Our Own Private Universe. Robin Talley

      One of the nice Mexican ladies who’d served our meal came over to clear our plates away. I jumped up, ready to help her, but she laughed and put her hand on my shoulder, pushing me gently back onto the bench. The same thing had happened at lunch. I’d always been taught to help clean up when I was someone’s guest. One more adjustment to get used to.

      The sun was almost down. Seeing the church ladies in their dresses carrying our plates inside reminded me that I hadn’t cleaned up after work today. None of us had, but still, I felt scuzzy and sweaty in my paint-spattered, too-small clothes.

      (That was another thing Lori was annoyed at me for. I’d gotten paint and dirt on her clothes. But what was I supposed to do? I didn’t have any of my own clothes, and everyone got paint and dirt all over everything today.)

      I stretched my arms over my head. Once dinner was over we had to go to vespers. Every single night we were here, the chaperones would take turns leading us in prayers and songs so we could reflect on the work we were doing. I’d never been much for reflection, but I was a preacher’s kid, and I could play along with the best of them.

      “Hey!” I yelped suddenly. Someone was tickling my armpit.

      At first I thought it was Brian, and I was ready to yell louder if I had to, but when I turned, Christa was there. “Oh. Sorry! Hi.”

      “Hi.” Christa pulled her hand back. She was giggling again. “I couldn’t resist. You do that a lot, you know?”

      “What, stretch?”

      “Yeah. Is it because you’re tall? Do you need to flex your limbs and stuff?”

      Christa was smiling, but I didn’t smile back. I wasn’t going to act as if everything was normal.

      “No,” I said. I decided to head her off before she could ask any of the other questions everyone always asked me, too. “And no, I don’t play basketball.”

      “Sorry.” Her smile faded. “I didn’t mean to...”

      “Hi.” Next to me, Jake stuck out his hand. “I’m Jake. You’re Christa, right?”

      Christa’s head swiveled toward him. “Uh, yep, that’s me. Hi, Jake.”

      “Want to sit with us?” Jake scooted over on the bench to make room.

      “No, thanks.” Christa fumbled with her hands. “Listen, Aki, do you want to go somewhere for a second?”

      I glanced around the table. Jake suddenly seemed very absorbed in his food. No one else was paying attention to us.

      I followed Christa around the corner of the house. We couldn’t go far, not with vespers in a couple of minutes.

      The view back here was incredible. On the bus ride in from Tijuana the day before we’d mostly seen hills and sparse trees and a pretty, golden landscape. Since we’d arrived in this tiny town, Mudanza, we hadn’t seen that much besides houses and churches. But now Christa and I were standing on the town’s northern edge, with Mudanza on one side of us and empty country on the other. Ahead of us were hills, valleys and trees as far as the eye could see, with a painted pink sky to frame it all.

      Christa was walking toward the hills now, into the last sliver of sunlight. It shone on her dark hair and reflected off her long bead necklace. She was wearing a fresh, clean T-shirt that clung to her body and jeans that looked brand-new and paint-free. She must’ve changed for dinner.

      She turned around and smiled at me over her shoulder. “I missed you this afternoon. I mean, I wound up less covered in polka dots compared to this morning, so there’s that. But it turns out painting by myself is way more boring than getting polka-dotted by cute girls.”

      I stood motionless. “You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend.”

      The smile fell from her face. We’d passed the peak of the hill. When I looked back, I couldn’t see the rest of our group. We were alone out here.

      “I—” She paused and took a breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you that way. It sort of slipped out.”

      “Slipped out?” How could she be so casual about this? And right after she’d said that thing about getting polka-dotted by cute girls that made my insides want to melt? “Who is he?”

      “His name’s Steven. He goes to a private school in DC. I met him at drama camp a few years ago. He’s a really talented actor.”

      “Oh.” I tried to stick my hands in my pockets, but Lori’s track pants didn’t have pockets. I stuck my thumbs in my waistband as though that was what I’d meant to do all along.

      I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Christa had flirted with me, but it wasn’t as if she owed me anything. If she’d flirted with me even though she had a boyfriend, he was the one who had a right to be annoyed about that, not me.

      Plus, I wasn’t exactly in a position to be self-righteous about telling the absolute truth. Not when I was still straight-up lying to her by acting like I still did music.

      The boyfriend thing hurt, though. A lot.

      We’d made it to a little valley between two rows of hills. They were sort of hills-slash-sand dunes, now that I looked closer, with trees scattered along the peaks. We couldn’t even see the town behind us anymore. We’d barely come any distance at all, but it was as if we’d gone straight into the wilderness. It was cool enough that for a moment I stopped thinking about how upset I was.

      “Wow,” I said. “It’s gorgeous out here.”

      The sun was almost down. Everything was gray and hazy. All I could see were sand and hills, trees and sky.

      And Christa. She was gorgeous, too. She was biting her lip and brushing her hair out of her face and looking at me with her steady brown eyes and I wanted... I didn’t even know what, exactly. I just wanted.

      “You’d like Steven,” Christa went on. “He’s really smart and funny. Open-minded, too.”

      “Great.”

      “Yeah. We’re actually a really modern couple. Steven hates all those old-school rules about how relationships are supposed to work, and I do, too.”

      “That’s great.” I wished she’d shut up about Steven.

      “Everyone’s stuck in this 1950s mentality,” Christa went on. “As if people still ‘go steady.’ I mean, what a boring idea, that you’re supposed to be with one person all the time and never so much as look at anyone else. Haven’t we evolved past that as a culture?”

      I was about to reach my breaking point with this conversation. “What are you talking about?”

      Christa looked down at her hands. “The thing about Steven and me is that we’re taking a break for the summer.”

      “A break?” I watched her closely. “What does that mean?”

      “You know.” She met my eyes for a second and then looked away, her shoulders shifting. “We don’t believe in that old-fashioned rule about how you always have to be totally monogamous. It isn’t human nature, you know? So, since I was coming down here, we decided we’d take the summer off from our relationship. So we could see other people for a little while. If we wanted to, I mean.”

      “Oh.” Ohhhhh. “So you mean—he was your boyfriend up until this week, and he’ll be your boyfriend once you get back home, but right at this moment, you’re boyfriend-free?”

      She nodded. “That’s the general idea.”

      “Why didn’t you tell me about him last night?” My annoyance was fading fast, but I tried not to let it show. This kind of changed everything.

      She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I should have. Steven and I agreed before I left town that we’d both be totally up front about the whole thing so no one gets the wrong idea.”