If We Kiss, page 7
“Where’s the bathroom?” Jennifer asked him.
“Next to the front door,” he said. “Have fun!”
“Shut up,” Jennifer said. She started chewing her cuticles. It occurred to me that even Jen might have dramas of her own going on. We headed toward the front door.
“Hey,” I said to her, leaning close. “Do you like . . .”
“No,” she answered quickly. I decided not to push it.
Jennifer knocked on the slim door beside the massive double front door. A voice from inside said, “One sec,” sounding surprised and embarrassed.
“Was that Kevin?” I whispered.
Jennifer nodded.
We took a few steps away, not wanting to embarrass him when he came out, not wanting him to think we were listening. I remember in kindergarten there was a bathroom in our classroom, and it was so incredibly hard to do what you desperately needed to do because you knew there were other kids right outside the door hearing you.
But when the door opened, it was not Kevin who emerged. It was Kevin’s dad.
AND: my mother.
With no lip gloss, only F.K.G.
And behind them was not the bathroom, I couldn’t help noticing. It was a coat closet.
Nobody said anything. What was there to say? What the hell were you two doing in the coat closet? That is not exactly a question you want to be asking your mother.
“What the hell were you two doing in the coat closet?” I asked.
“Charlie,” said Mom, properly identifying the asker.
“We, um, hanging . . . coats,” said Kevin’s father. “Up.”
“I . . .” I didn’t know what else to say. I felt Jennifer tugging my sleeve.
“Did you need to, um, hang a coat?” Kevin’s dad asked. “Up?” His face was red and I noticed he was wearing a tux and the bow tie was crooked. What was he dressed as, a fancy man? How creative, a fancy man. A coat check man? Or just a checking-out-my-mother-in-the-coat-closet man? Oh, what a cool costume.
“Sorry,” Jennifer said, and yanked me away, toward the kitchen. “Come on,” she said to me. “Let’s take a walk.”
Jennifer and I walked around the block without talking, and then around again. As the house came into sight, she asked, “How you doing?”
“Don’t tell anybody,” I said.
“I won’t.”
“I know,” I said. I looked at her and took a deep breath. I prayed Jennifer wouldn’t give me any bull like it’s okay, your mom is entitled, they are both single consenting adults and doesn’t she deserve to be happy. I had all that going on in my head, doing battle with the other side that was screaming but she is my mother!
Then another thought hit me. “Aren’t your parents friends with Kevin’s parents?”
“Yeah,” Jennifer said.
I covered my face with my hands. “Great.”
“Some things are private,” Jennifer said. “Even from parents.”
I nodded. “Thanks. You’re a good friend.”
“I know,” said Jennifer. She put her arm lightly around my shoulder and we went back inside.
“I can’t believe his mother is in Iraq,” I said.
“Whose mother?”
“Kevin’s. Flying fighter jets,” I whispered. “In Iraq. Right? Or Iran, maybe?”
“Idaho,” Jennifer said. “She’s in Idaho. I don’t think she flies anything. Maybe a kite occasionally. She’s the most aggressively mellow person ever; she, like, goes on marches for peace. A fighter pilot? That is a really funny image. My parents would love that. Why would you think she was a fighter pilot?”
“Tess said you told her . . .”
Jennifer cocked her head and raised her eyebrows. “Tess says a lot of things.”
“Then why do Kevin and Samantha live with their father?”
Jennifer shrugged. “My parents said that’s the arrangement that everybody wanted. But who really knows?”
By then we’d gotten back to the party room. I half-expected Tess to be making out with Kevin, but luckily I was spared that one horror. Darlene and Tess were dancing over by the stereo, talking to Brad, who was choosing music. Kevin was shooting pool with some of the other guys. George looked up as I came in. His flash of a smile changed to a perplexed look, and he mouthed, “You okay?”
I nodded and looked away. I knew I was completely incapable of conversation right then, especially about if I was okay and why not. The last thing I wanted ever, but particularly right then, was a scene. I just wanted to have fun, enjoy the party, not deal, forget.
But no.
Kevin’s dad and my mom tromped into the room, holding a stack of pizza boxes. They were smiling as if they were the parents of the house, and we were a winning Little League team. “Who’s hungry?” Kevin’s dad asked. He put his two boxes down, and my mother put her two beside his.
“Hot!” she said, and I almost could have killed her on the spot.
I may have actually flown across the room. I don’t remember walking, certainly, and there was a pool table between us; anyway, there I was, and I grabbed her arm, hard. “Can I talk to you?”
“Sure,” she said. “Ow.”
I stormed out of the room and she followed me. I think probably everybody was watching us but at that point I didn’t even care. Or not that much. Well, I cared but I added that humiliation to all the other stuff I was blaming her for in my head.
“What is wrong with you?” I calmly asked her in the hall. Well, calmly might be an exaggeration. I kind of yelled. Kind of might be an exaggeration, too. Okay, I was shrieking.
“Charlie,” she said, incredulous.
“Right again,” I said.
“What?”
“Why are you ruining my life?” I asked, even louder, if that’s possible.
“Charlotte Reese Collins,” she said. “Control yourself.”
Two girls dressed as goths went by. Mom and I both smiled and nodded as they passed, then turned furious faces back to each other.
“Control myself?” I asked. “Look who’s talking!”
I thought she was going to slap me, I really did. Her hand went up toward my face. She’d never slapped me before and she believes it’s unforgivable to strike a child, but in fact I am probably not a child anymore so I wasn’t sure if all bets were off on that rule, and besides, I kind of deserved it. Still, I was a tiny bit proud. It usually takes me until the next day to think of a good comeback.
Instead of slapping me, though, she grabbed my shoulder and steered me, hard, toward the kitchen. There were like six or eight people crowded around the refrigerator, grabbing stuff. We tried the living room but it was wide-open and white, looking like don’t come in.
We stopped there in the hall and faced each other. We took deep breaths. The spot was not ideal but the battle had to take place somewhere. Gettysburg, Normandy, Kevin’s Front Hall.
“Charlie,” Mom said softly. “This is not how I wanted to have this discussion. . . .”
“Well, then you shouldn’t be catting around in coat closets with . . .” I interrupted her but she interrupted me back.
“I’m not catting around, Charlie. I think I’m falling in . . .”
I grabbed her because at that moment, Kevin turned the corner. His cape fluttered behind him when he stopped short, spotting us. He looked in my eyes and, I felt fairly certain, knew instantly what was going through my mind.
Brad crashed into Kevin from behind, and yelled, “Hey, watch where I’m going, bub!” He smiled broadly, but then, when nobody grinned in return, he asked, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Kevin and I both said.
“Jinx!” Brad grinned his crazy grin.
“Let’s go,” Kevin said.
After they passed us, I grabbed my mother and dragged her back into the coat closet. It was the only place to get any privacy in that dumb house, obviously. I shut the door. Mom found a light switch on the wall beside the door.
“Pretty familiar with this coat closet, huh, Mom?”
“Charlie,” she said. “Please stop. Listen to me. I see this is making you very uncomfortable, and I’m sorry about that. I know it’s surprising—nobody is more surprised than I am, myself. I certainly never planned this, didn’t go looking for this. You know me, Charlie. All I wanted was you and me, and American history, some clear nights looking at the lake, and maybe tenure before I turned forty. And I got it; I got all that, and I was completely happy. Or completely satisfied, I should say. But then, well, I’ve been getting to know Joe . . .”
“Joe,” I said, trying to support my woozy self against the wall and knocking over a battalion of umbrellas in the process.
“Yes, Joe,” Mom said. “And the strangest thing is happening to me, Charlie. I never thought it would. I thought I was beyond all this craziness. But the truth is, I’m falling in love.”
I turned around and smashed my head into the closet wall. Falling in love. My mother. My safe, sane, stable mother. Falling in love? And with Kevin’s father? “Why should he buy a cow?” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I banged my forehead against the wall a little harder.
“Charlie, please. It doesn’t take away from my happiness with everything else, it takes away nothing from you . . .”
“From me? I’m not a baby, Mother! Why are you treating me like a baby?” As if I was thinking it was some sort of competition for her affection. That was, like, the one problem I hadn’t considered. Well, until she brought it up.
“I’m trying to treat you like an adult.”
“Well, you’re failing,” I said. There was, to be fair, nothing she could do at that moment that would be right.
“Charlie.” She reached out to try to gather me in her arms.
She smelled different. Like him, I realized. I pulled away. “Don’t hug me,” I said. “Haven’t you done enough groping already in this closet tonight?”
Then she did slap me, smack across the face. “You have no right to talk to me that way, little miss,” she spat out, quiet now, angrier than I’d ever seen her. “Not ever.”
We stood there face-to-face, both breathing fire. So, then, I guess I’m really not a child anymore, I thought. That realization hurt as much as my cheek. More. I am your baby, I wanted to yell. You just hit your baby. You are supposed to be an adult, to be strong and selfless and think of how your actions will affect me! I touched my hot face. When I saw her expression soften with concern, I took the opportunity to spin around and throw the door open.
It smashed Kevin full-force in the face.
His hand was on his cheek like mine was on mine. “And another thing, Kevin,” I yelled at him. “If your closet is going to look so much like a bathroom, you ought to put up a sign!”
“What?” He looked baffled.
I stormed past him to his front door, which I tried to yank open. I tugged so hard that I was grunting but it didn’t budge. I stamped my foot and cursed, trying not to cry. Beside me, Kevin whispered, “Hey.” He reached in front of me and turned the bolt lock. I flung the door open and ran down his front steps and across his damp lawn, to where it was dark.
fifteen
THE NEXT MORNING I woke up feeling overwhelmingly lonely. Maybe that’s how anybody awake at five in the morning feels, when the light is weak and the sky is November pale. I don’t know why depression is supposed to be blue. I felt like I had the grays.
After a while I dragged myself out of bed and sat down in front of my computer. Nobody was online yet. Blah. I didn’t know what to do. I hated everything. I wished I could just start everything fresh.
Yes, I thought, feeling the gray lift slightly. Maybe that’s what I really need, actually. A fresh start. I did a little surfing and decided Mom and I should move to New Hampshire. That would be a fresh start. I found a real estate site and started checking out houses in southern New Hampshire so Mom could still commute to work. I would have to switch schools, but, hey, change is good. It would be good for both of us to get away from all this. Maybe we would even buy a non-figurative cow. I could do chores. That would probably be good for me, get my butt in gear. The root of all my problems, I started thinking, might be that I needed a more wholesome, simple, Patagonia-style life.
While I was deciding how many acres we’d need, Tess called.
“I was about to call you,” I told her.
“Beat you again.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I said. “We might move to New Hampshire.”
“What? You better be kidding, Charlie.”
“We’re thinking we might be rural people at heart. You know, since my mom brought up the cow, I’ve been thinking . . .”
“Oh, please. For a second I thought you were serious.”
“I am serious.”
“Your mother barely likes to step off the deck. And you are allergic to fur.”
“Well,” I said, “you can grow out of allergies.”
“Your favorite animal is smoked salmon. Come on. I have something serious to ask you.”
“New Hampshire is a very serious state,” I said. “Do you know what their state motto is? ‘Live Free or Die.’ Die! It says that on, like, their license plates and stuff. Die. I’m serious.” I clicked on a house that had four bedrooms and eight acres, and was actually kind of pretty in a rustic way, if you like snow a lot. I could learn not to hate the cold, maybe. Live Free or Die.
I was about to tell Tess some more facts about New Hampshire—like it is the first state to vote in presidential primaries and it has four nicknames, including the Granite State—when Tess asked, “Do you think I should tell Kevin I love him?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “That was definite.”
“No, I . . .” I wanted to back off my absoluteness and try to breathe and also give myself a chance to think about her, my best friend, instead of just my own sad selfishness. But every cell in my body wanted to scream, NO! You canNOT love him, or it makes me even worse for loving him, too! “Did he say he loves you?” I asked.
How mean is it that I was hoping she would say no?
“No.”
I am such a bad friend. I tried to pull down my smile. It was a fight. I wished I could be made of granite. I wanted to be strong and definite and true, to live free or die.
“But do you think the boy has to say it first?” Tess asked.
“No,” I said. “Definitely not. But do you? Love him?”
I heard her breathing, in, out. It is my favorite sound, somebody breathing near me, even through the phone.
“I . . .” She hesitated. Tess is always very definite. Tess could be a New Hampshirite. “I think so.”
Oh.
“So I guess you guys had some fun after I left.”
“Abruptly. Why did you? Somebody said you had a fight with your mom.”
“Well . . .” Tell her.
“I was like, no way,” Tess said. “Charlie and her mom have the perfect relationship.”
Did that used to be true? Or was that just one of those fictions Tess made up that I liked to believe even when I knew it wasn’t completely true? Either way, I didn’t want to correct her right that second. I wasn’t sure which of us I was protecting. “I had cramps.”
“Oh,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I always have Midol. And I was looking for you. Jennifer said you got a sudden bad headache.”
“That, too,” I lied. “And I, I leaked.”
“Oh,” Tess groaned sympathetically. “How awful. Oh, Charlie. Did anybody see?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, that’s lucky at least.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“If nobody knows,” she said, “you can just decide it never happened.”
“My theory exactly,” I agreed. So she’s as dishonest as I am?
“So that’s why,” she said. “Okay. I just . . .”
“What?”
“I was just surprised when I couldn’t find you, and then Jen said you’d left.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve . . .”
“It just seemed like you would tell me, not Jen. Whatever. George looked sad all night.”
“He did? I’m just, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I just had to . . .”
“No, definitely,” Tess said.
“Hey,” I said. “Let’s stop talking about what a jerk I am so you can tell me what happened,” I said, flopping down on my bed. “Between you and, you know, Kevin.”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing like a big thing or, you know, the pact or like he saved my life or made a grand gesture or anything like that but . . . do you promise you won’t think I’m weird?”
“I already think you’re weird,” I assured her.
“Good point. Okay. When I was getting ready to leave the party, and I had barely talked to him—I was really mad at him because he was ignoring me pretty much the entire party—I walked by him and when he saw me, he smiled. Is that crazy? But it was this gradual smile. It just kind of took its time spreading across his face. He just looked at me like he was really happy to see me and, like, he thought I looked, I don’t know, good.”
Well.
“Charlie?”
“Ungh.”
“Is that ridiculous?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“At that moment I knew, I just knew that I loved him. I almost said it right then and there but then I thought, whoa, slow down, better talk to Charlie first. Because this is . . . I don’t want to mess it up.”
“No,” I said, managing to blink. My eyeballs were parched.
“So you think I should wait, then? I’m being a doink, right?”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “Not at all. That sounds . . . I don’t blame you at all.”
“Really? It’s romantic, right?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I knew you would get it. I would never even try to explain to anybody else how this one smile just about broke all my ribs. Only you. We’re so lucky, aren’t we? I mean, people like Darlene, who do they tell everything to?”
“Tess,” I said. “I have to . . .” . . . tell you something, some things, some stuff I should have been telling you all along. . . .
