Mom smiles at me. She’s not wearing any makeup, and it strikes me that she looks good this way. Or maybe it’s just the bad lighting in here. “I want you to know that if there’s anything you want to know . . . about boys, men . . . well, you can ask me anything.”
“I know.” I probably do believe this. I just can’t quite imagine myself taking her up on the offer.
“And sex.” She goes back to smoothing bedspread wrinkles. “You know how your father and I feel about sex.”
“Okay. Promise you won’t put yourself, my father, and sex in the same sentence ever again.”
We both laugh nervously. But I know she’s trying hard to be a mother here. So I try to help. “I know. Like, don’t do it, right?” This is exactly what I would tell my daughters if I were the mother.
She smiles at me and doesn’t look away. “I probably would have put it differently, like how beautiful the act of love is when there’s commitment and safety and love and marriage. But it would have boiled down to the same thing, I guess.” She stands up, then leans down and kisses my forehead. “Night, Mary Jane.”
I take a long bubble bath and fall back into bed. And when I finally drift off to sleep, I’m too tired to dream and too tired to listen to the voices in my head.
Jackson calls me as I’m driving Fred to the mall for Twisted Pretzel duty Saturday morning. I’m relieved when he acts as if nothing weird happened last night.
“I better meet you at Roy Dale,” he says after we’ve talked lovey-dovey mushy for a few minutes. “Dad’s doing inventory. I can only get away a couple of hours. I’ll be there before the game starts, but I’ll have to leave early. Dad says we’ll be at it all night. And get this. He loves inventory.”
“Was your dad genetically engineered from the same lab as Pretzel Boss? Just asking.”
“Yep. They were running a sale on them that year.”
“You’re going to love Sandy, you know,” I tell him before he hangs up.
“No doubt. I’m a softie when it comes to Ettermeyer women. That and those round chocolate mints with the candy coating. You know, like they give you after dinner at fancy restaurants?”
“You sweet talker. See you later.”
I’m almost late to Sandy’s game because Pretzel Boss mutated into Pretzel Nazi and threw a fit that I’d dare break ranks before my shift ended, even though Robbie was already there to take over.
I run inside Roy Dale and hear balls bouncing and crowd noise coming from the gym. I’m relieved to see Sandy out on the floor with her whole team, still warming up. She’s holding a ball and looking all around until her gaze stops on me. Then she drops the ball and lumbers up to me.
“Hi, kiddo!” I shout, meeting her halfway on the sidelines.
She lunges at me and throws her arms around my neck. "Marwyjan!”
I squeeze her back. That’s when I see Jackson waving at me from the bleachers. “Sandy, there’s somebody I want you to meet.”
She releases me. “Okay.”
I take her hand and lead her over to Jackson, who’s already on the sidelines walking toward us. “It’s a boy,” I whisper.
“Okay.”
We meet Jackson on what would be the fifty-yard line if we were on a football field instead of a basketball court. He’s wearing jeans and a black sweater, and I hope everybody in the gym can tell he’s mine all mine. “Sandy,” I say, nodding to Jackson, “this is Jackson House. Jackson, I’d like you to meet my sister, the Dragon, Sandy Ettermeyer.”
Jackson reaches out and shakes hands with Sandy. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for quite a while. I’m really looking forward to seeing you play, Sandy. I’ve heard a lot about you and the Dragons.”
Sandy gives him her cutest smile, which is so darn cute I can hardly stand it. “Purple,” she says, holding her shorts out like she’s going to curtsy.
“I love that color,” Jackson claims.
Sandy grins again, then turns to me. “Does this boy make you sick, Marwyjan?”
“Not so much,” I answer.
To his credit, Jackson doesn’t so much as guffaw.
From the bleachers comes a piercing whistle that could only originate from Red. I spot her behind the Dragon benches, sitting next to Alex. She waves us over. Jackson and I have already talked about Red and Alex. He remembers Alex from school. We make our way over to them, and I do the introductions.
Red says “Hi” to Jackson, then hops off the bleachers to give Sandy a big hug. “I’ve missed you, sugar!”
“I missed you, too.” Sandy touches Red’s purple jogging suit. “You like purple! I like purple!”
“Yep,” Red agrees. “Purple rules!”
“I’ve missed you, too, Red,” I say, grinning at her. She looks great. Her hair is longer than I remembered. I think she’s put on a couple of pounds, but they’re in the right places.
“Good to see you, Mary Jane,” Red says. She turns back to Sandy. “You know, Sandy, Chris says you’ve gotten to be a really good player.”
“Uh-huh,” Sandy agrees.
I love this about my sister. There’s not an ounce of conceit in her answer. She just happens to agree with Chris and doesn’t pretend anything else.
The buzzer sounds, and Sandy joins her team.
Jackson and I scoot in next to Alex. Red is already on her feet, yelling, “Go, Dragons!”
“You Ettermeyer women just keep getting better and better, ” Jackson says. “Now I see why you talk about Sandy the way you do. She’s really something. I can tell that, and I’ve only known her two minutes.”
I lock arms with him and lean in as close as I can. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more in love with Jackson House.
Chris scores from the opening jump, and Red goes crazy. Alex knows exactly what to say to calm her down. There’s something in the way he says “Red.” It calms me down, too. Red and Alex could rent themselves out as the Zoloft alternatives. Just being around them makes me less anxious. With some couples, I always feel in the way, no matter how nice they are. I can’t shake the feeling that they’re just waiting until they’re alone again. But Red and Alex make everybody feel like family.
It’s a great first half, with lots of up-and-down action, and the four of us spend more time on our feet than we do keeping the bleachers warm.
At halftime, we lead 22 to 14. Jackson and I make an appearance and chat up my rents because I can’t see my way out of it. He talks to Mom as if they’ve known each other for ages, and she doesn’t stop talking, even when I try to make our getaway. She keeps filling him in on the whole Dragon team. Dad says “Hello” when we walk up to their bleacher and “Nice to see you again” when we leave.
Jackson has to take off at the start of fourth quarter. He gives me a kiss, right in front of the Dragons, the rents, and everybody, and hollers good-bye to Sandy, who leaves the bench and runs over to give him a hug.
“He’s nice,” Red says after he’s gone.
“I think so,” I agree. “He’s my boyfriend,” I add, grinning like when we were ten.
“I noticed.”
I don’t think I realized how much I’ve missed Red. I always thought of her as more Alicia’s friend than mine because they were in the same class. But Red couldn’t have been cooler to me in high school. And if I really needed help, I always knew I could count on her.
She trades places with Alex so she and I can sit next to each other. I watch the way Alex watches her as she moves past him on the bleachers. His hands are raised slightly, ready to catch her if she trips. He touches her arm as she sits down. If there really is a look of love, that boy has it for Red.
“So how long have you and Jackson been going out?” Red asks.
I give her the highlights in between bursts of cheers for both teams. Sandy gets fouled and has to shoot two shots from the “mistake line.” She misses them both. But when the second one hits the rim, her team cheers for her. Chris rushes over and gives her a hug, then gets a rebound and scores.
“Chris is crazy about Sandy, you know,” Red confides.
“Yeah?” I glance at Alex, and the way he grins tells me he already knows this bit of information.
“Tell her about the phone call,” Alex urges.
Red sits down. “Okay. So Alex and I are making popcorn. But we hear Chris talking back in Dad’s den. And we don’t mean to eavesdrop—”
“Yeah, right,” Alex interrupts.
She punches his arm. “So we hear him talking about basketball and figure out he’s called Sandy.”
“Since he’d asked Red to write down Sandy’s number for him that morning,” Alex chimes in.
“I never knew he called her.” I wonder if Mom knew, if Sandy told her, why Sandy didn’t tell me.
“You might have been on pretzel patrol,” Red suggests. “Anyway, we hear Chris ask Sandy if he could kiss her.”
“No way!” I can’t stand that this happened and I didn’t know anything about it.
“Yep,” Red continues. “He even said ‘please.’”
“What did Sandy say?”
“We couldn’t hear her part of the conversation,” Alex explains. “But we figured our boy got shut down in a nice way.”
Red picks it up from there. “Because there’s a little silence. And then, without missing a beat, Chris asks her if she likes Bugs Bunny or Spider-Man best.”
That makes me laugh. It’s the kind of nontransition Sandy would make, too.
“Chris didn’t even seem upset or let down or anything,” Alex continues.
“Still,” Red muses, “I wish I had a recording of that call. I sure would like to know what Sandy said.”
The rest of the game, I keep one eye on Sandy and Chris and the other on Alex and Red. Sandy doesn’t treat Chris any differently from the other players. I think I catch Chris staring at Sandy a couple of times, but neither of them appears nervous when they’re standing close together. I make a mental note to ask my sister about Chris’s phone call when we get home.
Watching Alex and Red tells another story. They hold hands and laugh at shared jokes. The voices in my head do a running commentary on the couple:Plain Jane: Now there’s a real couple. And an extremely handsome couple at that. Look up cute in the dictionary, and you ought to find a picture of Alex and Red. They’re the real deal.
M.J.: Look how they can’t keep their hands off each other. They’re either holding hands or linking arms or playing footsie. They are so doing it!
I try to put the thought out of my head. But the whole world has turned into couples for me. And as I gaze around at the couples seated in the gym, the one question on my mind is whether or not these couples are doing it.
I want to talk to Red, but I can’t. Not with Alex around. She’s only home on weekends. I can’t ask her to give me time that she could be spending with Alex.
But I need to talk. I still haven’t been able to get Alicia on the phone. And anyway, Red’s the one I want to talk to now. I want her to tell me how Alex and she can stay in love for so many years.
With less than a minute to play, I break down and ask, “Red? Do you think Alex could spare you for an hour after the game? I hate to ask. But I need to talk.”
She smiles at me, then turns and says something to Alex.
He grins over at me. “Not a problem.”
The buzzer sounds, and it’s another victory for the Dragons.
We congratulate Sandy and Chris and the players on both sides. Then Alex, Red, and I make our way to the parking lot. Alex walks with us to Fred.
“Thanks, Alex. I appreciate you loaning me Red. I’ll get her back ASAP. Promise.”
“Hey, the good Lord wants us to share, right?” He frowns at Fred. “Just bring her back in one piece?” He kisses Red quickly, but she keeps hold of his hand and pulls him back. Then they exchange a real kiss.
M.J. is screaming in my head, They are totally doing it!
When they’re done, Alex looks like a little boy who’s just been caught stealing cookies.
“So you guys are still in love, huh?” I observe.
Red turns to me, hands on hips. “We hold these truths to be self-evident!”
“What she said,” Alex agrees.
I laugh hard, because history-loving Red has always used this line from the Declaration of Independence instead of “Duh,” like the rest of us.
Red and I drive around for a while and talk about everything except what’s really on my mind. Then I pull in at a fast food, and we get fries to share.
“Alicia’s coming to the next game the day after Thanksgiving, ” I tell her.
“Man, I’d like to see her!” Red exclaims. “I’m so bummed that I have to miss the game. Now I’ll miss Alicia, too. We kind of lost touch.”
“Why can’t you be here?”
“Alex and I are going to California for Thanksgiving break. It’s time to visit Alex’s dad and the new wife.”
“Is he close to his dad?” I kind of remember when his parents got a divorce. I don’t think Alex saw his dad much after that.
“Nope. Not sure about this new wife either. She’s just a couple years older than we are. She thought Alex was kidding when he told her we needed separate bedrooms.”
I know I’m not going to get a better opening than this. “Separate bedrooms, huh? Guess that means you’re hanging on to your membership in AIA.” I make it a joke, but I wait for an answer.
Red shakes her head, then turns to me. “Abstinence in Action. Man, was that like a thousand years ago? I haven’t thought about that for a long time.”
I knew it!
“We were pretty smart for kids, huh?”
“We were? I guess.”
She narrows her brown eyes and lets me know she’s on to me. “Okay. I may not have thought about our pact for a while, but I sure do think about abstinence all the time. I have to.” She laughs. It’s the same laugh I remember—loud, unrestrained, out there. “I have to because being around that man of mine can’t help but make me think about sex.” She sighs deeply. “He is so sexy, isn’t he?”
“But . . . but you mean . . . you and Alex haven’t . . . you’re not—”
“Nope.”
“But you’re so much in love.”
“Which is why we’re waiting until we get married.”
“Isn’t it hard?” I think of Jackson and me on that bed in his furniture shop, and I shiver inside.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Red turns in her seat and draws her knees up, so she’s sitting on her feet, just like she used to do on my bedroom floor when she and Alicia came over to listen to music. “Okay,” she begins, “sex is intense. Even if you’re positive you’re not risking AIDS or STDs, sex changes everything in a relationship. It takes over and grows without any effort at all. Communication takes effort, so why work at that anymore? Then you’ve got this intense, confusing relationship with nowhere to go.”
I wish Alicia were here to make her case for true love and true sex. I’d much rather sit in the background and listen to the two of them debate. “What about Alex? How’s he handling it?”
“Alex and I have our own pact. He’s coming from a different place. You know how much that boy believes in God.”
I’m uncomfortable now, so I try to lighten us up. “So he’s afraid God will zap you if you have sex?” I laugh, and so does she.
“No way! Alex says sex is God’s thing. God made the equipment, and he knows when it ought to be used to get the most out of it. And we plan to get the most out of it, girl. You just wait for the earthquake that’s going to register on that Richter scale on our wedding night!”
We’re quiet for a minute. I can’t bring myself to ask her all the other questions the voices are shouting in my head: How does she stand it? Isn’t she afraid she’ll lose him? Does she feel like they’re the only ones waiting?
I steer the conversation back to Dragon basketball until I drive her home.
“Thanks for the fries, Mary Jane,” Red says
when I pull up in her driveway. “Tell Alicia to call me or e-mail.” She gets out of Fred but leans in before she shuts the door.
“I’ll tell her,” I promise. “And thanks, Red. I know you think I’m crazy. But I needed tonight. Things have been getting kind of confusing lately.”
She grins and winks. “Mary Jane, we hold these truths to be self-evident.”
23
The Plan
All week I count down minutes to Thanksgiving break. Then the last day of school, Jackson shows up with bad news. As in Paul-Bunyan-sized bad news.
“My mom was on the phone half the night with my grandmother. Gram’s got a cold. They can’t come down here for Thanksgiving, so we have to go up there. We’re leaving today, Mary Jane.”
“No!” I protest. “Can’t you stay home without them? You could have Thanksgiving dinner with us.” As soon as I say it, I know it’s a bad idea. Thanksgiving at the Ettermeyers’ has the potential to destroy relationships. My uncle used to bring a different date every year, but it usually ended up being his last date with said girlfriend-of-the-year. He and my dad have an unspoken rivalry that sometimes gets spoken on Thanksgiving.
Jackson is shaking his head. “I tried everything, including claiming that I’ve developed an allergy to turkey and sweet potatoes. No way out. We’re driving to Oak Lawn right after I get out of class.”
“Today?” It’s starting to sink in. “You’re leaving today?” That means I won’t see him tonight. Or tomorrow. I don’t know if I can stand being away from him that long.
His arm tightens around me. “I know. Believe me, I’d stay home if I could. But listen. It could work out for us, Mary Jane.”
I can’t imagine how his being gone could possibly work out for us.
“I talked them into driving two cars. Dad got a deal on some lamps and end tables my grandma’s been looking for. He’s filled the backseat of his car. So he was glad to have me drive and take the rest of the boxes.”
“Still waiting to see how this works for us,” I say impatiently.
Crazy in Love Page 14