NOTE: Edited Version. It's like, my fourth draft of the thing. And if I see any part of this story anywhere else without my permission, YOUR. A$$. IS. MINE. I worked too hard on this story to have it stolen, so look no touch. 'kay?
-U
PS: I copied this off of my computer's typing... thing. So the font cahnges didn't transfer, and I'm not going back to change it. You'll get the idea when it's meant to be italized, bolded, etc.
The Smell of Tangerine
xxxx Summers of Citrus
I live in a very pretty neighborhood. It's one of those planned communities that once you see one house, it’s pretty much the same with the rest of them except 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 as thin as starving models.
My house is right on the borderline of the community; 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 was the most interesting thing about where I lived.
I was an average teen, with average grades, and an average outlook on life. And like some teens, I’ve had my fair share of experiences with the opposite sex. Nothing special about that. But hey, it felt extraordinary back then! I thought I was living the perfect American teenage girl dream. Everything was continuous. And it was okay with me, really! I knew everything about me, my home, the world around me. I thought that this was life.
That is, until Ethan Marr moved in next door. He proved me wrong on so many levels.
And trust me, his family is really weird: his dad and mine are like identical green polo shirts from Target, his mom 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, despite all the features I just listed, my parents decided to invite them to have a dinner party after a week they had moved in.
Don't get me wrong, Ethan was an all right guy: he was polite, a bit quirky in his weirdly-colored shirts and jean shorts, but I considered him average compared to my out-going (and party-loving) friends. He likes to stargaze, take random pictures, sleep, and he went to bed at eight every night. (The only reason why I knew that is because his room is right outside my bedroom window... and he knew it!)
It was the summer of my junior year when Ethan moved in. Like usual, I was sitting in the oak tree that overlooked the orange grove in my backyard. The second I saw my parents walking the Marr family into the backyard, my eyes were immediately attracted to him (after a milli-second of staring at his brother). When we were first introduced by my parents, I had tried to make casual conversation with him, by mentioning the orange grove. His first words to me were, "The oranges we have here smell weird then."
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 I ended up getting a, "useless," phone number that I left in my desk. I also ended up keeping my window closed and cell phone off all summer much to my irritation.
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 volleyball practice, screaming profanity because I failed a pop quiz, and all the stuff a sixteen 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.
Back then, I was considered, “popular” or “untouchable” to most of the class. I still am - oh, I’m not cocky! - but it showed more discernibly in this particular class. Everyone in that class loved me, and talked to me like a was a famous star. But Ethan didn't. And neither did I.
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. I knew he had made friends with a few others like himself (secluded, artsy-fartsy, and cocky in his own aspect).
After a year of ignoring him and his freakishly quiet ways, it came back to summer like it always did, and the smell of fresh oranges lingered in the air. Of course I climbed the fence of the 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 poor things had been dying when he had come in late August, so I had wondered if he would even bother to look this go-around. Lo and behold, 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 from dawn until dusk. 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. It felt scratchy and bizarre, something I wasn’t used to.
I couldn't just say, "Hey, would you quit taking pictures?" after realizing that. Knowing him back then and now, he'd just keep doing it to annoy me. 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 has scrambled to get over the fence and sat next to me, switching settings on his professional photography camera. He went from black and white, and 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, and 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. Or at least I had hoped so.
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 gorgeous. 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. The white flowers were blooming, grinning at their brightest moment. The petals were all over the oak tree. 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. I think his intention was obvious. Then again, it could just be me over-thinking things.
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. Bleak. It was like the first time I said his name again: it felt bizarre.
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 that, so I told him he could call me Bree. He only said, "Breanne fits you much more."
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 how much it fit me. Guess it took someone who had the will to think distinctly for himself, and not someone who wanted to fit in for me to get it. It was so weird.
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 Ethan’s white wash. He told me a lot.
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 photography 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 with words other than strange (albeit it still fits it nicely). He wasn't so weird anymore. If anything, he was different. Unique. One-of-a-kind. Maybe a bit off the beaten path, a tad eccentric, but not in a bad way. Eccentric in an Ethan way, if that makes any sense.
We liked each other. And it was dreadfully obvious for almost half the year. So yeah, we had never went on a date together, albeit my attempts to seduce him into asking. Sure, I had forced him to watch a movie with me (along with my parents and his brother) but we never went on a real date. Either my parents wanted to come, or his, and occasionally, his colorfully-worded and shaded brother would tag along.
We were seventeen in the summer that he asked me if we could go to the Pro Photo Expo in San Francisco together. His mother and father had their anniversary the day our one-way tickets specified, my parents were working, and his brother - Darien - had never been interested in cameras. Though I wasn’t as interested in cameras as I was in Ethan himself, I jumped at the chance to be completely alone with him.
I had never seen a teenager run around like a two year old. But there he was, running around in that convention center like a two year old. The second we were in, Ethan was sprinting like a mad man everywhere he could run to. He had brought his own camera (a Nikon D3. The thing is absolutely fabulous, and even an amateur like me could see it!) and there must have been at least seven men that were twice our age hovering over him, and giving him pointers, and Ethan giving more back. And for five hours, Ethan dragged me, and his new cronies around.
The guy ended up buying two new tripods, another Nikon, and for some strange reason, a sticker of Snoopy. Me? I bought popcorn when Ethan challenged another photographer to a debate on the issue of how the zoom affects the shutter speed, in which, Ethan lost, but had made his point admirably.
Okay, so it wasn’t really considered a date to a girl‘s eye. But Ethan made it up to me by taking me to dinner at Gary Danko’s. It’s a swanky American place with food that, “even his mother was jealous of,” or so quoted from the Marr boy himself. Ethan bought half the menu. He then brought most of it back home for his chef of a mother. It was pretty good.
We spent the rest of the night running around the streets of San Francisco and well… I spent it hoping to get my first kiss from him with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. And I did get that kiss.
That one moment definitely made everything up.
We ended up falling asleep in the cab, and the cab driver ended up getting out of the car in order to wake us up. Ethan and I are heavy sleepers, apparently
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 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.
We talked, teased, and once in a while, shared an awkward 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 for a slow dance with that cutie from third period. But now, there was no cutie. (Okay, there was one in Photography, 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." "...heck yeah. Darien owes me twenty bucks…" 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 out. 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 even though I hinted it about a hundred times.
Prom came, and though Ethan didn’t rent a limo (he lives right next door, so I didn’t really blame him) I was still very happy with the BMW he drove around. The night felt like magic. Dancing, and even just walking, was like walking on nails in my heels, but it was worth it to see Ethan's hand quietly offering a dance. He could dance too, or at least he knew how to waltz… to a certain extent. 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 eyes in my brown eyes. It was perfect like chocolate when a girl experiencing that certain time of month. And for once, it didn’t feel so awkward.
The butterflies flew in my stomach, and the blush never faded. I had never felt this way. This was just too perfect, so unreal, and yet, here I was; dancing with my neighbor who had told me that the smell of oranges was weird… or something like that.
I even remember what I was thinking during the entire thing. Most of the time, I was drawing a blank, but I do recall thinking, They say not to covet thy neighbor. But Lord, forgive me, for I have sinned. I remember had been coveting Ethan for some time because, I was jealous of how Ethan had such a calm face and a not-nervous smile. I was practically bleeding anxiety. But I got him back. Ethan never learned all the steps to the waltz, so, ha!
But prom ended, and we went home at ten PM. 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."
"Can I ask you 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. Now if only I could replace, “like, like,” with what I really wanted to ask. Do you love me like I love you?
Ethan looks at me, then chuckles. "In your case, that's impossible."
I pout. "Why?"
"You know how to make someone," he pauses, then smirks, "like like you." His tone is teasing.
"Hey, you‘re just jealous of my cool vocabulary," I retort.
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, on a tree, in your backyard." He looked like he was about to burst out laughing.
I c**k my head, and let my mouth hang open dumbly. "Because I made you my bow down to my awesomeness?"
"Really? Your awesomeness?" 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." He poked my forehead in a playful manner like it was obvious.
I stare at him with knitted brows, and I ask, "Oh really, Mr. Marr?" Laughing, 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.
I’m suddenly taken by the grief of having to let him go. Chicago is so far away from my sunny town, the smell of oranges from my backyard… too far from my window, where his grin is supposed to be. It's only been a few years, but I felt like Ethan belonged with me now. Like he was meant to be in my life, him and all his pinkish-orange shirts. 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, and that it was tacky."
He gave me a sheepish look when I sent him a glare. "I said weird, not tacky, Breanne. Anyway, I have a confession to make, Ms. Carter."
"What is it?"
"I never told you this, but, those aren't oranges in the orchard."
I sit up, and look at him. "Huh?"
“Hi! I’m Breanne.”
“…hey,” a pause, “I’m Ethan.”
“…” Awkward. “So… did you know we have an orange grove here?”
He looked at me after staring at the backyard fence. He took a deep whiff of the air. “Is that so? Smells… weird, for oranges then.”
He laughs a bit louder than the other time. He looks me in the eye, and whispers teasingly, "Those are tangerines, you idiot."
 Ukeire · Sun Aug 02, 2009 @ 05:23am · 0 Comments |
