26 Kisses

by Anna Michels

  The warmth of the shower soothes my hangover headache, and the overpowering mango shampoo ensures that I won’t smell like anything other than a fruit basket when Lila swoops in for one of her awkward hugs. I let the water run over my face and into my ears, wishing I could scrub the memory of last night from my brain.

  After a quick blow-dry, I run back to my room, where Mel is texting furiously. “Seth will take us,” she says. “Although he is being a real butt about it. I guess he was sleeping.”

  I pull a white skirt and navy blue top out of my closet—clothes more appropriate for a morning at church than a random summer day but that will pass Dad’s inevitable inspection and prevent any passive-aggressive comments from him. “Is that what you’re wearing?” I ask, gesturing at Mel’s ragged denim shorts and the wrinkly T-shirt she slept in.

  “Sure.” She shoves her phone into her pocket and shrugs. “Your dad already hates me, so who cares?”

  “He does not hate you. He just doesn’t understand your unique sense of style.” I grab my bag off the floor and remember my phone is dead—which means that at least I can put off worrying about texting Adam for the next couple of hours. “Come on. Let’s go pick up the preteen terror.”

  Seth is a dark smudge against his parents’ white minivan, sitting on the bumper, his hands shoved into the pockets of his black jeans. Even his shoes are more muted than usual—brown leather work boots that make him look like a lumberjack. He grunts as we walk up, and then he slides into the driver’s seat, not bothering to say hello, and practically vibrates with annoyance as Mel chatters on in the front seat about how cool the party was last night and how she hopes we liked Killian because she thinks we’ll all be hanging out with him a lot this summer, wink, wink.

  I see Seth’s shoulders tense and I kick the back of Mel’s seat. Seth, of course, has no idea Mel means she hopes I hook up with Killian. I don’t know for sure if Mel has noticed that Seth’s feelings toward her seem to have changed, but things are definitely weird between them right now. It’s like they’re two magnets constantly switching polarity, sometimes irresistibly drawn together and other times forcing themselves apart.

  Mel’s car is tucked out of sight on the side of the road, still covered in early morning dew. “Thanks, Seth,” she says, and leans over to ruffle his hair. “You’re the best.” He flinches.

  “See you later,” I say, and slide out of the backseat.

  He pulls away the second I close the car door, his tires spitting up gravel as the wheels spin before gaining traction.

  “What are you doing, Mel?” I ask, unable to stop myself from saying something even though I’m terrified of hearing the answer. The way Seth looked at her during the parade, the amount of time they’ve been spending together, the way she flirts with him—it seems like they’re right on the edge of getting together. But then she’ll make some comment about Killian being the hottest thing since sriracha and treat Seth like he exists only for her amusement. I don’t get it.

  “What?” She gives me a blank look.

  I study her and finally shake my head, unsure how to broach the subject without making it sound like I’m accusing her of leading Seth on. “Never mind.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Oh. Hi.” Jeffrey turns away as soon as he opens the front door, which is about ten feet tall and sports an enormous brass knocker that could have originally come from a medieval castle. It’s like we’re breaching a fortress of affluence.

  “Nice to see you too,” I say, pushing past him into the foyer, Mel trailing behind me. With a five-year age gap between us, Jeffrey has always been just enough younger than I am to be truly annoying without being quite young enough to be cute. I remember watching Seth and his brother, Luke, across the street, building tree forts together and shooting baskets in their driveway, and feeling jealous that Jeffrey and I didn’t have that kind of relationship. But Luke was diagnosed with cancer when he was eleven and Seth was ten, and Seth’s world collapsed when he died. I don’t know if he’ll ever get over it. The black clothes, the amount of time he spends home, alone, practicing piano, his creative genius persona—I wonder how much of it is really him, and how much is a tough-guy act.

  A pang of guilt hits me as Jeffrey swipes his too-long hair out of his eyes. I’m the big sister—I should try harder, make things better between us.

  “Wow,” Mel murmurs, taking in the sparkling wood floors, pristine white furniture, and spectacular views of Lake Michigan that my dad is so proud of, although of course it’s Lila’s money that pays for it all. “This place gets better every time I see it.”

  “Take a picture if you need to,” I say. “We’re leaving soon.”

  “I’ll get my stuff.” Jeffrey heads down to the finished basement, which is where he prefers to sleep when he stays over here.

  I follow the sound of obnoxious game show music to the kitchen, where my dad is leaning over the granite counter, eating a piece of toast with jam. He’s almost scarily skinny, his hair clipped and combed neatly, his shirt freshly ironed—still playing the perfect, nice-guy husband role for Lila. I’ve never heard him raise his voice in this house, which is pretty impressive considering that when he lived with us, it felt like he spent half his time yelling.

  My two-year-old half-sister, Kaylee, is coloring at the table, and my stepmother, thankfully, is nowhere to be seen, although I’m sure she’s lurking somewhere close-by. Lila works from home in some marketing job that pays a lot of money, and I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve seen her leave the house. I’m not sure if it’s coincidence or if she’s just a big homebody or what. But I guess if my house looked like this, I wouldn’t have much motivation to leave it either.

  My dad spreads more jam on his toast and blinks at me, looking dazed. “Veda!” he says finally, his eyes widening. “Hey! Didn’t know you were coming.” His eyes sweep over me quickly, head to toe, and I must look acceptable, because he smiles.

  Then he wipes his hands on his pants and walks stiffly over to me, looping one arm around me in an awkward side hug and dropping a kiss on top of my head.

  “Mom said Jeffrey wanted to be picked up,” I say, pulling away and bending over to grab Kaylee’s pink crayon as it drops off the table and falls to the floor. “So we’re leaving now. Bye.”

  Kaylee catches my hand and smiles. “Vee!” she crows, drawing some lopsided circles. “Look! Look!”

  “Very pretty,” I say, grinning down at her. I have a bunch of these scribbled-on papers tacked up over my mirror at home. I lean over and gently tug the elastic band from Kaylee’s soft hair, gathering up the strands that have fallen loose and redoing her ponytail. The feel of her tiny head under my fingers makes my breath catch in my throat. I have a ridiculous amount of love for this little pipsqueak.

  She’s so absorbed in her coloring that she doesn’t even hear me when I say, “Bye, Kay. I’ll see you soon.”

  I’m halfway down the hall by the time Dad yells, “Hey! Don’t you want to stay for lunch?”

  “No, thanks!” I shout back. Mel folds her arms and pouts.

  “Veda? Is that you?” Lila’s voice floats down the grand staircase.

  I brace myself as she jogs down the stairs, her arms wide open for a hug before she even hits the landing. “Hi, Lila.”

  “Hello!” Lila swoops in for what I call one of her bird hugs—the opposite of a bear hug. She leans in close to me and pats my back, her shoulder blades moving under her cardigan, her thin red hair in my face. How my dad fell for timid Lila after being married to my tall, strong, creative mother for thirteen years, I’ll never know.

  “And Melinda’s here too!” Lila darts over to Mel and gathers her in for another delicate embrace. Dad wanders into the room, cleaning his glasses on the hem of his shirt and holding Kaylee’s hand.

  Lila turns. “Barry! You didn’t tell me the girls were coming over.”

  “I didn’t know,” he says, settling his glasses back on his face and giving Lila’s elb
ow a little squeeze. “Good timing, though.”

  I glance at Mel and cross my arms. “Why good timing?”

  Dad shakes his head. “Let’s wait for Jeffrey to come up.”

  “Jeffrey!” I yell at the top of my lungs. Lila winces. “Hurry up!”

  “I can’t find my DS!” The house is so enormous that I can barely hear his reply.

  Mel nudges me and points to the couch, where the little electronic thing Jeffrey spends half his life attached to is sticking out from under a pillow. “It’s up here, Jeffrey!”

  Lila’s eye twitches, and Dad leans over and lifts Kaylee into his arms.

  Jeffrey thunders up the stairs, tilting his head back so he can see out from underneath his long bangs. Grabbing the DS off the couch, he shoves it into his backpack and makes a face at Kaylee, who giggles. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  “Hold it,” Dad says. “Let’s just stop the stampede for one moment.” He takes a deep breath, and I can see him start to get annoyed, the edges of the easy-to-anger person he used to be when he lived with us rising up from the carefully sanded veneer of the person he’s become with Lila.

  “Um, should I go wait in the car?” Mel asks.

  “No.” Dad waves his hand and takes a deep breath. “You’re fine, Melinda. This will only take a second.”

  “Okay . . .” Mel pulls out her phone and pretends to text, but I know she’s covertly taking photos of my dad’s mansion to post to Instagram with captions like OMG, MY DREAM HOUZZZ.

  “I’ll keep it short and sweet,” Dad says, clapping his hands together. “We have two family events this summer I’m counting on you guys to attend. The first one is in just a couple of weeks, at the end of June. Lila is throwing a big party for her work friends here at the house. And then we’ve got the family reunion next month, the day after Kaylee’s birthday.”

  Shit, shit, shit. “I can’t go,” I blurt out, my mind racing to follow up with a reason I won’t be able to go—to both events.

  “Oh no?” Dad cocks one eyebrow. “And why is that?”

  “I was really hoping you could make the reunion, Veda,” Lila says, her eyes wide. She takes Kaylee from my dad and settles her on her hip. “I thought you could introduce me to everyone. It might be a little nerve-wracking.” Her tight smile shows exactly how anxious she is about the idea of meeting my dad’s entire family for the first time.

  “Uh, well, I’ll probably be working,” I say, avoiding Lila’s eyes. “For the party and the reunion. I’m looking for a job right now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get off.” I mentally shake myself. It’s going to take a better argument than that to get Dad off my back.

  I take a deep breath and reach into my well of bullshit, the one I draw on in debate competitions when I have to elaborate on a point I hadn’t prepared an argument for. “You know, I wouldn’t want my employer to doubt my commitment. Even summer jobs can be important when it comes to résumés and college applications, Dad. My boss this summer could end up writing me a reference for my first real job.”

  Dad sighs and gives me a look that says he’s on to my strategy. “We should think about getting you an internship this summer, not just a minimum-wage chimp gig. Have you asked at the law offices in town? I’m sure they’d love to have an aspiring lawyer in a few days a week to file and answer the phone, maybe do some job shadowing.”

  Offhandedly mentioning to my dad that I want to go to law school someday was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. He has gotten so attached to the idea that, God forbid I ever change my mind and decide I want to do something else, his brain might explode trying to process it.

  “Whatever. We’ll see what happens.” I cross my arms. “Is that all you wanted to tell us?”

  “Yes,” Dad says. “And job or no job, I expect you and your brother to be at the party and the reunion.” He pushes his glasses up on his nose and adds, “And of course you’re invited too, Mel.”

  Before Mel can accept the invitations and get tangled up in the web of passive-aggressiveness being spun between me and my father, I hold out my hand to Kaylee for a high five and grab Mel’s elbow, hustling her out the door. “Okay, bye!” I yell over my shoulder.

  Mel sighs and tucks her phone into her pocket as we hurry down the cobblestone path. “I wish we could hang out over here more often. Are your dad and Lila going on vacation this summer? Do they need a house sitter?”

  “Yeah, right. They never go anywhere.” I check to make sure Jeffrey is following us. “Got those pictures posted yet?”

  “Yeah, duh. Seventeen likes so far. It’s not possible to take a bad picture in that place.”

  I stare up at the brick facade of my dad’s mansion, the edge of Lake Michigan just visible through the carefully pruned shrubs and trees that crowd the yard. It’s a few miles and a world away from my mom’s small three-bedroom, one-bath house with the peeling paint and matted carpet.

  I shake my head as Jeffrey pushes past me to climb into the car. Dad always made it pretty clear we weren’t good enough. Even when I got an A on my report card, he wanted an A+. The dishes were never done to his satisfaction; our rooms were never quite clean. Mom used to tease him, call him Mr. OCD. She thought it was funny that they were total opposites, that he used vacuuming as a stress-relieving activity while she could go for weeks without remembering to make the bed.

  Everything he’s got looks pretty perfect now. As we’re walking past the manicured flower beds, I step off the path, letting my flip-flop come down on one flawless marigold, smashing its golden petals into the dirt.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As we pull into the driveway at home, Jeffrey slides out of the car and slams the door too hard behind him.

  “Hey!” Mel calls out the window. “Show some respect!”

  He rolls his eyes and saunters up the driveway, his shorts barely clinging to his hips and showing off a generous amount of his blue plaid boxers.

  “Remind me why guys are supposedly so great?” I say.

  Mel waves her hand. “Come on. You know Jeffrey doesn’t count. He’s not really a guy yet. He’s still a boy.” She glances up into the rearview mirror—checking to see if Seth is home?

  I clear my throat, and her eyes flick away. “Hey, do you want to come over to my house?” she asks. “My mom’s making tamales for lunch.”

  “Definitely.” It’s a sin to turn down Manuela’s tamales. “Let me just run in and get my phone off the charger.”

  I push open the car door and jog up the driveway. Jeffrey has already installed himself on the couch in the living room, the TV blaring and his eyes glued to his phone as his thumbs move over the screen.

  “Mom!” I go into the kitchen and find her sitting at the table, still wearing her Prancercise clothes from this morning and eating a bowl of oatmeal.

  “Hey,” she says, scraping her spoon across the china. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” I say, unplugging my phone and glancing at the screen. No new texts. I’m relieved and then annoyed. It would have been nice for Adam to at least make the effort, so I could be the one to decide whether to respond. I do, however, have a new friend request on Facebook. From Killian.

  Mom pushes the bowl away and reaches for a banana. “Jeffrey was grumbling about something when he came in. He mentioned a party?”

  “Oh.” I shove my phone into my pocket. “Dad was just telling us all this stuff we have to do with him this summer. Lila’s having some dumb work thing at their house, and then there’s Kaylee’s birthday, which is fine, obviously. And then Dad’s family reunion.”

  “Family reunion?”

  “Yep. Next month.” As if it’s not awkward enough that I don’t really get along with my dad as it is, I’ll have to go hang out with him in front of all the relatives I barely know and pretend to be a big, happy family.

  “Gosh, already? How often do they do those things, every five years? It seems like we were just there, our eyeballs burning when Uncle Eddie took
his shirt off to get into the pool.”

  Mom sounds lighthearted, but she puts the banana down, and her smile dims. Five years ago it was becoming obvious—even to twelve-year-old me—that my parents weren’t going to be together for much longer. Dad must have moved out just a couple of months after that family reunion, and then he married Lila a year after that.

  “I know.” I shift my weight. “Anyway, I’m going over to Mel’s, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course!” Mom flashes a bright smile. “Go ahead.”

  I hesitate for a moment, one foot already out the door. “You sure?”

  “Definitely,” she says firmly, and I head back out to the car.

  Mel’s typing furiously on her phone, but she locks it and shoves it into her bra as I open the passenger side door.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she says, but her eyes flick back up to the rearview mirror and I could almost swear I see the curtain in Seth’s bedroom window twitch.

  Mel clears her throat and starts the car, backing quickly down the driveway. “So have you changed your mind yet?” she asks as we’re driving through my neighborhood.

  I frown and pull out my phone, dragging my finger across the screen. “Changed my mind about what?”

  “Vee! Making a summer romance plan. Taking charge of your future. Scouting out hot guys to hook up with. Whatever you want to call it.”

  I scratch a mosquito bite on my ankle. “No, I have not changed my mind. And by the way, Adam has not texted, which is not helping to make me feel any better about the situation. I mean, he said he was going to call. So not even texting makes him a total ass, right?”

  “Hmmm.” Mel furrows her eyebrows. “Maybe he’s busy today. Or,” she points out, “he could still be asleep. I wish I were.”

  I sigh. “You know, I just don’t see how kissing a million different boys is going to make me feel better about Mark dumping me and triggering my OCD about an uncertain future, and dying alone and unloved.”