school.
Chapter 9
Lucy finds it inconceivable to comprehend the loss of a brother. And while the school day is washing up around her, instead of immersing herself in the gloriousness of her newfound anonymity, she is desperate to talk with Ricky, hungry to hear his steady voice. Her new neighbor, Levon, is absent from the bus. She hopes she hadn’t scared him off with her prying. She can only imagine how hard it must have been for him to utter those words, my brother , when she asked who died.
Lucy fingers the cell phone in her pocket. It is early morning on Wednesday. Ricky goes to the Cornerstone on Tuesday nights, once the infamous Vous, which means he’s holed up in his dorm room, nursing a mild hangover. She is crossing the halls between second and third period, and it’s a dreadful climb from literature to Spanish. Lucy cannot get over the amount of Spanish she is expected to learn in such a short amount of time. The demographics of Miami Beach had shifted over the years. Once the home to snowbirds from the northeast, it was now an international hub that has attracted a largely multicultural populace. Hardly anyone speaks English, that much she has noticed. Spanish is both required and a necessity here, and Lucy, with all her self-imposed visions of sophisticated worldliness is tripping over the words, lost in a flurry of conjugated Español. She had no command over the language.
As she approaches the door of Mrs. Arnold’s class, a hand brushes against her back and she jumps. She hopes it’s her new friend, her only friend, but it is not. She watches as the perpetrator walks passed her, scampering toward a group of fellow students. They appear to be normal teenagers leading typical teenage lives, though Lucy knows that normal can be deceiving. Hugging her bag closer to her body, she notices the way they are appraising her.
“ Hola ,” she calls out with a friendly smile. “ ¿Como esta? ”
The joke is lost on the group. They turn away from her and race each other down the hall. The best way to get people to stop staring and talking about you is to get right in their face and say hello— it was a method she had perfected time and time again.
Mrs. Arnold’s door is beckoning. Her thoughts return to Levon, how he’s an interesting study—shy, overweight, not cool by American teenage standards. He reminds her of Ricky, though they look nothing alike.
She senses depth, mild humor, and she is sure if she peels back some of the many layers, she will find a friend that can speak to her soul. Where Ricky has left a gaping hole, Levon enters to fill it. He hides his humanity in a naiveté that can be mistaken for aloofness. Lucy sees it in his sweet brown eyes, and she is sure no one has ever told him that he has dreamy eyelashes. She doesn’t dare tell him that. It might send him running—not necessarily a bad thing in his condition—and she wants to meticulously strip away those layers.
Ricky was always telling her she was a
Levon feels the warm sun beaming down on him, and he can hear Chloe’s giggles as she frolicked in the ocean.
The doorbell sucks him out of his Fontainebleau bliss. It’s a rush of Madeline’s friends who have made a pact not to leave her alone. They come in pairs throughout the day, carting an assembly line of home-cooked meals. The house is filled with an endless stream of women coaxing her out of bed, persuading her to eat, urging her to shower, to change her clothes, to brush her teeth. The women take minimal interest in Levon, and whether it is their loyalty to their pain-stricken friend or their inability to find a pleasant word, a quiet permeates the house and banishes Levon to the safety of his room.
No one even mentions the fact that he is not in school.
Chapter 9
Lucy finds it inconceivable to comprehend the loss of a brother. And while the school day is washing up around her, instead of immersing herself in the gloriousness of her newfound anonymity, she is desperate to talk with Ricky, hungry to hear his steady voice. Her new neighbor, Levon, is absent from the bus. She hopes she hadn’t scared him off with her prying. She can only imagine how hard it must have been for him to utter those words, my brother , when she asked who died.
Lucy fingers the cell phone in her pocket. It is early morning on Wednesday. Ricky goes to the Cornerstone on Tuesday nights, once the infamous Vous, which means he’s holed up in his dorm room, nursing a mild hangover. She is crossing the halls between second and third period, and it’s a dreadful climb from literature to Spanish. Lucy cannot get over the amount of Spanish she is expected to learn in such a short amount of time. The demographics of Miami Beach had shifted over the years. Once the home to snowbirds from the northeast, it was now an international hub that has attracted a largely multicultural populace. Hardly anyone speaks English, that much she has noticed. Spanish is both required and a necessity here, and Lucy, with all her self-imposed visions of sophisticated worldliness is tripping over the words, lost in a flurry of conjugated Español. She had no command over the language.
As she approaches the door of Mrs. Arnold’s class, a hand brushes against her back and she jumps. She hopes it’s her new friend, her only friend, but it is not. She watches as the perpetrator walks passed her, scampering toward a group of fellow students. They appear to be normal teenagers leading typical teenage lives, though Lucy knows that normal can be deceiving. Hugging her bag closer to her body, she notices the way they are appraising her.
“ Hola ,” she calls out with a friendly smile. “ ¿Como esta? ”
The joke is lost on the group. They turn away from her and race each other down the hall. The best way to get people to stop staring and talking about you is to get right in their face and say hello— it was a method she had perfected time and time again.
Mrs. Arnold’s door is beckoning. Her thoughts return to Levon, how he’s an interesting study—shy, overweight, not cool by American teenage standards. He reminds her of Ricky, though they look nothing alike.
She senses depth, mild humor, and she is sure if she peels back some of the many layers, she will find a friend that can speak to her soul. Where Ricky has left a gaping hole, Levon enters to fill it. He hides his humanity in a naiveté that can be mistaken for aloofness. Lucy sees it in his sweet brown eyes, and she is sure no one has ever told him that he has dreamy eyelashes. She doesn’t dare tell him that. It might send him running—not necessarily a bad thing in his condition—and she wants to meticulously strip away those layers.
Ricky was always telling her she was a
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