If We Kiss, page 4
“Do you?” I repeated, softer.
“Because I kissed her?” Kevin asked, his voice as quiet as mine.
“Because,” I said, but I didn’t know because what. Because she likes you, you doink. Then softer, “Do you?” Say no! Say: I like you, Charlie.
He didn’t answer. I could feel my rib cage moving. I must have been panting. Touch that strand of hair, I silently begged. I don’t know what I’ll tell Tess, who is my best friend in the world. But I want you—to like me, to choose me, to touch my hair, to kiss me—so much I can feel it, see it happening. . . .
“Charlie,” he said.
The bell rang. “What?”
I have to tell Tess I like him, too, I realized. I have to just tell her I didn’t know I did, but I do. I like Kevin. And then there it would be and since we are best friends, always honest with each other, we would flip a coin for him or something.
Mrs. Roderick was standing above me and Kevin. “If you two are done flirting, it is time for science,” she growled.
Flirting, me—flirting while I was fixing him up with my best friend. Mrs. Roderick had just confirmed it. My head was spinning. What the heck was I doing? It made no sense. Flirting. It felt delicious, dizzy. It felt—powerful. Nobody had ever mentioned that aspect of it to me. It was almost, well, indescribable.
“Almost done,” Kevin said, and flashed Mrs. Roderick that grin of his. She batted her eyelashes at him. Twice. Mrs. Roderick is like a hundred and fifty years old. Kevin must be like the magnetic north of flirtation.
We headed toward our seats. Kevin sits behind me in bio. I was not about to try to steal him away from my best friend.
Not that I could, anyway.
Could I?
When we got to my seat, I whispered to Kevin, “So, do you?”
Kevin shrugged and whispered, “Sure,” as he passed by me.
eight
TESS WAS WAITING for me after class. I said, He likes you. She kissed me on the forehead and whispered thanks. Two hours later she asked him out, and he said yes, the jerk.
Fine. Just as well. Now I can move on with my life, concentrate on more important things. I was starting to annoy myself, honestly, all obsessed with a boy. I have always prided myself on not being a flirty girl. I have interests—well, not really, but I hope to develop some, and I probably have some talents that just haven’t had a chance to bloom yet. But anyway, I am not like the Pop-Tarts. They are all so sweet and smiley and trendy, it is hard to tell which is which. I used to know some of them but it’s increasingly difficult to tell them apart.
I am not a flirty girl.
I stayed for newspaper. Not because I wanted to be with Kevin, who has, in addition to dark blue eyes, a girlfriend—a girlfriend who is not only NOT me, but is my best friend, and besides, I remembered, I have a boyfriend, a very nice, smart, wonderful boyfriend, George. I went to newspaper because as someone mentioned, well, it was Kevin, I am a good writer and maybe I will become a journalist and write for the New York Times and win a Pulitzer Prize. And then certain people will realize how dumb they were not to fall in love with me when they had the chance.
Newspaper was somewhat interesting, in a way. The faculty advisor is Mr. McKinley. There’s a rumor he used to be a priest. I could see immediately why he might not have been too successful in a comforting kind of role.
“Who are you?” he bellowed when I walked in.
I didn’t know. My brain had melted in the heat of his voice.
He stepped closer and yelled again, “Who are you?”
Luckily it came to me: “Charlie.”
“Charlie?” he yelled. “I have a brother named Charlie. You don’t look anything like him.”
“Thank you,” I sputtered.
He laughed. Loud and long, like I’d genuinely cracked him up. He pounded me on the back with his meaty hand. “Good. I like you, Charlie. You here to be a reporter?”
I shrugged. I had no earthly idea what I was doing there.
“Good. Work the City News beat,” Mr. McKinley boomed. “We need a City News reporter. Right?”
I nodded, though of course I had no idea if they needed a City News reporter. He steered me past Kevin and some other kids sitting at the table, toward a girl at a computer in the back of the room.
“Penelope!” he shouted.
The girl looked up. She had crooked bangs and glasses and looked annoyed.
“Here’s your City News staff. Her name is Charles. Put her to work!”
He turned to face the room and bellowed, “What is the most important element of a free society?”
“A free press,” everybody answered in unison.
This club was obviously nuts. I considered a quick escape, but then Kevin smiled briefly at me before going back to what he was working on. I reminded myself that it did not matter to me at all if he smiled at me, and also that the most important something of a free society is a free press. I resolved not to even glance over at Kevin for at least the next five minutes. I checked the clock.
Penelope sighed. “There’s hardly any city news. You can cover the Board of Ed. Okay?”
I had no idea what that meant. “Okay,” I said.
“Do you know what that means?”
“Of course,” I said. “But, well, sort of, no.”
She rolled her eyes. “You go to the Board of Ed meetings. First Wednesday of every month, seven P.M. You take notes and write them up for a story. Be accurate, be brief. Got it?”
“Sure.”
“I’m applying early to Yale,” she added. “Where do you want to go?”
“Home,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not . . . I’m just a freshman.”
“Gunning for editor in chief, huh?”
I shrugged. No, actually, I am only here because I have a crush on the boy I just fixed up with my best friend. I have no ambition in life beyond restraining myself from looking at him for another 4.5 minutes.
“Yeah, well, ed in chief is a lot better than City News editor on your applications, obviously.” She sighed again. “I have other stuff, though, volunteer work, maybe a shot at valedictorian, and I fence. You don’t fence, do you?”
“Like swords, or like picket?”
“What?”
“Nothing. No. I don’t fence.”
Sigh. “Get your stories in early and I’ll rewrite them for you.” Sigh. “I have five AP classes this year and the SATs coming up. I have to retake them, try for 2400. But don’t try to scoop me—anything interesting comes up, it’s mine. Got it?”
“Okay,” I said. She had no idea how little she had to fear from me and my journalistic ambition.
I spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting at the table doing my homework, trying not to attract either Penelope’s or Mr. McKinley’s attention. It worked. Nobody noticed me at all. Not even anybody with dark blue eyes. Not until later that night when he truly couldn’t miss me.
nine
“I THOUGHT YOU hated afterschool,” Tess said. She’s been trying to get me to do drama or dance or chorus with her forever.
“Yeah,” I said. “Well.”
“What did you stay for?”
I walked with her toward the bike rack. “Newspaper.”
“Was Kevin there?”
“Um,” I said. “I think so. Do you know some girl named Penelope? She’s a senior?”
Just then Kevin walked by. “Hey,” he mumbled as he passed us.
Neither of us answered; we just watched him board the late bus.
We kind of smiled at each other, me and Tess. She shrugged and said, “Knowing me, I give this thing with Kevin two weeks, maximum.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“No! I meant . . .”
“I know, I know.” She bent down to unlock her bike. “Do you really think he’s a jerk?”
“Um . . .”
“You’re probably right.” Tess flung her long leg over the seat. “See you tomorrow. Sure you don’t want me to ride you home?”
I shook my head. She rode off and I turned around. My walk home is the best part of my day. I tried not to think about Kevin, or Kevin and Tess, or kissing, but eventually gave up. I walked a long time, thinking about all of that.
I got home around five and did some random boring chatting online and also my homework, at the same time. Mom came in just as I was finishing. We stood in front of the refrigerator for a while together, and eventually came up with yogurt, bananas, string beans, and Froot Loops for dinner. Afterward we made a pot of decaf coffee and sat out on the deck with our mugs to look at the lake.
“Heck of a night,” she said.
I nodded. The lake looked like a postcard image of itself, as if someone had painted a backdrop, and not a very realistic one either. The leaves were all gold and red and purple, and their reflections, upside down in the lake, were even nicer because of the blur. My mother had first seen the house at this time of year, and I can see why she made an offer on the spot, even if my father thought it was a money pit and the last straw.
Mom drained her cup. “Wanna go for ice cream?”
“Yeah,” I said. Not much can get me off my butt on a nice night of lake looking, but ice cream is my weakness.
As we stomped into our shoes, Mom asked if anything interesting happened at school today. Well, let’s see: I belly-flopped on the linoleum, flirted for the first time, fixed up my best friend with the boy I love, and began my career in journalism. “Nope,” I said. “You?”
“Nope,” she said, and grabbed her car keys off the hook.
We were not the only ones with the ice cream idea, apparently, so we ended up parking way down in the grocery store lot and walking up the hill. It was the last week of September but it felt like one of those end-of-summer evenings on the Cape, where my father and his cute new family live—one of those nights when there’s a slight breeze and everybody wants to walk around in a hush and a cardigan, pleased with how it’s all going.
Well, that was all dandy until I saw Kevin, already in line at Mad Alice’s.
I felt myself slow down but then I gave myself a quick lecture: There is absolutely no reason for me to be freaked out about seeing a kid from my class at the ice cream place; it is a free country (with a free press!) and this is the best ice cream place around, with mush-ins and everything. And if the kid from my class just happens to be going out with my best friend, so what? And if that kid recently touched my tongue with his tongue—
Stop it right there, Charlie. Do not think about his tongue or any other part of his body.
“Hi,” he said softly, almost to himself.
I managed not to do anything horribly humiliating like faint or, for instance, grab his head and start kissing him passionately right there on the sidewalk. Instead I went with saying, “Hi.”
To get my eyes away from him I looked up at Mom, who hadn’t said hello or introduced herself or anything. She was smiling at Kevin’s father. He was smiling at her. I looked back and forth between them a couple of times before Mom broke eye contact with Kevin’s father and looked down at the girl whose hand he was holding, and said, “You must be Samantha.”
The girl nodded and held out her hand to shake Mom’s. “Nice to meet you,” she said.
Mom gave her a broad smile. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” My mother who prides herself on being cool and laid-back is such a sucker for manners. She shook Samantha’s outstretched hand. “My name is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Reese.”
Samantha turned to me and held out her hand. She had very few teeth, I noticed—one biggie in front surrounded by lots of space, which would make her, I guessed, about eight.
I shook her hand, feeling like a complete dork. I have never shaken hands with a kid before.
“Nice to meet you . . .”
“Charlie,” I told her. “Hi. Um, nice to meet you, too.”
We were at the door of Mad Alice’s by then. Kevin’s father held it open for us all. I noticed Kevin was giving his father a quizzical look like what is wrong with you? They’d been ahead of us in line, after all, and now he was, like, shepherding us in all as one group. But Kevin’s father made a goofball face at Kevin and then smiled again at my mother, who blushed.
Blushed. I am not even kidding. Her cheeks turned bright red.
“What would you like, Charlie?” she asked.
“What?”
She pointed at the glass case in front of us. “Ice cream?”
I had lost my appetite. I mean, okay, Kevin’s father is pretty hot for somebody old, for a dad. He has broad shoulders and sort of floppy brown hair and the same dark blue eyes as Kevin, except deeper set and in sort of a broader face. I could see how someone might argue this was a blushable thing, having this man smile at you so much and, I think, maybe even touch your back between your shoulder blades. I definitely think he did that. I had an obstructed view, it is true, as a journalist I have to admit that, but I do think that is exactly what he did: touched her on her back between her shoulder blades so lightly that he caused a chemical reaction that turned her cheeks bright red.
My mother.
“Charlie?”
“Um,” I stalled. “Still thinking.”
“Kevin?” his dad prompted.
“What? Um, I don’t know yet. You go.”
Samantha ordered lemon sorbet with butterscotch chips.
“Ew,” Kevin and I both said at the same time.
My turn to blush. My family might be allergic to the Lazarus family.
I ordered fudge swirl with nonpareils mushed into it. Kevin had coffee with chocolate chips, which actually sounded even better than mine but no way was I copying. Mom got a mango sorbet cone, and Kevin’s father said that sounded so good, he’d have the same.
As if Mom had invented the mango sorbet cone herself.
Mom paid for mine and hers, and Kevin’s dad paid for his family’s. That was a relief, at least. We all walked out together.
“Well,” said Mom.
“Well,” said Kevin’s father.
They smiled at each other. Again. It was getting gross already.
“I’ve had enough,” I said, and tossed the rest of my ice cream in the trash. Too bad if it is ridiculously expensive, and there is no reason to waste food. I was nearly puking on the sidewalk.
“Me, too,” said Kevin, and tossed his in after mine.
We stood there for about an eternity, me, Kevin, and the garbage can. I tried to think of one thing in the world to say to him. I am normally pretty good at chatting.
“So,” I said.
He didn’t say anything so I looked up at him to see if he was busy doing something else. He looked up from the sidewalk at me at the same moment.
“Your sister seems . . .” I ran out of breath midsentence. That never happened to me before. It distracted me and then the pause was too huge and instead of finishing with, like, “nice,” “smart,” or “sweet,” the three choices I’d been considering—I made a strange hiccuping/burping sound.
Kevin smiled. “You think?”
“Not that often,” I answered.
“Was that a burp?”
“No!” I laughed. “No. It was a, just a, I don’t know.”
He nodded.
“A burp,” I admitted falsely. “A small burp.”
He laughed.
“She seems very smart.”
“Yeah. She is.”
He was still smiling. Maybe he likes burpy girls. I lifted my chin to show him, subtly, my good asset, in case he was reevaluating my worth in light of that newly discovered burping-noise aptitude.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Is something wrong with your head?”
“Why?”
“You just, never mind. I thought maybe you got a stiff neck at newspaper or something.”
“No,” I said, tipping my chin down. “I’m on City News staff,” I added, to cover the fact that my head was bobbling, trying to get to a normal position. I could not seem to remember how it was supposed to balance on my neck.
“I’m on Features,” Kevin said. “It’s fun, when you get used to it.”
“Yeah?” This was the longest conversation I’d ever had with him and I was making myself nauseous with my unsteady skull. I rested my hand on the garbage can for balance.
“Stick with it,” he said quietly. “You’ll see.”
To avoid grabbing him and demanding to have another shot at kissing, I glanced over at Samantha and the adults. She was sitting on a bench and they were chatting near her. Mom’s chin was tipped up. I squinted to get a look at her neck. It was long and graceful; I’d never noticed hers before either.
Do boys even like necks? Mr. Lazarus looked pretty happy over there.
Some scary-looking scruffy guys, who hang out on the Bridge at the front entrance to the high school, wandered slowly past me and Kevin, checking us out like they knew something about us. I hate when high school boys walk like that, leading with their scruffy-haired chins and coming too close to you, like they own everything. They act so entitled and scary, with their unbrushed hair and untucked shirts. I know that makes me sound horribly prudish and uncool, but the fact is, I am at heart prudish and uncool. I had a fleeting impulse to rush over and slip my hand into Mom’s, for safety. Luckily I stopped myself.
Kevin just looked away, as if he were really fascinated by the stop sign down Hallowell Road. It occurred to me that the older boys might have been a little intimidating to him, too, which should have made me think he was a wimp but in fact made me like him that much more. There is nothing like silent vulnerability to make a girl crazy, as Tess has told me a million times. Another of her many theories I didn’t understand, until very recently.
When the scruffy guys turned the corner, Kevin said, “So.” It came out kind of high and squeaky. He repeated, “So,” in a very, overly, deep voice. I smiled and at that exact moment, Mom and Kevin’s father and sister came over.
“Should we go?” Mom asked.
I nodded.
