Things I can’t Explain (18 page)

A few blocks later Sam pulled over into the parking lot behind Reveille Church, and the sexual buzz was so thick it seemed like the composition of the air around us had changed. I was trembling, shivering. His hands drew my hips toward him, sliding me closer across the red pickup's comfortable bench seat. We grabbed each other, gasping and hungry for each kiss, his fingers pulsating, pulling at the edge of my jeans. Every smell and taste overwhelmed the next.

Tearing one more kiss from my lips, Sam paused, pulling back to look at me. Our eyes met unflinchingly, raw and unfiltered. Was there any question? Any doubt? It felt like he was looking into my soul. Slowly, he began again. His little kisses to my neck turned into bites, a whimper of pain escaping me. More kisses behind my ear and in the corners of my mouth became long, searching slow ones. He had his answer. There was no hurry anymore, just certainty about what we were going to do.

Soon his fingers were tightening in my hair, drawing my open mouth toward his, sucking on my tongue, nearly biting it. As his hand made its way down my spine to my waist, he leaned back, pulling me down with him, still kissing, and bringing me farther on top. I dug my hands through his hair, biting his lips. I pulled off my dress and threw it in the back of the cab as he unbuttoned my jeans and I unbuttoned his.

With one thrust he was inside me, consuming me. I gave myself up to his arms, to his body, driving deeper, smooth and hard, shuddering uncontrollably as he let go. There was something amazing about us coming together so simply, so naturally, and so completely without talking or saying anything.

Afterward, we lay naked on the seat and our bodies fit together, two halves of a whole, our breathing long and slow. To find Sam in my arms was heaven, momentous, earthshaking. It sounds too simple to say everything in our lives had led up to that moment, but it felt that way. Neither of us knew what to say, even though I'm sure all kinds of thoughts were clouding our minds. I lay there in silence, drifting in and out of a delicious sleep.

“I've never done that before,” he said, his soft voice waking me. I opened my eyes and leaned up on one elbow.

“You mean with me?”

“No. Never at all.”

“What? Really?” I didn't believe him at first.

“Yeah.”

I had to lift my head up farther to look at him to see if he was kidding. He responded with that low-key Sam kind of shrug and smiled.

“Coulda fooled me,” I said, lowering my head to his chest. “Never?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?” I asked, still breathing him in.

“Came close, did lots of other stuff, but didn't want to until now,” he said.

“Don't go saying you saved yourself for—”

“I'm not. Just didn't,” he said. I could tell he was a little defensive. “You?”

“Not … like this. Suffice it to say I've never done it … before … in a red pickup … with you,” I said, snuggling closer, but suddenly wondering if that was okay with him. I wanted to say more about everything I felt, how being with him eased my rumbling mind and soothed my tired body, my soul, but I didn't.

“You never said anything about it,” he said.

“Yeah, I know. It wasn't so great.” I immediately worried if that made me sound like someone who slept around a lot, but I decided to let it rest.

We fell softly asleep, easily intertwined in each other, his arm around my waist, mine curled across his chest, his breathing warm on my neck until we were stirred by fire engine sirens in the distance that seemed to be growing closer. But even then we didn't give it a thought. The windows were fogged up with condensation and we were cut off from the world in our own cozy sphere of tenderness and warmth that I never wanted to leave.

It wasn't until the knock on the window that we jumped, scrambling for our clothes before the door opened. The fireman was pointing a flashlight in our eyes.

Sam was mortified. I was worried, too. At least the fireman had the courtesy to knock.

“Sam Anders?” he asked and Sam nodded. “Clarissa Darling?” I nodded dutifully. “We've been looking for you.”

It took a while to piece together what had happened. Our first clue came later the next day when we were walking downtown. Every classmate we encountered gave us a wink or some kind of snickering smile. Nothing like your entire high school knowing that you had unambiguously hooked up with your closest best friend. Fortunately, most everyone thought it was pretty rad except you-know-who—Genelle Fucking Waterman.

Jody filled me in later on what occurred after Sam and I left the party. Genelle did three more Jell-O shots, muttered something about “not letting that Clarissa bi-otch have what was rightfully hers,” then triggered the fire alert on her parents' house alarm system pad—a direct line to the Springfield Fire Department. Considering Mr. Waterman is a councilman, every division in Springfield responded.

Former high school classmates in various degrees of intoxication scattered. Kegs were rolled to safety, bongs were hidden in oversized purses. Most people panicked and tried to get out of there as fast as they could. Poor Clifford was struggling to get his DJ gear out of the joint as the fire department arrived. Jody tried to help Genelle hide the last few kegs in the garden shed when the G-Bomb passed out on the lawn. No one in the history of Springfield, Ohio, had ever heard of someone calling the authorities on their own party, but Genelle is a pioneer in her own way.

Our stalwart defenders of public safety saw pretty quickly that there was no fire, but when they tried to revive Genelle she kept mysteriously muttering about—guess who?—Sam and me. So with nothing else to do but solve the mystery, the erstwhile firemen of Engine Company No. 5 of the Fire and Rescue Division set out on a search for us that ended with a polite knock on the cab of Sam's dad's red Ford pickup.

News of me kissing Sam for the first time (I mean
really
kissing Sam for the first time, not the other first kiss that I don't count) spread through Springfield like the house fire that never actually happened. But everyone was mostly unsurprised. The number one response was, “Weren't they doing it all through high school?”

Talk about an epic fail. Genelle was humiliated. If she didn't hate me before that moment, she sure as hell hated me after. Even though she was the one who called in the first responders, I felt sorry for her. Almost.

My phone buzzes again and there's another text from Genelle.

“I really want to meet up for a girl chat!!”

Oh God, a girl chat with my least-favorite girl.

“I've got big news!!”

Okay, really. What is wrong with her? Why she would want to share big, medium, or even small news with me is impossible to imagine. Why she thinks I care is unfathomable.… You know, on a level of trying to understand one of those
Doctor Who
episodes.

I text back a very polite generic brush-off, something about being busy with work, and “Thanks for getting in touch.”

I guess I'm a little curious, but this time, I'm using all my energy to make a concerted effort to move forward and ignore the great big bungee cord of life.

High school had its wonderful moments, but I'm not going to let it pull me back. I've got bigger things ahead. And even though it takes major willpower not to remember things like Sam's amazingly soft lips and my fingers running through the soft brown curls of his hair that night in his dad's red pickup, I need to stick to the path.

If only I can find it!

 

CHAPTER
18

For the next few days, I hunker down at the computer and work on my article. But what the piece really needs is “legwork,” as Hugh used to say—not of the Wikipedia or Google variety, but firsthand and in person.

So here's the bad news: I have to hang out with Norm and schlep to South Williamsburg where his manufacturing operation is headquartered. Let me rephrase that: Where Norm and three baggy-pants slacker dudes doodle on rolling toys for grown-up boys whose favorite movies are of the
Jackass
kind, and who consider wise-ass MTV reality stars Rob and Big their role models.

Okay, so maybe Norm's setup is a little more sophisticated than that. I have to admit that Norm is really giving it a go and there is money actually changing hands, going in and out of the company in what looks like an actual flow of supply and demand. He's gotten some serious business and accounting advice—I guess from “that Bezos dude.” I interview Belinda, his accountant, who is a no-shit numbers lady, and I'm impressed that she has the purse strings firmly in hand. This is validating for me, considering I took a total leap into the unknown pitching the story to Dartmoor and MT. I get a wee bit of credit for good instincts. Lots of credit for thinking on my feet and surviving.

Norm has also cooled out on the stalker tendency because of MT and their mutual fascination, opening up a potential new line of business for me: “Matchmaking for Stalkers.” Think about it—how many stalkers and stalkees would live better lives if you could hook them up with someone who really wanted them and likes that kind of attention? Actually sounds like a line of business for Ferguson more than me. The good news is that despite Norm's pronoun problem, he seems to be able to actually talk about the business.

I spend a few hours asking questions, jotting down notes, and taking some photos. Surprisingly, Norm is all business. Somebody has talked some sense into this guy. I also notice MT's business card pinned with a nail to the plywood board that passes for his desk. Luckily he's got this frizzy-haired geeky kid in charge of “manufacturing,” i.e., the Gorilla Glue part of it all. I consider mentioning Janet's ToFlue Glue but think better of it.

I take all kinds of pictures for the piece—some are pretty cool and make ol' Norm look like a movie star. Central casting, anyone? Around four o'clock I leave the industrial All Decked Out warehouse. Despite the short deadline Dartmoor managed to throttle me with, I opt to catch my breath, take a break, and look for a bite to eat. It's nice to get lost in Williamsburg for a while.

I stop by Grumpy's for a coffee (okay, are you detecting a pattern here?) and look over my notes. It's pretty deserted except for a few production assistants with clipboards and stopwatches and even one of those movie clapboards from a television studio nearby shooting some HBO show.

Then I head south down Kent Street past Brooklyn Brewery, stopping by the El Diablo Taco Truck for a carnitas, finding a very cool storefront exhibition space filled with shelves and shelves of sketchbooks crowdsourced by every crazy kind of artist, writer, and performer, and finally stopping at Mast Brothers Chocolate next door. I'm pretty happy. Coffee, tacos, and chocolate. My kind of diet.

On the way to the subway I saunter by a cool-looking building with a funky arch over the door fashioned out of rusting bicycles welded together. Then I see the sign:

HeadSpace.

Shit. This is Nick's music studio. Every uncomfortable memory and longing comes slamming in even though I figured I'd forgotten about him.

Frozen in my steps staring at his front door, I'm simultaneously dreading and praying that he might come walking out from under that funky arch made of bikes. Was I inevitably drawn here by some unseen force set in motion by my parents arriving that morning and my coffee spilling? If only I had used the spilling antidote to that omen of bad luck, as I had known I should.

The words “
I have a girlfriend
” keep echoing in my brain. What if he came out with said girlfriend? And what if they were all lovey-dovey and kissing each other? Shit.

I've got to pull myself away and move on.

Then again, what if he came out alone? What if he appeared, all excited about some new group he just signed, and when he spotted me, his face lit up?

“Nick! What a surprise,” I'd say. “Is this your place? Who knew? What a small world. I was just down the street interviewing the next great skateboard mogul—my former BF, by the way—for my super-prestigious new job.”

“Undoubtedly,” Nick would say, with a bit of jealousy in his eyes. “All because you're a journalistic genius. I know. I've read all of your stuff—or at least charmingly pretended to your parents to have read the stuff you admit you haven't even written. But I know you're brilliant anyway, and I can't wait to throw my arms around you and kiss you a thousand times in all the wrong places.…”

Okay, there are a few things about this standing fantasy racing through my head that suck—number one: Nick still has this mysterious girlfriend. And number two: It's not going to happen. It's a daydream, as in fantasy, as in self-inflicted torture.

I'm so frozen up in my own headspace in front of HeadSpace, picturing Nick, telling myself to move on, literally and figuratively, I haven't noticed that out of the entrance beneath the welded bicycles a girl has walked out and is standing in front of me.

From her low-riding, hip-hugging, red plaid pants to her massive black platform lace-up boots that make her eight inches taller than she is in real life, she looks like a total badass.

As she stops to light a cigarette, I read her black T-shirt. It says, “EAT LSD, PRAY to Satan, LOVE no one.” She wears gobs of eye shadow, dark glistening red lipstick, and tattooed on her chest is something that looks like a demonic gummy bear.

Her hair is so woven up it looks like crocheted dreadlocks, but underneath it all, I can see that she's actually kind of pretty. She turns in my direction and I freak. I look down at my feet. When I gaze up again she's walking around the corner. Could this be
the
girlfriend? Whoever she is, she's imposing.

I pick my jaw up off the sidewalk, breathe for the first time since seeing her, and head the opposite way for the Bedford L.

When I get home to FiDi, I can't stop myself from Googling HeadSpace. Nick's studio website is dazzling: all energy, mood, and alluring music. It includes a variety of photos of alt-rockers of every ilk—trap, folk, dreamy Lana Del Rey pop divas, banger rock, and then one rocker chick in particular—Roxie Buggles. Her smirk says she plans to inflict herself on the world in a very big way, whether the world is ready or not. There's no mistaking it: She's the girl I saw standing outside of Nick's studio. Scanning his website with dread, I look for photos that might show Roxie and Nick together, but I don't see any. My jealous research is inconclusive. But there is a YouTube video of a live concert where she throws herself around the stage and exposes her boobs. Pure Courtney Love and kind of old hat if you ask me.