Page 33 of Olivia's Only Pretending
Itook out my earrings, rolling my eyes at Lucy’s text. Victor Hernandez was a magnetic force of a man. Of course I’dwondered what he’d be like as a boyfriend. He’d be a great boyfriend, just like he’s a great best friend, but he was not ready to be aseriousboyfriend to a woman about to enter her thirties, which was the type of boyfriend I needed. My heart could not handle any other kind of boyfriend right now.
As I showered and brushed my teeth before bed, a memory from late July kept playing over and over in my mind, like a wave to the shore.
It was a late evening, after eight p.m. Victor was a volunteer at the Church of Sweet River’s VBS at the request of his nieces and nephews, and earlier that day, he’d called me to see if I could pick him up that night after work. His truck’s starter was having some troubles, so he’d taken it over to Roger’s Auto Shop, and they’d have it for a couple days.
I wandered into the church that night, walking through the same old wooden door that had once felt so heavy to my tiny girl hands. Wandering down the same aisles where I’d dropped petals as a flower girl at weddings.
And there, snoring across an old wooden pew, lay Victor Hernandez. I’d grown up seeing him out of the corner of my eye and in passing at this very church on Sunday mornings, but his circles had never overlapped with my circles. Different grades, different friends, never officially meeting.
Until that day in the coffee shop.
My forehead crinkled as my gaze settled on him. Victor’s dark brown hair was streaked with blue and green paint. His face was drawn all over with colorful face paint. As I studied him closer, I realized it was on his arms and hands in messy, colorful circles. I grabbed his sneaker and shook it.
He popped up, blinking. “Liv?”
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
“Those rugrats can really wear you out.” He rubbed his eyes.
“I’m loving the look.” I bit back a laugh.
“Oh, yeah, I’m covered in paint.” He glanced down at his arms. “VBS has an Under the Sea theme. The pre-K group tried to turn me into a mermaid—or, merman, I guess.”
“Oh.” I looked at the circles on his arms again. “Those are supposed to be scales. I can kind of see it now.”
“Hey, for a preschooler, these scales are pretty darn good.” Victor flexed his biceps. I tried to resist the urge to ogle. He was on a pew, after all.
“How was it? Besides being turned into a merman?” I asked.
A few kids whose parents were talking in the lobby were squealing and racing around. Their sandals slapped against the tiled floor.
“Loud, high energy. So much fun, I required a nap after. I remember coming to VBS as a kid. It’s cool to see it from the other side now.” Victor stood up from the pew, running his fingers through his messy, colorful hair, accidentally spreading the paint.
“My sisters and I used to be the kids painting the volunteers.” I bumped my shoulder into his.
“By the way, my mom is requesting my presence at family dinner, if you don’t mind dropping me off at my parents’ place instead of my place?”
“Sure, that’s no problem,” I said as we headed toward the lobby.
“She also extended the invitation to you, if you want to join. My dad is out back flipping burgers on the grill.”
There was a surge of butterflies in my stomach. I shouldn’t care so much what his family thought of me, but I did. I’d adeptly avoided meeting his parents. His eyes were on me, though, big and hopeful.
“Sure,” I said. “I can stop by for a few minutes, at least.”
The gravel crunched underneath my tires from the country roads as I drove up to the Hernandez house. Victor’s family grew up on acres of grassy land on the edge of Sweet River. I could imagine a young Victor running barefoot across this property he called his backyard.
I was so nervous, I barely responded to Victor’s excited chatter, telling me how that old tree was where a big tire swing used to hang that he and his brothers broke a couple years ago when they all piled on it one night after a couple of beers. And that shed over there was where he tried to start a band when he was fifteen that was a complete failure from the first practice. And if we walked far enough down their property, beyond all those pecan trees, there was a stream that he loved to sit by and think.
I kept nodding along to his chatter as we walked up the steps of the sprawling farmhouse. He turned the doorknob, all excitement and joy, and I swallowed the big, dry lump in my throat.
No, I didn’t want to examine why I cared so gigantically much about what his family thought of me.
“Mom,” he shouted as the door shut behind us.
I resisted the urge to grab hold of his arm, or hand, for comfort, following him across the hardwood floors.
I glanced around, mentally wishing I could pin the open-concept home to my Pinterest boards. If we walked toward the right, we’d be in the formal dining room done in reds and creams, but if we turned left, which, as I followed behind Victor, we did, we entered the big living room with walls covered in family photos and comfy couches and armchairs.
