“This is nothing. Watch people downhill skate through an intersection with no spotters.” I try to picture it and realize all the regular safety precautions I take in my everyday life.
“Have you ever done it?”
“Without spotters? Hell no. That’s a great way to get run over. I skated down the hill from your house once, though. It was pretty fun.” The hill my house is on is steep. And suddenly this new confident, take-charge side I’m seeing is starting to make sense. Maybe I did have some assumptions about her. Now I’m scared and intrigued. “I know what I’m doing. I promise,” she says.
I’m about to say I believe her when she steps closer and kisses me again. Suddenly my heart’s beating a lot for reasons that have nothing to with her risk of bodily injury. She pulls back all cool and calm like and looks across the park like she’s scoping out where she’s gonna do her next trick.
“Joke’s on our parents. They wanted us to be educational bingo buddies, but now we’re just being gay together in Long Beach,” she says. “And we like jazz.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Joke is on them, jazz is amazing.”
She smiles, just a little bit but it’s enough. My heart’s definitely gonna burst. I can’t stop myself from kissing herthis time, and she kisses me back until the women roller-skating across the park start hooting and hollering, telling us to get a room.
We stay at the park for a few hours. Heaven shows me just how good she is, and I stop worrying about her shattering her whole body every time she launches down a different ramp. It’s kind of hot, actually. I know she’s a good artist, but it’s amazing watching how smoothly she kicks and pushes around, does different tricks like it’s nothing.
Later we go to a pizza place nearby, and she listens to my impassioned speech about how I think pizza is the perfect food, but my evil sister Stella doesn’t like it, so we don’t have it a lot. I tell her I envy her only child status, and she jokes that I’m right to be jealous. God, I love her.
Heaven suggests we head back to Culver City, so we don’t get stuck in rush hour traffic on the 405. She doesn’t drop me off at my house, though. We go back to her house and play with her dogs, watch moreLove Island USA, and eat a ton of Starburst. When Dr.G gets home and asks if I want to stay for dinner, Heaven agrees and says I should. So I do. I don’t know how many best days ever you’re allowed to have, but this one is going on the list.
29
Saylor
I remember a lot of things from when Stella and Scarlett were born. How cool I thought it was that there were two of them. How cute they were and how I used to pretend they were my little baby dolls. I love them so much, but it has been so nice not having them around getting into my makeup and stealing my clothes, and today those little punks come back. They leave again in two weeks to enjoy their time at soccer clinic and stunt camp. But for now, I have to pull back from this perfect new love bubble in my life so I can be around to intercept deliveries for their party while my mom is busy retrieving those two little demons from camp.
Not that I can completely blame her, but apparently Stella got sick of people confusing them, so she took some craft scissors to her hair and turned her long brown-blond curls into a choppy bob. Stella realized a good twenty-four hours later that it’s harder to get away with twin crimes when she has short hair, so two days ago, while I was busy falling for Heaven, she dragged Scarlett back to their camp’s craft room and convinced her to cut her hair.
Mom called it a Parent Trap and then immediately forced me to watch the movie with her while she was editinggraphics. It was a fun movie, but I think my mom needed the humor to keep from crying. All three of her daughters have betrayed her online branding based around our hair. Her rebellious sunshine girls. She’s taking them to get their hair properly trimmed. After, we’re going out to dinner as a family.
I feel a little bad that all three of us have betrayed the long blond brand that made my mom who she is today, but I’ve really settled into this burnished red—that’s what my aunt calls it—so Cristine is just gonna have to deal. Also, I’m pretty over the continued hate from her followers. Imagine thinking I’m not a ten in every single situation. How embarrassing.
Sweets by Sophie delivers a million cupcakes right on time, and they help me get them safely stored in the extra fridge. I give them the cash tip Mom left and then I’m free to get on with my life. I flop down on the couch and FaceTime Heaven. She answers right away.
“Hey.”
I immediately blush and tuck my chin under the BlackPink sweatshirt Heaven let me borrow the other day. “Hi. What are you doing?”
“Drawing. I’m trying to work on some more realistic portraits for my portfolio.”
“Oh, can I see?”
“Here.” She turns the camera around and shows me her tablet. “I started this one of Miss Anita this morning.” There’s a picture of the best mail carrier in the world tagged up in the corner of the screen and then there’s a simple butspot-on sketch of Miss Anita from the shoulders up filling the rest of the space.
“Cutie! That’s so good. It looks just like her. Are you gonna show it to her?”
“I’m thinking about doing a small painting. I don’t want to freak her out by being, like, I’ve been thinking about you. I just had to draw you,” Heaven says. I laugh.
“No, she’ll love it. I’d freak out if you did a painting of me. But in a good way.”
“I did do this,” she says, and then she moves her fingers across the screen and another illustration comes up. Well, not one. There’s five, and again they’re all me. The reference photo in the corner is a picture Heaven took of me at the skate park. There’s a large portrait in the middle of the screen, and then around it are a bunch of smaller Saylors making different faces. One where I’m smiling so wide, one where I’m pouting, one where my lips are puckered waiting for Heaven to kiss me, another of me winking while sticking out my tongue between my teeth. She’s captured the fading traces of the scratches on my cheek, my freckles, and the exact color of my eyes and my burnished red hair. And she’s drawn little hearts everywhere. I can’t even feel silly for tearing up.
“Cutie,” I whisper. “These are so good.”
“Yeah?”
“Um, yeah. You should be so proud of yourself.”
“I am.” She turns the camera around and I see she’s blushing a little bit.
