look ancient, with curved wooden cases and glass-plated dials, and some are squat and cheerful. I even think I can hear birds in here, a faint hooting and scratching, until I realize one of the radios is turned on with its volume low.
There’s an unmade bed loosely covered by a black-and-green quilt. A row of red Chinese lanterns hangs above the bed, their bellies glowing. The ashtray on the bedside table is littered with the stubs of incense sticks. I glimpse the soft curves of an ornate velvet armchair piled with clothes. Behind the armchair hangs a painting of the Hindu goddess Kali, her four arms held at right angles, tongue stuck out. The room smells like something I’ve only smelled one time before. It takes me a moment to place it: myrrh.
Skunk plants his hand on the wall and slides off his wet shoes.
“Bathroom’s through there.” He indicates a little hallway with his chin. “The light switch is sort of hard to find. It’s on the wall under the mirror.”
His face is turned toward the floor, concentrating on his shoes. Rainwater slips off his hair and the back of his neck and drops to the floor, making little wet polka dots on the hardwood.
I’m not listening to his instructions about the light switch. Something in the corner of the room has caught my eye. “My grandma had that radio.”
Skunk looks up, smiling. He’s peeled off his wet socks and balled them up inside his shoes. His bare feet are surprisingly pale and hairless.
“Oh yeah?”
“The blue one with the clock on the front. She kept it tuned to this crazy Christian station where they were always telling you to put your hands on the radio and pray for healing.”
“The blue one’s my second favorite,” he says.
“Which one’s your first favorite?”
“See that little red one on the top ledge?”
I scan the wall until I see it.
“The plastic one?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s cute. Where’d you get it?”
“I found it sitting next to a fire hydrant. I was walking past and thought I heard something, and it was this radio sitting on the sidewalk, running on batteries. It was like it had wandered out into the world and gotten lost and it was calling out, hoping someone would find it.”
“Aww. That’s sweet. What was it playing?”
Skunk grins.
“Marilyn Manson.”
I go to the bathroom, and when I come back the rain is slapping horizontally against the glass door. Skunk is sitting on the floor, putting on dry socks. I put my hand on the door. I know this is supposed to be the part where I go home.
But what would happen if I didn’t?
“Well, it was nice riding with you,” I say, reaching up to brush the wet hair out of my eyes. “Next time we race, I get a head start.”
I realize, to my simultaneous horror and exhilaration, that I’m flirting with him.
Skunk pulls on a wool sock, his face carefully composed, as if he’s trying to figure out how far into his private universe he should let me intrude, and for how long.
Stop it, Kiri! says the part of me that’s shocked by my boldness.
The other part says, Why?
I smile at him and cast a mischievous glance at my wet tank top, knowing Skunk’s eyes will follow.
“I wish it wasn’t raining. But I guess it doesn’t matter, since I’m already soaked. Anyway. See you later.”
I turn around to slide the door open before he sees the half-mortified, half-triumphant expression on my face. My heart is beating like a castanet. All right, flirt-monster. That’s enough for one night. He obviously doesn’t like you. My fingers find the plastic handle.
“Wait,” says Skunk.
chapter twenty-four
The rain doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
So I stay.
Skunk tiptoes upstairs, and when he comes back down he’s carrying a small clay teapot and two tiny cups without handles. We sit cross-legged on the rug in the middle of the floor, drink our tea, and talk in whispers so his aunt and uncle won’t hear. I can’t stop looking around the room, stealing glances at the radios, the lanterns, the junk-store painting of Kali, the quilt on Skunk’s bed. I still can’t quite believe I’m in here. Part of me’s on my wet bicycle, making her disciplined, hard-working, and responsible way home. It takes all my self-control not to chicken out and follow her.
Between thimblefuls of smoky, earthy tea, I make Skunk tell me the story of every radio in the room.
The boxy green one he found on top of someone’s trash.
The antique one