Going Vintage (29 page)

He pulls back a bit and I grab his hair, crushing him closer, sucking his lips, tasting Oliver. If we don’t talk, don’t breathe, just keep our bodies close, then there won’t be room for reality to slither in. We can just surrender and not think. Just feel.

But no. I might not have a thing, and I might not know what kind of girl I am, but I know who I’m not, and I’m not this. I can’t give Oliver my pieces, literal, figurative, whatever. Being
with him, this soon, this fast, would just be like hot-gluing my heart together—a quick fix. What I want, but not what I need.

I push away with as much force as we came together. I bend over, hands on knees, and Oliver swears. “No. No, forget that. I did that wrong.”

“Felt pretty right to me.” I laugh, cold and hollow, and realize Oliver is right. Very few laughs are in response to something funny.

Oliver kicks at the float. The tinsel swishes. “I even used a line. I swear I didn’t rehearse that line.”

I hold up a hand. “Oliver, dissecting kisses is fine, but not two seconds after it happened and not with the person you just kissed.”

Oliver’s head is in his hands as he paces. “That’s not why I brought you here. I’m not like this. Seriously, Mallory, you’re my cousin’s girlfriend—”

“
Ex
-girlfriend.”

“Not if you ask him.” He stops pacing and lowers his voice, like he’s talking to himself. “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

I stand, the bones in my spine rolling up one by one until I am a tower, a presence. I need to look in control, even if I don’t feel it. Having a boy say that kissing me is his biggest mistake isn’t the best confidence boost. “Look, you don’t get to be the only one mad here. You think I’m like this, Oliver?”

“I’m sorry I kissed you.”

“Don’t apologize!

“All right. Sorry.”

“You don’t get all the blame. I was here too, you know. Do you think I just run around kissing any boy who drags me into a toolshed?”

“No.” Oliver’s mouth twitches. “Do you have a lot of boys dragging you into toolsheds?”

I try to glare at him. I try so hard. Anger’s a great mask for the next layer of emotion, the questions and uncertainty that comes from kissing a boy I probably shouldn’t kiss. But his hand is over his mouth now, and I can see the smile in his eyes.

“You’re such a tool,” I say.

“Hey, if the shed fits.”

“I revoke my nomination to make you president.”

He swallows back his laugh and nods. “I’ll finish the float tonight. Don’t worry about it.”

“I was going to lose sleep.” I widen my eyes in feigned terror. “We’re talking float nightmares with flat tires and annihilated tinsel and severe loss of spirit. I can’t even … Swear you’ll make Bessie beautiful.”

“I give you my word.” His face goes serious again, and I would give my left pinkie to know what he’s thinking. I wonder if he knows how adorable he looks in the dim shed light. And I wonder why I can’t make myself stop thinking about how he looks or what
he’s
thinking, because this is a crisis moment, subtle lighting or not.

He walks me to my car, and although the mood is lighter, it doesn’t mean this isn’t sticky. That kiss was perfect. Distressingly perfect. But there is nothing perfect about the events
surrounding it. Although I’m free to kiss whomever I want, there should be a no-kiss zone after a long relationship, right? Random hookups are fine, but Oliver isn’t random. I want to talk to him every day, kiss him again and again. I want Oliver longer than this messed-up moment.

Or do I? Do I want anyone? Things were wonderful when Jeremy and I first started, but who’s to say things with Oliver wouldn’t end badly as well? And maybe he only wants one thing, the thing all guys want. All this spending time together and talking on the phone and pretending like he feels bad kissing his cousin’s recent ex is a clever disguise. That’s why I should have waited with him, to finish grieving one relationship before diving into another. I should have made sure my feelings were real before acting on them.

Although they feel really real right now.

I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t want to know the answer unless I know the answer is what I want it to be, and I don’t know what I want him to want.

I didn’t even realize I was holding in my breath until I let out a shaky sigh. “So I’ll see you at the parade tomorrow.”

“Yeah. I got us all pom-poms for the float.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not about pep, Mallory. Never about pep.”

He holds my door open for me. I roll down the window, thinking I should say some parting lines, because we only sort of talked about the kiss before we went back to joking around. We should probably make a final statement about where we are now, not that
we
are anything.

“So, I’m going.”

He taps the hood of the car and steps back so I can drive away. So I do. He waves at me when I look in the rearview mirror.

And that’s that.

It feels like I’m driving away from more than his house or the float. Maybe that’s good.

And maybe it’s not.

Chapter 22

Boys I’ve kissed:

1. Travis: behind the swings in fourth grade
.

2. Sam: in front of the big slide in fifth grade
.

3. James: by the handball courts in seventh grade. Yeah, I was a playground ho
.

4. Nate: first time was at a bonfire freshman year. We dated for four weeks and kissed seven times
.

5. Jeremy: on Disneyland rides, in his car, in his room, at the bank, in the Taco Bell
bathroom … a lot of places. A lot of times
.

6. Oliver: storage shed
.

Ginnie’s in the kitchen when I get home
,
paging through a cookbook. She’s wearing her soccer practice sweats with an apron over the top. I wish we didn’t have the blowup this morning. There are so many things I need to tell her right now.

I slide onto the barstool. She gives me a quick glance before going back to her reading.

“We can do one of two things right now,” I say. “We can rehash our fight this morning, which will probably just make us mad again, and we both know we said things we shouldn’t and we’re sorry, right?”

Ginnie turns the page of her cookbook.

“Or, we can call a truce and I can show you everything I bought for the party. We can cook and I can tell you all about the crazy day I’ve had.” I don’t know if I should tell her about Oliver first, or Grandma, because once she knows about Grandma she’ll go batty. Or should I show her Mom’s computer because the blog is self-explanatory?

“Oh, so we would talk about you again. That’s new.”

In my defense, it’s not all about me. Today was the least
me
day in forever. Today was everyone else’s problems becoming my problem. Plus a kiss. I’m not sure what to file the kiss under yet.

But as the older sister with a more dramatic life, the fact is that, yeah, we do talk more about me. Ginnie doesn’t have boy
problems, everyone is her friend, and she plays soccer every second beyond that. So maybe I should be more giving. Add it to the list.

The life list. Not Grandma’s list. “Fair enough. We can talk all about the crazy day
you
had instead.”

Ginnie closes the cookbook. “That’s the best apology I’m going to get?”

“Hey, I didn’t get one at all.”

“Fine. Sorry.” Ginnie pushes the book aside and leans across the counter. “So. I got my first real kiss today.”

I don’t react for a second, because although I knew we were switching gears to Ginnie, I didn’t expect her to drop a bomb like that. “Wait, what?”

She squeals. “I know! Can you believe it?”

“Of course I can believe it, but … who? When? What?”

Ginnie rushes around the counter and perches herself on the stool next to me. Her arms are out, poised, ready to spring into animation as she recounts the details. “So I packed my lunch today, because you know how much I love cold wheat-germ pancakes wrapped around tofu sausage, with those little Carl’s Junior syrup cups to dip them in.”

“Disgusting. But yes.”

“And I forgot my bag in my locker, so I raced back right before lunch, and I saw Bennett in the hallway—”

“You kissed
Bennett
?”

“Well, duh, who do you think I’d have kissed? Anyway, he was hanging on my locker and we started talking about the dance, and he asked if I needed help with the soiree. So sweet.
Then we figured out who is riding with us, and some parents want to come over to take pictures on the staircase now—”

“Ginnie.”

“And
then
everyone was gone and the lunch bell rang and he said, ‘I’m really glad you said yes.’ And he grabbed my chin and kissed me. In the middle of school, Mallory. It was super-short, maybe five seconds, but isn’t that the best thing a guy has ever said before a kiss?”

I swallow back my own kiss story. “Do you like him?”

“Sure. I let him kiss me, didn’t I?”

“Then that’s great, Ginnie. Wow, I can’t believe Bennett had the balls to do that.”

“I know! So do you think he’ll kiss me again Saturday night? I mean, if he kissed me today, he’ll want to do it again, right?”

It’s logical reasoning, but nothing is logical in love. Bennett might break her heart tomorrow, or he could be the sweetest guy on earth. And that she might experience both heartbreak and new-love jitters within a two-week span, which is enough to confuse anyone. But that sounds jaded, and she’s happy, and when you love someone like I love my sister, you say anything to keep her smiling. “Of course he’ll kiss you again. He was just testing the waters.”

“That’s what Mom said.”

“You told
Mom
?” I grab her arm. “Are you crazy? You know how she thrives on details. Trust me, she’s going to be ravenous for information. Just wait until she gives you the sex talk.”

“Was that what she meant when she talked about my pieces?” she asks.

“And so it begins.” I squeeze her arm and let go.

“Well, I had to. I caught her crying in her office when I got home, so I wanted to cheer her up.” Ginnie’s face pales. “You don’t think she was crying because something happened with Dad, do you?”

This is the portion of our sisterly bonding conversation where I tell her that no, it’s not about Dad, it’s all about Mom, and she quite possibly was crying because I know her big secret. It’s what Ginnie deserves to hear, because this is the truth. But today is a big day for her, so I want to shield her from that truth right now. I lie out of love.

“No, I saw her after school. She’s said she’s menstrual, and she missed the Gap friends and family sale, and the website kept freezing, so it was probably just a combination. I’m sure she’s fine.”

The worry slips off Ginnie’s face and she breaks out into a grin. “Bennett used a little tongue.”

“Ah, he
is
your steady! He’s your tongue steady!”

“I didn’t know what to do, if I was supposed to use tongue back or just let him do his thing.”

I grab a tub of strawberry frozen yogurt out of the freezer and stick two spoons into it. “Okay, little sister. You are of age. It’s time I share the rules of tongue. Number one. Less is more.”

School-wise, Friday is a joke. The classes are shortened to thirty minutes to allow time for the afternoon parade at two o’clock. Mr. Hanover returns my paper, and I get a C minus due to my lack of a bibliography, which I never did turn in because of my Internet sources. I kiss the paper because it could have been worse, much worse. Of everything I’ve given up during my tech sabbatical, this grade is going to be the longest repercussion. I’ll be lucky to pull up my overall grade to a B now.