If We Kiss (4 page)

seven

“SO HERE’S THE thing and tell me the truth,” Tess said as we were walking to the lockers. “Promise?”

“Sure.” When people say “Tell me the truth,” I usually lie. It is because, well, it is because I am not a truthful person for one thing, but it is also because they are usually asking me something about which it will be in some way hard to tell the truth. You wouldn’t say, for instance, “Tell me the truth: Do you have math third block?” You would just say, “Do you have math third block?” Because whether you do or don’t have math third block is not a difficult truth to reveal.

“Okay.” Tess took a dramatic breath. “Do you hate Kevin Lazarus?”

The truth? Do I hate Kevin?

“I don’t hate him,” I answered truthfully.

“But do you like him?”

I could twist it around and say I was sort of being truthful in that I don’t like him; I am in love with him. I don’t like him; I am totally, paralyzingly obsessed with him. But in the privacy of my own head, I have to admit that I knew that what she was asking was not, do you have mildly positive
as opposed to
chart-bustingly positive feelings for Kevin. My best friend was asking if I liked him the way I actually did very much and at every waking moment
like him.

“No,” I said. “Definitely not.” What could be worse than admitting you like someone who obviously doesn’t like you?

“I think,” she said. “I think I do, maybe.”

Okay, that answered my
what could be worse
question. In response, I very articulately dropped my books.

It would have been bad enough if I had simply dumped all my books out of my arms, scattering them across the hall, but no. In case that remarkably low level of coordination looked too suave, I tripped over them. Well, I stepped on my social studies notebook while trying to catch my bio text in midair, not realizing how hard it is to catch a book that weighs more than a toddler as it speeds toward the ground. It smashed me in the wrist, and, off-balance as I was from standing not on firm ground but on shaky history (notes), I slid. The only positive thing is that I didn’t smash into the Hair-Man himself, because between me, figure skating on my books, and the head ninth grade teacher, sitting furrily at his desk, was—a wall. A wall that I crashed into, full-force, with my head.

Tess helped me up. “You okay?”

“Mild concussion.” I avoided making eye contact by gathering up my stuff as hordes of kids stomped over us. Tess helped, too. She really is a good friend.

She’s the one who managed to get most of my stuff and restore it to some semblance of order, actually. “Thanks,” I said, taking it from her.

“No problem.”

We walked toward our lockers.

“Why,” I had to ask. “Why did you think, what made you think I liked Kevin?”

“No,” she said. “I know you don’t
like
him. I just hoped, maybe, that you, like, didn’t think he was a complete jerk.”

“Oh,” I said. So she wasn’t asking at all what I’d thought she was asking. It wasn’t that she thought I secretly liked him. It was only about her. Oh. I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or insulted, or lonely. “No,” I said. “I think he’s an incomplete jerk.”

Tess laughed. She has a really wicked laugh.

I smiled, then pretended to focus on my combination lock. If Kevin liked me at all he wouldn’t have made out with my best friend in my basement less than a week after making out with me. Anyway, why would I like someone who would do that?

“Are you mad at me for something?” Tess asked. “Tell me the truth, Charlie, seriously.”

Tell me the truth.

“I’m not mad at you, Tess.”

“Promise? Because you seem pretty annoyed today.”

I dumped my books into my locker. “I just, if anything, I’m not sure why you would like him. Kevin Lazarus?” I really liked saying his name. How sick is that?

“You’re right,” Tess said. Then she banged her head against a locker. “I don’t know why either. But . . .”

“But you like him.”

Tess nodded.

I nodded back, in an understanding way. Of course, unfortunately, I did understand.

“I’m an idiot,” she said. “I know. So—but, do you think you could try to find out, from Kevin, if he . . .”

“I’ll ask him before bio,” I said, not needing any more information or inspiration for acrobatic routines.

“Okay,” she said, still scanning my face for the truth. “Thanks.”

I waited in the same spot he had been in the day he touched my hair and hurled me deep into the insanity of love. Why I had ever thought love might be a desirable thing to fall into, I could not begin to remember. Is anything a good thing to fall into?

“Kevin.” It felt romantic in my mouth.

He looked at me with those unbelievably blue eyes.

I took a breath, thinking,
she is my best friend
.

Kevin came closer, close to me like the day he twirled my hair. He could have touched that strand of hair again if he wanted to. He apparently didn’t want to. I twirled it myself, not hinting but, well, okay, hinting.

He looked right into my eyes. I looked back but only for a second, then looked down at my feet. What do you know? There they were, right at the bottoms of my ankles, same as last time. Still wearing one pink sock, one green.

I glanced up again, realizing he was probably getting impatient with me. I had called him over, after all.

He didn’t look impatient. He looked calm and intense at the same time, which is the thing about him. How does a person look calm and intense at the same time? He is the only one I’ve ever seen do that.

“Um,” I said.

He kept waiting.

“Do you, um, are you interested in . . .”

“In . . . ?” he prompted.

“Newspaper?”

“Newspaper?” he asked, just as I was thinking,
Huh? Newspaper? Did I just say “newspaper”?

“Newspaper,” I said, twirling my hair so hard it was possibly yanking bits of my brain too far to the left. “Are you, you know, going to be on, um, the newspaper? Staff? Or whatever?”

“I already am,” he said. I already knew that, of course. What didn’t I know about him? Please, I have his schedule memorized, I am so pathetic. “Why? Are you interested?”

“Yeah,” I blurted. Sure. I was as interested in newspaper as I was in anything else lately that wasn’t Kevin—meaning, NOT. “I am. Interested. In, in newspaper, I mean. Of course. Reporting!” I startled myself with the volume and enthusiasm of that last word.

“You should come, then,” Kevin said, softly. “It’s today after school. You’re a good writer. You’d like it, I bet.”

A good writer,
he said. He had noticed me, in a positive way. I bobbled my books again but managed not to pitch them at Kevin’s teeth. Any other person would be like, okay? Can we go into class before the bell rings? Or are you just going to stand there listing slightly to port all day? But Kevin just stood there in the doorway like he had no place else to go.

A good writer. What did that mean? Could that possibly really mean
I am in love with you, Charlie, and all I do is think about you all day long?

Maybe. Unlikely, but maybe.

I lifted my eyes only, keeping my head down, and met his eyes. His head was bent, too, but he was looking at me. I didn’t want to wreck the moment, but I did this thing, then, because I could feel myself smiling and the intensity of our little staring match was making me turn to wobbles: I leaned slightly closer to him.

I thought he would probably back away but he didn’t. He tilted slightly closer to me, and I saw a little smile starting on his lips, too.

“Thanks,” I whispered. I less-than-whispered. Almost no sound came out but this is how close we were standing: He heard me. I heard him breathe in.

I looked down, away, for fear I might lose my head and kiss him, stick my tongue back in his mouth again, as disgusting as that is. Disgusting and yet, kind of wonderful. I was close enough to him to feel the heat of him, the change in the air temperature, near his head.

We’re flirting,
I realized. I am flirting with him and I swear he is flirting right back with me.

I swallowed, squeezed my eyes shut, and forced myself to remember the actual reason I had called his name.

“One other thing,” I said, my voice creaky.
She is my best friend,
I reminded myself again. But I admit this: I tilted my chin up, to give him a view of my neck, in case it actually was my best feature.

He raised his eyebrows and waited.

Please say no,
I prayed.
Please say no.

“Do you, um,” I closed my eyes and finished fast: “Do you like Tess?”

He didn’t say anything so I had to open my eyes and look at him. It is so unfair that his eyes are that color, like the lake in June.

“Do you?” I repeated, softer.

“Because I kissed her?” Kevin asked, his voice as quiet as mine.

“Because,” I said, but I didn’t know because what. Because she likes you, you doink. Then softer, “Do you?”
Say no! Say: I like
you
, Charlie.

He didn’t answer. I could feel my rib cage moving. I must have been panting.
Touch that strand of hair
, I silently begged.
I don’t know what I’ll tell Tess, who is my best friend in the world. But I want you—to like me, to choose me, to touch my hair, to kiss me—so much I can feel it, see it happening. . . .

“Charlie,” he said.

The bell rang. “What?”

I have to tell Tess I like him, too, I realized. I have to just tell her I didn’t know I did, but I do. I like Kevin. And then there it would be and since we are best friends, always honest with each other, we would flip a coin for him or something.

Mrs. Roderick was standing above me and Kevin. “If you two are done flirting, it is time for science,” she growled.

Flirting, me—flirting while I was fixing him up with my best friend. Mrs. Roderick had just confirmed it. My head was spinning. What the heck was I doing? It made no sense. Flirting. It felt delicious, dizzy. It felt—powerful. Nobody had ever mentioned that aspect of it to me. It was almost, well, indescribable.

“Almost done,” Kevin said, and flashed Mrs. Roderick that grin of his. She batted her eyelashes at him. Twice. Mrs. Roderick is like a hundred and fifty years old. Kevin must be like the magnetic north of flirtation.

We headed toward our seats. Kevin sits behind me in bio. I was not about to try to steal him away from my best friend.

Not that I could, anyway.

Could I?

When we got to my seat, I whispered to Kevin, “So, do you?”

Kevin shrugged and whispered, “Sure,” as he passed by me.

eight

TESS WAS WAITING for me after class. I said,
He likes you.
She kissed me on the forehead and whispered
thanks
. Two hours later she asked him out, and he said
yes
, the jerk.

Fine. Just as well. Now I can move on with my life, concentrate on more important things. I was starting to annoy myself, honestly, all obsessed with a boy. I have always prided myself on not being a flirty girl. I have interests—well, not really, but I hope to develop some, and I probably have some talents that just haven’t had a chance to bloom yet. But anyway, I am not like the Pop-Tarts. They are all so sweet and smiley and trendy, it is hard to tell which is which. I used to know some of them but it’s increasingly difficult to tell them apart.

I am not a flirty girl.

I stayed for newspaper. Not because I wanted to be with Kevin, who has, in addition to dark blue eyes, a girlfriend—a girlfriend who is not only NOT me, but is my best friend, and besides, I remembered, I have a boyfriend, a very nice, smart, wonderful boyfriend, George. I went to newspaper because as someone mentioned, well, it was Kevin, I am a good writer and maybe I will become a journalist and write for the
New York Times
and win a Pulitzer Prize. And then certain people will realize how dumb they were not to fall in love with me when they had the chance.

Newspaper was somewhat interesting, in a way. The faculty advisor is Mr. McKinley. There’s a rumor he used to be a priest. I could see immediately why he might not have been too successful in a comforting kind of role.

“Who are you?” he bellowed when I walked in.

I didn’t know. My brain had melted in the heat of his voice.

He stepped closer and yelled again, “Who are you?”

Luckily it came to me: “Charlie.”

“Charlie?” he yelled. “I have a brother named Charlie. You don’t look anything like him.”

“Thank you,” I sputtered.

He laughed. Loud and long, like I’d genuinely cracked him up. He pounded me on the back with his meaty hand. “Good. I like you, Charlie. You here to be a reporter?”

I shrugged. I had no earthly idea what I was doing there.

“Good. Work the City News beat,” Mr. McKinley boomed. “We need a City News reporter. Right?”

I nodded, though of course I had no idea if they needed a City News reporter. He steered me past Kevin and some other kids sitting at the table, toward a girl at a computer in the back of the room.

“Penelope!” he shouted.

The girl looked up. She had crooked bangs and glasses and looked annoyed.

“Here’s your City News staff. Her name is Charles. Put her to work!”

He turned to face the room and bellowed, “What is the most important element of a free society?”

“A free press,” everybody answered in unison.

This club was obviously nuts. I considered a quick escape, but then Kevin smiled briefly at me before going back to what he was working on. I reminded myself that it did not matter to me at all if he smiled at me, and also that the most important something of a free society is a free press. I resolved not to even glance over at Kevin for at least the next five minutes. I checked the clock.

Penelope sighed. “There’s hardly any city news. You can cover the Board of Ed. Okay?”

I had no idea what that meant. “Okay,” I said.

“Do you know what that means?”

“Of course,” I said. “But, well, sort of, no.”

She rolled her eyes. “You go to the Board of Ed meetings. First Wednesday of every month, seven
P.M
. You take notes and write them up for a story. Be accurate, be brief. Got it?”

“Sure.”

“I’m applying early to Yale,” she added. “Where do you want to go?”

“Home,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not . . . I’m just a freshman.”

“Gunning for editor in chief, huh?”

I shrugged. No, actually, I am only here because I have a crush on the boy I just fixed up with my best friend. I have no ambition in life beyond restraining myself from looking at him for another 4.5 minutes.

“Yeah, well, ed in chief is a lot better than City News editor on your applications, obviously.” She sighed again. “I have other stuff, though, volunteer work, maybe a shot at valedictorian, and I fence. You don’t fence, do you?”

“Like swords, or like picket?”

“What?”

“Nothing. No. I don’t fence.”

Sigh. “Get your stories in early and I’ll rewrite them for you.” Sigh. “I have five AP classes this year and the SATs coming up. I have to retake them, try for 2400. But don’t try to scoop me—anything interesting comes up, it’s mine. Got it?”

“Okay,” I said. She had no idea how little she had to fear from me and my journalistic ambition.

I spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting at the table doing my homework, trying not to attract either Penelope’s or Mr. McKinley’s attention. It worked. Nobody noticed me at all. Not even anybody with dark blue eyes. Not until later that night when he truly couldn’t miss me.