Wicked Sweet

by Merrell, Mar'ce

  “What was with your nose picking?”

  Can she not let that go? I shrug. The moment is gone. “Immaturity.” Now what? “Oh. The cupcake.”

  I pull the paper wrapper off the cupcake and split the cake in half. Frosting globs all over my fingers. “Open up.” I hold the cake up.

  Chantal balks.

  “It’s chocolate. Come on.” I shove my half into my mouth and smile. She leans forward, squeezes her eyes shut, and takes what I offer her.

  “See, it’s good. It’s great. Isn’t it?” I know I have to make my move. I get the phone ready and my left hand slides along her cheek. Camera ready, I hold her face in my hand, lean closer.

  Parker

  The Laundry Room.

  “Hey, I know it’s not a trendy café or anything, but it’s quiet.” I lift Jillian onto the washing machine and stand in front of her. She giggles, but not in an Annelise flirting way. It’s more relief. Or nerves.

  All I think about is how much I want to kiss her. And this isn’t just about completing a challenge.

  I lean in to get closer.

  Jillian

  Oh. No.

  It’s not that I don’t want to kiss him. I do. I do. The laundry smells of clean soap and Parker’s man smell—sweat and peppermint breath mints. It’s impossible to resist. But …

  “Um …” I lean to the right, out of the path of his lips. “I … just need to ask you a question.”

  “A question?” Parker stands straight, runs his hand through his hair. Oh. That is so hot.

  “Are your parties always like this?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” His hands end up at his waist and my eyes hover. Oh … back to business.

  “Um … I’m in the laundry room with you and Chantal is somewhere with Will. I mean, I think she must be with Will. Right?”

  Parker shrugs and he’s adorable. “I’m not sure where Chantal is, but I’m here in the laundry room with you right now because I want to be alone with you. Not in front of everyone else.”

  “That’s it?” He could say anything and I’d melt.

  He nods. He leans in again.

  I am so ready for this kiss. Except. “I promised Chantal I’d stay with her …”

  “She’s with Will.”

  And she’ll be okay. She doesn’t need me right now.

  Chantal

  The Cake.

  The cake is dry and the frosting hard. I try to swallow but it coats my teeth and tongue. I don’t notice, until it’s too late, that Will has slid his hand up to my face. And now he’s getting closer and, now, his face is in front of me.

  His lips touch mine and I want to pull away, but I don’t because I promised to be normal. And a kiss is no reason to freak out. I try to imagine it’s someone else’s lips against mine, and that works. Mitch, my crush from the ninth grade. My lips tingle and I’m okay with the right hand settling on my waist. But then, he’s pressing his mouth hard on mine and his tongue is pushing into my mouth and his tongue has leftover chocolate goo on it and my stomach lurches. I try to twist away and it seems Will thinks this is some kind of great technique because he twists his head back and forth, his tongue goes wild in my mouth. And then he’s got his full weight against me, grinding into me. Ugh.

  I open my eyes and see that he’s looking up at something else while he’s kissing me.

  And now the taste of beer and cupcakes and possibly nacho chips with hot salsa comes through Will’s tongue and my nausea rises. I push my hands against his chest and press, hard. He grips tighter. More tongue. My stomach begins its revolt. I can taste vomit in the back of my mouth.

  A flash goes off. He’s taking a picture! I bring my knee through his legs and he groans. Until I lift it and slam it into his crotch. I let the vomit in my mouth go. In Will’s mouth. I run for the back door, but I don’t make it. I stop and finish barfing where I’m standing. I hate vomiting. I hate how my eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of the sockets and my stomach convulses so hard it burns. In between retches, I yell for help.

  “Jillian!”

  Jillian

  Rescue.

  As soon as the screaming starts I know; it’s Chantal. Parker hovers.

  “I have to go help.”

  “Those are cries of joy.”

  “Sorry!”

  He slips his right hand under my hair, cups the back of my neck, and pulls me close. “Will can help her.”

  “I can’t.” I pull away but I don’t want to.

  “Okay. I’ll help.” Parker slides his hands under my arms, lifts me from the washing machine, and sets me down. His arms wrap around me again and I wonder if maybe Chantal has solved her own emergency. If staying here isn’t the better idea.

  “I really have to go.” I push back from Parker and leave the laundry room, cross through the kitchen.

  I’m at the back door when I hear Chantal again. “Get away from me,” she hisses.

  She’s on her knees, piling paper napkins on top of a circle of puke. She hasn’t noticed a few bits clinging to her hair. When I say her name, she doesn’t even look up.

  Parker helps me drag her to one of the deck chairs. He goes off to talk to Will.

  “We have to leave,” she says after we clean her up.

  “I don’t want to go yet.”

  “Jillian. I have publicly barfed.” When I don’t rush to sweep her away, she adds, “I put up with Will. And I even let him kiss me.”

  I didn’t kiss Parker because I was worried about you.

  “I came here for you.”

  “I know. I know.” It’s that moment that shifts your world, where you decide that despite your best friend’s dire need for help, you want what you want. Annelise is in that house and if I leave, she’ll be the one in the laundry room with Parker. I pull out my finest debating skills. I tell Chantal I’m not ready to leave. How we have to salvage our first double date so it will be memorable in a good way. I explain how running away feeds the nerd girl stereotype. I offer a suggestion, “You could laugh it off, joke about it. They’ll think it’s funny.”

  “Like that’s what I want.” She stands. “We have to go.”

  I’m considering what else to say when Parker shows up. He offers to walk us to Chantal’s house. My prince. Of course Chantal insists we have to walk by ourselves but Will saves the day by saying he needs to apologize to Chantal. She refuses to walk with him for four blocks, but finally gives in when he promises he won’t touch her. Ever again. Parker, I decide, is close to perfect.

  Parker

  Now What?

  Will doesn’t want to walk Chantal home, but he owes me. After all, I was the one who got him a date with Chantal.

  It didn’t matter that Chantal barfed. On him. That, in fact, made the whole challenge better, even considering his gonad injury. I have to admit it was pretty entertaining. That Chantal lives up to everyone’s expectations.

  I thought the night was going to go my way, not Will’s. Now I’ve got seventy-two hours to complete the challenge. And if I don’t, it will be the first and only challenge I’ve failed.

  “So …” I slip my fingers through Jillian’s. “I’m thinking we have to salvage this whole thing somehow.”

  “For sure.” Jillian slows her pace and we fall back. Chantal pounds the blacktop with Will struggling to look cool as he tries to keep up with her. I have to come up with a rescue plan for Jillian and me, and Chantal. A triangle I didn’t expect to draw. A black Chevy truck inspires me—sleek design, shiny grille—I bet the engine roars. Tailgate. Or barbecue. Jillian hasn’t been to my place, but my family might scare her off. Ideal: a group event that ends early and leaves Jillian and me alone.

  “How about a barbecue at my place? Monday.”

  “Another double date?”

  We watch Chantal cross from one side of the street to the other. Will follows, shaking his head. “That’s not gonna happen. But … we can invite other people. Maybe someone else for Chantal? Got any ideas?” />
  “I promised I’d never tell anyone so you can’t tell Will. She sort of crushed on Mitch in the ninth grade.”

  “Mitch? I thought he was gay.”

  She gives me the look that says I’ve crossed over the line. I remember, now, she won a debate on the right to have a gay support group at the high school. “Not that it matters if he’s gay.”

  “He is shy.”

  “Okay, Mitch and who else?”

  “The physics study group? They’re … eccentric, but Chantal likes everyone. And … I do, too.”

  I laugh. “Oh, another round of Cranium? Or maybe bridge building with straws?”

  “Parker!”

  I check to see how mad she is, but she’s smiling. “I’m sure they know how to party. In their own way.”

  “Tell me you’re not brainiac prejudiced.” She stops and the momentum falters. I stare into her eyes and … she’s hot … and my brain (and other parts of me) are responding to this physical attraction. But there’s something else. It’s like desire with an edge. An edge of curiosity. I want to know her more. Or it’s part of the game. It’s hard to know with all this … um … rising action.

  “I’m not prejudiced against brains. Not at all.” I pull her into me. It’s a great line for revving up to the challenge. I hold her. I am so ready to kiss her.

  As I’m about to seal the deal, she stops me. “Um … the only thing is, I don’t think the people at tonight’s party will jell with the physics group. Do you?”

  Tonight’s party. I’m trying to pinpoint the person or persons she’s specifically talking about but I don’t have to; she says it. “Like Annelise, for instance, would not have a good time at a party with the brains, unless she was making fun of them.”

  “No. We won’t invite her.” Jillian’s hands rest at my waist. This is my opportunity, but now I’m thinking about Annelise. I’d tried to avoid her all night, but she caught me when Jillian went to the bathroom. She slid up against me, her cleavage exposed in that hot bra with the black lace. I almost wasn’t able to untangle myself. Did Jillian hear about that? Maybe she suspects that Monday will be our third and final date.

  “Jillian.” Chantal races toward us. “I’m not walking with Will anymore. I’m walking with you.” She grabs Jillian’s hand and pulls her away.

  “Gotta go.” Jillian holds an imaginary phone to her ear.

  I give her the thumbs-up. Looks like we’re on track for Monday whether she heard about Annelise or not.

  Chantal

  Split Ends.

  When I come out of the bathroom, Jillian is sitting on the twin bed that is identical to mine, a pair of scissors in her hand. Her eyes cross as she stares at a single strand of hair and cuts the end. I straighten the books, pencil holder, and calendar on my desk. She’s still cross-eyed and scissoring.

  I open the bottom drawer, lift up the file folders, and extract another cello pack of cupcakes. Only two, I tell myself, to replace the awful taste of Will’s cupcakes. And Will. I open the package and offer them to Jillian. She shakes her head, while she continues to scissor. “What are you doing?”

  “Cutting off my split ends.” She holds up a magazine article titled “Keep Your Locks in Perfect Shape!” I appreciate perfection, but maybe this is going too far. I eat the first two cupcakes and reach for the third, my last. This one I eat slowly, letting the sugar sink into my tongue. I stash the remaining three back in the drawer.

  I pull back the covers on my bed, straightening them into perfect folds, and slide between soft sheets, careful not to damage my construction. It’s a tight squeeze in such a narrow bed. My mother has tried to convince me to trade in my two beds for a double, but I can’t. Jillian and I redecorated the all-girly pink walls to gray with pink and lime green accents right before high school. This is our room—the perfect place for a serious talk about Jillian’s grooming and … everything else that is strange about her now: the bikini, the tight clothing, the hoarding of fashion magazines. Parker.

  “We have some things to talk to about,” I say. I reach for my notebook and pen.

  “I know. Parker is having a party on Monday. A barbecue actually.”

  “I’m not going.” I want to remind her that we always get under the covers at the same time, that we like to stare up at the stars while we talk, that I insisted that my mother buy Egyptian cotton, six hundred thread count sheets for her bed, too.

  “You haven’t heard the details.”

  I wish all of this was over already. I shouldn’t have to remind her that I’m grumpy when I’m tired. I take a deep breath, stare at her squarely. “I vote no. No more humiliation.”

  She says she doesn’t even know if Will’s going to the barbeque and adds, “We’re inviting the study group. They’re people you and I both know.”

  “If Will is going to be there it won’t be better. Except maybe he can laugh at everyone instead of just you and me.” I stare. Now they’re throwing a barbeque? They’ve only been on two dates. Two. “Now it’s we? As in the Parkillian? He’s going to grill the burgers and hot dogs and you’re going to pick the music?”

  “Chantal.” She drops the scissors on the floor. Finally something more important than looking good for Parker has her attention. She looks me straight on, but it’s impatience. “I know you’re hurt.”

  “Humiliated. Degraded.” I detail again Will’s disgusting tongue in my mouth. I remind her, again, about grade seven and the fetal pig heart.

  “It’s over, Chantal. Over.” She looks at me like I’m one of her little brothers and I’ve stubbed my toe. She thinks she can fix anything.

  “Parker is Will’s best friend.” Is she ever going to get this? “As long as you’re dating Parker, I can’t escape him.”

  She tells me that Parker and Will are not the same person, that Will wants attention, any attention. And that I shouldn’t take it personally.

  “I’m standing up for myself.” I didn’t do anything wrong. Surely she sees that.

  She goes back to her own bed. I resist the urge to tell her to pick up the scissors and put them on my desk. She lies down and stares at the stars on my ceiling, the ones we put up at the end of fifth grade. Her bed is messy and out of order and I wonder how she sleeps like that. She thinks she needs to pull me into her new life and I know that the path she’s on is going to lead to misery, a repeat of her mother’s past. Somehow I need to convince her to listen to reason.

  “You’re vulnerable,” I say. “And you cannot let a guy get in the way of our future.”

  I lay back and stare at the stars, too. Sometimes a friend has to tell the hard truth.

  Jillian

  Neurosurgery.

  I identify the ceiling constellations while I consider whether to tell Chantal what I’m thinking. “I can’t be your social therapist.”

  “My therapist?”

  “You needed me by your side the whole time at the party. You need to get better at being with other people. Socially, you’re … developmentally delayed.”

  “You’re calling me retarded?”

  “Socially retarded.”

  The pause is long enough that I wonder if she’s still awake. “So I’m a social retard,” she says quietly. “I can accept that.” She tells me that when we’re at Harvard we’ll be surrounded by social retards. We’ll be the leaders. And then we’ll go on to being hot neurosurgeons and we’ll be in New York and working for the United Nations as consultants for medical practices to developing countries. I’ve heard it a million times before.

  Chantal, queen of the plan. I hate that we’ve come to this, against each other. “I’m not going to be a neurosurgeon,” I say.

  “Yes, you are. You picked the city, remember?”

  I don’t know how to respond. I can’t tell her that Harvard and neurosurgery are in the same unlikely but pleasant-to-imagine category as winning the gold medal in the Olympic marathon. If I tell her I don’t have the money for Harvard she’ll tell me I can get a job. If I tell her I
can’t leave all my little brothers, she’ll say it’s my mom’s responsibility to raise them. If I say I don’t think I want to spend the next eleven years studying, she’ll say it’ll all be worth it. And she’s right. To a point. I can’t change what she thinks, but I have to be honest. With Dad 3 moving out and my mother where she is … I wish things were different, but they are what they are.

  “I’m a realist,” I say. “I want to see my brothers grow up, and they’re going to need me.” My voice cracks. I guess because this is the closest I’ve come to speaking the misery out loud. I hope that she knows how hard it is for me to say it, how much I wish I had a different choice.

  “You’re giving up.” I hear the sadness and the anger in her voice. She’s so afraid of being alone. I hear her arrange her comforter, straighten her sheets, and I know we are both staring up at the same stars glowing on her ceiling. “You’re a quitter.”

  My breath catches. I want to be hurt at what she says, but I know she’s right. I made a promise, like all the times my mother has made deals with me, and now I’m backing out. It’s not fair. Not for me. And not for her. And, because we have all night and neither of us are sleeping anyway, I compose what I think are words of comfort in my head. I think about how kindness might help here and how it might have helped me dozens of times. I practice my words over and over. And, then, I make sure she’s still awake. I tell her I have something to say. It’s easier with the lights out.

  I tell her she’s got the intelligence and the support to be a neurosurgeon or anything else. I tell her I don’t know any other person who is as brainy and focused and capable. I say that when I visit her in New York we’ll go shopping for hot neurosurgeon fashion: tall black stiletto boots and long gloves and designer dresses. “I will be at all the celebrations of your success,” I say. “I’ll be cheering the loudest.”

  I wait forever for her to be the best friend who understands, the best friend who says she will be there for me for whatever I decide to become. Instead, she tells me, “Parker is the easy way out, Jillian.”