The Half-Life of Planets (11 page)

Hank starts to chord, but because he's holding the polka-dotted cellophane bag, each movement makes a crinkling noise. He gets so into his chronic gestures that he ends up bumping into me, and a shower of rainbow candies winds up all over the black-and-white tiled floor.

“Hank, come on!” My voice is more annoyed than I want it to be—more annoyed than it should be.

Hank finally emerges from his chording stupor. “Oops. Sorry.” He crouches down and starts picking up the M&M's one by one. He looks up at me, and in one instant I can feel myself split—torn between what I'd thought he was, this undiscovered edgy musician, and what he is—this semi-dorky, confused, emotionally awkward boy with pale skin and calloused fingers. He is all those things he said, all those insults and words. And then the other route is this: he is exactly the same person as he was before he even told me. I bend down, and together, plucking each little red, blue, orange, and green circle, we clean up the spillage.

“You know there used to be light brown M&M's?” I tell him.

He nods. “I heard that.” He reaches for one of the remaining yellows.

On purpose, I reach for the same one and let the side of my hand touch his. “I bet they tasted better, you know? Even though all of these taste the same, really.”

Hank nods as though I've said something incredibly profound. “Maybe they'll reintroduce them.”

I stand up and yank him up by the hand. “Like a retro pack?”

“Yeah, like that. Like a greatest hits album. All the old phased-out candies and crayon colors.” He eyes my bag of treats. “You're stacked—” He blushes and then allows himself to crack up.

I look first at my shirt—another cast-off from my parents' old stash in the basement. This time a Reggae Fest '87. “That I am. However, I am also
stocked
—” I display my bag of goodies. “Which is what I believe you meant to say.”

Hank hurriedly shoves a mélange of chocolate-covered whatevers and sour somethings into his bag, snags mine, plops them both on the scale by the cash register, and pays the clueless freshman whose head is buried in a gossip magazine. Before I can thank him, we're out of Sweet Nothings, standing in the morning sun. The air is clean and still, with just enough chill to make everything feel clear, normal. I want to tell Hank that it's okay. That even though it's messy, that what he told me is—

“You're thinking about it, aren't you?” Hank hoists himself up on the metal rails that border the pedestrian-only area. “I can tell because you're quieter than normal. Allie says that means people are thinking—and not necessarily good or bad. But you usually look right at me, and today you're looking everywhere but.”

I stare at the Sweet Nothings sign: bubble letters outlined in pink, dotted with different colors to make it appear that a baker has sprinkled it. James Frenti kissed me right there, in broad daylight last year, and I remember thinking beforehand—because I knew he would—that if we went on to be a couple, a real couple that kissed all the time and told each other things and walked around town together with our hands clasped—that we'd have this sweet thing—this sugary, lively place where we had our first kiss.

“Now I'm looking at you,” I tell him, and make sure my eyes don't leave his. “But yeah, I was thinking about it.” I keep focused on him but walk toward him, my hand gripping the cellophane bag.

“Now you probably want to run. I get it.” His face doesn't look bothered by what he said or assumed, but his eyes do; not like he's crying, but like he could if he thought about it.

I glance over my shoulder at Sweet Nothings, at the littered kiss I remember, and then I keep walking so my stomach bumps into Hank's knees where he's perched on the railing. “I already did that,” I tell him. And then I clarify. “Ran away, I mean. It's like, what I do.”

“So you're going to do what you don't do?”

I untwist my candy bag and wave a blue dolphin in his face. “Something like that.” I wait for him to speak. In the meantime, I decapitate the aquatic mammal.

“God, remind me never to piss you off.” Hank's eyebrows are raised, his eyes back to normal, all sea-glass green and bright. He laughs and studies his own bag of candy. “I don't even know what I shoved in here.”

I peer at it. “Looks like you betrayed common candy sense and got a fair bunch of Licorice Allsorts. Gross.”

Hank hops down from the railing, landing with a thud on the pavement next to a pot of brightly colored flowers. The Melville Community Association spends part of each spring beautifying the boardwalk area to entice summer residents to keep funneling money here, so I say, “Careful not to disturb the pansies,” and then I realize they're actually marigolds.

Hank hums a tune. “Marigolds always make me think of ‘Jennifer Juniper'—Donovan, 1968. You know it?” I shake my head. He sings a little for me.

“Your voice is really…” I start, but Hank's looking up the boardwalk.

“It's about Jennifer Boyd. Pattie Boyd's sister. Pattie was married to George Harrison. And then Eric Clapton. But Jennifer Juniper has this quality to it…” Hank keeps looking up the boardwalk and begins walking away from Sweet Nothings.

“Another Jenny song,” I say.

“No,” he corrects, glossing over the reference to my sister. “Jennifer. Is that what your parents called her?”

I shrug. The truth is, I don't even know. “Hank?” I chew my dolphin, wishing I had somewhere to spit it out because it's got a minty flavor I can't stand. “This dolphin is gross.”

Hank swivels, turning his attention back to me. “All I can offer you is licorice.”

“Now that sounds like a sad song.” I grin at Hank and he grins back, so I sing the words to him. “All I can offer you is licorice.”

“Too bad you had to be…such a bitch,” Hank sings to me.

I let my eyes go wide and put my hand to my mouth in faux shock-horror. “And all because I couldn't tolerate your licorice…” I sing, but before I complete the lyric, Hank interrupts with:

“Hey! Chase! Wait up!” Hank rifles through his candy and picks out a plain chocolate Kiss. “Here. This'll take away the bad taste.” He nudges me forward with his elbow, and we walk together toward his brother, who's milling around the town flagpole with a group of guys I don't know.

Chase gives Hank the what's-up reverse nod with his chin, and Hank introduces me as his friend Liana Planet. Plan-it.

“Pluh-net,” I automatically correct. Hank retries the name but ends up saying planet all over again, but in a way that's comforting to me. One of Chase's friends says my name the real way just to make a point, but before they can actually harass Hank, Chase steps in and eyes me like we're at some keg party.

“No intros necessary,” Chase says, and then, his shaggy surfer blond hair collecting each and every sun ray, adds, “We're slumming in the Snark—want to join?”

Photos of the Arcade date back to the glory days of Melville Beach—all cotton candy, ring tosses, and women in bonnets. Even though it's redone now, the Arcade is more commonly referred to by locals (at least local kids) as the Snarkade, because it's pretty crappy. And yet we still go there, but mainly as an ironic gesture. The way the goths at school hulk together at the swing set in town at night.

“Check it out—I'm a Skee-Ball champ!” Chase bellows when we're inside the cool dark. The Arcade's shaped like a ballooning tent even though it's shingled, and inside is a street map of old pinball games, Skee-Ball, and Air-Hockey.

Hank pulls me aside. “We don't have to stay if you don't want to.” He leans in to my ear, each word nestling in on the next. I keep my head right where it is and nod. “But I have lots of nickels.” He pats his leg, to the very noticeable bulge in his pocket that of course isn't what I thought at all, and shows me the bag of change as evidence. “If you run out of guitar picks, nickels are a pretty good substitute.” He air strums.

“I'm just glad it's a bag of coins.” I laugh, leaving the second part innuendo.

Unsaid, that is, until Hank says it. “You mean, not a boner.”

I blush like it's the first time I've ever heard the word. Which it isn't. “Yeah, Hank, because of that.”

“Hey, Strummer Boy, come on and show yer stuff!” Chase waves us over. “And while you're at it, sling some of that change my way, will you?” Chase is overanimated and swaying just enough to make me wonder what he put in his morning coffee.

“What'd you put in your coffee this morning?” I ask, taking Hank's cue to say what's on my mind.

Chase flings a Skee-Ball into a pocket, gaining eighty points and a tongue-length of tickets. “Wouldn't you like to know,” he answers, but doesn't look at me. He has a way of speaking to me that makes me feel like I could be anyone. Anybody.

“Kahlúa?” Hank guesses, and after pumping in a handful of nickels, sets us both up for a game. We take turns swinging our arms, sending the balls into the air, trying for the top score, until a pile of tickets collects on the ground and Chase has gone through half of Hank's coin stash, and his buddies, clustered by the Air-Hockey, come to observe our three-way contest. Except that I suck, so it's not really a contest.

Hank is steely-eyed, determined, and he and Chase begin to outlap me, so I pretty much drop out and watch them. Miller, Brian, Derek, Marty, all the guys Chase has clustered around him are decent-looking, in a catalogue way, and being this close to them makes me wish just for a second that I could drop my experiment and get back to one of the things I like even more than candy: kissing. As if on cue, one of the guys puts a palm on my shoulder, supposedly to peer in closer to the game, but not. I wriggle away, scooting closer to Hank. It occurs to me only then, once I pick up Hank's dropped bag of penny candy, that my first instinct was to kiss some random college guy and not to kiss Hank. I look at the ground and wonder why that is, wonder how many flip-flopped and sandaled feet have stood right here, watching and playing games.

Hank mouths the words to the song playing on the scratchy speakers overhead, and when the lyric says,
Joker, smoker, Midnight toker
, Chase's buddy points to him and says, “Dude, this is about you.”

“Screw you, Marty.” Chase has a ball in each hand, double-timing them into the baskets.

Hank whips a ball into the smallest pocket, gaining in this round, and Chase flips his head back in competitive spirit and turns to his friends. “Wanna see me win?” They clap and laugh, sending enough breath my way to solidify my guess: they have been drinking—either way into the late hours last night, or way way too early this morning. So much for college maturity.

“Hank's going to win,” I say, and point to his score. Hank looks at me from the side, just a flick of his eyes, and stops singing along enough to let me know he's grateful.

Chase stops in midswing, displaying the small brown ball as though he's on a game show, and then, with two wide strides, climbs up the entire Skee-Ball game and plunks it into the 100 point section. “Reigning champion!” he announces from the top of the game. His cronies clap, and it's such a lame pose that Hank laughs a little, and I do mostly in a cringe-worthy way. Hot and hammered, Chase doesn't exactly advertise intellect. “I rule!” Only then, on his way down from cheating, his knee buckles. ‘Uw—shit!” He adds to this with a bunch of curses and grimaces while Hank and another guy help him down. “I'm fine,” Chase says when he's back standing on the floor. He shrugs off the help. “I'm fine.”

Hank goes back to flinging balls into the tiny circles, desperate to beat Chase's score, and I stand there half paying attention until I see one of those old fortune-telling machines. Complete with a bearded, turbaned guy and a crystal ball that is sadly made of wood and flaking white paint, the game is a relic of times gone by. Or maybe people always want to know what will happen. I slide a nickel into the slot and then realize it takes four. I pat my pockets for extra change but find none. Before I can raid Hank's stash, Chase appears behind me, or maybe he was there already, I can't say for sure.

“So, what lies ahead?” His breath is warm on my neck.

Feeling how close he is to me, I don't turn around. I shrug as a response.

“Come on, at least tell me my fortune.”

“I'm not omniscient,” I tell him. He takes my left hand, pries it open from its clenched position, and presses a quarter into it.

“Go ahead. See what the magic man has to say.” He leans into me, placing a hand on my hip. If it were night, or we were alone, or it was last year, or even two months ago, I know what I would do. So easy to turn around, be inches from his face, see that look, both of us acknowledging what we want to do.

I focus on the peeling paint, the fortunes that never come true, the fake beliefs we all have in being told what's going to be rather than what is right now.

“It only takes nickels,” I spit out, my voice harsh. I move away from him.

“Well then, I guess my quarter won't help.” Chase grins at me, and for just a second, our eyes meet. “You gonna pay me back or what?”

Later, when we've left the Snarkade, and Chase's pack has gone home to debuzz, Hank and I walk the length of the boardwalk all the way from town up past the pastel-painted stately homes, past the row of stores, past Ocean Boulevard and the tiny cottages like the one where Hank lives, all the way to the Landing, where there's a kid-sized merry-go-round and a really pathetic planetarium.

“Which do you want to go to?” Hank sticks his arms out like the Scarecrow.

“Well, I'm pretty sure I won't fit on one of those horses.” I glance to where a little girl waits for the music to begin so she can have her carousel ride. “So I guess it's the worst planetarium ever.”

“The WPE,” Hank confirms, and swings his bag of candy toward the entrance. I can't tell if he saw Chase and me at the fortune-teller. If he cares. If he would even understand what it meant.