OCD Love Story (24 page)

The thought of that small pleasure isn't enough to distract me from the rush of words pounding in my throat and then spilling out so they don't singe the delicate inside of my mouth.

“I decided to go for a walk and I ended up here. I look like crap because it's actually a really long walk. And I promise I will wash up first, but will you go to a dance recital with me? Is that the weirdest thing I've ever asked you?”

“Yes,” Beck says. But then: “How long will it be for? How many dances will there be?”

“I'm not staying there for eight dances,” I say. “You have no idea how boring it's going to be. We are talking some seriously lame choreography and some seriously uncoordinated little girls. The only thing I like about it is the ridiculous costumes, but you're probably not going to be into that either.”

“Are you trying to convince me to come or to not come?”

“I want you to come,” I say. “Eighth row? Eight minutes? What are the rules of your eight thing?” Beck gives a sheepish smile and shrugs. Classes are letting out all over the building and I'm suddenly the center of attention in the hallway of the all-boys' school. I've never been as desirable as I seem to be for these few moments. The standards of beauty
change quite a bit when there's no one to compete with.

I don't need to pinch my thigh or anything: I am
here
. I am holding everyone's attention and if there's anything I know for sure, it's that at this moment, even in fluorescent lighting and the ugliest boots I own and my hair in a pile on top of my head, I
exist
.

“Kind of a big deal, meeting the infamous Lisha,” Beck says at last. He's moved in a little closer to me since the boys started pouring out of every classroom. But he's still not close enough to touch and he's still keeping a steady eye on the bathroom and the good clean soapiness it promises.

“Famous. Not infamous. They teach you guys anything at this fancy school of yours?”

“Ok, smarty. Famous Lisha. You said she's the person who knows you best,” he says.

“I did?” I'm not remembering any of this. I experience group therapy amnesia, I think. I'm working so hard to not talk about Austin and so hard to not wrestle Rudy's Swiss Army knife out of his hands that it's impossible to actually take much note of the little bits and pieces of my daily life I
do
divulge. I kinda think I have no idea what I have actually talked to Beck about, I only know what I've managed to hide from him.

“Well, you seem to have crawled all the way out here just to ask me out, so it's a date,” Beck says. I go to give him a playful shove, a flirtatious bit of contact with his shoulder or
the solid mass of his arm or whatever but he sidesteps it on autopilot. “Meet me outside, okay?” He hides his hands in his pockets and bows his head and pushes his side into the bathroom door to open it before he even hears my response.

If Austin lived an even remotely walkable distance from here, I'd skip out on everything and head to his place, where he's safer, and I'm safer, and Sylvia's safer, and maybe the whole world is actually safer.

I make my way to the far side of the Smith-Latin campus, a soccer field near the parking lot where I think I recognize Beck's car. I sit on the ground without thinking through the potential for getting my pants soaked with snow or muddy from the patches where it's melted away. Sometimes I wish more than anything that I had an entirely different kind of OCD that would keep me clean and pretty and presentable. I'm going to need Beck to drive me by my place or the mall or something to get another pair of pants. I have passed into the Unacceptable, even for me.

It doesn't take him an hour this time, at least. Beck cleans up quickly and finds me like we are magnetically drawn to each other, and I make an apologetic half smile at my now completely disastrous outfit. Ironic dirt-caked boots. Wet, loose-fitting khakis. For someone who hates dirt as much as Beck, he's certainly tolerant of me.

“You have to drive me home,” I say. “I'm like a five-year-old boy. I cannot stay clean to save my life.”

Beck doesn't reply, but we get into the car and he's driving and it seems like it's in the direction of my house until he makes a swift turn and pulls onto some bumpy unfinished road.

“Do you hike?” Beck says.

“I wasn't kidding. I legitimately have to go to this ballet recital . . . ”

“I know. Answer the question.”

“I've hiked before.”

“Me too. I used to really like hiking,” he says. “Your boots reminded me. And the mud on your pants. And your hair. Your hairline. It's sort of frizzing and it's just like my sister's used to do when we were on a family hike.” The car's still running, so I guess we're not getting out, but we have a view of what should never qualify as a mountain. Hiking trails twist up its sides in lamely named paths.
CLEAR CREEK TRAIL. BEAR MOUNTAIN PASS. WHITE WATERFALL WONDERLAND.

I don't even have to hold my tongue. I'm not fighting the overshare or any other impulse. It's pretty here, the way the sun hits the snow and the trees shake off little showers of flakes every few seconds. And Beck is beautiful here, his eyes half shut and blurrily focused, his fingers totally still.

“Sorry,” he says after a few moments of breathing in time and watching the wind.

“No. Why? No,” I say.

“You want to try on the jeans I keep in the back? Is that
an insult? I know girls don't like to have the same size waist as their—” I cut him off at the word “boyfriend.” Not because I don't want it to be true, but because I can only take so much in one day.

Dr. Pat says for some people even good news is anxiety inducing.

“Your jeans would be great.”

Beck is all broad shoulders but has a tiny waist and undersize legs, and he's the kind of guy who spends money on things like jeans, so the ones he hands me are neatly folded up and dark denim and probably more expensive than anything I own.

“Should I . . . ?” I point to the backseat and Beck pops to attention.

“Oh yeah, of course. I didn't mean you had to, like, strip in front of me. I'm sorry. I'm doing this all wrong. I'll close my eyes.”

I'm sure there are girls who wouldn't find a beat-up Jeep in winter romantic. Girls who don't see any kind of sexiness in the smell of dried mud or the clunking sounds of an old car or the idea that you can do the least expected thing and just see what happens.

I'm sure there are girls my age who haven't had sex and are waiting on some kind of sign from above or a romantic gesture or at the very least for an aggressive guy prodding them along in order to give it up. But that's just not me. I've
had sex. It was pretty fun. I wouldn't mind trying it again.

“Help me out of this stuff?” I say. My heart's going hard:
pound, pound, pound
.

I think it's his fear of physical touching that makes me want it more. Kind of like a challenge, but kind of like a validation, too. If I can get him to love me like this (dirty, undone, brazen, unabashedly myself) then maybe this is something real.

Beck keeps his eyes open but he doesn't rush at me. It's an even sweeter thing that way. I'm goosebumped from the waiting and he's giving a half smile, and then he hooks the palm of his hand around my neck and pulls me in to kiss me.

He doesn't help me out of my pants or even my shirt, but there's that lost-time, lost-location kissing again. My lips cling to his; I don't want to let them slip from mine for a moment. The bottom half of my body leans toward his and I tighten my arms around his neck. A little sigh escapes from my mouth to his.

Then he slows down, like last time. He busies himself with his baby wipes when we pull away, and I change in the backseat.

“Hey, it's okay,” I say to his face in the rearview mirror. He's on his tenth wipe. “I don't mind the cleaning-off thing. So, just, let's not feel bad about it, you know? Can we make a promise not to feel bad about the weird shit we do?” When I'm saying it I think it's a perfect, selfless kind of moment: accepting someone for who they are. But as I crawl into the
front seat again, I realize I said it so that he won't hate me when he finds out all the things I haven't told him yet.

Beck's jeans fit loosely, falling off my hips in a way that I hope has an easy comfortable cuteness, but the jeep doesn't exactly have a full-length mirror so I can't know for sure. I've got a chunky sweater and a thick scarf and the whole look is maybe hanging off me just right.

Dr. Pat's always amazed at my inherent optimism.

“So. Dance recital?” Beck says. Now that he's clean and I'm at least in clean clothes, he's all smiles. I sit on my hands so that I won't grab his hand on impulse. I know he wouldn't mind, but I felt the dry patches of his palm when he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, and I don't want to do anything that will make him scrub the poor, peeling parts of his body any harder.

“Dance recital,” I say. I'm grinning too.

For a few minutes.

It keeps seeming like the magic of falling for him will last longer, but the surge of goodness is always followed by even worse panic than I started with.

Beck's driving all easily, and I don't know if it's the same for him, this part of things. I think he's fine with the feelings as long as he's clean and properly body-built. I'm his mirror opposite. Everything is footloose and fancy-free until I feel something good.

“I like that you're a good friend,” Beck says. He nods
along with his own words like they're a favorite melody. He's proud of the compliment, of the adult way it slides off his tongue.

“Oh. No. Lish is the good friend. This is just the kind of thing I do because I'm so crazy high maintenance. It's, like, the only way I can think of to give back at all.”

We don't get there until close to the end, which is fine since that's when the oldest girls, the ones hanging on to the idea of being ballerinas even though it's never going to happen, have their big dance. It's a relief to miss most of the younger groups, the ones so toddler-ish they can barely walk, let alone dance; the ones battling awkward weight and height gains who should not have to be subjected to things like leotards and tutus in their preadolescent states.

One year I offered to do costuming for the show. I thought it would look good for college and, honestly, I thought I could do something magnificent. Or at least a little meaningful. And in my opinion it
was
magnificent, but I guess the result was lacking in sequins and puffy sleeves, and ultimately people want that in a dance recital, so ultimately my costumes got nixed.

Lisha told me I did an awesome job, and that our stupid small town wasn't smart enough to appreciate the way I was transgressing the medium.

I actually think she meant it. She even wore the costume I made her to Homecoming that fall. A tiny silver dress with
the kind of skirt that flies out like a parachute when you spin. We spent that dance splitting a bottle of peach vodka with Kim and Lacey and spinning so much we got dizzy. I hadn't met Kurt yet, hadn't done anything too nuts yet. I was a whole different Bea. A better Bea. I miss that Bea.

Beck likes the story. He grins at the way I giggle through the telling of it. I like having him right there next to me, still blushing from the kiss in the car and then the filled silence that followed and the chemistry that comes from avoiding instead of giving in to touch.

We don't hold hands at the recital. His body keeps moving next to mine, the muscles in his arms and legs flexing and releasing like he's getting a little miniworkout in right here, right now.

He keeps checking his watch. We've got eight minutes and then he'll have his Cinderella moment and vanish.

Two minutes in and the beginning chords of “Tiny Dancer” ring out over the crappy speakers and I know it's Lisha's turn and everything's fine.

The three oldest dancers, Lish and two girls she's been dancing with for years, are in the palest of blue leotards. So pale I'm scared I'm going to catch sight of dark nipples. They are all so skinny and flat-chested that they go braless, and it lends itself to worrying about unforeseen costume mishaps. (See? They
needed
someone like me helping them). After the cheap, puffy, bedazzled costumes of the dancers before them,
the elegance of the long tulle and pale silhouette is actually kind of totally beautiful. Not unique, not genre-bending, but delicate and lovely. I've never seen Lisha like this.

But after the first few leaps and twirls, I don't watch any of it. I watch Beck checking his watch. I worry about his worrying. And then because the dance is short, it ends long before the eight-minute limit is up and we have to stay in the auditorium while everyone else trips past us. We stay in silence, and the empty stage is covered in a layer of glitter and condensation, and it is not entirely unlike the view from earlier today with the shining trees and the melting snow.

Beck stares at his watch, waiting to reach the magical eight-minute mark. He keeps telling me I can go, I can look for Lisha, he's fine. But I wait it out, even though the moment the eight minutes are up, he's off to the bathroom anyway.

• • •

When Lisha comes out, she's covered in slippery foundation and dusted with glittery eye shadow and she's sweating under her arms, but she's about as happy as I've ever seen anyone. I have a bouquet of roses Beck and I remembered to buy at the grocery store on the drive over, and a big smile, and a really strong urge to immediately tell her everything about what happened with Beck this afternoon, but she doesn't even let me start.

“You brought someone,” Lisha says. “I mean, thank you for coming, but I did not say it was okay for you to
bring
someone
.” She says all of this directly into my ear while we're still locked in a hug and her bobby pins are sticking out of her hair and poking me in the neck.