by Lila Felix
“I had no idea that you’d get all giddy about something that most people consider a chore.” I chuckled at her.
She stared at the pool. “How long before we can swim?” She asked.
“Oh, I think he said it has to sit for twenty four hours. So, tomorrow about this time.” Suddenly I had a picture of Corinne and her long sand colored waves touching her bare back as she dove into the pool. I had a front seat reserved in hell, because for a split second I was with her in the water and we weren’t swimming.
I cleared my throat and intended to go home for the evening.
“Hey, I, um, I cooked dinner. So if you want to, you can stay. I mean you don’t have to, just if you want to, ah hell, nevermind.” She smiled and covered her face with her hands as if she wasn’t the kind of girl that could get a guy to stay for dinner. From out of nowhere I put my arm around her and whispered into her ear. “I’d love to stay for dinner.”
She turned her face sideways to look at me.
“Really?” She said as she smiled.
“Yeah really. I’ve got some extra clothes in the truck. I’m gonna change in the pool-house and then I’ll be back. Ok?” My hand had moved to her lower back and as I spoke I ran circles with my palm trying to assure her.
“Ok” She said and went inside and I went to the truck to get my clothes.
I changed and washed my arms and face in the pool-house bathroom. I went inside and I had never smelled something so amazing in all my life.
“Wow, what did you cook?” My stomach rumbled and agreed with my assessment.
“It’s just pasta Abel, jeez.” She laughed it off.
“Did your Mom teach you to cook,” I asked her.
“My mom doesn’t cook. But at Wellsley, they make us take three years of Home Management. Cooking, cleaning, trophy wife skills, you know.” She laughed at it and I couldn’t imagine that she’d ever be someone’s trophy wife. Not that she didn’t physically fit the part; but I had a feeling that no one could keep this girl from saying what she wanted.
“Ahh, so you lived there. Musta been lonely.” Good job Abel, way to make the conversation really depressing.
She stopped stirring and I knew I had hit a nerve without really meaning to.
“I had friends. People to get into mischief with but they came and went from year to year, sometimes month to month. It was like I was one of the bricks in the building. I was part of that school, other people were students and guests. It was weird. But it was better than home. My mom and dad give robots a whole new meaning.”
She turned around and gave me a smile and I felt honored that she trusted me enough already to tell me something so personal.
“What about you? Tell me about your parents.” There wasn’t much to tell but I felt like I should reciprocate.
“My Dad and mom are in their own world really. They’re good parents, don’t’ get me wrong. But sometimes they are so wrapped up in their own romance that they forget I’m around. But it’s no big deal. Better than robots I guess.” I shrugged not knowing what else to say.
She filled two plates with pasta and salad and then put them both on the island. I put the first bite in my mouth and it was the best thing I had ever eaten.
“Wow, either you had a great teacher, or you were a great student. Either way this is really good.”
She smiled and finished chewing before answering. “Both. We had a teacher who trained in Europe and when I started I couldn’t even boil an egg. I’m glad you like it.”
There was that blush again. Apparently compliments brought it out. And since I wanted to see much more of it, compliments it would be.
We talked more about her school and she asked me about mine but there wasn’t much to tell. I went to a typical public high school. I played Varsity soccer and had bastards for friends. My mouth just ran of its own accord when I was around her. Things I didn’t know I felt or knew just flew out. We shared a love of all things zombie. She loved the old movies and the new movies, cheesy and well-made and everything in between. And didn’t that just make her perfect.
Corinne
The greatest and weirdest thing was—I could talk to him for hours and hours. That night before he went home, we exchanged phone numbers. I didn’t know if talking on the phone to a guy was something that was normally done or not but it was his idea, so I went with it.
I finished cleaning up the house after dinner. Abel offered but he looked exhausted. I shooed him out and went to the bathroom and drew a hot bath. I soaked in that white claw foot tub for at least an hour and then I heard my phone ringing from my shorts on the floor. I scrambled to lean over the tub and dry my hands before swiping the screen and answering.
“Hello?” I tried my best to stay still so that the person on the other end couldn’t hear the water sloshing.
“Corinne?” To hear his voice over the phone was entirely different than talking to him in person.
“Yeah. Hey, can I call you back in a minute?” I slipped a bit and the water made swishing sounds around me.
“Are you swimming? You’re not supposed to get in there so soon.” He sounded concerned and I silently begged him not to pursue the fact that I was in some kind of body of water.
“No, not swimming. Let me call you back in a few.”
“Um, yeah, ok.” He sounded confused.
I hung up the phone and busted out laughing. I let the water out and tried to take my time drying off and getting dressed. I didn’t want him to think I was desperate to talk to him but at the same time I didn’t want to seem aloof and take a long time.
Way to overanalyze it until it doesn’t exist Corinne.
Finally settled I went to the call log and pressed send to dial his number back. It rang twice and then he answered.
“Hey” He said, sounding—excited?
“Hi, sorry I took so long.” I sat in what was now my favorite plush chair by the window.
“It’s ok. I still think you were swimming. I heard the water.” He chuckled.
“There are other places with water Abel.” Please let us not have a conversation about me being in the bathtub. I mean, really?
“Like what? A lake? A river?” He was really going to make me spell it out for him.
“Abel, I was in the bathtub—ok? Jeez.” I was full on laughing now. Did he really think I went to a lake and answered my phone while swimming in said lake?
“Oh” That’s all he said and then he got really, really quiet.
“You had to know I bathed. Unless I stink?” I goaded him into saying something other than ‘oh’.
“Yeah, you always smell like—well you always smell like pears. Can we talk about something else other than you naked in a bathtub?”
I laughed even harder at that. Boys.
“I tried to avoid the subject but you were so sure I was swimming. What do you want to talk about, pick something.”
“OK, you know what you want to do after high school?”
Easy peasy. “Yeah, I want to be a chef. What about you?”
“A Chef? That’s fitting. I want to be a doctor. A pediatrician.”
“Wow.” Abel in scrubs? Yeah, imagine that.
We talked like that for hours until I heard him yawn. It was downright contagious and before I knew it, I yawned too.
“Get some sleep Corinne. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“OK.”
For the rest of the week, we spent all day together. I helped him paint and he made me laugh. And every night just as I started to miss him, the phone would ring and we talked long into the night.
Abel
Our date was in an hour and I thought I would be nervous but I wasn’t. Somehow within the last two weeks Corinne and I had become friends, not the kind of friends I had in school but a friend like I’d never had. I guess that would change tonight. Part of me hoped that we could be both. That she could stay my friend but I could kiss her anytime I wanted at the same time. I wondered if that would work. Becaus
e the urge to kiss her, to hold her hand, to touch her hair, wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me—it was all becoming harder and harder to deny. The thing was, we hadn’t specified whether or not this was a date.
Hey Corinne, is this a date? ‘Cause I’m desperate to get my hands on you and my arms around you, and my lips on you.
I groaned at my inner conversation and threw on a gray button down shirt and rolled up the sleeves. I thought about wearing nice khakis but decided on a pair of jeans and my Chucks instead. I had never obsessed about clothing so much in all my life. It was flat out ridiculous.
I pulled up at the house about ten minutes early. I looked up to see her dart past the window and my need to see her jumped up about forty notches. I got out and knocked on the door, it wasn’t necessary but I wanted to do things right.
She opened the door and I nearly choked right there. Her hair was a little curlier than usual and she had make-up on tonight. It didn’t make her more beautiful, it simply made her a new kind of beautiful that I’d never seen. She blushed under my stare and I looked down to see she wore a purple dress with mere straps holding it on her. It was short but not too short, something I had come to expect from Corinne. She always maintained her modesty.
All the girls at school tried to skirt the edges of decency. They had to wear uniforms so they bent the rules as far as they would go. Their skirts barely passed inspection and when the teacher wasn’t looking they’d roll the waistband to make them shorter. They left three, sometimes four buttons undone on their school deemed uniform shirts. It was ludicrous.
“Do I look ok? Should I change?” She asked quietly.
“No, you look perfect. A little too perfect, you kinda had me in a trance.”
“Sorry.” She blushed redder and laughed.
“Don’t ever be sorry for that. Really, you’re gorgeous tonight.”
“Thanks Abel” And then she answered my questions with one sentence. She moved and kissed my cheek. “You’re turning out to be a great date already.”
I opened her side of the truck and we took off on the hour drive to Monroe. I got brave about halfway down the road and reached over and took her hand in mine.
Please don’t pull away.
She didn’t disappoint, like she was waiting for me all along. Maybe she was. Maybe she knew what this was, knew what we were and was just waiting for me to catch up. She squeezed my hand a little and it confirmed what I thought.
We parked at a chain restaurant across the street from the movie theater. We walked towards the door and this time she reached for my hand. We got a table and she ordered a huge burger and fries. I lifted my eyebrows when she ordered and when the waitress walked away she asked me, “What?”
“You just surprise me. That’s all.” I shrugged.
“Why because I ordered actual food,” She asked.
“Yeah, actually.”
“I have no shame when it comes to eating. I wouldn’t be much of a chef if I did, right?”
“That’s true.”
We ate but didn’t talk very much since a large group came in behind us and were really loud and rowdy. We finished eating, crossed the street and I bought tickets for the movie after a small amount of protest from Corinne about paying her own way.
We watched while zombies ate people and moaned and groaned. Her feet were crossed on top of the chair in the row in front of us and the only time I knew she was scared was when she clenched her toes. Once I noticed that, I spent the rest of the movie watching her feet instead of the movie. Her toes were much more interesting.
Towards the end of the movie she leaned forward, enraptured with who was going to die next. I chuckled a little to myself. She was captivating. I reached over to put my hand on her back and before I knew it she had jumped into the chair in front of her and had let out an ear piercing scream that I was sure could be heard all the way back home. She instantly realized that it was me and not some rogue zombie and then the giggling began. She stayed in the same seat until the end of the movie and I watched her shoulders never stop shaking until the end. The lights came up and she turned and gave me the most pitiful stink eye I had ever seen.
“You scared the crap out of me Abel. I thought one of those things were after me.”
“I’m sorry,” I tried to sound sincere but I kept laughing. “I just reached over and you hopped into the next row like a bullfrog.”
“Next time touch me before the scary parts start—Jeez.”
She turned to kneel in the seat in front of me and reached over for her purse. I made sure to be closer when she got it and was back in front of me.
“Next time, I won’t let you go. That way, you don’t have to be scared at all.”
She turned her head a bit and squinted her eyes at me.
“You can’t kiss me yet.” When she said it I moved back, shocked again.
“Why not?” Sure, I’ll play.
“Because if the kiss sucks then I’ll have to ride all the way home with you and it will be kinda awkward.”
“Hey, I have it on good authority that I’m a great kisser.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t. But both people can be great kissers and the chemistry is just not there. Just like you can have two people who suck at kissing but if they have the right chemistry…”
“Well, let me get you home so we can see which ones we are.”
Corinne
Where in the hell did that chemistry and kissing speech come from? Good Lord I sounded like one of those newspaper advice columns. The weird thing? He looked intrigued.
We got into his truck and just as I started to put my seatbelt on he said, “You’re too far away.”
I scooted to the middle and found a lap only seatbelt and fastened it.
“Much better,” he whispered in my ear before starting the truck up and heading towards home.
Even though it was a Louisiana summer night and I expected the heat, the temperature inside the cab of his truck was absolutely stifling. It was simply his presence, his nearness, the fact that his thigh touched my thigh, the way he looked at me every time he stopped the truck at a light or a stop sign. But at the same time, the feeling was addictive. What had gotten into me?
We finally reached the house. He got out first and extended a hand to help me out. I slid out and he shut the door behind me. I moved to lean against the back of his truck, not quite able to walk yet. He stepped towards me and I froze, unable to move or speak. He placed his palms on the truck beside me one on either side of my shoulders and leaned in slow, way too slow. He diverted his path towards my right side and reached out to brush my hair away from my neck. My heart thumped in my ears like a set of speakers with their bass turned up too loud. I could almost feel as every single hair dragged over my shoulder and the tips tickled as they trickled down my back.
“It’s too bad…” As he spoke I felt the warmth of his breath on my ear.
Twice I tried to speak before anything came out. “Too bad about what?”
“I’m not gonna kiss you tonight. I don’t want to rush it with a girl like you. So it’s too bad we have to wait to find out about the chemistry.”
“You suck.” It came out before I thought about it.
He put his forehead on my shoulder and laughed along with me. I let myself laugh at the situation even though a part of me, a bigger part than I wanted to admit, was hurt and dejected. It was the dejection that spoke next.
“Ok, it’s getting late. I’d better go in.”
“Already?” He whispered.
“Yeah, I’ll see you Monday.”
I broke free from the cage of his warm arms and walked to the side door and went in, forcing myself not to look back.
Did he say ‘a girl like me?’ What is that supposed to mean?
I got inside and changed into my pajamas and went straight to bed. Abel had confused the hell out of me. One minute we were on a date, the next minute he’s rushing us out at the mention of kissing. Then he drive
s me almost to insanity on the way home and then? Nothing. And they say girls are indecisive?
Sunday morning I woke and took my bowl of cereal out to the back porch. I sat there most of the morning reading and swinging on the massive Cypress swing. My phone rang and I answered it.
“Hello?” I didn’t look to see who it was.
“Hey.” Abel didn’t sound like his usual self.
“What are you up to?” I sat up in the swing and nearly fell off of it.
“Nothing. Can I—can I come see you?” He said.
As if I wouldn’t want to see him ever in my life.
“Of course. When?” If I had my choice he would’ve been here already.
“In a few minutes. I’m actually almost there.”
“I’m on the back porch.” And giddy as can be.
“Okay”
About ten minutes later I heard his truck in the driveway. He walked up the stairs and plopped down next to me on the swing.
“What’s up?” I said as I nudged his shoulder with mine. He looked like someone just killed his dog.
“Nothin,’” he shrugged and looked out towards the back yard.
“Liar,” I said while I turned to face him.
“I tried.” He said, “I tried to not call you and not come over here. But then I just gave up. ” He laughed a little.
“I thought you were going to call last night.” I said, and it was just plain honesty. I did think he was going to call.
“I thought it would be too weird if I called that soon.” I smiled and huffed a little laugh to recognize his pitiful lack of reasoning.
“Hey Abel, look at me.” He looked up first and then to me. “Look, I’ve only dated two guys before and they were both jerks. Can you just—can you just do what you want to do? Don’t worry about rules and what people say and don’t second guess yourself. If you want to call, call. If you want to see me, then come see me. Because while you were second guessing yourself last night, I waited for you to call. I guess I could’ve called too. And when you called this morning wanting to come over, I already missed you. Ok?”
Good grief, I let my mouth work overtime this morning.
“I missed you too and yeah, I can do that.” He leaned back in the swing and pushed out a long breath.