How to Have Your First Kiss
“Let me get this completely straight: you don’t like The Simpsons
because they’re yellow?”
“Well, when you put it that way it sounds dumb.” Caroline had a way
of pressing her lips together when she paused. “It’s just not realistic.”
“I’d argue that most TV isn’t realistic, though. High school teachers
don’t just become mastermind meth dealers. Politicians don’t throw people off of rooftops.”
“Maybe they don’t do those things, but the characters do seem real.
Are you telling me you believe in squibbly, yellow dudes who can do a thousand things in, like, one calendar year?”
“You have a point. I guess I just like to suspend my disbelief.”
You could hear little chirps coming in from across the hill. A few old
trees seemed to swell above us at the wind’s command, and their grand, green appendages, brimming with lush wafers and scattered squirrels, were almost as pretty as the ringlets of fair hair that would brush off her shoulders when she laughed. Our hands were planted into thick patches of grass, and, though the
20
sun made me squint, I couldn’t help but feel like those critical, emerald eyes were impossible not to see.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“...”
“So what shows do you like?”
“Documentaries. Have you seen Murder Mountain?”
“I have not.”
“It’s a wild story. There’s this place, in California, where people just
grow acres of weed, and there are no laws. Something like seventy percent of American weed comes from there. People go there in search of money, or fame, and they call it murder mountain because-”
“People get murdered?”
“Yeah, and the police can never do anything about it. And we just keep
buying their weed.”
“That’s horrible.”
