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The Smell of Tangerine: Writing Ex |
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I don't know how to make people like me.
Okay that's a lie. I know how to make people like me; I have plenty of friends who like me. I have girls who consider me their best friend, and a bunch of guys who love hanging out with me more than with their own friends. And though friends are good and all, I can't help but wonder if I could do more. Some times it gets to the point when I want someone to like like me. Or I just really want to know how to make someone like like me.
Anyway, I live in a very pretty neighborhood. It's one of those planned communities that everyone wonders why they have because the houses are almost exactly the same if it weren't for the color scheme. But I like it enough. The lawns are green, the streets are a solid black from constant cleaning, and the houses aren't thin as a starving model. My house is right on the borderline; right behind our backyard is an orange grove, and the smell of oranges always lingers during the summer. Sometimes the wind would make the power lines nestled between the trees crackle. It had always been the most interesting thing about where I lived.
I knew everything about me, my home, the world around me.
That is, until Ethan Marr moved in next door.
And trust me, his family is really weird: his dad and mine are like clones, his mother looks like she stepped out of a 1980s cooking magazine, and his brother's hair and nails are always a different color every time I see him. They own a pet chinchilla that keeps eating the oranges from the grove, and Ethan must have at least twenty pinkish-orange shirts! Yet, my parents invited them to have a dinner party a little less than two years ago after a week they had moved in.
Don't get me wrong, Ethan's a cool guy: he's nice, a bit quirky in his weirdly-colored shirts and jean shorts, but he's average compared to my friends. He likes to stargaze, take random pictures, sleep, and he goes to bed at eight every night. (The only reason I know that is because his room is right outside my bedroom window... and he knows it!) His first words to me were, "Do you always smell like oranges?" Rude much? Ethan may be cute, but, in my book, manners count.
My mom, after tasting Mrs. Marr's to-die-for roast beef, was asked by the Marr parents for me to exchange numbers with Ethan. They were worried he would be confused with a new place, coming all the way from Chicago. Apparently he was a, "shy, quiet, boy," which I later found out was a huge lie, but that's beside the point. I refused at first, but my mom insisted since she REALLY wanted Mrs. Marr's recipe. Thus landing me a, "useless," phone number that I left in my desk, and me being forced to keep my window closed at all times.
But that summer came and went, and the school year was filled with my usual drama: not being able to get my homework done after practice (I play volleyball), screaming profanity because I failed a pop quiz, and all the stuff a seventeen year old girl goes through everyday. I didn't have any major classes with Ethan though, seeing he was an all honors students, as well a keeper of a 4.4 average. But I did have Photography with him.
Turns out he's a good photographer, and I mean really good -he's won contests in Chicago several times. And he took the class by storm; even the teacher was shocked at what he knew about cameras.
Poor, poor California. We weren't ready for a guy like Ethan Marr who would only brighten at the sound of a camera click.
Everyone in that class loved me, and talked to me like a was a famous star. But Ethan didn't. He never did. And though this is a weird random fact, I thought I'd just slip it in there.
Days, weeks, months went by, and though you'd think you'd bump into a guy in a school population of only 600, you're wrong. I never saw him once, and seeing as he hasn't committed suicide, nor has he gone crazy and brought in an AK-47 to school, so I think it's safe to assume he did okay.
And after a year of ignoring him and his freakishly quiet ways, it came back to summer, and the smell of fresh oranges lingered in the air. Of course I climbed the fence of backyard, and sat on the oak tree branches to sleep, or do whatever.
But it was also Ethan's first full summer here in California. His first time with the newly blooming oranges. The moment I had planted myself on the branch, Ethan was already on his family's side of the fence, taking pictures of the blossoming orange trees. For a few days, I dealt with his constant tinkering, and snapshots, and more tinkering. Day five of our summer vacation, I finally got the nerve to talk to him after so long.
"Ethan." The name awkwardly rolled off my tongue. He gave me an eye, then replied with, "Breanne."
At that moment, I realized he never once said my name the entire year he had lived next door to me. Not once. It sounded... kind of weird. Same thing went for my voice.
I couldn't just say, "Hey, would you quit taking pictures?" now. Knowing him, he'd just keep doing it. I remember moving my butt over, and patting the area next to me. "The tree gives a different angle of perception. Might want to try it out."
I swear, if we were in the dark, Ethan's eyes would have glowed.
So Ethan sat next to me, switching settings on his professional photography camera from black and white, to sepia, to normal, back to black and white, to cold colorings, to warm, then he would tinker with the light setting, and flash. And I would just watch him, laughing every so often because his face was just too good to pass up. Then he would give me a strange look, then chuckle himself. We didn't talk much to each other but I'm pretty sure he forgave me for not calling him the whole year, or not saying so much as a single hello.
But after a good week or so of tinkering, Ethan finally got the picture he wanted. He was so excited, and he was shining like the sun above our heads. He showed me on the playback screen, and I had to admit it was absolutely goregous. He made the colors so vivid, but not so that it looked fake, and the sky was that perfect color of blue that everyone has in mind. I could go on for hours about that picture.
But when he took that specific picture, he probably had another agenda going on, since I was in it, sleeping with a comic book on my face.
It turns out all my friends were gone on vacation that summer. So it was just me and Ethan. We talked a bit while on the oak tree, and I had gained the guts to call him once. And when I greeted with his name, my name came off the same exact way his did. In monotone. Plantonic. Bleak. "Breanne."
Most people called me Bree, since Breanne, "didn't fit me." I was too spunky for the name, too bright. I figured Ethan would rather call me me that, but I told him, he only said, "Breanne fits you much more." I never saw his point of view until I repeated in a whisper, "Breanne."
And Breanne I was. Nowadays, when people call me Bree, I sometimes don't respond. Breanne grew on me, and I had the name since I was born. I never knew.
Our summer was spent mostly on that tree, talking about nonsense and photography. He told me stories about his wacky family, how they were the town entertainment center in their Chicago neighborhood. How his brother kept a pet chinchilla hidden for six months without anyone knowing, why his mother loved dirt biking, but hated dirt, his father's intense obsession with Cool Whip, his own love for sale-rack white shirts, and his brother's desire of putting orange and red shirts in with his white wash. He told me why he had to move to California, why he went to sleep at eight every night, why he was so quiet and distant and different, and why his photograhy took him to a world he controlled through a lens.
I laughed, I sympathized, I almost cried, but most of all, I discovered my own life compared to Ethan Marr's. I lived a plain life, and I wanted to describe Ethan's life in a different way. He wasn't so weird anymore. If anything, he was different. Unquie. One-of-a-kind. Maybe a bit off the beaten path, a tad weird, but not weird in a bad way. Weird in an Ethan way, if that makes any sense.
And once again, summer passed, and school started. But this time, Ethan had become a daily part of my life. He was my first good morning, my last, "Later, see you tomorrow." He was the grin in the window across from mine, and the first and only stargazer in my life.
I was the reason he broke his eight o' clock curfew, the pre-judge of a picture before he sent it in to a contest. I became the reason he started to talk to some of my friends without a particular motive, and why he began to open up. I felt good because of it.
We talked, teased, and once in a while, shared a warm silence. People looked at me strange, looked at Ethan even weirder, but I didn't care. Before I got to know him, I would have cared. But Ethan changed me in his own way. Somewhere along in the mix of things, I fell in love with Ethan, and his Ethan way.
I was eighteen by the time prom came up. I had gone to several before, but they were mostly for laughs, and maybe a slow dance with that cutie from third period. But now, there was no cutie. (Okay, there was one in fifth, but we all know who that is.) Only a wish. A hope.
It took him until the weekend before the event to ask me though. And of course Ethan was painfully shy: he barely looked me in the eye, stuttered in his usually smooth speech, and kept the very obvious invitational card and rose behind his back. But when he managed to get it out ("Uh... um, B-Breanne?" "Yes, Ethan?" "Will y-you go with m-me to the dance...?" "Yes, Ethan, I will." "...yes!" wink . My parents were all excited for me, especially my mother who had been excepting this for some time. ("About time that boy asked my baby girl. I was going to complain to Helen -Mrs. Marr- about him." wink
So I bought a dress last minute, and did my hair myself. And like every other prom I went to, the guy got me a corsage. Ethan was no different this time, but I was happy that he matched my outfit (white and purple dress, white and purple corsage, white and purple tux. Perfect.)
The night felt like magic. Dancing was like hell in my heels, but worth it to see Ethan's hand quietly offering a dance. He was a good dancer too, or at least he knew how to waltz. Several of my friends stared and giggled at my, "head-over-heels" lovey dovey look. I didn't care. I didn't need to. It was just me and Ethan, his brown in my brown. Perfect.
The butterflies flew in my stomach, and the blush never faded. I had never felt this way. This was just too perfect, and yet, here I was; dancing with my neighbor, a Marr boy. They say not to covet thy neighbor. But Lord, forgive me, for I have sinned, I had been coveting for some time. I was jealous of how Ethan had such a calm face, and a still-not-nervous smile. I was practically bleeding it.
But prom ended, and we went home, ten at night. But unlike other couples, we had each other through the night. Neither of us had sleep until four in the morning.
Unfortunately, we were seniors, and Ethan had his own dreams. Though he liked me, maybe loved me, his dreams were bigger than my planned community, and orange trees. He planned to, and still does, to go to the American Academy of Art in Chicago, his home town. I couldn't blame him, and I'm still very supportive. Doesn't mean I'm not upset. School ended, and once more, summer came like it did every year. But this time, it might be our last.
So here we are, me and Ethan; Ethan and I. Both eighteen, sitting on an oak tree branch, my head on his shoulder, his head on mine. The sun had long gone down, and the flash of the electricity wires caught my eye as it crackled. The smell of oranges lingered in the air, reminding me of my past summers sitting on this branch without the boy next to me.
"Ethan?"
"Breanne."
"Wanna know something?"
"Sure."
"Is it possible to not know how to make someone like like you, but still know you like like someone?" I ask, a little flushed at my choice of words.
Ethan looks at me, then chuckles. "Breanne. In your case, that's impossible."
I pout. "Why?"
"You know how to make someone," he pauses, then smirks, "like like you."
"Hey, don't make fun of my words," I blush from a small embarrassment. "But how?"
Ethan moves his head to look at me, and I do the same. Shaking his head, Ethan responds with, "Breanne. If you didn't know how, tell me why I'm here."
I c**k my head, and laugh. "Because I made you my bow down to my awesomeness?"
"Really?" Ethan laughs this time, "Well, that's part of the reason why I'm here."
"What's the other, then?"
He leans in. "You made me like you, Your Awesomeness."
I stare, and I ask, "Oh really, Mr. Marr?" Laughing again, I lean my head on his shoulder once more. He placed his head on mine where it was a moment ago. A warm silence breezes over us as I smile.
Suddenly, I feel the vibration of his voice. "Breanne?"
"Hm?"
"When I first met you, you were talking about the grove, remember?"
"Yeah, I do," I give him a pointed look, "You told me I smelt like oranges."
"Well, I have a confession to make, Ms. Carter."
"Hm? What?"
"I never told you this, but, those aren't oranges in the orchard."
I sit up, and look at him. "What?"
He laughs a bit loud than the other time. He looks me in the eye, and whispers teasingly, "Those are tangerines, you idiot."
 Ukeire · Thu Mar 12, 2009 @ 06:36am · 0 Comments |
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