Bad Idea (7 page)

He paused a few seconds too long. “No, babe.
Of course not. It wouldn’t be a
total
failure. Just
a…disappointment.”

That word struck her deep in the chest. “A
disappointment.”

“If I knew you didn’t even try, yeah, I’d be
disappointed. Wouldn’t you?”

Ah.
That was the problem. She’d been
so nervous, she’d forgotten to explain what had happened with Emmy.
Once he knew she’d approached someone, he’d understand that she
had
tried and back off. She launched into the story,
explaining about the note and the humiliation she’d endured since
then. Daisy and the beach trip didn’t come up in what she said,
though.

“I’m sorry it’s been tough, Riva,” Benton
said when she finished. “It sounds like the other kids are being
jerks.”

She sighed with relief. “Right? I thought we
were past this, like, as a society.”

“We should be. But don’t you think this means
the worst is over? Talking to other girls should be easier now.
You’ve got nothing to lose anymore. People are already
gossiping.”

She rubbed the pad of her finger against the
side of the concrete bench where she was sitting. It turned her
fingertip sort of reddish gray. She stared at her hand for a
moment. In Jersey, everyone had thought she was white. They’d seen
her mom, and, since she liked to play on the computer, she didn’t
get all that much sun. Here, her skin was changing. It was already
way darker than she had thought possible, and she’d only been to
the beach that one time. A few people had come up to her, speaking
Spanish, and had stared in disgust when she hadn’t been able to
answer.

Her boyfriend was confusing her, her best
friend was forgetting about her, and now even her skin was a
stranger. Riva didn’t know who she was anymore.

“Riva? I’ve got a study group pretty soon. If
you’re not going to talk, I’m going to have to get off the
phone.”

“Sorry, sorry.” She needed to be tough.
Sitting up as straight as she could on the bench, she tried one
last time. “Benton, I like that you encourage me to do things even
if they scare me, but don’t you think this particular thing is more
about you than me?”

“So you’re saying you’re not willing to do
something for me.”

“No! I just mean, I think it would be nice if
you could take it easy. I just moved here at the beginning of the
school year. I don’t really know anyone. It would be great if there
wasn’t all this pressure.”

The line was silent except for a breath
exhaled through his teeth. Riva squeezed her eyes shut. What if he
broke up with her? The thought made her chest seize. She’d already
lost her home. She was losing Casey. She couldn’t lose Benton,
too.

“I thought you were into having fun,” Benton
said.

“I am!”

“I get that setting this up won’t be fun, but
I promise you that it’s going to make Spring Break a lot more fun
for us both. Can you trust me?”

Riva thought that Spring Break would be
plenty of fun if they just went to the beach a lot, but this had
always been a test of her love for him. And she did love him.
“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Then you can do this. I know you can. Don’t
let the other kids get you down.”

“I’m not even going to school again before
you get here.”

“I’m sure you’ve met
someone
in the
months you’ve been there.”

She heard the unspoken judgment in that
sentence. A
fun
person would have made friends. Admitting
she hadn’t really would mean he’d been right. She was a boring
coward.

Riva racked her brain for someone she’d met
who wasn’t a relative. Daisy’s grin flashed through her mind, but
her stomach clenched tight. She couldn’t ruin her friendship with
Daisy before it had even begun. Not even for Benton. Riva needed
someone in Florida for herself. It wouldn’t be fair for him to take
that away from her.

She pressed a hand to the side of her head,
trying to fight down the panic that had arisen at the thought of
propositioning Daisy.

“Are you going to make this happen for us,
Riva?”

She couldn’t say no. He’d break up with her
if she did, no question. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Good. Awesome. I’ll see you in a few days.
But I’ve got to get to that study group now, okay? I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Riva didn’t feel so sure of that when she
said it, though. She didn’t feel sure of anything anymore. She
groaned to herself and looked up through the leaves of the tree
above her. The sun above forced her to squint, but she still had a
clear view of the cross atop the church’s steeple. She started and
glanced around quickly, but it was Saturday and the church seemed
empty. The cross seemed to be mocking her, not just because she’d
been talking about a threesome in a totally inappropriate place,
but also because it seemed so certain of itself, thrusting starkly
upward into an empty blue sky.

* * * *

Daisy loved her sunglasses. Putting them on
meant she could pretend to read, or sit up and look like she was
staring out at the water, when actually all she was doing was
drinking in the sight of Riva stretched out beside her.

It wasn’t about being at the beach and
wearing fewer clothes—though she did enjoy Riva’s long,
strong-looking legs. Her sunglasses gave her a chance to finally
look at Riva as much as she wanted to. There was something about
the way her jaw curved into her neck that Daisy couldn’t get enough
of, and the way she grinned at the pages of the book she was
holding made Daisy want to tuck her head in beside Riva’s and learn
about what made her smile like that. She hadn’t styled her hair
that day, and seeing Riva’s natural coarse black frizz felt like a
thrilling intimacy.

Riva sat up, her tankini shifting as she did,
the strap slipping down the side of one of her shoulders, as if it
was considering sliding off entirely. A pale brown line revealed
how much darker Riva had gotten over the course of a beach trip and
a half. Daisy wondered for a dizzying moment about the shade of her
skin on the bottoms of her feet or over her stomach.

Okay, maybe some of this is about seeing Riva
barely dressed.

“Are you bored?” Riva asked.

“Huh?” Daisy was so very far from bored, but
she couldn’t exactly admit to what had her so absorbed.

“You haven’t turned a page in, like, fifteen
minutes. Are you tired of lying here?”

“No,” she answered honestly. “I love it.” She
set her book down beside her. “We’re not in school. It’s not like I
have to finish the book by Wednesday or whatever.”

“Thanks for inviting me.” Riva’s lips curled
into an open, genuine expression that made Daisy’s heart pound.

“Yeah. Thanks for coming. Jo doesn’t like to
get up early on Sundays. And if she is awake, her parents make her
go to church.”

“You don’t have church?”

“My mom
likes
it when I go to church,
but she doesn’t make me. I go sometimes.”

“I never really went. I think my dad’s family
goes, but my mom doesn’t.”

Daisy took off her sunglasses. Now that they
were talking, she didn’t want anything standing between herself and
Riva. “When does your boyfriend get here?”

Riva made a face. “Tomorrow night.”

“You don’t look happy about it.”

She pursed her lips, then scrubbed the heel
of her palm over a streak of sand that had stuck to the side of her
leg. “We’ve been fighting. Maybe not fighting. Arguing?
Disagreeing? I don’t know. Something.”

That should not be good news,
Daisy
told herself sternly.
Don’t smile.
“About that thing you
told me?”

Riva glanced up at her. As naked as her
expression seemed, there was a quality to it that Daisy couldn’t
read. She knew it would be stupid to consider it veiled attraction.
Riva didn’t sound very interested in girls when she talked about
making out with one for her boyfriend’s benefit, but Daisy couldn’t
help hoping.

“Yeah,” Riva said. “He really wants me to do
it.”

An awkward silence settled between them,
seeming to drown out the rhythmic crash of waves and the occasional
calling of seagulls. For a second, Daisy thought Riva was going to
ask her, and she didn’t know how she would respond if she did. Part
of her would do anything for the chance to kiss Riva, but another
part of her insisted she would die if she had to watch Riva kiss
someone else.

Daisy could have offered, too. She thought
about how she could say it, in a casual tone, presenting herself as
a girl who was just super cool, not afraid of anything, helping out
a friend in a jam. But Daisy had never kissed anyone, and she
didn’t want her first kiss to be for some guy’s amusement, with a
girl who was only doing it because her boyfriend was pressuring
her—even if Riva was absolutely the person she wanted to kiss.

Besides, she didn’t know Riva’s boyfriend at
all. What if he expected to make out with both girls after watching
them?
Gross
. Daisy suppressed a shudder. She
totally
didn’t want to kiss Benton. She wasn’t into guys, but more
importantly, she wasn’t into jerks.

Instead of volunteering, Daisy said, “What
are you going to do?”

Riva shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. It
would be nice if…” She shook her head. “Forget it.”

Daisy waited, willing Riva to change her mind
and confess her wish. It was hard not to hope.

It would be nice if I could have my first
kiss with a girl one-on-one, because I like her, not so my
boyfriend can watch. It would be nice to do it at the beach, with
someone like you, right now…

Daisy cleared her throat and tried to get
control of her fantasies. That was probably not what Riva had been
about to say. “You can tell me,” she said gently.

Riva groaned and rolled back onto her beach
towel. This was not the time to notice her body. Daisy forced
herself to watch Riva’s face. She was glad she did, because,
otherwise, she wouldn’t have caught the casual gesture rubbing a
tear from the corner of her eye. Riva blinked as if dripping
sunscreen was what bothered her, but Daisy knew better. She would
have hated to have been checking Riva out while she was actually
crying.

Daisy lay on her towel, keenly aware of the
scant distance that separated her body from Riva’s. She wished she
could pull Riva into her arms, but settled for inching a little
closer.

“What is it?”

“It would be nice if my boyfriend actually
wanted to see me, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s stuff I’d like to do with him while
he’s here, but I don’t really
care
about any of it. If he
doesn’t take me out to dinner, I’ll live. I’m just happy he’s
coming down. Or I was, anyway. This thing he wants—it’s like all he
cares about. It makes me feel like just hanging out with me
disappoints him.” She took a hitching breath. “It makes me feel
like shit.”

Daisy bit her lip. Riva needed a friend right
now, and Daisy’s own desires were getting in the way. She wanted to
declare that Benton was an unmitigated jerk who didn’t appreciate
what he had, but Daisy suddenly felt uncertain. Was that how she
would have responded to Jo if she were in the same situation? Was
that motivated by concern for a person she cared about? Or was that
in her head because she wanted a chance to prove that she could
treat Riva better than Benton ever could?

Riva rolled her head in Daisy’s direction,
the tears clearly visible on her cheeks now. “Thanks for not
answering with some cliché.”

A weak smile came to Daisy’s face. “Honestly,
I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, I like that you didn’t just make
something up.”

“Do you…You can talk about it more if you
want. I can listen.”

Riva started sobbing at that.

Daisy jerked upright alarmed. “Did I say
something wrong?”

“No, no, no. You said something right. I wish
I knew
anybody
else who would say that to me.”

“I guess
I
would say that. You know
me.”

“Yeah.”

Daisy didn’t know what to make of Riva’s
tone. Was she not the person Riva really wanted to be here
with?

Daisy lay down again slowly. She’d said the
right thing, so she should have been relieved, but her muscles felt
more tightly wound than ever. She raked her fingers through the
sand, making perpendicular lines, trying to settle herself enough
to be a friend to Riva.

Gradually, Riva’s sobs slowed. She wiped her
face against her beach towel, wincing and complaining about the
sand that scraped her in the process. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
she asked Daisy.

“Huh?” Daisy’s heart pounded. Her reputation
as a prude was all over the school. She wasn’t used to being asked
about boys by anyone but Jo. “No.”

Riva sighed. “I thought you might know
something.”

“Like what?” Daisy stiffened. She worried all
the time about the things she didn’t know, but she didn’t like that
Riva made it sound like not having a boyfriend meant she knew
absolutely
nothing
.

“Like, I don’t know, about love.”

The word hung in the air as if it had floated
in from the ocean beyond them.

“I’ve never been in love,” Daisy said out
loud. Inside her head, she wondered if she could be in love with
the girl beside her, or at least getting there.

When did staring at a person and wanting to
be near them turn into love? How did people know when the
transition had occurred? What made attraction turn into love
anyway? People talked about “getting to know” someone, but Daisy
doubted that the difference between liking and loving Riva came
down to having a list of her favorite foods or being familiar with
her thoughts on Madame Bellamy.

“I totally thought Benton and I were in
love,” Riva said. “He told me that loving someone means wanting to
help them be better, and he’s always pushing me in these important
ways. I guess I thought loving someone meant being happy when they
were around, and every time I saw Benton I couldn’t stop smiling.”
She was quiet for so long that Daisy thought she had finished
speaking, but then Riva took a deep breath and continued. “Now, I
don’t know anymore. It seems like it ought to feel different.
Better. Something.”