The extra series 1, p.12
The Extra Series, #1, page 12
“Quite,” I return, feeling like it wouldn’t be out of place if I offered my hand for him to kiss, like in a Jane Austen novel.
Instead he reaches in and kisses me full on the lips, stealing my breath and every thought of Jane Austen or previous bad dates. Once the initial shock passes, I respond to the kiss, to the prickles of warmth spreading throughout my body, sparking in my vision like fireflies.
All too soon, he pulls back with a smile. I wish I knew the kind of words Anna-Marie might say, the words that would bring a man like this back to our apartment to keep kisses like that coming.
But my mouth betrays my brain, fumbling out, “Okay . . . well.”
“Yeah, well.” Amusement crinkles the corners of his eyes. “I’ll call you?”
I like that he makes it a question, as if seeking my approval.
“That would be great.”
“I think so, too.” He gives me one final grin, turns and heads off down the sidewalk, rounding the corner past Fong’s and out of my sight.
I get my car door open and melt into my seat. That was beyond amazing. A movie kiss, but in real life. In my real life, of all things.
Is this what kissing Will is like?
Before my treacherous thoughts can lead me further down that path, I turn on my radio and blare Katy Perry. My lips still tingle, all the way back to the apartment, and I do something I never do, even alone in the car with no one to hear me: I sing along.
I am still singing—though quietly—as I walk up the steps to our apartment. The words die on my lips when I reach the landing.
Sitting on the floor, leaning against the door with his head propped against his knees like he’s sleeping, with a large cello case at his side, is Felix.
Twelve
I couldn’t take it anymore.” Felix’s hands wrap around the warm mug of coffee I hand him, but he doesn’t drink, just breathes it in and sets it down.
“Mom and Dad’s problems aren’t your fault.”
He shrugs. “Maybe. But I’m making them worse.”
I’ve never seen Felix like this. His skin is pale and drawn, eyes red-rimmed and drooping. A red mark stains his jawline, as if he cut himself shaving like he used to as a teenager. His clothes are rumpled, slept in. From what I can tell, all he has with him is his cello. No matter what, he’d never leave that behind.
“Are you still using . . . whatever you’re using?”
He gives me a baleful look, and tugs at his long sleeves until the edges cover his knuckles. “No.”
“Well, that’s good.” I can’t tell whether to believe him. He looks like hell, but could that be withdrawal? Though wouldn’t that have taken place at rehab, whenever that was? There’s too much I don’t know, too much I’m afraid to ask. “You’re welcome to stay with Anna-Marie and me, but you know Mom and Dad will figure out where you are.” They probably already have. As soon as I get Felix settled in on the couch, I check my phone to find a dozen missed calls and texts from Mom.
“I know. Whatever, right? They’ll probably just be glad I’m not in jail again.”
Jail? Again? I work to hide my dismay. Felix needs someone on his side, and I’m not going to get there by freaking out like our parents would have. Still, I can’t help my curiosity. “What happened, Felix? I mean, last I heard, everything was great. New York was great, Juilliard was great. You really need to find a new adjective to describe things, by the way.”
He drums his fingers on our cheap thrift store coffee table. Despite looking like he spent most of the week on a park bench begging for spare change, his fingernails are meticulously trimmed and clean. He always keeps them that way, never willing to touch his precious cello with anything less.
“Got in with the wrong crowd, I guess,” he says, but I don’t buy it for a second. Felix used to hang out with the wrong crowd plenty in high school, unbeknownst to our parents, but he was never tempted by the drugs and binge-drinking that fueled their fun. He was like a laser pointed at Juilliard, at musical greatness, and nothing got in the way of that focus.
Except something had, apparently.
“Felix, I—” I am cut off as our apartment door opens and Anna-Marie sweeps in, a smile stretched so wide across her cheeks her face looks about to split.
“Okay, don’t judge me, but . . . Oh, hey.” She stops, her coat halfway off her shoulders, blinking between Felix and me.
“Anna, this is my brother, Felix. Felix, Anna-Marie.”
He glances up, but only long enough to return a mumbled “hey,” before returning to studying the coffee mug. Felix has flirted confidently with friends of mine almost as gorgeous as Anna-Marie, but right now he looks drawn into himself, a lost child waiting for his parents to claim him at the mall security office.
Anna-Marie’s blue eyes widen.
“I’ll get you something to eat,” I say to Felix, though he doesn’t appear to be paying attention. “I’m sure we have chips or something.” I’m not actually sure of this. Anna-Marie went shopping last, and her snack indulgences are unsalted almonds.
She follows me into the kitchen, which is only about six steps from the living room, but is separated by a wall.
“What’s going on?” she asks, as soon as the wall blocks Felix from view. “Is he high?”
“Of course not,” I snap, though really, I have no idea. But I don’t like her judgy tone. “He needs to get away from our parents. He’ll just crash on our couch for a day or so.”
She bites her lip, and I can see she wants to say something, but is holding back. Finally, she gives me a small smile. I dig through our snack cabinet. Just as I feared—almonds, rice cakes, the crappy kind of trail mix that doesn’t even have M&Ms. I really need to go shopping with her next time. I settle on the rice cakes, which at least are supposedly cheese flavored.
“I . . . Uh, I might not be here for the night,” Anna-Marie says, leaning back against the counter a little too casually.
“Really? And whose place will you be at?”
She picks at her fingernail polish, a bright cherry red that matches her lipstick. Which I now notice is smudged. “Ryan Lansing.”
“HD?”
“Seriously, his name’s Ryan.”
“And seriously, I thought you were over guys like him. All looks and no substance and all that.”
“Substance can be overrated.”
I sigh, but I can’t really blame her. It is HD, after all. Even after knowing what a tool he is, even after tonight’s amazing kiss with Sean, I know I’d still get a little weak in the knees if HD ever paid me the slightest bit of non-kale-related attention.
“If you need me to stay, though, I can.”
It’s nice of her to offer, but I shake my head. “It’ll probably be easier on Felix if it’s just him and me for tonight, anyway.”
“So I take it the blind date didn’t go well?”
Of course Anna-Marie would assume that. When she has a blind date that goes well, she’s never home by 10 PM, unless the guy gets brought home with her.
I twist my lips, considering how to answer. “Actually . . .”
“You kissed him! Oh my god, Gabby!”
“Should I be insulted that my kissing a guy warrants you having a heart attack?”
“What about your two-date minimum rule?”
I blush, thinking of Sean’s lips on mine, his hand pressed firmly against my back. “Two-date minimum rules can also be overrated.”
Anna-Marie looks impressed. “Nicely done. Well, I expect to get all the details tomorrow.”
“Likewise,” I say, though I’m not actually sure I want all the details of Anna-Marie’s night. Sultry Sins-level narrative becomes more awkward when you actually know the people whose genitalia are being described.
“Here, you deserve better than rice cakes to celebrate with.” Anna-Marie opens a lower drawer full of pot holders we never use since we never cook, and reaches underneath to withdraw a half-eaten bag of Spicy Nacho Cheese Doritos.
“Anna-Marie, you are a devious little minx.”
“We all need our vices,” she says with a wink. “And since I’m off to indulge in my other vice, you might as well enjoy this one. Have fun with your brother.”
She grabs a sweater from her room, and though she tries to make it seem casual, she locks the bedroom door behind her, something she never does. I try not to take it personally. She doesn’t know Felix, doesn’t know that he would never steal anything.
Would he?
I bring the bag of Doritos out to the living room, ready to use as much delicious high-fructose corn syrup as necessary to pry free more information about what happened in New York, but Felix has fallen asleep sitting up on our couch. One of his arms hangs over the side, his hand resting on his cello case like it’s a teddy bear, a comfort to ward off nightmares.
I bring an extra blanket out from my room and cover him with it, moving Anna-Marie’s Xbox controllers off the other cushion so he can stretch out later. I leave a note on the coffee table saying that he can stay as long as he needs to. Then I text my Mom, telling her that Felix is fine and with me. Before I turn my phone off to avoid the inevitable freak-out replies, I notice I have a message from a number that is becoming welcomingly familiar: Courtney from Passion Medical is telling me to report back in on Monday morning.
I stuff the Doritos back in Anna-Marie’s hiding space (after stifling a brief desire to ransack the rest of our kitchen to see if she has any other secret stashes she’s been keeping from me) and decide to make it an early night. I pull out the community college course guidebook, flipping through the pages I’ve dog-eared with possibilities. Tomorrow afternoon I have a CPR class I signed up for last week, a three-hour certification course I actually had to pay for. It seemed like a good idea at the time, actually learning something medical-related, given all my time in a fake hospital. I sigh, imagining how I’m going to bungle this next one. One more thing to be terrible at.
You’ll get there, I hear Sean tell me, and in my mind his face is a strange mixture of his own face and Will’s. Sean’s lips and Will’s dimple. Sean’s boisterous laugh and Will’s intense green gaze.
I fall asleep dreaming of the best kiss ever, not sure which of them it is I’m actually kissing.
Felix is gone when I wake up, though he has scribbled a note of his own on the bottom of mine: Thanks for the couch, see you tonight. I have no idea where he’s gone, but his cello is gone with him. I hope that’s a good sign. Maybe he’s out auditioning for a local orchestra or even just enjoying a sunny day in the park, playing for passers-by. I’d much rather imagine that than him spending the day passed out in some rat-hole somewhere, surrounded by needles.
I consider calling my mom, seeing if she’ll tell me the whole story, but I can’t get caught back up in their drama as well. I know too well how this works. Mom will barter information about my brother to get me to convince my dad that he’s wrong, or to get me to call Dana and make her apologize for yelling at my parents.
I’m done being their emotional errand girl.
Besides, Felix will talk to me. I know he will. He just needs more time, needs to remember how we used to stay up late and share everything, even when we were in high school and it wasn’t super cool to be best friends with your sibling.
I turn on my phone, and see the replies from Mom: Is he okay? Tell him to call me. Gabby, call me when you get this. Just Mom, checking again to make sure Felix is fine. Tell him he should come home. Your father is thinking of calling the police.
Among these expected replies is one very welcome and unexpected one, from Sean: Hey, I had a great time last night. Maybe we can do it again next weekend?
It’s enough to make me smile despite Mom’s threat of calling the police on my brother. It’s enough to make me sing in the shower and put on a nicer t-shirt than usual, even though I’m going to be spending the day at the community college learning how to save the lives of mannequins.
A guy like him—cute and smart and possessing more than the most basic level of social competence—actually likes me. Actually kissed me and wants to see me again. My whole opinion of blind dates has reversed dramatically, along with my view of what kinds of guys would be attracted to me. Maybe I am not invisible. Maybe I am not an extra in everyone else’s life movie. Maybe I have a movie of my own.
This sunny outlook only lasts until about forty-five minutes into my CPR certification course.
Once again held in the now all-too-familiar community college (which I’m starting to feel more at home at than I did at UCLA), there are about fifteen other people here with me, a more motley assortment than even in the world of extras. The instructor is a brisk woman who appears to be in her late fifties or early sixties, and who wears a too-tight polo shirt bearing some sort of accreditation logo for saving lives. Her thinning red-dyed hair hangs in wisps around her face, and her dark eyes focus intently on each of us one by one as she speaks about how these next three hours could be the most important of our lives.
I’m all for learning the Heimlich in case someone at Fong’s eats their Kung-Pao pizza rolls too quickly, but I somehow doubt my life’s turning point will occur in a community college multi-purpose room. Then again, if there’s not at least the chance of that, what the hell am I doing at all of these trial classes? After all, my blind date taught me that maybe I should give things more of a chance.
Be a risk-taker.
And so I listen intently to several stories from her days as an EMT, which are admittedly pretty interesting, if a bit filled with descriptions of various exposed organs. I pay close attention to the video she shows about the Heimlich maneuver and CPR, both adult and infant. I take dutiful notes, and manage not to snicker with my classmates at the terrible acting and questionable fashion choices in the video.
This will be better than cake-decorating or acting class, I determine. This is quantifiable. I learn the techniques, I do them, I get my certification. It seems gloriously easy.
And then we are asked to find a partner to team up with. Much like in high school gym class, everyone seems to naturally drift to each other, leaving me standing there clutching my notebook to my chest and praying that just one person notices I exist. I hate the sick feeling that settles in my stomach, the reminder that one good date hasn’t changed my inherent invisibility.
No. I am a grown damn woman, not a high school wallflower anymore. Drawing a deep breath in through my nose, I spot a younger Hispanic girl standing off to the side by herself. She looks about seventeen, wearing shorts with ripped hems and a thin hoodie printed with some anime character I don’t recognize. Her dark hair is cut in a pixie style with a green streak on one side. Probably some teenager being forced to take this to keep her regular babysitting gig. She hasn’t looked up from her phone a single time the entire class, from what I can tell.
“You want to be my partner?” I ask, trying for a cool nonchalance.
Her eyes flick up to my face just long enough to coat me with disdain. “Whatever.”
I take that as a yes.
We are given a dummy that is basically a vaguely male head and torso and nothing else. I suppose arms and legs aren’t really part of the CPR process, but I’d feel better about being able to save an actual human being if my dummy was more than just a rubber chest.
I practice chest compressions, checking and re-checking my notes for the proper intervals. Steve—the name I’ve given our torso—is in good hands. Not my partner’s, who still hasn’t bothered to look up from her phone or do more than murmur “yeah, sure” when I ask her if she’s paying attention. It probably shouldn’t bother me that she isn’t, but the teacher is right. Someday we could save someone’s life with this, someone who is more than a rubber torso and creepily unformed face.
There’s something so concrete, so methodical about the motions. I can do this, and a bit of pride blooms in my chest.
“One more time,” the instructor announces. “And then we’ll move on.”
I start again, determined to get this one thing right, this one skill learned. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pause, unsure whether I should take the call. It could be Anna-Marie, needing rescue from HD’s lair of sexual conquests. It could be my mother, ready with a high-powered guilt trip. It could be Sean.
The teacher isn’t watching, and heaven knows my partner isn’t, either. I pull the phone out just as the “missed call” signal flashes. It wasn’t from any of them.
It was from Felix. Felix, who never calls, who only rarely texts. Felix, who could be in god knows what kind of trouble right now.
“Your patient is dead.” The instructor’s voice is flat and somehow right beside me. Apparently they teach ninja-level stealth in EMT school.
“Ah, no, I just . . . Steve’s fine.” I should shove the phone back in my pocket, but I can’t. I need to call Felix back, make sure everything’s ok.
“Steve?”
“The, ah, the patient. Sorry, my brother just called, and—”
“Oh, no problem. Of course if your brother calls, you should take a break from saving a life. Please, call him back.” The sarcasm is so heavy I am offended on behalf of comedic subtlety itself.
“I did the compressions. Several times. Correctly. I have notes.” I look to my partner for some kind of support, but she just watches us with wide, innocent brown eyes. Her phone apparently can detach from her hand, because it is now jutting out of the tiny shorts pocket as if it has been there all along.
“So I only now just happened to look at the very moment you decided to play Candyville on your phone?” The instructor’s nostrils flare out. They are incredibly wide from this close and towering above where I kneel beside the dummy.
