If We Kiss (8 page)

fifteen

THE NEXT MORNING I woke up feeling overwhelmingly lonely. Maybe that’s how anybody awake at five in the morning feels, when the light is weak and the sky is November pale. I don’t know why depression is supposed to be blue. I felt like I had the grays.

After a while I dragged myself out of bed and sat down in front of my computer. Nobody was online yet. Blah. I didn’t know what to do. I hated everything. I wished I could just start everything fresh.

Yes,
I thought, feeling the gray lift slightly.
Maybe that’s what I really need, actually.
A fresh start. I did a little surfing and decided Mom and I should move to New Hampshire. That would be a fresh start. I found a real estate site and started checking out houses in southern New Hampshire so Mom could still commute to work. I would have to switch schools, but, hey, change is good. It would be good for both of us to get away from all this. Maybe we would even buy a non-figurative cow. I could do chores. That would probably be good for me, get my butt in gear. The root of all my problems, I started thinking, might be that I needed a more wholesome, simple, Patagonia-style life.

While I was deciding how many acres we’d need, Tess called.

“I was about to call you,” I told her.

“Beat you again.”

“Surprise, surprise,” I said. “We might move to New Hampshire.”

“What? You better be kidding, Charlie.”

“We’re thinking we might be rural people at heart. You know, since my mom brought up the cow, I’ve been thinking . . .”

“Oh, please. For a second I thought you were serious.”

“I am serious.”

“Your mother barely likes to step off the deck. And you are allergic to fur.”

“Well,” I said, “you can grow out of allergies.”

“Your favorite animal is smoked salmon. Come on. I have something serious to ask you.”

“New Hampshire is a very serious state,” I said. “Do you know what their state motto is? ‘Live Free or Die.’ Die! It says that on, like, their license plates and stuff. Die. I’m serious.” I clicked on a house that had four bedrooms and eight acres, and was actually kind of pretty in a rustic way, if you like snow a lot. I could learn not to hate the cold, maybe. Live Free or Die.

I was about to tell Tess some more facts about New Hampshire—like it is the first state to vote in presidential primaries and it has four nicknames, including the Granite State—when Tess asked, “Do you think I should tell Kevin I love him?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “That was definite.”

“No, I . . .” I wanted to back off my absoluteness and try to breathe and also give myself a chance to think about her, my best friend, instead of just my own sad selfishness. But every cell in my body wanted to scream, NO! You canNOT love him, or it makes me even worse for loving him, too! “Did he say he loves you?” I asked.

How mean is it that I was hoping she would say no?

“No.”

I am such a bad friend. I tried to pull down my smile. It was a fight. I wished I could be made of granite. I wanted to be strong and definite and true, to live free or die.

“But do you think the boy has to say it first?” Tess asked.

“No,” I said. “Definitely not. But do you? Love him?”

I heard her breathing, in, out. It is my favorite sound, somebody breathing near me, even through the phone.

“I . . .” She hesitated. Tess is always very definite. Tess could be a New Hampshirite. “I think so.”

Oh.

“So I guess you guys had some fun after I left.”

“Abruptly. Why did you? Somebody said you had a fight with your mom.”

“Well . . .”
Tell her
.

“I was like, no way,” Tess said. “Charlie and her mom have the perfect relationship.”

Did that used to be true? Or was that just one of those fictions Tess made up that I liked to believe even when I knew it wasn’t completely true? Either way, I didn’t want to correct her right that second. I wasn’t sure which of us I was protecting. “I had cramps.”

“Oh,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I always have Midol. And I was looking for you. Jennifer said you got a sudden bad headache.”

“That, too,” I lied. “And I, I leaked.”

“Oh,” Tess groaned sympathetically. “How awful. Oh, Charlie. Did anybody see?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, that’s lucky at least.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“If nobody knows,” she said, “you can just decide it never happened.”

“My theory exactly,” I agreed. So she’s as dishonest as I am?

“So that’s why,” she said. “Okay. I just . . .”

“What?”

“I was just surprised when I couldn’t find you, and then Jen said you’d left.”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve . . .”

“It just seemed like you would tell me, not Jen. Whatever. George looked sad all night.”

“He did? I’m just, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I just had to . . .”

“No, definitely,” Tess said.

“Hey,” I said. “Let’s stop talking about what a jerk I am so you can tell me what happened,” I said, flopping down on my bed. “Between you and, you know, Kevin.”

“Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing like a big thing or, you know, the pact or like he saved my life or made a grand gesture or anything like that but . . . do you promise you won’t think I’m weird?”

“I already think you’re weird,” I assured her.

“Good point. Okay. When I was getting ready to leave the party, and I had barely talked to him—I was really mad at him because he was ignoring me pretty much the entire party—I walked by him and when he saw me, he smiled. Is that crazy? But it was this gradual smile. It just kind of took its time spreading across his face. He just looked at me like he was really happy to see me and, like, he thought I looked, I don’t know, good.”

Well.

“Charlie?”

“Ungh.”

“Is that ridiculous?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“At that moment I knew, I just knew that I loved him. I almost said it right then and there but then I thought, whoa, slow down, better talk to Charlie first. Because this is . . . I don’t want to mess it up.”

“No,” I said, managing to blink. My eyeballs were parched.

“So you think I should wait, then? I’m being a doink, right?”

“No, you’re not,” I said. “Not at all. That sounds . . . I don’t blame you at all.”

“Really? It’s romantic, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I knew you would get it. I would never even try to explain to anybody else how this one smile just about broke all my ribs. Only you. We’re so lucky, aren’t we? I mean, people like Darlene, who do they tell everything to?”

“Tess,” I said. “I have to . . .” . . .
tell you something, some things, some stuff I should have been telling you all along. . . .

“I have to go, too,” she said. “See you in school tomorrow. I feel so much better. Is that weird? Maybe I didn’t have to tell him I love him; I just had to tell somebody. No—I just had to tell you. Thanks, Charlie.”

She hung up before I could say you’re welcome. I hung up, too, and since I couldn’t even move off my bed, never mind to another state, I just lay there a hundred miles away from New Hampshire, until the phone in my hand rang again.

sixteen

“HI, IT’S GEORGE.”

“Hi,” I said.

“We have to talk.”

I hate when people say that. Even George.

“Why?” I asked. I was pretty talked out from the last phone call.

“Because sign language over the phone really sucks,” he said.

I smiled.

“Yes, like that. Can’t read you there.”

“I was smiling,” I told him.

“Oh. Okay. So. Um, obviously it’s not working out.”

“What isn’t?”

“Us,” he said.

I sat up.
Are you dumping me?
I thought, but what I said was, “Oh.”

“So,” he said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“So, see ya.”

“I guess,” I answered.

“By the way—I knew that people sometimes put out plastic flamingoes on their lawns.”

“Oh,” I said.
What?

He didn’t hang up but he didn’t say anything else, so I hung up. Then I flopped back down on my bed and cried. Not just about the humiliation of being tossed, but also about George, and how I had totally messed up my relationship with him when he is such a great guy and I am such an undeserving heap of poop. Then I cried about Kevin, and how he only used me when he really loved Tess all along, looking at her all happy to see her and like she looks good. Then I cried about Tess, and why does she get to be prettier than me and more confident and fun, and also what a bad friend I am to her, lusting after her boyfriend and keeping secrets from her when I know she would never do that to me. And then, just for good measure, I cried about nobody loving me best in the world since my father has his cute new family and always has to take a deep breath before he says a word to disorderly me, and my mother of all people (ha!) is all dreamy-eyed about some man and if they get married it won’t just be me and her anymore, looking at the lake; it will be him and her, with me probably shunted upstairs to play with the other kids.

The other kids being a brilliant little girl and, oh yeah, the crush of my life.

After that I was so dehydrated I needed to drink an entire liter of seltzer. I didn’t even have to pee, after. That’s how much I had cried.

Then I cut up a cucumber and put the slices on my eyes. I had read about doing that in a magazine Tess and I stole from her oldest sister, Isabel. It was an article called “The Best Revenge Is Looking Good.” We almost got caught in our theft, we were snorting so loud at the stupidity of it all. Who’d lie around with cucumber slices on her eyes, if she weren’t a dead fish on a platter at a catered brunch? For that matter, who’d cry her eyes out all night just because a boy dumped you?

A Pop-Tart, that’s who. What I always swore I’d never stoop to become.

I gave myself a stern talking to: Get over yourself, honey. Get some perspective on world events and real tragedy, huh?

So then I cried a little about what a shallow jerk I am.

I lay back down on the couch like a smoked trout. The cucumbers felt surprisingly refreshing. Maybe it would not be so bad to be an entrée.

I noticed that with my eyes covered my hearing was particularly acute. I heard Mom walk into the living room but pretended not to, until she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I answered casually.

I listened to her sitting down in a chair, which scraped a bit on the floor.

“Tuesday night,” she said, “we’re going to have dinner with Joe, Kevin, and Samantha. I was thinking Mama Mexico might be fun.”

I sat up and the cucumbers fell, one on the floor and one on the couch. “Mom!”

“You know, there’s music, and I thought Samantha might enjoy that lady who makes the balloon animals.”

“I’m not going,” I said.

“Charlotte. Come on. We’re better than this, you and I.”

“It’s not . . . Mom, I honestly don’t care about your personal life,” I said in my most blasé voice. “Do what you want. But Tuesday I’m busy.”

“What?”

“Newspaper. Don’t you remember? I’m on the City News staff. I told you. Weren’t you listening?”

“Yes,” Mom said, “I know.” She was talking in her
I’m so reasonable
voice. I hate that voice. “We would have dinner after that, in the evening.”

“I’ll have homework.” I put a fresh couple of cucumber slices on my eyes and lay back down.

She just sat there not making a sound while I counted silently. I swore to myself I would not cave in and take off the cucumbers before a hundred at the earliest. At eighty-three I heard the chair squeak and her footsteps leaving the room.

I sat up, dumping the new pair of cukes. “I get a lot of homework this year, you know! Plus the whole journalism responsibility! What if there’s some . . . news? In the city? I might have to go out and cover it!”

Nothing.

I immediately thought of ten obnoxious things to yell but I knew she’d just ignore them so I didn’t waste my breath. I was considering getting really annoyed that she was acting so unimpressed with my single-minded devotion to my newspaper career, until I admitted to myself that so far I hadn’t done anything other than download phone numbers for the Board of Ed, and complain about how boring it was.

I moved on to Best Revenge/Looking Good plans. There was very little I could do right then to make a positive difference in the world, I rationalized, and though I had always thought of myself as a good person, I was evidently wrong, as even George had figured out. I might however be able to perk up my looks marginally. Maybe that was a way I could contribute to making the world a better place, a more beautiful place.

I knew that was a load of crap even as I thought it, and so it was with complete self-loathing that I marched into the kitchen with a recipe for apricot/egg facial mask to continue attempting to improve myself superficially.