“You’re in a good mood today,” Willow remarks, but I sober when we take our kids to the science station before lunch. Luke is as mesmerizing and as in control as he was on his first day, yesterday. He is funny and silly and passionate, and watching him, my heart pounds in my throat. Thankfully, he does not acknowledge me. When he has a question about the field trip next week, he asks Willow and not me.
At lunchtime, though, he shows up in the cafeteria. He’s sitting at the second staff table with Eric, who goes by Ace at camp, and Ruby/Rouge, and a couple other staff members. Unless we’re on lunch duty, leaders can go off-campus for lunch, but it’s such a short break that most of us stay and eat in the cafeteria anyway.
“J.J.—”
A ten-year-old girl with freckles taps me on the back just as I’m unwrapping the sandwich I’ve brought from home.
“What’s up?”
“Can you help me open my container of yogurt?” Casey is one of the sweetest kids in my group, but one of the least independent. She has me and Willow do everything from tie her shoelaces to put her hair up for her. She’d probably have one of us feed her if she could.
“You can’t get it open?” I ask, and she shakes her head.
“Show me,” I say. I’m willing to help if she needs it, but I want her to at least attempt it.
She makes a face as she struggles to get the lid off the bottle.
“So close,” I say. “Try again?”
She twists and twists, and the top comes off.
“There you go!” I say enthusiastically.
“Most times I can’t get it open,” she says, trying to justify her coming to me.
“That’s okay. Just have to keep trying,” I say, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“Thanks, J.J.!” she calls before running back to her table in the middle of the hall.
I turn back, intending to follow the conversation Willow and Brett are having about pores versus follicles, but someone calls my name.
“Hey, J.J.?” I turn, expecting it to be another student, but it’s Eric. Unfortunately, it’s too late to pretend I didn’t hear him.
“What?” I ask.
“What’s the J.J. stand for? Just Jessi? Jessi Junior?” I can tell by the glint in his eyes that he’s gearing up for something good.
I turn back to my food.
“Like, are you second in line to some kind of dynasty or throne? A family business?” he muses. “Can you say what y’all do? Or not in front of the children?”
Someone snickers at his table.
I roll my eyes and go back to eating.
The worst part isn’t that he’s still making these kinds of jokes; it’s that today he’s doing it in Luke’s presence.
“You know, you can tell us. No judgment among friends,” Eric continues.
“Ignore him,” Willow tells me, and I nod.
“Brett’s going to be in my video tonight,” Willow continues, clearly trying to distract me. “We’re doing some gross Boyfriend Versus challenge, where we have to eat nasty stuff.”
“Ew, what are you eating?” I ask.
Thankfully, Eric seems to be out of material for the day and I’m able to continue the rest of my lunch without further interruptions.
On Thursday, though, it’s the same thing.
“Is J.J. like one of those pseudonym things? Did you get it in the witness protection program?”
His jokes are scraping the bottom of the barrel, so I don’t even flinch when he starts.
“Give it a rest, would you?” Willow says, but Eric ignores her.
“I’m just asking a question. Can’t I ask a question? Inquiring minds want to know.”
On Friday, by the time I sit down and he starts up again, I’m close to snapping. At first I was embarrassed that Eric was doing this in front of everyone, especially Luke, but now it seems as if he’s doing it because of Luke. As if Luke’s presence has emboldened him or something.
“I think I figured it out,” he shouts across our two tables. “It’s Jessi Job, isn’t it? Like a handy with whatever special you decide to include.”
Both our tables are quiet, and anger sears the back of my neck. “Fuck you, Eric.”
Over the past eight months, my strategy has mostly been to ignore him, but he’s getting worse.
“Is there an offer in there somewhere?” Eric asks, looking around comically. I’m so tempted to grab my salad and dump it over his idiotic head, but the last thing I want to do is make a scene and show him how much his words get to me. Instead, I push up from the table, throw my food in the nearest garbage can, and storm across the hall toward the cafeteria doors. I’ve almost reached them when someone grabs me by the arm.
My first thought is that it’s Eric, so I shrug the arm off, but the person catches mine again.
“What the hell do you—” I spin around and find myself face to face with Luke. I don’t have the chance to finish asking my question before his lips are on mine. His mouth devours mine in a hungry rush that lasts one second, two seconds, and then the kiss is over and he’s gone. Someone wolf whistles, and I watch Luke stalk over to the food line as if nothing happened.
I steal a look at the staff table, and a bunch of shocked faces stare back at me. Willow looks particularly shaken.
I march over to the line, where Luke is laughing with one of the lunch ladies as she scoops a spoon of mashed potatoes onto his plate. I grab his elbow and start to drag him toward the exit. He abandons his plate on an empty table as he follows me.
Once we’re outside, I slam my hand against his chest, but he doesn’t budge.
“What the hell was that?”
“What?” he asks, as if he just got here.
“Why did you kiss me?”
He blinks at me, then looks away, and for a long moment there is only silence between us. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. “Were you just going to let Eric get away with the shit he was saying about you?”
“Luke . . .” I begin, but I can’t make any more words come. My lips are still tingling from the feel and taste of him. It’s pretty much the very last thing I expected, to have his mouth on mine again.
He’s still not looking at me, but finally he sighs. “Eric thinks he’s impressing me by running his mouth. He keeps looking over at me after making his comments, checking for some sign of approval, and I just . . . now he knows he and I are not on the same side.”
It takes me a second to understand what he’s saying. Luke kissed me to show everyone that he’s on my side. Or at least not on the same side as Eric. Some small part of me sees this as a nice gesture, but the larger part of me, which controls my tongue, is suddenly furious at Luke’s reasoning. He kissed me to protect me? “I can defend myself,” I say in a growl.
“Is that what you did in there?” he asks, eyes narrowed. “Defend yourself?”
“Yes, it is,” I spit. “Maybe I needed saving when I was seven and didn’t have a mother, but I’m none of those things now. I don’t need your help.”
He starts to say something, but I speak over him.
“Did you see the way everyone was staring at us? Now they’ll think there’s something going on between us.”
“Good,” he says. “It should help us keep our story straight.”
At this point, my blood is straight-up boiling and I can’t tell who I’m more upset at, Luke or Eric.
“Don’t ever ambush me like that again. I don’t need your help,” I repeat.
We watch each other for a minute, and then his jaw tightens. “Got it.”
He walks off and disappears around the side of the building. I take a deep breath and go the other way, back to the rec room, trying to figure out what I’m going to say to Willow and how the hell I’m supposed to explain what just happened.
NOW
Because Willow is pretty much the sweetest human in the entire world, she’s more worried about me than anything.
“I wanted to punch Eric’s face in,” she says. “Are
you sure you don’t want to report him to Diana?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s fine.”
Because Willow is also unequivocally the most inquisitive person in the entire world, she wants to know everything.
“So obviously you know Duke. Luke. Whatever his name is. How do you know him?” she asks as we clean up the rec room while our campers are at art with Rouge.
“How do you know I know him?”
She gives me a disbelieving look. “Because people who just met two days ago do not kiss like that. Also, I’ve been trying to set you up with my cousin since the day we met, and you’re like, ‘No, are you sure he’s a good guy? I don’t think you’ve known him long enough.’ ”
I laugh. “I did not say that.”
“You implied it. You were like, but how do you know he’s good?”
I wince at her impersonation of me. So maybe I am a little overzealous about knowing people before dating them, but given the fact that I knew my only boyfriend for ten years before anything happened, can you blame me?
“So how do you know him?” Willow asks again.
I struggle to find the right words.
Do I start with Mel? Ro? Mel and Ro?
“He’s my ex,” I say, the simplest answer I have.
“Oooh. But you’re back on now, right?” she asks. “That kiss was definitely Back On.”
“We’re, um, figuring it out,” I say. As easy as it would be to just deny everything, Luke had a point about keeping our story straight. If we’re pretending to be something for the next few months, I better get used to it. I guess I hoped that the only person we’d be pretending for was Mel.
“I wish you’d have told me when I met him. I was like he’s so cute. I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not,” I say. “I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
Willow stares at me for a second. “It’s weird that you didn’t, but I forgive you. Relationships are so confusing.”
“Is everything okay with Brett?” I ask.
She sighs. “I guess. It’s just that he keeps wanting me to introduce him to my parents, and I’m not ready. He’s like, ‘So what happens if your dad stumbles on one of your videos and I’m in it?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, if he stumbles on one of my videos, that’s problem numero uno because xothelodown does not exist as far as he’s concerned.’”
“Do you ever think you should just tell your dad?” I ask.
“Every day,” she says. “But he’s so weird about everything. He thinks my only concerns should be school and getting my business degree and taking over the family business. He thinks makeup is my hobby. And that boyfriends are a waste of time. Where exactly does making fun videos for a living fit into all of that?”
I give her a sympathetic look. “Parents are so weird.”
“Agreed,” she says. “Well, anyway, if you and Luke ever want to double with me and Brett, we could totally do that.”
I wipe at a swatch of marker graffiti on a desk. Someone needs to tell these kids to maybe not write their full name when they’re defiling city property. “Thanks,” I say noncommittally.
I know the last thing Luke and I are going to be doing anytime soon is going on double dates, but I decide this is one more thing I’m going to have to keep to myself.
8
THEN
The truth was, I had been almost bursting from wanting to tell Mel.
Other than the fact that I liked Luke, I had never kept a secret this big from her. In fact, my liking him hadn’t even been a secret; she and I had both known it but just never discussed it.
For the week after our fro-yo date, when Luke was back at State, he and I kept in touch, texting and talking every night. A couple of times, we fell asleep talking on the phone. He told me my lips tasted like cherries (probably thanks to my favorite ChapStick), and I told him I couldn’t get enough of the way he smelled. I could hear the grin in his voice when he promised to give me one of his shirts when he came home again that weekend.
Six hours was a long way to drive, but Luke liked being able to check in on Mel. Plus, we had to tell her. This was for real now.
I’d wanted him in the house for moral support when I told Mel, so he was upstairs. For some reason, I’d thought it would go over better if I did the actual telling alone. Maybe if I approached it right, she’d just see it as an extension of girl talk and be totally casual about the whole thing.
It’s no big deal, I told myself over and over, but my hands were shaking as I walked into the kitchen. I’d talked to Mel many times in the past about boys, of course. And she always gave me advice like “Be yourself” and “Carry breath mints” and “Girls can totally make the first move.” But none of those boys had been her son. I had no idea how she was going to react. Would she yell? Laugh in my face? Throw me out of her house and forbid me and Luke to see each other? That afternoon when Nay and Mel were high had made me uncertain of just how Mel felt about my feelings for Luke.
The kitchen had that yeasty bread-baking smell. Ever since her treatment started, Mel had hardly been able to stomach baked goods. But baking had always been what she did when she was anxious or happy or sad, so even though she couldn’t eat much, on days when she wasn’t wiped out from the Big Bad, she was in the kitchen.
That day, she was sitting at the counter, stirring a bowl of something. A bandanna covered most of her head. Mel had never been a skinny woman, and a lump filled my throat when I saw the way her collarbones were starting to protrude.
“Jessi-girl, did you just get here?” she said, stretching her arm out so I could hug her. I clung to her for a minute, then backed away.
One of her eyebrows skirted up, and I could tell that my body language had already alerted her that something was up. So I blurted it out before she could ask, before I could talk myself out of it.
“Something happened with Luke,” I said.
From her lack of reaction, I wasn’t entirely sure she’d heard me. In fact, the next thing she did was to hold out the wooden spoon so I could taste the batter.
I did.
Finally she sighed. “Is that why he’s home this weekend?”
I nodded, horrified, but not surprised that she’d figured us out that quickly.
“Get Luke,” she said. “He’s in his room.”
A few minutes later the three of us sat in the living room. Luke and I sat on opposite sides of the long couch while Mel sat in the middle of the loveseat.
“Okay, so I guess ground rules?” Mel said, puffing out her cheeks and releasing a breath.
I stole a look in Luke’s direction and found he was giving me the same quizzical look.
“No closing the door of your room when you’re alone. Actually, no closing the door of any room,” she said. As if talking to herself, she continued. “You’d think that would be enough of a deterrent, but contrary to popular belief, I actually was both seventeen and eighteen, so I’ll say this too: the most important thing is that you are safe.”
Luke groaned, and I buried my face in my hands.
Mel soldiered on. “I’m serious . . . There are lots of urges and all kinds of things . . .”
“God, Mom,” Luke said. “All we did was kiss.” He turned to look at me. “What did you tell her?”
I shrugged helplessly.
“Listen, if you can do it, then you sure as hell better be able to talk about it. Any other way is a cop-out, and we’re not doing that.”
“Mel . . .” I pleaded.
“I’m only saying this because I love you both and I know you’re smart, but this is one of those Mom things that you only get the chance to do once, and that’s if you’re lucky,” Mel said, suddenly getting choked up. “So I’m not wasting this—one of those opportunities to embarrass you and scar you for the rest of your adult lives.” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, but she was laughing.
Luke stood up and walked over to her, giving her a side hug. I went to her other side and did the same.
&nb
sp; She held us that way for a while, the two of us pillars by her side. Or maybe she was the one holding us up; it was hard to say. Finally she squeezed out from between us. “Well, I might be a downer, but I know better than to be a third wheel.”
“You’ll never be a third wheel,” I assured her, and she laughed. She stood up and headed for the kitchen, leaving Luke and me on one couch again, with less space between us.
The reality of this moment setting in, I felt a wave of embarrassment and brushed some invisible lint off my dress to avoid meeting Luke’s eye. When I did glance up, he was looking at me in this weird way, like he was trying not to laugh.
“So that went . . . well? I think?” he said.
“It could have been worse,” I agreed. “She could have repeated the banana demo she gave us when we were twelve.” I hadn’t even stopped playing with dolls then.
“Don’t remind me,” Luke said with a shudder. “I got it first.”
It dawned on me that we were sitting around talking about sex ed. Or Mel’s version of it anyway.
“Want to watch TV?” Luke asked.
“Sure.”
He grabbed the remote, then came back and sat down, and the awkwardness was making it hard for me to breathe. I started to panic. Maybe our connection wasn’t the earthshattering thing I’d thought it was when there was six hours of distance between us. Maybe we’d jumped the gun by telling Mel. Maybe . . .
Luke found some random sitcom, plopped the remote down on the ottoman, and patted his lap.
“Feet?” he asked, and it took me a second to understand what he was saying. When I did, I turned on the couch so I was facing him, adjusted my dress, and stretched out my legs over his lap the way I’d been doing for years. Everything might have changed, but he was still my footrest.
His thumb made small circles on the top of my foot. He used to tickle my feet to annoy me when we were younger, but he’d grown out of that a couple of years ago and now it was more like a feather-light foot massage.
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