The Trouble Is

Chapter 30: Working the List

It's Monday morning, and Katie and I are at the local nail salon listening to everyone chatter. I love the sound of the fast-paced conversations. I love how easy they make it look to slip in and out of conversations with strangers. It's a kind of music, I think, like jazz.

Katie thinks they are talking about her—maybe her hair or her makeup or whatever. Katie always thinks people are talking about her. I'm pretty sure they have nothing to say about either one of us. I think they are planning their next trip back to the beach or talking about what's on sale at Wal-Mart.

I'm getting a flower on the nail of my right hand's ring finger. It's one of those summery flowers you see on beach towels and at summer parties. Katie's getting glitter nails in a neon pink.

"So how was the date last night with Number Three?" I ask.

Katie sips her Sonic drink slowly, as if she's actually giving this some thought. I know that if it had gone well, he would no longer be Number Three. She gave her virginity to Aaron, also known as Number Two, and he didn't last through the next day.

"Meh . . ." she says.

"That's an avoidance word," I say, quoting our school counselor. "'Meh' can mean anything at all."

"Or nothing at all," Katie acknowledges. "Today it means that he was just not enough—not good enough, not cool enough, not sexy enough. Number Three is a goner."

"So where to next?" I ask. "You've met your stretch goal from the summer list already."

"Yeah," she says. "The list has evolved. It's now the list of boys who I might want to date."

"You do realize how backward that sounds?" I ask. "I mean, most people figure out who they want to date before randomly losing their virginity."

"I like random," she says.

"So the newly evolved, randomly ordered list of potential boyfriends has replaced the list of guys I might want to have sex with," she says with a laugh as she crunches a piece of ice. (There's no ice like Sonic ice.) I wait for her to finish, guessing there's more.

"The list is not in any kind of ranking order," she explains. "It's just a list. I work it based on opportunity. I've crossed off three candidates, counting Number Three. So, there are five options remaining. I saw Number Four last night out with Lisa Thornberry. They looked pretty hot and heavy, so I guess Four is out for now. That leaves four more possibilities, unless you have any suggestions for narrowing this."

I don't have any suggestions. I get that K viewed her virginity as a state of being, not as something tangled up in emotion and meaning. I'm not saying it's a good girl / bad girl thing. I'm just saying it was more like a Band-Aid that just needed to be ripped off. She approached it with military precision, like a tactical operation. And just because the mission was achieved, that was not a reason to abandon the list as a whole.

I can tell that something is up with K. She seems kind of hazy around the edges, like she had too much to drink last night, got into an argument, or was secretly plotting to go somewhere or do something that her parents would not appreciate.

"Did something happen last night?" I ask. "Something with Three?"

"No," she says. "It was just so boring. So, how was the Fourth with East?"

"Are you deflecting?" I ask in reply.

"Stop using therapy words on me," she says, laughing out loud. "That's cheating!"

I know we are not going to get any further on the topic. So, I tell her all about it, starting with the baptism, covering the fireworks at the lake (which were just OK) and even the sandwiches. Naturally, she focuses on the baptism, but not with any concern for Doug's mental health—just questions about the meaning of East agreeing to be part of our family.

"He loves you, Annabelle," she says. "I think he truly, madly, deeply loves you."

I think about this a bit while waiting for my nails to dry. I'm not sure what that means, really. It's not as if he's standing there with a poster board that says "To me, you are perfect" like the guy in one of my all-time favorite movies, Love, Actually. East doesn't tend to use a lot of words, whether they are spoken or written. But I can't help but think about him sitting on that worn-out picnic table with Doug, agreeing to be baptized, agreeing to be part of us in the worst time ever.

It's one thing to hear the words whispered in my ear. I can close my eyes and practically hear the way he said it the first time, all quiet and low: "I love you." I thought that was my dream come true. But now I know that it's another thing altogether to see the words put into action. And I don't mean movie action, like silently holding up a poster board or making some kind of grand gesture. It seems like those movie scenes say more about the guy doing the grand gesture than they do about the true feelings. Love is an easy word to throw around, but it's a hard word to implement.