Intentions (7 page)

Now I pull away and look at him. I give him a smile that I think is sexy, because I feel sexy, and

he kisses me, really kisses me, and

I really kiss him back and

I can’t say anything else because that’s all there is, just the two of us kissing and kissing, and everything else blissfully disappears.

CHAPTER 10

SLOPPY

When Jake and I finally part, and he goes his way and I go mine, I skip all the way home. Literally skip, like a little kid, even though I don’t want to get there too fast. I can’t help it. If I could fly, I would.

Yes! There are no cars in the driveway. I’ll have the house to myself to luxuriate. And that is exactly what I do: I luxuriate in the memory of our kisses, walking from room to room, listening to love songs on my iPod. I play Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Way I Am” twice. It’s a prayer: take me the way I am.

In the old days I would have called Alexis, and I consider it for a minute, but no—no way.…

Instead I open the fridge, look at the jar of peanut butter, the stash of chocolate on the door. Tempting. I am hungry. But I don’t want to wipe away the taste of Jake’s mouth. So I plop on the living room couch and listen to my music. Panda finds me, jumps on my chest, and licks my chin. I pet her until she settles herself on my belly, purring. She warms me, and the two of us fall asleep until the door opens.

“Rachel? You home?” It’s Dad. I keep my eyes closed, pretend
not to hear him. He goes down to his lair in the basement, and then Mom comes home a few minutes later. She immediately starts grousing about my shoes and backpack by the kitchen door.

“Rachel, why do you need to leave a mess wherever you go? Pick up this stuff, will you?”

Panda, disloyal cat, jumps off me to go say hello to Mom, and I crank up the music so I don’t have to listen to Mom, though of course I can still hear her.

“Why am I the only one who does anything around here? Dan, did you get milk like you were supposed to? Dan, where the hell are you?”

Just then someone sings in my ear, “And the walls came down, all the way to hell.…” I swear my iPod has an evil genius inside of it.

Jake is at my locker when I get there the next morning. Waiting for me! He’s smiling.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

“Sorry I’m not going to be around the rest of the week.”

“Me too!” I say, maybe a little too loudly. The kid who has the locker next to me, some girl on the field hockey team who never, ever acknowledges my existence, turns and looks.

“I’ll try to call you from the swim meet, but I get pretty obsessed.”

“Can you text?”

“Maybe. Actually, I’ll be trying really hard
not
to think about you.”

I am taken aback, but he is grinning so widely that I laugh. “OK …,” I say.

“Can’t afford to get distracted.” Now he’s not smiling. He’s looking at me with those eyes. We lean into each other, but the bell rings.

The damn bell rings.

We say a quick “bye,” and every cell of my body wants to follow every cell in his body, but I take a deep breath and turn away.

It takes me a couple of minutes into bio to turn down my heat. It’s not easy, because the teacher’s talking about birds mating. When I see Jake later, in English class, he’s on the other side of the room. I get through math, history, phys ed, hoping to see him at the end of the day at my locker, but he isn’t there. I run and just make the bus.

The sight of Adam sitting in the center backseat, in his black jeans and black sneakers and maroon hoodie, with a space beside him, cheers me up a little bit. He’s not Jake, but … he’s decent company when he’s alone. Alexis isn’t with him. None of his pack of boys either. I nod to him, and he nods to me, pats the seat next to him.

“What’s shakin’, Sugarbee?”

“My head,” I say, shaking it.

“Hey, what happened to your curls, Rachel? You used to have such great curly hair.”

“I blow it out.” Been doing it for, like, two years, and he’s noticing now?

“Why do you blow it?”

“It looks better this way,” I say petulantly.

“Well, you is WRONG, honey, wrong, wrong, WRONG.”

He says it with the confidence of a handsome boy. A handsome boy who doesn’t have to do anything but
be
to be handsome.

I shrug. I want to believe him. Think how much time I’d save if I didn’t blow-dry my hair. Does Jake even know that my hair is naturally curly? Much curlier than this?

“Where were you just now? What were you thinking about?” he asks.

Jake, I want to say, but instead I say, “Nothing,” and immediately feel guilty, as if I’m betraying Jake.

“You could go somewhere with
me
,” he says, whispering into my ear. He takes a strand of my hair and twists it, curls it around his finger. This feels too good.

“Sorry, I’ve already got a ticket somewhere else.”

“Oh, that hurts!” Adam says, pulling away and making a motion as if to stab himself in the heart. “You’re cruel, Rachel G.” But he is grinning that half grin of his, as if to say, It’s OK, I’m not going to take it seriously one way or the other.

He’s basically a good guy, I think.

But then of course he proves inheritance through nature or nurture and says, “I hope it’s a good ride, babe,” and he does that pumping thing with his hips and arms. “A goooood ride.”

“Ew.”

“Ride him, cowgirl!” And now he’s really going at it.

“Oh, Adam, stop!” I say, and I pull out my book, put my earphones in, and turn away from him.

Adam’s apple did not fall far from the tree.

When I get home, there’s an email from Jake.

Had to run, sorry. My mom picked me up so I could pack. The bus leaves for Harrisburg at 5:00. I will see you when I get back. I will not think about you. I will not think about you. I will not.

Jake
.

I print out his email and put it under my pillow. Am I a goner or what?

On Wednesday school sucks. No prospects of seeing Jake. Morning goes by so slowly and now at lunch it’s weirder than ever with Alexis. We’re still sitting at the same table we always sit at with our circle of friendlets. In the old days she and I would talk all through lunch. Now it’s just silence while the others yak around us. Marissa from temple and her best friend, Kendra, are giggling about a TV show they watch.

Oh well. I don’t need to talk.

I can just eat.

I take a huge bite of my sloppy joe, squeezing the roll without thinking—I mean, how stupid is that? Every kid learns by first grade not to squeeze the sloppy joe roll! And all the goop starts cascading down my—of course, to make it as awful as it can possibly be—brand-new pale blue top.

“Oh fuck,” I say, jumping up and dropping the rest of the sloppy joe on my lap.

“Oh double and triple fuck!” I shout loud enough, apparently, for Mrs. Thomas, my sweet English teacher, to hear, because she comes marching at me, wagging her finger. “RayCHUL!”

Meanwhile, Kendra has come around from her side of the table with a napkin and Marissa has run off, saying, “I’ll get more.”

“Rachel Greenberg,” Mrs. Thomas yells, “watch your mouth! I am going to have to—” But as her eyes move up and down my patheticness, she stops and says quietly, “Get yourself cleaned up, dear. And next time try to be more careful.…”

Next
time? As much as I love them, I am never going to eat sloppy joes again.

Alexis has not said a word or moved a muscle, even though she is sitting right next to me. But when Marissa comes running back with the napkins, saying, “I wet some of them,” Alexis finally turns around, takes one look at me, says, “Oh, RAYCHUL!” and starts laughing hysterically.

Soon the whole table is laughing, even Marissa and Kendra.

I walk out of the cafeteria holding my messenger bag over myself and run to the nearest bathroom.

Me: Mom, can you please bring me a change of clothes?

Mom: I’m on my way to visit a family!

Me: Mom, I’m a mess.

Mom: Rachel, I—

Me (unable to stop myself): Waaaaaaaaa.

Mom: I’ll get there as soon as I can.

Me: I love you.

Of course I have math next and it starts in five minutes. I am going to get in too much trouble if I skip it, so I dry my face and
do the best I can with the mess that is my shirt and pants, using a gazillion paper towels.

Luckily, Mean Math Teacher has eyes, if no heart, and when I show him my clothes and tell him my mother is coming, all he says is “Change quickly when she gets here.”

I nod and walk to my desk.

Kendra and Marissa are in this class, and they come over to me and ask if I’m OK. I shrug.

The call comes right after Mean Math Teacher tells us to start on tomorrow’s homework. When I walk into the office to get my clothes, there’s Adam again.

“What did you do now?” I say meanly. I’m still mad at him for the pumping hips.

“Nothing. I have a ‘follow-up’ meeting with His Highness.”

I don’t say anything.

“You OK?” Adam asks, his eyes searching mine.

I take my books away from my front and show him my mess.

“Poor you. Your mom was just in here—I guess she dropped off new clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Sloppy joe,” I tell him. “It was pretty awful. They all laughed.” I don’t say who, but he knows.

“I skipped lunch today,” he says, bringing his fingers up to his lips, smoking a joint. “Sorry I wasn’t there to help.” He’s sincere, not smirking at all.

Adam is one confusing guy. He can be so nice. Like when Grandpa died. I had forgotten about that until this moment. He came with his father one night during
shivah
. Spent the whole
time by my side. Alexis was there, too, but that night she mostly stayed in the kitchen helping with food and cleaning up. Adam stuck to me like glue. He didn’t say much, but if I got at all teary, he kind of leaned into me or touched me lightly on the arm. At one point an old friend of Grandma’s came over and pinched my cheek and said, “Your grandfather is in a better place now, dear.” When she walked away, Adam said exactly what I was thinking—“Bullshit!”—and gave me a little hug.

“Good luck with your meeting,” I say to him now, and go to change.

At the end of the day, my phone rings. I look, hoping for Alexis, but it’s Marissa.

“Hello?” I say.

“I’m really sorry I laughed. So is Kendra. Can we take you out for a coffee or something? To make it up?”

“Oh, you don’t have to. I’m fine,” I say.

“Please?”

“Where are you?”

“We’re standing right behind you!” she giggles, and I turn around, and there they are.

“I guess it
was
pretty funny,” I say.

“We weren’t laughing
at
you,” Kendra says, “we were laughing
with
you!”

I roll my eyes. “As if!” But I laugh. Finally. “And thanks for getting the napkins and stuff,” I tell them.

They sort of hug me, one on either side, and then we hook arms and march down the street to the little café/ice cream parlor near school. Marissa convinces me to get an iced coffee with
vanilla ice cream in it. “It’s how they do it in Israel,” she says. We all get them.

“I’m moving to Israel!” I declare after my first few sips, being very careful not to spill a single drop on my clean black shirt.

“Me too!” says Marissa. “Right of return—they have to take us; we’re Jewish!”

“Damn,” says Kendra. “I’m converting!”

“But wouldn’t you miss your dad’s peanut butter and bacon sandwiches?” asks Marissa.

“Well, I don’t have to go the whole hog,” says Kendra. “Get it?”

“We get it, we get it,” says Marissa, and we all laugh.

It goes on like that for more than an hour—silly jokes, happy banter—but the whole time I am acutely aware that they are not Alexis and that Alexis is not there.

CHAPTER 11

STREAMERS

After school Thursday, I head up to McKelvy’s room to retake the Katrina quiz. This time I really read those chapters and then looked up more stuff. It’s horrific. We have to do a long report soon, and I’m definitely going to do mine on New Orleans and Katrina.

“I changed the questions, so if you got them from other kids, forget about it,” McKelvy says.

“I did not cheat. You know I wouldn’t do that!” I am truly insulted.

“I know,” he says, with a tinge of doubt.

I show
him
. I’m done in five minutes, he grades it right away, and I get them all right.

“Good for you, Rachel.”

“Horrible topic,” I say to him. “I can’t believe all the poverty there still and how much those people need.”

“Sure is awful, Rachel. I’m glad you see that. Speaking of need, you ready to go to Union tomorrow?”

Oops. Totally forgot.

First reaction: What a pain. Don’t want to do it.

Second reaction: I know in my heart I should.
Tikkun olam
, repairing the world.

Third: What else do I have to do on Friday afternoon? Nothing.

“Sure,” I say.

McKelvy gives me the rundown on the school. The kids are mostly poor; something like 75 percent are on free lunch. The teachers are good and dedicated, but they need as much help as they can get. Since I leave at one-twenty on Fridays, I can give them a full hour.

“Want me to go with you?” McKelvy asks. “I have a free period; I could take you down.”

I would love it if he came. But I should be able to do this by myself. “I’ll be fine,” I say.

“You can catch the bus right outside, the number four.”

I know that bus. Alexis and I used to take it all the time to go shopping at Morrison’s.

On the bus the next afternoon, I find myself thinking about Alexis and feeling so blue. Stop it! I’m on my way to help some kids who really need it. Focus on that.
Tikkun olam
, which I heard about from the rabbi, of course. First when I was little, and later, a few months after Grandpa died.