by Radclyffe
You go to Buchanan, right?” The Rudy’s Record clerk leaned over the counter and twisted his leather wrist-cuff. I stepped back, nodded and waited for him to search for my Blondie cassette in the stack next to the cash register. “I graduated two years ago,” he said, “Whit Smithson.”
I recognized the name. He’d played some minor position on the football team, but he looked like crap now.
“State champions.” He flashed his ring.
“Cool. Can I get my tape?”
“It’s in the back,” he said. “Want to go with me?”
I crossed my arms and he shrugged, lifted up the counter and waddled toward the beaded curtain.
While my brother and sister zigzagged through the aisles and my mother flipped through the dusty discount rack, I kept my eyes level, not dropping them toward the bongs and pipes, and glanced toward the posters, where I saw Jenny standing. I gripped the display case. It was weirdly unreal, like seeing a movie star in person. Her blonde Dorothy Hamill hair bobbed to the music.
I’d pictured running into her hundreds of times at Fred Meyer’s, Dalton’s or Rexall. I’d be casual and charming, ask her how B-Jazzlers practice had gone, what new prom decorations had arrived, if she’d finished her homework. I’d engage her with an armload of nothings and when the moment was right, I’d say, Want to get a bite to eat?
But not now. My mother was here. I lowered my head.
“Isn’t that Jenny?” my brother Benny said, our sister in tow.
“Shut up,” I said.
My mother flapped a Neil Diamond album at me. I shifted and ignored her, but she sauntered over. “Natalie, look, it’s Jenny,” she whispered.
I nodded, wishing futilely that this time she’d leave a stone unturned. I’d do the laundry, set the stupid table, take out the garbage, if she’d just let this go. She lowered her glasses and stared at me. My clammy grip slipped on the glass counter. What if I fainted? But that wouldn’t work. In the ambulance she’d hover over the cot yelling above the siren, “Why aren’t you talking to Jenny?”
I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t know how to act around Jenny. I wasn’t the same person at home as I was at school, and I didn’t want my mother to see me as the school-me, which wasn’t like anything really, but it wasn’t me. The home-me wasn’t me either. When the two versions of me collided, it didn’t make a whole me, it made two fake me’s, each cancelled the other out, so there wasn’t any way to be. And now that there was more going on with Jenny, there was another me, not the easy-breezy meaningless school-me or the home-me. I needed to be this new other person because if I went back to the school one, even for a second, Jenny would never be her other me with me. And which was I supposed to be with my mother leaning over a display case of bongs in a head shop?
“Found it,” Whit said and rang up my order. “Bitchin’ album.”
My sister gasped at the word. I thrust my money at Whit. Jenny wasn’t at the posters anymore. If I could get out of there without her seeing me, everything might not be ruined.
Whit took in my family, leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. “You want to catch the laser light show?” I grabbed my bag with my cassette and turned as my mother flicked her eyes between me and the former football hero, then gave me a syrupy look like she understood everything and it was just between us girls. “We’ll meet you next door.”
She prodded Benny and my sister toward the exit. Whit had scrawled his number on the bag. I wanted to crumple it, but he’d gotten my mother to leave the store. I should have tipped him.
I searched through the aisles, hoping Jenny was still there but dreading finding her. She had to have seen me and heard my family stage whisper her name. How could I tell her that I ignored her because I didn’t want to pretend that we were something less than we were? And I wasn’t sure she was sure it was anything more. Whatever she thought it was, when I found her she stood alone, her head bowed slightly, leafing through the pop albums. Her cowlick was sticking up. I touched her shoulder. She turned, holding a Hall and Oates record.
“Love this,” she said.
The closer I got to Jenny’s house the shallower my breath was becoming. I had to stop twice, lay my head on my handlebars and remind myself that nothing had to happen. I didn’t have to pursue her, I thought, and all the nausea went away, but so did the tingling.
The gray dusk light was fading as I coasted down Birchwood Lane and saw that her mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway. I ground my feet into the pedals so I wouldn’t fall off my bike. I knew that I was going to do this, no matter what. I couldn’t go back to feeling nothing. I was done with nothing. Even if she rejected me, it was something. I patted dry my underarms then hauled my Schwinn onto the porch. The door flew open.
“Snickerdoodles in the oven,” Jenny said, and I followed her into the house. It smelled sweet, and the warm air was soothing. I closed the door, took off my jacket and went into the kitchen. Hall and Oates was playing from a boom box on the table, sounding like they were trapped inside a tunnel and happily bleating their way out.
“Cool music.” I wondered how long I should wait before offering up Blondie.
“Ow, ow, ow,” Jenny said. The aluminum sheet she’d been holding clattered to the floor and cookies scattered onto the linoleum. She flung the towel across the room and bent down to scrape up the mess. The inside of her forearm was red.
“You need to run water on that.” I pulled her to the sink, flipped on the faucet and placed her arm under the water. “Ten minutes,” I said and held on to her wrist. How long could I stand here feeling her warmth, her breath on my neck, the smell of White Shoulders and flour, while the water ran down our arms?
She looked at the cookies strewn on the floor. “I should’ve used the oven mitt.”
I dried my hands on my jeans. “No loss. Snickerdoodles suck.” I picked them up and dumped them into the trash. “Wimpy cinnamon and no chocolate.”
“Those weren’t for you,” Jenny said and moved her hips so I could get by.
I held the empty baking tray by the towel, and looked at her, though I didn’t want her to see that I was hurt.
“Yours are over there.” She nodded toward the counter.
I dropped the cookie sheet onto the cooling rack and peeled back the foil from the plate: chocolate-chocolate chip cookies. I held up my prize. Her eyes were playful and her mouth crinkled into a grin that I hadn’t seen before. The determined scholastic Jenny was there too, but this new Jenny had teased me and it worked.
If I took three steps across the kitchen, I could kiss her cute, smirky face. Was it insensitive to kiss her while she was nursing an injury? I put a cookie in my mouth instead. We had all night. I didn’t need to rush this.
“Let me taste,” she said and motioned me over with her uninjured hand. She took a bite. I hadn’t expected this and wasn’t sure what to do next, so I stood there, a cookie shaking in my hand, and watched her chew.
Chocolate was smeared across her cheek. She looked so lick-able. With my finger, I dabbed it from her soft, warm face. She leaned into my hand and I kissed her, tasting of milk chocolate. The water was still running and her back was pressed into the enamel sink as she put her cool, wet hand around my neck. My legs trembled. I held on to the countertop.
We slid to the floor. Our knees touched. She moved a strand of my hair, her brown eyes on me, and I shivered. She saw the real me, not just the fragment of me that I gave others. This was what I’d wanted and that’s why I looked away. I couldn’t let her see how much I needed her to see me.
She shifted where we sat and I grabbed her wrist eagerly, with no grace. But if she stood, we’d have to start over again, recross the kissing line. I pulled her closer, then pressed my hips into her as she ran her hand along my back over my white oxford shirt. My dark hair fell onto her peach-colored face. I inhaled her White Shoulders perfume, strongest where her blonde bob stopped. I’d been fooling myself on the ride over. Rejection wasn’t better than nothing.
Kissing was better than nothing.
Hall and Oates trilled, and the water was still sluicing in the sink. Her high cheekbones and strong chin were tinted in shadow just for me. I wanted this to be good, but it was already great. I slid her alongside me on the cold floor and fiddled with her red blouse dotted with flour, my fingers shaking. I wasn’t afraid that I didn’t know what to do, though I didn’t. In the movies the girl sits up and the guy pulls her shirt over her head. But how was I supposed to take off another girl’s blouse? They didn’t show that. It was always he-on-top-of-her or her head in his lap.
What if I went too far and Jenny never wanted to see me again? I undid a button. She had on a black bra. I took a breath. I’d pictured all of our clothes off hundreds of times, but not this in-between, halfsy place, where undergarments had so much meaning. My own stretchy sports bra was worn a faded white, purchased last season in bulk. I needed the darkening night to cover us, but the switch was across the room.
As we kissed, I let my fingers slip between the buttons and touched her satiny bra and then her warm skin. She exhaled softly. The music clicked off.
“I need to turn off the water.” Jenny bolted up, closed the tap and left the kitchen.
I pulled my knees into my chest, my butt on the hard floor. The bathroom door closed. I waited hopelessly, knowing it was over. It wasn’t like she was going to come out wearing a negligee. If she had it would’ve freaked me out. I needed her to be willingly ambivalent; instead, she was decisively unwilling.
“You can stay, but…” Jenny said, opening the bathroom door. She trailed off as she tied the strings on her salmon-colored sweatpants. I stood still in front of her as if any movement would be deadly. But I needed to say something that would change her mind as she looked at me from the door. If I’d kissed her, it might not have ended, but I moved aside and let her out.
My Nikes squeaked in the hardwood hallway as I grabbed my backpack and walked out into the chilly night air. The deadbolt clicked behind me. I’d left my chocolate-chocolate chip cookies inside.
I’d pictured this in hundreds of ways, and in none of them was I riding my bike home forty-two minutes after getting to Jenny’s. I was supposed to stay the night! I adjusted my backpack and threw my hood over my head. The drizzle speckled my coat and skated off my icy blue Schwinn. The light in her bedroom went on. I switched on my headlight as I pedaled down her driveway onto the slick street.
My tires sloshed through puddles and water cascaded over my pants. This couldn’t be completely over, it had barely begun. Only a minute ago, she’d looked at me with that look. And not just tonight but at the railroad tracks too. A purposeful, nonfriendship, lingering look. She knew we’d never talk about boys and French-braid each other’s hair.
I braked, straddled the Schwinn at the end of our cul-de-sac and wiped the rain from my face. I couldn’t go home this early, my mother would grill me. I turned the handlebars and coasted down Mapleleaf Way.
Pedaling quickly past Jenny’s street, I knew that nothing would be the same. I slowed down at the four-way stop and checked for cars. My underwear was damp and cool.
I smacked the wet leaves on the maple tree as I rode under its overhang in front of the house with the Jesus fish flag. From now on masturbating would be lame. Being turned on by someone else was much more exciting than what I could do to myself. I was pathetic, seventeen years old and just figuring out lust. A car flashed its lights. I flipped the driver off and veered to the edge of the road. The wind gusted, and I smelled White Shoulders.
I locked the bike outside Fred Meyer’s, shook out my wet jacket, and remembered how I had told myself that once I got to college I’d find a guy that made me feel something, but now I thought it wasn’t just the provincial Portland boys that were the problem. As I passed by the cashier in her green apron, she waved. I was getting to be a regular Saturday night visitor.
Standing in front of the magazine rack, I flipped through Glamour—ads for makeup and quizzes about finding your ideal boyfriend. I stopped on an article that talked about achieving an orgasm. You were supposed to shift your body so the man’s penis would stimulate your clitoris. I put the magazine back and finished reading Rage of Angels.
My body warm from sitting in Fred Meyer’s, I wasn’t prepared for the wall of wind on the uphill ride home. Only a half mile to go, but my hands were already numb and my ears stung. My cheap headlight needed new batteries. The faded yellow blotch only lit up a few feet of the dark street. I pedaled harder. Inches from overtaking it, I was going faster than the speed of light! If the impossible could happen, then time travel was also real. I’d go back to Jenny’s and start over from when she burnt herself on the Snickerdoodles. But what could I do or say that would keep her kissing me?
As I turned onto Mapleleaf Way a car slowed behind me. I swerved into the soft mud shoulder and waved it on, but the asshole wailed on the horn. I craned my neck, squinted into the lights and magnanimously displayed the bird, but my breath cramped in my chest, hoping this wasn’t a pack of boys out on the prowl. Then my eyes adjusted, and I dropped my hand.
The Sherman Tank’s door swung open, the dome light went on and my mother got out. Benny was in the passenger seat wearing green flannel pajamas. I hopped off my bike and my backpack slid down my shoulders.
“Where’ve you been?” my mother said as she charged toward me. “And don’t say Jenny’s.” The Sherman’s headlights cast a misty glow around her white parka with a fur collar.
I dropped my head, stared at the goopy muck. I couldn’t tell her anything. Not about the confounding end of such close contact. Not that I was killing time at Fred Meyer’s to avoid coming home obnoxiously early. And especially not that someone had seen the real me. Even though it was too brief, would never happen again and worried me when I thought about what it meant, it was by far the best thing that had ever happened. I wished she could’ve known that.
“Just go home,” my mother said and got back into the car. The Sherman trailed behind me as I biked through the bone-white tunnel of its headlights. When we got home I’d admit that Jenny and I got into an argument, and I went to Fred Meyer’s. But I couldn’t think of a plausible reason why I didn’t just come home.
I turned onto our cul-de-sac. The neighbor’s witch hazel stunk like charred lamb. I’d say nothing. My mother couldn’t prove anything. She could ground me until I left for college, but in ninety-one days, I was free from this state: the stifling rain and my hovering family.
The garage door rolled up as I turned into the driveway. I put the Schwinn away and went inside, but my mother grabbed my shoulder before I could get into my bedroom.
“Natalie, don’t think I don’t know what’s going on,” she whispered at a yell, so she wouldn’t wake my father. Her body shook as if it was vibrating with the withheld volume.
I clenched my backpack strap and forced myself not to step into my bedroom. How did she figure it out? Had she seen how excited I was when I left the house and now she saw the difference? I knew she had no concrete evidence. I’d been careful not to use “she” or “her” and scrambled the meaning of my poems when writing them in my spiral notebook.
“Jenny called,” my mother said and moved closer to me, standing in the hallway.
My hand started shaking. I shoved it into my pocket and tried to blink casually. My mother’s eyes flitted behind her glasses, which happened when she was furious.
Benny stood behind my mother, gaping at the interrogation.
“You were with that boy from the record store,” she said.
“Jenny told you that?” I pressed my back into the wall.
My mother sent Benny upstairs.
“No, but she wanted to know if you were here.” My mother shoved her finger into my chest. “Which means you weren’t there.”
I was trying to keep up with what my mother did and didn’t know. She crossed her arms and waited for me to explain. I didn’t have enough time to figure out why Jenny had called, but I knew i
t wasn’t to tell my mother that we’d been kissing. I cleared my throat and because it was the safest thing to do, I’d lie.
Protecting us both from the truth, I started to tell her the most make-believable teenage story about a girl who secretly meets the former football hero at Rudy’s Record Shoppe, but I couldn’t get the words out. I was crying.
My mother reached for me. I bristled and covered my face. I never let myself cry in front of her. Now I was sobbing, mucus bubbled from my nose. I wiped my face with my coat sleeve.
She fished out a travel-sized Kleenex pack from her purse and touched my shoulder with it. Her eyes stopped flickering and softened in pain. I tried to stop my tears and let her comfort me, but I couldn’t. The tears pooled on my chin. I’d never be what she wanted. No matter who I kissed, I’d always be the misfit daughter in pants, no makeup and scruffy hair who liked to sit in the living room talking with the men, not in the kitchen cutting vegetables with the women. She didn’t want to comfort the real me, she wanted to soothe the distorted mirror me, which in this moment, I couldn’t find and reflect.
“You’re such a smart kid, but such a dummy about this kind of thing,” my mother said and unzipped her coat. “Don’t worry, I’m not telling your father.”
I nodded.
“You scared the crap out me.” She tossed her keys into her purse. “There are all kinds of meshuggahs out there who can hurt you.”
I blew my nose. I’d scared the crap out of myself, I thought. How could she not know I knew it was stupid to be riding around alone at night? I’d been living with the queen of fear for seventeen years. If I was six minutes late coming home from Steiny’s, I pictured my mother pacing in the kitchen, staring at the oven clock until I got home.
“In a few months I won’t be able to protect you.” Her voice cracked. Now, she was crying.
I held out the Kleenex. She grabbed my hand and hugged me. “You know that your father and I are proud of you, right?” she said into my ear. The fur on her parka tickled. I hugged her back.