Little Divas (13 page)

With his face close to mine, he put his hand on my waist. I tried to reposition myself so that his arm would fall off me, but it didn’t. He grabbed tighter, and I looked around. I really was all alone with Travis.

He said, “So, you coming to my games?”

Amid the flutters, I felt myself smiling inside, but I didn’t answer. Was Travis going to be my very first boyfriend?

He raised his eyebrows. “You gonna come?”

I felt myself beaming, more comfortable now, and I was glad for that. “Maybe,” I teased. I barely recognized myself. I was behaving like Rikki.

He feigned a sad expression.
“All right then.
Be like that. It’s cool….”

I nudged him with my shoulder. “Travis, I didn’t say no,” I reminded him.

A silly, dramatic wave of relief passed across his face, and then he grew quiet, more serious again. For a moment I could only hear low voices in the backyard as the music on the stereo changed from one song to a slower one.

After the music started again, Travis said, “You never kissed nobody before, have you?”

“I don’t do stuff like that,” I said.

He pulled me closer into him.

I pulled back a little. “Travis…”

He smiled. “What? I’m not talking about doing the
grown up.”

“Oh, I
really
don’t do stuff like
that.”

He put his hand on the small of my back, but this time I didn’t push it away. It actually felt okay.

“That’s what I like about you,” he said. “You’re different.”

“What do you mean?”

“All some girls talk about
is
doing the grown up.”

“Really? Like who?”

“Like everybody.” He shrugged.

“Well, not me.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why you’re different.”

And again, he pulled me into him. Just that quick, before I knew what was happening, before I even had a chance to take a deep breath first, Travis’s mouth was on mine, and he was pressing in.

After a couple of seconds, he pulled away.

“Cassidy,” he said. “You gotta kiss back.”

He moved toward me again. This time, when his lips pressed against mine, I remembered to do what he’d said. We held still like that for a while, my heart bursting with all kinds of new and unfamiliar flutters, and it felt nice,
very
nice, as a matter of fact.

Finally he pulled his face from mine.

I had just kissed Travis Jones!

And now we were looking into each other’s eyes.

More flutters.

He bit his bottom lip again.

I waited. What was wrong? Did I not do something that I was supposed to do? “What?” I said.

Travis smiled a little, then pulled me back toward him, pressing his lips against mine again. It was harder this time, more forceful. And something was different. Travis’s mouth was opened. It was what Rikki had told me about, what she and Darwin did all the time. French kissing. Mary had always said that it would feel wonderful, but actually, it felt pretty weird.

Then I remembered what Rikki had told me once, that you’re not supposed to think while you’re kissing, that you’re just supposed to do what you feel. Otherwise it won’t feel as good. So I tried to shut my mind off.

Travis reached down to take my other hand. He placed that one on his shoulder and then let go. Now I was standing kind of how Rikki was with Darwin. Only Travis didn’t try to put his hand on my butt, and boy, was I glad.

We kissed some more, a
lot
more, the whole time with my hand around Travis’s neck. I could feel his heart pounding, and I wondered if he could feel mine, too.

I was kissing for the first time, and Mary was right in how she’d described it. It really did feel like swinging on the last day of summer, when you don’t want it to end.

When we were finished, Travis had kind of a nervous look on his face, and I knew that I did too.

“Now what?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Will you be my lady?”

Now I bit
my
bottom lip. That was something that I still wasn’t ready to answer.

He let out a long breath. “So you gonna call me tonight, or what?”

“I guess,” I said.

“All right. Nine forty-five,” he said. “Cool?”

“Okay.”

“Cool,” he said again.

I felt so weird, like I was still kissing, even. How long would it take before that feeling went away and I could feel normal again? What if Travis went back to being the old Travis again, but I couldn’t erase the way it felt to kiss him? But then again, what if he didn’t? What if we did become boyfriend and girlfriend? What if everything that changes stays changed forever?

fourteen

At eight-thirty
Mary wasn’t waiting for us at the corner. Unfortunately, Aunt Honey was.

Rikki spotted the fog lights on her parents’ big brown van first and immediately stopped walking. Golden and I, of course, followed suit.

“No use runnin’,” Rikki said with a heavy sigh. “Damage is done now.” She took a piece of gum out of her plastic bag of take-home goodies from the party, popped it in her mouth, and headed straight for the van.

Aunt Honey was by herself, sitting in the driver’s seat shaking her head back and forth. She didn’t say anything as the three of us piled in.

“But Ma—” Rikki started in.

“Not a word,” Aunt Honey interrupted.
“Not
a word.” Then she reached back and snatched Rikki’s bag, peeked inside, snagged a roll of Smarties, and twisted the wrapper open. Piece by piece she crunched.

I looked over at Rikki, her face barely visible in the dark shadows in the back of the van. Golden’s eyes were huge, like she didn’t know what in the world was about to happen. She didn’t know Aunt Honey.

“Big ole loud bark,” Rikki whispered to Golden, “no bite. Watch.”

But, then again, we’d never been caught like this before. Coming out of a party with swimming suits on? What
was
going to happen to Rikki? And what would happen to
me?

“Cassidy,” Aunt Honey said, “your father is on his way to our house to get you and Golden. He’s very, very upset with you.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

“Okay, Mrs. Carter,” Golden said too.

We were pulling into the driveway before Aunt Honey spoke again. “There is no way in our Father’s world that I’d have ever imagined my daughters
and
my niece would lie to me,” she said. “Lord have mercy.”

I noticed that Mary’s car was parked in the garage with the windows rolled up all the way and not on the street like it usually is. Rikki asked, “Where is she?”

Aunt Honey said, “The question is, where was she when she was
supposed
to be at work?”

Rikki stormed down the stairs into the basement where Golden and I sat frozen in silence on the couch. She had been upstairs talking, or rather yelling, with Aunt Honey and Uncle Lance for a while, and now she was muttering that she was going to run away.

Uncle Lance marched down the steps after Rikki, which was surprising. Uncle Lance and Aunt Honey hardly ever come downstairs. “Don’t you storm through my house like this,” Uncle Lance fumed.

Rikki rolled her eyes and flopped down beside me on the couch. With her arms crossed, she started tapping her foot.

Uncle Lance stood in front of us and looked at me. Then he looked at Golden. His eyes went from bulging with anger to nervous confusion as he started pacing back and forth.

“Look. I am your father,” he reminded Rikki, as if she didn’t know this. “And you
will
respect me.” His nostrils flared as he shook his pointer finger in the air.

“But Daddy, you just don’t—”

“No!” He cut her off. “You will honor me in my house. And as long as you are
my
child, you will obey me. Until you learn to do as you’re told, until you learn that deceit is a sin, you will be punished. Do you hear me?”

“Can I just say something, Daddy? Please? Can I at least tell you something?”

“You lied to me. You lied to your mother. There will be no forked tongues in my house, little girl.”

“But Daddy! All I’m trying to tell you is that all the other kids were there.” Rikki’s voice cracked, which made me look at her. Just then a tear fell. Whoa. Rikki never cries.

I wanted to tell her to bite her tongue, the way she always tells me, but I was too nervous that Uncle Lance would start yelling at me, too, so I just touched her shoulder instead.

Rikki sniffed. “Daddy, here it is, big ole summer, and I couldn’t even go over to my friend’s party? All we ever get to do is go to church. Wouldn’t God want me to have fun?”

Uncle Lance looked at me. “Cassidy, what did your father say?”

Rikki spoke before I had a chance to answer. “She hasn’t talked to him yet. But he’ll probably understand, Daddy. See, Uncle Ray is normal!”

Uncle Lance frowned. “Now look here—”

“Daddy…” Rikki whined. “It’s not like Darwin’s parents weren’t there—”

“W-w-what did you say?” he stuttered. “That makes lying to your mother and me right? The fact that the Macks were home? The sin I am addressing is deceit. Thou shall not lie, Rikki!”

Uncle Lance’s eyes narrowed. “I have rules and regulations and you will abide by them. Two months. I’m sure your mother will want to add something to—”

Rikki jumped up off the couch. “Two months of what?”

“You will not leave this house for the next two months. School and church, that’s it. That’ll give you plenty of time to think about how a responsible young lady conducts herself.” Uncle Lance’s voice faded into mumbling as he turned and made his way upstairs.

No longer fighting back her tears, Rikki insisted that she was coming to live with me.

A few minutes later, Mary crept downstairs.

“Hey,” she whispered as she sat down cautiously on the La-Z-Boy, as if extra noise would make things worse. As if anything could make things worse. Mary’s eyes were red and puffy like she’d been doing an awful lot of crying herself. I couldn’t remember ever being angry with Mary, but I guess there is a first time for everything.

“What do
you
want?” Rikki asked, just what I was thinking.

“Rikki, girls, look,” Mary said, taking care to look at each of us. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Mary sighed. “It was so embarrassing. I thought that maybe it was one of you calling when my cell phone rang, otherwise I never would have answered. Of all the days for Daddy to come by the DQ to check on me… I wasn’t there, so he called my cell phone.”

“But you were
supposed
to be there,” I reminded her.

“I know, I know,” she said. “But Archie wanted to see me, so I got someone to cover for me while I left for a little bit.”

“So what,” Rikki said. “Daddy called so you decided to play us by telling him where we were? Whatever, Mary.”

“He threatened to take my car, Rikki! To make me quit my job. My only two ways of getting out of this house were going to be gone for months! And you know Daddy never backs down once he issues a punishment. He
demanded
to know where you were. It was awful.”

“Well, still, it’s your fault for leaving work,” Rikki said. “If you would’ve just followed the plan, none of this would’ve happened.”

Rikki was right. Maybe Mary wasn’t as smart as I always believed she was. I felt bad for thinking it, but Mary really did get flighty when it came to Archie. Rikki always says that whenever Archie comes around, Mary’s brain grows wings and flies south and doesn’t come back until he leaves.

Rikki started holding her breath, like she often does when she gets angry. She says that one day she is going to hold it until she dies. Golden laughed when I told her what Rikki was doing.

“Rikki,” Mary said, “you know that eventually your brain takes over and
makes
you exhale. It’s the body’s autopilot for survival.”

Still, Rikki’s eyes were staring at the ceiling, tears falling steadily down her cheeks in dramatic punctuation.

Mary nodded with understanding. “I know just how you feel,” she said. Then she reached over and pinched Rikki’s stomach. Rikki pretended to be angry, but I could tell that she was relieved to breathe again.

“Dang, Mary,” Rikki said. “You ruined everything.”

“Trust me,” Mary said, ignoring Rikki’s anger. “I never would’ve left work if I thought any of this was going to happen.”

Rikki wouldn’t let up. “You’re so stupid, I swear. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Leave it to stupid, stupid Mary.”

Mary said, “Well, just be glad you got away with the pool party, okay? At least Mom didn’t come in and embarrass you.”

Rikki rolled her eyes and threw one of the couch pillows across the room. “I’m on punishment
again.
Darwin’s birthday is coming, he’s having a party, and I’ll be the only person in the world who won’t be able to go.”

Mary walked over and picked up the pillow. “Well, you shouldn’t be available all the time anyhow, Rikki. None of you should. Only common girls go to every event. Be selective. Your presence should be a compliment to the host.”

Rikki whipped around and glared. “You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever known! Shut up talking to me.”