“All this over spilled chuck roast?” Dave’s voice is muffled. His shoes click toward the door, but we are already halfway to the car.
I can’t help but smile. It’s his first—and last—properly delivered question of the evening.
“Dumb dog,” Mom mumbles, assessing skirt damage. “A trip to the cleaners and everything will be fine.”
“Well, not everything, Mom.”
“Ah.” She pauses before putting the keys into the ignition. “I don’t know what got into him tonight.” She turns the key for a second but not enough for the engine to turn. “Or maybe with you here, I’m seeing him, really seeing him, for the first time.”
“Why would it matter whether I’m here or not?”
“I don’t know,” she says in a daze. I haven’t buckled up when Mom pulls away from the curb. “A mirror of sorts, I suppose.”
“Was that a breakup?”
“Maybe,” she says. “Probably.”
She stops fully at the stop sign on Main Street and stares into my eyes. Her hand squeezes my knee.
“I know you stood up for me to cause trouble between me and Dave. But despite your intentions,” she swallows hard, “it felt good.”
A wave of lava-hot sadness melts me from the inside out. I want to tell her that there’s more to the two of us than the fight, but I stay tight lipped knowing that the utterance of a word—of any word, I fear—risks my dissolving into a puddle of salty guilt.
“Well, you won’t be late to the store,” she scoffs with a weak smile.
“I stood up for you because you’re my mom.” My voice is shaky and the tears begin to cloud my vision. “Not to hurt you.”
Mom drops her hand on my knee and squeezes. “I can fight my own battles, Charlotte,” she says. “Have you forgotten how your dad and I used to argue?”
I stare out the window and remember, wondering how I’d forgotten.
“Every once and a while you used to stomp out of the store, just like you did tonight,” I say with a half smile.
“You pick the battles worth fighting, Charlotte.” She stops at the red light and looks at me. “And there were a lot of important ones with your dad.” She pauses and turns back to the road. “With Dave, I’m not so sure.”
“You’re worth more than Dave,” I say. “A lot more.” But it’s like she doesn’t hear me. The years of my rolling eyes, shrugged shoulders, and feigned deafness have clearly taken its toll, and I am smacked with crippling regret.
“Oh, I know,” she says.
But her words are empty. She doesn’t know, and this fact breaks my heart. We drive by Lincoln High and veer left toward the store. But I can’t say goodbye. Not now.
“Margo seems like a sweet girl, though.” Mom is trying to divert the conversation away from herself, and I let her.
“Not so sweet, actually,” I say, but the punch to my words is gone.
Mom parks in front of the store and stares at me inquisitively. The diner lights ahead glimmer soft pink along the snow-lined avenue and make our faces glow.
“I’m starving,” I say.
Mom hesitates. “Dinner at the diner?”
I nod and focus my gaze on the string of lights in our shop window. “Maybe I feel a little sorry for Margo.” I struggle to feign nonchalance. “The whole not-having-a-mother thing.” My voice comes out singsongy, a little like Mom’s.
Dinner at Herod’s holds astronomical-disaster potential. But something—maybe everything—has got me ready to take the risk. From the passenger seat, I look ahead.
The Christmas tree lights that spell “HEROD’S” blink over the counter and tinsel hangs tiredly in the window sills next to glittery Easter eggs and the occasional forgotten poster board of leprechauns. I can see Daisy holding her tray shoulder height at the coffee machine, her bow tie polyester crisp, I’m sure. People are milling around between the jukebox and the bathroom and the enormous fish tank at the register.
“It’s like a casino in there,” Mom says, her eyes fixed up ahead like mine were. “You feeling lucky?” She scoffs.
“Eh,” I say indifferently. But the real answer, despite everything—and everything covers a heck of a lot of ground—is yes. The photograph of Margo’s mom in her bathing suit flashes across my consciousness as I stretch out of the car. I’m crazy lucky.
11. CHARLOTTE
Wednesday
The fluorescent lights overhead coupled with the purple glow of the fish tank next to me make my white, goose-bumped legs look like raw chicken drumsticks. I survey the area quickly as the hostess searches the laminated table chart for free space. Half of the junior varsity basketball team is piled into the farthest two booths in matching Lincoln Bobcat sweats. Across from them is Tommy, this spindly ninth-grade math genius. Everybody knows Tommy because last year he made the news for being the first student of Mexican heritage to win some big national math contest. The front corner is full of senior guys, the ones who look like they’re already twenty, the ones with substantial stubble on their faces and muscly arms, and I can’t help but search the group for Jarrid. I let my mind rewind past the dinner and the photo of Gwen and the fat gold ring and Sparky to reach that moment in the aisle with him. If I concentrate enough, I can almost feel his lips on mine. I close my eyes in an effort to feel his hot breath, to imagine his long lashes closing before his lips were supposed to touch mine, and a chill runs through my shoulders.
“There’s no free table.” The hostess startles me from my daydream, and my spirit drops to its usual middle-management position.
I scour the room for people drinking coffee and eating dessert, but everyone seems to be reading the menu, which means we won’t be seated for a while.
“Everyone’s just gotten seated,” Mom says, having just noticed the same thing. She grabs my shoulders and rubs. “You are freezing, Charlotte.”
“I’m fine,” I say, shirking off her hands despite the fact that she’s right.
“Your lips are blue, honey.” She shuffles through her purse and pulls out her Elmo-red lipstick. “This will help.”
“No thanks,” I sneer, less because of the color and more because it’s Mom, which makes me realize that Mom and I have a long way to go before things are good again.
She drops it back in her bag and throws up her hands. “Suit yourself.”
“I’m ordering something hot tonight, like lasagna or soup,” I say.
“If we ever get seated.”
We take another look around the room. There are a couple of Margo clones at a booth not far from us, studying. Their hair is long and straight like Margo’s, and when they drop their chins to their books, strands stick to their extra-glossy lips.
“So Margo isn’t so sweet,” Mom says, watching the clones.
“The way Dave isn’t so sweet,” I say. “Times a thousand.”
“Strange that she would come into the store and not introduce herself to me,” Mom says.
“She wasn’t there for you.” I continue scanning the room, but I no longer see what’s in front of me. Instead I drown in concepts like shoplifting and Pudge. Jarrid’s and my almost-kiss sadly lost.
Mom cups her hands around my cheeks and turns me toward her. “You’re not telling me something.”
I take a deep breath and get ready to spill the beans when, out of the corner of my eye, I spy Jarrid sitting alone a few tables away from the senior testosterone table. I look directly at him at the same time he sees me and immediately shift my view to the clock above him. It’s already 6:30. He waves to me and I let my gaze drift downward to him and wave back, like I’m surprised he’s there. His smile turns my insides into caramel and makes my heart jump into my throat. The fuzzy sound of my heartbeat drowns out all other noise around me. These residual effects of our almost-kiss are almost too much to handle. He waves us over to his table, and I honestly wond
er if my body can take the proximity, but Mom interlaces her fingers with mine for the second time tonight and pulls me toward his booth. He stands up as we reach his table. After an excruciating hour with a man-baby hobbit, I am immediately taken aback by Jarrid’s height.
“Come sit down,” he says. “I haven’t ordered yet.” Jarrid pulls two more menus from the wire menu holder and gives them to us. When he passes me mine, his hand brushes against my finger, almost sending me into cardiac arrest. Mom slides into the booth opposite Jarrid. Every fiber in my body is urging me to sit next to him, to feel the heat of his body next to mine, and it is precisely for this reason that I plop down next to Mom: physical preservation. If a brush of the hand is enough to make me swoon, self-implosion holds high potential if we’re in the same booth.
He gives me a puzzled look as I settle in next to Mom and scoots to the middle of his two-person seat. Mom slides the book he’s reading toward her for a look.
“Sub-Saharan Africa,” she says. “Isn’t this where you want to go second semester?”
“It might be first semester,” he says, and my heart drops from my throat to my stomach. “Too many freshmen are enrolled for second semester, so the school is offering students the study-abroad option right away.” He takes a sip of his water. “To thin out the on-campus population.” He takes another sip of water and looks at me from over his straw like the cruel creature he is. I hide behind the menu and pretend to read, just to gain some sense of composure.
“Fabulous opportunity,” Mom says. “You may never come back!”
Mom and Jarrid chuckle at the thought of his never returning, an idea that is both preposterous and way too possible for my taste, and it’s at this moment that a nasty thought enters my consciousness. It’s so nasty that the tidbit of composure I’ve been able to gain from behind the menu fizzles into a black, opaque desperation. What if our almost-kiss is the closest we ever get to a real kiss? What if I never feel his lips close to mine again? What if the best moment of my life is over? What if he’s the closest thing I’ll ever get to a boyfriend?
“I’ve got to be at the shop by seven,” I say, wriggling into my coat sleeves. If I don’t leave now, I will either break into tears or heave myself across the table in the name of body contact.
“Me too,” Jarrid says. “I’ll walk you there.”
He jams his arms into his jacket, wriggles it up onto his shoulders, and stands up. “Keep the table, Mrs. Miller. We’d better get going.”
“But you all haven’t eaten,” Mom says as I kiss her good night.
“I love you, Mom.” I keep my eyes fixed on hers and smile a real smile.
“I love you too, sweetie pie,” she says with a wink, her dimple deep.
All that stuff I wanted to tell Mom, all the air that we were going to clear tonight, and in the end we barely said two words to each other. But maybe the “I love you” is all that matters. Maybe the rest is just noise.
I follow Jarrid outside and we cross the street toward Rose Avenue. It’s quiet, not a soul in sight, and we walk in silence. I can’t help but pray that he’ll pull me against the stone wall ahead and kiss me hard or at the very least grab my hand that I’ve left dangling at my side for easy accessibility. We walk under the light of the antique lamppost, and I imagine spinning around it until he stops me and pulls me in close for that spectacular kiss. All scenarios running through my head end with this soul-awakening kiss. I slow my pace as we reach the stone wall in an effort to give Jarrid a bit of extra reaction time, but the wall comes and goes and the pit of desperation within me widens. In a matter of seconds, the sidewalk is lit with storefront lights and curbside parking. The almost-kiss may have been a revelation for me, but for Jarrid, it’s a mistake. He breathes in deeply to speak, and I brace myself.
“I’ve been thinking about our kiss this morning,” he says.
“It wasn’t a kiss,” I blurt.
“In a matter of milliseconds it would’ve been one.”
“Not the same thing,” I say, because it is far from being the same thing.
He nudges my shoulder like he always does and I feel something wilt in my chest.
I’ve always imagined my first walk down Rose Avenue with a boyfriend, wondered what it would be like, who the “lucky guy” would be. Ever since I was big enough to prop myself on the register stool and watch through the storefront, I’ve seen couples walk by hand in hand or with their arms draped over the other’s shoulders; or sometimes, although rarely, I’d see them stop for a second on the sidewalk for a kiss. The lips are so sensitive that a simple touch can send endorphins racing through your body. And I’ll bet that if you’re in love with the person attached to those lips, well then the endorphins quadruple, kicking the butterflies in your stomach into overdrive and making you happier than you’ve ever been in your whole entire life. And if you can get kisses like that and get that happy rush frequently enough, there’s no doubt you’re going to live longer. Forget about exercise and eating right. Just kiss. The friendly nudge doesn’t do squat.
I’ve seen enough movies to know the components of a mind-blowing first kiss. Setting is hugely important. A first kiss in the middle of a grocery store under fluorescent lighting is going to have less butterfly value than a kiss at sunset on a quiet beach. The person you’re kissing is equally important. It has to be a heartfelt kiss, not some dutiful I-don’t-want-to-hurt-your-feelings-so-I’ll-kiss-you kind of kiss. And lastly, despite my strong belief in gender equality, the guy has to initiate it and initiate with confidence.
There is one more opportunity for Jarrid to grab me and kiss me before the avenue becomes a little too public. I can see people milling around in front of the florist and farther up the sidewalk, near our shop. But the little red door to the dentist’s office is recessed enough for two people to find some sense of intimacy. I slow my pace as we approach the office door and try to will him to kiss me via brain power. I snap the fingers of my dangling hand, but he’s oblivious.
“I’ve got that interview for the school paper tonight,” Jarrid says.
“Uh-huh.” I must bring the conversation back to our kiss, but there is no segue that will keep my mounting desperation under wraps. Once we’ve passed the dentist’s office, kissing potential drops to zero. The red doorway comes and the wilting feeling inside returns. As if that reality isn’t painful enough, I suddenly feel the stinging pinch of a blister on my right pinky toe, just as I’d anticipated at the start of the night. If only kisses were as predictable as blisters. My heart has grown so desperately numb that I don’t know if it’s in my throat or my stomach or in its rightful place. And maybe it’s this numbness that gets me grabbing his hand under the light of the antique lamppost.
“Kiss me.” I am horrified to hear these desperate words slip from my lips without warning. My whisper is deep and mature and I don’t recognize it.
And without a second’s delay, Jarrid wraps his strong arms around me, pushes me against the lamppost, and kisses me hard. And then the kisses soften and expand and become juicy. He pulls back and we both sigh deep, our gazes locked. He runs his hands through my hair, and I take in his manly stubble and perfectly full lips. I study his nose that’s been broken three times and his crooked front tooth that two years of braces couldn’t fix. He smiles widely, and I remember those horrid coffee-brown rubber bands that used to hook onto his braces and that would snap on him mid-sentence. I run my fingers over the dark eyebrows he’d shaved off on a seventh-grade dare.
“We know too much about each other,” I say in my normal voice. “And you’re going off to Africa in a couple of months. This is—”
He pulls me in tight with his easy smile and brushes his lips over mine. “I’m a bad idea,” he whispers, his hot breath like a spearmint haze, his soft eyes fixed on mine. “That it?” He rubs his nose against mine and I am intoxicated. I hear footsteps approaching, can hear their voices, but I do
n’t care. My lips pucker without my permission and he closes in for a second series of slow, sweet kisses. No, you’re a very good idea, I think.
He turns away from me toward the store up ahead, and I drop my cheek against his.
“There’s Zefi,” he sighs. “He’s got that kid Alex with him.”
“I don’t care about Alex,” I say, wanting to kiss him more.
“I know,” he whispers confidently, as if he knows what I’m feeling, as if he’s an expert in everything me-related.
He pulls away and we walk hand in hand toward Alex and Zefi, but I could stay at that lamppost forever. Alex pulls his oversize hoodie over his head until it’s curled over half his face and digs his hands deep into the pockets. Zefi is rummaging through his backpack.
“The streets are dead,” Zefi hollers toward us from a couple of stores away.
“Small-merchant meeting at Town Hall,” Jarrid calls back.
Zefi scratches in his pad and then tucks the pencil into the scraggly long hair behind his left ear. Jarrid lets go of my hand to shake Zefi’s, and I am left without his touch for the first time since the lamppost. The yearning is already building, just like it did in Herod’s. I watch him jiggle open the front door with the spare set of store keys and wonder how he’s not crumbling under the sheer impact of desire like I am. He holds the door open for Alex and Zefi, and as I file inside behind them, he squeezes my waist tightly and pulls me in for one last, wet kiss. As far as crushing desire goes, we’re in this together.
The display lights inside are dim, but I can make my way behind the register with my eyes closed. I pour myself a cup of coffee and shimmy onto the stool while Jarrid switches on the overhead lights and stacks the pretzel boxes from this morning on top of the freezer. Everything seems normal—Jarrid with the boxes and me at the register—but things couldn’t be more different.
Jarrid pulls Zefi into the far corner of the store for the interview, but in the security mirror I can see them perfectly. I watch Jarrid answer Zefi’s questions, his hair tumbling over his forehead and eyes, and I feel my stomach flip inside out and the hair on my neck stand straight; and I can’t help but wonder if this, this feeling, is love. He wriggles off his sweatshirt and lets it drop to the floor as he speaks, and something goes a little haywire inside me, so much so that I have to look away for questions of my own sanity. And when I do, my eyes meet Alex’s for the first time since the hallway yesterday.
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