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“I...” She cocks her head to the side, squinting. “Well. No.”
My phone screen glares up at me from my lap. The list of other symptoms, including poor proprioception, like a condemnation; I should have seen it before. Or maybe not. According to the article, ADHD in women presents different than in men.
George was diagnosed with ADHD when we were teenagers. His parents noticed that he never grew out of the hyperactive kid stage, he could barely sit through a movie, let alone math class. He’d been angry at first; it was just another thing that made him feel different when that’s the last thing a teen wants to be. Now he sees it as a superpower.
Her fidgeting, restlessness, and busyness; how much she talks, and with her hands; how she doesn’t notice that she gets louder the more excited or comfortable she is; she’s easily distracted; her deep thinking that looks like daydreaming. There are other signs, ones that I don’t want to bring up, like the anxiety and the low self-esteem, the perfectionism. “How would you feel?” I ask. “If you were?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know much about it, honestly.”
She’s quiet for a moment, the frown crease that means she’s thinking appearing on her forehead. “I wonder how many people throughout history were persecuted or institutionalized for being neurodivergent?”
Of course Lulu would think about it in the context of history.
“You could ask George,” I suggest. “He’s been medicated for ADHD since we were fifteen.”
She won’t quite meet my eyes. Instead, she sticks her big toe into my belly. “How did it feel today?” she asks. “Watching your old team?”
I accept her blatant change of topic to allow her some time to digest it all. “Honestly, it just made me miss Pop.”
She hums, a tender sound. “Do you think you’d want to play again?”
I lift my leg up onto the couch so that we’re mirror images of each other, one leg in the other’s lap. “Doctors said I shouldn’t.”
She shrugs. “When was the last time you went to see your doctor? Maybe things would be different if they knew how much strength training you’ve been doing.”
I flex my leg, like I’ll be able to assess my strength and stability from this couch, both of us avoiding important conversations.
“Do you want to?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah, I do.”
She squeezes my foot. “Then you should,” she says simply. “If you can, if they say it’s alright, you should. You deserve to do the things you love again.”
She notices my chipped toenail polish and we take turns painting each other’s toes. I choose a bright blue with a subtle shine. She laments the lack of sparkles in my nail polish collection, then chooses a color called Black Hole.
“My mom took me and my best friend Cally for my first pedicure for my thirteenth birthday,” Lulu says. “I treat myself every year.”
“Mhmm,” is all I can say because in her next breath she purses her lips, leans forward, and blows gently across my toes. My whole body tenses to avoid moving, the muscles in my leg so rigid I could probably break my own femur, again. I clamp my jaw, hard enough I might need dental work, as the memory of the last time she did that to me plays like the greatest film ever made in my mind. Forget porn, give me Lulu’s lips, her warm breath across my skin, and a bottle of lube. She has to be fucking with me. I dip the brush back into the polish bottle and apply another coat to her pinkie toe. Then I blow gently across her toes. Goose bumps lift along her shin and she shifts on the couch.Ha.She’s smiling, her tongue peeking between her teeth.
“I’ve never had a pedicure before,” I say.
“I’ll take you,” she says. “On my birthday.” Then after a pause, “Can I tell you a secret?”
I nod.
“My birthday is next week.”
I know.
After she admitted that she’d never had a surprise party, I asked George if he knew her birthday. It took him all of five seconds to find the information on her social media, which got me shit for not knowing how Facebook works.
“Happy birthday next week.”
We put our feet up on the coffee table to let the polish dry and Lulu asks me more questions about the rugby match. The later it gets, the more texts I get from other study participants, friends including Marcus, confirming our plans. She tries to read my screen over my shoulder, but I stick my palm in her face. It’s intimate, domestic. The special kind of being alone together that I’ve only experienced with George, as boyfriends and friends, or with my grandparents. Being with her is peaceful, even though she talks most of the time, about the books we bought, where we should go for pedicures, what we should do for dinner. But it’s not the uncomfortable chatter people use to fill uncomfortable silences. It feels different, like the chatter someone allows themselves when they feel safe enough to say whatever is on their mind. Finally, when the sun is starting to set, I tell her to get in the truck. Lulu, being Lulu, doesn’t ask questions. She pats Betty on the head and grabs her bag and is out the door before I can lock up. Fifteen minutes later, Lulu says, “You’re taking me to Little T’s?”
I expected her to sound skeptical. But she’s excited, laughing. And it strikes me that if she ends up leaving for Lancaster, I won’t get to see this smile, except maybe sometimes over a video chat. I won’t get to hear her laughter. I won’t get to have another day like today.
She fits into my life like she fits under my arm, snugly, warm. Like we were made for each other.
