Catching Rainbows

3

We got our cups of shaved ice, Chloe's half blue and half red, mine with root beer syrup. Her wavy hair was held back with her turquoise sunglasses and she shielded her eyes with her hand to look around, sipping from the pink straw. 

"I've never been to this flea market. We always go to the Valley one."

I tore my eyes away before she caught me staring. Again. "This one's smaller, but has better stuff. Plus it's a little higher quality, meaning some loser isn't going to grab your ass."

She gave me a knowing look. "I've had that happen there; it's the fucking little aisles so close together, it's like being on the subway in New York. You can't even tell who did it." 

"I've never been to New York," I said, stirring the ice that was quickly turning to slush and drinking a little of the overly sweet syrup.

"I visited there once with my mom." The corner of her mouth rose but her eyes were sad. "She . . . passed away."

Wow. "Mine too," I blurted out.

Her eyebrows went up. "I'm sorry," she said, which should have been my first response to her.

I shook my head. "I mean, I'm sorry too." 

She nodded. "Thanks. Recent?"

My palms were sweating. "About a year ago." Please don't ask me what happened.

"It's been almost two years for me. When I was twenty." Her smile faltered. "I know a lot of people don't get along with their moms, but mine was cool." She looked at the rest of her drink, which was turning purple as the colors mixed. "Sorry, not to be a downer."

I shook my head. "Not at all, I get it." I hesitated as I saw her check her phone. We'd only been there two hours but I didn't know what else she had to do. "You probably need to get back home?"

She drank and rolled her eyes. "Uh, no. Keith is off today, which means he's home, which means I try not to be." She glanced my way. "Being here's pretty great though."

I choked a little and coughed, trying to remind myself she was just being friendly. "Agreed," I said in what I hoped was a totally casual way, then gestured to the many booths in front of us. "Here's to other people's trash becoming our treasures," I said, holding my snow cone out.

She touched hers to it, and I looked at the different rings she had on. The only one that hadn't changed was the infinity sign. "I still need to see your tattoo sometime," she said easily, reading my mind. 

"It's not that exciting," I demurred, my heart speeding up at just the thought. My stomach rumbled. "C'mon, the food's this way."

"Yeah, first things first," she agreed.

We got corn dogs to start with and then little parfaits with strawberries in between the layers of chocolate frozen yogurt. Chloe stopped at every jewelry and crystal table with hungry eyes and I spent most of the afternoon watching her be excited. She was childlike in her enjoyment of things, and I was more than a little enthralled. Everyone was nice to her, giving her things for free or lowering their prices. 

"Carnival glass!" she said at one point, holding up a little dish that turned kind of smoky pink when she turned it a certain way. She now had on a flowery scarf that she'd gotten for a quarter, six new bracelets in various bright colors, a necklace made from turquoise rocks, and a floppy sun hat with a white ribbon. "We used to have this huge collection . . . my brother sold it for drug money or whatever. Pretty, huh?" She manipulated it again so it caught the sun. 

"Twenty dollars, hon," the tiny Asian lady in the folding chair told her. She blew a big bubble with pink gum and popped it.

"Oh, I'm just looking, but thanks." She set it back down and kept moving. "Have a nice day."

"You too," the lady responded automatically. 

Two steroid-loving good old boys in their mid twenties were coming the other way, and they appraised us as they nudged each other obnoxiously. "Hey, sexy," the slimier one said in an overly masculine tone to me as we passed, his A's hat grimy and sweat-stained.

"Nope," I said easily in dismissal, distaste on my face. I didn't hate men, though I rarely seemed to run into decent ones.

"Fuck you, bitch," he retorted cleverly. 

I refrained from laughing. I'd heard it a million times. Guys thought they were entitled to a girl's attention. Gross. 

Chloe did laugh. "Wait, is he joking? You're so far out of their league," she smirked, snorting in derision. "As if."

"Also, I don't like guys," I joked truthfully, and then thought oh my God what if she didn't know already and she hates queer people and we're going to have a huge fight right now about it in the middle of the flea market.

But she just side-eyed me as she ate the last bite of her churro and tossed the greasy wrapper into a nearby metal garbage can. "I know."

My heart calmed down. But wait, did she mean she figured because of how I was crushing on her or did I act especially gay somehow or . . . ? I was too tired to think straight. No pun intended.

"Your rainbow stickers on your car," she continued. "Which I love, by the way. Anything rainbow is my aesthetic."

Was she saying she was bi? Ahhh why didn't we have on buttons that just said it, this was torture. What if I asked her and she said no and was embarrassed because she thought I was interested? I mean I was interested, of course I was, but if she was straight it would come across awkward, right?

I needed a fucking manual for being a person.

"Same," is all I said, and I sounded super casual. I mentally patted myself on the back. 

"Also this is for you, speaking of rainbows," she said, handing me a little pin. It was a white unicorn with multicolored mane and tail.

Totally me. "I love unicorns!" I said. I did now anyway. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome so much."She grinned. "I had to be sneaky so it would be a surprise. Wait, is that coffee I see, yes! I totally need coffee right now. With lots of cream and sugar." Her eyes lit up and she did her animated-dance-walk toward it, looking back with that charming smile to make sure I was following. As if anything could have kept me from doing so.