Who Do You Love(38)
Author: Jennifer Weiner

“Everything?” He grabbed a broken bottle. “That could take a while.”

“We have time.”

He watched as I pinched a scrap of newspaper in my fingers. “If that’s how you pick up trash, we do.”

“What happened with your arm?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t remember much. They did an X-ray, and they splinted it. I had to go back for the cast.” With one hand carrying his rake and the other full of trash bag, he had to use his forearm to wipe his forehead. “My mom wasn’t happy.”

I remembered his mom, her cloud of hair, her booze perfume, the way she’d talked to Andy, like he was an adult who should have known better. “So what else?” I asked. “Where do you live? Any brothers or sisters? Or pets?” Or girlfriend, I thought, and decided I’d figure out a way to get that question in the mix.

“It’s just me and my mom in Philadelphia,” he said.

Alex clapped her hands and, at her instructions, Andy and I started raking the lumpy ground. I edged myself closer until I felt his shoulder brush mine. Heat bloomed on my skin, and my heartbeat quickened. I was trying to think of what else I could ask him when he said, “Do you do sports?”

I shook my head and touched my chest, the ridge of scar invisible underneath my shirt. I wanted to see if he’d remember. I wanted him to look at me—at my waist, my legs, and my hair, my best feature, the one thing everyone noticed and praised.

“I like reading,” I said. Andy made a face, his heavy brows coming to a V over his eyes.

“Not my favorite.”

“I can guess,” I said, smiling.

“What do you mean?”

“That letter you sent. You had the unhappiest handwriting I’ve ever seen.”

“Unhappy handwriting?” His mouth twitched upward. When he bent down to scoop up the weeds. I could see the bulges of his vertebrae against his shirt, and I could smell soap and clean cotton. “What are you talking about?”

“You had these tiny little letters, like it hurt you to write them. Like you were being charged for every drop of ink.” I followed along as Andy put his rake against the wall, picked up a pile of lumber, and at Alex’s instruction, carried it to a spot on the dirt. I grabbed a piece myself and followed along. “Have you done this before?”

“What, volunteered?” Andy asked.

“No. Built a house. You look like you know what you’re doing.” It was true. His movements were quick and assured, graceful and practiced, which made him a contrast to the boys and men in my life. My father’s household skills started and ended with replacing the batteries in the garage door opener. Jonah was so lazy that even if he’d had any kind of innate abilities to deal with broken lamps or grumbly garbage disposals, he’d choose to stay stoned in his bedroom instead.

“I’ve got a friend who’s a repairman. I help him out sometimes.”

“I think our repairman is a pervert,” I said. This was true. The guy my parents called for home repairs was named Norman. He had a droopy, hangdog face and seemed to always have his hands in his pockets, and once, I’d seen him staring when Marissa and I were in the pool.

“My friend isn’t a pervert,” Andy said, and started taking longer steps, so that I had to hurry to keep up with him.

“I didn’t say he was! Not all handymen are perverts!” I set my piece of wood down. “Although actually the guy who cleans our pool is kind of creepy, too.”

“You have your own pool?” He sounded impressed. I wanted to tell him that everyone on my street had a pool, that a pool was no big deal, but I thought that maybe, for him, it was.

Andy scooped another armload of wood, and made a face when I picked up another single piece. “You can’t carry any more?”

“Sorry, I’m a delicate flower.”

“You were carrying that big duffel bag last night. What was in there, anyhow? Your entire wardrobe?”

I tried to remember when Andy could have seen me with my bag. He must have been watching me, I thought, feeling giddy, watching when I hadn’t noticed.

“How do you know about my luggage? Were you spying on me?”

“No.”

“Oh, you were,” I said. I’d teased boys before, gotten them to laugh, but I thought that if I could get a smile out of Andy it would be better than all of their laughter combined. “You have that look. You’re obviously working for the CIA.”

His lips twitched into an almost-smile. “How about this time you try two sticks of wood, princess?”

“As much as I’d like to contribute more of an effort, the thing is, with wood I could get a splinter, and that could get infected, and then I could get really sick,” I said. I liked when he called me princess, especially because Jewish American wasn’t in front of it.