If We Kiss (5 page)

nine

“I THOUGHT YOU hated afterschool,” Tess said. She’s been trying to get me to do drama or dance or chorus with her forever.

“Yeah,” I said. “Well.”

“What did you stay for?”

I walked with her toward the bike rack. “Newspaper.”

“Was Kevin there?”

“Um,” I said. “I think so. Do you know some girl named Penelope? She’s a senior?”

Just then Kevin walked by. “Hey,” he mumbled as he passed us.

Neither of us answered; we just watched him board the late bus.

We kind of smiled at each other, me and Tess. She shrugged and said, “Knowing me, I give this thing with Kevin two weeks, maximum.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“No! I meant . . .”

“I know, I know.” She bent down to unlock her bike. “Do you really think he’s a jerk?”

“Um . . .”

“You’re probably right.” Tess flung her long leg over the seat. “See you tomorrow. Sure you don’t want me to ride you home?”

I shook my head. She rode off and I turned around. My walk home is the best part of my day. I tried not to think about Kevin, or Kevin and Tess, or kissing, but eventually gave up. I walked a long time, thinking about all of that.

I got home around five and did some random boring chatting online and also my homework, at the same time. Mom came in just as I was finishing. We stood in front of the refrigerator for a while together, and eventually came up with yogurt, bananas, string beans, and Froot Loops for dinner. Afterward we made a pot of decaf coffee and sat out on the deck with our mugs to look at the lake.

“Heck of a night,” she said.

I nodded. The lake looked like a postcard image of itself, as if someone had painted a backdrop, and not a very realistic one either. The leaves were all gold and red and purple, and their reflections, upside down in the lake, were even nicer because of the blur. My mother had first seen the house at this time of year, and I can see why she made an offer on the spot, even if my father thought it was a money pit and the last straw.

Mom drained her cup. “Wanna go for ice cream?”

“Yeah,” I said. Not much can get me off my butt on a nice night of lake looking, but ice cream is my weakness.

As we stomped into our shoes, Mom asked if anything interesting happened at school today. Well, let’s see: I belly-flopped on the linoleum, flirted for the first time, fixed up my best friend with the boy I love, and began my career in journalism. “Nope,” I said. “You?”

“Nope,” she said, and grabbed her car keys off the hook.

We were not the only ones with the ice cream idea, apparently, so we ended up parking way down in the grocery store lot and walking up the hill. It was the last week of September but it felt like one of those end-of-summer evenings on the Cape, where my father and his cute new family live—one of those nights when there’s a slight breeze and everybody wants to walk around in a hush and a cardigan, pleased with how it’s all going.

Well, that was all dandy until I saw Kevin, already in line at Mad Alice’s.

I felt myself slow down but then I gave myself a quick lecture: There is absolutely no reason for me to be freaked out about seeing a kid from my class at the ice cream place; it is a free country (with a free press!) and this is the best ice cream place around, with mush-ins and everything. And if the kid from my class just happens to be going out with my best friend, so what? And if that kid recently touched my tongue with his tongue—

Stop it right there, Charlie. Do not think about his tongue or any other part of his body.

“Hi,” he said softly, almost to himself.

I managed not to do anything horribly humiliating like faint or, for instance, grab his head and start kissing him passionately right there on the sidewalk. Instead I went with saying, “Hi.”

To get my eyes away from him I looked up at Mom, who hadn’t said hello or introduced herself or anything. She was smiling at Kevin’s father. He was smiling at her. I looked back and forth between them a couple of times before Mom broke eye contact with Kevin’s father and looked down at the girl whose hand he was holding, and said, “You must be Samantha.”

The girl nodded and held out her hand to shake Mom’s. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

Mom gave her a broad smile. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” My mother who prides herself on being cool and laid-back is such a sucker for manners. She shook Samantha’s outstretched hand. “My name is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Reese.”

Samantha turned to me and held out her hand. She had very few teeth, I noticed—one biggie in front surrounded by lots of space, which would make her, I guessed, about eight.

I shook her hand, feeling like a complete dork. I have never shaken hands with a kid before.

“Nice to meet you . . .”

“Charlie,” I told her. “Hi. Um, nice to meet you, too.”

We were at the door of Mad Alice’s by then. Kevin’s father held it open for us all. I noticed Kevin was giving his father a quizzical look like
what is wrong with you?
They’d been ahead of us in line, after all, and now he was, like, shepherding us in all as one group. But Kevin’s father made a goofball face at Kevin and then smiled again at my mother, who blushed.

Blushed. I am not even kidding. Her cheeks turned bright red.

“What would you like, Charlie?” she asked.

“What?”

She pointed at the glass case in front of us. “Ice cream?”

I had lost my appetite. I mean, okay, Kevin’s father is pretty hot for somebody old, for a dad. He has broad shoulders and sort of floppy brown hair and the same dark blue eyes as Kevin, except deeper set and in sort of a broader face. I could see how someone might argue this was a blushable thing, having this man smile at you so much and, I think, maybe even touch your back between your shoulder blades. I definitely think he did that. I had an obstructed view, it is true, as a journalist I have to admit that, but I do think that is exactly what he did: touched her on her back between her shoulder blades so lightly that he caused a chemical reaction that turned her cheeks bright red.

My
mother
.

“Charlie?”

“Um,” I stalled. “Still thinking.”

“Kevin?” his dad prompted.

“What? Um, I don’t know yet. You go.”

Samantha ordered lemon sorbet with butterscotch chips.

“Ew,” Kevin and I both said at the same time.

My turn to blush. My family might be allergic to the Lazarus family.

I ordered fudge swirl with nonpareils mushed into it. Kevin had coffee with chocolate chips, which actually sounded even better than mine but no way was I copying. Mom got a mango sorbet cone, and Kevin’s father said that sounded so good, he’d have the same.

As if Mom had invented the mango sorbet cone herself.

Mom paid for mine and hers, and Kevin’s dad paid for his family’s. That was a relief, at least. We all walked out together.

“Well,” said Mom.

“Well,” said Kevin’s father.

They smiled at each other. Again. It was getting gross already.

“I’ve had enough,” I said, and tossed the rest of my ice cream in the trash. Too bad if it is ridiculously expensive, and there is no reason to waste food. I was nearly puking on the sidewalk.

“Me, too,” said Kevin, and tossed his in after mine.

We stood there for about an eternity, me, Kevin, and the garbage can. I tried to think of one thing in the world to say to him. I am normally pretty good at chatting.

“So,” I said.

He didn’t say anything so I looked up at him to see if he was busy doing something else. He looked up from the sidewalk at me at the same moment.

“Your sister seems . . .” I ran out of breath midsentence. That never happened to me before. It distracted me and then the pause was too huge and instead of finishing with, like, “nice,” “smart,” or “sweet,” the three choices I’d been considering—I made a strange hiccuping/burping sound.

Kevin smiled. “You think?”

“Not that often,” I answered.

“Was that a burp?”

“No!” I laughed. “No. It was a, just a, I don’t know.”

He nodded.

“A burp,” I admitted falsely. “A small burp.”

He laughed.

“She seems very smart.”

“Yeah. She is.”

He was still smiling. Maybe he likes burpy girls. I lifted my chin to show him, subtly, my good asset, in case he was reevaluating my worth in light of that newly discovered burping-noise aptitude.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Is something wrong with your head?”

“Why?”

“You just, never mind. I thought maybe you got a stiff neck at newspaper or something.”

“No,” I said, tipping my chin down. “I’m on City News staff,” I added, to cover the fact that my head was bobbling, trying to get to a normal position. I could not seem to remember how it was supposed to balance on my neck.

“I’m on Features,” Kevin said. “It’s fun, when you get used to it.”

“Yeah?” This was the longest conversation I’d ever had with him and I was making myself nauseous with my unsteady skull. I rested my hand on the garbage can for balance.

“Stick with it,” he said quietly. “You’ll see.”

To avoid grabbing him and demanding to have another shot at kissing, I glanced over at Samantha and the adults. She was sitting on a bench and they were chatting near her. Mom’s chin was tipped up. I squinted to get a look at her neck. It was long and graceful; I’d never noticed hers before either.

Do boys even like necks? Mr. Lazarus looked pretty happy over there.

Some scary-looking scruffy guys, who hang out on the Bridge at the front entrance to the high school, wandered slowly past me and Kevin, checking us out like they knew something about us. I hate when high school boys walk like that, leading with their scruffy-haired chins and coming too close to you, like they own everything. They act so entitled and scary, with their unbrushed hair and untucked shirts. I know that makes me sound horribly prudish and uncool, but the fact is, I am at heart prudish and uncool. I had a fleeting impulse to rush over and slip my hand into Mom’s, for safety. Luckily I stopped myself.

Kevin just looked away, as if he were really fascinated by the stop sign down Hallowell Road. It occurred to me that the older boys might have been a little intimidating to him, too, which should have made me think he was a wimp but in fact made me like him that much more. There is nothing like silent vulnerability to make a girl crazy, as Tess has told me a million times. Another of her many theories I didn’t understand, until very recently.

When the scruffy guys turned the corner, Kevin said, “So.” It came out kind of high and squeaky. He repeated, “So,” in a very, overly, deep voice. I smiled and at that exact moment, Mom and Kevin’s father and sister came over.

“Should we go?” Mom asked.

I nodded.

“Nice to meet you,” Samantha said, and started another round of hand-shaking.

“I’m a kid,” I told her.

“I know,” she said.

“So we should just, like, stand here awkwardly and say bye, and then, like, wait impatiently for the adults to finish shaking hands.”

My mother found this hilarious, apparently, because she laughed a really loud snorting laugh, and Kevin’s father cracked up, too.

“Okay,” Samantha said. “Bye.” She arranged her legs into an awkward stance and stood there watching the adults with an impatient expression souring her face.

“Much better,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, and smiled a smile so crushingly similar to Kevin’s I had to look at him to compare. He wasn’t smiling, though. He may have kind of waved, or else maybe there was a mosquito near his head.

Neither Mom nor I said anything in the car, and when we got home I went right upstairs. I heard Mom out on the deck, probably reading, drinking a glass of wine. She came up a while later. I was lying on my bed.

She flipped off my light and said good night.

“Mom,” I said.

She leaned against my door frame and waited. She looked really pretty, with the hall light behind her and her high cheekbones really noticeable.

“Did you know they were going to be there tonight?”

She took a deep breath in, seeming to consider her answer, which basically answered it for me. I closed my eyes.

“Yeah,” she said, but when I opened my eyes, she was gone.

ten

BREAKFAST WAS A little awkward, since Mom and I couldn’t quite look at each other or talk beyond, “Oh, did you want the juice? Sorry.” All very polite. I was early to the bus stop for once.

At school Kevin and I avoided each other completely. Overall, though, this whatever-it-was, stress, turned out to be quite a boost for my schoolwork—I threw myself into concentrating in class. I copied over my notes at night and really studied, and got 100s on both quizzes (math and bio).

I also swam thirty-six laps (there and back counts as one, by the way), which is a mile, every day after school. I even hurried through the woods. The woods make me think. Swimming makes me stop thinking.

Wednesday night I went to the Board of Ed meeting. I took notes the whole time. I had no idea what they were talking about and I have to admit that some of my notes were doodles of the board members.

Friday, Penelope stopped me in the hall. “Where’s your story?”

“Not done yet,” I said.

She looked shocked. “You better have it to me by fourth period. It has to be in final form by eighth!” She stormed away, muttering under her breath.

I spent a big chunk of my lunch period writing the thing, while eavesdropping on Tess and Jen and Darlene’s gossiping—well, and sometimes adding my opinion. Occasionally. They were choosing new rings for all our cell phones, which was considerably more compelling as a subject than my boring article. It was just hard to care too much about a Board of Ed meeting. I didn’t even really get what was going on there, and couldn’t imagine any other student at our school caring one bit either. I was only doing it because I am an idiot and have this psychotic need to sit in a room with my best friend’s boyfriend one afternoon a week. I should just quit, but, as someone said one time, I am a good writer. And as someone else said, I am in need of a hobby. And see? I am a natural at quoting people—so maybe I will get used to it and have fun, as the first someone promised.

I get distracted even inside my own head.

I did what I could with truly anesthetizing material, then tore it out of my spiral and tracked down Penelope before fifth.

“This is it?” she asked, holding the three ragged pages as if she could catch a disease from them.

I shrugged. “Yeah.”

Penelope sighed. “It’s supposed to be a fifty-word nugget, max.”

“Fifty nuggets?”

“Fifty words.”

“Oh, are you talking about the article?”

“What did you think I was talking about?”

“A Happy Meal.”

“A what?”

“You said something about how many nuggets . . .”

“That’s a news term. Fifty-word nugget, max.”

“Not Max,” I said. “Charlie.”

“I know your name.” She scrunched her face at me. “Are you kidding, or an idiot?”

“Do I have to choose?”

The bell rang before we could continue this enlightening conversation, so I bolted. Good thing Kevin isn’t on the football team; I’d get my butt kicked literally then.

Friday night Tess came over for a sleepover. I had already showered after swimming and done all my homework for Monday before she showed up, sweaty from her bike ride. She takes the long way and zooms. “Want to swim?” she asked, breathless and sweaty when she came in. “I brought my suit.”

I said okay, despite the wobbly feeling in my legs. I grabbed my only clean suit and we hiked up to the clubhouse.

I signed in again and Chris, who is the cutest door guy, cocked his head to say Tess could just go ahead without being signed in and giving us a guest fee to pay on our bill.

“Thanks,” she said to him, lowering her eyelids slowly.

He winked at her.

He is probably, like, twenty. She flashed him a smile and we ran into the women’s locker room.

I opened my mouth wide at her.

She shrugged. “He’s cute.”

“Yeah,” I said. I shook my head and we found a locker that was empty. Guys who are possibly past being teenagers wink at Tess? “Wow,” I said. “Has that happened to you before?”

“What?” Tess asked, and pulled off her shirt. She has no body-shyness at all, never has, as long as I’ve known her. She stepped out of her shorts and underpants, then yanked off her sports-bra and began getting into her bathing suit. “You gonna watch?” she asked.

I sat down on the bench and took off my own shirt. My arms were heavy from earlier.

“I was thinking,” she started.

“Always dangerous,” I said.

“Very true.” She was already shoving her hair into her bathing cap. “What if I decided to train for a triathlon?”

“A what?” My bathing suit was a little pilly on the butt. My good one was already wet from before, and my medium ones were in the hamper.

“Triathlon. You have to run, swim, and bike.” She pulled her goggles over her eyes. She looked like a bug.

I smiled. “You’d win,” I said.

“You’re the best,” she said. “Ready?”

I followed her to the pool and we swam for a while. I was surprised I could do it, honestly. Maybe my muscles are building up. Maybe I could do a triathlon, too, if I could get interested in biking and running. Or maybe I could just be an Olympic swimmer. If the whole journalism thing doesn’t pan out, I could dedicate myself completely to swimming and not have time to waste thinking about which boy is cute, or who he likes, or what the hell is going on with my mother and his father. That might be a good goal.

“I need a goal,” I told Tess, on the way to the locker room.

“Goals are for soccer,” she said.

We showered, dried off, got dressed in our already worn clothes and hiked back to my house. Mom was digging the big wooden bowl out of the cabinet when we walked into the kitchen.

“Hi, Elizabeth,” Tess called.

“Hey, Tess!” My mother always sounds so happy when she talks to Tess. Tess is
my
friend, I sometimes think of reminding her. She gave us each a kiss on our damp heads. “I’m making refrigerator salad.”

Tess heaved herself up to sit on the counter and grabbed a string bean out of the bag beside her. “My favorite,” she said. In Tess’s family, like in my father’s, there is old-fashioned dinner every night: “three things on a plate,” we call it—a meat, a vegetable, a starch. Mom and I go for a more laissez-faire approach, which means, if my French is right (ouch, probably not) “let it be,” or possibly “they let do,” though, as has been proven, French is not my forte. Anyway, the height of our style is refrigerator salad, which means (and this I do know) any bits and pieces we have leftover in the fridge, tossed in a bowl, with lemon squeezed on top and a dash of best-quality olive oil.

“Taste this,” Mom insisted, pouring a drop of the olive oil onto some bread she must have picked up on her way home.

Tess opened her mouth and Mom put the bread in. “Yum,” murmured Tess.

“There is nothing like excellent olive oil,” Mom said, giving me a taste, too. How generous, her own daughter.

It was good. “Mmm,” I admitted.

I got out three stem glasses, and Tess took down three of the big serving bowls we use for our refrigerator salads.

“Oh,” said Mom, turning around. “Just two, tonight.”

“Is one of us leaving?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t me.

“I’m, um,” Mom said, “Going out. Tonight.”

“On a date?” Tess asked.

I like it that my friends are friends with my mother, but honestly.

“Out with some colleagues.”

My mother doesn’t go on dates. She goes to meetings. Occasionally a seminar.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” Tess bit her lower lip, psyched.

I gripped the counter for support.

Mom grinned. “Tess! About a third of the American history department.”

“Ooo,” said Tess. “A woman of mystery.”

“History, not mystery.” Mom hit Tess with some limp celery. “So, you girls have fun. I have to get ready.”

We watched her go.

Tess kicked me.

“Ow,” I said, and not just from the kick.

“She has a boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a date.”

“Oh, come on,” Tess said. “It is so a date!”

“If it is, it is,” I said wearily. Tess is great, but sometimes she pushes. It was not a date, obviously. It was a meeting. It was colleagues. They would probably be discussing the Reconstruction period, as usual. She had those people over sometimes.

“Does she go on a lot of dates?”

“How many is a lot?”

“I don’t know,” Tess said.

“Such a vague term.”

“Every week?”

“How about never? Is never a lot? Zero—I think that would fall below the ‘a lot’ threshold. It is not a date, Tess.” I blew air fast out of my lips, the way Darlene does sometimes when she’s being dismissive. On me it sounded a bit like a lawn mower.

“Okay,” Tess said, looking slightly wounded.

“It’s not.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s just—you shouldn’t tease her like that. She’s getting old, you know, she’s over forty, and she doesn’t date, and I think she doesn’t mind, but she doesn’t need to feel, you know, judged. By my friends, of all people.”

“Ouch,” Tess said. “I wasn’t trying to—sorry. Okay?”

“I just, I try to stay out of her personal life,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. Up until this week she didn’t really have a personal life, or if she did I certainly didn’t know about it. And it was completely possible that she still had no personal life.

“Well,” Tess said, eating another string bean. “Anyway.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Tess and I ate our salads together sitting at the breakfast bar. They were good. There was corn, which always zests it up. Mom came down and gave us another round of kisses. She was wearing her funky red clogs, a T-shirt, her yellow denim jacket, and jeans, all normal—plus lip gloss and mascara. Not normal. She looked beautiful.

“Have fun,” Tess said.

“You, too,” Mom said, grabbing her keys from the hook. “I won’t be late. Be good, and call me on my cell if you need me.”

I need you now
, I randomly thought. “Bye,” I said, and watched her walk out the door.

“Where do you think she’s going?” Tess asked. “With her colleagues.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“We should check and see if she still has that lip gloss on when she gets home,” Tess whispered. “That’s how my mom busted my sister Lena for kissing—swollen lips, no more gloss.”

Before I could puke, the phone rang.