Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
I climbed out of bed and up the stairs, carrying Donut with me. A man’s voice was booming on the other side of the door. The voice sounded familiar.
“Vi?” I asked, peeking into the living room.
Vi was on her yoga mat, in her workout gear, doing stomach crunches. Her workout DVD was glowing from the TV.
“Hey,” she said. “Is it too loud? I was trying not to wake you.”
“It’s okay, I was just wondering what was going on.”
“I wanted to do a quick workout.”
Okay . . . weird. “In the middle of the night?”
Donut meowed, clearly agreeing with me.
“I’m almost done,” she said, looking ahead.
“Good night,” I said. I closed the door behind me and went back to bed.
MEOW
“You’re getting so big!” I told my brother a few days later when we were Skyping. He seemed older somehow. . . . His shoulders seemed wider. I felt pangs of pride and sadness. He was growing up without me. “You’re not shaving yet, are you?”
He stuck out his tongue. “Let me get Mom. She wants to Skype with you.”
“But I called to talk to you,” I told my brother.
“Talk to her for two secs, and then I’ll be back.”
“’Kay. Really come back, though.”
“Hi,” my mom chirped. “You look great! I can’t believe you got a new cat!”
“You look good too,” I said. “Very . . . blond. Why can’t you believe I got a cat?”
“Cats are a lot of work!”
“They’re not that much work,” I said. Donut was sitting on my stomach at that very moment. “And I’m very responsible. Say hi, Donut.”
“Meow.”
“We’ll see,” she said.
“You’re one to talk,” I said. “You gave Libby away.”
“I couldn’t take her with me!” She shook her head. Then shook her head again.
“You could have,” I said. “You just chose not to.”
“April—”
“What? It’s true.” I scratched Donut under the chin. “Where’s Matthew? I really wanted to talk to him.”
“Oh. Okay. Have you thought about when you want to visit this summer?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“When you have a chance . . .”
“Will do.” Donut yawned, stretched her paws, then put her head back down on my stomach. I would never leave my cat behind. I would never leave anyone behind.
MY MOM WENT TO CANCUN AND ALL I GOT WAS A FRENCH STEPFATHER
It was not a family trip to Cancun. It was a Divorcées Gone Wild trip to Cancun. My mother went with her older sister, Linda (also recently divorced), and Linda’s friend Pamela. They went for a week. My mom wore the thigh highs. She had a wild fling with the Frenchman Daniel. Then she returned to Westport and he returned to Paris and we thought that was it, au revoir.
“You’re never going to see him again?” I’d asked. I was in the front seat and fourth-grade Matthew was behind me, kicking my seat. It was February of my freshman year.
“Nope,” she said. It had been three weeks since she’d been back, and her tan—as well as her fling—seemed to be long gone. “What would be the point? It’s not like I’m going to pick up and move to Paris.”
“Why not?” I’d said. “France would be so awesome.” I had romantic notions of espressos at street-corner cafés and cinched, lavender trench coats.
“You want to move to Paris?” she’d asked, turning into the elementary school’s circular driveway.
“Not right this second,” I’d said. “I can’t just leave my life. I can’t just leave my friends.” And Noah. We’d been together for three months. “I’ll finish high school in America and then come for college. It’ll be très glamorous.”
It did sound glamorous. But I only encouraged it because I didn’t think it could happen. That a mom—my mom—could just pick up and move to Paris.
A week later Daniel emailed. And then my mom emailed back. And then as fast as you could say “bon voyage” my mom was picking up and moving to Paris. And taking Matthew with her. Apparently I was old enough to make my own decisions.
“I’d like you to come too,” she said to me.
“Not happening,” I said flippantly. “I’m living with Dad,” I’d told her. Partially to hurt her.
“For now,” my mom responded.
“We’ll see,” I’d said. Her face scrunched up, giving her forehead extra wrinkles but I didn’t care. She deserved it.
It was a clean break. Mom took Matthew. Mom paid for all things Matthew. Dad took me. Dad paid for all things me.
If you peeked into their bank accounts, you’d know I got the better end of the deal.
My dad had been shocked. Even though he’d gotten remarried so quickly, I guess he hadn’t expected my mom to do the same. Plus move to France. Plus take Matthew. And leave me. I probably shouldn’t have been the one to unload the new plan on him, but I guess my mother didn’t want to. I’d always been closer with my mother, and Matthew had been closer with my dad, so once I told him Mom was getting remarried and moving, he assumed Matthew would want to stay and I’d want to go.
Except my mom hadn’t given Matthew a choice, and it felt like I didn’t have one either.
THE COUGAR IN THE HOOD
I hadn’t told my mom the entire truth about Donut.
Taking care of a pet was harder than I’d expected.
When I was little I thought I’d make a great parent. I taught Matthew how to tie his shoelaces, I helped him with his math homework, and I read to him at night. I also had many dolls. Thirty-five. Anytime there was a reason to get a present I begged for a doll. Birthdays, Hanukkah, Valentine’s Day, anything. I knew all their names and changed their outfits when I could and pretended to feed them and diaper them, and put them to bed. But dolls (and brothers) didn’t push your door closed and then meow when they couldn’t reopen it. They didn’t dart outside every time someone came in or left the house. Or create a foul smell that wafted from the little alcove we had declared Donut’s in the kitchen. Or coil themselves around your calves and try to eat you.
Sure, Donut also snuggled. And licked my fingers. And slept on my stomach. But she also took up a lot of my time. She needed things. Litter boxes. Kitty chow. Fresh water. Shots. More shots. Since Vi was usually busy with The Issue stuff after school, I took Donut to the vet. Now, I turned off Grand Road and took a shortcut through Kantor Street. Wait. Was that—?
Hudson. Ringing someone’s doorbell.
I hit the brakes so I wouldn’t drive past him. “Check it out, Donut!” I said.
“Meow.”
Maybe I could finally find out what Hudson’s secret was. Not that I thought he was a drug dealer. Would he really be dealing at five P.M. in the suburbs?
The door opened and I craned my neck to see inside. Was it someone from school?
Holy crap.
It was Ms. Franklin. My calculus teacher.
“What the . . . ?”
I called Vi’s cell but she didn’t answer.
I tried Marissa instead. After explaining the situation, I said, “Why would Hudson be going into Ms. Franklin’s house?” As I said the words, I felt a pang of . . . of something.
She laughed. “He wouldn’t.”
“He just did.”
“She doesn’t teach senior math,” Marissa told me. “Although maybe what they say is true.”
“What?”
“That he’s an escort.”
I snort laughed. “Please.”
“You’ve never heard that? He is hot.”
“What guy from Westport is an escort? I bet he models, and that’s how he could afford his Jeep.”
“Why the big secret if he models?” she asks. “Maybe he’s having an affair with Ms. Franklin. She’s hot too.”
I pushed any weird feelings away and said, “Maybe she’s his sugar mommy
.”
“Can you be a sugar mommy on a teacher’s salary?”
“You should see her house,” I said, before hanging up. I eyed the multiple floors and BMW in the driveway. Ms. Franklin could afford a young sexy thing if she wanted one.
I took my foot off the brake and kept going. “Donut,” I said, “calculus has just gotten a lot more interesting.”
A SNAG IN THE PLAN
Vi banged the back of her head against my locker. “Disaster,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” I said. My thoughts flew immediately to our living arrangements—omigod, had we been caught?—and my pulse quickened.
“I’ll show you what’s wrong.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me down the hall to the cafeteria. “That. Is. Very. Wrong.”
Jodi Dillon and Liam Packinson were making out in the back of the cafeteria.
I sighed in relief. Then I refocused, devoting my attention to Vi. “Uh-oh.”
“You were right,” she said.
“That you shouldn’t sleep with someone you barely know?”
“No. That redheads are the devil.”
HIT THE ROAD
“There’s nothing wrong with waiting,” Marissa said from the backseat of my car, on our way home from school that afternoon. “Aaron and I are waiting until this summer. Until we’re ready.”
“Aaron and you are waiting because you live in Westport and he lives in Boston. Not the same thing,” I said. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. This morning, Vi had wanted to review her notes before an American history test, so I had been allowed to drive. She’d skipped her Issue meeting to come home with us.
“We could have done it last summer, but we didn’t. You don’t just decide to have sex because you feel like having sex. You decide to have sex once you realize you’re in love with someone and want to express that love physically. Are you sure you’re ready, April? You don’t have to do it. Even though you’re on the pill, you can wait until you’re sure.”
“Oh, blah,” Vi said, rolling her eyes at me. “Where did you find her? She’s a bigger cheeseball than you are.”
“Noah and I are ready,” I said, and turned right at the corner. “I’m sure.”
“How do you know?” Marissa asked.
Since I didn’t know the answer to that, I said, “You just know.” We’d been together for over two years, we’d been saying “I love you” for a year and a half . . . we’d done everything else. And I did want things to change. I wanted to change things between us. I wanted to make things . . . better. Stronger. And sex would do that. I could tell that my new life was causing some sort of disconnect between us, and I wanted us to get back that intimate feeling. And sex was nothing if not intimate.
“Vi, how did you know you were ready?” Marissa asked.
I held my breath.
Vi laughed. “Since you’re part of the family now, I’ll fill you in on my secret. I’ve never done it.”
Marissa gasped. “You lied during I Never?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I . . . I don’t know. It was stupid. But it’s not like I was under oath. Anyway, I’m sick of being a virgin. I’m doing it on February thirteenth.”
I looked over at her. “Um . . . Jodi and Liam are back together. What are you going to do—lure him with candy?”
“No,” Vi said. “I’m going to sleep with Dean.”
“What?” I shrieked.
Vi’s cheeks turned red. “It’s a better plan. It would be too messy with Liam anyway.”
“Messy . . . how?” I asked. “Physically?”
“Messy emotionally. If I slept with Liam, I would have to worry—does he like me? Did I do it right? What is he going to think of me? I don’t want to deal with any of that. I want my first experience to be only about the sex. I trust Dean. He taught me how to drive. He can teach me how to have sex, too.”
I almost missed a stop sign and slammed on the brakes. “Driving, sex, same thing.”
Marissa laughed.
“Have you informed him yet?” I asked.
“Not yet. I want to get ready first.”
“Get ready . . . emotionally?” I asked.
“No. Physically. I still don’t have the right outfit. Or a plan.”
Marissa poked her head between our seats. “How about, ‘Come over, Dean, I’d like to have sex’? That might work.”
“And then he’ll respond, ‘yes, yes, yes,’” I told her. “Easy peasy.” I made a right onto Marissa’s street.
“I think I want it to feel more spontaneous,” she said. “That’s why I need a really good plan. I need a way to set the stage. Something hot. Something sexy. Something—” She gasped. “Look at that. That is what we need. That is the plan. Look!”
I saw where she was pointing. On Marissa’s neighbor’s upstairs deck was a glorious, bubbling hot tub.
“Oh, Vi,” I said. “Yes, yes, yes.”
PARTY ON, DUDE
“This is insane,” I told her. We’d dropped Marissa off, and Vi and I were standing inside the glass walls of Party On!, the hot-tub store. Dance music was blasting, even though it was four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon.
“This is brilliant,” Vi said. Her expression was rapturous as she took in the wood spas, small spas, green spas. All filled with bubbling water.
“We should have brought our bathing suits.”
“Maybe they’ll let us go in our birthday suits.”
“This isn’t Cancun,” I told her.
A guy in his twenties with a goatee, ripped jeans, and a Party On! navy shirt slunk up behind us. “Hey there, girls, I’m Stan. Are you looking for a party?”
“Um . . .” I giggled.
“We are looking to rent a hot tub,” Vi said.
He nodded emphatically. “A party in a tub, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“Party on then. We’d like some information about renting one?”
“For parties, graduations, bachelor parties . . . whatever.” He gave us a big smile and scratched his goatee. “What school do you go to?”
“Hillsdale.”
“Yeah? I went to Johnson. Graduated two years ago.”
“Congratulations,” Vi said.
I adjusted my purse. “How much do the hot tubs cost?”
“They start at a hundred and ninety-nine dollars for a Thursday to Monday rental. Or you can do a Monday to Friday rental. That includes delivery and setup. And your party is ready to rock!”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“The water is delivered heated. You’ll be good to go.”
“We’d like to rent one for Valentine’s Day weekend,” Vi said.
He nodded. “I’ll tell you what. I’m getting new inventory in on Monday. For a thousand dollars you can have the Hula.”
“Have the Hula . . . to keep?” Vi asked. “You mean buy it?”
“What’s a Hula?” I asked.
“The pink spa. Over there.” He pointed to a plastic, pink hot tub on the other side of the room. “It seats six. It’s winterized. What do you think? Interested?”
“We don’t have a thousand dollars,” Vi said.
A hot tub in our yard? For the rest of the year . . . and beyond? Yes, yes, yes. “What if we pay you in installments?” I asked.
He scratched the tip of his goatee again. If it was so itchy maybe he should shave it off. “I like you girls, so I’ll tell you what. Give me a two-hundred-dollar deposit today. You can give me the rest this weekend when I deliver it.”
“I can’t afford it,” Vi said.
“But I can,” I told her. I wanted to do this for Vi. I wanted to make her happy. To thank her for taking me in. “How about two hundred today, another two hundred when you deliver it, and then another four hundred on March first?” I asked.
“And what about the last two hundred?”
“Are you sure?” Vi asked me.
I nodded. “And I think eight hundred is a fair price. All c
ash.”
He laughed. “So, on March first you’ll pay the final four hundred?”
I nodded again. The day my dad filled my bank account.
“You girls got yourself a deal.”
Vi threw her arms around me. “You’re the best.”
I felt proud and warm all over. Almost like . . . I was already in the Hula.
CLICK THOSE HEELS TOGETHER
We were two minutes away from my old house on Oakbrook. The house I’d grown up in. The house I’d lived in with my mom and dad and Matthew. The whole happy family. All I’d have to do is turn left at the light and then take a right and then another right.
“I can’t believe the score we just got,” Vi exclaimed, her feet up on the dashboard.
“He liked us.” When I stopped at the light on Morgan Street I could feel the old pull to turn left. Turn left! Turn left!
“He liked imagining us in his hot tubs,” Vi said.
I turned left.
Vi squinted out the window. “Are we going to your old house?”
“You remember?”
“Of course I remember.”
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
I could taste the nervous anticipation as we got closer. Left on Woodward Way. Would it look different? Right on West Columbia. Was I different? Right again, and there we were on Oakbrook Road. My street, on my block, in front of my house.
My old house. I pulled up to the curb and put the Honda in PARK. My shoulders relaxed.
“Wow, it looks exactly the same,” Vi said. It did. But didn’t. The door, which used to be reddish brown, was now painted crisp and white. Same with the windowsills. The pine trees my dad and I had planted at the side of the house by the garage were taller now and came right up to my window, which was on the second floor. I loved that room. My cherry wallpaper. My white-and-pink carpet. My amazing bed. I loved that bed. It was a wooden platform bed, the pine stained pale pink. The mattress had just the right softness and was always the right temperature. My comforter matched the platform. Best bed in the history of beds.
I shook my head to clear it. Romanticizing? Me?
Remembering details about the new owners, I expected to see a mom playing with her toddler in the family room, where my parents used to play with me. But the room was empty. The window shades were a quarter up, and the lights were off. And—oh!—a FOR SALE sign was in the yard.
Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn't Have) Page 10