A Rose for Melinda (17 page)

You'll never believe what my dad says he'll do for me. He's willing to route my return trip to California through Atlanta with a weekend stay-over if it's okay with your parents. All your postcards and e-mails made him curious about you (yes, he does remember you from our first-grade class and the night of the
Nutcracker
performance), and he was surprised that we've kept in touch all this time.

I told him about you and how I stayed with your family so much right after his and Mom's divorce, and about how I used to wish your dad was MY dad. I really dumped on him. He got all teary, almost broke down, said it had been hard on him too with Mom moving to California and him not being able to watch me grow up. He said he was sorry, that divorce is always hard, but that his and Mom's marriage hadn't been good from the start. I told him I didn't want him dissing Mom and he didn't. He just said, “The past is the past. We all made mistakes.” He said he only wants to start fresh with me because he loves me.

Anyway, we cleared the air and I guess I can see both sides of their divorce now. Donna and Dad get along real well and I can tell it makes a difference when two people really care for each other. Then he offered to route me through Atlanta to visit you. I really want to come. Can I? I promise not to be a bother. I want to see you again.

Jesse

TO:
Jesse
Subject:
Your Trip

Yes, you can come! I'll be at the airport to meet your flight. And this time, Mom promises not to talk!

M

August 17

This is one of the worst nights of my life. I look across the street and see a light glowing on Melinda's porch and I know she's outside in her yard in the gazebo with Jesse. She told me she was making them a picnic supper and they were going to “dine under the stars.” I acted excited and even helped her pick out music for her CD player and candles for her big evening with him. But inside, my heart was breaking. I want to be the one with Jesse under the stars. I want him to hold me and kiss me.

But she's my best friend and I could never make a move for him. It would be traitorous. Plus, I know the truth: Jesse loves Melinda. Therefore, he'll never love me. If only I could find a guy like Jesse. If only my brain would turn off and I could stop thinking about them and feeling sorry for myself. If only I could give up this impossible dream. If only …

MELINDA'S DIARY

August 17

Years from now, when I think of this night, I will count it as one of the best of my life. And for the first time ever, my dream of becoming a professional ballerina slipped into the background. Why? Because tonight Jesse kissed me. Not the quick kiss-and-run of last summer, but a real kiss, one that left my knees shaky and my heart racing.

I can still taste the peppermint of his tongue and smell the lemony scent of his skin. I can still feel the warmth of his body and the touch of his hands on my arms and around my waist. I can hardly hold the pen straight as I write this. But I will try to write it down just as it happened, so that I will never forget what it felt like.…

In the afternoon, Jesse played at my computer and swore not to peek while Bailey and I got things ready for a special backyard picnic for me and Jesse. Bailey helped me pack a basket and choose special music. We made chicken salad and cut up some watermelon. “And here is a bag of M&M's,” Bailey said before shutting the lid of the hamper basket.

“You look sad,” I said to her. I had noticed that
she'd been awfully quiet while we worked—not

typical for Bailey.

“No,” she said. “Just green with envy.”

“You'll find the right guy this year,” I told her.

“Maybe,” she said, looking like she was going to cry.

“For sure,” I said.

Maybe I should have been a better friend and pressed her to tell me why she was so sad, but I didn't because all I could think about was my evening with Jesse. (I'll make it up to her after he leaves.)

After the food was ready, Bailey helped me spread a blanket on the floor of the gazebo and place big squishy cushions all around. We set thirty-six votive candles on the railings and Mom's silver candelabra on a tray in the center of the blanket. I put my CD player on a bench.

“It looks beautiful,” I said to Bailey.

“Yes,” she said. “Like a fairyland.”

“You think?” I said.

“You're so lucky,” she said, and hugged me, then jogged away before I could even say thank you. Strange.

Mom and Dad went to dinner and a movie (very nice of them) and later, when the stars came out, Jesse and I walked together from the house to the
gazebo. He carried the picnic basket and at the gazebo he stood for a minute looking at all the flick
ering candles (which I'd lit minutes before), and he said, “You did all this for me?”

“For both of us,” I told him. “Do you like it?”

“I like it,” he said. “Very much.”

We ate and talked and told each other our life plans. We've been friends for years, and I know a lot about him, but not everything. He told me that he really
does
want to become a doctor and I asked, “Since when?”

“Since you got sick,” he said. “I want to make people well. Especially kids.”

“It takes a long time to become a doctor,” I said.

“I don't care how long it takes,” he said. “It's what I want to do.”

After a while, we didn't say anything; he just leaned against the big cushions and pulled me to his side and we gazed through the candles at the stars. There was no moon, just a million stars winking down at us and a CD playing
Clair de Lune
. Jesse nuzzled my ear and whispered, “I love you, Melinda.”

I turned my face toward him and his lips touched mine and it was like a rocket went off inside my head and my heart. I said, “I love you too, Jesse,” because I really, really DO love him. I asked, “
When did you know it?” (Because I was curious about how friendship turned into love for him when we live so far apart and he has another life way out in California.)

He said, “Maybe on the first day of school in first grade, when I saw you standing in the doorway. I remember you were dressed in a yellow dress. You looked like sunshine and you lit up all the dark places inside me.”

I laughed and told Jesse that he had quite a memory. Grandma had given the dress to me along with shiny yellow patent leather shoes.

He said, “I thought you were a princess.” Then he looked into my eyes, and my heart picked up speed again. “My happiest memories are of those afternoons when I came to your house and we played together,” he said. “Even when I fell out of the tree and broke my arm, I was happy, because it meant I could stay at your place and I didn't have to listen to my parents fight.”

I felt sad for him. And happy that our family had given him a place to belong.

Jesse reached into his pocket, dropped something small into my hand and closed my hand around it. He said, “Will you take this? It's a birthday present, but I want to give it to you now. I bought it in New York before I came.”

“What is it?” I asked before I opened my hand.

“A birthstone ring,” he said. “But it's also a promise ring, because I want you to promise that someday you'll take a real ring from me and wear it forever.”

I held the ring up and the green stone twinkled— almost as if it was winking at me. I put the ring on my finger and started crying. Jesse kissed me again. And then again. And again. And again. Within the gazebo it was as if we were the only two people in the universe and the stars had left the sky and rained their fire into my heart.

I belong to Jesse and he belongs to me. He leaves tomorrow. How will I ever get through the rest of the year without him to hold me?

September 25

Dear Melinda,

I've decided to start writing letters to you because I might want to say something that's too personal for e-mail that anyone might be able to read. (You know who I mean—parents!) I'll also keep up the e-mail, but today it's a letter, because I haven't stopped thinking about our time under the stars. Next summer, I'm coming to Atlanta if I have
to hitchhike all the way. I can get a job there just as easily as here. And Dad will just have to understand any cutback on my visit to NY so that I can spend more time with you. I don't know where I'll stay, or how I'll manage all the details, but I'm coming. So be prepared.

I love you and I want to be with you. Nothing's going to get in my way.

Forever yours,
Jesse

P.S. Mom is substitute teaching but will take over for a middle-school teacher going on maternity leave in January. She thinks it will lead to a full-time position, which means she'll never leave California. But I will
.