I raise my hand just a bit and wiggle my fingertips at her. She motions me forward.
A roar erupts from the crowd around the TV, and I jump, startled. Whatever game they’re playing is a bloody one. Someone’s avatar is laid out in what looks like a war zone, decapitated. One boy jumps up off the couch, controller in hand, and does a victory dance.
The girl raises a camera from her lap and puts it to her eye. It’s old-fashioned, the kind with knobs and dials. I can hear the click from here as she takes the dancing guy’s picture.
Cameras everywhere. The world is full of them. I feel weary, like I’m a thousand years old.
The girl lowers the camera and beckons me again, more aggressively this time.
I glance at Liz, but she’s still talking to the guys. I steel myself for potential social humiliation and approach. She leans her head back on the wall to look up at me as I arrive in front of her. A curtain of black hair falls away from her face, revealing dark brown eyes with winged eyeliner.
“Hey,” she says.
I am tongue-tied. She’s beautiful in an artsy, vintage sort of way, a fair-skinned Latina with glossy dark hair and full, pink lips. Her jeans look intentionally worn out, like they were bought somewhere expensive. My jeans cost thirteen dollars at Ross. I wonder if she can tell. Her shirt is a V-neck, and I am not going to look at her cleavage.
Her eyes flick down to my hands, which I’m wringing so hard they’re going numb. “You having a good night so far?” she asks.
I force myself to pull them apart. “Sorry. But do I know you from somewhere…?”
“You don’t know me. But I know your friends.” She points to the guys Liz is talking to.
“They’re not my friends.” I sound like a bitch. “I mean—I don’t know them. My best friend does.”
“Oh good. Because they’re assholes.”
I laugh. “Wow. Okay.”
“What? They are.”
“You’re not, like, worried I’m going to tell them you said that?”
She furrows her brows at me and then calls out, “Lucas. Lucas!” She waves a hand wildly until the guy talking to Liz looks over.
“What?” he yells.
“You know I think you’re an asshole, right?” His friends laugh loudly.
“Fuck you, Veronica.”
She blows him a kiss and looks at me deadpan. “There you go. He knows.”
I’m stuck between awe and embarrassment.
She pats the floor next to her. “Come and meet my new cat friend, Perkins. Help me find things to take pictures of. I’m so bored.”
I search for Liz over my shoulder. She catches my eye, waves at me, and returns to her conversation.
I guess that’s her giving me permission. I lower myself onto the floor. The cat shoots me a suspicious glare from its little cave beneath her knees.
She smiles at me. “I’m Veronica.”
“I’m Mick.”
“Like Mick Jagger?”
“It’s short for Micaela.”
Her smile gives her a pretty dimple in her left cheek. “Can I call you Jagger?”
I can’t help but smile back. “Sure.”
“Where are you from, Jagger? I’m assuming you don’t go to Bonita. I’d have noticed you.”
“National City.” I wait for her to make a face or a joke, but she just nods like this is normal and interesting.
“What brings you to Bonita? Do you know people here? Besides the assholes?”
“I came with…” I try to point out the girls who drove us here, but I’ve lost them. “I don’t know where they went. Some girls Liz met.”
She’s got her head cocked and is studying me clinically. “You have interesting bone structure. It’s unique. Your cheekbones are exactly even with the bridge of your nose.”
Before I can come up with a response to that, she raises the camera. Reflexively, I duck, lifting my hands to cover my face.
She lowers the camera. “Whoa, dude, you act like I pointed a shotgun at you.”
My chest feels tight. “I hate having my picture taken.”
She pushes the hair out of her eyes. “How much do you want to bet I can take a good photo of you?”
“No, no, no.” I push myself off the ground. “I should get back to Liz.”
She grabs my hand. “Whoa, whoa, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you hated it that much. I won’t take your picture, I promise.”
I look down at her hand on mine. My nails are short, always flimsy and dull from the chlorine in the pool. Her hand is elegant, artistic. She moves her knees aside to reveal the cat’s head. “Give Perkins a little pet. She’s feeling shy tonight. Maybe you have that in common.”
I reach out to the tabby. Perkins has decided I’m not a monster and rubs her forehead on my knuckles.
“Petting animals is therapeutic,” she says. “They’ve studied it.”
It’s true that I feel calmer. I’ve always wanted a cat. I sneak a look at Veronica. “What kind of camera is that?”
“It’s a vintage Nikon. It was my dad’s. You want to hold it?” She pulls the strap over her head and hands it to me. I accept it cautiously, and she’s right, I kind of do regard it as a weapon. “It’s heavier than I expected.” I turn it in my hands to study it.
“This is the aperture, the focus … This is the shutter, you know, where you take the picture.” She points out each part as she names it.
I lift the camera to my eye and look through the tiny window. Inside the rectangle, Liz and the guys are laughing hard about something. Liz’s eyes are alive with excitement.
Veronica says, “Go ahead and take a photo.”
“Are you sure? It’s going to be blurry.”
“Can’t be worse than the shit I’ve been wasting my film on all night.”
I play with the focus dial, feeling like a professional, and take the picture with a satisfying snap. Veronica shows me how to advance the film with my thumb, which has an interesting clickety sensation.
I like the feeling of control that comes with being on this side of the camera. I should torture Liz for a change, or, even better, my mom. I should take subversive unflattering photos of them, post the pictures on the internet, and say what they always say to me: “I don’t know why you’re being so sensitive.”
I hand the camera back to her. “Thanks.”
She loops the strap over her neck like she’s done it a million times. “You want to walk down to 7-Eleven and get something to eat? This is boring, right?”
I don’t know Veronica, but I want to escape from this house. And if I’m being honest, she’s different, and cute. I want to talk to her alone.
Liz is drinking a beer and looks happier with me off her hands. Besides, I’m starving.
I smile at Veronica. “Okay. Sure. Why not?”
CHAPTER FIVE
VERONICA
The stucco facades of the Spanish-style houses glimmered in the streetlights. The palm trees tossed in a breeze too high to touch us. The warm air smelled like the desert, a hot summer smell. We walked in silence at first, her hands clenched by her sides. Everything about her felt anxious and tight, like I was making her uncomfortable just by being there.