My Stupid Girl (22 page)

I banged on the glass, making them both
jump awake in confusion and terror. I laughed as I opened the driver’s door,
putting the key in the ignition to warm up the Volkswagen. 

“Dude, what the heck man?” Isaiah rubbed
his eyes and looked around, confused, before climbing out to help load up the
ladder. Johnny followed without speaking. 

As we finished tying the beast back on the
roof, Johnny looked at me sideways, “So?”

“Do you have to ask, dude? Look at that
stupid grin on his face. She kissed him.” Isaiah spoke matter-of-factly. I
didn’t say anything; I just chuckled and worked merrily on tying the last
knot. 

As I climbed into the warm car, I felt my
cell phone buzz in my pocket. I looked down, expecting to see my grandma’s name
and was shocked to see Lucy’s. 

“Hello?”

“I just looked at the time. It’s 2 a.m., David.”
Her voice was serious.

“Wow, is it that late?” I was hoping that
she hadn’t gotten caught, or decided to be really upset with me.

“I was just calling because, you know, its
morning.” I heard her breathy laugh, and my heart literally jumped into my throat.
I wished I could melt through the phone and hold her in my arms again.

“Yeah, and what do you think?” I tried to
make my voice sound casual, aware of how flirty I sounded. Both Isaiah and
Johnny’s eyebrows were up under their scalps somewhere, and Isaiah was elbowing
me in the ribs as I spoke.

“I think that I would love to be your
girlfriend, David.” 

“Seriously? Wow. I have a girlfriend.” I
said the words not to her, but to the world. I said it just to say it.

It was the first time in my life that those
words had ever come out of my mouth and they sounded amazing. Especially
because they were tied to the amazing girl only a block away.

“Oh my gosh. Hell has frozen over,"
Johnny spoke, as he patted my back in a gesture of congratulations. Isaiah
started making exaggerated faces of shock and awe, like a Miss America winner.

“David,” Lucy said, bringing me back to our
conversation.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too.”    

13. GOING STEADY

I have a girlfriend. A beautiful, funny, messy,
loving, chaotic girlfriend. 

Lucy, my girlfriend, began calling me every
single morning. It was the best part of my day. I usually got up at least an
hour before I had to leave so I could get my clothes, face, and hair perfect.
Lucy would call me, sleepy-voiced, twenty minutes before she left for school. I
was amazed that she could get out of bed, brush her hair, put on makeup (if she
was in the mood), put on the cleanest thing she could find, and still manage to
be stunning. She would always tell me she hoped I had a good day, and that she
missed me, and couldn’t wait for the weekend. 

Ah, the weekends. Once upon a time I hated
weekends because they meant I had to be alone with my father for two whole
days. Now they were something I literally counted down to. Every night before I
said my goodnights on the phone to Lucy, I would say something like: “Only
three more days till I get to see you.” 

I had turned into a complete fool and I
loved every single second of it. 

We would rotate weekends. I would go to
Kalispell one weekend and then she would come to Whitefish the next, usually
spending time with me and my grandma. My grandma was more excited about those
weekends than I was. Lucy was always there on Saturday mornings when I woke up,
sitting with my grandma, having coffee and talking. Usually she was sitting at
the kitchen table, listening to old stories about my grandfather when he was
younger or about my grandmother’s kids when they were growing up. Then, when I
came out, the two of them would make me some kind of gigantic breakfast that I
had to clean up after while they went and talked some more. It was like a dream
that I had been hoping for my entire life, and now that I had it I hoped I
never woke up from it. 

The weekends I went to Kalispell were
usually filled with visiting friends, mine or hers or sometimes both. Lucy
liked hanging out with my guys, and those little punks absolutely adored her.
She could do no wrong; every single move she made or thing she said was
adorable. After a month or two, Michelle even started to like her a little,
which was amazing because Michelle didn’t even like us all that much.  

Then there were a few of Lucy’s friends
that I was really starting to like. There was Sean who I’d met bowling. And, of
course, Jennika was never far off. She was turning out to be one of the coolest
people I knew. She could counter any sarcastic comment I made with her own
bigger, badder dose. We could go back and forth all day. 

As amazing as the weekends were, my favorite
part of every week was Saturday night. Lucy and I agreed early on that, during
the day, we would hang out with other people, but Saturday night was ours. We
never had to ask the other what they wanted to do Saturday because we didn’t
care, we knew we would be with each other. Alone. I particularly liked
Saturdays at Whitefish because Lucy was allowed in my room. At her house we
hung out on her couch or went to a movie. 

One week, we sat in my room after having a
big dinner with my grandma. After the two of us cleaned the kitchen we had been
released by Grandma to go hang out, just the two of us. These times, when we
were alone without interruption, were the times I really looked forward to. We
could sit for hours and talk. And when I say we, I mean we. There were a few
times I realized I had been talking for over an hour, which was totally unlike
me. Who knew I had so much to say? 

Of course, there was Lucy, hanging on to
each word I was saying. 

“Sorry, I’m talking so much,” I said that
particular night, laying back on my pillow with my hands behind my head. 

“Oh please, I love knowing what’s going on
in that brain of yours!” She looked at me seriously. “I have to ask you
something, David.” 

I instantly got nervous. Old habit. 

“Yeah? Okay.” I patted my hair down against
my face. I could tell by her eyes that she was hesitating, like this was
something that she had wanted to bring up for a long time but never had the
guts.

“How do you get your hair so perfect?” Her
perky face crinkled up in embarrassment.

“What?” I said, starting to laugh in
relief. “What do you mean?” 

“The color, I swear, I have been waiting
for months to see your hair grow out so I could see the roots! Your friends all
have dull spots in their hair or it’s grown out. But it’s like you get up and
dye it the perfect black every single morning. You never have any patches that
don’t match perfectly, or anything. It’s bloody perfect!” She chirped the last
part in an impeccable British accent.

“You think it’s perfect, huh?”

“I’m not even kidding, how often do you dye
it?” 

“Every other morning,” I said, managing to
pull a super-serious face before I started to laugh again. She looked at me
like she couldn’t tell if I was kidding or not, which made me laugh even
harder. Her eyes darted to my bathroom. I could see her brain calculating all
the places I might be hiding hundreds of boxes of “midnight” black hair dye
from Herbal Essences or something. I sat up on my bed and put my hand against
her cheek. 

“I don’t dye it,” I said quietly. She
opened her mouth like she was saying “Ooooh” silently, then combed her fingers
through my hair. It felt amazing. She started at the root of my hair on the
left side and combed it to the ends, down to my shoulders. She looked like she
was looking closely for a flaw.

“Wow,” was all she said. I moved my face to
the side a little so I could kiss her palm that was resting near my scalp.

“It’s so black it’s almost blue in the
sun.” She still stroked my hair. I just shrugged and smiled at her. My hair was
always something that my friends made fun of me for. Whenever someone had to go
and dye theirs they would make sure I knew that I was a little princess for
having such perfect hair. It was actually something I really liked about
myself. The natural-color trump card.

“So is that your natural color?” I asked
Lucy, gently tugging on the ends of her hair. It was longer than it had been
when I first met her, almost touching her hips now. She was sitting
cross-legged on my bed and the tips of the longest strands were laying on her
thighs.

“Oh no, I pay a ton of money for this
amazing mouse-poop brown.” She picked up a stray piece and put it in front of
her nose, looked at it cross eyed because it was so close, and laughed. “All
the celebrities are sporting this high-end color.” 

“You should put some highlights in it.” I
pulled my fingers through her light waves. It was soft, it felt like velvet
between my fingers, I did it a few times; it was so long that I could play with
the ends and not even move my body closer to her. 

“You don’t like it?” Her big lips went down
in a fake frown. 

“Lucy, you could be bald and I would adore
it; it’d be so rockabilly. And blond or red highlights would be killer. You’re
gorgeous no matter what.” I reached out and kissed her freckled nose, holding
her face with my hands. She sighed which meant that she was going to pull away
from me. 

It had been three months and we still
hadn’t kissed.

Don’t get me wrong, we did little
mini-kisses, the junior version of a standard church-kiss. But the impromptu
make-out session with Rachel the Sneak still remained the only “big” kiss I’d
ever had. It was frustrating. 

No, let me correct myself.

It was agony. 

I wasn’t sure if Lucy was still upset at
me, or if it had to do with that little ring on her left hand. She fiddled with
it sometimes when she was backing away from me, like a talisman against the big
bad kissing machine. I had asked her a while back why she was wore a ring on
her wedding finger and she told me it was a purity ring. Her parents had given
it to her when she was thirteen, and the whole thing involved the understanding
that she was wearing the ring as a symbol that she wanted to stay pure until
her wedding night. 

I could see giving my kid one of those
purity rings when she turned into a young woman, especially if she was as
beautiful as Lucy. But, as the boyfriend, I hated it. That stinking little ring
was like an invisible wall that I wasn’t allowed to cross or even go near. I
wasn’t even sure if I was allowed to think about it. I’d picked up the habit of
picking up her hand and kissing the little thing when I was having this
internal struggle and feeling like a stupid teenager. That always made her
lighten up. I could tell she struggled a lot with some kind of resolution she
had given herself when it came to me. I guess I should be flattered that she
looked like she was stressed out whenever we were alone. I really hoped that
the looks she gave me and the way she pulled away was because she wanted to be
with me, too, not because she didn’t trust me. Asking her about it straight out
didn’t seem right, either. Every time I considered it I quickly began figuring
out ways to argue her out of whatever imposition she was holding over us. It
seemed better just to wait.

There was that time in the lighthouse
though, when she’d almost kissed me. I can tell you right now, if that stupid
old man hadn’t interrupted us that it wouldn’t have been a small kiss. So why
was Lucy so hesitant now? That’s what I couldn’t wrap my head around. It had to
have been the Rachel thing, I figured. I really didn’t know, but I was just
happy to be with Lucy, to be near her and have her laugh at the things I said.
Basically, I was just glad she was in my life.

“So, you’re turning eighteen in a few
months. What do you want to do?” Lucy’s question broke me out of my
contemplative mode. She turned her body around so that she was sitting up
against the wall, facing me. She pulled on my arms and positioned me against
the wall with her, putting my arm around her shoulder.

“Honestly, I haven’t even thought about
it.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but it was close enough. The only real thought
I’d given it was what it would mean for me legally. I hadn’t considered it in
terms of a fun, party kind of thing, that’s for sure.

“Can I think of something for you and
surprise you?” Lucy popped up and spun around on her knees to face me,
excitement etched in each little smile line around her eyes. 

“Sure.” I shrugged. I had never held out
much promise for my birthdays in the past, they were always filled with
disappointments. 

My grandma always came through for me, with
a call and a card. She would sometimes even come down on, or around, my
birthday to take me to dinner. But she was the only one. Mostly, I just spent
the day forgetting that it was supposed to be special.

I turned eighteen in exactly twenty-two
days. Looked like I’d make it to adulthood without being forced to move around
anymore. My father had never tried to get me back, which I was pleased about.
I’d found myself learning, growing, and flourishing in this house, especially
with Lucy in my life. Pulling that girl’s butt out of the lake had been one of
the best decisions I had ever made, even though I don’t really remember making
it consciously. But consciously or unconsciously, I’m glad I did it. 

“What do you want?” Lucy asked me.

“For my birthday? I have no idea.” 

What did people get for birthdays? I tried
to think of something big, something to mark the big-ness of the occasion.

“How about a big tattoo?” I finally asked.
Her face flashed amazement for a moment but changed to interest quickly.

“A tattoo, huh? Where?”

“I don’t know. My arm, probably.” I always
thought that a “sleeve” style would be cool to have. But really, when it came
down to it, I was too much of a chicken for that. I’d probably end up with
something on my shoulder.