by Tina Ferraro
“Well, that second part is easy,” I said, braking for a traffic light. “He made that first call, after all.”
“But he didn't. When he finally did decide to report something, it took him forever to even figure out how. I was there.”
I found it hard to believe that Mr. Murphy wasn't the instigator. Who else would it be? We only had a neighbor on one side, and Mrs. Logan was almost too old to be alive, and practically blind. The rest of the people on Millard Circle kept to themselves and/or had lives.
“Well, however it got started,” I said, “our dads have certainly gone bonkers. They think they hate each other, but they seem like twins separated at birth.”
“Which would make us cousins, you know. And make our deal illegal in quite a few states.”
I made a face. “Don't even go there.” I reached out and changed the radio station, turned up the volume and headed on to the scenic drive north.
After a time, the houses became farther and farther apart, until they all but disappeared. Finally, I pulled onto a dusty old road that led to a rocky bluff overlooking Lake Superior. I liked to think of it as my place, a little- known spot I'd discovered as a kid for picnicking and skipping rocks. My parents and Clayton had forgotten all about it, but after I'd gotten my driver's license, I'd brought Chrissandra, Elaine and Mandy out a few times. And after the varsity names were posted, this was where I'd come to cry.
Somehow it just seemed fitting to bring Tristan here, since he was—I prayed—the key to turning my life back around.
I killed the engine, and we got out. The night was dark and cool, the only light coming from the full moon, the only heat from, well, us.
Tristan moved to the lone wooden picnic table, then hopped up and sat, resting his feet on the bench. That's when I realized he was sans his trusty notebook.
“What? No notes tonight?”
He tapped his forehead. “It's all up here. And,” he said, and lifted his hands, “right here.”
Something stirred inside me.
But this was no time for self- analysis, so I climbed up and scooted close, until my thigh practically touched his. Crickets chirped everywhere—the bushes, the brush, the trees, more like a movie sound track than real life— and heightened my senses and anticipation.
He reached for my face with both hands, settling in with a palm on the side of my chin, his fingers splayed on my cheeks.
“The face hold,” he said, “helps the kisser establish both interest and control, signaling his intentions to the kissee. The kissee then has the choice of backing away or holding still and waiting for the next move.” His voice dropped, as did his hands. “Now your turn.”
Dutiful student, I raised my hands and molded them to his face, much as he'd done. His skin felt warm, and smooth in some places, rough and stubbly in others.
“Now make your advance,” he said, “until our lips touch.”
I did, expecting the brush of our lips to take us someplace fabulous, or at least to deepen into, well, something. But as soon as we made contact, he pulled away.
“That was good. Now start again.” My frown must have been evident in the moonlight, because he made a noise in the back of his throat. “Hey, you want to get this right or not? This could be a critical part of your performance at the sports fair.”
He was right. Again. Still, I arched a brow to remind him to be respectful to his elders. But just as I was about to put him in his place, my words and thoughts were stolen by the sound of an approaching engine.
Leaping up, I spotted headlights out on the road. I hopped off the table, half figuring I'd creep through the brush to get a better look and half planning to stay there to keep from getting caught with Tristan.
The car lights were definitely getting brighter and bigger and seemed to slow, then to beam straight on me as the car braked on the bluff.
I tensed, panicky. I mean, I knew we hadn't done anything wrong, anything illegal. And anyone could be behind those lights: tourists, park patrol, grown- ups I'd never met. It didn't have to be a fate worse than death, right?
But the thing was, this was no hot spot. Especially at night. You almost had to know how to find it.
“Parker?” a male voice called out of the driver's- side window. “Is that you?”
Struggling to shield my eyes from the headlights, I scrambled to place the voice. “Uh,” I managed, “yeah. Who's there?”
The driver's- side door popped open, and a lanky figure climbed out. After he'd taken a couple of steps, I recognized the strutting gait as Kyle Fenske's.
Chrissandra's Kyle.
Omigod. Did that mean she was behind those interrogation lights, too? Could this get any worse? I would probably have preferred my chances with an ax murderer.
“Hey,” Kyle said, coming out in front of the lights. “What are you doing out here? All alone at night and everything?”
Alone? My gaze swept from his to the picnic table.
Empty.
If it was possible to love someone two grades behind you, I suddenly did.
I zapped my focus back to Kyle. “I—I came out here after dinner to sort of clear my head. Things have been,” I said, and swallowed hard, “sort of exhausting lately.”
He nodded. He knew. Of course he knew. Chrissandra liked to talk.
“You have a car here, right? I mean, I'd give you a ride home and everything, but …”
“No, I'm good.” Kyle always had been nice to me— even before he was dating Chrissandra, he'd offered me rides. I smiled at him and did my best to be casual. “I was just leaving, anyway,” I said, and forced out a laugh. Before he could stop me, I scurried in the direction of the parked SUV. “See ya,” I called back.
As I walked by, I peered into the dark interior of his car.
The passenger seat was empty, so either Kyle was here alone—or he was meeting someone. (Or someone was hiding from me?)
I jumped into the driver's seat of my mom's SUV, hoping to find Tristan hunkered down in the back, but no such luck. I started the engine, backed up and did a U-turn to head back to the road, driving little- old- lady slow, looking at every bush and tree. Finally, close to the main road, Tristan jumped out of some brush. Every thing sort of warmed inside me, like when you first saw your cat that hadn't come home the night before.
I braked, and he climbed in beside me. I didn't even wait for him to put on his seat belt. I gunned it.
“You were great,” I said. “Kyle never saw you.”
“Who was that guy?”
“Chrissandra's boyfriend. Oh, Chrissandra is—”
“I know her name. I don't even go to DHS yet, but I've heard of her.”
“So, yeah, you understand why it was critical that she didn't see us together. Or hear about it.”
Gravel crunched under the tires as I slowed to a stop at the lip of the main highway. Another set of headlights appeared from the direction of DeGroot, turned toward us and cruised on in.
The car's headlights highlighted our faces before moving on, giving us one good look at the person behind the wheel.
One very familiar, very popular and very shocked Chrissandra Hickey.
I was screwed.
Improvement: Your kissing
technique will benefit from practice—try
running your tongue along your lips when no
one is looking.
I don't think I slept that night. Okay, there were some moments where the edges of reality went fuzzy, but the usual trappings of comfort, escape and rest were nowhere near my twin bed.
Basically, I couldn't shrink from the fear that Chrissandra had seen Tristan and me and that it would change everything. That I'd stepped over her no-turning- back line and therefore was now unworthy of her trust and friendship. That I'd be eternally banished, to join the people susceptible to her vacant looks, dismissive shrugs or, worse, her incessant teasing.
Grasping at the hope that I could still wriggle my way out, I worked up excuses about why Tri
stan was in my car, some far- fetched and some that hinged on sane. When the light finally seeped in around my drapes, it was gray and thick—a perfect accessory for the sleep-deprivation headache I now had. It seemed a lot easier to hide under the covers than to go downstairs and risk the hell of facing this day.
•
To my shock, I didn't get a single call or text message that day, or the next. And I admit to deciding that no news was good news. That somehow, Tristan and I had dodged a bullet.
Since he got bogged down by a day at his mom's, it wasn't until Sunday night—with the clock ticking toward the first day of school—that we were able to meet up again.
I told my parents I needed to take a walk to clear my head for school. And that's pretty much what I did. Just not alone.
Strolling toward the harbor, passing the usual twilight joggers and dog walkers, Tristan and I kept a respectable distance from each other. We were both well aware that, despite our lip locks, this was just business. We didn't need to be close, to touch, to connect. We just needed to get our stories straight, and figure out how to best spin them.
“Okay,” I told him, breaking the silence. “You accidentally left the wristwatch your mom gave you for eighth- grade promotion out on the shore. And you paid me to drive you back there to get it.”
“I don't wear a watch.”
I shrugged. “Well, yeah. Not anymore. Because we couldn't find it.”
He looked unconvinced. “How about you're teaching me to drive?”
“Do you even have your learner's permit?”
“No. Which is why we went out to a remote part of the lake.”
“In the dark?”
“We got a late start.”
“Hmmm … not bad,” I said, wrinkling my nose in consideration. “But we gotta say you're paying me. Like you came to me this summer and we negotiated the deal.”
“Twenty bucks a session.”
“ Twenty- five,” I said, just to be ornery.
A grin touched his mouth. “You take cash?”
“Only unmarked bills.”
We got to a bench and sat down. “The good news,” I went on, “is that I didn't get any calls this weekend asking about you. Making me think … hope … wish that somehow Chrissandra only saw me. And that if she mentioned me to Kyle, he said I was alone.”
“Maybe,” Tristan said, but his frown told me his heart wasn't in his answer.
“People's eyes naturally go to the driver first; plus, she was driving kind of fast.”
“Yeah, but at six feet, a person's kind of hard to miss at any speed.”
“You're not that big—”
“What—you think that because I'm a freshman, I'm automatically invisible?”
I let out a little laugh. “Yeah, that's it.” I nodded toward a lady walking a beagle. “Like right now, she thinks I'm wacko and talking to myself.”
He rolled his eyes, but a smile snuck through.
“To keep things safe until we know what Chrissandra saw,” I went on, “don't come by my locker or say anything to me at school until I make the first move, okay?”
He paused, then did this exaggerated bow, which made me uncomfortable on a number of levels, one of which was the fact that it called attention to us. “Oh, yes, madam, I am to maintain the lowest of profiles.”
“That's right, Sparky.”
He frowned. “Okay, but when you work things out with your friends and finally do recognize me, I want it to be good. Like a big hug. And then you have to add something like if only I was a couple grades ahead, you'd totally jump my bones.”
“What?”
“Well, wouldn't you?”
“Jump your bones? No way!”
“You mean you haven't liked these lessons, even a little bit?”
I crossed my arms. “It's work.”
“Along the lines of cleaning the latrine at summer camp or SAT prep?”
He had me there. “Not that bad.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure exactly what was okay or what we'd agreed on but knowing I owed him some kind of compromise. And the fact that I had no friends to share the news of his so- called hotness with pretty much took care of my end of the deal.
•
Morning came all too soon, and with it, the start of my junior year.
Cruising the halls in my first- day- of- school finest— which I prayed covered my quaking knees and cam ouflaged my sweating armpits—I felt that sort of light- headedness that comes from running too hard. But instead of giving me the certainty that all would be normal again once I caught my breath, my gut told me things were going to get way worse before they ever got better.
Amazingly, I made it to my locker without incident. CeeCee Stevens, who for the third year in a row had the locker to my right, turned and smiled. She tended to reinvent herself every few months—a new hair color, tattoo or piercing, and for her last birthday, perky new boobs—but the one thing that stayed the same was the gap between her two front teeth.
“Hey, Parker. Have a good summer?”
I wanted to scoff, to tell her that I'd endured countless hot, humid soccer practices, only to end up like the ball itself, kicked offsides. But I kept my head and simply nodded and asked about hers.
“Not bad,” she said, “other than an unbearable family vacation that ended with me nearly jumping out of our van in the wilds of Wisconsin in order to hitchhike home.”
I managed a smile, relieved that she thought I could relate to pain- in- the- butt relatives being the worst of a girl's problems. When I was enduring the worst possible pain—being cast off by my friends.
Inside my first- period class, Español Tres, I chatted with a couple of guys I'd known since sandbox days. Then a girl from my last year's Spanish class plopped down beside me—giving me the impression once again that someone was happy to see me.
I tried to smile back, but I'm pretty sure all I did was stare. At her, at the two guys and around the room. I mean, was I missing something?
I quickly took inventory:
I was the athletic girl whose skills had been put to the test and then had been ruled substandard.
I was the popular girl who'd been shunned by her popular crowd.
I was an eleventh grader who'd almost/sorta (oh, God, I hoped not) been caught in a compromising position with a ninth grader.
Why weren't they giggling and staring?
If this had happened to someone last year, Chrissandra would have been on this like white on rice, making up sidesplitting jokes and encouraging Elaine, Mandy and me to one- up her. All in good fun, of course—but maybe not so great to the one being made fun of.
Was it possible that I'd misunderstood the speed of gossip? That no one knew yet? Had I been overruled by the news of some hot hookup or breakup?
The thought was almost too good to be true, but I was anxious to find out. While Señora Trujillo took attendance, I decided to tempt fate. I leaned toward the girl beside me casually and whispered, “Did you hear Rachael Washington came back to soccer and basically took my varsity spot?”
She lifted her brow. “Yeah. Sorry. But you'll make it next year.” A tinge of sympathy crossed her face, but then she looked back at the teacher, who was now reading off S surnames.
“Parker Stanhope?” Señora Trujillo called out, interrupting my confusion.
“Aquí!” I answered, then threw an anxious glance around the classroom. Nope, not one snicker, not one craned neck, not even a curious glance.
I was just … regular old me. Not a freak of nature, not socially nonexistent—not worth gossiping over. It was like people couldn't care less if I played on JV or varsity. If I had friends or not. It was like I didn't matter.
And I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.
•
I got through my first few classes in a daze. Mandy waved to me from the other side of the room in chem, and I got the feeling from the upward tilt of her nose that she was quite ha
ppy we'd all been seated alphabetically, so that she didn't have to deal with the quandary of whether to be seen talking to me.
Needless to say, I was super-surprised to find her waiting for me in the doorway after class. Although her innocent looks were usually weighed down by heavy streaks of blue hair dye and eye shadow, her baby face still made her look like someone your mother would let you stay out late with. I knew—from experience.
“You're … okay, I hope,” she said with a concerned frown.
I managed a nod while studying her eyes, wondering why she was letting herself be seen with me. Was she breaking ranks? Could I have a true friend in her after all?
We fell into step together with the rest of the lunch crowd, toward the junior- class corridor.
“You know, I think it sucks that you didn't make varsity,” Mandy suddenly said.
I swallowed and nodded—not a comfortable combo— and we rounded the corner to my locker. I dug for a response but came up empty.
“You're such a great player, Parker. Like that goal against Cleveland last year …”
My gaze traveled a few feet—to see Chrissandra and Elaine and a couple of other girls from last year's JV team huddled in front of a locker.
My locker.
Chrissandra looked me straight in the eye and beamed, her bright blue eyes glowing. Kyle's letterman jacket hung almost to the hem of her frayed jean shorts, with the lowest snaps closed. I knew she thought this look made her legs look longer and sleeker, but the opposite was closer to the truth. Though there wasn't a person at D.H.S. who'd dare tell her.
“Surprise!” she announced, then led a group step-away.
My insides warmed, like seeing the ball you just kicked get past the goalie into the net. Surely my locker would be decorated with bows and heart- shaped Post-its, like we'd occasionally done to celebrate birthdays and game- winning plays. Surely they'd decided to take me back—okay, surely Chrissandra had—and to stand by me through thick or thin.
Maybe Luke and I wouldn't even have to go through with our kissing- booth charade.
The last girl moved away. But nothing sparkly or Day- Glo or eye- catching jumped out on my locker at all. Just something dangling from a string from my vent.