“Nobody. George. So was it George?”

  “Am I the cow?”

  “Oh, Charlie,” Mom groaned. “Forget the cow. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  The only unexpected thing she had said was why should he buy a cow, and it was obvious she wasn’t going to explain that. I had to escape. So I said all the old standbys: “Yes, thank you, I’m sorry.”

  Mom gave me a kiss on the hair, and I was free to go. Hallelujah. I think we were both relieved.

  When I got to my room, I turned on my computer right away, thinking about Kevin. Did I really make out with Kevin Lazarus? A lot of my friends were online, but not Tess yet. And not Kevin, either. Darlene wanted to know if my party Friday night was still on. Poor Darlene. I wrote back that luckily my mother hadn’t thought of canceling it, and actually let me off with just a Tardiness Talk. She IM’ed that if I wanted she’d come over sometime and teach me how to climb out my window, in case I got grounded sometime. I typed Thanks, GTG.

  I just didn’t have the energy for everybody’s stressful conversations online, for once, so I did my homework. Mom and I had an uncivilized dinner, which means we can read during it, and then I went upstairs to check the computer again.

  On my way up, I was thinking how unfair or at least ironic it was that I, of all people (as my mother so generously pointed out), would have gotten in trouble for kissing at school when I am such a prude. But by the top landing I was thinking maybe it was worth it.

  I can’t say the tongue part was good. It may just be one of those things you have to get used to, like other French stuff. Cream sauces. Hairy armpits. My mother went to France for a year in college and after a few months she got used to those things and the weird way you have to say R sounds. I don’t know. I don’t like French toast, either. I eat cereal Saturdays while my mother dips bread in scrambled eggs and fries it into a gloppy mess. She says she didn’t like it when she was my age but she learned to, later. So there’s a chance I’ll learn to like the stuff. On the other hand, I may turn out to be a person who doesn’t acquire tastes, or who is anti-French. That’s a thing, I think, like a political position of some kind. But even beyond politics, there are probably plenty of adults who don’t enjoy French toast. Or French kissing.

  Actually, it is absolutely nauseating to imagine any adult I know enjoying French kissing.

  I lay down on my bed and wiggled my tongue around in my mouth, to try to re-create the moment. It didn’t work. I folded it over and sucked but that still wasn’t exactly it. On the other hand, my tongue started feeling too big for my mouth. What a weird thing a tongue is.

  But other than that and the germs, there was something nice about the moment of the kiss. I’m not sure if it was pressing the front of me into the front of Kevin, or if it was his hands gripping my shoulders, or his warm breath on my cheek. I closed my eyes and tried to remember all the details. I think part of what I liked was the way my neck stretched as my head bent back. I tipped my chin up toward the ceiling. Not sure why that felt so good, but it really did. I touched my neck. Now there’s a part of me I never particularly noticed before. My neck. The skin was soft. Maybe I have a nice neck. Maybe next time we kiss, Kevin will touch my neck and fall in love with me because of it. I resolved to do neck-stretching exercises every night, in hopes.

  I wondered if Tess had a nice neck, too; I couldn’t help it. She looks a little like me, only prettier. I don’t say that to put myself down. I am perfectly happy with myself and everything. It’s just that we look a lot alike, Tess and I, to the point where substitute teachers used to get us confused, and I started wearing mismatched socks every day to have a thing. Tess wears plain white. It’s not that we’re identical at all; if you wanted to say which is which, you would say that Tess has a better smile and is more fun than I am. Probably, though I honestly have never noticed particularly, her neck is more beautiful, too.

  Caring about looks is petty and dumb, and fun is not everything, but still, I made a wish that my neck would please be better than Tess’s.

  I got my cell phone and called Tess. Without even saying hello Tess said, “I got into chorus.”

  “Great,” I said. “They told you right away?”

  “Everybody got in,” she said. “All three of us. They wanted ten.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, congratulations anyway.”

  “Thanks.” She laughed. “So? Did you get a Talk?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  “Really?”

  “Not kidding.”

  “That’s so weird. I can’t even imagine your mother knowing how to give a Talk. Are you sure?”

  “She was channeling my grandmother.”

  “Oh, dread,” said Tess, who has met my grandmother. “Well, so, how was it?”

  “Boring,” I said. “Although, she said something about buying a cow.”

  “To punish you?”

  “I think it was a figurative cow.”

  “Ah,” Tess said. “I think that’s a tradition among the Amish, giving a figurative cow as punishment for tardiness.”

  “Maybe we’re converting,” I said.

  “Bummer. There’s my call-waiting. It was so funny, I completely screwed up my audition, and they still—oh, man, it’s my mother calling. Should I pick up?”

  “She hates when you don’t.”

  “I know. I want to tell you about . . . I better get it. She’s already mad at me for stealing her lip gloss, which I didn’t, technically. Wish me luck.”

  “Tess—”

  She had already hung up.

  I closed my eyes and lay down on my bed again, getting back to Kevin and remembering. Part of my brain was warning don’t try to describe each tiny detail or you’ll ruin the indescribableness, but the rest of my brain couldn’t help pushing ahead, going over and over that moment, putting it into words so I’d never lose my grip on it. It was kind of hard to figure out, because at the same time I also wanted to lose control of my emotions. I really did, like Tess has done when she has fallen in love.

  Might he have been sort of humming? I definitely didn’t notice humming at the time of the kiss, but as I lay in my bed trying to relive it, I kept hearing this little sighing hum in my mind, the second before his lips touched mine. I am ninety to ninety-five percent sure Kevin hummed, or else sighed. It was more of a sigh, I think. Nobody ever told me about that part. Maybe that’s what always happens. The boy sighs a private little hum-sigh only the about-to-be-kissed girl can hear. Or maybe that was unique to Kevin and me, and our kiss. Oh, that has to be the most romantic thing. I hope I wasn’t supposed to make a private noise, too. No, Tess definitely would have told me if I had to make a noise. She would’ve made me practice.

  I pulled the blankets up to my nose and tried to imitate Kevin’s sound myself. I flipped over and pressed myself against the mattress, pretending I was kissing Kevin instead of my Red Sox pillow. Now I get it, I thought, now that I’ve had the experience myself: I am falling, almost indescribably, in love.

  four

  THE NEXT MORNING I woke up terrified: What if he’s not in love with me? I could make a complete fool of myself, if that’s the case, or if he thinks I’m in love with him, because what if that whole kissing thing was no big deal to him, just a Tuesday morning pretty much like any other?

  So obviously the only reasonable plan of action was to wait and see how he was going to act. I pretended not to see him by the lockers, even when I doubled back pretending I had forgotten something to give him a second chance to make his move.

  My face was so hot, my ears burned as I passed him going into bio. He didn’t ask me if I had studied, he didn’t twirl my hair, but he was standing in that same spot. That might mean something.

  He didn’t look at me at all.

  I made a deal with myself during bio. If he shows any indication that there’s something between us, like if he talks to me or squinches his eyes while looking at me—okay, if he looks at me—it means I didn’t imagine the kiss and I can get excited, tell Tess, plan to kiss him again, no, make out with him at my party Friday night. If not, it never happened, and nobody ever needs to know. Well, nobody besides me and Kevin. And my mother, who doesn’t know it was Kevin. And Mr. Hair-Man. But nobody else needs to know, unless Kevin gives me even the smallest sign that he likes me. Or that he remembers it happened. Or that he has any clue who the heck I am.

  Nothing.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Tess asked as we headed back inside after lunch. “You’re even spacier than usual today.”

  “It never happened,” I answered.

  “What never happened?” she asked.

  “Um,” I said. “What?”

  “You said it never happened. What didn’t?”

  “Lots of things,” I answered. “Time travel, immortality, calorie-free chocolate . . .”

  “You need a hobby,” Tess said.

  “Basketball tryouts are today,” Jennifer offered, thankfully diverting the attention from me. I have to learn not to blurt stuff out if I am going to be a girl who kisses and does not tell. Tell what? It never happened.

  “She can’t even dribble,” Tess pointed out. “Anyway, Charlie hates organized activities.”

  “I only like disorganized activities,” I said.

  George laughed. He was right behind me; I don’t know for how long.

  “What?” I asked. He always startles me.

  “If you like disorganized activities, you should join marching band.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  “Too bad I don’t know how to play an instrument.”

  “Doesn’t stop the rest of us,” he said, and turned around to go into the boy’s room.

  “He so loves you,” Tess whispered for the billionth time. “When are you going to get over yourself and just kiss him?”

  “No interest,” I said, getting my books out of my locker.

  Next to me, Jennifer shrugged. She has never had a boyfriend. “Me either,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Tess said, “but you hate boys. Charlie doesn’t.”

  “I only hate boys who cry when they lose,” Jennifer said. “I just have no interest in kissing them.”

  “Same here,” I agreed. “Although I don’t mind if they cry when they lose.”

  As we headed toward English, it occurred to me that Jennifer is now the only one of the three of us who hasn’t kissed. Although it never happened, it really did happen—I have kissed a boy. Bleh. Sometimes it’s easier being around Jennifer than Tess, even though Tess is my best friend.

  Kevin was hanging out by the doorway of English class. I turned away from him. What, is that like his cool thing? He lurks in classroom doorways choosing which girl to slay? Please. Right then I actually believed myself, that I had no interest in kissing or boys or romance or love or any of that. Maybe I could learn to dribble, I thought. Maybe I would try out for basketball and become a sporty girl. Maybe I’m not so clumsy and spacey. There’s more to me, obviously, than people knew. I could be capable of anything, maybe.

  Feeling so strong and sporty, I glanced back at Kevin. He was looking at me, but turned away as soon as I caught him and kind of slunk to his seat, like I had been the one dissing him.

  Well, maybe I was. And if so, good for me.

  Being tough like that definitely seemed like the right thing to do, but deep down I knew that I really was too clumsy to dribble a basketball and also that I still loved him. Kevin was the first boy I ever French-kissed and that is special; it means something. Tess thinks I subconsciously love George but the truth is I forget about George all day until he pops up behind me. Kevin was crowding out absolutely everything. I felt all twitchy and sweaty and cold and like my heart was beating way too fast for just sitting in English class. There is no way love could be any more intense without physically injuring a person.

  Besides, French kissing somebody you don’t even love would be pretty slutty. And I am not a slut; I am a prude. Well, I was. Maybe I am both a slut and a prude. What a mess. No, I think you have to choose one or the other. Definitely. Otherwise, how would you know how to behave in any given situation? The thing is, now that I have surprised myself, it’s impossible for me to anticipate what I might do next.

  I sat there sweating and hyperventilating through English class, hoping that Kevin wasn’t grounded either and that he would come to my party Friday night. I thought maybe we would get together at the party. Maybe we would kiss thirteen times and everyone would see. He could ask me out at the beginning of the party and then it would be only slightly slutty to kiss like that.

  The first kiss, I decided, didn’t really count. Maybe it actually hadn’t even happened; maybe I truly had imagined the whole thing. I used to have a very strong imagination when I was a little kid, or so my mother says; maybe I still do. But even if not, even if it actually did happen in reality, it didn’t have any ramifications. It didn’t change my life like a real first kiss should.

  I wanted to kiss him again. If we kiss again, I decided, it will be better, and more romantic, and everybody will know, and nothing will ever be the same after it.

  five

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON, Tess and Jennifer and I decorated my basement. We had thought about a swim party but the Association wouldn’t let us use the Clubhouse pool in the evening. Apparently it is not for the “enjoyment of the community” on a Friday night.

  No big deal. We changed it from a water theme to an Autumnal Equinox Harvest theme and hung up pictures of corn that Jennifer drew. We thought we were pretty witty with that, you know, corn, corny. Whatever. Nobody seemed to get it but us. I heard a few Pop-Tarts whispering that it felt like a seventh grade party. I was slightly tempted to tell them that is the point you pseudosophisticated, don’t have your driver’s license yet either, stuck up, should go home if you don’t like it prigs, but I restrained myself and smiled knowingly, hostessily. It is the depth of loserdom to stand at a party whispering that it is an uncool party. In my opinion. Hello—this party is intentionally corny. You are standing under a corn cob, for heaven’s sake.

  Kevin finally showed up just after eight. His father brought him. We ignored each other. I wasn’t nervous. Plenty of time.

  I went up to the kitchen at around quarter of nine to get more pretzels. My friends and I always used to laugh at the Pop-Tarts, which is what we call the flirty girls because they are both Pop(ular) and Tart(y). Pop-Tarts would never eat a thing at a party unless it was a mint. Bunch of doinks. I love pretzels and eat them at any opportunity, or did. I still had never actually flirted, but I decided I might, or more. So for the first time ever at a party I didn’t eat anything. I wanted to keep my breath minty, in case Kevin and I started to flirt and ended up kissing.

  A few parents were hanging around the kitchen with my mother, including, I noticed, Kevin’s father. Mom took out a bag of pretzels for me and whispered, “You guys aren’t playing spin the bottle, are you?”

  “Oh, please!” I took an Altoid from Mom’s tin on the counter. I was so hungry.

  “It came up in conversation,” she whispered, opening the bag. She poured the pretzels into the bowl and flattened down the heap in the center. “Are you having fun?”

  I nodded, wondering if she was going to quiz me on why I was having fun and who I liked. I’d noticed when Kevin walked in that my mother was watching him. I wondered if she knew that it was really him I had been kissing in the hall and that it was him I liked. I wondered if she thought he was the cutest boy at the party, the best one.

  “Good,” she said. I could tell she was waiting for more information but I wasn’t about to hang around in the kitchen the whole party gossiping with my mother. Is that what she wanted? Too bad. Just because I got caught kissing once at school doesn’t give my mother the right to start supervising my life like I’m a ten-year-old. I was about to tell her she can trust me or not, I don’t care, and that it’s my life and my tongue and I can do whatever I want with both of them.

  “Are you angry about something?” Mom asked.

  “No!” I pulled the bottom of my shirt to stretch it and said, “I just don’t want to waste . . . I gotta go.”

  “It seems like a good party,” Mom said. “Have fun.”

  I gritted my teeth. Sometimes lately she is so incredibly annoying. She held out the box of Altoids. I took another one, said “Thanks,” and went back downstairs with the bowl of pretzels.

  Kevin was making out with Tess.

  Her arms were around him and her tongue was in his mouth. My wrists felt numb. I dropped the bowl of pretzels. It was plastic so it didn’t shatter, just rolled around a little on the tiles, making whirling sounds. I meant to run upstairs but I couldn’t get my legs working. Everybody was staring at me. Well, everybody except the kissers.

  Darlene started picking up pretzels and putting them back in the bowl.

  When Tess finally stopped kissing Kevin in the middle of my playroom, she saw my face and ran over to me. She dragged me to the downstairs bathroom.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just . . . I was startled. That’s all.” I couldn’t look at her. I started picking at the grouting from between the floor tiles. “I just, I came into the room, and you were making out with . . . I just . . .”

  “You were startled? How do you think I felt? You threw a bowl of pretzels at me.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I had to laugh. Her face was so shocked. “I just dropped it.”

  “A pretzel hit me in the ankle.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “My lawyer will contact yours.”

  “Okay. Fair enough.”

  “Why were you so startled?” she asked. “That was really embarrassing, having you react like that.”

  “Sorry.” I rested my chin on my knees. “I don’t know.”

  “You think he’s a jerk, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “And a slut.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Though so am I.”

  “No, you’re not.”

 

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