The Mockingbirds

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The Rivals

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For my husband, Jeff…

You have the wiliest mind,

the best sense of humor,

and my heart for always.

That, and you found the dog….

Three things I know this second: I have morning breath, I’m naked, and I’m waking up next to a boy I don’t know.

And there’s a fourth thing now. It’s ridiculously bright in my room. I drape my forearm over my eyes, blocking out the morning sun beating in through my windows, when it hits me—a fifth thing.

These are not my windows.

Which means this is not my bed.

My head pounds as I turn to look at this boy whose name I don’t remember. He’s still asleep, his chest moving up and down in time to an invisible metronome. I scan his features, his nose, his lips, searching for something, anything that rings a bell. A clue to connect me to him. But remembering last night is like looking through frosted
glass. I see nothing. But I can hear one word, loud and clear.

Leave.

The word repeats in my head.

Leave.

It’s beating louder, commanding me to get out of this bed, to get out of this room.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

My heart hammers and my head hurts and there’s this taste in my mouth, this dry, parched taste, this heavy taste of a night I don’t remember with… I squeeze my eyes shut. This can’t be this hard. What’s his name?

Remember, Goddamn it, remember.

Carver.

His name is Carver.

Deep breath. There, no need to panic, no need to be all crazy-dramatic. I’ve got his name. Another breath. The rest will come back to me. It will all make sense, so much sense I’ll be laughing about it any second. I won’t be able to
stop
laughing, because I’m sure there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation.

As I look at the matted bedsheets twisting around this boy and me, snaking across his naked waist, curling around my exposed chest, a draft rushes through the room, bringing a fresh chill with it. That must be it. It’s chilly… it’s cold… it’s January. Maybe it was snowing—we went sledding, I took a spill, changed out of my ice-cold clothes, and then crashed here in Carver’s room.

No, it’s
Carter.

Definitely Carter.

I’m naked in bed with a boy and I can’t even get his name right.

This boy, this bed, this room, me—we are like clumsy fingers on the piano, crashing across the wrong keys, and over the jarring music I hear that one word again.

Leave.

I slide closer to the edge of this too-small twin bed and dangle my naked feet until they touch the standard-issue Themis Academy carpeting—a Persian rug. His is crimson and tan with interlocking diamonds. I don’t want to see a carpet like this again. Ever. I stand up slowly so the bed won’t creak.

Then I grab my clothes from the floor, collecting underwear, jeans, tank top, purple sweater, pink socks, and black boots, all scattered on the diamonds of the carpet. I’m cold without them, freezing even, and I’d really like to cover up my breasts. I spot my bra in the indentation of a cheap red pleather beanbag. My adorable, cute, black-and-white polka-dot bra thrown carelessly onto the worst piece of furniture ever invented.

He threw my bra.

The room tilts, like I’m on one of those fun-house walkways, angling back and forth. Only it’s not fun, because fun houses never are.

They’re distorted.

I snatch my bra, pulling it close to me, and get dressed
quickly. As I yank up my socks, I notice a trash can teeming with Diet Coke cans. Carter doesn’t even recycle?
Way to pick a winner, Alex.
Then I freeze, seeing something worse, far worse. Two condom wrappers on top of his garbage, each one ripped down the middle, each one empty.

I close my eyes. I must be seeing things. It’s the morning, it’s hazy, the sun is far too bright.

But when I open my eyes the wrappers are still here, Carter’s still here, I’m still here. And nothing adds up the way I want it to. I zip up my boots in a flash, obeying the voice in my head shouting
Leave now!
Carter’s still sleeping, his mouth hanging open unattractively. Small lines of white crust have formed on the corners of his lips. His blond hair is sticking up in all kinds of directions.

I step gingerly across the carpet, spying a small black bag near the closet door that looks as if it holds shaving lotion and stuff boys use. I don’t want to open it and know what else is in there—tweezers? Do boys use tweezers? I don’t want to know what they’d tweeze—but I hate the way my mouth tastes right now, because it tastes like last night. I grab my coat, then crouch down by the black bag and slowly undo the zipper, tooth by metal tooth. I hold my breath, look back at Carter. He shifts, flips to his other side.

Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up.

I reach a hand into the bag, feel around for a tube of toothpaste. I pull it out, uncap it, squirt some onto my index finger. I scrub it across my teeth, erasing the sour taste, eras
ing the evidence, and drop the tube into the bag, the cap falling next to it. And at that moment Carter wakes up.

“Hey…,” he says, not even groggily. He’s just awake, plain and simple.

“Hey,” I mumble. I don’t usually mumble. No one is a mumbler at Themis Academy.

He rubs his chin with the palm of his hand.

A hand that touched me.

I wonder if I thought he was good-looking last night. In the morning he’s not. He has white-blond hair, a sharp nose, pale eyes. Maybe he was funny is all I can think. Maybe he made me laugh. Maybe he’s a riot and I laughed so hard my sides hurt. I place my right hand on my waist, hunting for the physical evidence.

He raises an eyebrow, almost winks at me. Something about the gesture reminds me of a politician. “So, did you have a good time last night?”

Let’s see: I’m tiptoeing across your room, praying you won’t wake up, can barely remember your name. Yeah, I had an epic night, just fantastic. Care to tell me what transpired between, say, midnight and, oh, ten minutes ago? Wait, don’t bother. Let’s just pretend this never happened and we’ll never mention it again. Cool?

He leans back on the bed, rests his head on the pillow. “Want to go again?”

I narrow my eyes at him, crush my lips together, shake my head quickly. He thinks I’m easy.

“I have to study,” I answer, taking a step backward toward the door.

“On a Saturday morning?”

Everyone at Themis studies on Saturdays, yes, even on Saturday mornings.

I nod. Another step.

“But term just started two days ago.”

“Crazy teachers giving out homework already,” I say, managing two steps this time.
What, you don’t have homework yet? Are you in the slow track?
I want to say.

But he’s not in the slow track. There is no slow track here. I wonder if Carter is in any of my classes…. Then I do the math. A junior class of two hundred, the odds are this won’t be the last I see of him.

If I were a conductor, I would wave the baton and make all this vanish.

“Know what you mean,” he says. “Spanish teacher assigned some massive essay already. I haven’t started it yet.”

That’s one class where I’ll be spared. I take French.
Dieu merci
.

“I gotta go.”

“Okay, well, I’ll call you,” he says, making some sort of stupid phone-to-the-head gesture. Then he practically jumps out of bed. I jerk my head away because he’s still naked and I don’t want to know what he looks like naked. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice him reach for his boxers. He pulls them on as I wrap my palm around the doorknob, gripping it tightly.

I desperately want to leave, but I need to know for sure. “So, uh, I have to ask.” I stop, barely able to choke out the words. “Did we…?” I can’t bring myself to say them.

He smiles, looking as if he would beat his chest with his fists if he were maybe one species less evolved.

“Yeah, twice. After we saw the band. It was great.” He looks triumphant.

But I feel like I just tasted tinfoil by mistake, the awful accidental taste that makes you want to spit it out. I pull the door open and do the one thing I should have done last night.

Leave
.

Because you’re supposed to remember your first time.

There’s this trick I have on the piano. When I reach a section of music that totally trips up my fingers and mangles my confidence, I call on the experts. I put the score away, close my eyes, and imagine I’m in Carnegie Hall. There’s no audience, I’m not even onstage. I’m sitting in the first row next to Beethoven, Mozart, and Gershwin. It’s just the four of us. I tell them the problem. Then I wait patiently for their guidance. They’ve never failed me before.

As I slip out the back stairwell, I present them with today’s quandary, only this one is of the nonmusical variety.
What we have, gentlemen, is a girl who can’t remember her first time. What we also have is a boy who says he had sex with her twice
.

Please piece together what happened in a way that makes sense to the girl
.

I listen in silence as they ponder, waiting for their answer.

But today they say nothing.

It figures—they’re men, after all. Besides, Beethoven’s deaf anyway.

It’s up to me to piece this together and I know nothing.

Nothing
. I turn the word over a few times.
Nothing
.

Maybe
nothing
happened. Maybe it was all just an honest mistake, just a misunderstanding. Yes, that’s what my composers meant to say. They meant to tell me Carter messed up when he said we did it. Carter goofed. Carter’s the one who can’t remember jack.