Summer Surveillance

The worst thing about having your hair butchered by your mom's friend who's "really good with scissors" is that everyone notices. Even when you think they won't.

So there I was at Jessica's end-of-summer pool party, hiding under a beat-up baseball cap like it was my invisibility cloak. The cap was supposedly retro-cool, but mostly it was just desperate.

I stationed myself in the kitchen, ostensibly getting more water, actually conducting covert surveillance on the partygoers through the sliding glass doors. That's when I saw him—Tyler from my AP Bio class, standing near the fruit platter looking as out of place as I felt.

Tyler, who somehow managed to make everything look effortless. Tyler, with that perfect messy hair that probably just naturally fell into place.

But here's the thing about playing spy: you notice things other people miss. Like how Tyler kept fidgeting with his phone. Like how he kept checking the door like he was expecting someone. Like how he was wearing long sleeves at a pool party.

Our eyes met through the glass. He froze.

I should've looked away. Should've pretended I was just casually getting water like a normal person. Instead, I instinctively pulled my hat lower and got caught in the act of being pathetic.

Tyler came inside.

"Nice hat," he said, and I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

"Yeah, well." I gestured vaguely at my head. "Hair emergency."

He nodded like this was perfectly reasonable. "I feel you. My mom made me get this cut before school starts and I've been wearing hoodies for three weeks straight."

We both looked at his arms. The sleeves were definitely hiding something.

"Trade you?" I pointed to the fruit platter. "You try that papaya thing, and I'll show you what's under the hat."

Tyler picked up a piece of papaya like it was radioactive. "What even IS this? It looks like alien flesh."

"Exactly. If I'm going to have a bad hair day, you're going to eat exotic fruit."

He ate it. He made a face like he'd just licked a battery.

I took off my hat. My hair wasn't even that bad—just shorter than I'd wanted, kind of choppy in the back. Tyler squinted at it.

"Dude," he said. "It's fine. You're being dramatic."

"Says the guy hiding his arms."

He rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were covered in temporary tattoos. Sharks. Spaceships. A very poorly drawn dragon that might have been a dog.

"My little sister," he explained. "She discovered tattoo pens yesterday."

We stood there in Jessica's kitchen, two people playing spy at our own lives, trying to hide the things we thought made us weird. And maybe that's the thing about growing up—you spend so much time watching everyone else, assuming they've got it figured out, when really everyone's just standing in kitchens wearing hats and sleeves and fake tattoos, hoping nobody notices they're trying too hard.

"Want to get back at her?" I asked. "We've got temporary tattoo pens too."

Tyler grinned. "Only if I can give you a papaya mustache."

"Deal."

Sometimes the worst things lead to the best stories. And sometimes you have to take off the hat to realize nobody was really looking anyway.