My First Love (3 page)

My heart stopped. My breath caught in my throat. I could practically hear the blood rushing to my face.

“Did you find it?” Chris asked.

“No! What, the sweatshirt? Y-y-yes!” I stammered, closing the notebook quickly and stuffing it back into the bag.

My heart soared as I pictured the notebook again in my
mind. It was wonderful. It was incredible. Chris liked me. Why hadn’t I seen it before?

Just then something strange happened. It’s hard to explain, but I felt like my heart opened up a little bit to let some new and strange feelings in.

And I had the scary feeling it might be hard to close it again.

“You look good in that,” Chris said, as if he’d never seen me in Dolphin duds before, as if our sweatshirts weren’t exactly alike. “The blue lettering matches your eyes exactly.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling sheepish. Once I finally had the sweatshirt on, I found I didn’t need it after all. Maybe I’d gotten used to the wind—or maybe seeing my name written over and over in Chris’s notebook was what had made me feel so warm. But I didn’t want to take it off either. It smelled faintly of chlorine, just the way all my swimming clothes did. But beneath that, there was another, sweet smell—lotion? shampoo?—that was familiar and pleasant. I couldn’t quite make it out.

Feeling almost numb with exhilaration, I settled back in the seat and looked around. We were whizzing by supermarkets and pool stores and a string of Circle Ks, heading straight for a mountain called Squaw Peak. The business district gave way to neighborhoods, then houses thinned out more and more the closer we got to the mountains, leaving only spindly cacti and greenish-gray scrub brush.

We turned onto a side road that wound around the mountain and through a small park at its base. Here and there people picnicked at shelters set up along the road, the smoke from their barbecues twisting into the sky. A few hikers lingered at the base of the main mountain path, sipping from water bottles.

“You’re taking me climbing?” I asked, glancing at my watch. “Isn’t it getting a little late for that?”

But Chris only smiled in response. At the crest of a hill, he U-turned and parked the car on the shoulder, facing down. From that height, we had a clear view of Phoenix, which is laid out like a grid. I traced Glendale Avenue westward past orchards and church steeples, and found where our apartment would be. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Chris staring at me. My pulse quickened as I flashed back to my daydream about his kissing me.

“Amy,” Chris said as he put his hand gently on my forearm. My skin got goose bumps even though I still had his sweatshirt on, but I kept my arm still. “Can I ask you a question?”

I nodded cautiously.

But before he could even finish saying, “What’s going on with you and Rick Finnegan?” I was already blurting out, “Nothing. Really, nothing. He’s a friend.”

Chris looked relieved for a moment. Then his expression became serious again. “I know you guys are close, and if you’re going out with him—”

“I’m not,” I interrupted. “Going out with Rick, I mean. We’ve just been studying for the PSATs together.”

I didn’t think there was any way Chris could have heard that Rick had kissed me. It had just happened the night before, and my lukewarm response to Rick’s kiss certainly wasn’t something he would want to brag about to the guys.

“Then how about next Saturday?” Chris asked. He must have been nervous, because in one sentence his voice kept changing, like a radio being tuned, from high-pitched to deep and gravelly. “I know you’re really busy, but how about going out with me?”

“Sure.” I tried to sound cool about it, like I got asked out all the time. But inside, my heart was leaping.

I’d never even had a real date. Sure, I’d gone to the movies a few times with Rick, but that didn’t count. He was more like a brother than a boyfriend.

Why hadn’t I dated? I wasn’t sure. I was smart and fairly interesting. In terms of looks I would have given myself a seven on a good hair day. Maybe an eight in the summer when I have a tan. I have long brown hair and almond-shaped blue eyes. Rick told me I was gorgeous a couple of weeks ago, but then again, his opinion isn’t the one I’d trust.

Blythe said I probably seemed too busy with school and the Dolphins for a guy to bother asking me out. “You have to flash a red light,” she was always saying, “to get a guy to brake.” She said that I was stuck on yellow. I said I hadn’t found anyone worth signaling to. Or the time to signal.

Until now.

I smiled at Chris, and he grinned as if he was really relieved I’d said yes. “Great!” he said.

I had to change the subject to keep from bouncing right out of my seat from excitement. “Okay, I give up,” I told Chris, gesturing out into the desert around us. “What’s this thing I have to see?”

“Any moment now,” he said.

I thought about how much could change in a moment. A swimmer could slip from first place to second. A girl could fall in love, as my mom had, and ditch her plans for college. A boy like Rick could lose his mind and try to kiss you, when the last time you checked, you were just friends. Or you could discover your name written inside a boy’s notebook, and never be able to look at him the same way again.

I was sure Chris would kiss me any second. But he didn’t. He didn’t put his arm around me, didn’t move closer, or even close his eyes. Instead, he offered me a cheap pair of sunglasses he pulled out of the glove compartment. Then he donned his baseball cap, which he’d pulled out from under the front seat.

The sunglasses were too big, but I put them on and gave Chris a questioning look. “Here we go,” Chris said, grinning at me.

The sun had continued to sink while we were driving, turning from yellow to red as it neared the horizon. It was so beautiful. The sun cast a red-orange stain across Chris’s face,
almost like an instant tan. He looked fantastic in that color, I thought, my heart thumping. Until that moment, I’d never noticed the freckles across the bridge of his nose or the brilliant gold flecks in his eyes.

Out there in the open, sitting next to him in a convertible at the base of Squaw Peak, I felt this incredible rush of happiness. Without realizing it, I gave a deep, contented sigh.

“Wow,” I murmured.

“You got that right,” said Chris, turning to me. Then he turned back toward the sunset and stared, squinting, straight ahead.

I smiled. He thought I had meant the sunset.

“I’ve tried out lots of different views of the sun going down,” Chris said. “But I think this one is definitely the best.”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. “It’s the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.”

I wasn’t thinking about my homework, or even about the swim meet with the state champion Sharks. I wasn’t thinking about the future at all. I was too busy taking in those few slow moments when the day turns to night.

“Five calls!” I exclaimed, looking at the blinking answering machine in the front hallway of our apartment. Chris had just dropped me off, and I practically floated into the house.

The first message, the second, the third, and the fourth were all from Blythe, each one more frantic than the one before.

“Our health project! Oh, no,” I said, hitting the side of my head with the palm of my hand.
That
was what I’d forgotten—to meet Blythe at the library! I looked at my
watch and was surprised to see that it was seven o’clock, a full two hours after I had promised to meet her.

At times like this, I wished I had a cell phone. But I didn’t; Mom thought it was an unnecessary expense.

As the fifth message played, my mom walked into the house. “Hi, sweetie. The manager let me go early tonight,” she said, stopping to listen. I was relieved that the last message wasn’t from Blythe too. It was Rick.

“That Rick,” Mom said. “Where has he been? I’ve missed seeing his face around here lately.”

“Mmmm,” I mumbled.
You only like him because you know he’s just a friend
, I thought. My mom has lived in fear of the term
boyfriend
ever since I turned thirteen. I knew it was because in her senior year of high school she’d fallen in love with my father and gotten pregnant with me. They’d gotten married, and she had given up her plans for college. Then my father had gone, leaving her with no education, no job, and a little kid to raise on her own.

My mom always said that the women in our family have weak knees and crooked hearts, and that you can’t let that get in the way of discipline and hard work. According to her, a girl has to be fast enough to dodge guys who’ll take advantage of her, strong enough not to fall head-over-heels in love, and able to leap over her own mushy feelings in a single bound.

So you can see that I wasn’t about to tell her that Chris and I watched the sunset together.

Mom’s always thought of me as her treasure. I mean, when I was little she made all my baby clothes. It was cheaper for sure, but she claimed that nothing in the department stores was good enough for me. In grade school, she baked banana bread and cookies for my lunch box, when all I really wanted was the canned pudding and Oreos the other kids had.

Though we had trouble paying the rent sometimes, Mom still managed to scrape together money for an algebra tutor, racing suits for my competitions, and a summer membership to a private pool. And when I started high school, she took a second job to save for my college tuition. All my life, whenever I’ve thanked her, she’s said, “You can thank me by getting the education I never did.”

Needless to say, I didn’t want her to know I’d blown off my health project either. Not exactly blown off, I told myself. Forgotten. I quickly pushed the erase button on the answering machine so she couldn’t play back the messages from Blythe. I also didn’t feel like telling her that the subject of our project was intimacy.

Mom turned toward the kitchen, then paused. “Are you interested in Rick?”

“Mom!” I said. “He’s my friend! That’s all.”

“Just keep things in perspective,” she warned me. “Remember, if brains and ambition were all it took to get a girl into college, by now your old mom would have her Ph.D.”

“How could I forget it,” I snapped, “when you keep reminding me?”

She looked as if she was going to say something else, but instead she turned and walked toward the kitchen. As soon as she was out of earshot, I picked up the phone to call my loyal (and, if she was mad enough, possibly my ex-best) friend Blythe.

“I was at the library all afternoon doing research for our project,” Blythe fumed. “Where were you?”

“I’m sorry about the mix-up,” I said apologetically. “I really meant to go there after practice, but I spaced it. Somehow my body just rebelled against my mind.”

“Amy, did you get a personality transplant or something?” Blythe demanded, but to my relief, she laughed. “Since when do you go spacing things? Besides, couldn’t your body at least have made it to a phone?”

“Blythe, don’t be mad,” I half whispered into the receiver, not wanting my mom to hear. “The truth is, I couldn’t call you because I drove with Chris Shepherd up to Squaw Peak.”

“Chris Shepherd?” Blythe couldn’t contain her curiosity. “No way! Amy Wyse likes a guy? What’s going on? Have you been holding out on me?”

Her questions were coming at me so quickly that I started laughing. I was dying to tell her about Chris, but I wasn’t quite ready to tell her everything I was feeling. It was
too new. So I said, “No, I haven’t been holding out, and yes, I like him.”

“Unbelievable,” Blythe said. “How did it happen?”

“Well, weirdly enough, it kind of started when Rick kissed me after our final review session last night—”

“Wait a second,” Blythe interrupted, sounding utterly perplexed. “How could you not tell me this? Rick kissed you? You kissed Rick?”

“Yeah, sort of, except it made me realize that I didn’t want to kiss Rick at all. I mean, I couldn’t. It did make me realize I kind of wanted to kiss somebody else, though.”

Blythe let out her breath. “Amy, you really did have a personality transplant.”

I laughed. “It sounds weird, doesn’t it?”

“Completely,” Blythe agreed. “But what about Rick? Why didn’t you want to kiss him?”

“Because he’s my pal—our pal. I can’t really picture him in that way.”

“Leave it to you to find fault with perfection,” she said. “He’s only the most together guy you know, not to mention the most talented writer and editor the
Thunder
’s ever had.”

“No, you’re the best writer,” I said.

“But Rick’s a serious writer,” Blythe said.

“To me, that’s his problem,” I argued. “Rick’s the kind of guy you tell your problems to, or eat chicken wings with, or bring home to your parents, not the kind you want to kiss.”

Blythe wasn’t buying it. She sighed. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe this.”

And that’s when it hit me. “The way you’re talking, Blythe,” I said, “maybe you’re the one who wants to hook up with Rick.”

Blythe was silent for a moment, a telltale sign. “He’s too busy going after you,” she finally moaned. “He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

“That’s not true,” I protested, but I had this funny feeling: half disappointment for my best friend, half stupid pride.

Blythe has long, straight, shiny blond hair and a great body. She’s also smart and funny. She had gone out with one guy all last year, but they broke up over the summer, and she wasn’t dating anyone now. I, on the other hand, who had never dated, suddenly had two guys wanting to go out with me.

“Anyway,” Blythe said, changing the subject, “you’re not getting off so easy. I put two books for our project on reserve for you:
Love and Mental Health
and
Psychological Theories of Intimacy
.”

“Sounds pretty racy,” I joked. “I’ll have to cover them with plain brown paper so my mom won’t see what I’m reading.”

“Why don’t you get the books tonight and come over here?” Blythe asked. “The library closes at nine.”

“I don’t want my mom to know I haven’t started on the project yet,” I whispered. “I’ll pick them up tomorrow.”
Then I realized that we had a swim meet the next day. “Oh, I forgot. I have a meet tomorrow. But I’ll pick them up the next day.”