“Hurry up before we get caught.”
My best friend, Tristan, waves me forward into the Children’s Center.
The metal screech echoes.
We tiptoe into the darkening room.
Tristan thumps my arm.
“I told him I’d emcee,” he says in his signature podcast radio voice.
“Can’t let my boy down.”
“It could be like From theMixed-Up Files of Mrs.
Basil E. Frankweiler, but like the library edition,” I tease.
“A slumber party.”
He doesn’t remember how many sleepovers we used to have.
How he’s been a snorer and sleep talker since kindergarten.
“We read it in the fourth grade.
Mr. Ahmed assigned it.”
“I don’t have the kind of memory you do.”
I wave my latest scrapbook journal at him.
“If you self-reflected more and actually documented things, maybe you would.”
“Or if I’d been born with genius-level memory like you, elefantita.”
He tries to touch the retro elephant-print scarf I have tied around my pin curls.
Sweat soaks the edges of it and I fiddle with the bobby pins holding it in place.
I can feel my bangs start to puff; the perfect victory roll headed for disaster.
This retro look isn’t going to make it until the party.
I smooth the front of my romper.
But I need everything to go perfectly tonight.
It was always a new elephant something with every birthday or Christmas.
My room is filled with them.
Small reminders of him everywhere, making sure I could never forget.
“Do they really have good memories?”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“Who is everyone?”
“You’re acting funny.”
I kick at him.
“Your face looks funny.”
“The ladies don’t complain.”
He pushes my leg out of the way.
Don’t even try it."
I sideswipe him as we investigate the room.
He turns on his flashlight app.
The glow of it makes his dark skin perfect.
We are giants weaving through all the tiny chairs and tiny tables.
Almost like everything is sweating, if that’s possible.
“I’m not done yet,” I say, ducking down another aisle of books.
Let’s call it.
We need to get to Brooklyn.
Twig’s waiting."
He glares over the bookshelf at me, triumph tucking itself into the corner of his mouth.
“You took too long.”
“The party doesn’t start until like ten anyways.
We’ve got plenty time.”
I run my fingers over the tiny book spines.
“You’re trying to run down the clock.
You’re scared.”
I stare back at him even though he can’t fully see me.
“The clock is done, yo.
He chases behind me.
“And you’ve been too quiet.
I round the corner and cut off his path, reaching up to shove his shoulder.
He’s so much bigger than me.
“You know what I mean,” he says.
“I don’t .
so enlighten me.”
“Something’s up.
Spit it out.”
“You’re paranoid.”
I turn away from him.
My phone lights up.
Another text from my other best friend, Grace.
She’s asking me if I’ve told him the thing.
The words are all jumbled up inside me.
“Is this because you’re leaving?
Everything will be here when you get back.
I can feel you tripping.”
“I’m not,” I lie.
“Stop distracting me.
You’re a cheater.”
“Fine, ask for a redo.
I know you want to.
I’m ready for all the whining.
Blame the blackout, Lana.”
You’re already getting all butthurt.
You’re just scared I’ll win.”
“I usually do.”
“Let you tell it,” I spit back.
“Stay lying.”
“You ever get tired of trying to beat me?”
This is the game between us.
Always a bet about who can do whatever thing the best.
Not hello or hi or even hola.
Not We’re your new neighbors or We just moved here from Miami.
He just handed me the tres leches cake his mother made and challenged me.
At eleven, he almost drowned at the Kosciuszko Pool after saying he could hold his breath the longest.
And today, at eighteen, it’s this: What’s the best book ever written?
But whenever he loses, he twists the whole thing to make himself the winner.
That’s really his favorite part.
There’s always a story that lingers long after the bet.
Tristan lives for the shit-talk.
I clutch my scrapbook journal tight to my chest.
The pages threatening to expose themselves, the fragile rubber band barely holding it all together.
“Stop trying to cheat.”
I take a stab at focus.
I try not to let him get into my head.
I try not to get distracted by everything I promised myself I’d tell him today.
“We gotta get back to Brooklyn.
Twig’s been sending me mad texts.”
He flashes his phone screen at me.
“He keeps saying I’m not there for him anymore.”
Tristan’s dad moved him and his sister to the Bronx at the beginning of the summer.
Now, we meet here.
Halfway between Bed-Stuy and Mott Haven.
But everyone in the old neighborhood misses him.
He’s the key in that leaves behind a gaping hole.
“You still have my mic at your house?”
“Yes, for the hundredth time.”
His podcast equipment is still tucked under my bed where he left it.
“But a bet’s a bet.”
“You really going to pick a kiddie book?”
He pulls back his locs into a ponytail.
“That’s your idea of the best book ever written?”
“Children’s books are the reason you even like to read.”
I was made for this challenge.
Plus, Gran used to read to me on summer nights like this one.
My last name shouldn’t be Beauvais.
It should probably be Livre or Mots or something that translates to books or words or story.
He won’t beat me.
[2]The truth: I have something to tell you.
And I don’t know how, so I’ve been lying.
But what happens when those feelings are yours?
[3]The truth: But will you?
Or will you find another girl who fills the space I leave behind?
Your memory is so bad.
Not episodic like mine.
Will you remember everything the way I do?
Will you replay it like I do?
What happens when we both leave?
Copyright 2021 by Dhonielle Clayton.
Used with permission of Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollins publishers.
