by Robin Roseau
“If we do,” I agreed.
“There are rules.”
“I’m 18,” I countered.
“I don’t care,” Mom said. “There are rules. Rule one. No alcohol.”
“I already promised that.”
“And I’m repeating it now.”
“No alcohol.”
“If she’s driving and drinks, then you will call one of us, and we’ll retrieve you safely. Promise me right now.”
“I promise, but Janie’s a good girl.”
“I was a good girl, too, but I had my own straying from the right path,” Mom said. “And no, I’m not offering details.” She turned to her sister. “What else?”
“She’s 18,” Aunt Jackie said.
“I know she’s 18,” Mom replied. She turned back to me. “We’ve talked about avoiding bad boys.”
“I’m not dating a boy.”
“And yet, from time to time, you’re going to find yourself in the same room as boys, and most of those boys might be great guys, but it only takes one, Lydia.” She gestured to my wrist. “You aren’t going to assume that is going to protect you.”
I nodded. “I know,” I said.
“Promise me. If you feel uncomfortable, either the two of you leave, or you call one of us. Promise me, honey. I mean it. I don’t care if it’s not cool to call your mom.”
I thought about it then nodded. “This isn’t going to come up.”
“You don’t know that. I’ll trust your judgment if you convince me you’re going to apply it.”
I knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with a quick answer. I nodded and then thought about it. “If I’m not comfortable, I’ll call one of you.”
“Parties with a lot of underage drinking are a really, really bad idea,” Aunt Jackie added.
“Why does alcohol keep coming up?”
“Because we were both once your age,” she replied immediately. “And we each had our own stupid moments. You’re going to have your own, too.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s one form of an answer. Do you want to know why parties with underage drinking are a bad idea, even if you’re not drinking?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“One. You’re in a room with a bunch of people with lowered inhibitions.”
“Two. Peer pressure,” Mom added.
“Three. Rufi, also known as the date-rape drug,” Aunt Jackie said.
“Four. Parents who come home unannounced.”
“Five. Being blamed for something you didn’t do.”
“Six,” Mom said. “Developing a reputation you need to escape.”
“Seven. Cops.”
“Eight. Drunk drivers hitting your mom’s car.”
“Nine. Your date getting drunk and sick in your mom’s car.”
“Eww,” I declared.
“Tell me about it,” Mom said. “Except it wasn’t my mom’s car.”
“It was my car,” Jackie said. “Yes, I made her clean it.”
“Eww,” I repeated it.
“How about this? Your date getting sick, and you getting into an accident while trying to pull over for her.”
“Fuck,” I said, then I covered my mouth with my hand.
“I can add to that,” Jackie said. “You pull over just fine, but then someone else hits you. You wouldn’t be protected by the car if you’re on the side of the road, holding her hair for her.”
“It wouldn’t necessarily be your date,” Mom added. “It could be someone else who gets drunk, and you don’t want to let her drive.”
“Or her boyfriend is drunk.”
“Or a belligerent drunk, and you’re afraid he’s going to hurt her.”
“Should we keep going?” Jackie asked. “We can do this all afternoon.”
“We haven’t even hit the really bad parts yet.”
“Getting run over isn’t bad?”
“Okay, that’s bad,” Mom admitted. “But do you know what we mean, Lydia?”
“Yeah. So what do I do if a party turns into a drinking party?”
“Unless the parents are home, honey, you should assume that any party you attend is going to turn into a drinking party.”
I looked down at my plate. I figured they were right. Finally, I nodded. “So what if I’m caught by surprise?”
“I hope you would leave,” Aunt Jackie said. “If you don’t feel safe, call one of us.”
“Speaking of that: part of your preparations should be checking your phone,” Mom added.
I nodded again. “Is all this overkill?”
“I would really prefer you error on the side of safety,” Mom replied. “Honey, there are a million and one ways to have a nice night. Alcohol isn’t a requirement. Attending a loud party isn’t, either. Do you really think you’ll have more fun with a bunch of people you barely know than if you if bring your friends home with you?”
“Or my place?” Aunt Jackie added.
“You’d let me have slumber parties or something?”
“Yes, but we’d talk about expectations. At least we wouldn’t worry about you.”
I thought then nodded again. “Okay,” I whispered.
“Should we talk about something happier?” Mom asked.
“Sure.”
“I hope you invite her to dinner with your family.”
“I will,” I said. “Maybe after our third date.”
“Okay.”
“And,” Jackie said. “Another one with your aunts.”
“We can do that.”
And then they both gazed at me, looks I’d long grown accustomed. It was Mom who said, “We’re so proud of you, Lydia.”
Friends
Rose set her tray down on the table, unslung her backpack, and then plopped down in the seat. She grinned at me. “So…”
“So… What?” I asked, pretending not to know what she was talking about. I stabbed some green beans and popped them into my mouth.
“Did you kiss?”
“A lady doth not kiss and tell,” I said with a haughty air.
“Then Janie is no lady,” Rose said just as Janie plopped her own tray down.
“What?” Janie asked.
“If you already knew the answer, why did you ask?” I asked.
“Back up,” Janie ordered. “I distinctly heard Rose accuse me of being… what, exactly?”
“A kiss-and-teller,” I said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said to me. She shifted her gaze back to Rose, who proceeded to relay the conversation in more details.
“Oh.” Janie turned back to me. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”
“It’s not. The conversation hadn’t lasted long enough for me to finish teasing Rose.”
That was when Jenny sat down at the last open place of our lunch table. “How was the date?”
“Yes, Lydia,” Janie asked archly. “How was the date?”
“Dreamy.”
That shut her up for a moment, and then she asked, “It was?”
“Uh, huh,” I said, nodding. I thought for just a moment, running the school’s anti-PDA policy through my head. I hadn’t really paid much attention to it before, but handholding was allowed. I set my hand on the table between Janie and me and waited to see what she’d do.
She stared at it a minute then reached over and took it. The two of us smiled at each other.
“That’s good,” Rose said.
“And about time,” Jenny added. “So a good date.”
“She said she’s going to ask me out again,” I said. “I can’t wait.” I paused. “The thing is, we’re friends, too, so not every time we get together is a date.”
“Right,” Janie agreed. “So you could invite me over to study.”
“If she doesn’t invite all of us,” Rose said, “Then it’s kind of a date.”
“And we both know that a study date really means studying tonsils,” Jenny added.
“Hey!” I complained, but Jenny jus
t folded her arms and looked at me with an arched eyebrow. Then I smiled again. “Speaking from personal experience?”
“Not with Janie.”
We all giggled, and Rose cough-said, “Brendon.”
“Brendon?” I asked. “You snogged with Brendon? Eww.”
“Hey! Don’t be dissing my choices.”
“But he’s kind of a jerk,” Janie suggested.
“He’s kind of a jerk because he’s really insecure,” Jenny replied. “He might be trainable.”
“Like a puppy,” Rose added.
“Exactly.”
“I like puppies,” Janie said. She turned to me. “Do you like puppies, or are you into kitties?”
“First off, why does it have to be either/or? Because kitties are really, really cute.”
“True,” she said. “But kitties turn into cats.”
“And puppies turn into dogs that chew up your shoes.”
“So you prefer cats.” She pulled her hand from mine. “We’re clearly not compatible after all.”
We all giggled again. I didn’t move my hand, and after a moment, she set hers back into it. We smiled at each other.
“Is that how they’re going to be?” Jenny asked.
“Probably,” Rose replied.
“All right, then,” Jenny said. “How’d you do on that English paper for Mrs. Rasmussen?”
After that, Rose and Jenny carried on a perfectly normal conversation, as best I could tell. Neither Janie nor I paid them much attention. Instead, we ate our lunches one-handed, spending far more time smiling inanely at each other. My own reaction confused me. I hadn’t been looking for a girlfriend or anything like that. Sure, I found some girls intriguing, and I, well, I thought about them. Let’s just put it that way. But I had other things I was focusing on.
Like spell books, and the learning thereof.
But here I was, in front of the entire school, holding hands with one of my three best friends, smiling inanely. We’d had one date, and I wasn’t in love. I didn’t think she was, either, although maybe she was.
But I looked down at our clasped hands, and I knew ‘girlfriend’ was the right word. “I have a girlfriend,” I said in the middle of whatever it was Rose and Jenny were talking about.
“You just figured that out?” Rose asked.
“I’m Janie’s girlfriend,” I added. I looked into Janie’s eyes. “Right?”
She smiled more widely and replied, “I sure hope so.”
“Is this when they become joined at the hip?” Jenny asked.
“Be nice,” Rose replied. “Let them be happy.”
“Don’t you know what’s going to happen, Rose?”
“I think I can guess.”
“Not that,” Jenny said. “They’re going to be so into each other, they aren’t going to have time for anything else. Should we mourn our friends now, or wait for them to prove me right?”
“Let them be happy,” Rose repeated.
“I’m happy for them,” Jenny said, “But…”
My eyes flicked to my friend. So did Janie’s. I dropped my gaze, looking at our clasped hands. Then I looked up. “She’s right,” I said. “Janie, do you want to be girlfriends?”
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah. Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“But I don’t want it at the expense of my other friendships, do you?”
She paused. Her smile faded a little, and she dropped her gaze. “What are you saying?”
“Just that. I want to be girlfriends, but I don’t want to forget I have other friends.”
“I-” She broke off a moment, but then said, “You’re right. Does that mean we can’t hold hands?”
“Hold hands all you want,” Jenny said.
“You don’t need to be alone to be girlfriends,” Rose said. “I think that’s what Lydia is getting at. If you guys get together after school and stuff. It can still be the four of us.”
“I’m not sure I want to be there if they start getting all kissy-face,” Jenny said.
“We can give them time for that,” Rose said.
Janie squeezed my hand and nodded. I nodded. “You guys can come over after school, if you want,” I offered.
“Sounds good,” Janie said.
* * * *
That afternoon, we didn’t ride the bus home together. Janie was going to pick up Rose and Jenny, and they’d get to my place at four. Mom and Dad were at work, and one of them would pick up the squirtlet from day care. So I had time to myself.
I didn’t practice magic at home; I did that at Aunt Jackie’s. But she’d given me exercises, and I did them every day. Well. Most days. I ran up the stairs, dumped my backpack, then collected one of my candles. I know Mom and Dad had talked about my being allowed to have candles in my room. Dad didn’t understand why Mom allowed it, but she did. I was always careful.
I had a low table. I set up one of my three-inch pillar candles on a short stand that would catch any drips. I used a match to light the candle, then waved the match to extinguish it before leaving the stub in an ashtray whose sole purpose was to accept my dead matches. Then I sat down on the floor, my legs crossed. I shook myself out a little, more mentally than physically, getting comfortable.
And then I stared into the candle and tried to clear my mind.
Now, let’s be clear about something; it’s not at all easy to actually clear our minds. I couldn’t say for anyone else, but I always had something going on up there. For a while, I’d had a hard time taking in the changes in my life, and so this exercise had been difficult. But as I became more comfortable with my new self-awareness, I’d been able to put all that confusion aside.
But now I had fresh confusion.
But Aunt Jackie had told me something; she told me trying to hide from that would only make things worse. So I cleared my mind of other things, of school, and worrying about what other people might think, and all of that, and I thought about my new status.
Janie and I were girlfriends, and so I decided to think about that, to let myself explore what that meant.
I knew even before I started that there would be more questions than answers. I had a big secret I’d be keeping from her. I realized immediately I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
But I thought about Janie. I’d been doing little else for the last few days. I thought about Janie, and about how I felt about her. When she asked me out, she had awakened something inside me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
But I thought about Janie, and about the questions, and the worries for the future. And then, although it certainly took time, I finally found it.
Acceptance.
I accepted I wouldn’t know the answers until they arrived.
I accepted I wouldn’t know the future until it arrived.
I accepted that while I had some control, I didn’t have complete control.
But most importantly, I accepted that while life would probably bring some amount of pain, ultimately, it would all work out, somehow.
And with that came the peace, as I stared into the candle.
* * * *
I opened the door, already smiling, then held it widely for my friends to come in. Rose and Jenny stepped past me, but Janie came to a stop, looking at me. “Hi,” she said, staring into my eyes.
“Hi,” I replied.
“And it starts,” Jenny said.
“I thought you were going to let them be happy.”
“They don’t know if they’re supposed to kiss.”
“They are,” Rose said, “Which they’ll figure out if you just let them.”
“I’m not stopping anyone,” Jenny said. “I just don’t want to stand here watching them look like a couple of goofs. For crying out loud, Janie. Kiss her.”
We both glanced at Jenny, then I turned back to my girlfriend. “Yeah, Janie,” I said. “Kiss her.”
She giggled, but she stepped closer. When her hand found the back of my neck, I closed my eyes. And
then we were pressed together. And then her lips found mine, and I wrapped my arms around her.
We hadn’t had many kisses, so I didn’t have many to compare against, but it was a nice kiss, a really nice kiss, and I hugged her tightly afterwards, my heart pounding. I barely noticed when Rose closed the front door for me. “I’m hungry. What’s on TV?”
And with that, it turned into a normal afternoon, four friends having a little to eat, watching a little television, and just generally hanging out together.
Mom and Dad got home together. I didn’t know if they’d timed that, or it just happened. But I vaguely heard the garage door opener, and then it was another minute before the service door opened. There were running steps, and then Serephine was running for me. I held out my arms, and she threw herself to me, wrapping around tightly. “Hey, Squirtlet,” I told her, hugging tightly.
“Hi, Lydia,” she said. “What are you watching?”
Someone clicked it off. The Walking Dead wasn’t really a good choice for my little sister.
My sister unwrapped from me, saw the food plate, and asked, “May I have a carrot?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Got a hug for me?” Rose asked, holding her arms out. My sister grabbed a carrot then made the rounds, collecting hugs from my friends. Then Mom was there. “Hello, girls. Are you staying for dinner?”
“No, Mrs. Davis,” Jenny said. “We should probably get going.” Then she scooped up Serephine. “We’ll take this one with us.”
“Bye-bye, Mommy,” Serephine said. “Jenny’s taking me home.”
Mom laughed, but then I said, “Before they go, I have an announcement.” I took Janie’s hand and smiled at her. “Janie and I are girlfriends.”
“Good,” Mom said. “Janie, we expect you to come for dinner from time to time. Jenny, you can hug her all you want, but you can’t keep her.”
“But she’s just so cute!” Jenny said. “I can take her home and hug her and play with her and call her Cutie-Pie.”
“I’m sure your mother would love that plan,” Mom said.
Two minutes later, my friends were gone, leaving Serephine behind. I was sure she’d fuss, but I picked her up myself, bouncing her a few times and doing what I could to distract her.
Brewing
“Mom, will you drive me to Aunt Jackie’s?”
“You can take my car.”