If We Kiss (9 page)

seventeen

EVERY TIME I saw George he looked away from me. I tried to be casual as I spied around corners, trying to catch him popping up at some other girl’s locker. I’d scratch her eyes out.

I had a heck of a nerve being jealous, of course, but there you have it. The pope is unlikely to beatify me soon, in any event. He didn’t seem to be otherwise engaged, though, just going about his business. George, that is. The pope doesn’t go to my school.

Tess was back to talking more about training for a triathlon than about love, which was a relief. I may even have agreed to train with her, in my fit of gratitude at not hearing the name
Kevin
and the verb
love
in the same sentence.

I smiled at Kevin once, briefly, outside English, thinking purposefully:
No matter what, I will not reveal my secret to you.
This is another tip I got from Tess’s sister Isabel’s magazine. Have a secret; don’t reveal it. It matters not at all what your secret is. My secret was my middle name—Reese.

Kevin didn’t seem particularly intrigued.

After school the next afternoon, at newspaper, I was sitting next to Penelope, keeping a running tab of how many times she sighed (fourteen) on the top corner of my math homework and trying not to stare at Kevin, when Mr. McKinley stomped toward us.

“Charles,” he boomed, meaning me.

I twitched to show I had heard. Or maybe in fear. I was still unable to function near him.

“When you go to the next Board of Ed meeting, make sure your notes are good. Right?”

I nodded. So Penelope had told him what a disaster my notes were on the first one, obviously. The rat.

“You don’t want to misquote a Board of Ed member, right?”

I shook my head, proud of my impressive muscular control. How humiliating. It was my first time ever writing a newspaper article—maybe I could get a little instruction or support? Especially because, hello, I am not even interested in newspaper. I am here by accident!

“Where do you think we get our funding?” McKinley bellowed.

A problem: It is hard to answer a non–yes/no question with only slight head movements. I thought for a moment. Where do we get our funding? Our what? There was a buzzing sound in my head. What was the question?

“The Board of Ed,” he answered himself. Hard to tell if he was happy or pissed. He sounded both. I was staring at his scuffed brown shoes. They were fancier than you’d guess for a guy that big and gruff who walks tilted forward at about a forty-degree angle.

In case he was waiting for me to say something, I nodded slightly.

“But be impartial,” he bellowed, then turned to make sure everybody could hear him. In all of New England, maybe. “You cover your benefactors the same as anybody else. You must be fair, unbiased, objective. Because what is the most important element in a free society?”

“A free press!” everybody answered. Everybody except me.

McKinley clapped me on the shoulder with his meaty hand and stomped away as the late bell rang. I was in such a rush to get the heck out of there, I almost crashed into Kevin in the doorway.

“Sorry,” I said.

“See ya,” he said. “Later.”

“My middle name is Reese,” I blurted.

“What?”

“That’s my . . .” What was I doing? “That’s a secret.” Ugh. I used to be within the spectrum of normal. “Don’t tell anyone,” I added feebly.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s your mother’s last name, right?”

I nodded. He knows stuff about me. I felt kind of naked and kind of scared and kind of, simultaneously, electrified. “That’s right,” I whispered.

“My father mentioned . . .” His voice trailed off. “Well, see you tonight, I guess.”

eighteen

THE MARIACHI BAND started playing right around the moment when Kevin’s father first mentioned Vermont. Until that moment it had been possible to pretend this was just one of those awkward/tedious dinners parents arrange so they can chat with each other and simultaneously pretend they are spending time with their children, because their children are around the same ages as each other and wouldn’t it be fun if they hit it off? I’ve endured these dinners with my mother’s college roommates and my father’s friends from the club. I know how to do it; you just smile a lot and say, “Oh, that’s great” and “Thank you” whenever you hear your name, and otherwise you are basically free to space out.

That’s how I was treating this dinner. Kevin, I decided, is just the son of my mother’s friend.

But then the mariachi band came over and started playing “La Bamba,” and Kevin’s father put his arm around my mother and said, “Over Christmas break we’re going up to Vermont.”

“Vermont?” my mother asked. “Oh, how wonderful.”

I shot her a look, chastising her for the false cheer. Ew.

“Oh, it is,” said Joe. “It’s wonderful. It’s on Sun-up Mountain, and it’s just this really cozy house. It belongs to my parents but they rarely use it these days. I love it there. So do Kevin and Samantha. It’s just great. We ski all day, build a fire afterward, just relax. Charlie, do you ski?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling my face get red.

“Kevin is a great skier,” his father bragged. “And Samantha’s really learning, too.”

Samantha sipped her Shirley Temple and looked from face to face.

“Hey,” Joe said. “You two should come!”

“Well,” said Mom, all coy. “Charlie is supposed to be going to her father’s over Christmas this year.”

“Yeah,” I said. Then muttered, as I always do, “Unfortunately.”

“You can see she’s thrilled about it,” Mom said, instead of telling me not to be rude. “It really is very boring for her down at the Cape over Christmas. Actually, her father and I have been discussing maybe switching holidays, and I could have Charlie over Christmas and he could have her over Thanksgiving . . .”

“Am I involved in these negotiations at all?” I asked. “Or am I just a geranium you two pass back and forth?”

Mom smiled at me like a TV mom on a commercial about her rascally kid who has fully recovered from her cough. “You are a geranium.”

“That would be great, wouldn’t it, kids?” Mr. Lazarus asked his children. “Elizabeth and Charlie should come with us. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” Samantha answered obediently, and smiled sweetly at me. “You could sleep in my room. Kevin and I each have two beds in our rooms. Unless, I mean, I know you’re his friend, but . . .”

Mr. Lazarus chuckled his deep chuckle. “She’ll stay in your room, sweetheart,” he told his daughter.

I put on a fake smile and said to my mother, “And where will you be sleeping, Mom?”

“Well,” she said. “I . . .”

“Interesting question,” Kevin said.

I was too furious with my mother to thank him for the compliment.

“She could have my room,” said Mr. Lazarus. “And I would bunk in with Kevin. Of course.”

“Of course,” Mom said. “Well, let’s take it slow and think this through. It’s a very nice invitation. Thank you, Joe. There’s a lot to consider and it’s just an idea. . . .”

The band, by then, had wandered over to our table. They started playing the “Mexican Hat Dance.” Really loud. I crossed my arms over my chest and slumped in my chair, grimacing, waiting for these sweaty men to finish blaring their insipid song in my ears. When they did, Mr. Lazarus handed them a tip and they went on to the next table.

“Think about it,” said Mr. Lazarus. “I bet you would love Vermont, both of you. And we’d love to have you. Right, kids?”

“Right,” chimed Samantha.

“Bull,” said Kevin.

We all stared at him.

“Kevin,” his father chided.

“What a load of crap, Dad,” Kevin said. “Why do you have to lie to us? Put on this whole charade, as if you and Elizabeth hadn’t planned this, as if it hadn’t already all been discussed and agreed on by the two of you—as if we ‘kids’ had any say in it at all! Maybe Samantha is naïve enough to fall for that but not me and Charlie.”

Okay, I had fallen for it, or at least hadn’t been focused on that aspect of the situation, but no way was I opening my mouth and admitting it.

“Kevin,” his father said. “How about you calm down and we can . . .”

Kevin stood up. His chair almost smashed into the waitress behind him, who was balancing the tray with all our plates on it. “Calm down, my ass.”

“Kevin!”

“For once I would so love,” Kevin said, as the waitress put down his sizzling chicken fajitas, “some honesty. Everyone always makes excuses and hides behind convenient little stories—why doesn’t anybody just stand up and say this is what I want, or this is what I think? Everybody is so . . .”

“So . . . what?” Mr. Lazarus asked, his smile hardening slightly.

“So compromised.”

“Sit down, please, Kev, and eat your dinner.”

He shoved his chair toward the table. “Come on, Charlie.”

I had a barbecued rib in my mouth. I put it down, chewed quickly while wiping my mouth on my napkin, grabbed my bag, and followed him out. I was mad, too. I didn’t even say excuse me as I left.

We stomped across the parking lot. There was a Dumpster there, which Kevin punched. It was very loud and left a slight dent. He turned his back to me. I wasn’t sure if I should ask if he was all right or if I should wait silently or go back to the restaurant alone.

“I don’t even care if he and she are, you know.”

I didn’t answer. He sounded like he was trying not to cry.

“But they could have the courage to be honest about it. Do you know what I mean? About honesty?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

He turned around. “They lie and lie and lie—they don’t even realize they’re doing it. But they’ll do anything to avoid a confrontation.”

“Our parents?”

“All of them,” he said. “Adults. Most people.”

I nodded.

“But not you,” he said. “You don’t shy away from anything.”

“Me?” Good golly, the queen of conflict-averse.

He shook his head. “You’re different. That’s what’s so cool about you.”

“It is?”

“For a while I thought you were stuck-up. But then I realized it was just me, specifically, you were nasty to.”

“I was not!”

“Don’t start lying now, too. You know you were.”

“Not always,” I mumbled.

“No,” he whispered. “Not always.”

Whoa, Nelly! Take a breath and BACK OFF. “Maybe I’m just nasty,” I suggested.

“Maybe.” A hint of a smile lifted one side of his mouth. “But I think you’re probably the most honest person I know. I like that about you.”

I shrugged, unable to speak. I would never do anything to hurt Tess. My friendship with her is the most important relationship in my life with the possible—possible—exception of my mother. At the same time, there I was in the parking lot, really, really wanting to kiss my best friend’s boyfriend. How’s that for honest?

A car sped past on the road. I resisted the urge to turn and look at it, as I was resisting every other urge. I decided to stay completely still, to wait and see what he did first: my feeble attempt at maintaining my innocence.

His cell phone rang, which broke the tension. He took it out of his pocket, looked at it, then turned it toward me. The caller ID said
TESS
. I raised my eyebrows at him. He shrugged and let it ring until it stopped ringing. He kept it in his palm then, as if he was wondering what else it might start to do. But it just lay there, still as a rock. We both watched it. When the ringing started again, neither of us was surprised, until he looked at it and said, “It’s not mine.”

Digging through my bag, I realized it was of course Tess, calling me; I got to the phone in time to confirm it. I showed it to Kevin and didn’t answer either.

“You, uh . . .” he said after a while, in his low, raspy voice. “You know we have no say in this Vermont trip.”

“Yup,” I said, and cleared my throat. “You know what the state motto is, of Vermont?”

“No.”

“Exactly,” I said.

He didn’t laugh. He slipped his cell phone back into his pocket.

“How’s your hand?”

“Fine. My hand?”

“That Dumpster had it coming,” I said. “After how it acted toward you.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said, putting my cell away, too. “It’s freezing out here.”

“Yeah,” he said.

We started walking back toward the restaurant. I was really cold and still pretty hungry but I also wasn’t completely ready to go back to our parents.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, which of course was itself a question.

“Sure,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Is your mother . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about my mother.”

“Okay,” I said. We walked some more. When we got to the door he opened it, and since I thought he might be holding it open for me I started to walk through. But he wasn’t, so we kind of crashed into each other. I said sorry and we headed toward our table, where a lady was making a balloon hat shaped like a flower garden for Kevin’s father, and where my mother had icicles behind her smile.

It was a long dinner and a longer ride home. Halfway home my mother said, without taking her eyes off the road, “You are never to leave the table like that again. I don’t like the way Kevin spoke to his father or the assumptions either of you were making. It is insulting and inappropriate.”

I slumped down in my seat and flipped on the seat warmer. “Sorry.”

“If we do go to Vermont, which will be MY decision, I will expect you to behave yourself.”

“You sound like Dad.”

“You sound like . . . never mind.” She took a few deep breaths.

We drove along in silence for a while. I got to picturing how it would be in Vermont, spending the week there with Kevin and his family—skiing together, eating together, waiting for each other to finish in the bathroom. No way. How could she do this to me? What if she really does make me do this? How could I survive it? So I asked, “Can I bring a friend?” I was just thinking Tess always eases the tension, like when I drag her down to the Cape sometimes for my weekends with Dad. But then I immediately thought, well, maybe not Tess. Maybe Jennifer would be better. Or does that make me an evil person?

But anyway, Mom said, “I don’t think so, Charlie. There isn’t room and—Charlie, listen. I think the idea Joe had, and I had, that we had, is to spend some time, the five of us.”

That took my breath away, and not just the admission that Kevin was right, that this idea had been discussed already and hatched between my mother and his father. It was the other part—what that meant, spend some time, the five of us. Why? Oh, no. “Really?”

“Really,” she said, her eyes still fixed straight ahead, into the darkness.