Pieces of Us (16 page)

Kyle

I
t’s late, and the house is still empty. The wind howls
outside and Julie moves closer to you. “My thumbs are getting tired,” she says, pausing her game and putting her hand on your thigh. She lifts her chin at you, throwing you another hint that she wants to be kissed. You want to—have wanted to all night—and don’t know why you haven’t.

You thought about it while talking on the phone, all the nights before this one. You imagined it when you found out she would be coming to see you. Remembered her summer lips on yours. All these hours, while you were playing Ms. Pac Man and your knee rubbed on hers, you wanted to stop the game—even though Ms. Pac Man hadn’t eaten all the cherries yet—and push Julie down and tug at her hair. So what stopped you?

Your days have been filled with quiet and routine for months now. Sometimes Alex visited your room—always knocking first—and gave you a noogie and played video games. Like you were both always normal. Like there was never anything shady between you. Sometimes you even told him a little about Julie, and he made an inappropriate comment or two but nothing demented.

But you’re still haunted by the past. Still afraid that he might barge into your room at any moment, friend-with-benefits in tow, and tell you to stop being a pussy. That he can appear while you and Julie are entangled and squash anything that’s there. Change it all once again.

Tonight, though, you know Katie will keep him busy. Then they’ll come home and retreat downstairs, not seeing you again until the morning. So you have time. Hours. Your pulse slows. You find yourself breathing easier.

“I’m tired,” she says, getting off the floor. She grabs her duffel and goes to the bathroom. When she comes back, she’s wearing a green tank top and owl-printed pajama pants. You smile at her and she blushes.

“They’re dumb, aren’t they?” she asks.

“No,” you say. They’re sweet, young. So very Julie.

She starts walking to your bed, then stops and turns around.

“It’s your room. You should have the bed.” Her voice is defeated, like she’s not even going to suggest you share a bed.

You’re mad at yourself. Why do you have to be such a wuss? She’s not asking to have sex, for Christ’s sake, just share a bed. When the two of you were kids, you used to lie side by side on the pullout at the lake house and play cards. “You’re not sleeping on the floor,” you tell her, and watch as she hesitantly lies down on the bed. “Can I lie with you?”

Her eyes go wide, and she moves closer to the side so you have enough room. You use the remote to turn off the lights and turn on the TV. Some comedy shows that get you both laughing, that make the fact you’re spooning her less scary.

You both start to fall asleep, and you let the screen go dark. She moves around to get more comfortable and faces you. You stroke her hair and pull her close to you. You put your mouth on hers and she kisses you back, like you’re what she’s been needing. Like you’re her food, her drink, her air, too. And you don’t let yourself think at all. Just move your hands and legs and pull and tug at clothes, under clothes. Your breath quickens. Hers does too.

“Kyle,” she whispers, and her voice brings you back to the moment, the room. She moves to take her shirt off, but you stop her. You want to look at her as she is, silly owl pajamas and all. You don’t need more. You’re not Alex. You wrap your arms around her and hold her, using your fingers to brush the hair from her eyes; then you close yours. For the first time in a long time, you fall asleep at peace.

Katie

H
e-ey,” she says to Alex, her sparkly earrings dangling by her chin. “Haven’t seen you around, yo.” Her hair is dark and wavy and her eyes black. She smells like roses. I smile at her, playing nice even though it seems they may have had a thing. Even though I feel Barbie-plain beside her. She sneers at me and taps her studded nails on the table. I shiver.

“Where’ve you been hiding yourself?” She leans in too close to Alex. She’s wearing a red, fuzzy sweater with a deep V-neck, and I can see the red lacy push-up peeking out.

She leans closer to me and I can smell alcohol on her breath. Just smelling it makes me nauseated. “I’m Jasmine,” she slurs, dipping her finger into the melted chocolate and then putting it by Alex’s mouth. He pushes it away, and she shrugs. “More for me.”

“I’m Katie.” Because I have to say something. Alex’s face is red. He clenches his fist. He looks like he’d hit Jasmine if we weren’t somewhere public.

“Kaaatie,” says Jasmine, laughing. “Such a … wholesome … name.”

Alex bangs the table and pushes his chair back. “Let’s go.”

“So soon?” she smirks, trying to grab his wrist. “Katie and I didn’t even have a chance to chat.”

“Go fuck yourself, because you know there’s no way in hell I’m doing it for you.”

This shuts her up, and she switches from sultry to weepy. “Because you have Barbie, is that it?”

She keeps shouting as we walk to the door, and I expect her to call me a slut, a whore, to reveal everything Alex doesn’t know.

He sticks his middle finger up at her and keeps walking, so she calls my name instead. I keep moving, too, but can’t tune her out. “You think you’re hot shit, Kaaatie? I bet you’re a perfect cheerleader. You just wait. One day he’ll dump your lily-white ass, too.”

Outside, Alex punches the brick building and yells “Fuck!” I let him and stay behind. I watch Jasmine through Cosi’s window. She’s still at the table, her head in her hands, her shoulders heaving. She pushes the chocolate away and the pot falls to the floor. She slams her fist on the table, just like Alex did.

He finally comes to me, but he’s still breathing heavy. His fists are still clenched.

“I should have never let her talk to you,” he says.

“It’s fine. It’s done. Let’s go home, okay?”

I wrap my arm around his waist and he does the same. I don’t ask him any questions, and he doesn’t give any information. I wonder what happened between them. His eyes were mean, not like I’ve ever seen them. Why does he hate her? Were there other Jasmines?

We stop by his townhouse. “I don’t want you worrying about her,” he says, as if reading my mind.

I nod. I never want his eyes to look at me that way.

He tilts my chin up. “You’re my Katie. You’re special.”

You’re my Pyramid Girl.

For a second I wonder if she was special, too. “And Jasmine—”

“Is a dumb whore and nothing like you.”

Julie

W
inter break is here and it couldn’t have happened soon enough. Chloe almost died when I told her about making out with Kyle last month. And now that I know what that was like, I need more. Licking my lips, closing my eyes, and pretending it’s him (not a pillow) I’m kissing has gotten old. Mama said he and Alex can come here, and I’ve been counting down for weeks. I’ll be spending New Year’s Eve with a boy!
Kissing
a boy when that ball drops. Talk about romance. Chloe says I need to tell her everything.

Mama doesn’t ask for the same. She didn’t ask about my weekend in Philly. Didn’t ask if I’d been kissed. I think she thinks it’s all in my head. I mean, she knows Kyle is a boy of real flesh, but I doubt she believes his skin has ever touched mine. Or will. That’s the real reason she said Kyle could come. I think a part of her wants to see if he’s real or if her poor, ugly daughter made him up.

It shouldn’t matter.

Daddy believes me. Too much, in fact. Right now, he’s trying to talk Mama out of the two of them leaving the house for the night. “They’re teenage girls home alone with teenage boys!” he keeps repeating, putting inflection on new words each time like saying it louder or differently will change Mama’s mind.

She sighs and says, “Katie knows to play it smart. Right, Katie? You know to be a good girl.”

When she says this, Katie squirms and looks away, but says, “Yes, mom. I’ll be good.”

I want to laugh, because Katie and Alex have not been “good.” But it’s like she and Mama have their own code and are talking about something more than sex. It’s totally beyond me.

Daddy’s face gets red. “What about Julie? She’s still young and impressionable.”

That’s right, I think. What
about
me?

Mama laughs. “Kyle isn’t the type. And this is our Julie.” She walks over, strokes my hair. As always, my head moves to her for approval, like I’m a marionette, and her voice pulls the strings. “We don’t have to worry about any of that with her.”

It could be taken as
because she knows better
or
she’s brainier,
but I know Mama too well. There’s no reason to worry about those things with Julie because she’s more Skipper than Barbie.

Daddy sighs and shakes his head. I know
he
knows better. So it shouldn’t matter what Mama thinks.

It shouldn’t matter that I overhead her yesterday, asking Katie if Kyle actually saw me as something more than a friend. What should matter is Daddy getting more annoyed with Mama over her disbelief that I could possibly have a boyfriend. What should matter is only caring about what Kyle thinks. What should matter is what is important to Kyle and
me
, not to Mama or to Chloe or to the other girls at my lunch table.

But that’s not how it goes. Part of me is all about Kyle, all about Kyle and me, all about the little hearts I draw with our initials. The other part is about how we look to everyone else.

Katie

I
’m learning we all play games.

Marissa’s clothes hang more. She doesn’t come to lunch much anymore. When she does, she spends it holding Ethan’s hand like she’d float away without him. Sometimes he comes to lunch without her, the days she forgets to tell him she’s somewhere else. With someone else … she stopped confiding in me last spring, but I think she and Mr. Stevens are still going strong. She can’t have it both ways. She can’t have two guys and two lives.

These days, when I crave Alex’s touch, when I cross off days on my calendar, each X bringing me closer to him, I wonder how I used to last from one summer to the next. How it was so easy to leave him, the creek, the swings behind. It’s funny I was so confident. So sure I could have both, swinging my pom-poms and playing popular when the heat passed. What’s more amazing is that it worked at all. That it would have still worked had it not been for the night I was pulled under in my haze of beer and bubblegum shots and blue punch. Where was my mother then?
Don’t mix beer and liquor, Katie.
That was my downfall
is what she should have told me when I still played with Barbies. S
ee how Barbie reclines with her mixed cocktail with the little umbrella? It’s all about control, honey.
But I found all this out too late.

Today, the lunch table—complete with Ethan and Marissa—is filled with talk of winter vacation and New Year’s Eve parties.

“Your man is coming to visit, right?” asks Trina. “Girls, you have to see him. Mmm. Mmm.” She thinks she’s helping, but I wasn’t thrilled when Mama said Alex should come to Cherry Hill. I really don’t want him in this world. “C’mon,” says Trina. “Show them a pic.”

I take out my cell phone and show them my Alex shots. Alex by the lake. Alex with his hand out like he’s saying “no photos, please.” Alex and me close up, his arm around my shoulders, pulling me to him.

“Da-amn,” says Leah. “I wouldn’t mind sharing.” She winks at me like she’s kidding.

I laugh. “Nah, he’s all mine.”

Ethan grabs the cell and my heart jumps. He starts pressing keys. Is he texting him? I lunge toward him and grab the phone out of his hand. My nail scratches his skin. The table goes silent.

“What the fuck, bitch?” His eyes stare into mine, like he’s threatening me to break contact. That afternoon of him, and Chris, and me, he made me stare into his eyes the whole time. I look away.

“Yeah, I thought so,” he mumbles. “Let’s go, Mariss.”

She’s a zombie again, and he has to pull her out of the chair. I don’t think she even knows what just went down. She holds tightly to his arm. He’s her anchor to this world, the one keeping people from getting suspicious, the one who lets her play her game of two Marissas. But she’s fading. It’s a matter of time until she cracks. I watch them leave the cafeteria, and Ethan gently moves her hand to another part of his arm. I want to tell her it’s just easier to pick. That she can’t have it all. But who am I to say?

My cell vibrates with a message. My eyes flash to Ethan, but he and Marissa are gone. I exhale and open the phone.

It’s from Alex:
Hi, Sexy.

Hi, hot stuff
, I text back.

The bell rings and my table picks up their trays full of half-eaten food and throws them in the trash. We wave our fingernails, painted in our school colors, in the air and do an exaggerated cheerleader wave—jazz-hands style.

“Don’t forget New Year’s Eve, Katie,” says Trina.

“I want to meet that hottie of yours,” says Leah, her voice coated with saccharine. “Okay, girls, later! Air kisses! Mmmwah!”

“Mmmwah!” I shout back, words covered with my own artificial sweetener. I blow them both kisses and giggle down the hall. I clutch my cell with Alex’s message because that’s what grounds me. That reminds me what’s truly real.