Perfectly Good White Boy (13 page)

Jessamyn walked in then, stretching, like she'd been asleep. Jessamyn was the sister with the big boobs. She looked older than thirteen, and she didn't talk as much as Melanie, but she always hung out when I was around. Jessamyn was adopted; she was really Melanie and Neecie's cousin, but her mother died in a car accident when Jessamyn was six and then her father went crazy or something, couldn't take care of her, so Mrs. Albertson adopted her. Neecie said it was great to have another sister, but Melanie had a hard time with it, because of being the same age and everything, a sudden twin in life, and going from being the baby to being the middle kid.

“Why do you always make the most bad foods?” Jessamyn asked Melanie.

“‘Most bad' sounds wrong, Jess,” Melanie said.

Jessamyn sat on the stool by me, picked up a hunk of fudge, and ate it in one bite.

“It tastes good,” Jessamyn said, taking another slab. Jessamyn totally ignored her sisters like that all the time. “I like the kind without nuts better.”

It was sort of cool, though I'd never admit it, these girls hanging around me like I was big deal. Even if they were both thirteen. Sometimes I thought Neecie's sisters liked me more than Neecie did. But then Neecie was always so relaxed about things at her house. She was different than at school. At school she always had her School Face on; in Global Studies, she barely looked at me. But after school, she'd come and talk to me in the parking lot and we'd walk to my car, and the next thing I knew we were going somewhere or we were in a gas station and she was taking a hundred years to pick out which giant can of iced tea she wanted to drink. Then she was all normal.

“I think I should have put in less butter,” Melanie said, pouring Jessamyn a glass of milk in a little Snoopy glass. “Do you want more milk, Sean?”

I shook my head. Melanie pushed the milk at Jessamyn and started wiping down the counter.

Then they started talking about some TV show they watched—the Albertson sisters watched tons of TV shows, in big long marathons, where they set out deliberate, matching snacks and invited people over and made a big huge deal about it, and I didn't want to admit that we hadn't had cable in a while and so I mostly avoided discussions about TV. Then I got up to use the bathroom off the kitchen, which smelled so unbelievably good, I barely wanted to piss in there. It was also nicer than my whole house, this bathroom. I mean, not really, but it was like every room in Neecie's house was designed for you to sit down and relax and grab a home decorating magazine and whatever. This bathroom had a chair in it, next to the shower, and a magazine rack full of issues of
House Beautiful
and all these little shelves with vases and candles and strange weird things, like a pile of foreign coins in a glass dish or a broken antique telescope thingy and a black-and-white photo of a dog in an old washtub splattering water everywhere. Above the mirror, big blue letters spelled out the word DREAM. There were the same letters in Hallie's bedroom, only hers said LOVE.

“Sean?” I could hear Neecie calling for me somewhere in the house. “Sean, are you still here?”

I flushed, and then my phone buzzed in my pocket from a text. Probably Eddie. He was on fire with the dirty photos lately, since he'd found my Marines crap in my car, so now I got all this gay dude porn where the guys wore dog tags or Army uniforms. I kind of wanted to kill him.

“Sean?” Neecie banged on the door.

“I'm in here already! Jesus!” I yelled.

“Ivy's here now,” she called through the door. “We're in the living room.”

“Okay, just a sec,” I said. You never knew when anyone came over at the Albertsons' because they didn't have a dog. It was kind of weird; though there were more people, the lack of dog made everything seem kind of sparse and empty.

I zipped up and then checked my phone. And almost dropped it in the toilet. Because it was from Hallie:

home 4 break.

I felt instantly dizzy. Nervous. And horny. And like doing a million things. For the first time, I wanted to answer this text. Maybe because she was here and it wasn't just long-distance bullshit? All I knew was that right now I wanted to be in my car, flying to her house. Also I wanted to be brushing my teeth. I wanted to ask Neecie what I should do. But not with stupid Ivy there.

“What's up,” I texted back. Hands shaking.

You pussy. What happened to leaving and never coming back?

I set the phone on the sink counter. Checked out my hair. It looked messy, but not in a dumb way. Checked my teeth; they were fine, no fudge. There was a zit on the side of my nose, but I'd dealt with it and it was just red. And I'd shaved. And luckily just cut my fingernails, by total coincidence. Hallie had a thing about guys having long fingernails; it grossed her out for some reason. I mean, I guess it was gross, but it hadn't been a thing I'd noticed until she brought it up.

The phone buzzed a little on the blue counter, like it wanted to jump off it and crash on the floor.

I want to see you

In the living room, Ivy and Neecie were eating fudge and reading magazines. Mrs. Albertson seemed to spend shitpots of money on magazine subscriptions. I said hi to Ivy and then sat down uncomfortably on the same sofa as her, happy that there were a million cushions between us. Ivy's hair was now normal-colored, but she had it in weird little knobs all around her head and it made her scalp look tortured. I was glad Neecie never did anything with her hair like that. Neecie just wore her hair all long; I think she wanted her hearing aids covered, but it always looked pretty nice, anyway.

“I don't see the point, really,” Ivy was saying. “I mean, I don't even know what I want to do next. Why should I spend the money on the application fee, you know?”

“You're saying you want to live with your parents? What the hell is there to
know
?” Neecie said. “You apply to college to get the hell out of your parents' house. Not because of college. Not because you're all excited about
learning
. I'm a nerd, and even I know that.”

“You like
learning
, though,” Ivy said, smacking another page of the magazine down across her thigh.

My phone buzzed again. I kind of jumped.

hurry parents home soon . . .

“I gotta go,” I said, standing up. I must have looked crazy.

“What's going on?” Neecie said. She was suddenly alert, all tense now. The School Version of Neecie.

“Nothing,” I said. “I just . . . I forgot something I had to do. I'll come by later? Maybe?”

Ivy said something to her magazine that sounded bitchy like, “Wow, lucky us.” Ivy and I didn't hang out much, but she didn't like me and I didn't really like her, either. Neecie appeared to not have heard Ivy, though.

“Okay,” Neecie said. But she sounded like she knew something was up.

I drove to Hallie's at pretty much light speed. Parked a block away, then walked around her stupid development, through this little park no one ever used that overlooked this ditch that was filled up by accident, as if it were a real lake or something. The whole place smelled like duckshit in the summer, but now it was covered in snow, everything still as the sun went down early, November-style. I cut through a bunch of backyards to Hallie's deck and sliding glass door. She'd texted to come through the back. We'd done that before, when she'd snuck out to meet me a few times.

The house was dark. Quiet. I looked at my phone again. I thought for a terrible minute that maybe she'd meant the text for someone else.

I knocked, then. Just lightly. And then I heard footsteps. And the door opened, and the room was dark. It was the TV room; I'd sat here a million times waiting for her parents to go to bed while we watched movies together. Me waiting. Dying to touch her.

“Get in,” Hallie said. “Quick.”

I couldn't see her, but I could smell her, her same Hallie smell. Her same lotion or shampoo or whatever.

“Let's go to the basement,” she said.

“Why?”

She grabbed my hand, tugged me through the dark.

“The back walkout's there,” she said. “If anyone comes home, you can go out that way.”

I didn't ask why we didn't just do it in the TV room. I could go out the sliding door, too. But I was too freaked and turned on. Plus I didn't actually care. We got to the basement and finally she turned on the light. She was wearing yoga pants and a T-shirt. Her hair down. She looked great. She hopped up on the dryer and stared at me.

“You're still wearing your hoodie,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. I took it off, put it on a pile of laundry.

“Come here,” she said.

I looked around the basement. I'd only been in it once or twice. There was a cement floor, a drying rack covered in clothes. An ironing board leaning against the wall. I realized—too late—that I didn't have any condoms. I'd gone over to Neecie's to hang out, not get laid.

I walked toward her on the dryer. I wondered what I was supposed to do now. There was about a foot of space between us; I didn't know how to go about grabbing her and taking her clothes off anymore.

“So, how's college?” I said.

She laughed. Not a fakey laugh. Or a surprised laugh. But not really a real laugh, either. This was a snotty, oh-hell-no laugh. “We can talk about that later,” she said. She put her hands on my shoulders, and then, when we were close enough, she kissed me.

Then I was driving home.

The whole thing hadn't lasted more than fifteen minutes, and now I smelled like fabric softener sheets, which kind of gave me a headache. That and Hallie's words kept piling up in my head. The few ones she said.

I stopped at the light before the turnoff to my house. I was the only car there. Sitting at the light, my car wasting gas.

“Touch me there,” Hallie said. “Like this.”

The light kept being red. A truck roared past me.

“
Not like that
,” Hallie said.

I did what she said, but I hadn't been sure about what I was doing, or even how it was that different from what I ever did before when I touched her down there. She wore a pair of panties that I'd never seen before. They didn't match her bra, but that was maybe because it was a sports bra.

The light changed and I turned, heading down the freeway toward my house.

“Thanks for coming over.”

My house was dark. Dark as hers had been. My mom's car was there. I heard Otis bark as I climbed up the steps.

My mom didn't get up when I came in. Normally, she liked me to come in and say goodnight to her, and usually I did, unless I was too wasted or something. Then I'd just holler from the hallway that I was home. But now, completely sober, I couldn't stand the idea of seeing my mom. Felt like I had Hallie all over me.

Hallie sitting on the stupid dryer, saying
oh god
and I don't know what it was, but I just felt crazy and I wanted to go down on her, something she'd never allowed before. The dryer, of all things, made this the perfect access, too, with my height, but when I ducked my head down, she wasn't having it.

She pushed off the dryer and then we were on the cold concrete floor and I was a little pissed.

Another goddamn rule.

But I was on top of her now, and she was grabbing me through my jeans and I didn't care.

“That's good.”

My head totally spinning with that. What had I been doing? Was she talking about my boner? I didn't know what was going on. But she'd just handed me a condom and that was that.

Then, when I was about to come, she said, “
Don't stop.
” Like she knew it was almost over. That I couldn't stop. And I didn't know if it was still good. I couldn't ask her, either. But I didn't stop. Then her eyes closed and it seemed like something important was happening, but by then I was coming anyway and it was all so much, so awesome and feeling so good and she was so beautiful and everything felt better than I remembered it so I couldn't stop myself from saying it, again, words I hadn't said in weeks:

“God, I love you so much.”

Then I squeezed her so hard, in case she didn't get it. That I'd said it. But she didn't say anything. Her eyes were closed. There was a pink sock right by her head, curled into a ball.

I lifted off her a bit. Felt the grit from the concrete on my palms. Hallie's eyes still closed, like she was pretending to be dead or something. The second I pulled out of her, her breathing start to get back to normal, and then I noticed how cold the room was. And quiet, except for my words echoing in my head: “
God I love you so much.
”

Just remembering saying that made me feel sick.

In my room, Otis jumped on my bed. Too tense to sleep, I took off my shirt and did some push-ups. Laid there again until Otis jumped down to lick my face. Waited to hear my mom call for me. She sometimes did that, after all my moving around woke her fully up.