If We Kiss (2 page)

three

TESS WAS RUSHING off to try out for chamber choir after school. I grabbed her and whispered, “I have to tell you something.”

Tess nodded, but started rushing down the hall, with her pinkie and thumb spread like a phone beside her ear, and yelled, “I’ll call you.”

“Call my cell,” I said.

“Yeah. Wish me luck!”

“Me, too!” I yelled back.

She spun around and blew me a kiss, then ran toward the stairs.

I walked home through the woods. Some small dumb part of me wondered if Kevin would meet me, walk me home, talk with me about what Hair-Man had said, maybe hold hands again, maybe even kiss some more. He knew I walked home, obviously. I kind of lingered at the entrance to the path, but after the buses pulled away it became clear he was gone. I walked home alone, telling myself it was much better this way—I like my time alone and also I was out of gum so maybe my breath would be not as fresh this time. It doesn’t mean anything, I told myself, that he asked me if I walked home and then did nothing about it. It doesn’t necessarily mean I turned him off during the kiss.

It could mean some other thing. It could.

That’s what I was telling myself when the back door of my house swung open and my mother announced, “Charlotte Reese Collins! I can
not
believe! How in the world?”

I walked into the house. Our neighbors aren’t that near but Mom can sure project.

“Kissing against the wall? Against the wall?”

Like the big issue was the location. Like if it had been in the cafeteria, no problem. I left my shoes in the hall and went to the kitchen to get a can of Coke.

“Mr. Herman called me at work,” Mom said. “I was in a meeting with Blumstein, and Mr. Herman called, said it was urgent, and then, loudly, proceeded to give me details of my daughter, Charlie, of all people, tardy because of kissing
against the wall
.”

“Of all people?” I sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and popped open the can. “Thanks a lot.” My second conversation about my first kiss was so far going about as well as the first.

“Well,” Mom said, reopening the fridge and getting herself a Coke, too. “Was it that nice George?”

The Coke was too bubbly; it made my eyes water. I rested my head on the breakfast bar and let my mother talk.
Appropriate times, some things are private, love can be beautiful when blah, blah, blah
. Exactly what I had been trying to avoid.

When I thought we’d both had enough of that, I headed upstairs. Mom followed me all the way up the stairs to the bathroom, talk, talk, talking, and then sat on the floor while I threw two Tylenols down my throat and chased them with the dregs of my Coke. I leaned against the sink and eventually slid down the cabinet onto the floor. Mom was still lecturing me so I clamped my head between my knees and folded my arms over my head.
Reputation, self-respect. Why should he buy a cow?

“What?”

My mother shook her head and said it was an expression her mother used to use, never mind.

“Why should
who
buy a cow?” We live in the suburbs. Nobody has a cow.

“Nobody. George. So was it George?”

“Am I the cow?”

“Oh, Charlie,” Mom groaned. “Forget the cow. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

The only unexpected thing she had said was
why should he buy a cow,
and it was obvious she wasn’t going to explain that. I had to escape. So I said all the old standbys: “Yes, thank you, I’m sorry.”

Mom gave me a kiss on the hair, and I was free to go. Hallelujah. I think we were both relieved.

When I got to my room, I turned on my computer right away, thinking about Kevin. Did I really make out with Kevin Lazarus? A lot of my friends were online, but not Tess yet. And not Kevin, either. Darlene wanted to know if my party Friday night was still on. Poor Darlene. I wrote back that luckily my mother hadn’t thought of canceling it, and actually let me off with just a Tardiness Talk. She IM’ed that if I wanted she’d come over sometime and teach me how to climb out my window, in case I got grounded sometime. I typed
Thanks, GTG
.

I just didn’t have the energy for everybody’s stressful conversations online, for once, so I did my homework. Mom and I had an uncivilized dinner, which means we can read during it, and then I went upstairs to check the computer again.

On my way up, I was thinking how unfair or at least ironic it was that I, of all people (as my mother so generously pointed out), would have gotten in trouble for kissing at school when I am such a prude. But by the top landing I was thinking maybe it was worth it.

I can’t say the tongue part was good. It may just be one of those things you have to get used to, like other French stuff. Cream sauces. Hairy armpits. My mother went to France for a year in college and after a few months she got used to those things and the weird way you have to say
R
sounds. I don’t know. I don’t like French toast, either. I eat cereal Saturdays while my mother dips bread in scrambled eggs and fries it into a gloppy mess. She says she didn’t like it when she was my age but she learned to, later. So there’s a chance I’ll learn to like the stuff. On the other hand, I may turn out to be a person who doesn’t acquire tastes, or who is anti-French. That’s a thing, I think, like a political position of some kind. But even beyond politics, there are probably plenty of adults who don’t enjoy French toast. Or French kissing.

Actually, it is absolutely nauseating to imagine any adult I know enjoying French kissing.

I lay down on my bed and wiggled my tongue around in my mouth, to try to re-create the moment. It didn’t work. I folded it over and sucked but that still wasn’t exactly it. On the other hand, my tongue started feeling too big for my mouth. What a weird thing a tongue is.

But other than that and the germs, there was something nice about the moment of the kiss. I’m not sure if it was pressing the front of me into the front of Kevin, or if it was his hands gripping my shoulders, or his warm breath on my cheek. I closed my eyes and tried to remember all the details. I think part of what I liked was the way my neck stretched as my head bent back. I tipped my chin up toward the ceiling. Not sure why that felt so good, but it really did. I touched my neck. Now there’s a part of me I never particularly noticed before. My neck. The skin was soft. Maybe I have a nice neck. Maybe next time we kiss, Kevin will touch my neck and fall in love with me because of it. I resolved to do neck-stretching exercises every night, in hopes.

I wondered if Tess had a nice neck, too; I couldn’t help it. She looks a little like me, only prettier. I don’t say that to put myself down. I am perfectly happy with myself and everything. It’s just that we look a lot alike, Tess and I, to the point where substitute teachers used to get us confused, and I started wearing mismatched socks every day to have a
thing
. Tess wears plain white. It’s not that we’re identical at all; if you wanted to say which is which, you would say that Tess has a better smile and is more fun than I am. Probably, though I honestly have never noticed particularly, her neck is more beautiful, too.

Caring about looks is petty and dumb, and fun is not everything, but still, I made a wish that my neck would please be better than Tess’s.

I got my cell phone and called Tess. Without even saying hello Tess said, “I got into chorus.”

“Great,” I said. “They told you right away?”

“Everybody got in,” she said. “All three of us. They wanted ten.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, congratulations anyway.”

“Thanks.” She laughed. “So? Did you get a Talk?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“Really?”

“Not kidding.”

“That’s so weird. I can’t even imagine your mother knowing how to give a Talk. Are you sure?”

“She was channeling my grandmother.”

“Oh, dread,” said Tess, who has met my grandmother. “Well, so, how was it?”

“Boring,” I said. “Although, she said something about buying a cow.”

“To punish you?”

“I think it was a figurative cow.”

“Ah,” Tess said. “I think that’s a tradition among the Amish, giving a figurative cow as punishment for tardiness.”

“Maybe we’re converting,” I said.

“Bummer. There’s my call-waiting. It was so funny, I completely screwed up my audition, and they still—oh, man, it’s my mother calling. Should I pick up?”

“She hates when you don’t.”

“I know. I want to tell you about . . . I better get it. She’s already mad at me for stealing her lip gloss, which I didn’t, technically. Wish me luck.”

“Tess—”

She had already hung up.

I closed my eyes and lay down on my bed again, getting back to Kevin and remembering. Part of my brain was warning
don’t try to describe each tiny detail or you’ll ruin the indescribableness
, but the rest of my brain couldn’t help pushing ahead, going over and over that moment, putting it into words so I’d never lose my grip on it. It was kind of hard to figure out, because at the same time I also wanted to lose control of my emotions. I really did, like Tess has done when she has fallen in love.

Might he have been sort of humming? I definitely didn’t notice humming at the time of the kiss, but as I lay in my bed trying to relive it, I kept hearing this little sighing hum in my mind, the second before his lips touched mine. I am ninety to ninety-five percent sure Kevin hummed, or else sighed. It was more of a sigh, I think. Nobody ever told me about that part. Maybe that’s what always happens. The boy sighs a private little hum-sigh only the about-to-be-kissed girl can hear. Or maybe that was unique to Kevin and me, and our kiss. Oh, that has to be the most romantic thing. I hope I wasn’t supposed to make a private noise, too. No, Tess definitely would have told me if I had to make a noise. She would’ve made me practice.

I pulled the blankets up to my nose and tried to imitate Kevin’s sound myself. I flipped over and pressed myself against the mattress, pretending I was kissing Kevin instead of my Red Sox pillow. Now I get it, I thought, now that I’ve had the experience myself: I am falling, almost indescribably, in love.

four

THE NEXT MORNING I woke up terrified:
What if he’s not in love with me?
I could make a complete fool of myself, if that’s the case, or if he
thinks
I’m in love with him, because what if that whole kissing thing was no big deal to him, just a Tuesday morning pretty much like any other?

So obviously the only reasonable plan of action was to wait and see how he was going to act. I pretended not to see him by the lockers, even when I doubled back pretending I had forgotten something to give him a second chance to make his move.

My face was so hot, my ears burned as I passed him going into bio. He didn’t ask me if I had studied, he didn’t twirl my hair, but he was standing in that same spot. That might mean something.

He didn’t look at me at all.

I made a deal with myself during bio. If he shows any indication that there’s something between us, like if he talks to me or squinches his eyes while looking at me—okay, if he looks at me—it means I didn’t imagine the kiss and I can get excited, tell Tess, plan to kiss him again, no, make out with him at my party Friday night. If not, it never happened, and nobody ever needs to know. Well, nobody besides me and Kevin. And my mother, who doesn’t know it was Kevin. And Mr. Hair-Man. But nobody else needs to know, unless Kevin gives me even the smallest sign that he likes me. Or that he remembers it happened. Or that he has any clue who the heck I am.

Nothing.

“You sure you’re okay?” Tess asked as we headed back inside after lunch. “You’re even spacier than usual today.”

“It never happened,” I answered.

“What never happened?” she asked.

“Um,” I said. “What?”

“You said it never happened. What didn’t?”

“Lots of things,” I answered. “Time travel, immortality, calorie-free chocolate . . .”

“You need a hobby,” Tess said.

“Basketball tryouts are today,” Jennifer offered, thankfully diverting the attention from me. I have to learn not to blurt stuff out if I am going to be a girl who kisses and does not tell. Tell what? It never happened.

“She can’t even dribble,” Tess pointed out. “Anyway, Charlie hates organized activities.”

“I only like disorganized activities,” I said.

George laughed. He was right behind me; I don’t know for how long.

“What?” I asked. He always startles me.

“If you like disorganized activities, you should join marching band.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

“Too bad I don’t know how to play an instrument.”

“Doesn’t stop the rest of us,” he said, and turned around to go into the boy’s room.

“He so loves you,” Tess whispered for the billionth time. “When are you going to get over yourself and just kiss him?”

“No interest,” I said, getting my books out of my locker.

Next to me, Jennifer shrugged. She has never had a boyfriend. “Me either,” she said.

“Yeah,” Tess said, “but you hate boys. Charlie doesn’t.”

“I only hate boys who cry when they lose,” Jennifer said. “I just have no interest in kissing them.”

“Same here,” I agreed. “Although I don’t mind if they cry when they lose.”

As we headed toward English, it occurred to me that Jennifer is now the only one of the three of us who hasn’t kissed. Although it never happened, it really did happen—I have kissed a boy. Bleh. Sometimes it’s easier being around Jennifer than Tess, even though Tess is my best friend.

Kevin was hanging out by the doorway of English class. I turned away from him. What, is that like his cool thing? He lurks in classroom doorways choosing which girl to slay? Please. Right then I actually believed myself, that I had no interest in kissing or boys or romance or love or any of that. Maybe I could learn to dribble, I thought. Maybe I would try out for basketball and become a sporty girl. Maybe I’m not so clumsy and spacey. There’s more to me, obviously, than people knew. I could be capable of anything, maybe.

Feeling so strong and sporty, I glanced back at Kevin. He was looking at me, but turned away as soon as I caught him and kind of slunk to his seat, like I had been the one dissing him.

Well, maybe I was. And if so, good for me.

Being tough like that definitely seemed like the right thing to do, but deep down I knew that I really was too clumsy to dribble a basketball and also that I still loved him. Kevin was the first boy I ever French-kissed and that is special; it means something. Tess thinks I subconsciously love George but the truth is I forget about George all day until he pops up behind me. Kevin was crowding out absolutely everything. I felt all twitchy and sweaty and cold and like my heart was beating way too fast for just sitting in English class. There is no way love could be any more intense without physically injuring a person.

Besides, French kissing somebody you don’t even love would be pretty slutty. And I am not a slut; I am a prude. Well, I was. Maybe I am both a slut
and
a prude. What a mess. No, I think you have to choose one or the other. Definitely. Otherwise, how would you know how to behave in any given situation? The thing is, now that I have surprised myself, it’s impossible for me to anticipate what I might do next.

I sat there sweating and hyperventilating through English class, hoping that Kevin wasn’t grounded either and that he would come to my party Friday night. I thought maybe we would get together at the party. Maybe we would kiss thirteen times and everyone would see. He could ask me out at the beginning of the party and then it would be only slightly slutty to kiss like that.

The first kiss, I decided, didn’t really count. Maybe it actually hadn’t even happened; maybe I truly had imagined the whole thing. I used to have a very strong imagination when I was a little kid, or so my mother says; maybe I still do. But even if not, even if it actually did happen in reality, it didn’t have any ramifications. It didn’t change my life like a real first kiss should.

I wanted to kiss him again. If we kiss again, I decided, it will be better, and more romantic, and everybody will know, and nothing will ever be the same after it.