I am not that kind of girl, Jesus.
But when I nearly lose my grip on dinner for table four, I wonder if maybe I sort of am.
• • •
The next morning I wake up too early, even for a school day, and can’t get back to sleep. Tired and irritable, I dress slowly and without paying much attention. I’m too lazy to put on my belly chain or find a cute belt, so I pick my leather jacket up off the floor near the hamper, grab my backpack and barely make the bus.
At lunchtime Damon sidelines me in the cafeteria, stepping into my path as I’m on my way to the table where I usually eat with Tristan.
“Is that an order?” Damon asks, eyes flicking down to the text on my T-shirt and then back up at my face.
I’m wearing a red T-shirt bearing a picture of Elmo and the words Tickle Me in big black letters.
“Stop staring at my boobs, Lewis,” I drawl, and Damon’s smirk makes me want to push him down in the middle of this cafeteria and do unspeakable things to him.
He makes a point of looking me directly in the eye when he says, “Want to come over tomorrow? We could study.”
I can practically see the air quotes around the word study, but I don’t care.
Yeah, I want to come over. I want to “study” with Damon Lewis.
I’m nodding off in U.S. history when my cell phone buzzes at my hip. I shift in my seat, trying not to call attention to myself. Cell phones are expressly forbidden in class. I turn it over in my lap, reading the message: status report on mr. lewis?
I fire off a quick reply: talk later. target secured.
About thirty seconds pass, then another message: !!!!!!!!
I smile.
• • •
That night my dad and I are discussing dinner, specifically how many tomatoes are required to make the sauce rich enough, when he starts in: a stealth attack.
“Here’s the thing,” he says. “You’re my baby girl. Don’t look at me like that, Melly. You are. You’re my baby girl, and I love you, but that doesn’t mean you get to shut me out.”
I start to say something, but he bulldozes over me, talking faster.
“I know your mother and I haven’t always been hardcore disciplinarians, but that’s because we trusted you. We thought you could handle yourself. I still think you can handle yourself, so don’t prove us wrong, please. Trusting you does not make me a lazy father. It may not make me a good father, but I am still your father. And that’s . . .” He sighs, running a hand through his thinning hair. “That’s what I have to say about that.”
There’s a few moments of tense silence, and then I clear my throat.
“Um. Dad. A couple of things, if this is honesty time or whatever. First, Tristan is gay. Very, very gay. His parents just found out, and so we’ve been dealing with that drama. Also, I really like Damon, and I think we might be . . . something. He’s a nice guy, and smart, and funny, so . . . yeah.”
He stares at me for a moment. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, then opens it again.
“Tristan is gay?”
I start laughing.
“No, seriously, he’s gay? That—that makes a lot of sense, actually,” he says. He scratches his temple, brow furrowing.
I’m still laughing.
“You do realize this means you’re going to have to let me meet Damon,” he says.
I stop laughing.
“I’m not kidding. You can’t date some guy who I haven’t had a chance to rake over the coals first,” he says, but his eyes are soft and gentle.
“I don’t know if I would call it dating.”
“What would you call it then?”
There are so many ways to answer that question, and none are dad-proof. All involve words like casual and phrases like friends with benefits, and Gary Ellis does not like words like these. Mom wouldn’t blink, but Dad—
“We’re taking it slow,” I say.
This sounds good. It sounds chaste and righteous, like a role-play in an abstinence-only sex ed class.
He examines me with his dark eyes. “Slow.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“But there is something to be taken slow,” he says. “There is a relationship that’s evolving.”
I hear “evolving.” I think: Over the bra. Under the bra. I consider the bases, and how they almost always seem to be changing, except for going all the way round. No one ever contests what a home run is. No one ever says: Intercourse, hah, that was all the way back in the ’80s, where have you been?
“It’s a relationship, yes,” I say. “We just don’t know what kind yet.”
He gives me a look that seems to indicate his displeasure with my evasiveness, but that is just too bad. I am fully committed to ambiguity. I want to marry it and have its vague, indistinct babies.
“Well, if you need to talk about . . .”
I do not want to have this talk now. It was bad enough the first time around. I remember how Mom sat me down in my bedroom, clasped my hands between hers and said: You have to protect yourself, Mel. No one else is going to do it for you when the time comes.
I glanced down at the bedspread—it was a bright, sunflower yellow, smooth and soft. New. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my teddy bear, Lucy. One of her ears was tattered, a button missing from her shiny green raincoat. My stomach hurt.
My mother had pressed a small, square foil wrapper into my palm. I could feel the sweat collect on my skin under and around it, making it slip between my fingers.
Your dad thinks you’re too young for this, she said. I don’t know, sweetheart. I hope . . . I just want you to be prepared.
I was thirteen. Boys—or at least the boys I knew—were awful. I thought: Prepared for what?
“I’m good. Really,” I say.
He looks relieved. “Okay. If you have questions, you just let me know.”
I smile, leaning forward and patting him on the cheek.
“I love you, Dad.”
He grasps my shoulder and squeezes. “I love you too, baby doll.”
He goes back to stirring the sauce, and I begin to set the table.
He’s humming softly. Sounds like the Beach Boys. The kitchen smells like garlic and pepper and sweet tangy tomatoes. Feels like old times. When I was little, before Dad bought the restaurant and mostly stopped cooking at home, he used to spend Sunday afternoons teaching me how to cook: simple dishes, basic sauces, sautés, burgers, roasts. One October Sunday he showed me how to make tomato sauce from scratch.
At the time, Dad was an accountant, but he loved food more than he would ever love numbers. Our kitchen was a testament to that fact: It was elegant and huge and sun-filled, equipped with all the best fixtures and appliances, and containing a permanently well-stocked fridge. Of all the people I knew, my father was the only one who owned grill pans in different sizes, cake tins for making layer cakes, an egg timer and a pastry brush and six spatulas. This was how my dad operated—be prepared or be sorry.
Clad in ratty sweatpants and slippers and a T-shirt left over from my days as a Girl Scout (I only lasted one year; I was super not into all the nature and group bonding), I helped him sprinkle chopped garlic and onions into a pan sizzling with olive oil. The pungent aroma filled the room. Next came peppers, green and red, seeded and slivered, and more spices—oregano and chopped fresh basil and thyme. Finally there were the tomatoes, diced and bleeding juice all over the white plastic cutting board. I know a lot of kids don’t like them, but I always loved tomatoes, especially the ones my father grew in our backyard. I thought they tasted like the sunshine that ripened them, and eating them felt like breathing in sky.
I laughed as I let the tomatoes slither out of my hands and into the crackling oil and spice mixture. Dad dumped in his share as well, telling me: You want the onions to almost melt, like they’re bare
ly there, so you can only taste what’s been left behind. I nodded and helped him stir, swirling crimson liquid going round and round, bubbling, bubbling.
I can still make a mean tomato sauce, but what remains vivid in my mind are his words. Taste only what’s been left behind. When I think of my mother, I taste rich chocolate from brownies made late on Friday nights in cake pans, salt from movie theater popcorn, sugary coffee, milky sweet ice cream.
When I think of my father, I taste tomatoes.
From here I can see the chip in the kitchen table where I ran my tricycle into it when I was five. There’s a spot on the wall in my bedroom where Mom measured my height until I was ten, little pencil marks slowly disappearing into the paint. Dad shifts the pan on the stove and I remember Mom burning herself on it once, yelping and cursing in the kitchen, running it under cold water as Dad said, Jesus, Dana, you’re not dying.
You’re not dying.
This whole house is like that: places everywhere that I can run my hands over the memories. Everyone who touches you leaves their fingerprints—a vestige, a leftover, a mark. My mother’s fingerprints are all over me, pressed in so deep, I can see the whorls. And everywhere I look, there they are, as dark as if she etched them in ink.
DAMON
A secret:
Sometimes I want to forget you.
CHAPTER SEVEN
What? No, give me that back.”
Melanie digs her elbow into my chest, trying to wrestle away the remote control. I laugh and hold it up above her head, using my other hand to pin her against the couch. She makes angry growling sounds, followed by a string of curses. I laugh harder.
“We are not watching—this—shit—”
She struggles, finally freeing herself from my grip, and grabs the remote control. I grunt, rolling over on top of her, still laughing.
Suddenly we are very close. I can feel Melanie’s breath on my face, and her hand clutches at my hip, just above the waistband of my pants.
“We can watch whatever you want,” I say. “Project Runway? I know you secretly want—”
“Oh, shut up, asshole,” Melanie says, digging her fingers into my arm until I wince. She’s got a hell of a grip for a girl. For a person. “Is this how you study? You must get excellent grades.”
“Hey, D, can you take your stuff out of the dry—”
Melanie and I freeze. My mom stands in the doorway of the living room, one hand on her hip.
“Mom.” I unfold myself so I’m no longer on top of Melanie, who’s looking flushed and embarrassed. “This is Melanie. Melanie, this is my mom.”
“Hello, Melanie,” my mom says, smiling, and holds out her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Melanie says, though she mostly looks like she wants to hide under the floor.
“I’ll take care of the laundry,” I say to my mom.
“Terrible too,” she says. “He hasn’t been walked today, and you know how he gets when he’s inside for too long. I know you love those new Nikes you bought, so unless you want him to tear them up—”
“Yeah, I’ll walk him, don’t worry about it,” I say.
She raises her eyebrows.
“I will, Mom, I swear.”
“Okay then,” she says, gives me a we’ll talk about this more later look, and leaves.
There’s a moment of silence. Melanie’s sitting so still, she’s barely breathing.
“Well,” she says.
“I’m sorry about that,” I say. “I didn’t even know she was home yet.”
Melanie looks at me, and with a completely straight face says, “Your mom must think I’m some kind of hussy.”
I laugh. “Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what she thinks. ‘That Melanie, what a strumpet!’”
“That could not have looked good, you on top of me like that—”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m pretty sure my parents would be happy to see me bring home any new friends from school.”
“Friend, huh?” Melanie says, poking me in the ribs. “Is this how you treat all your friends?”
I grasp her hand and pull her forward. My hands are large enough to cover hers completely. I can see her breathe, her shoulders rising and falling in waves.
“Only the cute ones,” I murmur.
I kiss her, a gentle brush of the lips that quickly becomes something more. Soon I’m dizzy and hot, my fingers gripping hers hard.
“Um, Damon?” Melanie pipes up as we separate for air. “If we don’t stop, your mom is going to find us in a way worse position than she did before. I’m just saying.”
I take a deep breath and let go of her hand. “You’re probably right about that.”
We sit in awkward silence for a moment before Melanie says, “So . . . who is Terrible?”
I smile.
“I’ll introduce you,” I say.
• • •
Outside it’s a perfect fall day: bright and sunny, air crisp and the tiniest bit chilly. I love this time of year. Pumpkins decorate the front porches of the houses around the neighborhood, wisps of fake cobwebs cling to windows, and plastic skeletons and giant spiders made out of black felt hang above doorways. One family has four pumpkin-headed figures dressed up to look like characters from The Wizard of Oz—the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and Dorothy—perched on the roof of their house.
Terrible, our large, bouncy black Labrador, tugs Melanie along, pulling in the direction of the street, then stops to sniff at an apparently delectable pile of leaves.
“I can’t believe you named your dog Terrible,” she says.
“And that was before we even knew anything about him,” I say with a smirk. “Might have been a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“You’re so weird.”
“Thought we’d already established that,” I say, pivoting on my heel and walking backward like a tour guide, grinning.
“I think I need to know more about you,” Melanie says. “Strange things. Potential blackmail material.”
“Really?” I say. “You think we’re already at the potential blackmail stage?”
Melanie shrugs. “It’s never too early.”
“Hmm. I don’t know. There aren’t any bad things about me.”
Terrible barks as if to say, Yeah, right, whatever.
Melanie raises an eyebrow.
“I like Queen,” I say. “You know, the band Queen?”
“Yes, I know the band Queen,” Melanie says. “That’s a lame secret. I like Queen too. A lot of people like Queen. Half the world likes Queen. Possibly more than half. They play Queen at every baseball game.”
“When I was younger I bought a Nick Jonas and the Administration album,” I say. “I told the guy at the store it was for my sister, but I don’t have a sister.”
“What about his more recent stuff?” she asks, eyes comically wide.
I make an ambivalent motion with my hand. “Not the same. Not the same heart.”
She laughs, twisting the leash around her wrist.
We wait at an intersection with a light. Terrible strains against his leash as if he wants to sprint across without her. She yanks backward, keeping him on the sidewalk, and Terrible gives her a look of solemn reproach.
“I played Little League for a while,” I say. “I was really bad at it. I’m not that good at basketball either.”
“But you hang out with all the—”
“They only hang with me sometimes because Prague and I are cousins,” I say. “And they let me know I suck. Often.”
Melanie snorts. We come to a small patch of green that claims to be a park and find a bench to sit on. I let Terrible off the leash and he races off across the grass, barking loudly and frantically at invisible ghosts.
“You transferred to Hamilton in yo
ur junior year,” Melanie says. “That’s kind of unusual.”
I stiffen. “Yeah.”
“You’re not going to tell me why?”
“It wasn’t working out at Gate,” I say.
Melanie looks confused, but she lets it go.
“Carlos and I used to walk Terrible sometimes,” I say suddenly. “Carlos didn’t like dogs much. He thought they were kind of a pain in the ass, but he liked Terrible. He said he had . . . I don’t know, fire in him.”
Terrible comes rushing toward us, pivoting at the last second and taking off again, yapping away.
“He’s got something in him, that’s for sure,” Melanie says.
I shake my head, rueful. A siren sounds in the distance.
“I think sometimes that—this is going to sound weird, but do you ever get this feeling like your mom’s still around?” I say, turning toward Melanie. “I don’t mean that in a delusional way—I mean, I know Carlos isn’t around. But sometimes it feels like he’s . . . watching. Like he knows what’s going on and wants to be a part of it. You know?”
Melanie bows her head, and I can see tension settling across her shoulders like a cape. She’s playing with her hands in her lap, folding them together, breaking them apart.
“Yeah,” Melanie says. “When I’m painting sets. I think she would’ve . . . if she was still around, she would have stopped by school to check in on me, to see how things were coming along. She would’ve been surprised that I was doing it, but she would’ve been happy.”
“I realize I didn’t know her,” I say, “but I think she would’ve been happy too.”
Melanie reaches out, placing a hand on the small of my back. My spine tingles, buzzing from the base of my spine up to my neck. I imagine for a moment my brain sending messages to the rest of my body from my nerve center, a thousand little rolled-up pieces of paper traveling through my bloodstream to a thousand different destinations, and all of them say the same thing:
I feel you. I feel you.
“What would he say?” Melanie asks. “If he were here right now, what would Carlos say?”
I tilt up my chin, feeling the sun on my skin, cutting through the chilly air.
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