Page 38

“I knew I could count on you,” Alex says. He lifts his tortoiseshell sunglasses and winks at me, and I realize this was exactly his plan.

“Hey, Wally, do you want to walk with us, too?” Alex asks, turning to my brother. “I’d love to pick your brain about UCLA. I’m supposed to turn in my dorm preferences, and—”

“Nah, I’m good.” Wally gives a wave and stalks off to the line for the cable car. Mom and Dad exchange a concerned look, but neither of them call him on it.

“I want to come!” Etta shouts. “Did you know that the steps were the only point of access until the 1980s?”

But Mom grabs her shoulders. “It’s not safe for you, baby.”

“And it’s safe for me?” I ask, already regretting my decision.

“You’ll be fine, Lenore.” She waves me off. “Have fun.”

“See you two in an hour!” Mr. Lee calls.

“An hour? This is going to take anhour? Yeah, I’ve changed my mind.”

But no one is listening as they leave us for the luxury of the metal buckets that are going to shepherd them safely to the top.

I turn to Alex and he’s cheesing. “You ready for this?”

“I’ve been tricked. Manipulated! Bamboozled!”

“I think you’re giving me too much credit.”

A gust of wind blows off the ocean, giving us a reprieve from the heat and rustling Alex’s curls in this romance-novel-cover way that I try to ignore. But the air also carries a stench like no other.

“Oh no, what is that?” I say, looking around wildly, as a smell worse than the public bathrooms at Seal Beach back home fills my nostrils. “Roberta? Roberta, is that you?”

“I think it’s... the donkeys,” Alex says, his confident demeanor breaking. “You know, the donkeys’... business.”

“You mean the donkeys that climb the same trail we’re about to walk up? The five hundred and eighty steps that theydefinitelycan’t get to the end to without dropping their business!” I shade my eyes and peer up at the winding path, clogged with donkeys and tourists. “And from the looks of that, there’s going to be a lot of business.”

“Six hundred, sweetie.” A sixty-something white lady in a matching blue tank top and capris appears next to me, seemingly out of nowhere. “TripAdvisor says there are six hundred steps.”

“Um, okay, thank you,” I say, plastering a fake smile on my face as she pulls her husband over to the line of people waiting for donkey rides, ready to drop more unrequested pieces of information on other unsuspecting travelers.

“Six hundred!” I say, narrowing my eyes at Alex, who seems to find this all way too amusing. “I thought it was five hundred and eighty!”

“What’s the difference?” He shrugs and begins walking toward the stairs. “Twenty more won’t kill you.”

I follow after him, trying to breathe through my mouth as the donkey-poop scent gets stronger. “Yeah, but they may drive me to killyou.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “It’ll be over before we know it. Plus, it gives us more time to do these.” He pauses before the first step and pulls a stack of papers out of his backpack. “I notice you conveniently forgot them in my room.”

“Oh, lord.” I push past him and start climbing the stairs. Now he’s trailing after me. “Forgot. Yes. That’s definitely what I did.”

“We have a long journey ahead of us.”

“Okay, Phoenix.”

“We might as well make this—watch out!” He grabs my waist, pulling me to a halt.

“What the fu—” But then I look down and see that my gold platform Teva sandals, that I had to drive all the way to a pop-up shop in North Hollywood for, are inches away from a steaming pile of donkey shit.

“Oh. Thanks.” His hands are still on my waist, and I can feel the pressure of each individual finger. My lower stomach aches in... gratitude. “You can let go now.”

“Yes, right.” He springs back. His cheeks are flushed already, and we’ve only hit maybe ten steps, tops.