Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,61
true. I can tell you don’t believe me, but it’s true. He was driving by when I dropped Beauty off at the gas station on Eighth for an oil change, and asked me if I wanted a ride. I told him I was going to your house to see you, to make sure you were okay, so no thanks. But he was kind of insistent. He said he’d wait in the car while I talked to you. If you didn’t notice, it’s really hot today, and I really didn’t feel like walking the three miles back home. Really. You don’t have to be jealous.”
I snorted. “Me? Jealous? Why would I be? You and I aren’t together.”
“Yet,” she said, her voice low. She had me there. If I could grieve for children I never had, miss a woman I never even met, then of course she knew I could have jealousy for a relationship that hadn’t even started yet.
“Whatever,” I said, trying to play it cool. “Okay, so you and Sphincter aren’t anything.”
She started to speak, but then stopped short and burst out laughing. “Sphincter?”
“It’s a term of endearment.” I looked over her shoulder, to where Staring Lady was watching us like someone would watch one of those caught-on-tape shows. This time she was standing up, as if readying to throw herself over the cash register in case we tried to start any, as people her age called it, “funny business.” “Can we … go?” I whispered, motioning to the woman.
Taryn turned and saw her, then said, a little amused, “Oh, so now you’re okay with being seen with me?”
“Until I get a better offer, I guess,” I answered, and she followed me out the door. Five minutes later, we sat outside on Central Avenue, watching the first of the beachgoers making the trek back home as we shared an iced tea from the Park Bakery. I liked sharing it with her because I knew her lip gloss tasted like strawberries. It reminded me of how it would be when I, or if I, got a chance to kiss her. Maybe I let my lips linger on the mouth of the bottle too long, maybe it was obvious how much it excited me, because she allowed me to drink most of it.
“I don’t even like sunbathing,” she said, watching a family of beachgoers trudging down the block. She winced and pulled a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes. “I can never get comfortable. I try to read and I get sand in my book. The sun hurts my eyes. Parts of my body always fall asleep. I end up burning in places and being completely white in others. I never tan. Of course, you know this already.”
I looked at her legs. They were perfect. White, yeah, but sunbathing couldn’t improve them. One of my most prominent memories of Sue was her lounging in a beach chair, wearing big sunglasses, her red hair tossing in the wind. I’d never had a memory like that of Taryn. Most often when I thought of her, I thought of her indoors. “Whatever happened to it? The Mouse.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“The Mouse. Your sailboat. You told me that was what you used your red bikini for. You made it into a flag for your sailboat, since you never went to the beach.”
“I never told you that,” she said. At first I thought she was so weirded out she was going to run away, but then she said, “It got smashed in a nor’easter. When I was nine or ten. But by then I didn’t really want it anymore. I was kind of done with it, just like I was done with sunbathing.”
“And the whole sunbathing confession is because …?”
“Sphincter, like you call him. That’s all he does. He lives to tan. His life is so pathetic and empty. I can’t believe you would think I’d … Please.”
I laughed. “I bet every other girl in school would please him.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”
“Well, he totally wants you.”
She didn’t seem impressed, just played with her bracelet. “Duh, they all do.”
“Conceited much?”
“It’s not conceit. I told you. I told you that people like him are drawn to me.” She seemed really annoyed. I must have stared at her too long, confused, because she finally spelled it out for me in a whisper. “He’s Touched.”
I nearly choked on my own tongue. “Hell he is.”
“He is.”
“I’ve known Sphincter for years. We used to be best friends, back in the