by Julia Watts
“I promise I won’t do that this time.” Mom sets a slab of cake in front of me. It’s a mess, but it still tastes good. “Thanks for doing all this.”
“Oh, and there’s one more thing,” Mom says. “A present.”
“Really? You didn’t have to.” When I was little, Mom always made sure I got a present on my birthday, but as I got older and money got tighter, birthdays were usually just dinner and cake.
“I wanted to. Like I said, you don’t turn seventeen but once.” She gets up and opens the drawer I call the Drawer of Randomness and pulls out a little box wrapped in pink tissue paper with a white bow. “I know pink’s my color, not yours, but there was no way I was gonna wrap a birthday present in black paper.”
“Fair enough,” I say. I carefully unwrap the package and stick the bow in my hair, which makes her smile because I’ve done it since I was little. Inside the box is a pair of tiny hoop earrings. The satin-covered card they’re mounted on identifies them as sterling silver. She really splurged. “These are beautiful. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Buttercup. And now I’m gonna smoke a cigarette on the porch. I believe you’ve got a phone call to make.”
Once Mom’s outside, I take out Tara’s card. I stare at it, and then I stare at the phone. I think for a minute about calling Rufus so he can help me get my nerve up, but I know that would just be procrastinating. I pick up the phone. My hand shakes, and my birthday dinner clenches in my stomach. I punch in the number and decide I’ll hang up if she hasn’t answered by the fifth ring.
She gets it on the third. “Hello?”
“Uh… is this Tara?” I can tell it is, but for some reason I ask anyway.
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Uh… you probably don’t remember me? We met at Buckner’s the other night?” I’ve turned into Rising Inflection Girl, so insecure that everything that comes out of my mouth sounds like a question.
“Syd, right?”
“You remember.”
“Sure I remember. I gave you my card. So… what are you doing?”
“Nothing. Talking to you, I guess.” I wince.
“Hey, that sounds just like what I’m doing. You wanna come over?”
My stomach knots so tight I imagine tentacles of spaghetti strangling the piece of birthday cake. “Sure, I guess. I don’t know where you live.”
“You know where the A and J garage is out past the junkyard?”
“Yeah,” I say. The A and J is a concrete block building surrounded by old cars in various states of repair and disrepair.
“I live in an apartment over the garage. It’s crappy, so don’t expect much. Just ring the bell by the garage door, and I’ll come down and let you in.”
THE BELL by the garage door has a sign over it that says “Ring for service,” which makes me giggle wildly, though it’s probably just nerves. My hand shakes when I push the button.
I wait for what seems like many minutes, and I’m just about to give up when Tara appears at the door. She doesn’t have on her eyeliner, which makes her look both younger and more boyish. She has on a black tank top that shows off her biceps. “Hey,” she says.
I swallow hard. “Hey.”
“Come on in.”
I follow her through the work area of the body shop and up a flight of rickety stairs.
“Here we are,” she says. “I told you it was a crappy apartment.”
It’s almost too tiny to be called an apartment. It’s just one room, maybe half again the size of my bedroom. There’s a double bed covered with a quilt, a minifridge and a counter with a two-burner stove and a small sink. “I like it,” I say, wondering where we’ll sit.
“Yeah. It suits me, really. I’ve got everything I need here. Well, everything but a bathroom, but I use the one down in the garage. There’s a shower there too.”
The walls are papered with posters of rock bands—the Rolling Stones, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, plus some I’ve never heard of. On a milk crate against the far wall sits something I’ve never really seen up close. “Is that an old LP player?”
Tara grins. “Hell, yeah, it is. My great-uncle gave it to me when I was thirteen years old. He gave me most of his record collection too. Best gift I’ve ever got. I’ve added to the collection with what I can find at flea markets and yard sales and stuff like that. Look through them if you want to.”
Two milk crates full of LPs are on the floor next to the record player. I start flipping through them. “I love the covers of old records,” I say, pulling out Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. “It’s a lost art now, you know?”
“For real,” Tara says, sitting down on the floor beside me. “Check out this one.” She pulls out the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, with a real zipper on the crotch of Mick Jagger’s jeans.
“I’ve heard of this cover,” I say. “It’s rare, isn’t it?”
“Rare as hell. It’s worth some real money too. But I’d sell just about anything else I owned before I’d get rid of it. Why don’t you pick out something for us to listen to?”
This sends me into a state of near panic. What if she’s testing me, and I make a stupid choice? “You know more about music than I do. Why don’t you pick something?”
“Throwing the ball back into my court, huh?” Tara says. “Okay.” She flips through the records. “Here. I’m gonna play this one. You know The Pretenders?”
“I think I’ve heard of them.”
“Well, I’m gonna play them because when I first saw you the other night—the way you wear your hair and your eye makeup and everything, I thought you looked like Chrissie Hynde back in the day. She’s the lead singer. See?”
She shows me the album cover, and Chrissie Hynde’s hair is shoulder-length and spiky like mine, and her eyes are made up to look all smoky. She’s pretty but in a strong way. “Well, that’s a compliment. Thanks.”
“Wait till you hear her voice.” Tara takes out the record and puts it on the turntable. Chrissie Hynde sounds like she looks, sexy, smoky, strong.
“Wow,” I say.
“Yeah.” Tara stands. “You want a beer?”
“Um… I’m seventeen.” I almost said sixteen out of habit.
She laughs. “What’s that got to do with whether you want a beer or not?”
I laugh too. “I guess just because I’m underage.”
“Hell, according to the law, I’m underage too,” Tara says. “I’m twenty. But if I’m old enough to be out of school and hold down a job, I figure I’m old enough to drink a beer.”
“I agree.”
Tara takes a bottle of Bud out of the fridge. “Hey, you were drinking coffee the other night at Buckner’s, right? There’s a pot downstairs that’s still pretty fresh.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
With her beer in one hand, Tara disappears down the stairs. Chrissie Hynde’s voice melts over me like warm butter, but I still can’t get over my nervousness at being alone with Tara.
“Why don’t you come sit on the bed?” Tara says when she’s back with my coffee. “It’s softer than the floor.” She sits on the edge of the bed and pats the spot beside her.
Part of me wonders what she means by inviting me to sit on the bed with her. But another part of me says it’s because the bed’s the only furniture in the room. I sit beside her—not too close—and she hands me my coffee.
She touches her beer bottle to my Styrofoam cup and says, “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I say and sip the truly terrible coffee.
“God, I love this album,” Tara says. “It seems like all people want to do anymore is listen to one song at a time on their iPods or whatever. Nobody has the attention span to settle down and listen to a real album.”
“That’s how I feel about movies too,” I say. “It seems like new movies are all about explosions and chase scenes and special effects. But old movies you have to pay attention to. They’re really about something.”
“Yeah,” Tara says, then she l
ooks at me. “I like you, Syd.”
My stomach does a gymnastic flip. “I like you too.”
“You remember in grade school when boys used to pass girls notes that said, ‘Do you like me—check one, yes or no?’”
I nod.
“That’s how I like you.”
I take a deep breath because for the past few seconds, I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten to breathe. “I think… I think that’s how I like you too.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes, listening to Chrissie Hynde sing about how she’s going to use her fingers and her imagination. Then Tara takes the coffee cup out of my hand and sets it on the floor beside her empty beer bottle. She reaches out and touches my cheek lightly, then leans toward me until our lips just touch. It’s soft and sweet, and my insides feel like I’ve just swallowed a mouthful of hot chocolate on a cold day.
When she pulls away, I whisper, “That was my first kiss.”
“Really?” Tara says. “Well, you’d better have a second one.” She kisses me again, longer and harder this time. She wraps her arms around me, and I wrap mine around her, feeling the bare skin of her shoulders, soft but strong underneath. Soon we’re lying on the bed pressed against each other. I feel her breasts against mine, and my hand rests on the curve of her hip under her Levi’s.
She pulls back a little. “I don’t want to move too fast with you, Syd, since you just had your first kiss, like, five minutes ago. But it’s hard to hold back because you’re so, so beautiful.”
I laugh.
“What?”
“That’s just not the way I think of myself.”
“Well, maybe you’d better start.” She kisses me, a light one this time. “How many kisses does that make?”
“I’ve lost count.”
She grins. “Good.”
IT’S ALMOST midnight by the time I get home. Mom comes out of the bathroom in a T-shirt and panties, brushing her teeth. She smiles a foamy smile. “Well, it looks like somebody had a happy birthday.”
“I did,” I say, smiling back at her.
“You want to tell your mama about it?”
My face heats up. “Actually, I’m pretty tired.”
Mom whoops with laughter. “I bet you are, Buttercup! I bet you are.”
TONIGHT MOM’S out at a party one of her customers from the shop is having. Apparently this woman sells lingerie and “adult novelties” at her house the way housewives used to sell Tupperware. I know Rufus thinks I’m just embarrassed by my mom the way teenagers always are, but honestly, he doesn’t know the half of it. It’s one thing for a mom to go to something like that discreetly. It’s another for her to announce to her daughter that she’s hoping to buy a pair of crotchless panties.
Even if I don’t like to think about what Mom’s up to, it’s nice to have the house to myself. I take the last cup of coffee from the coffeemaker and curl up on the couch in front of the TV. There’s nothing good on. I wish I had cable like Rufus. My thoughts wander back to Tara… to her crooked grin, her strong hands, and her kisses—the soft ones and the not-so-soft ones. I’m supposed to go hear her band practice tomorrow night. I wonder if we’ll get to spend some time alone together too. I wonder if it’s normal that I’m thinking about her so much or if I’m turning into a stalker. I wish I could talk to Rufus, and then I realize that duh, I can. All I have to do is pick up the phone.
“Snow residence.” It’s Rufus’s mom.
If she’s going to answer in such a highfalutin way, I figure I’d better put on my best manners. “Hello, Mrs. Snow. This is Syd Simmons. Is Rufus available?”
“Oh, Syd, how nice to hear from you. He certainly is. Can you hold on for just a moment?”
When Rufus answers, he says, “Syd? This is weird. We never talk on the phone.”
“I know. But Mom’s at a party, and I just wanted to talk. Can you talk… like, in private?”
“Sure. I’ll just take the phone into my room.”
“Your parents will probably think we’re having phone sex or something.”
Rufus laughs. “I doubt my parents have ever even heard of phone sex.”
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“Syd, don’t go there,” Rufus says, laughing harder. “There are some images I just can’t have in my mind. So… how was your date?”
“It was good.”
“How good?” Rufus asks, and I know one of his eyebrows is raised even though I can’t see him.
“Really good. We talked and listened to music. And kissed and stuff.”
“Define ‘stuff.’”
“Okay, no stuff. Just kissing.”
“Pecking kissing or making-out kissing?”
I laugh. “The latter.”
“Syd, I’m scandalized!”
“Oh, you are not.”
“You’re right. I’m not. I am happy for you, though. You liked it, right?”
“Yeah, a lot. I was like, oh, so that’s what all the fuss is about. I get it now!”
“Like Madeline Kahn in Young Frankenstein when she starts singing, ‘Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you.’” He sings the last part in a mock opera voice.
“I didn’t know you could sing.”
“That’s because I can’t.”
After we laugh some more, I say, “I’m nervous, though, about what happens if things go further than kissing.”
“Well, you can always say no.”
“I don’t think I want to say no.”
“Then I guess ‘yes’ would be the obvious choice.”
“Yeah, but I’m nervous about not knowing how to do what I’m saying yes to! Rufus, you’re so much more experienced than I am.”
“In some ways I am. In others, not so much. I mean, I’ve given and gotten hand jobs, but I’ve never had a real kiss.”
I hate to think that Rufus’s only contact with other guys has been about physical release with no affection. “That’s sad.”
“You’re telling me. Syd, I’m sure Tara will be more than happy to show you the ropes, figuratively speaking.”
“It better be figuratively speaking. If ropes are involved, I’m definitely in over my head.”
He laughs. “Oh no, I’ve got to go. Mom needs to use the phone.”
“Okay. Coffee soon?”
“Definitely.”
TRUE TO the cliché, Tara’s band practices in a garage. It’s the garage of Scott, the guitarist who, unbeknownst to him, is my supposed boyfriend. Well, really, it’s his mother’s garage.
Right now the band’s tearing through a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” and it’s so loud it feels like the garage walls are going to blow right off. Tara looks at me the whole time she’s singing, which is both embarrassing and sexy.
When they finish I applaud, even though Scott is no Jimmy Page, and Tara grins at me and says, “Thanks, doll.” She reaches into the fridge, grabs another beer, and says, “Want one?”
“No thanks.” I’m the only one in the room who’s not drinking. Scott lights a joint, takes a puff, then passes it. The sweet, leafy smell is kind of pleasant, but I say no to it too. Someday I may loosen up enough to say yes to these things, but not while I’m still in Vermillion. I want to escape physically before I let myself escape mentally.
After a few hits of the joint, Tara comes over and kisses me on the forehead. “Hey, beautiful,” she says, her eyes all dreamy. “After we run through a couple of more songs, you wanna come back to my place?”
This, I can’t say no to.
Rufus
I CAN’T believe that it’s almost the end of summer already. I realized today, thinking about it, that summer in Vermillion, and going back to school, are kind of like that old saying I’ve heard from Mama about the frying pan and the fire, and I honestly don’t know which one is worse.
I’d rather be somewhere cool, and in a way, I have been—because I’ve been painting.
My being around the house so much all of a sudden seemed to be a b
ig surprise for Mama, since for weeks I was going to the library almost every day.
I wish there had been some way that I could have started painting without letting her or Daddy know about it, but given that home is the only place I have to do it, and that I can’t do it in my bedroom, working somewhere else wasn’t an option. So I’m working in the garage. There’s a sink out there, and also I can leave the door open for ventilation, but it’s really hot. I kind of like the idea of sweating so much while doing something so cool.
Mama keeps asking me how it’s going, which is a little annoying but also nice, because it means she cares. And I know she means well. And she’s respected my privacy so far too, and hasn’t come out to look, at least not that I know of. But then I haven’t been gone from home that much either—just a few trips to Mr. D’s is all. And fortunately Daddy is not one of those men who spends a lot of time in the garage tinkering with his car or building models or things like that. Give him his easy chair, the newspaper, and the TV any day. Except for when it comes to taking care of the yard—he’s practically OCD about that. And besides, he’s really the kind of father who cares more about how his kid affects his wife than anything about the kid himself. As long as Mama’s happy, Daddy’s happy.
I haven’t seen Syd for quite a while. Not since that fun movie afternoon at Josephine’s with Cole McWhorter, but that was almost two weeks ago, and she’s been all caught up with Tara since. Of course I miss her, especially on Sundays, but I also understand that this is important for her. So even though neither of us especially likes to talk on the phone, we’ve done it several times lately, just to keep in touch. Also, because she says I’m “experienced,” she keeps calling to ask for my advice.
“What’s a girl to do?” was how she practically started off the last time we spoke.
“Has she pounced yet?” I asked.
“Pounced?”
“That’s from the movie Cabaret. One of my favorites. Pounced, you know—”
“ No.”
We’re meeting at Mr. D’s this Thursday afternoon.