“Smuggling a Boy into Baba’s” (Story 10, Excerpt 2)

The following excerpt is the second part of “Smuggling a Boy into Baba’s”. You can read the first part here.

We waited to cross at a busy intersection. Eric and Sam were arguing about the location of the alley where Sam felt up a waitress he met the last time they were out. I felt like I was intercepting insider information. Theo moved his lips to my ear.

“Can I come home with you?” He whispered. “I’ll accompany you to Baba’s at the end of the night.”

Immediately, I knew that bringing Theo to Baba’s would be a bad idea, but I was so surprised that Theo wanted to spend the night with me that I considered the possibility. Of course, I wanted him to spend the night with me. It would be nice for someone I really liked to sneak a peek into my life.

None of my friends had visited me at Baba’s house yet. I wanted to show someone the Ukrainian embroidery, Baba’s drawings, the way that I had decorated my room, the new paint on the walls, and the phone with the quarter-sized buttons. I wanted to point out the smell of cabbage that always permeated the house. Living there would be more real for me if Theo could witness it.

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“Smuggling a Boy into Baba’s” (Story 10, Excerpt 1)

The following excerpt is the first part of “Smuggling a Boy into Baba’s”. You can read the second part here.

On the Friday that I was supposed to meet Theo in the city, I kept dropping Edgar’s lens caps. One of the models even asked me, in a bitchy tone, why I was staring at her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just daydreaming.”

I was so trapped in my head that even the smell of the Belgian waffles from downstairs didn’t torture me. Instead, they made me nauseous.

I was not sure that meeting Theo was a good idea. No matter how many times I reminded myself that I gave in to him too easily, that I always made myself too available, I still agreed to his every whim. In fact, I was always so mesmerized by Theo that I practically threw myself at him.

I kept checking my skin in the makeup artist’s mirror and couldn’t decide if I was having a good or bad hair day. I wanted Theo to be completely blown away by me, since this would be the first time we would be seeing each other since the end of the semester.

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