Kiss Crush Collide

by Christina Meredith

  Shane tries his luck again, pulling more impatiently this time, and I give in, letting him lure me away from Freddie and Edith and whatever it is that I may have missed. Hooking my fingers around his, I drag my toes through the thick cream carpet all the way down the hall, feeling his pull getting stronger and stronger the closer we get to my door. He knows my mother’s nerves may have been momentarily settled now that I am home safe, but the sound of her uptight heels clicking across the tiled foyer downstairs means we are running out of time.

  Chapter Two

  Roger has perfectly trimmed dark hair that stands up in a neat line along the edge of his forehead, like a hedge. He also has sharp creases down the front of his khakis and fine, shiny driving moccasins that match his leather belt. His arms are tan from golfing; his face is tan from skiing in the winter and from summers manning the barbecue at his family’s lake house. So, in short, he is just like every boyfriend Yorke has ever had, but with maybe a little bit more money, as I discovered that evening while waiting with my sisters on our front steps for a ride to the club and he pulled up in the little red M3 Shane and I had parked behind earlier that day.

  This manicured man is now standing with an arm wrapped tightly around my oldest sister’s waist as the soft tinkling notes from the club’s piano bar drift over to our table. Our middle school music teacher is moonlighting for tips. Hunching over the gleaming black baby grand in the corner, her frizzy hair bounces in time as her eyes, magnified to the tenth power by her thick, smudged glasses, trail along on the photocopied sheet music. She pauses a moment for applause at the end of each piece, then silently cracks her knuckles and starts in on another melancholy, boozy tune.

  My dad sits at the head of the table, his smile beaming out into the room. My mother, to his right, dabs at her eyes, leaving dark mascara spots across her expensive linen country club napkin.

  I look around the table, my wineglass at half-mast. We are supposed to be celebrating Freddie’s graduation, yet only Shane and Evan, Freddie’s boyfriend whom she is planning to dump at the end of the summer so she can get buck wild during her year abroad, seemed truly surprised to hear Yorke’s engagement news. They jumped up and clapped, giving themselves away as outsiders. The rest of us were already in on it.

  Yorke could never keep a secret. Ever. She was always the one who guessed where our Christmas gifts were hidden each year. Then she would convince me, or Freddie, but usually me since Freddie kind of has an iron will, to come along on the expedition to uncover them.

  If we refused, Yorke would find the gifts herself and then, afterward, pin us down and tell us what we were getting. I remember being under the stairs in my dad’s office late one December afternoon when I was about eight, holding a big yellow flashlight while Yorke shifted boxes around and called out everything she found. “Dollhouse . . . board game . . . dresses . . . books for Freddie . . . paint set.” My heart dropped and the flashlight bobbed every time she found another box.

  For other occasions, she would tell you what a present was just as you were starting to tear off the wrapping paper. It was like someone snuffing out the candles on your cake just as you were about to blow, your lungs full of air and your mind full of wishes and then whoosh . . . gone.

  It didn’t matter whom the gift was from or whom it was for; she had to tell. And not just us. I remember going to birthday parties as kids. Yorke got us invited to everything, as she is, and was even then, the most popular and social person I have ever met.

  We would walk in the front door, wearing our matching but different-colored dresses, and Yorke would hand over our perfectly wrapped gift and announce baldly, “It’s a baby doll.” Then she would walk away to pin the tail on the donkey or join the circle of little girls with freshly brushed hair and pink dresses who were just dying to play with her and Freddie and I would be left standing, embarrassed, in the front hall with an upset mother and a confused little birthday girl.

  She didn’t grow out of it.

  “Leah, you made the squad!” she screamed just thirty minutes after I had finished my freshman pep squad tryout. We weren’t supposed to know the results until the next morning, so did I mind keeping it a secret until then? “Leah, I heard you got captain!” she cheered, calling from her dorm room the next year, an insider even when she was on the outside. She knew before I did, before anyone else did, and of course she had to be the first to tell. It was the same thing with her engagement; she even had to trump herself.

  We had been driving along in Roger’s red convertible earlier that night, the smooth tan leather seats smelling new and expensive, his frat boy rock barely loud enough to be heard over the sizzle of the tires and the swirl of the warm June breeze. Freddie and I were squeezed in the back, our short black dresses fluttering, our legs angled toward the middle, knees knocking together, as we pulled out of our driveway for the short trip to the country club. Yorke lowered the volume on the power ballad as soon as we hit the street and turned around to face us.

  “Guess what?” she gushed, and I leaned forward, gripping the side of her seat with my fingers. Roger gunned it just as she squealed, “Roger and I are engaged!” and she was snapped back into her seat, momentarily pinned down by the force of the engine.

  I took this opportunity to look to my right at Freddie, who was sitting back in her seat, her eyebrows raised. She smiled at me and then turned her head to look at the passing countryside. I settled back. Of course she already knew. Freddie and Yorke are alike in a lot of ways, but not this one. Freddie can keep a secret. She’s like a vault.

  Yorke swiveled back around, and I plastered a huge grin on my face as Roger jerked us into a higher gear.

  “I was going to wait until we made the big announcement tonight at dinner, but I just couldn’t . . . ” she said as she smoothed her hair back with her right hand, pausing long enough for me to see the weighty diamond sparkling on her finger. “Don’t say anything to Mother or Dad, okay? I mean, they already know, but still, act surprised, okay?”

  “Okay.” I nodded, going along with Yorke’s scheme, like always. “Now,” I said with a big breath, “let me see that ring.”

  Yorke held out her hand just as Roger took a wild right, the swing of the car pulling her fingers away from mine. I grabbed on to Yorke’s seat and steadied myself. I looked up to see Roger smiling benignly at me in the rearview mirror.

  It seemed a bit dangerous to be crowded up near the front of the car with Yorke’s diamond, Freddie’s knees, and Roger’s testosterone, so I leaned back and listened to Yorke’s stream of wedding plans: cream roses, champagne cocktails, and strawberry dresses. Or maybe that was cream-colored dresses and strawberry champagne cocktails?

  I looked out over the lake as we whizzed by. It was smooth, the water dark with splashes of sunlight trailing a boat or two. There were dads and kids out on the docks, tying up Sunfishes or just casting off for an evening sail.

  We had grown up on that lake. Learned to swim, sail, and fish there. Spent our summers in that water wearing matching but different-colored bathing suits.

  Freddie is an excellent diver. She spent hours practicing off our dock, my dad in the water up to his neck, encouraging her. I used to watch how Freddie would bend her legs, how they would tense right before she pushed off, the way she kept her toes pointed as she hit the water.

  She held my hand the first time I went to dive, our toes curled over the edge of the old wooden dock. When she let go, I sailed into the water. I knew what to do. I had learned all I needed to know from watching her.

  Days and days went by when all we did was swim and lie on the dock, wrapping ourselves in our thick beach towels when the sun started to set, our hair still dripping from its sun-bleached ends.

  My sisters were my best friends. We shared secrets, sandwiches, every minute of our lives, even a bathroom. I was jealous that Yorke got to sail in her little boat alone, that Freddie was taller than I was, that they both could French braid and do a perfect cartwheel. I spent all m
y time trying to catch up with them and measure up. I still do.

  Roger took a tight curve. I reached up, fingers tangling in my hair, and settled back with Yorke’s news, waiting for the familiar feeling of jealousy to kick in.

  Every time we drove past our old house on our way to the club, my mother would insist we slow down so she could curse the new owners. “Geraniums. How common,” she would comment, her eyes following the house, her head motionless. “Mason,” she would say to my dad, “did you see the color of the shutters?”

  With Roger behind the wheel, there was no slowing down for the lake house, even though flashes of it appeared between the trees and then disappeared as quickly as the memories running through my mind. There was no slowing down, period. Freddie and I were going to be lucky to get out of this drive with our kneecaps intact. Summer already seemed to be rushing by, and it hadn’t even officially started yet.

  Roger slammed to a stop at the club’s curved entry, and my knees smacked into Freddie’s with a sick thud. Our bodies flung forward until our seat belts caught and tightened us down.

  Roger was out in a flash, not having said a word the entire drive. It seemed he preferred to communicate nonverbally through erratic gearshifting and sudden, violent braking.

  He was around to Yorke’s side of the car with his hand on the door before the engine even stopped. He opened it gallantly, she stepped out and kissed him, then he pushed the seat forward and held the door for Freddie. I was left to fend for myself.

  Struggling with my seat belt and my wind-whipped hair, I didn’t notice the hand held out for me until it was right there in my face. It was not the large, lumbering hand of my boyfriend. It was masculine, yes, but in a thinner, more energetic, knuckle-cracking kind of way.

  I glanced up into green eyes with bits of brown dancing in them as I shook my hair over my shoulder, rubbed my sore knee, grabbed my purse, and then reached for the outstretched hand.

  “Smooth ride?” he asked. A smile curved up one side of his mouth.

  I laughed. When he wrapped his fingers around mine, a warm current of electricity flowed through me. I felt suddenly solid, as if my world had been rolling past me and it had stopped, right now, amazingly sharp and in focus as if I had just taken off my roller skates. I didn’t want to let go.

  Roger appeared in front of us. His sharp creases and crisp lines were unaffected by his driving. His face was serious, and the key to the red M3 was swinging from one of his fingers. He dangled it and then finally dropped it. Those electric fingers snagged the key, breaking our hold, and my heart, midair.

  “Keep it close,” Roger requested as he leaned in to read the embroidered name on the red nylon club jacket. He clapped his hand down twice on the broad shoulder next to mine and said, “Porter,” with a small smile and a folded five-dollar bill.

  Then he cleared his throat, slid his hand up to check that his hair was at full attention, and proceeded to circle his entire car once, admiring and assessing it before he reached for Yorke again and pulled her across the warm blacktop toward the stairs leading up to the club.

  I could feel Porter’s green eyes on me as I crossed the parking lot, my sharp heels stabbing into the soft tar that had spent the day in the sun.

  My face flushed and my pace quickened as I realized that at this moment I was not jealous of Yorke, not at all. Not of her engagement, or her huge diamond ring, and especially not of Roger, a man whose shoes and belt matched the interior of his car.

  I reached the stairs and paused, burning a memory in my mind, one that was all mine, that didn’t involve my sisters.

  His eyes, the green so bright, the sideways smile, the way it felt when he held my hand. My fingers tingled still, and I wrapped them into a fist, trying to hold on tight.

  “Hurry up,” my sisters called out to me from the entrance, and I followed after them, one step behind. It was Yorke, Freddie, and then me, like always, up the curved stairs and into the club.

  My parents lean in to each other, looking like the picture-perfect, if a bit inebriated, married couple, and give each other a quick peck on the lips before dropping their napkins onto the cluttered table and rising out of their chairs.

  It is time for them to make the rounds, to say hello to old friends, giving people a chance to congratulate them on Freddie’s brilliance. Time to spread the news of Yorke and Roger’s engagement.

  The lights are low in the private alcove my mother reserved for this special family occasion, the knotty pine paneling and framed mallard and drake prints muted by the candlelight and windows swagged with thick velvet drapes.

  “Ready or not, Leah,” Shane says under his breath. Beneath the long dark tablecloth he clamps his thick hand over my knee with such force that my front teeth knock against my wineglass just as I am taking a sip. I start steadying myself for the impending approach of my mother.

  She’s making her way down the table, kissing everyone as she passes behind our chairs. My dad is giving out handshakes like a politician to his shiny pink family now full of expensive steaks and red wine.

  I set my glass down and shove my dinner plate away. The meat, red in the middle because that is the way my family eats it, is untouched.

  Strings of summer squash dangle from the tines of my heavy sterling fork. I moved the carrots and fancy piped potatoes around on the plate but didn’t manage to actually consume any of them.

  My mother’s hand, cool and smooth, presses lightly on my right shoulder when she arrives behind my chair. My head is heavy, sloshing full of wine, and I feel slightly trapped. I attempt to cover up my plate with my napkin, pulling the edges of the napkin down over the thick steak. I’m kind of a mess.

  She leans down near my ear. She is an intoxicating mix of Chanel No. 5, grilled meat, and merlot. “And next year?” she asks, her eyes locking on to mine meaningfully before she finishes her thought. “Should I expect to be up there again?”

  She lifts her glass toward the head of the table, where my sisters, the engaged and the graduating, sit wrapped in dark plaid wallpaper and cozy candlelight.

  Avoiding her gaze, I watch the wine in her glass swirl. It coats the inside of the crystal, like a good wine should, before slipping back down into the bowl.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” my dad says with a rumbling laugh when he arrives at my side at last.

  I lean toward her, and she gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, dismissing me. My dad catches her up into the crook of his arm, his dark suit coat crinkling against her as he pulls her away.

  Reaching over Shane, I grab the sweating silver ice bucket from the middle of the table and dangle it by its curved handles in front of my face. There it is: the dreaded coral lip print. I smudge it off with the back of my hand, looking past my curved reflection to see my parents in miniature, disappearing hand in hand into the crowd of tan faces, highlighted hair, and friendly smiles.

  I feel Shane’s hand slip from my thigh as I lean forward to set the ice bucket back down and spy Freddie near the end of the long table, hovering over the blown-out candles and half-eaten cake. Thick chocolate slabs are missing, but yellow roses still sit primly around the edges. It’s just like our driveway, but in cake form. Freddie is calm and amazingly composed, considering that Yorke is stealing her hard-earned graduation thunder with an overstarched, shrub-haired frat boy and a diamond ring. I guess she’s had a lot of practice at being second.

  “Congrats, Freddie,” I yell in her direction. She lifts her rosy face, and we raise our glasses toward each other. I down mine in one, the wine amplifying my pride and my volume.

  Shane pushes back from the table, his plate scraped clean, decorative garnishes and all. He grabs a bottle from the middle of the table and refills my glass with the dregs. Chucking the spent bottle upside down into the silver bucket with a splash, he holds up his empty glass and tips it back and forth in my direction, his fingers looking freakishly large on the thin stem.

  “Shall we?” he asks.

 
Knowing we will need adults for any possible refills, he is eager to stay close to my parents. I nod and stand too quickly, my brain filling with booze until I slide sideways against the overstuffed country club chair and find myself sitting again, hands resting in my lap.

  Shane reaches for me. I put my fingers in his, feeling no electricity, no warm tingling, just the calluses and rough skin left over from his championship baseball season. I let him pull me up.

  “Hey, Rog,” Shane yells as soon as I am steady. His hand presses on the small of my back as we walk toward the end of the table. “I haven’t had the chance to congratulate you personally.”

  Their hands meet like two leather baseball mitts, and Yorke looks ready to burst. You can tell they are measuring each other up. Looking at Roger’s trim pinstriped suit and gelled bangs, I hope Shane wins.

  Yorke reaches past Roger to hug me, maneuvering her way to get closer to the open dining room and the masses that haven’t heard about her impending marriage.

  She squeezes me halfheartedly with one arm, and her drink, brimming with mint and ice, drips down my back, soaking my dress and my hair. She lets go quickly, grabs Roger, and leads him away. She smiles back at me over her shoulder, dangling her drink in one hand and Roger in the other, before melting into a sea of sparkling silverware and well-fed families.

  I feel my hair lying damp and sticky against my back. Thanks, Yorke. I lean over to wipe my fingers on the soft linen tablecloth.

  “I am going to—” I start explaining to Shane, but he is busy dragging a chair across the classic tartan carpet, pulling in close to Freddie with a big smile on his face, his teeth stained dark and grayish by the wine. He holds his empty glass out in front of him like it’s some red plastic cup he paid three dollars for at a keg party.

  Freddie and Evan are still sitting at the end of our table. Leaning in very close to each other, speaking in French, they are lost deep in a conversation. They have been in advanced languages together since the first semester of their freshman year, seriously dating since the second. Oblivious to Shane and the fact that they are huddling around the last bottle of wine and it’s at least half full, their voices lilt and trill above the din. I wish Shane luck, knowing that the best he can do in French is a butchered version of “Je joue au tennis,” and head off for the bathroom.