For Keeps

by Natasha Friend

  “So,” Matt says now, squeezing my hand. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Yes,” I say. Even though I know his family is going to compare me to Missy Travers. Missy Travers, Blonde Bombshell. Missy Travers, Merit Scholar.

  We slow down, turn into the driveway of 7 Geneseo Lane. Matt runs around the car to open the passenger door.

  “I thought chivalry was dead,” I say.

  “Nope.” He holds out his hand.

  “I’m nervous,” I blurt.

  He pulls me to my feet and kisses me, right there in his parents’ driveway. Sweet and slow. “Better?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good,” he says, pulling me toward the house. “Let’s go.”

  At dinner, Matt sits next to me. Every so often he touches me under the table—foot on foot, hand on knee—and I’m glad he does. His stepsister, Kylie, a moonfaced brunette in a boy-band sweatshirt, doesn’t stop staring at me for a second, like I’m some strange new species of bug she’s never laid eyes on before. I try to ignore her and focus on the parents.

  In response to Becky’s questions, I tell everyone that my favorite subject in school is English, the girls’ soccer team is five and one, and my mom works in a bookstore. When Becky asks about my father, I keep my answer simple: “He lives in North Carolina. He works with at-risk youth.”

  Under the table, Matt squeezes my hand. I squeeze back.

  Becky—an older, doughier version of Kylie—thinks this is wonderful. “Isn’t that wonderful, Hank?” she says to Matt’s dad—a balding, mustached version of Matt. “Josie’s father works with at-risk youth!”

  “Wonderful,” Mr. Rigby says dryly. “Used to be an at-risk youth myself.”

  He proceeds to tell the story of how he and his high-school buddies would drive around their town at night, removing all the pink flamingos and garden gnomes and Mary-on-a-half-shells off people’s front lawns, and then replant them on the lawn in front of their principal’s house.

  “My father the juvie,” Riggs says, shaking his head.

  Matt’s dad claps him on the shoulder. “Takes one to know one.”

  Then, of course, I have to ask, “Is this a family tradition?”

  Matt shrugs, embarrassed.

  “Absolutely!” Mr. Rigby booms.

  “OK,” Matt says to me. “I have been known to replant the occasional garden gnome. . . .” But then he immediately changes the subject back to soccer.

  I can tell he doesn’t want me to think badly of him, but in a way, picturing him sneaking around in the middle of the night with his friends, rearranging lawn ornaments, only makes me like him more. It makes me wonder what else I don’t know about Matt Rigby.

  There’s only one embarrassing moment the whole dinner, at the very end, when Matt says he and I are going upstairs and Becky reminds him of the house rule: Thou shalt not close thy bedroom door. It makes me wonder how many times Matt brought Missy Travers to his room, and what they did while they were up here.

  I am trying not to think about that right now.

  Matt and I are collapsed on the oversize foam chair in his room. My stomach is bursting with lasagna. And salad. And garlic bread. And chocolate mousse. “I can’t believe how good that was,” I say.

  “I told you Becky could cook,” Matt says, pulling me closer.

  “Yeah. . . . They were really nice. And funny. Your dad’s high-school stories? I almost peed my pants.”

  “That’s Dad.” He smiles, leans in to kiss my cheek. I love it when he smiles. There’s this little dimple on the right side of his mouth, every time.

  “They made me feel completely comfortable,” I babble on. “I mean, completely. It wasn’t awkward at all. . . .”

  “Good.”

  “Your dad and Becky seem to have a really good relationship. . . . Like, I get now how Darlene could come for Christmas and it wouldn’t be weird. . . .” At first when Matt told me about his mother having holidays with his dad and step-mom, it sounded crazy. But now it doesn’t. “It’s really cool, when you think about it,” I say.

  “Josie?” Matt says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Could we stop talking about my family?”

  I move my eyes to his eyes, and there is that look, the one Liv always finds so amusing. Come hither, Hester Prynne. Heat surges up my neck and onto my cheeks.

  “OK,” I say.

  We kiss.

  This is something I could do for hours: kiss Matt Rigby. He has a knack for making every nerve in my body stand at full attention. It starts with my lips, then moves to my tongue, then it slides down and down and down until—“Wait,” I say, pulling back. “What about the door rule?”

  “What about it?” Riggs murmurs, pressing his mouth to mine.

  We have followed Becky’s instructions, but barely. The door to Matt’s room is cracked about a centimeter.

  “Well . . .” I start to say, “if you think . . .”

  But then I shut up. Everything feels too good. Anyway, the door rule is probably just a reminder not to go completely nuts up here; it’s not a literal—

  “Oh my God!” squeals a voice from the doorway. It’s Kylie.

  Riggs bolts upright, launching his death gaze across the room. “Beat it, Kylie. Now.”

  Kylie shakes her head, sending her ponytail swinging. “Uh-uhhh,” she singsongs.

  “Kylie, I’m warning you . . .” Riggs takes one menacing step toward the door. Then another.

  “Mommmmm!” She runs, screaming down the hall. “Mommmmmmm! They’re totally going at it up here!”

  Riggs turns to me. His cheeks are two flames.

  I smile. “There are advantages to being an only child.”

  He shakes his head, swears.

  “Hey.” I stand up, walk over and wrap both my arms around his waist. “It’s OK.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  I kiss him softly on the chin. “Yes. It is.” Then again. “It’s fine.”

  “I just want to be alone with you,” he murmurs into my neck. “Just you. And me. And no interruptions.”

  His breath is hot.

  I have goose bumps all over.

  I try to suppress the realization that there is a place we could go right now—a place where no one would be. “Let’s go for a drive,” I suggest. “We can park somewhere and—”

  He sighs. “Not the car.”

  “OK.” I take a deep breath, let it out slowly. “My house, then.”

  “Your house?”

  “No one’s home. My mom’s in New Hampshire, remember?”

  Riggs looks at me. “Are you sure?”

  “About my mom being in New Hampshire?”

  “About going to your house.”

  I nod, feeling about fifty different ways at once. Nervous. Guilty. Excited. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m sure.”

  He smiles, then crosses the room to open a drawer on his nightstand.

  I watch him take something out—something small, silvery—and stuff it into his backpack. My stomach flips over. “Matt?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s not . . . you’re not . . . I mean, I don’t know if I’m ready yet, to . . . you know . . .” I sound like a blathering idiot.

  “Josie?” He walks over to me.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s gum.”

  “Oh,” I say, nodding.

  “For our garlic breath.”

  “Right.”

  “I have condoms, too. If that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Oh. Uh-huh.”

  “But that doesn’t mean we have to use them. We can just . . . you know . . . hang out, if you want.”

  “OK,” I say, relieved on two levels. A) Matt’s smart enough to carry condoms, and B) he’s not going to pressure me.

  Ten minutes later we are back in his car, driving to my house. In my head—not because I want it to, but because it just pops in there—is a picture of my mom. She is lying on her childhood bed next to Paul Tucci. “So,
what do you think, Kate?” he is saying to her, handsome as can be in his North Haven letterman jacket. “Should we go for it?”

  Guns N’ Roses is playing on the radio.

  The 90210 gang watches from the wall.

  Everything lies ahead for the two of them. Every possibility. Every opportunity.

  Or not.

  Depending on her answer.

  “So, you guys finally got naked,” Liv says.

  It’s eleven fifteen p.m. and, much to Dodd’s relief, we are both home, reclined on the safety of the Weiss-Longo pullout couch.

  “Partially naked,” I say.

  Already I am regretting opening my mouth. What Riggs and I did—or didn’t do—belongs to us. It’s part of this thing we’re growing, this thing that’s ours and nobody else’s. Whenever I stop to think about it, I can’t help myself, this stupid grin starts pulling at my lips and I have to bury my face in a pillow.

  I remember in middle school thinking it was all so disgusting. I would never touch a guy like that. I would never let him do those things to me. And now . . . here I am.

  “There’s a lot more to sex than just intercourse,” Liv says, prying the pillow off my face. She looks Boho chic in a velvet beret and tiny paintbrush earrings, in honor of her and Finn’s night at the UMass art gallery, hooking up in the darkroom.

  “You should know,” I say. “You’re the sexpert.”

  “I am not a sexpert. I’ve only had sex with two guys.”

  She means Avi, the guy from drama camp, and Finn. But there have been other guys she’s hooked up with, sans intercourse.

  “Relatively speaking,” I say, “you’re a sexpert.”

  Liv turns, looks at me. “I have to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “Finn and I broke up.”

  “What? . . . But tonight . . . the darkroom . . . I thought you guys . . .”

  “We didn’t, actually. We started to, and then I told him about the period thing, and he dumped me.”

  “He dumped you because you got yourperiod?”

  She sighs. “Not exactly. More because it could have gone the other way. I could have not gotten it.”

  “OK, that makes no sense.”

  “He phrased it differently. He said there was too much of an age difference—that I couldn’t handle a, quote, mature sexual partnership, unquote.”

  “That’s bullshit!”

  “I know.”

  “He’s the one who couldn’t handle it!”

  “I know, Josie. It’s OK.”

  “How? How is it OK?”

  “It’s . . . what Finn and I had was never a partnership at all. We were just . . . hooking up. And even though I love hooking up—I mean, I really love it—I’ve never had . . . like, I look at Pops and Dodd, and I look at you and Riggs, and I’m jealous. I’ve never had that. That, I want.”

  “Are you serious?”

  She nods.

  “You put me and Riggs in the same category as Pops and Dodd?”

  “Kind of,” she says. “Yeah.”

  I can tell that she means it, and even though I think she’s deluded, I say, “You could have that too, if you really want it.”

  Liv flops back on the bed, sighs. “I don’t know.”

  I start to say, What about Kevin Kinnear?—this funky band-geek guy who was madly in love with Liv in middle school, but then I remember her saying, Kevin Kinnear has a duck face. Instead, I say, “There are lots of guys who would love to go out with you, if you’d give them a chance.”

  “You mean high-school guys.”

  “If you rule out high-school guys, you rule out a lot.”

  She heaves another sigh. Then she says, “Maybe you’re right.”

  This, coming from the queen of rightness herself. Well. Maybe I will ask Riggs if there’s anyone he can think of who’d be a good match for Liv. Someone with a brain. Someone who will appreciate her twisted humor and her flair for fashion. Someone who’ll appreciate her worth. I don’t know if that person exists at Elmherst High School, but if he does, believe me, I will find him.

  Thirteen

  SOMETIMES BOB ASKS me to come in on a Sunday early, to do prep work. Today is one of those days. So it’s exactly 6:17 a.m., and I am already lining pastry boxes with waxed paper. I am brewing coffee. Picking out a nice Sunday-morning CD—something classical, mellow.

  All the while, Bob is scrubbing away. The floor, the chairs, the tabletops. I know he did this last night after closing, yet he is compelled to do it all over again. What does he think went down overnight? A roach wedding? Tiny trolls with wheelbarrows full of E. coli, dumping them everywhere? But you have to give the guy credit; this place is always spotless.

  It’s 6:57, and someone is knocking on the door. We don’t open until eight—it says so right there in black and white—but whoever it is keeps pounding.

  “Get that, would you, Josie?” Bob says. He’s busy, sliding a pan of sticky buns into the oven.

  I yank open the door and there, wearing one of those canvas bucket hats and carrying The New York Times, is Big Nick.

  “I know you’re not open yet,” he says. His face looks weird—grayish, with a sort of sheen to it. “But can I come in?” He starts to unzip his fleece jacket.

  “Are you OK?” I ask.

  “Hot,” he says. “Walked too fast.”

  “OK, um . . .” I turn my head to call Bob, but he’s already here, standing at my elbow, rubbing his hands on a paper towel. “Mr. Tucci wants—”

  “Our best customer,” Bob says, cutting me off. “Come in. Sit.” He gestures to the round table in the back.

  Big Nick nods. The hat is off now. His hair is sticking up in silver tufts.

  “Coffee?” Bob asks.

  “Please.” Big Nick shuffles over to a chair and sits.

  I busy myself straightening the cinnamon and nutmeg shakers on the bar next to his table.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” I ask.

  He pauses, reaching up to pull his shirt collar away from his throat.

  I take a step toward him. “Are you sure you’re OK?”

  He waves a hand at me. “I’m fine.” This comes out strong, like a bark. Then he says, lower, “Sorry. . . . You choose something.”

  I tell him OK; I’ll be right back.

  On my way to the counter I wonder briefly if he and Mrs. Tucci had a fight, if that’s why he’s here so early, acting weird. Maybe she found out he’s not really in a bowling league. Maybe he’s been lying about other things too, like Mel’s dad, who used to say he was working late when really he was shtupping his paralegal, or Schuyler’s dad, who drinks. . . . But somehow, I can’t imagine Mr. Tucci doing anything like that.

  “He wants something to eat,” I tell Bob. “What should I—”

  “Here,” Bob says, handing me a plate. Mini bear claws and chocolate croissants, arranged in the shape of a fan.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I turn back toward the table. I take about three steps and then, like one of those cheesily dramatic slow-motion movie scenes, I watch, frozen, as Big Nick’s head flops to one side and his body slumps over, out of the chair and onto the floor with a sickening thud.

  Only this isn’t a movie.

  This is really happening.

  I’m not sure exactly what comes next. I know I drop the plate. I know that Bob murmurs, “Oh my God,” and that, for at least a nanosecond, neither of us moves. But then, somehow, Bob is rushing past me, through the scattered pastries and shards of ceramic, and I am stepping back.

  He is bending over Big Nick, touching his shoulder and saying his name.

  Saying it again.

  Saying it again.

  Now he is leaning his ear to Big Nick’s chest.

  I take a step forward. “Is he breathing?”

  Bob shakes his head.

  “You need to start rescue breaths,” I say, walking faster. I know this from our first-aid unit in health. Bob knows it too. There’
s a laminated poster on the door of the bathroom. He showed it to me, my first day. He said he was CPR certified.

  “Bob!”

  He nods, lowering his face to Big Nick’s. Then he pops up again. “I can’t . . . I’m just . . . I can’t . . . I can’t breathe . . . I—”

  He’s babbling, and I can feel the panic rising in my chest, but I keep my voice calm as I kneel down on the floor. “Bob, listen to me. You have to. You have to do it.”

  He turns to me, looking stricken.

  “You have to do it,” I repeat. “Think about it. This is a life. This . . . is someone’s life. You have to do it.”

  Bob nods. He lowers his face again, and this time he does it. He breathes.

  I watch Big Nick’s chest rise, and my head feels fuzzy, like I might pass out. “You’re doing great,” I tell Bob. My voice sounds far away and high-pitched. “I’m going to call 911 now,” I say, reaching into my pocket for my cell. “OK? You keep going. You’re doing great.”

  “Clear a path,” a gruff voice says.

  I look up and there are two gloved hands, reaching out to rip open Big Nick’s shirt. A third hand, pressing fingers to his neck. “Sixtysomething male . . . cardiac arrest . . .”

  A gurney is rolling through the door.

  I stumble to my feet, my legs tingling and heavy as lead pipes, so relieved I could cry.

  Bob wouldn’t get into the ambulance. He started to; after the paramedics wheeled Big Nick up the ramp, Bob took about five steps forward, then turned right around and walked down.

  “I can’t,” he mumbled to me. “I’m sorry. . . . Hospitals . . . they just . . . I’m sorry. . . . I can’t.”

  “It’s OK,” I told him. “I’ll go.”

  Now, strapped into the shiny black ambulance seat, I am trying to be helpful, telling the paramedics everything I know. One of them, the woman, has a form. Name. Address. Next of kin. Her hair is dishwater blonde and lank-looking, but her eyes are kind. She’s patient while I dig through my backpack for the real-estate listing Liv printed out—the one with the Tuccis’ house on it.

  “Your friend’s a diabetic,” the woman says. “Did you know that?”

  I shake my head.

  He was wearing a medic alert bracelet on his wrist; that’s how they knew. That’s why he was acting so strangely, she explains. He was having a hypoglycemic attack. That’s why there’s a needle in his arm right now, pumping in insulin.