Page 38 of Sizzling

Another laugh.

Yes, I am a riot. Just laugh and continue to push this.

“Noted. No baseball. How about music? Concerts?”

He wasn’t going to let this go, and I needed to get upstairs. My night was booked.

“You seem really nice, and”—I glanced around to see at least three women looking this way now—“there is a gym full of women who would be thrilled to go out with you. I bet they’d even sit through a baseball game, awake. But this one”—I pointed to myself—“is a mess. Complete disaster. I’ve got more baggage than anyone should have. The last five relationships I had were because the men were rich and I’m a gold digger. Run away, Ajani. Save yourself. I’m vile,” I told him, then flashed him one real smile because I’d just made myself want to laugh before walking past him and toward the exit.

When I reached our apartment door, I pulled out the key and swiped it, then went inside. Dovie was already dressed in a pair of green shorts and a T-shirt that had The Floor Is Lava on the front. We’d bought it at a thrift store last summer. It was one of her favorites.

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes,” I told her.

She held up the book in her hand to show me, which translated to, “I’m not in a hurry. I have a book to read.”

“Okay, make that thirty then,” I called out as I hurried to the bathroom.

We both knew that it was going to take me a solid forty minutes, but Dovie was good with the lie.

Dovie covered her mouth to keep from spitting her food and then coughed before taking a drink of her soda.

“I think it’ll keep him away. Don’t you?” I asked.

I had just told her about the man in the gym and what I’d said to him while she had a mouthful of pad thai in her mouth.

She swallowed, then signed, “What did he say next?”

“Nothing. I left him there before he could respond. But really, what could he say to that?”

Dovie’s grin spread across her face as she twisted more noodles around her fork. She refused to eat her pad thai with chopsticks, no matter how hard I tried to convince her how much more fun it made the meal.

“I work Saturday night, of course, but I was thinking we’d drive to the beach that morning and do beachy things.”

She laid her fork down and signed, “Beachy things?”

“Yes. Beachy things. Eat ice cream, lie out on the sand, eat seafood, go buy ugly shirts from the gift shops. The tie-dyed ones that match. That kind of thing.”

She shook her head. “No to the shirts. But I like the other stuff.”

“What about slightly tacky shirts that match?” I suggested.

She mouthed the word, No, then stuck a spoonful of noodles in her mouth.

“Oh, come on. Can you even say you’ve been to the beach if you don’t buy the shirt? We can get cropped ones that are tacky and sexy. All at the same time.”

She shook her head while she chewed.

“You used to be more fun,” I told her. “You know, back before puberty hit.”

She swallowed her food, then stuck out her tongue at me.

“It’s true. Back in the day, when you’d wear matching shirts with me, dance in the car while going down the road, drink those slushies that turned our mouths blue. Those were the days.”

She put her fork down, then signed, “I’ll still drink the slushies.”

I placed a hand over my heart dramatically. “Small blessings! We will go get one and take it to the movies with us.”

She scrunched her nose at me. “Not there.”

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