Kiss Me Again (19 page)

Come to my locker!
she immediately texted back, as I knew she would. Her house is such a hot mess in the mornings—she always rides to school and gets there before the doors open.

She was sitting with her excellent posture straight up against her locker when I got there, her legs splayed wide in front of her. She gave me her awesome full-face smile, and I just slumped down next to her.

She put her arm around me. “Wanna run away from home?”

“Yes,” I said, my head lolling onto her shoulder. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course! We’ll have adventures. Live off the land. Suck the marrow out of life.”

“Ew.”

“True. Suck the goo out of the chocolates.”

“And leave all the bad ones in the box.”

“Absolutely,” she said.

People were stepping over us, so we stood up. “I hate Kevin,” I said.

“We should make it a club,” she responded. “We could get jackets. Maybe a theme song.”

“I hate Kevin,” I sang. “I truly hate his guts.”

“I hate Kevin,” she sang, same tune. “Such a frigging slut.”

I grinned at her and she grinned back, my almost twin, my double, my best friend. “We might have to work on the theme song a bit.”

“I hate Kevin,” she sang as we started off toward homeroom. “He grinds fishes in the disposal.”

“I hate Kevin,” I sang, thinking fast. “He blinds girls-es with his—mind-control-sal.”

Tess squealed. “You are sooo random.”

We giggled and blew each other kisses good-bye.

Later, in science class, we had to present our project ideas. I felt Kevin’s eyes on me when I stood up front, reading from my paper about my plans to test the five-second rule by dropping gummi bears on various floors for one second, five seconds, ten seconds, and twenty seconds, swab them for bacteria, and then compare with undropped gummi bears as a control.

Everybody laughed and made predictions. Except Kevin.

When he had to go up, I kept my eyes on my desk until he was in the midst of detailing his proposal. He was planning to test bathrooms—in the school, in the house he was living in (he didn’t say
in my house
; he said
in the house I am living in
), in a coffee shop, in a McDonald’s—and compare to see which is the grossest.

I could feel kids in the class turning to see my reaction. I tried to stay neutral, but I’m sorry, WHAT? He was going to swab my bathroom to see if it was as gross as the school bathroom or a fast-food restaurant’s or, what? The men’s room at Cuppa? To see if it was gross? And then put his results on a damn piece of poster board?

Mrs. Roderick said, “Oh, sounds like you and Charlie have similar ideas. Maybe you’ll team up?”

“No,” we both answered.

“Well,” Mrs. Roderick said, blinking her long, fake eyelashes at us. One of them was only partially attached, giving her a kind of kooky, unsettling look. “That was unanimous. Okeydokey. Next?”

Kevin passed my seat, going back to his.

I sank down and waited for time to slog by. At the end of class, Tess was at my side before the bell finished ringing. On our way out the door, she whispered to me, “You know what’s weird? For a few days there, I was all worried you were ditching me for Kevin. I was all like,
Charlie is totally getting back at me, making me feel jealous as revenge for all those times she felt jealous of me
.”

“Really?”

“Crazy, right? But I can see now how jealousy can make a person do crazy stuff, and anyway, I’m over it because I see you love me way more than that boy-slut.”

“Um,” I said. “Good, I guess?”

“I love love love your science fair project. Let’s figure out a way we can combine it with mine. More fun that way. Hey, did you know
funeral
is an anagram of
real fun
?”

I had to laugh. “That is the most awesome thing ever.”

I walked home by myself after school.

At least Kevin hadn’t quit newspaper, like I had, or maybe he was at baseball. I wasn’t memorizing his schedule anymore.

I had a ton of homework, and it probably meant nothing that Anya hadn’t called me about when to come in for my first official day yet. She had said it might be a few days. Anyway, I was very busy, so it was just as well. I had many hobbies of my own, buried deep down, to get busy developing.

Sam was sitting on the landing midway up the stairs, reading a book.

“Hey, Sam,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” she said. “I’m going to buy bubble gum with the money I got from the tooth fairy. I usually get a dollar, but this time I got four.”

“Really?” I asked. “Four? Wow.”

“I know,” Sam said. “Strange coincidence, right? My dad is going to take me to buy the gum, and I will be happy to teach you bubbles tonight, if you’re free.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” I said.

I took a short break on my bed when I got there. I wished I could be more like Sam, able, still, to just lose myself sprawled on a step, reading a book. Or like Mom, in love, successful in a career, settled with everything. Or like Joe, artistic and generous. Even maybe like my dad, certain of everything.

Dad.

I scrolled through my emergency contacts. How had I not thought of this before?

“Dad?” I said into the phone when he picked up. “Hi!”

“Who is this?” my father asked.

“It’s your kid, the older one, the one from your first marriage,” I said, aware of the edge of sarcasm mixed with about-to-cry in my voice that I had sworn to myself only thirty seconds earlier I could avoid. “It’s Charlie, Dad.”

“Charlotte!” he said. “How are you? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, Dad, sure,” I told him.

“Your mother’s fine?”

“Yeah.”

“Jim treating her okay?”

“Joe,” I said. “I just wanted to ask you if …”

“What? I can’t hear you. Why are you sniveling?”

“Allergies,” I said, and immediately regretted it. He thinks having allergies is, like sniveling, a sign of a weak character. “Or, nothing. Dad? Would it be okay with you if …”

“Charlotte, honey, I just got home from work, and I have to get out to the yard or I’ll never—”

“Okay, but, Dad? You’re going to Paris over spring break?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Gotta get some French fries. Hahaha.”

“But what about me?” My face in my mirror looked so pathetic I sank down on the far side of my bed and closed my eyes, waiting.

“It’s extremely expensive, Charlotte.”

“I know,” I said.

“I can’t bankroll your every wish, you know.”

“I know. I wasn’t asking to come to Paris with you....”

“Yup. You keeping your grades up?”

“Yeah. Dad. Maybe I could just come for a visit. This weekend, even. It’s been a while, and ABC must be so big by now....”

“He’s still a punk, aren’t you, ABC?”

“No,” I heard my little half brother say, and then heard my father laugh. ABC, who was almost five and adorable, started to giggle. My father must have been tickling him, from the roller-coaster sound of his giggles—and my father’s ragged breath, whispering, “Oh yeah? Oh yeah?”

“Dad?” I considered telling him that Shakespeare used the word
punk
to mean
prostitute
, so maybe he shouldn’t call his favorite kid that. But then I didn’t. Couldn’t.

“Hmmm? Charlotte?”

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

“Okay, you take care,” Dad said. “Say hello to your mom for me. How’s her marriage going? Better this time around?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Well, send her and Jim my best.”

“Joe.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You working yet? Or just lazing around with your nose in a book?”

I hesitated. “You know me,” I finally said.

“Honey, you gotta get your ass in gear, huh? Life’s not just entertainment.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it is,” I heard ABC say, through the phone. “For me it is.”

My father play-grunted at him. “I’m gonna get you, you punk,” he said in a grizzly-bear voice, and then, to me, said, “Gotta go, honey. Talk to you soon.”

“Bye, Dad,” I said, and hung up before he could.

I threw my phone down on the bed and flung open my door. Just what I needed—Kevin was on his way to his room, at the same moment. Well, I was not about to slink back into my room just because some jerk-slut punk interloper was clogging up my hall.

“Hey! Kevin!” I whisper-yelled, warning myself not to talk loud enough for Sam to overhear, and further not to say aloud the too-silly-for-how-furious-I-felt word
interloper
.

“What?” He turned around, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

You interloper!
“I really didn’t appreciate your little science project jab.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” I said. My arms were crossed in front of my chest, too. “Sure you don’t. Your science project is basically a way of insulting my house, you interloper.”
Damn
.

“What?” He took a step closer and growled at me, “Not everything is about YOU, believe it or not.”

“Screw you. I never said it was.”

“Why would you think my project was specifically designed to dis you?”

“Well, you’re planning to—what? Swab my bathroom and compare it to every gross place you can find, and see how it stacks up? To broadcast to the entire school how messy my house is? I’m not the one with Head & Shoulders in the shower and my wet towel and dirty underwear on the floor. So, watch where you throw stones, you know? Because I have plenty of ammunition, and you live in MY frigging glass house.”

“At least I didn’t steal my science project idea from a nine-year-old.”

“And I did?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You did. I was there. String bean on the floor?”

“You think you people invented the five-second rule? How frigging arrogant are—”

“You’re the most arrogant person I—”

At that moment, my mother came up the stairs, a stack of books in her arms and her reading glasses crooked on her nose. “Hi,” she said. “Everything okay, you guys?”

“Fine,” Kevin and I answered in unison. Then we retreated to our rooms. So much for not getting detoured by the interloper.

“THE FIVE-SECOND RULE,”
I told him.

“That is the most excellent science project ever,” Toby responded, topping a coffee with a perfect dome of steamed milk. He placed the mug on the counter in front of a grateful, frazzled mom of twin toddlers who were screeching in the stroller beside her, poking each other with gunky fingers.

“Sorry again,” I said, because of the time she’d had to waste while I wrecked three tries at making it for her.

She tried to give back an understanding nod, but clearly the full measure of her understanding had been used up on her ogre babies. She steered the stroller to the front corner and faced it to the wall, then slid down in her seat, the warm mug Toby had given her nestled between her palms. She sipped as her eyes closed.

“Never gonna have kids,” I whispered to Toby.

“You sound like my mom,” he responded.

I was laughing when the door to Cuppa opened. Felicity and Paige walked in, followed closely by Kevin and Brad.

“Friends of yours?” Toby whispered. I guess I had stiffened a little.

I turned my back to them and whispered, “My ex, and his newbie.”

“Which?” Toby whispered.

“Blue-eyed boy. And ponytail.”

“I got this,” he said to me, and then to them, across the counter, “Hey.”

“Hi,” Felicity said, then turned to Kevin. “Do you know what you want?”

“Yes,” Kevin said, glaring at me.

“Ugh, I’m so indecisive,” Felicity said. “What are you getting?”

“So?” Toby said to me, leaning his hip against the counter, while my friends discussed the relative merits of Cuppa’s various offerings.

“So,” I answered.

“So we’re on for Saturday night, then?” he asked me.

First I’d heard of it. “Yeah. Sure.”

“So cool that you like Apollo Run.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked, pretending that was just an expression instead of an honest question. “They’re great!” Please let Apollo Run be a THEY.

“Have you heard their new song?” Toby asked.

“The best,” I said. “Though, of course, their old stuff …”

“Sure.” Toby’s hand pulled my shoulder close to his armpit. “We’ll hang with them after, they’ll love you.”

The shaking started at my feet and spread upward. No way any of these people in front of the counter, all of whom I’d known since elementary school, would believe I was going to see a band with this senior guy. They had stopped discussing drinks and were all facing us, waiting to order, but Toby was paying attention only to me, completely ignoring them. If Anya walked out of the storeroom, she’d be pissed.