Skin (13 page)

He’s so nice. It makes it harder somehow. I clear my throat. I have to get this out. “I want to understand what happened last night, what’s happening now. I need to understand it, Joshua.”

He picks up his helmet and turns, and for a second I
think he’s going to walk away and tears rush to my eyes, but he’s only walking in a small circle and now he’s back at my foot. “This whole talking direct thing—you know, I’m trying. But it isn’t as natural for me as it is for you.” He clears his throat. “I don’t always know the answers to what you ask. See? I’m trying, but hey.” He makes a fist and taps the side of it on his lips a few times. “You’re smarter than me. We both know that. We got to middle school and you got more and more serious about school, and you knew the answers, especially in science, and I… I don’t know. I kind of forgot about you. I was glad to be busy. But then I remembered you. And now…” He looks away and rubs his helmet. “Now I think about you,” he says slowly. “A lot.”

“How come?”

He looks at me. “Come on, Sep. How am I supposed to answer a question like that?”

“Try.”

He furrows his brow. “I don’t know. One day, boom, there you were.”

“That sounds dumb.”

“Lots of things start dumb. At least in my life.”

“That’s not encouraging.”

“Look, we’re pretty different now, I get that. We’ve both changed—not just me—you have, too. It goes with the territory. We’re different. But sometimes you’ve got to find
out what different is like. Sometimes different can be exactly what you need.” He shakes his head. “Maybe I came on too fast. Let me go shower, okay? Don’t go away. Wait for me, please? Will you do that, Sep?”

“If I do, then what?”

“Then I’ll take you for a ride. I’ve got my car here. We can drive around and talk. No parking. Just talk. Then I’ll take you home. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Wait for me, Sep.”

“Okay.”

“Why am I afraid you’ll disappear?”

I look at the back of my left hand, at the spot that hardly shows in this dark, and I slap my right hand on top of it. “I won’t. I promise.”

JOSHUA’S SHOWER WAS QUICK. But, then, guys are quicker than girls—or at least Dante is quicker than me. Joshua’s curly hair shines wet under the parking lot lights as he opens the door for me to get into his car.

“Thanks.”

He smiles, closes me in, and goes around to get into the driver’s seat. “What do you feel like doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“All right, then, do you like water ice?”

“Sure.”

We pull out and head toward Rita’s Water Ice. A block away I can see the lines at every window. Maybe the whole
high school decided to go to Rita’s after the game. I’m pretty sure that’s Sharon with her back toward us. “It’ll be a long wait,” I say.

“You’re right.” He drives on past and turns onto the pike. I can’t tell if he saw Sharon. “So?”

“So?” I say back.

“If you’re hungry, we can find someplace else.”

“I’m not hungry.” I look at him. He stops at a light and looks back at me. “But you must be.”

“Nah. Not too bad. I’m just kind of wound up. I mean, I’m exhausted, but I’m still tight from all the excitement, you know? It was a good game. Now I just want to drive.”

“How much gas do you have?”

“A full tank.” He grins, but his eyes stay on the road. I get the feeling he’s a good driver. “What time do you have to be home by?”

“I don’t have a curfew.”

“Really? How’d you get that lucky?”

“It never came up.”

He laughs. “Tell me more.”

“I never stay out very late. So it never came up.”

“So would your folks worry if you didn’t get home at a reasonable hour?”

“Maybe. Or maybe they wouldn’t notice. They go to bed early themselves. The only one who would notice is Dante.”

“Your goofy little brother—the pain.” Joshua grins. “How is Squirt?”

“Big. Ninth grade.”

“You want to text him, let him know?”

“It’s okay to let him worry.”

He laughs again. “I guess you’re still not the best of friends.”

“Have you become the best of friends with your sisters?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, maybe. We’re close now.”

“Well, Dante and I are close, I guess. But he still tries to piss me off all the time.”

“How?”

“Like he calls me slut.”

Joshua glances over at me quick, then back to the road. “Why?”

“Just ’cause he knows I hate it.”

“Are you a slut?”

“It’s a lousy word. Women need to be free from that label. I wouldn’t call anyone that.”

“What would you call yourself?”

The moment of truth. Or one truth, at least. “If you want to know my sexual history, you’re it.”

“Wow, this direct thing.” He shakes his head. “Are you always so direct?”

“Why not?”

He laughs. “You stole my line.”

“So it is a line?”

“No,” he practically yelps. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was surprised—not just at what you said, but that you’d even talk about that—and I felt, I don’t know, weird, embarrassed, whatever, so I was just trying to make a joke. That’s all. A lame joke. I never say anything quite right with you.” He looks at me quickly with his lips pressed together and his cheeks bulge into two hard little knots. Then his eyes are back on the road. “I think maybe I’ll just listen for a while.”

Good. Because if he keeps talking like that—so honest and real—I may just jump him and then we’ll have a major accident. “Okay.”

He nods.

My mouth keeps filling with saliva. I swallow and hear my ears pop and I get the sensation of sliding, fast. I might as well finish what I started, get it over with. “I kissed a few other guys. But just kissed. It wasn’t anything like last night.” I remember last night so well. I’ve been remembering it all day. I’ve been tasting this boy next to me all day long. This boy who doesn’t have lines and is the opposite of slick and who said I’m great. My neck feels all prickly and I wish I hadn’t acted so crazy back on the bleachers, all angry, like I didn’t want what I want. I wish I’d just said
let’s go somewhere and make out again. I wish everything didn’t have to be so complicated.

Joshua turns onto the highway and heads north. We drive in silence for a long while. North, past exit after exit. Far north.

“Last night,” he says at last, speaking very softly, “last night was good.”

I rub both hands over my hair and down the back of my neck and leave them there, with my elbows hanging forward. I wish I could say what I want to say. My hands press against my neck hard and I want to scream. “I’m glad you’re talking again. Where are we going?”

“To see Lady Liberty. If you’re up for it, that is?”

I let it sink in. “The Statue of Liberty?”

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“Where’d you get that idea?”

“You talked about women and freedom, you know, when you said how you feel about the word
slut
, and, well, I thought of her. You cool with it? ’Cause if you’re not…”

“No no, I’m cool. It’s great.” I let out a whoop. “We’re going to New York City!”

“Yup. You have to help me watch the signs.”

“What are we looking for?”

“I’m not sure. I went with my family to Ellis Island the
summer before last—and we went from there to the statue. But late at night like this, we can’t get in. The best we can aim for is a great view. And I know how to do that, if we can just make it to the southern tip of Manhattan.”

“Do you have maps in the car?”

“No.” He smiles at the road ahead. “I wasn’t planning this. I do things with you I don’t plan. You make me sort of crazy.”

“You didn’t plan making out last night?”

“Plan, no. Hope, yes. But only in a… I don’t know… distant way. You surprised me.”

You mean because I grabbed your head and kissed you all over your face? But I don’t say it.

Joshua clears his throat. “I think we want to take the first tunnel we see that will get us over to Manhattan.”

“All right. I’ll watch for tunnels.”

I am a superb navigator, but that’s when we have a map. Without a map, I’m as stupid as anyone else. But I can read the word
tunnel
. And soon enough I see it and we actually pay a toll and go through a tunnel and turn south and find a parking place (my father would be popping with envy—a parking place in the city) and wind up at Whitehall Terminal.

And I finally understand. “The Staten Island Ferry.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The ferry comes and we’re not the only ones to get on board. It’s the middle of the night: 1:30 a.m., in fact. And I wish I had texted Dante, after all, but there’s no point doing it now. He’s asleep for sure.

We climb the stairs to the open deck on top and lean against a side rail as the ferry pulls away. The water is night black, darker than the sky by far. There are zillions of stars. I didn’t know you could see so many stars so close to the city. Usually when I’ve been in New York City, the lights are so bright, I’m not even aware there is a sky. But tonight the sky is vast. It feels like it goes right down through the water to the end of everything.

The city is behind us now. The Statue of Liberty looms magnificent, all lit up, her chest so proud, her torch so high. And I feel it—that electric zing of patriotism that shoots through me every time I say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the National Anthem.

The wind blows off the water and chills us. I press my arms against my sides and clutch my hands together at my waist.

“Want my jacket?” Joshua pulls his hands out of his jacket pockets and goes to take it off.

“No. No, thanks.”

He puts his arm around me.

That’s better.

We are tiny, tiny—infinitesimal. But not lost, far from lost. In this one blind moment, everything is perfect.

I stand on tiptoe and press my nose against the middle of Joshua’s cheek.

His other arm comes around me now, too. “I thought you wanted to… you know… just talk.” His voice is husky and he turns until our noses meet. “Are you changing your mind?”

I don’t think my mind’s part of this. I don’t speak.

He touches his forehead to mine. With his arms around me so loosely, it’s like we’re two trees whose branches mingle at the top. “This isn’t a great make-out place,” he says, almost shyly.

“Just a kiss?”

“Kiss and make up, huh? Instead of kiss and make out.” He gives a little chuckle. “Sorry, that was lame. Again. I get kind of self-conscious, out in public. But that’s stupid. No one’s looking anyway. And if they are, they can always look away. I’m ready to make up. More than ready.” He breathes deep. “Lots more.”

I lean into him.

We kiss. And his tongue goes in my mouth. He didn’t
do that last night. We kissed so many times last night, so many ways. But he didn’t do that. His tongue keeps coming in, more and more. All the way. I choke and pull back.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Sep.” He gasps and shakes his head ruefully. “I guess I’m a little too ready.” He rubs his mouth. “Sorry. Really. I can’t believe I did that.”

“It’s okay.” And it is. I loved the taste of him. “It was good. Till you cut off my air.”

He laughs. “You’re amazing.”

What does he mean by that? But then, he’s amazing. Everything’s amazing. “Try again?”

His tongue comes in slowly this time, flickery. It’s astonishing how lovely it is. I put my tongue in his mouth now. This is French kissing. I wonder how the French got to name it.

But I don’t wonder long. I don’t care. This is good.

“PUT YOUR HANDS ON the wings of the person in front of you and press.” Ms. Martin walks around the outside of the circle. Her voice is soft and rhythmic.

It’s Wednesday and Mamma finally agreed to let me come to Jazz Dance Club. I now have a curfew: 11 p.m. It’s surprisingly fair, given how angry and frightened my parents were when I got home Sunday morning at almost 6 a.m. But I don’t get to exercise that curfew for the rest of the month, because I’m grounded. Mamma went to our neighbor, Mrs. Weisskopf, for advice—she always does that—and that’s what Mrs. Weisskopf recommended. I go to school and I go home, and that’s it. Except that Mamma
let me come here today after I played the responsibility card; I said that the rest of the club depended on me. We’re all in this together. And Mamma is big on communal responsibility. It’s not a total lie. We do put on one dance at the Battle of the Bands in December, after all.