I’ll just go over and say hello, I tell myself, squirting down my hair with extra spray gel. I repeat the word “hello” in my head as I make my way past the mailbox and across the front lawn.
“Sean!” I shout. I raise my right arm up and dip my hips to the left, the way Kelly once did when she spotted me and Maria coming across the school parking lot.
“Hey,” he says. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” I say. “I didn’t know you worked for the Harrises.”
He nods and runs his fingers through his hair.
“How’s your summer going?”
He glances at the lawn. “It’s going.”
I scour my brain for something to talk about. For all the time I’ve spent imagining this moment, I feel like I should have a dozen things to say. But somehow, I can’t think of one.
“Kelly will be home in a few weeks, I guess,” he says.
“Yeah, Maria and I are getting together later to start planning a surprise welcome-home party. You’ll have to come. To the party, I mean.” I twirl a piece of hair and bring it up to my lip for coverage. “Has she called you lately?”
“A couple days ago. She’s doing good. Likes having her own pool.”
“Is she getting along with her father?”
“I guess so. I don’t know. I only talked to her for five minutes. She had to go.”
“Yeah, she must be pretty busy. I thought we’d be talking more, you know … since she has free nights and weekends on her cell plan. My parents refuse to let me get one, and I know they’d absolutely kill me if I called her in California.” A weird gurgling sound escapes my throat when I say California. Quite attractive.
Sean shrugs and looks away. So not interested. I imagine what Kelly would do, how she would handle the situation.
“It’s so hot out here,” I say. “How can you work in this heat?” I grab the front of my shirt and jerk it back and forth from my chest as a fan. I notice Sean peek down at my front, then at the house, then back at my front again.
“I have to. I’m saving up to buy a new car.”
“You are? What kind?”
“Jeep.”
“Sweet,” I say. “Will you take me for a ride sometime?” Yuck—hearing these words trail out my mouth, I decide to come up with some excuse to leave, like having to water the garden.
“Sure,” he says. “Anytime.”
“Really?”
Maybe Kelly had exaggerated their relationship. I’ve caught her blowing stuff like this way out of proportion before. Like the time she said she landed a date with Derik captain-of-the-lacrosse-team LaPointe. I later found out that Kelly’s mom did business with Derik’s parents and, as a thank-you, Derik’s dad made him take Kelly to a party. Some date.
I point a hip toward Sean and churn my hands on the mower handle, like revving a motorcycle engine. “Looks pretty good.” I make an effort to glance at the lawn, but end up staring at those calves. I can’t believe I am this close to them.
“I’ll say,” he says.
I peek up at him and he’s just … staring at me. Calm down, I tell myself, looking away, practically biting through my bottom lip. Think. What would Kelly do?
“You must be dying out here in this heat,” I say finally. I check my hair to make sure it hasn’t kinkified on me, wishing I had thick and wavy locks like the Pantene girl, or straight, Barbie doll-blond tresses like Kelly.
“It does get pretty hot.”
I pull up on my shirt to expose my tan belly, the way Kelly did once at this college rush party she made us crash, so she could nab a guy from Zeta House—like Zeta House even means anything when you’re a sophomore in high school.
“Get out!” Sean says. “You have a navel ring. Kelly never told me that.”
I thread the silver loop, pierced into my navel, with my pinkie finger and smile with pressed lips, the way I did in my sophomore class portrait, when everyone told me I looked so sweet. I got the navel ring with Kelly. She dared me, saying I was way too pure to actually go through with it. “I bet there’s a lot Kelly hasn’t told you about me.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
I stare at him a few seconds, considering the situation and what I should do. Maybe I’m doing Kelly a favor. Maybe she wants to break things off with him. Maybe if she really cared anything about him, she wouldn’t have left him for a whole summer, wouldn’t have run three thousand miles away from him.
“For example,” I say, not able to hide my lip in the smile, “did she tell you I have an inground swimming pool?”
He shakes his head and wipes the sweat from his forehead with a dry patch of T-shirt. Lifting his shirt up this way, I’m able to see the tiny golden hairs that make a woven stripe right below his navel.
“Well I do,” I say. “It’s in the shape of a giant curly S.” I tug the strap of my bathing suit out from my shirt and allow it to snap back into place. Ouch! “That’s where I’m going right now.” I pick his water bottle up from the stairs and place its coolness on my cheeks, forehead, and also at my neck, the way they do it in sexy cola commercials. Then I take a sip. “Feel like taking a dunk?”
I almost catch a glimpse of a quivering lip, but he bites it just in time. “I really need to finish up my work,” he says. “Maybe another time.”
“Sure.” I hand him back the water bottle, and the squeeze of my grip causes water to shoot out of the straw. So smooth. “Sorry,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it.” He wipes the squirt from his face. “Just water.”
“I guess I’ll see you around.” As I walk away I can feel the heat of his stare press against the back of my thighs, the tanned small of my back where my shorts meet my top, and my hips as they sway from side to side, catwalk style. Before taking a turn into my backyard, I stop to glance back at him, just to check if he’s still there, watching.
He is.
I walk around the edge of the pool and dip a foot in to test the temperature. The water sparkles up at me, the surface flashing like tiny white Christmas lights. I peel the sweat-dampened clothes from my bubble gum-pink tankini bathing suit, the top of which is supposed to help create the illusion of bigger boobs. I toss the clothes to the side and imagine Sean’s expression as they fall to his feet.
But when I look back, I’m alone.
I position myself on the diving board and aim my body toward the center like a dart. Not too much splash—the right amount—a sound that would make any neighbor jealous. I swim underwater toward the deep end, telling myself that by the time I reach the end, Sean will be there, waiting for me.
He isn’t.
I paddle around on the raft for almost an hour, allowing my arms and the back of my neck to crisp and redden from the sun. Staring down at my reflection wavering back and forth in the water, I can make out my frizzy hair (wet or not), my pudgy upper lip, and through it all I can see the maze of dirt at the bottom of the pool from my filthy bare feet. I’ll have to vacuum before my mother gets home and sees.
I rest my head on the raft, and my bangs block the sun from my eyes. I feel stupid and embarrassed. Who am I to invite Sean O’Connell to join me in the pool? I’m not anybody. Not Kelly with her good looks. Not Maria with her nerves of steel.
I remember this one time when Maria, Kelly, and I went to a party in the next town over. Maria had been playing eye-tag with this cute college boy all night. Pissed that he hadn’t actually approached her by eleven o’clock, she stormed her way over to him and said all of three words: “Top or bottom?” I don’t remember what his answer was. All I remember is the sight of his clunker Camaro bopping up and down in the supermarket parking lot across the street.
Not that I would ever want to be like Maria in that way. Sometimes I think if it weren’t for Kelly, Maria and I probably wouldn’t even be friends. It’s just … it would be nice to have her I-don’t-care-what-anyone-else-thinks attitude for at least one full day—to be able to take and do whatever it is I want, and not have to worry about the consequences.
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I take a deep breath and paddle over to the ladder, wondering if Sean will tell Kelly that I invited him over. I decide I should go back inside, put on some dry clothes, and go pick up Maria, so we can start planning for Kelly’s welcome-home. I should even e-mail Kelly later, tell her I really do miss her, and can’t wait until she gets back. I’ll send along that picture of us playing double-deck War so she can keep it by her bed.
I step one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, and that’s when I hear it. Him. His voice. In my yard.
“Is that invitation still good?” he asks.
I turn around and there he is, standing only a few feet away, by the fence, turning my skin to absolute gooseflesh.
“Hi,” he says.
I have no idea how to answer him or what to say. I just stare at him, my mouth hanging open, like I’m the biggest dork ever. I realize I’m doing this, and that only makes it worse, makes my mouth flutter, like I want to say something. Miraculously, the word “hi” manages to squeak its way out.
Sean shifts his weight from side to side in a nervous sort of dance. “Are your parents home?”
I shake my head and look away as he peels off his T-shirt.
“Do you expect ‘em soon? I mean, I don’t want them to get mad that I’m in your pool or anything.”
“They won’t be back for a while,” I blurt, feeling my heart load up with panic. I take a deep breath to calm myself down, trying to piece together what’s really going on here. I mean, there’s a good chance that Kelly won’t even care. Maybe she won’t even find out. And even if she does, I can just say Sean looked like he was gonna pass out from the heat. I guess he sort of does.
“Cool.” He twiddles with the strap of his belt for several moments. “I probably shouldn’t get these shorts wet.” His hand is on the zipper of his long khaki shorts.
I grab the raft for security and begin paddling in a circle. But before I know it, I’m facing him again. A pair of plaid boxer shorts, the cotton kind, I think. A bare chest with that woven stripe of hair right below the navel.
“Just what the doctor ordered,” he says, making his way in.
I let out a dorky giggle and begin making waves with the raft.
Sean pushes his feet off the wall of the pool. The blades of his shoulders slice through the skin of the water as he swims across. “This feels incredible,” he says. He takes a gulp of water and squirts it out between his teeth like a fan. It hits my cheek, and I laugh, a bit too hard, making a weird hiccup noise. I consider squirting him back, but that would definitely wash my lipstick off completely.
He disappears under the water and swims around me like a shark. The tiny bits of dirt at the bottom make a spiraling funnel around my ankles. He grabs my calf and yanks me under with him. I feel myself laughing beneath the surface, my mouth and nostrils filling up with water. And then our legs touch and I feel those tiny, prickly hairs that I have studied so intently rub against the skin of my knee and up my thigh, and … I freak.
I break the surface of the water and try to catch my breath. I wonder if the touching was a mistake.
Sean comes up and looks at me, and now I’m the one being studied. I grab the raft, squishy from loss of air.
“Nicole?” He places his hand on the raft, a thumb-length from mine. It suddenly dawns on me that this is the first time he’s said my name. And it sounds so different coming from him, sort of sweet and exotic at the same time.
“Yeah?” I swallow hard, dipping my mouth into the water to hide my lip.
“Did you ever … I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
“No, what?”
“I don’t know, did you ever, you know, maybe think about you and me?”
“Sean,” I say, pushing the raft away, trying to laugh it off as a joke.
“What? Did you?”
“I don’t know. What kind of question is that? Did you?”
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“Really?”
“Once or twice.”
I feel my insides light up like birthday candles, even though this is evil, even though we shouldn’t be talking this way. And suddenly I feel sort of … free. Like, I know I’ve known all along, but it suddenly hits me. Kelly isn’t here. It’s just me. And Sean.
“Maybe,” I say.
He edges in closer and I can smell the heat of his breath, like freshly cut grass. “Nicole?” His lips are too close to mine to speak, like they might bump together by forming words. And before I know it, they are kissing mine and I’m feeling this tiny, tingling sensation in my right pinky. The tingling sparkles through my veins and down my spine and encourages me to kiss him back. I do.
Our legs touch again and I feel myself float toward him. Thighs bumping thighs. Calves weaving through calves.
He covers my lips with his kiss again, and it tastes salty and wet. I press the inside of my knee against his outer thigh and feel the web of bristly hair crawl up my leg.
“Sean,” I whisper. I place both palms on the side of the pool and lift my body up to sit on the ledge. “Come on.” I take his hand and lead him over to the garden, where it’s all pretty and magical, and where no one can see. I look down at his boxers, the button-fly kind, dripping wet, the cotton checks sticking to his … thing. Sticking out a bit. And I can’t look, have to turn away, feel my cheeks get all fiery hot. It suddenly occurs to me that if I wanted to, I could call this whole thing off, tell him that I have to go inside, that I have to go and pick up Maria.
But I don’t.
And so I find myself lying on the ground with him, feeling the cool and peppery soil at my back and in the strands of my hair. He rolls himself on top of me, and the wetness of his skin slips against my legs. I slide my hands down his back and glide them up and down his hips, trying to imagine the way Vanessa does it on Sands of Time.
Sean moves his hand in between my legs and I think it’s the first time he notices my bathing suit has shorts for bottoms—tight, spandex shorts. He rolls us over, sort of on our side, facing one another, and I feel his hand at the back zipper. “Is this cool?” he asks.
I sort of give a nod. It’s so easy for him, like he’s done this before, like it’s no big deal.
I think about Vanessa’s first time. How she and Roland had come so close so many times, but then decided to wait. Then, on the anniversary of the day they first met, Roland surprised Vanessa by re-creating a scene from Night Falls in Star Land, her favorite storybook. He took her to the planetarium, after hours, because it was winter and too cold outside for a picnic at night. And then they made love right there under the Big Dipper. I think how it was Roland’s first time, too.
I feel my shorts being tugged down my hips, but not getting very far. “Can I have some help here?” Sean asks. I lift up my butt and feel the shorts slide down my legs. I kick them from around my ankles with my heels.
And then Sean gets up. He walks over to where his shorts are and scrounges through the pockets. At first he takes his cell phone out, and for a brief but humiliating second I think he’s going to make a call, but then he just clicks it off and I get this exciting little jolt up my spine. Like, at least while we’re together, he doesn’t even care if Kelly calls. He fishes through the other pocket for his wallet, plucks it out, and pulls out a condom.
And I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, I’ve seen condoms, have had them thrown at me during various besafe assemblies at school, but I’ve never actually held one outside the package. I’ve heard of girls putting the condom on for the guy, some sort of romantic gesture. I wonder if he’ll let me try.
Sitting with his back to me, he throws the torn package into the rose bush and puts it on by himself. I want to see it, to see him—to see what one looks like up close. But his boxers are still on and I can’t see anything through their dark green plaid print.
He slides himself back on top of me, pulls his shorts down jus
t far enough, and at first it’s all hot and urgent between my legs, and I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to be with him. But then I feel a sharp piece of mulch jam into my right butt cheek. I try to readjust, but then Sean pushes himself inside me—a stinging, ripping, ouching pain. I almost cry out but catch myself before any sound escapes.
I try to relax, to tell myself that this is romantic, in the garden, between the tall and purple irises, the blackeyed Susans, and the pretty rhododendron, that Sean must really like me. I look up into his face, to see his eyes, and what they’re thinking. But they’re closed, like he’s concentrating hard, and his lips are parted with breath.
The phone is ringing inside my house. It’s probably Maria, wondering where I am.
I look up into the sky, at the puffy white clouds, and wish it were night or that we were in a planetarium. I wonder if Kelly looks up at the ceiling and thinks these same things. I clench my teeth, wondering when it’ll be over, when I’ll be able to clean myself up of this dirt and mulch. The phone is still ringing. The machine beeps, but I can’t quite make out the voice.
“Nickie,” Sean whispers into my ear, followed by a long and laborious moan. And I think how this feels and sounds so different from TV How nobody but Kelly ever calls me Nickie. How nobody but Kelly ever calls me, period.
Sean rolls off me and pulls his shorts back up, lying on his back, trying to catch his breath, like he’s just run a marathon or something.
He looks over at me and smiles. I smile, too.
Now what? After Vanessa and Roland make love, they usually hug and kiss each other for the rest of the show, tell each other secrets. I rest the tips of my fingers against Sean’s dirty cheek and kiss him full on the mouth.
He smiles at me when the kiss breaks and then looks away. “I should probably get going,” he says. “I haven’t finished with the hedges yet.” He wipes a smear of dirt from my forehead and then kisses the spot before getting up to fetch his clothes.
I pull my shorts back up, noticing droplets of blood between my thighs. I wipe them as best I can with my fingers and then stand up, feeling dirt slide between my legs, noticing how sticky I feel, hiding my dirty hands behind my back.
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