by Robin Mellom
“He picked her up for prom, he dazzled her mom and trained 55
her dog and brought her a cookie, and basical y presented himself as a perfect guy.” She looks at me for permission, wondering if this is accurate. I nod and chew and swal ow and she continues. “So they’re on their way to some pre-party at Dan’s house and Justina can’t stop thinking about kissing him.”
Donna nods, as if this story is familiar. “So you got tongue-tied with the guy in his car.”
I shake my head and make out a somewhat audible, “No.”
“Sucked face in the driveway?”
“No!”
“At the party?!”
Gilda sighs. “She never kissed him.”
“Oh, no.” Donna stands up straight.
“What?” I swal ow hard and clear my throat so I can final y speak. “Isn’t it a good thing I didn’t kiss him?”
“No, dol . It’s bad, real bad. You’l always wonder . . . was he or wasn’t he?”
I know exactly what she is getting at. And she is absolutely right.
I can’t believe I never got the chance to kiss you, Ian. Now that we’re non-friends. A non-couple. A non . . . everything.
Donna folds her arms and lifts an eyebrow. “So why did Captain Scumbag ditch you?”
That’s the zil ion dol ar question. I shake my head. “It’s one of those long, complicated stories.” My voice fades away.
“I hear you.” Donna picks at the dirt under her fingernails.
56
“I have some long, complicated stories. But it’s not such a bad thing—it’s because of those stories that I can proudly say I am the cougar I am today. Look it up—cougar—in the wiki encyclopedia.”
“Wikipedia,” I correct her.
She nods. “You’ve seen me, then.”
I turn to Gilda, looking for answers. She holds her hand up like she can take it from here.
“Justina’s story isn’t al that complicated. Not yet,” Gilda explains. “Al we know so far is Ian tried cleaning yel ow curry off her dress and she thought it was adorable and she planned to kiss him at Dan’s pre-party. She got a kiss, except it sounds like it was from someone else.”
“Oh, you gotta tel me this story.” Donna’s eyes sparkle.
She approaches me and reaches out to touch my blue dress, but pul s back. “What are these stains? You an intern for Bill Clinton or something?”
“What? No. NO!”
I take a deep breath and settle onto my stool. Then I start to explain how the stains represent a tapestry of memories, and how they tel a story—
“That’s al fine and good,” Donna interrupts. “But let’s get to Captain Scumbag. And more importantly, this other guy you kissed—scumbag number two.”
I take a deep breath. “The kiss happened right after I got this.” I point to a long black stain, the shape of a thin, wimpy corn dog, just above my knee.
57
4
Dipping Sauce
(Soy, I Think)
WE PULLED INTO Dan’s driveway, the diesel engine rumbling in Ian’s old Mercedes—a clunky, distinctive sound that always made me feel comfortable. Most of the students at Huntington High drive cars that cost as much as a two-bedroom condo, and even though Ian’s car is technically a Mercedes, the fact that the back window doesn’t roll up and the seats have no springs and it is completely lacking in glamour makes me feel at ease. That car is Ian.
It was a long driveway—long enough to hold up to twelve cars, and we were lucky to snag the last spot. Dan lives in a neighborhood with sparkling sidewalks and manicured lawns—not a leaf out of place—and houses that have crisp 59
American flags hanging all year round, not just on school holidays.
I live in a smal cottage-type house with low ceilings and cracked countertops, over in the old part of town. When you drive down the streets around here, you’l be cruising in an immaculate suburban section, then sneeze and find yourself in a total y urban area. My house was zoned on the very edge of the Huntington High School district—I am one street away from being a Ledbetter girl.
Ever since the night of Jimmy DeFranco’s party, I sometimes wished I were one.
Beautiful people streamed by us as we sat in Ian’s car, not moving, waiting. For something. I wasn’t sure what. Ian leaned over in his seat and tied and re-tied his turquoise Converse high-tops. His fear of tripping extended beyond the track.
“Double knot ’em, babe,” I said.
“Babe?”
I was shocked it had come out of my mouth, too. But there it was—out there. So I had to go with it. “Yeah, it’s a term of endearment.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to look sexy—a look I had practiced hundreds of times by studying tampon ads in Seventeen. The girl always looks unhappy, but her crampy face also looks like her sexy face . . . pouty lips, narrowed eyes. “I endear you,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. My tampon-ad sexy look must have worked, because he said, “I’l endear you later.” 60
“Sounds kinda painful.” I gave him a fake wince.
“If that’s what you want, babe.”
Toe-dip.
Maybe he was ready to take the plunge with me?
“Let’s go.” He popped a piece of Winterfresh gum in his mouth.
But I couldn’t move. I was an igloo—frozen and feeling a little hol ow on the inside. Part of me—a big part—did not want to go through that front door. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I do this?
When a limo pul ed up to the curb, I had my answer.
A half dozen couples poured out of the backseat as the driver held the door open for them. They giggled as they stumbled by our car, clearly already tipsy. And the girls were looking a little too . . . sophisticated, to say it nicely. Slutty whores, to say it truthful y.
“Look at Brianna Portman’s dress,” I said, with my forehead pressed against the passenger window. “She looks like she’s twenty-five years old. Come on! Does her slit real y need to go that high up her thigh?”
“Yes.”
I turned and punched Ian on the arm. “Shut up, perv.”
“Maybe she has a ventilation deficit. Slits are a necessary accommodation. Can’t fault her for that.” Before I could laugh, a puff of pink oozed by my window.
Eva Greer.
His ex.
61
She was wearing a light pink dress with a ful bal gown skirt that floated out from her hips like she was sitting in a rowboat. And she had a corsage with enough dark pink roses to enter as a float in the Pasadena Rose Parade. But even she knew not to match al her pinks.
I looked over at Ian and wrinkled my nose. “You okay?” He pressed his lips together and paused. Then: “Yep.” Other than Eva, Ian had dated only one other girl, but that was in seventh grade and he dated her for like a year.
Which by middle school standards was a world’s record.
Then he met Eva when we were freshmen. They were inseparable for two years before the Jimmy DeFranco Epic Party Disaster.
Ian is one of those Professional Boyfriends. He isn’t a predator—the kind of scumbag who wil do and say whatever it takes to get a girl to fal . And his ful -of-swoon boyfriend acts sometimes make it into the lunchtime gossip report: He brought Eva a cup of ice to her table so her Diet Coke would be extra cold. He put cough drops in her locker when she complained of a scratchy throat. He looped pinkies with her when they walked down the hal .
Professional Boyfriend.
When he saw her kiss another guy, that was it. End of story. Some people have boundaries, or lines they just won’t cross. That was his. I don’t blame him. Plus . . . Jimmy DeFranco? Was she blind?!
I leaned over in my seat to catch Ian’s eyes, giving him 62
my not-sure-I-believe-what-you’re-saying look.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m over her. The girl thought we were meant to be together because both our names had three letters. She thought it was a sign from above.” I held back a laugh, but c
ouldn’t hide my hyperactive smirking. “You were her destiny because of three letters, huh?”
“Straight from God.”
Neither one of us could hold it in, and we laughed as we watched Eva trot up the driveway to Dan’s party with her date—yep, Jimmy DeFranco.
And it appeared Jimmy DeCheesebal had gone wild with the hair gel, because he was now sporting a faux-hawk.
I scooched my hand over closer to Ian, hoping he’d loop pinkies.
But we weren’t boyfriend/girlfriend yet. It wasn’t in the nature of Professional Boyfriend to prematurely loop fingers.
He knew exactly what he was doing, never leading anyone on until he was prepared to follow through.
And other than this prom night, he had only gone on one other date since he broke up with Eva. He won’t admit to it being a date—more like “an agreement to do something”—
but in my mind if that “something” involves a dinner, a dance, a midnight curfew, and premeditated showering . . .
um, date.
Our friendship had been in ful swing, and I hadn’t seen him in that green shirt yet, so him going on a date didn’t seem al that strange. At first.
63
It was three months ago, Sadie Hawkins dance—the one where the girls ask the guys. Al yson Moore—unafraid of anything, unfairly gorgeous, and sporting breasts that had fil ed out like two perfect tennis bal s—bounced right up to Ian and asked him to go without even a flinch. I asked him why he said yes (like it wasn’t obvious), and he said he couldn’t say no. He just couldn’t.
The night of the dance, I was curled up in bed in my jammies, my face covered in an apricot scrub mask, flipping channels aimlessly as I waited for him to cal —to give me the ful report.
“What are you doing?” he asked over the phone—it was pushing 11:45. At least he’d made curfew.
Flip, flip.
“Watching the Col ege Bass Fishing Championship.
That’s cool, right?”
“And your definition of cool is . . .”
“What happened, goof?”
“She talked the whole night.”
“And that’s awful because . . .”
“She has a lot of thoughts about how to make flag corps better. A lot. Mostly having to do with shirt styles.” He cleared his throat and laughed, then blurted out, “But it’s not like I minded looking at her lips al night.” Awkward. Awkward.
What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t even push out an “Mmm-hmm” from my quivering lips. Al I could do 64
was wonder if Al yson spent the entire night looking at that crease.
He must have sensed the strange air that was bil owing between us, because he immediately fil ed the awkward space with regular words. “But the food sucked and the band was okay, and I’m exhausted.”
Exhausted? From sucking on her lips? Her tennis bal s?!
I don’t know why I suddenly got jealous. It’s not that I wanted him—not at that point, anyway—I just didn’t want to share him.
After that, he talked to her in the hal s and did a lot of listening—just like him—but he never took it to the next level: no cal s, no dates. I wasn’t sure why. And I never asked.
Al yson must have given up, because a couple of weeks later the daily gossip report at lunch included news that she and Brian Sontag were now hooked up. No one even raised a brow at that—it was an obvious choice. They were of equal social standing—equal in hotness and equal in brain power—which on paper made them the perfect match. They quickly became an institution at Huntington High: there was Mr. Terry’s undecipherable history notes, Friday night footbal games, and cute, cute Al yson & Brian—staples of the Huntington High experience!
Except that, as far as I could tell, Allyson and Brian were less of a couple and more like ice skating partners—moving around each other in a gorgeous, synchronized way, but never really touching each other.
65
“Everyone’s heading inside.” Ian tapped my knee. “Let’s go.”
I pressed the back of my head against the headrest as I watched limos appear outside Dan’s house . . . Escalades, Hummers . . . and wel -dressed, giddy people streamed by our car. Almost al of the girls looked like they were twenty-five, not just Brianna. And they were al done up like supermodels.
Their shoes were strappy. They were silver. They were gold.
They were not dyed blue.
“I can’t go in there.” I chewed at my lip.
“What?”
My breathing was shal ow and fast. Like it gets on the climb up the Goliath rol er coaster at Six Flags just before plummeting twenty-five stories. That type of breathing means I’m worried my stomach is going to fly out the top of my head. So it was weird I was feeling the same way sitting in that driveway. But their shoes . . . gold, silver, dainty, sweet.
They weren’t blue and chunky.
Oh, God.
“It’s one thing to have an iridescent blue dress,” I said,
“but an entirely different thing to have shoes and nails and a purse and a corsage that match.” I felt bad about bringing up the matchy-matchy mess I had gotten myself into. Especial y since I’d worn al this for him; but the reality of the type of party I was about to step into now enveloped me. Usual y I don’t mind being the odd one who wears al -black everything.
Different is comfortable for me. But I was having unusual 66
feelings . . . like I just wanted to fit in and be like the rest of them. I turned to Ian and huffed a little. “I am a human blueberry.”
Ian focused on the facts. “What is iridescent?” I grabbed some fabric from my dress and swayed it around to show him what it did in the light.
“You don’t look like a blueberry. Blueberries don’t shimmer like that.” He glanced to see if that made me laugh.
It didn’t. So he went with the direct approach. “You look gorgeous.” We looked at each other for an unusual y long time without words, blinking, staring, fantasizing—at least I was. Then he broke the moment. “And patriotic.”
“Shut up.”
“You know I’m kidding.”
I did know he was kidding. And his jokes had me soaring on Cloud 9, hopeful that there was a tenth. But the feeling quickly evaporated. . . . This was a crowd I did not want to be a part of. And by “crowd” that meant about ninety percent of my class. Huntington High wasn’t a huge school, so when there was a party, we al went. Minus the ten percent who were debate clubbers or math clubbers or impressive-on-a-résumé clubbers who studied excessively and felt that a good night’s sleep was necessary for overachieving.
Which wasn’t me, but it seemed that recently al I did on the weekends was hang out at the beach with Ian or watch Buffy marathons in my jammies with Hailey. So this scene was suddenly feeling out of my league.
67
In the past, I’d navigated plenty of parties, but Hailey had always been the lead. She orchestrated who to talk to and where to stand. I wasn’t quite sure how to handle a scene like this without Hailey next to me preparing me for the entrance—the most important component to becoming a party warrior, according to Hailey. But Ian was a right-beside-me kind of guy. I had no one to fol ow, and I was out of practice.
“Have fun in there,” I said, pretending to be upbeat. “I’m going to sit right here and supervise this front seat.”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious. I look like a piece of fruit. They’re going to eat me alive like I’m Sunday brunch.”
“Stop worrying about what people think about you.”
“They’re going to mush me up and put me in a scone.”
“Stop.”
“I’m done. I’m pie.”
“They don’t care. They’re thinking about their own mismatched socks. Look—” Ian pointed out the window.
Brian Sontag was standing by the front door lifting his pant leg. He was getting severely reprimanded by Al yson Moore for one sock being black and the other being clearly navy. She was using lots
of hand expressions. He was shrugging a lot. Their evening had started off lecture-style.
Not fun.
Ian poked me on the shoulder. “Do you think those two give a shit about your choice in shoe color?” 68
I couldn’t help but laugh. Ian always managed to turn my thinking around. Suddenly it hit me that I was going to prom with him. Ian Clark had asked me. Not Al yson. She probably didn’t even know about the crease.
Maybe that’s something he reserves only for me.
I looked him over, admiring the one curl that was hanging over his eye, and decided to only focus on finding a way to get Ian Clark out back by the hot tub. This boy needed to kiss me. Soon.
I touched his arm. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” He held his hand up. “Sit right there.” Ian jumped out of the car and took a few long strides (long strides were his specialty in the 4 by 100), and the next thing I knew he was opening the car door for me. I felt dainty. But I also felt very safe. There was never any doubt—
whenever he was near me, I always felt better.
Dan’s father answered the door. “Ian! Justina! Come on in!” Mr. Dunbar was very upbeat. He always wore a sweater vest.
As he led us to the kitchen, I waved at Dan’s mother—
she was in the living room sitting on the chaise lounge, reading a yoga magazine. She didn’t say hello. Just smiled and nodded. Mrs. Dunbar is one of those serene uninvolved mothers. I secretly wished she was mine. Even if only for a day. Like this day. Then maybe I’d have taken the advice of a prom magazine editor and I’d be wearing a beautiful black strapless dress and silver shoes and a daisy corsage.
69
Ian guided me through the crowd, pressing his hand against the smal of my back. I felt protected, like he was ready at a moment’s notice to defend me against flying swords or incoming missiles or mal security. No one could get to me.
My face flushed and I wanted to belt out loud, “Look!
Ian Clark is touching my back. My back. We aren’t just friends anymore!” People had known us as Just Friends! all year, I wasn’t sure if they would realize we were more. Or about to be.
Dan was standing in the middle of the kitchen, leaning over the huge granite counter island and organizing a tray of cheese and crackers. It was one of those kitchens big enough to hold Thanksgiving dinner guests and a game of footbal .