My cheeks flushed. “I don’t name my stuffed animals.”
He passed it to me. “I think you should.”
I hugged it to my chest. Put on the spot, I couldn’t think of anything clever. “Well, it’s a bird, so . . . Birdy?”
“Birdy,” he repeated, looking me in the eyes. He ran a thumb over the head of the stuffed toy, his knuckles brushing the neckline of my shirt, the top curve of my breast. He didn’t seem to notice, but I shivered. “You cold, Birdy?”
It fit perfectly in my arms, the first thing a boy had ever given me—and not just a boy. Manning. “Birdy’s warm.” I nodded. “Birdy’s perfect. Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
“Look what I won.” Tiffany strutted over, her arms barely meeting around the middle of a giraffe as tall as her. She grinned. “And I didn’t even have to throw a single ball.”
“You going to carry that thing around the whole park?” Manning asked. “We’ll have to buy it its own ticket.”
She laughed. “Of course not. It’s as big as me. You are.” She shoved it at Manning, who tucked it under his arm, looking much less annoyed than I felt.
When I glanced over at the Ferris wheel, Manning noticed. “Still want me to take you?”
I curled my fingers into Birdy’s soft, velvety fur. I couldn’t have been happier. “No, it’s okay.”
Tiffany took Manning’s free arm and guided him away, leaving me to follow behind them. “Thank you for taking care of her,” she whispered loudly. “My dad will love you for it.”
“Dad?” I asked. “You’re going to introduce them?”
“No.” Tiffany looked back at me, and then up at Manning. “Well, maybe. Would you, Manning?”
“Would I what?”
“Meet my parents.” She squeezed his elbow. “You could come over for dinner.”
Manning, at the dinner table? With Dad? Tiffany had brought home two guys before—an older man who owned a tanning booth and a guy with dreadlocks. Neither had lasted a week past dinner. Dad didn’t even like Tiffany’s friends, much less her boyfriends. He went out of his way to make them feel small, and Tiffany knew it.
“I don’t think he should,” I said.
“Don’t be rude,” Tiffany said.
“But you know how Dad is.”
“How?” Manning asked.
I recited my mom’s excuse for Dad whenever he insulted someone. “People just don’t get his sense of humor.”
“Manning can handle it,” Tiffany said, trailing her fingers over the giraffe’s neck. “Can’t you?”
Tiffany’s words from the other night came back to me. The construction workers pissed Dad off, and she liked that. Maybe she even wanted it.
“Is it all right with you?” Manning asked me.
“Why should she care?” Tiffany asked.
“Because I’ll be eating dinner with your family, and she’s an entire quarter of it.”
“You want to come?” I asked.
He looked back at me. “Might be a good idea to meet your parents.”
He said it to me, not Tiffany. He wanted to meet my parents. And while I should’ve felt uneasy about it, the idea that Manning had any interest in my life had the opposite effect.
It made my heart soar.
7
Lake
My dad rarely took days off, unless it was for something he deemed more important than work. Not much fell into that category, but USC always did.
That was why¸ at four o’clock on the Monday after I’d gone to the fair, my dad and I were finishing up our annual visit to the campus. My dad proudly called me a prospective student to the other parents on the tour, and I wore an old Trojans t-shirt that’d belonged to him before he’d shrunk it in the wash.
This year felt different than our past five visits. I really was a prospective student now, only two years out from starting here. As college sharpened on the horizon, the students around me no longer seemed ancient. They were just a couple years older than me. I’d even gone to school with kids who attended now. Female students wore strapless tops, cut-off shorts, and bared their midriffs. A boy rode by our tour group on a skateboard. I’d never even been on a skateboard, and showing too much skin was a punishable offense at my school.
When the guide dismissed us for the afternoon, Dad pulled me away from the crowd. “You heard what she said about starting college classes now?” he asked. “Since USC is too far of a drive, we can sign you up at a community college to get some credits out of the way.”
“My teacher said a college class might be too much at my age.”
“Your teacher’s an idiot. It’ll be Disneyland compared to where you’re headed. You should have no trouble keeping up.”
If he believed I could do it, then I’d try. He’d pushed me to take advanced classes all my life, and although they were hard, I’d always earned A’s.
The buildings were large and named after people. Students came in and out of every door, disappearing around corners or zipping by us. “How old were you when you came here?”