21 Stolen Kisses

by Lauren Blakely

  “Girls are vexing. I told you that,” he says, and wags a finger at me, like he’s admonishing me as a father. But he doesn’t seem pissed or annoyed.

  “They are. But I trust Jonathan is taking good care of you.”

  He scratches his chin. “Yeah, about that.” He stares at the ceiling, then back at me. “I really wouldn’t know.”

  I shoot him a quizzical look. “What do you mean? You signed with him, right?”

  He shakes his head slowly, and a smile forms across his face. “I didn’t. I wasn’t interested in working with Jonathan. But if you were to tell me you’re starting your own shop, that might interest me.”

  A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. The first real smile I’ve felt in weeks. “As a matter of fact, I have started my own shop.”

  He nods approvingly. “Excellent. And since you didn’t try to poach me, that’s all the more reason for me to ask this question, since I admire your integrity. Would you like a new client?”

  “I would love to represent you.”

  He extends a hand and we shake.

  Kennedy

  When we reach the sidewalk, there’s a gleaming black limousine idling by the curb. Amanda gives me a look that might as well be a massive thumbs-up. The chauffeur scurries out to open the door, but Lane waves him off, preferring to hold it open himself.

  The three of us spread out across the backseat, Lane in the middle. He drapes an arm around me, another around Amanda, and says in a low Barry White voice, “Hello, Ladies.”

  We all crack up as Lane pretends to be our escort, then a rich businessman, then a power player who ordered up two young ladies. Minutes later, we’re all gasping from laughter as the sleek black car pulls up to a hotel on Fifty-Seventh Street where Lane’s school holds its last dance of the year. The chauffeur beats Lane to the door this time. We head inside and step onto the escalator that carries us to the second floor.

  A doorman opens the glass doors to the ballroom and I stop in my tracks. It’s twinkling—sparkly silver and shimmery lights with silver balloons coat the ceiling and silver cutout stars line the walls.

  “I guess the theme this year is silver,” Lane remarks as we walk onto the dance floor. A loud, fast beat echoes throughout the cavernous room. Guys and girls, and girls and girls, and guys and guys, are moving their hips to the music.

  I grab Amanda’s arm. “It’s like heaven!”

  She nods enthusiastically. “I know!” She turns to Lane. “We’re easy to please. It’s the all-girls’-school upbringing.”

  He laughs. “That is indeed good to know.”

  I sense an opening. Or rather, a chance to create one. And that’s what I’ve been hoping to do tonight. “I’ll get us sodas. Why don’t you two dance?”

  “Okay,” Amanda says, and she’s seconded by Lane. He gives me a quick look before he starts to dance, but I know he doesn’t like me the way he used to, and I’m glad. I want him in my life as a friend.

  I ask the bartender for three sodas. The bartender hands me the beverages, but I’m not ready to return to the dance floor. There will be time enough for me to bring them their drinks.

  “Thanks,” I say, and I lean against the bar, watching my friends. I wait and the music slows and the swaying starts.

  There’s an awkwardness at first. Amanda and Lane both shuffle their feet, and neither one knows exactly what to do with their arms. I tense, trying to will them to move closer, trying to use the force to guide his arms to her shoulders, then around her back. Soon enough, he figures it out, and she slides in closer, and they have this dance.

  The lights dim and silver disco balls descend, spinning kaleidoscopic swirls across the hardwood floor. I’m pretty sure this won’t be their last dance of the night. I take a sip of my Diet Coke, thinking of someone who’s not here, wondering how he’d look on the dance floor with me.

  Instinctively, I touch my necklace. I twirl the charms in my hand, listening to the music.

  I turn to the bartender. “So this is prom.”

  “So this is prom,” he echoes.

  “This is what everyone gets all excited about.”

  “Yep. This is what everyone gets excited about.”

  “I can see why.”

  Soon, soon, I will join my friends. I will seize the moment, because in some ways, this is the best of times after all.

  I let that word reverberate in my head.

  Time.

  It clangs and echoes loudly in my mind. It insists on being heard. It tells me it knows something. Time is what we were missing. That’s what Lane and Amanda have in their potential favor; that’s what Noah and I lacked.

  I swivel around as an idea shoots through me, landing like a meteor in the backyard, exploding open with possibilities. “Do you have a pencil? Or a pen?” I ask the bartender.

  He fishes for one in his pocket and hands it to me. I grab a napkin, and begin writing. Or really, I finish writing. Because there is a letter I never sent. A letter that only had a beginning. It had no end. And so I finish it.

  Our Stolen Kisses

  At prom, I think of you, and I find the answer.

  The answer is time.

  What if we were one of those couples that met out of time? What if I’d been two years older, or you were five years younger, or we met at work, or in Europe, or on the subway? Would we still have fallen so hard, and so far? We’ll never know, will we, what would have happened if the time was right?

  They say time heals all wounds. But does it close the gaps too? Maybe it can. Maybe in a year it turns an eight-year time gap into dust. Maybe it turns a girl who didn’t know what she wanted into someone who became certain. Maybe it turns twenty-one stolen kisses into endless given ones.

  Then I write the final line.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Many Months Later:

  Kennedy

  My mom invites me to take a trip to Italy with her over winter break. “Florence is irresistible to any art history student,” she writes in an e-mail that promises fabulous dinners too as she tries to lure me with reminders that the country’s plethora of pasta is calling my vegetarian heart. “We’ll fly first class and it will be divine! Say yes, please!”

  I keep waiting for her to tell me she’s done, she’s changing, she’s in therapy. But those words haven’t come, and this is all we have now. These e-mails, the occasional phone call.

  It’s been several months since I moved out of her place for good. I live in the dorms, but when I go “home,” it’s always to my dad’s. Like me, he’s making changes too. He stood up to Jay Fierstein, and Jay backed down, dropping the breach of contract lawsuit. I’m proud of my dad; it’s been so much easier for him to seethe inside, to just take it. This is progress for the iceman.

  But as for Jewel, she is still my mom. And it is almost Christmas. I relax my rules temporarily and reply. “Have a Merry Christmas, Mom. Let’s meet for lunch before your trip,” I write. But lunch is as far as I’ll go.

  My mom has a new agent now. I know this because I looked it up online. Plus, she mentioned once in a phone call that Noah hadn’t even tried to win her back. I ignored the comment, but secretly I was glad to know he hadn’t gone crawling to her after I was out of the picture. He’s moved on professionally and I read in the trades that his new agency is soaring.

  No surprise there.

  I close my laptop, tuck it inside my dark-pink messenger bag, and place some bills on the table at my favorite diner on campus. The coffee here is good, and it fuels my final exam prep.

  I leave and a cold December wind whips by. Tightening my scarf around my neck, I hunt for my gloves. I find them inside my computer bag and pull them on to warm my cold hands. New York is having a particularly harsh winter. Shivering, I cut across Washington Square Park, where even the hardy street performers have packed up for the day. I walk past the main NYU offices, with Christmas decorations up already, then push open the door to the library. The whoosh of ventilated heat is like a
car in a black-asphalt parking lot in August—the complete opposite of the Arctic outdoors. I unwrap myself from my coat, sit down at a table, and pull out my Survey of Art book.

  I pore over sculptures and artists and paintings. When I come across a Fragonard, my heart tugs, like an old wound flaring up, as I remember one of my first dates with Noah at the Frick and how he made me laugh at the art, how we kissed like the painting. I peer more closely at the image in my book as if this representation can wipe away the aching inside me. But half of my heart is still hurting, still missing. I hope it will hurt less and maybe soon it will hurt a quarter, then an eighth, then one-sixteenth, then I won’t even feel the aching. It’ll just fade with time.

  Or maybe it won’t. Maybe I’ll always miss my first love.

  “I walked past Noah’s building the other night,” I say to Caroline later that evening. We’ve worked through a lot in our time together. I’m pretty sure it’s helped, all the talking. But all the listening is what’s helped most.

  “Did you go in?”

  My lips quirk up, like I’ve been caught. “Well, not in exactly.”

  “Then what exactly?” she asks, but she’s not mad, she’s just curious.

  “I just wanted to see if my name was still on the list with the doorman.”

  “And was it?”

  I nod.

  “And what do you think about your name being on the list?”

  “I guess I hope it’s always on the list,” I say softly. If my name hasn’t been crossed off, then perhaps the invitation remains open for a someday down the road. “Because every day I feel more ready.”

  She raises an eyebrow, eyes me curiously. “For?”

  I glance sideways, like she should know what I mean. “You know. The thing you don’t think will work out.”

  “I never said it wouldn’t work out, Kennedy,” she says, correcting me. “I said it rarely works out.”

  “Well, maybe we can be rare then.”

  “Maybe you can.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I’m not going to predict,” she says. “You know what I think. You know the risks. You don’t even know if he’d want you back.”

  I nod. “I know. He might have moved on. He probably moved on. But I’ll never know.”

  “Unless you try.”

  It’s as much a blessing as I’m ever going to get from anyone, so I’ll take it. But more than getting a blessing, I have given myself permission. I have given myself forgiveness. And I have given myself a clean slate.

  She nods, and then we’re both quiet for a moment. But what I really want to say is I hope someday I’ll go inside again. I hope someday I’ll ride in the elevator up to the sixth floor. I hope I’ll knock on his door. I hope he’ll be waiting for me. And I hope I’ll be ready then.

  But I can’t ask him to wait. I can’t ask myself to wait either.

  I can’t live in the future, and I can’t live in the past. I have a test to take, and friends to get together with, since Catey, Lane, and Amanda are all coming over for a mini holiday party at my house in a few days.

  When I finish my final exam the next day, I text Catey that I rocked it as I head to midtown to meet my dad for lunch on Forty-Fourth Street, the heart of the theater district. I send the text and look up from my phone. But I stop in my tracks as I walk by the Belasco Theatre. My feet can’t move. I am glued to the sidewalk.

  The whole world turns still, and I swear I’m seeing things. I blink several times, as if the mirage in front of me will stop shimmering and return to what it used to be. But the poster … it’s here. It’s real and it’s beckoning to me. I step toward it, tentatively, one hand out, as if I need to touch it to prove it’s real. It’s happening.

  A sign.

  A sign for Chess.

  The revival. Opening in three weeks. I’ve been so immersed in school and my new world order that I missed the news that it had moved beyond workshop and into production and rehearsals and casting. I bring my hand to my mouth, pressing my fingers against my lips as wonder spreads through me. My heart skips all its beats, my mind races forward to the future, to the prospects, to the possibilities.

  I push open the door to the lobby. The ticket window is open. I don’t even have to think twice. I buy two tickets for opening night.

  Then I go to the bank, visit my safe-deposit box and remove the only thing I have that’s priceless. Carefully, I slide the letter into my bag. When I return to my dorm, I re-read the final line I wrote that night, then I add some new ones. They are as necessary as all the words that came before.

  I ride over to Noah’s building. The doorman lets me in. The elevator takes me to the sixth floor. As hope floods my body, I walk to his apartment and I slide it under the door.

  There are no guarantees. I have no claim to him, and no right to expect anything but a rebuff. All I know is, I’ll never know unless I try.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Three Weeks Later:

  Noah

  I read the letter again for the fiftieth time. Maybe the five hundredth. I adjust my tie, look in the mirror, and run my fingers through my hair. Then I take off the tie, tossing it on the floor.

  The day I received the letter three weeks ago knocked me to my knees. I almost didn’t open it. I crumpled it up, threw it in the trash and walked away. Ten minutes later, I grabbed it from the top of the wastebasket and smoothed it out.

  I started to read it, making it through the first three kisses before I shoved it to the other side of my coffee table and slammed the door behind me. How the hell could she send me that letter now? After she walked out and left me with another open wound?

  I went for a run, up and down Madison Avenue, trying to burn her off in the cold night air.

  When I returned, the damn letter called out to me. I made it through more pages.

  With each word, the desire to punch a wall intensified.

  Maybe that’s how I was supposed to feel. Angry. I don’t like being jerked around. Nobody does. And here she was sending me the letter that split us in two. The letter I said would ruin me.

  It did.

  But then I was ruined long ago.

  Way before a letter.

  I read it again the next night, and then the next, and the next. With each time spent reliving us, my anger began to fall to the ground like snow dissolving on the street. In its place were only memories of all those days and nights, kisses and laughs, plans and feelings. So much more than I ever expected.

  So much more than I’ll ever have again.

  Reading her story of our kisses was like watching our love affair on the screen, from that early spark of awareness to the tipping point before our first kiss to the night in the park when we were no longer falling. We’d fallen. We were in love.

  We are.

  I’ve dated since we broke up again. I’ve had a few interesting dinners, movies, and shows. Even laughed a few times. I haven’t monked up. But nothing has compared. They are all black and white and she is color. She is all my colors.

  Because I know who I am. My story is simple. It’s not complicated. It’s not unusual.

  I’m just a guy who’s in love with a girl.

  I head to the lobby and hail a cab. Along the way, I open the letter once more and read the final words again. The last line of the letter itself sparked that dangerous hope in me again – What if time was on our side? But after so many words that melted my heart, it’s the practical ones that matter right now. I turn the page from the final sentence to the next page.

  The postscript.

  I go to Dr. Insomnia’s Coffee and Tea Emporium every afternoon with my friends. You know how to find me. I will be waiting for you. I have always been waiting for you. It’s always you.

  The cab stops in the Village.

  I pay the cabbie, thank him, and step out onto the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop I’ve never been to. Her place.

  I peer through the glass window, scanning for her. A guy in
a beanie wraps his arm around a girl with pink hair. A trio of tattooed punk girls are spread out on a couch. A young mother and father drink lattes as the mom rocks a baby. An older woman with gray hair taps away on a laptop. In the far back of the shop I spot a guy tipped back in his chair. He’s talking animatedly, likely telling a story to three girls. One has bright blond hair, one is dark blond, and one I can barely see. Then she laughs and turns to the window, like she’s waiting for someone.

  I will be waiting for you.

  My heart bangs against my chest, leaps into my throat. And I can’t help it. I’m grinning like a fool. There she is, and as I walk to the door and pull it open, her mouth falls open. Her eyes widen, and then she pushes back her chair, and walks to me.

  We stand in the middle of the coffee shop. Pop music plays overhead. I have no idea what song it is. The sound of espresso machines whirring and patrons chattering mingles with the unknown tune.

  “Hi,” she says, going first, her voice breathy, her green eyes lit up and sparkling.

  “Hi.”

  “Forgive me.”

  I tilt my head. “For what, K?”

  “For leaving.”

  “I don’t think you need forgiveness for that.”

  “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  “I could never hate you.”

  “I don’t want you to be mad at me,” she says, reaching for her necklace, absently touching the charms, as if the necklace settles her.

  “I’m not mad at you,” I say, because I dealt with that emotion already. I’m past it. I have let go of anger. I only feel want and hope and potential.

  “I want you to love me.”

  Kennedy

  His rapid-fire responses slow down, and he seems to consider what I just said before he answers me with a question: “You think I stopped?”

  My heart expands, grows inside my chest, filling me up. But not stopping isn’t enough. Being so in love isn’t enough. The reasons need to be right. “I didn’t stop either. And I need you to know that I love you for you. I love you not just because it’s a secret, not just to piss off my mom. I love you because you’re you.”