Don't Touch (26 page)

“I don't know if I think there are—worse things.”

“I'm going to stay in a bad relationship because I'm afraid of being alone?”

I laugh at myself. “Maybe?”

“It's like with your parents—”

“I don't want to talk about them.”

“Why?” Mandy asks, propping herself up on one elbow and making her voice goofy, a kid at a campfire. “Are you
afraid
?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Scaredy-cat.”

I put on a goofy voice too. “Am not!”

“Are so!”

She leaves her drink resting on the net and pokes my arm, too close to the edge of my shawl. I jerk, and the trampoline bobbles beneath us. Mandy raises her drink to save it from spilling, but that makes her slide closer to me. The elbow that had been propping her up slips and touches my skin.

“Ow!” I'm up and scrambling to the edge of the trampoline's net before I can remind myself to play it cool.

“What?”

“I feel like . . . I think I pinched my leg in the spring.”

“Yeah?” She sits up and eyes me over the rim of her drink. “I touched you.”

“No, that's okay.”

“I touched your arm, and you didn't like it.”

“Mandy . . .” There's no end to that sentence except to say please don't make me talk about it. I scoot toward the edge of the trampoline. “I'm going to get another drink.”

“Wait. Caddie, please, let's talk. I started feeling bad that I gave you a hard time. I realized you might have a good reason for not wanting to talk, like an awful reason, but you can tell me, no matter what it is. You should talk to
someone.
” She's gone super serious, so concerned. “Did something happen, Caddie? You know, did somebody
do
something to you? Take advantage of you?”

“God, no!”

The idea makes me ill. Mandy's decided I'm some kind of victim. It would be easier to understand, more sympathetic, than the reality. I feel almost guilty that I
don't
have a story like that to tell. The only person hurting me is myself.

“You can talk to me about it,” Mandy says, “even if it's something awful.”

“There's nothing
like
that,” I say as I scramble down to solid ground.

“Okay, then
what
? Caddie, I'm supposed to be your friend. I don't know why you won't talk to me.”

“Look, I have to run inside for a second, and then I'm getting a drink, and then I'll come back and we can talk more, okay?”

“What are you going inside for?” Her voice gets louder as I reach the brick stairs. “You're going to wash it off, aren't you?”

“Hush, please,” I say and hurry around the pool. People turn their heads to see who's fighting with the hostess.

“Caddie!” she says, loud enough for everyone around the pool to hear. “Caddie, I'm trying to be a good friend.”

“Stop trying,” I say. It comes out before I can censor myself. “Just drop it!”

Everybody's watching. I weave my way through our poolside audience and inside.

I take as long as I can washing my arm, as much to avoid Mandy as to scrub the nagging, anxious feeling from my skin.

When I head back outside, Mandy's at the center of a tight circle saying something funny enough to have the whole group doubled over and cackling. She catches my eye, midsentence, and there's the tiniest hitch as she dismisses me and smiles at her audience.

I walk to the edge of the pool and hold my arms out, let the aqua-gold lights dance in patterns on me, one set of colors for my skin, another for the lavender gloves, like with one of Mom's filters. I could take the gloves off, glide my hands through the water, let it tunnel and fold through my fingers.

The feeling of falling—that rush that comes from standing at the edge of something—makes me step back. I'm too full of potential energy. The impulse is there to dive in, to be reckless and giddy, but it's cold and I'm wearing heavy clothes. I've been drinking and you should never, ever swim after drinking.

I give myself a task to steady myself—get some water—and float over to the drinks table. Everything's a bit off, like my motor skills are on holiday. I take an ice cube from the bucket and suck on it.

“There's a scoop for the ice. You don't have to use your hands,” Peter says, startling me. He puts a big scoop of ice in his cup and rattles it around.

He's all in black with a half-mask under his glasses, a headscarf—and black gloves.

“The Dread Pirate Roberts?” I guess.

“Pity, now I'll have to kill you.”

“Already dead.” I point to the blood at my temple.

“Oh, right, my bad.”

Why did Peter have to be a pirate? I used to have the biggest crush on that character from
The Princess Bride.
I crack down on the ice in my mouth and give my best all-things-are-good grin.

“Chewing ice? They say people do it when they're sexually frustrated, like it helps with that or something.”

I spit the ice into my hand. “It helps with babies teething, too.” If promised a room full of rubies for coming up with something more inane to say, I couldn't do it.

Peter pauses, stuck on whether I'm joking or not. I wasn't, but he decides I was, and laughs like I'm a comic genius. “Hey, baby, you want some . . . ice?” he asks with a fake leer, and my laugh comes out high-pitched and bouncing.

Peter steps closer. “How are you doing?” he asks.

“I'm okay. Still working on my character journal.”

“Right now?”

“No, not right now. Right now, I'm chewing ice to get over my sexual frustration.”

Ack!

Witty?

Yes . . . Peter is laughing.

Suggestive?

Extra yes . . . Peter is coming closer.

I walk toward the brick steps that lead up to the yard.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. Elsewhere. I feel like stepping away from the pool, is that allowed?”

He tilts his head like he's considering. “By the power vested in me as your castmate, I decree that ye may step away from the pool.”

“You are such a dork.”

“Shh,” he says, ducking like he's looking for spies. “They'll hear you. I try to keep the dorkiness under wraps. Otherwise, it tends to overwhelm people with its awesome power.”

“The awesome power of dorkiness?”

He shrugs. “It's some pretty big dorkiness.”

“Let's hope no one alerts the authorities.”

“Right? They'd rush over to neutralize me for sure.”

“I feel safer just having you here.”

He bends his head toward me.
Oh, no.
I spin, face away toward the ridge and say the first thing that comes to mind. “I want to go see the bats.”

They swoop and dive up there, fleeting shadows against the orange-purple sky. There's something otherworldly about how they skim through the dark.

“Bats,” Peter says, shaking the ice in his cup. “Bats are exciting. I can't compete with bats.”

I turn back to him. “No, it's not . . . You're not competing with bats. You can look at bats too. I just—I haven't been up to the ridge since I got back to being friends with Mandy.”

“Well, let's go.”

I invited him to the ridge. I didn't mean to do that. I wanted to do it, but it's not a good thing to have done. I trudge up the hill with Peter at my side, trying to hide how the heels and alcohol make me wobble.

“You were up here with Drew,” I say. “Is he okay?”

“He's fine. They fight every now and again. That's how relationships go, you know?”

I don't know. I know that my parents fought every now and again, and I know how that went.

When I stumble, Peter reaches out a hand and I take it. Now that he's gloved, too, it's doubly safe. His grip is firm and warm, and he's just enough taller than me that I feel like he's lifting me slightly as we walk to the top of the world.

The top of our little-city world, but still, it is beauty.

Bats tilt overhead like they're as tipsy as me, drop down and swoop back to daredevil heights, a show of bravado for Peter and me.

Below us, way down in the valley, gold- and pink-tinged lights make our tiny downtown kingdom shine. A dance of red and green lights streams through the city's veins.

“It's like Christmas,” I say, “all the lights.”

“I don't know about that,” Peter says. “It reminds me of one of those sci-fi space shows with a city floating in the darkness—all stars and vacuum except for this one flat, robotic chip. Maybe it's robots down there.”

“Maybe the robots took over,” I say, “while we've been at this party. Maybe we're the only people left free and alive.” I kneel at the edge of the world, and the hoop skirt collapses around me.

“There are worse places to be,” Peter says, “if the world had to end.” He sits down beside me and grins. “Worse people to be with.”

Peter lifts his mask out from under his glasses, which causes his headscarf to slip, freeing a few messy tufts of hair.

I would like to touch that hair.

“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks, I'm sorry I'm . . .”

“What?”

“I'm sorry I'm so weird.”

I don't want to see the echo of that in his face, the “yes, you are weird,” so I stretch out on my belly and prop myself up on my elbows facing the city. My shawl shifts in the process, giving the damp grass an opening to tickle my skin.

“You're not weird,” Peter says, stretching out and leaning on one side to face me. “Or maybe you are, but not in a bad way. You're great.”

“Thanks.” My voice comes out in a whisper. But everything else is amplified—the prickle of grass, Peter's breath sighing across a charged space to touch me.

“I like you, Caddie,” Peter says, low.

“I like you, too.”

It's not acting. It's un-actable, the truth of those words.

“Sometimes, I think . . . you're afraid of me,” he says.

I twist to my side, facing him, and I nod. “I think so.”

“You don't need to be,” he says. “I don't want you to be anymore.”

Space shudders between us, full of potential—begging us to close this distance, to
move
.

“I don't want to be afraid,” I whisper.

But fear's rising, a wave.

Peter touches me. Touches my face. And the ridge starts to crumble, ready to drop me and him off the edge of the world.

“Peter . . .”

He touches my lips with his lips.

And I scream.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I push Peter away, roll to my side, up to my knees. I lose a shoe as I try to stand and get caught on my skirt, hear it tear. “Caddie, wait—”

He reaches for my arms, wants to pull me up. “I don't need help!” My words knock him back. I try to stand myself up, trip and slide halfway down the hill.

“Dude, what happened?” That's Oscar's voice, coming closer.

Livia and Hank follow Oscar—all three of them pressing too close.

“Oh, God, Caddie, are you okay?” Livia asks.

“Stop, stop, stop, please.” My throat's tight, mouth dry.

“Caddie, I'm sorry.” Peter's voice comes from above. “I thought it was okay. I'm sorry.”

“Caddie, are you all right?” asks Oscar.

A sob—no, it's a scream—tears out before I can stop it.
Just leave me alone! Why can't all of them leave me alone?

“Caddie!” Peter's voice shoots out, hard and anxious.

“I'm okay! I'm fine!” I yell, but it's too late. He hovers over me, reaching out his hand.
AHH! Stop it!
“Don't touch me!”

He drops his hand, looking shocked as if I'd punched him.

“Dude, what did you do?” Oscar asks Peter.

“Nothing,” says Peter, his voice clipped and low. Then he makes eye contact with me. “We kissed.”

“Whoa,” says Hank under his breath.

“I thought you wanted me to,” Peter says, his face flushed.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“Caddie, it's all right,” he says, kneeling too close. “Whatever's wrong is going to be all right.”

“No, it isn't. Just LEAVE ME ALONE! Please!” And I roll away from him, feel for my shoe.

“Maybe not right now,” Hank says, his hand on Peter's shoulder. Livia stands over me, hands open and useless at her sides. She wants to try and heal me, but I'm a lost cause.

“Caddie—” Peter starts. His voice cuts off as Oscar yanks him up by the back of his shirt. The blowup doll hangs between them, and that makes me laugh hysterically, but it comes out like hitching sobs.

I can't get enough air.

“She told you to leave her alone.”

“Caddie, I'm sorry,” says Peter, leaning toward me as Oscar moves to block him. “I don't know what—”

I'm wiggling my shoe on when Oscar shoves Peter hard.

“Stop it!” I scream. “Stop it! Stop it!” The words don't come out right. There's not enough air for my voice.

Livia puts her hands on my shoulders, no skin touching skin, but too close. I shake her off.

Peter's tumbled back and is trying to right himself, but Oscar steps forward fast and shoves him. “Stay down!” he says. “Till she says it's all right.”

Peter stands fast, looking ready to lunge at Oscar.

“Hey, hey, hey,” says Hank, coming between them. “I know stage combat.”

“What the hell!” someone—Mandy—calls. She's stalking up the hill, all wicked witch. “Tell me you are not having a fight at my party!”

Other people have started to gather. Drew jogs up and puts an arm around Peter's shoulder while Hank and Livia stand on either side of Oscar, ready to hold him back. Drew talks low, right in Peter's ear. Peter's eyes go away from me as he listens to Drew, but he still looks like a dog who's been kicked and wants to make things right again.