Kiss Me Again

by Rachel Vail

  Later, in science class, we had to present our project ideas. I felt Kevin’s eyes on me when I stood up front, reading from my paper about my plans to test the five-second rule by dropping gummi bears on various floors for one second, five seconds, ten seconds, and twenty seconds, swab them for bacteria, and then compare with undropped gummi bears as a control.

  Everybody laughed and made predictions. Except Kevin.

  When he had to go up, I kept my eyes on my desk until he was in the midst of detailing his proposal. He was planning to test bathrooms—in the school, in the house he was living in (he didn’t say in my house; he said in the house I am living in), in a coffee shop, in a McDonald’s—and compare to see which is the grossest.

  I could feel kids in the class turning to see my reaction. I tried to stay neutral, but I’m sorry, WHAT? He was going to swab my bathroom to see if it was as gross as the school bathroom or a fast-food restaurant’s or, what? The men’s room at Cuppa? To see if it was gross? And then put his results on a damn piece of poster board?

  Mrs. Roderick said, “Oh, sounds like you and Charlie have similar ideas. Maybe you’ll team up?”

  “No,” we both answered.

  “Well,” Mrs. Roderick said, blinking her long, fake eyelashes at us. One of them was only partially attached, giving her a kind of kooky, unsettling look. “That was unanimous. Okeydokey. Next?”

  Kevin passed my seat, going back to his.

  I sank down and waited for time to slog by. At the end of class, Tess was at my side before the bell finished ringing. On our way out the door, she whispered to me, “You know what’s weird? For a few days there, I was all worried you were ditching me for Kevin. I was all like, Charlie is totally getting back at me, making me feel jealous as revenge for all those times she felt jealous of me.”

  “Really?”

  “Crazy, right? But I can see now how jealousy can make a person do crazy stuff, and anyway, I’m over it because I see you love me way more than that boy-slut.”

  “Um,” I said. “Good, I guess?”

  “I love love love your science fair project. Let’s figure out a way we can combine it with mine. More fun that way. Hey, did you know funeral is an anagram of real fun?”

  I had to laugh. “That is the most awesome thing ever.”

  I walked home by myself after school.

  At least Kevin hadn’t quit newspaper, like I had, or maybe he was at baseball. I wasn’t memorizing his schedule anymore.

  I had a ton of homework, and it probably meant nothing that Anya hadn’t called me about when to come in for my first official day yet. She had said it might be a few days. Anyway, I was very busy, so it was just as well. I had many hobbies of my own, buried deep down, to get busy developing.

  Sam was sitting on the landing midway up the stairs, reading a book.

  “Hey, Sam,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Great,” she said. “I’m going to buy bubble gum with the money I got from the tooth fairy. I usually get a dollar, but this time I got four.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Four? Wow.”

  “I know,” Sam said. “Strange coincidence, right? My dad is going to take me to buy the gum, and I will be happy to teach you bubbles tonight, if you’re free.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” I said.

  I took a short break on my bed when I got there. I wished I could be more like Sam, able, still, to just lose myself sprawled on a step, reading a book. Or like Mom, in love, successful in a career, settled with everything. Or like Joe, artistic and generous. Even maybe like my dad, certain of everything.

  Dad.

  I scrolled through my emergency contacts. How had I not thought of this before?

  “Dad?” I said into the phone when he picked up. “Hi!”

  “Who is this?” my father asked.

  “It’s your kid, the older one, the one from your first marriage,” I said, aware of the edge of sarcasm mixed with about-to-cry in my voice that I had sworn to myself only thirty seconds earlier I could avoid. “It’s Charlie, Dad.”

  “Charlotte!” he said. “How are you? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, Dad, sure,” I told him.

  “Your mother’s fine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jim treating her okay?”

  “Joe,” I said. “I just wanted to ask you if …”

  “What? I can’t hear you. Why are you sniveling?”

  “Allergies,” I said, and immediately regretted it. He thinks having allergies is, like sniveling, a sign of a weak character. “Or, nothing. Dad? Would it be okay with you if …”

  “Charlotte, honey, I just got home from work, and I have to get out to the yard or I’ll never—”

  “Okay, but, Dad? You’re going to Paris over spring break?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Gotta get some French fries. Hahaha.”

  “But what about me?” My face in my mirror looked so pathetic I sank down on the far side of my bed and closed my eyes, waiting.

  “It’s extremely expensive, Charlotte.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I can’t bankroll your every wish, you know.”

  “I know. I wasn’t asking to come to Paris with you....”

  “Yup. You keeping your grades up?”

  “Yeah. Dad. Maybe I could just come for a visit. This weekend, even. It’s been a while, and ABC must be so big by now....”

  “He’s still a punk, aren’t you, ABC?”

  “No,” I heard my little half brother say, and then heard my father laugh. ABC, who was almost five and adorable, started to giggle. My father must have been tickling him, from the roller-coaster sound of his giggles—and my father’s ragged breath, whispering, “Oh yeah? Oh yeah?”

  “Dad?” I considered telling him that Shakespeare used the word punk to mean prostitute, so maybe he shouldn’t call his favorite kid that. But then I didn’t. Couldn’t.

  “Hmmm? Charlotte?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  “Okay, you take care,” Dad said. “Say hello to your mom for me. How’s her marriage going? Better this time around?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Well, send her and Jim my best.”

  “Joe.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You working yet? Or just lazing around with your nose in a book?”

  I hesitated. “You know me,” I finally said.

  “Honey, you gotta get your ass in gear, huh? Life’s not just entertainment.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, it is,” I heard ABC say, through the phone. “For me it is.”

  My father play-grunted at him. “I’m gonna get you, you punk,” he said in a grizzly-bear voice, and then, to me, said, “Gotta go, honey. Talk to you soon.”

  “Bye, Dad,” I said, and hung up before he could.

  I threw my phone down on the bed and flung open my door. Just what I needed—Kevin was on his way to his room, at the same moment. Well, I was not about to slink back into my room just because some jerk-slut punk interloper was clogging up my hall.

  “Hey! Kevin!” I whisper-yelled, warning myself not to talk loud enough for Sam to overhear, and further not to say aloud the too-silly-for-how-furious-I-felt word interloper.

  “What?” He turned around, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

  You interloper! “I really didn’t appreciate your little science project jab.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Right,” I said. My arms were crossed in front of my chest, too. “Sure you don’t. Your science project is basically a way of insulting my house, you interloper.” Damn.

  “What?” He took a step closer and growled at me, “Not everything is about YOU, believe it or not.”

  “Screw you. I never said it was.”

  “Why would you think my project was specifically designed
to dis you?”

  “Well, you’re planning to—what? Swab my bathroom and compare it to every gross place you can find, and see how it stacks up? To broadcast to the entire school how messy my house is? I’m not the one with Head & Shoulders in the shower and my wet towel and dirty underwear on the floor. So, watch where you throw stones, you know? Because I have plenty of ammunition, and you live in MY frigging glass house.”

  “At least I didn’t steal my science project idea from a nine-year-old.”

  “And I did?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You did. I was there. String bean on the floor?”

  “You think you people invented the five-second rule? How frigging arrogant are—”

  “You’re the most arrogant person I—”

  At that moment, my mother came up the stairs, a stack of books in her arms and her reading glasses crooked on her nose. “Hi,” she said. “Everything okay, you guys?”

  “Fine,” Kevin and I answered in unison. Then we retreated to our rooms. So much for not getting detoured by the interloper.

  twenty-eight

  “THE FIVE-SECOND RULE,” I told him.

  “That is the most excellent science project ever,” Toby responded, topping a coffee with a perfect dome of steamed milk. He placed the mug on the counter in front of a grateful, frazzled mom of twin toddlers who were screeching in the stroller beside her, poking each other with gunky fingers.

  “Sorry again,” I said, because of the time she’d had to waste while I wrecked three tries at making it for her.

  She tried to give back an understanding nod, but clearly the full measure of her understanding had been used up on her ogre babies. She steered the stroller to the front corner and faced it to the wall, then slid down in her seat, the warm mug Toby had given her nestled between her palms. She sipped as her eyes closed.

  “Never gonna have kids,” I whispered to Toby.

  “You sound like my mom,” he responded.

  I was laughing when the door to Cuppa opened. Felicity and Paige walked in, followed closely by Kevin and Brad.

  “Friends of yours?” Toby whispered. I guess I had stiffened a little.

  I turned my back to them and whispered, “My ex, and his newbie.”

  “Which?” Toby whispered.

  “Blue-eyed boy. And ponytail.”

  “I got this,” he said to me, and then to them, across the counter, “Hey.”

  “Hi,” Felicity said, then turned to Kevin. “Do you know what you want?”

  “Yes,” Kevin said, glaring at me.

  “Ugh, I’m so indecisive,” Felicity said. “What are you getting?”

  “So?” Toby said to me, leaning his hip against the counter, while my friends discussed the relative merits of Cuppa’s various offerings.

  “So,” I answered.

  “So we’re on for Saturday night, then?” he asked me.

  First I’d heard of it. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “So cool that you like Apollo Run.”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked, pretending that was just an expression instead of an honest question. “They’re great!” Please let Apollo Run be a THEY.

  “Have you heard their new song?” Toby asked.

  “The best,” I said. “Though, of course, their old stuff …”

  “Sure.” Toby’s hand pulled my shoulder close to his armpit. “We’ll hang with them after, they’ll love you.”

  The shaking started at my feet and spread upward. No way any of these people in front of the counter, all of whom I’d known since elementary school, would believe I was going to see a band with this senior guy. They had stopped discussing drinks and were all facing us, waiting to order, but Toby was paying attention only to me, completely ignoring them. If Anya walked out of the storeroom, she’d be pissed.

  “Sounds great,” I said, and turned around to clean the already gleaming machines with my rag while my friends ordered their overly sweet drinks from Toby.

  They took their drinks to go. I waved good-bye and even mustered a smile. Kevin was first to walk out and didn’t hold the door for anybody. Brad at least turned around and said, “See you back at the ranch!”

  Felicity giggled at that and so, therefore, did Paige.

  When the door closed behind them, I wilted onto the stool behind the counter, even though Toby was the senior person on and had rights to it.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You must do improv,” he answered.

  “Why?” I asked instead of admitting that no, I never did anything of the kind.

  “You’re good at it. The rule.”

  “The rule?”

  “‘Yes, and.’ Whatever your scene partner says, you say yes, and then add … You’re yanking my chain, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, yes, and …”

  “And?”

  “And I … am secretly an improv pro. You know, in the greater Boston area.”

  “You don’t get out to Chicago much these days?”

  I’d never been to Chicago. “Chicago is so done now.”

  “True that,” he said. “And.”

  “And.”

  “And it sucks when you have to see your ex with somebody else the first time.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And—it does. And that really helped. And it was fun.”

  He nodded. “’Twas. Your turn to clean the milk station.”

  “On it,” I said. I made it gleam. Felt good to scrub something clean.

  twenty-nine

  DESPITE MY EFFORTS to avoid her, Felicity continued being very friendly to me all week at school. She asked me a bit about Toby, and the band we were going to see, and about working at Cuppa. She was being so nice it was hard to avoid falling into a happy friendship with her. But as soon as I felt myself sucked into a conversation, walking down the hall with her or sitting together at lunch, I’d picture her behind that hemlock in her backyard with Kevin’s hand tangled in her hair, and my mind would clamp as tight as my jaw.

  At those moments, she’d tilt her head a bit, confused, and let it go, wandering off with Paige or one of her other adorable friends. It wasn’t fair, I realized—she had no idea I was involved with Kevin when she got hair-tangled in it, and of course I had to keep it that way. She couldn’t know. And I of all people had a heck of a nerve being mad at anybody for kissing Kevin while I was (secretly, unofficially) going out with him, after what I had done to Tess knowing full well that she was publicly, officially falling in love with him at the time.

  Urgh.

  Sometimes it was hard to be friends with myself.

  And then, of course, Tess started asking me about Toby. We were getting to be the talk of the school: me and that cool senior, going to see an awesome band Saturday night in Harvard Square. Tess thought I was being humble, saying I don’t know and We’re just friends from work.

  The fact that Felicity and Tess seemed impressed and Kevin seemed pissed off meant more to me than I wanted to admit. Exactly when I felt least likable, I was hitting my popularity zenith.

  Friday afternoon, Tess came over so we could work on our science projects together. We stopped off in town and bought gummies for me and water for her, since she was doing taste tests of bottled water, to see how they ranked on a scale from one to ten. Neither of us were likely to win Nobels, it was clear to us both.

  We were in my kitchen dropping gummi bears, counting, and cracking up when Kevin came in from baseball practice.

  “Hi, Kevin!” Tess said, turning on her full wattage.

  What? Since when was she so friendly to Kevin?

  “Will you taste-test these waters?” she asked him.

  “Okay,” he said. He put down his mitt and sat on the bench his father had placed beside our back doorway. He took off his sneakers while Tess poured a little water from each bottle into a separate cup, then lined up all ten plastic cups beside numbered index cards across the kitchen table, whispering to me the whole time about what I should write down
on her pad.

  Kevin came to the table and crossed his arms over his chest, wary of her and of the activity, looking down at the plastic cups as if maybe she had put poison in some of them. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Choose one, drink it, and say how much you like it.”

  He picked up cup number five and drank it like a shot.

  “So?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “On a scale of one to ten.”

  “It’s water,” he said.

  “Just give it a rating,” Tess said. “It’s my science project. Come on.”

  “Maybe taste another and compare them,” I suggested.

  He chugged cup number one. “It’s water, too.”

  “They’re all water,” Tess said. “But don’t they taste subtly different?”

  “No,” Kevin said.

  “Are you taste-blind, too?”

  “Too?”

  “Yeah,” Tess said. “Color-blind and taste-blind?”

  He looked at me then, first time all day.

  “I didn’t …” There was nothing I could say. Obviously I had told Tess he was color-blind. “You didn’t say it was a secret.”

  He grabbed on to the edge of the table. I stepped back, involuntarily, picturing him flipping over the table and dumping everything.

  “We’re best friends, Kevin,” Tess said. “Charlie tells me everything! Your rocket ship underpants, how you fart if you eat cheese—”

  I jumped in: “I never—”

  “Just like you told Brad about how Charlie eats cookies in the middle of the night. What do you expect?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You told Brad?”

  “I didn’t,” Kevin said.

  “I knew it. I can’t believe you.”

  “Me?”

  “Would you guys calm down?” Tess laughed. “Come on, Kevin. Just rate the stupid waters so I don’t fail science?”

  So Kevin sipped each cup of water and rated them. I think he chose random numbers, which I wrote down in Tess’s notebook. Then he went upstairs, and Tess and I hung out until it was time for her to go home.

  “I see what you mean,” she said. “It’s, like, tense in your house now. It always used to be so chill here. So, you’re really going to Harvard Square with that guy Toby tomorrow night?”