Handcuffs

by Bethany Griffin

  Raye: Do you think Ian was checking out Melanie D’s legs today?

  ParkerP: Yes, all the guys were.

  They weren’t checking out the skirt that was so short you couldn’t see it, were they?

  Raye: Do you think he’ll ask me to the prom?

  To this I have no good answer. What do I know about guys? My boyfriend, or rather my ex-boyfriend who is moving back toward boyfriend status, is exasperated with me. Exasperated, like fed up. Well, now he’s kind of excited, but if I were to cancel Thursday and go back to being dull old Ice Princess me, he would be totally bored with me, and then he would be exasperated again.

  Raye: Do U want to help me look for prom dresses just in case?

  ParkerP: Um, sure, I guess I could go dress shopping as soon as I get ungrounded

  Probably a month after prom.

  Raye: See if your parents will let you go shopping with me for a few hours on Sunday.

  ParkerP: I’ll ask. Mom’s calling me for dinner now.

  ParkerP signs off at 5:22.

  28

  “Parker, Preston, dinner is ready,” Mom calls for the second or maybe the third time. It’s really late for dinner, but my dad is back from some meeting he went to, and Mom is making a big production of cooking for everyone. I wonder if Paige is sober enough to stagger downstairs for a home-cooked meal. Surprisingly, though, she’s already at the table when I get there. Helping Mom with the salad. Wow.

  Mom and Dad keep smiling and reaching out to touch each other. It reminds me of the way they were on Christmas morning, before I ruined everything. It’s good that they seem to be working things out.

  “Honey, I don’t think it was very nice of you to make Parker take all her things out of your closet,” Mom says, putting a big bowl of pasta in the middle of the table. Paige glares at me.

  “Did you tell on me?” Paige rolls her eyes. Like I would run to Mom and tattle. She doesn’t slur at all, and she smells like peppermint. These tactics work well on Mom and Dad, or at least, they did back when Paige was a senior. For some reason, no matter what she did, they would look at her with stars in their eyes, in a way that they never look at me.

  “Daddy saw Parker carrying her clothes across the hall. We aren’t fussing at you, Paige. We just want this to be as easy as it can be, for everyone.”

  “Do you think this is easy for me?” Oh great, her voice is rising. The melodrama begins. This is why I so rarely play the middle-child card. Melodrama reminds me of my sister. “I’m moving back in. My marriage could be over. I’m going to lose my car, and I can’t even have my entire closet? I have to share it with Parker’s sandals and summer shoes?” Paige and her wardrobe and her car problems make me feel really sad, almost depressed. Preston is looking at her with this concerned expression.

  “You guys are going to let West trade in her car?” I ask, surprised.

  Mom and Dad look at each other. “We signed the car over to Paige, so legally, as her husband, he owns half of it,” Dad says. The things you don’t consider when you get married to a complete jerk.

  “So if you get a divorce will he get half your stuff?” I can see stupid West sitting around with half of Paige’s jewelry and shoes, with the expensive watch she got for high school graduation. He might burn them, or throw them at defenseless animals, but there’s no doubt that if she left him he would take her stuff out of spite. “Wait, does this mean you get half of his stuff?” I think of the big house West’s parents live in.

  “He doesn’t have any stuff, stupid,” Paige says. “Well, just a toaster oven, three hand mixers, all that crap from the wedding.” She looks down, embarrassed. My parents gave her the toaster oven, I think.

  “But if you got divorced, you would get to keep all that stuff?” I ask. She could have the best dorm room ever, is what I’m thinking.

  “I’m not getting divorced.” She sounds like she might cry, and I feel sorry for her. I wouldn’t want some idiot throwing my strappy Nine West sandals into a bonfire to see if they burn faster than a pair of Nike Shox.

  “Does that mean you get half of his signed footballs? And his football cards?” Preston asks. The only nice thing West has ever done in his life was to show Preston his sports memorabilia collection. It was also a pretty stupid thing, because Preston really likes to touch things, and his hands are almost always sticky. Plus, those little plastic cubes that West keeps his collectibles in are endlessly fascinating to my brother.

  Paige starts to cry. Big fat tears that run down her face. “West loves me,” she says. “He won’t really trade in my car, and we aren’t getting a divorce.”

  She storms off to her room. It freaks me out when she’s all dramatic like that. I can’t even imagine getting up and screaming and crying and having everyone stare at me. The rest of dinner is pretty much silent. Sometimes I hate this family dinner routine and wish we could just sit in front of the TV like normal people. Finally, I mutter something about liking my mom’s baked chicken and go to my room to finish my letter to Kyle.

  Kyle Henessy,

  You don’t know me, but I know you. What happens if you vilate your restraining order? I don’t think you will like jail, do U? I know where you were today, and I have pictures to prove it. Send $2,000.00 to this PayPal account, or I will expose you’re secret. Pervert!

  I started to write it all in Internet slang, but all the Us looked stupid, so I just used U once and then misspelled violate. Oh, and I used the wrong your for good measure. I don’t think Kyle will go to jail for having coffee with me, especially since I was lying about the pictures, but I do think it’s possible that the judge would renew the restraining order, particularly (and Kyle and my mom gave me this idea) if he thinks Kyle had decided to stalk me instead of Paige. Kyle is over eighteen and I’m not. Even if the judge just suspects him of this perversity, there he is with another year of no Paige within fifty feet. The only way he’ll see her is through really powerful binoculars. No way he’s going to take that lying down.

  My hand is shaking when I hit Send. I go to Unsend. I wish life worked like unsending messages, wish you could take things back and rewrite them, find the right words, and send them again with smiling emoticons. I click the button. Error message. You can’t unsend a message that has Internet recipients. I’ve really done it now.

  I flash back to my parents’ faces when they caught us, when they walked in on . . . us. My stomach twists. I try to focus on how happy Dad will be with two thousand dollars, how this will fix the problems that I made so much worse with my idiocy. But all I can think about now is that I’ve done something really wrong. I tell myself that it’s like the bikini pics. He’ll probably just tell me no, probably tell me there’s no way he’ll pay, tell me to go to hell. I wouldn’t blame him one bit if that was exactly what he did.

  So, I don’t ace the calculus test, but I do pretty well, considering that five minutes before Ms. Rawlins passed out the papers he slid me into an alcove and pulled me to him. The anticipation running through me made me expect more than the little kiss where he barely pressed his lips against mine, and though I found myself reaching for him, he grinned at me and headed for his algebra class. It was hard to concentrate, but I did my best.

  Last night I only checked back about three dozen times to see if Kyle responded. He never did. Paige spent the evening studying for some test she has tomorrow. I had expected our house to revert to the days when she was in high school now that she’s living with us again. Thought that the phone would be ringing off the hook and I would have to hear her laughing and joking with her friends all evening. But it wasn’t like that. In fact, the phone didn’t ring once last night. Not even West called to check on her.

  Tonight I can’t sleep. It would be nice, I think, to go and talk to Paige, to ask her all the questions that keep floating around in my head. I roll over, thinking how awful I’m going to look in the morning, haggard and gross from lack of sleep. I can hear my sister crying. I should go talk to her, to at least try to m
ake her feel better. But for some reason I can’t get up, so I just lie there awake for what seems like hours.

  Thursday morning I almost can’t stand the waiting. First it’s waiting for Raye to pick me up. I ask Raye to drop me off at the Minute Mart where I’m supposed to meet him, and I have to wait again. She parks the Honda in one of the three parking spaces and wants to talk.

  “Parker,” she says, in a voice that would sound like my mother’s, except I know that Raye really knows what’s going on, and her voice is deeper than my mom’s.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I tell her. She shakes her head and runs her hand through her short dark hair.

  “That’s the thing. You don’t. He’s got you so wrapped around his finger. I know he’s good-looking, but do you really think he’s such a great guy?” And how can I answer this? Raye knows I’m crazy about him. She knows the good and the bad. I can’t look him in the eye and think that he isn’t a great guy. If I do that, it goes against everything that I feel.

  I can’t explain this to her because it doesn’t even make sense in my head, so I change the subject.

  “Do you want a croissant?”

  Raye sighs. “Sure, I’d love one. Um, Park? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, okay?” We both laugh, and I feel like everything is close to okay.

  I remind myself that Raye doesn’t want me to get hurt. She’s seeing problems where there aren’t any. I’m just extra-sensitive after not sleeping and listening to my sister sob into her pillow all night.

  I run a croissant out to Raye, practically skipping, I’m so full of nervous energy. Not that an ice princess would ever skip, really, but I do walk fast. I hand the croissant to Raye and she waves to me and backs out of the parking lot and turns toward school. I watch for a second, then go back inside and walk up and down the aisles. I make myself a hot chocolate from the machine just to have something to do with my hands, something to hold. I’m counting out my quarters to pay for it and a croissant when I see the Saab sliding into the parking lot.

  29

  “Sorry I’m late. I had to change my shirt.” He’s not wearing his usual black T-shirt. He’s wearing a white oxford shirt with little blue stripes. His hair is still kind of damp, and I wrap my arms around him, lean close to him, and breathe him in for a second. It feels like home, comfortable.

  We drive down to the park and he pulls in next to the koi pond. For maybe half an hour, we sit on a little bench and throw scraps of croissant to the fish. He doesn’t touch me or say much of anything.

  I’ve been nervous for two days, but now that we’re together, strangely, I’m very calm.

  “We can go to my house,” I tell him. I know that his place is out of the question. His mother quit work to stay at home with his little brother and be a homemaker. When he was a little boy, his mother was some kind of killer corporate attorney—which is why they have so much money—and he never saw her. I know these things, though we have not discussed them, have not mentioned the reasons that he avoids family interaction at all cost.

  His family might be cool with whatever we decide to do in the basement, but they wouldn’t be cool with us cutting school to do it. They are very into his education.

  “Paige has a test and classes all day. Dad is going to some meeting, and Mom and Preston are in the usual places, work and school.”

  He stands up, and I look back at the happy fat goldfish one last time before we get into his car. I feel oddly numb, as if somehow it’s too early in the day and I haven’t thawed out enough to start having emotions. It’s almost scary, because I think I should be feeling so many things.

  It’s only a couple of minutes to my house, not even long enough to get to the guitar solo of “Cherub Rock” before he pulls into our driveway and I look up at the house, the brick, the little bit of ivy on the side, and the bare spot where Dad had the maple tree cut down after we found out Kyle Henessy was hanging out up there.

  “Where should I park?” he asks me.

  “Garage.” I pull the extra garage-door opener out of the leather messenger bag I use for my books. We don’t want the neighbors to wonder why there’s a strange car in the Prescott driveway, do we?

  I try not to think about the last time he was here and everything that happened. There’s no reason to bring it up or even remember it. It seems like it happened a long time ago.

  He pulls smoothly into the garage and I usher him into the kitchen.

  “You want something to drink?” I ask, not really knowing what else to do.

  “Yeah, sure.” We are standing on opposite sides of the kitchen counter. I walk to the refrigerator and open the door.

  “Bottled water?” I toss him an Aquafina. He takes a long drink. Is it me or does he seem nervous?

  “Would you like to come upstairs to my room?” I ask him in the same voice I used to offer him the water.

  “God, yes.”

  At least he’s sure what he wants, right? He hasn’t been in my room too many times. My parents are firm believers in the “no boys in the bedroom” policy. It hasn’t worked too well in keeping their daughters celibate, but maybe it makes them feel better about their parenting or something. We go upstairs. He steps over the fourth step to avoid the squeak, and I realize how good he is at remembering details. It’s almost enough to pull me out of the numbness. I feel the beginning of some deep-down emotion, but then it fades.

  I look at my room for a second, the way I imagine he’s seeing it. The bed with the silky silvery pink down comforter and the zillion pink and white pillows. The fluttery striped canopy with ruffles. The curtains are ruffly too. The only thing I can be truly relieved about is the fact that last summer I took what was left of my toys, Barbies, and stuffed animals from every corner and storage box and sold them in a yard sale. The only stuffed animal in the room is the husky, who watches us from my nightstand.

  He walks over to my dresser and noses around nonchalantly. He opens a drawer. It’s my panty drawer. I reach out to stop him, but then I don’t. I let him look.

  “What do your parents think about you wearing these sexy panties?” Thank God he pulled out a nice pair. Thank God he thinks they’re sexy.

  “I buy my own. I like my underwear to be coordinated.” This morning I put on my blue striped panties and my matching blue demibra. I shaved my legs twice.

  “Did you think about me when you bought these?” He pulls out a pair of black lacy low-cut panties and holds them out to me.

  “Yeah. I bought them in September.”

  We look at each other. We weren’t together in September. Not even close. He hadn’t even looked at me in September, not that I was aware of.

  “I think about you all the time,” I tell him. He knows this. I know that he knows this. Admitting it feels good, like, like a confession, I guess.

  “I think about you, too, Parker.” He takes his wallet out and puts it on my nightstand. It’s the closest either of us has gotten to the frilly bed.

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. I’ll wait for you, you know that, right?” He says this now. It’s the right thing to say, but it isn’t exactly what he means. He doesn’t want me to do something I don’t want to do, but he does want me to want this, and he wants it badly. Somehow I understand this and am more trapped now than ever.

  I crawl up into the middle of the bed. You know how you’re comfortable in your own bed? How you can navigate it under any circumstances? I can feel my way to the right place. I touch the pillow with my hand. I changed the sheets this morning right after I shaved my legs the second time.

  He follows me so that he is standing right there at the side of the bed, standing pressed against the mattress. On my knees, I am at eye level with him. I unbutton his shirt and pull it back away from him.

  “Are you going to fold it?” he asks. We are so calm, calm enough to tease each other. And yet so very tense that the teasing feels forced. I do fold his shirt, properly, so that the creases will be right, and lay it on the
nightstand. He’s wearing one of those undershirts that boys wear with dress shirts. I put my hands up under it and lift it up over his head. Then I unbutton his jeans. My hand fumbles and for a moment it’s terribly awkward.

  “This isn’t fair. I want to see your matching bra and panties.” He sits down against the carved headboard and pulls me onto his lap. Under, over, on top of the pillows. His jeans are still on, though loosely.

  We haven’t kissed yet. Usually we kiss first thing. We kiss for hours. We kiss until my lips swell up and tingle so much that they feel like they are separate from me.

  He pulls my shirt over my head and breathes something that sounds like “Pretty” as he leans in and kisses the tops of my breasts. I am melting. My entire body is melting.

  For the first time today, he kisses me, and time ceases to exist. I cease to exist. There is just the warmth of his skin against mine. Kissing is good. I know how this part goes, and I relax. A little.

  And then I hear the door open downstairs, then slam. We look at each other. Someone is in my house. He gets up and walks across the room to the window. I watch him.

  “Your sister,” he says. Paige parks in the driveway, so she probably doesn’t even know that his car is in our garage or that anyone is here. We look at each other for a minute, and then I put my shirt back on and tiptoe downstairs. Oh my God. How can this happen? What if he wants to leave? What if I want him to leave? Only I don’t, not this way. Not exasperated by me and my crazy erratic family with their interruptions.

  Paige is standing in the middle of the kitchen with Daddy’s bottle of bourbon in her hand. I make a small sound and she turns toward me. Her sweater has fallen off her shoulder and there is a big purple bruise visible against her white skin. We have the same fair complexion, even though she used to go to the tanning bed a lot. She’s pale now.