“Oh, little one, you have much to learn,” Kenzie says, and walks toward the bathroom. “Are you done in there? I have to pee and I need to keep drinking!”
Gottlieb and Leigh walk out of the bathroom.
“I didn’t get sick, but I want to go outside,” Gottlieb says.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s go outside!” Leigh says. “Everyone’s out there now anyway.”
Leigh and Gottlieb rush out the door and down the stairs, Kenzie goes to the bathroom, and it’s just Jensen and me. She doesn’t have a purse with her. I know she hates carrying one. Whenever we used to go out together, she’d keep her stuff in mine, and I’d tell her she was only allowed to ask three times for me to grab something for her, like if she wanted gum or lip gloss, but it always ended up being more, and it was okay. I always gave in.
“Do you have any gum?” Jensen asks.
“Yeah, one sec,” I say, reaching into my purse to grab a stick. I hand it to her.
“I heard about Stephen Fraber,” Jensen says.
“How?” I say, surprised.
“He told me,” Jensen says. “I have English with him, remember?”
“Oh, I forgot about that.”
“Well, he said he knew we were best friends, and he wanted advice.”
“Advice about what?”
“You.” She stares at me like I’m the dumbest person in the world.
“What did you say?”
“Well, he just said he didn’t kiss you at the movies and was wondering if I thought he ruined everything.”
“Oh my God, yeah, that was so annoying.”
“Why? It means he likes you if he doesn’t kiss you right away.”
“Or it means he’s not into me at all.”
“I told him you’d probably like him more because he didn’t kiss you, that you’re the type to take things slow. That’s what I thought, at least.”
“You thought?”
“Yeah.” Jensen snaps her gum, and it annoys me. “Maybe you’re not the type to take things slow. Some guys actually don’t like girls who take things too fast.”
“How would you know?” I say, and realize how mean it sounds, but I also don’t care. She should have told Stephen Fraber he’s a pussy. She should have told him he’s a douche and chanted “no balls,” like Tomassi and Rosenberg did. She should have stuck up for me. Maybe she really doesn’t want to be friends. “The only guys you ever talk about are old teachers, or Tarek, who stood you up at your birthday.”
“At least I had a party.”
“I had a party. You just weren’t invited.”
“You had a sleepover. There’s a difference.”
“Whatever, at least I actually go out on dates with guys.”
“Maybe I don’t want to. Did you ever think of that? I’d rather play volleyball and spend time with my grandparents and…”
“Smoke?”
“You know I haven’t smoked.”
“No, I don’t. You hang out with Kenzie and Leigh; they both smoke.”
“So? That doesn’t mean I’ve tried it.”
“Just because I hang out with Rosenberg doesn’t mean I’m easy.”
“I know you, though. I know you want to do that stuff. I know all you think about is boys and love and whatever.”
“It’s not whatever. It’s important. And I don’t get why you care so much. I wouldn’t care if you dated a guy or smoked or had sex.”
“I thought we were going to smoke together the first time.” Jensen looks down, and I can’t tell if she’s sorry for all the things we’ve just said or if she’s getting more ammo against me for the fight. “I should have just told Stephen not to waste his time.”
“You’re a bitch,” I say, and it feels good and bad all at once. I feel like I’m watching myself say it, or someone else is saying it and I’d hoped they’d say it for a long time, but now that they have I feel sorry for them, like they’ve just made a big mistake.
“Who’s a bitch?” Kenzie stumbles out of the bathroom.
“I am, apparently,” Jensen says, and the bold girl I met in fourth grade is the one who stands before me. She’s strong and scary and might even punch me in the stomach.
“Um, you’re kind of a bitch,” Kenzie says to me, “for not even inviting us to your birthday sleepover thing, but whatever.”
“Let’s go,” Jensen says to Kenzie. Jensen’s face is unreadable, and I can’t tell if she’s happy or sad, or if it’s pure anger. I feel like anyone would be able to tell I’m afraid, like my fear is so easy to read. I can’t believe I called Brittany Jensen a bitch. She’s my best friend, was my best friend. I’m not sure what to think. Jensen and Kenzie lock arms and walk out of Chris Saul’s parents’ room.
I need to find Rosenberg. I need another drink. I hurry downstairs to look for her. I’m frantic, and my heart is racing. I’m so mad at Jensen. I’m so upset I could cry. I want my mom. She doesn’t even know where I am. She thinks I’m at Gottlieb’s house, painting my nails or watching a movie. She doesn’t even know Jensen and I are fighting like this. I want her, but I also want to find Rosenberg. I check Chris Saul’s room, and the door is locked. I think he locked it for the party, but he might be in there with Rosenberg. She could be giving him a blow job.
It seems like everyone’s made their way outside, so I join them. Gottlieb and Leigh are dancing by themselves near the pool. The older girls are lying on lounge chairs, smoking cigarettes and drinking straight out of champagne bottles. Some guys are rolling blunts at a table.
A few couples hold hands by the edge of the property, the part that looks out onto the lake and the golf course. I watch them sway in the night. They are the promise of something other than fighting with my best friend. They are drunk and happy and kissing and touching. The palm trees look like fireworks above them. The night belongs to them. The party is the backdrop for their love story.
I spot Milo and Amber. They don’t see me, but I watch them together. She sits on his lap and wraps her arms around his neck. He pulls her in for a kiss, and I die inside. The rumors are true. Leigh grabs me and tells me Rosenberg is with Chris Saul in his room. She asks if I’m okay, and I tell her yes because I don’t want anyone to know what I know. Gottlieb joins us, and we share a bottle of champagne. We drink until Gottlieb’s dad comes to pick us up. Rosenberg appears as if by magic, and the three of us get into the car. We don’t say bye to Kenzie or Leigh or Jensen. We’re giggling and sloppy, and Gottlieb’s dad jokes about how we must be drunk. We don’t try to hide it. We just are, and he lets us be. When we get to her house, he says to get our giggles out by running laps around the house. We take off our heels and our feet get wet in the grass as we do cartwheels and handstands and jumping jacks in the yard. It’s after one in the morning. The party is still happening at Chris Saul’s house. Parties are happening everywhere. Girls are fighting, getting their hearts broken, and doing all the things they’re not supposed to do.
• FOURTEEN •
Somehow it’s arranged for Leigh and me to have a sleepover. I’ve been eating my lunch in the library lately, keeping to myself as much as possible. But one day my mom comes home from the salon and tells me that she met Leigh’s mom and they’ve made plans for us to get together.
I arrive at her house on a warm Saturday afternoon. Leigh wants to go swimming, and I haven’t packed appropriately. She lets me borrow a bathing suit, a black bikini with pink stars on the boobs. She braids my hair, and we go into the pool. She’s good at gymnastics. We do handstands underwater. We race from one side of the pool to the other. I keep winning, and it feels good to win. She’s not upset, though. She just likes to play. There’s a jungle gym in her backyard for her little brother, Bobby, who’s at a friend’s house, and we play on it in our wet bathing suits. Our bodies dry as we swing from the monkey bars and climb atop the wooden str
ucture. Her family has a trampoline, and we jump and sit and bounce each other. Popcorn. We look like popcorn when we bounce. She asks if I want to smoke—her cousin Kasey is coming over and he always brings weed—and I say, “Sure.” Jensen is probably smoking with Kenzie. It’s okay, because I have other friends, but it’s also not okay, because no one is like her.
Leigh makes us tea with two drops of honey and a sliver of a lemon. I’m surprised she knows how to use a knife. I don’t know how to cut fruits or vegetables or meat or cook or clean. I am my mother’s baby, and I don’t know how to do anything that she does. Leigh lends me a sweatshirt, and we sit at the kitchen table and eat dates from a bowl. They’re chewy and fat, and they remind me of being little in New York City and eating raisins at my friend Clarissa’s house. I didn’t like her very much, but I was there all the time. I was jealous of her, because she had a life-size playhouse complete with a kitchen. She was mean and made fun of me, and she loved those damn raisins.
I wonder where Leigh’s parents are, but they work or they’re out and they’re not coming home. Kasey shows up. He’s seventeen and a junior and drives a green truck, and he’s a little wild-looking, a little rough, but he has blond hair and green eyes. He’s cute, and Leigh says Kenzie tried to hook up with him once and it made her really mad, so I keep my distance. Kasey’s eyes are red, and I know he’s been smoking, and I’m nervous, because I don’t really want to do it yet. I do, but I don’t. I’m not sure how it’ll make me feel, and what if Jensen really is waiting and I’m the bad friend and not her? So I try to make up reasons why I can’t smoke—maybe I can feign a headache or a stomachache, but that’s embarrassing, and I don’t want to get picked up and go home early.
It’s dinnertime, and Leigh says she doesn’t feel good—she took one of her mom’s pills and it’s making her tired—and Kasey rolls his eyes and says she does this all the time, and one time she had to go to the hospital and get her stomach pumped, and I don’t remember anyone telling me that story, and I realize I don’t know Leigh that well. Kasey puts her to bed; she’s still in her bathing suit, and I worry about her, but he says she just needs to sleep, because the pill makes you tired. It’s something you just need to sleep off. He tells me it’s for people who worry, and I wonder if I’ll ever need something like that because of how much I worry all the time. Years later, when I went on Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Celexa, I found that none of them made me fall asleep, but they did make me quiet, make my mind quiet. The medications also made my ears ring, gave me nightmares, forced me to think about dying. After so many prescriptions, so many bad experiences with drugs, I felt helpless until I found the right therapist. It turned out I just needed someone to talk to. For me, talking helps more than anything.
Kasey says we don’t have to smoke if I don’t want to, and I don’t say anything. He takes my hand, and we go back to the jungle gym. He wraps his arms around me and picks me up and spins me around and says, “You’re just a little thing, aren’t you?” I want him, and I’m shy, and I’m melting, and I feel good and anxious, and I want him to keep holding me. Leigh is in bed, sleeping off her worries, and her parents won’t be home until late, and Kasey is holding me.
Kasey grabs my face and says he needs to take me on a date before he kisses me, and I say, “This is kind of like a date.”
“No, a real date,” he says.
I look at him so dreamily. He leans in to kiss me, but then we hear noise coming from the house, so we run back, and Leigh’s parents are home early. I wake up Leigh, and she’s as good as new and bounces downstairs and hugs her parents. Her mom is so blonde and beautiful, with fake boobs and expensive jewelry and tight jeans, and her dad is so handsome and wears a suit. They tell Kasey he has to go, and Leigh and I walk him out. He asks Leigh if we could have a moment alone. When she’s skipped off back to the house, Kasey asks for my number, and I say it, and he repeats it back, and I smile. He says, “I’m going to kiss you on our date,” and he drives off in his green truck. I walk back to the house and feel like the world has finally shifted, like anything is possible again.
Later, Leigh says she knows that Kasey wants me. “He’ll be good practice,” she says.
* * *
—
My mom wants to meet Kasey before he takes me out. She agrees to drop me off at the mall, where she can meet him in a public place, and then leave so we can have dinner at my favorite Japanese place. From there, we will go to the movies and hopefully have our long-awaited kiss. We only spoke on the phone once to plan the date, but I’ve been thinking about Kasey holding me, our eyes meeting as we climbed the jungle gym, the way it seemed like he wanted me so bad. If only we could truly be alone, then maybe it would happen.
I wear jeans this time, after much arguing with my mom, and a tight shirt that’s low and shows off my cleavage, with an added push-up bra. My mom buys me a new pink handbag that’s so small it fits only a lip gloss and a pack of gum. She drives me to the mall, and we wait in the car.
“How’d you meet this boy again?” she asks.
“He’s not a boy. He’s a…guy, or, like, a man. He’s a junior. Leigh’s cousin.”
“How do you know he’s not a serial killer?”
“I really don’t think he’s a serial killer.”
“Son of Sam lived in my building. No one thought he was a serial killer, either. He was a nice guy. I saw him at the ice cream parlor once.”
“Can you stop?”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s cute.”
“That helps.”
“He has blond hair and green eyes, and he’s tall.”
“Everyone’s taller than you.”
“Well, he’s, like, really tall. Like six feet or something. That’s him.” I see Kasey walking up to the restaurant. My mom puts on her emergency signal, and we get out of the car. Kasey is polite. My mom doesn’t embarrass me. I feel like an adult.
My mom walks back to her car, waves, drives off. Kasey and I enter the restaurant. We order quickly and retrieve our individual stir-fry bowls, then walk through the line of vegetables and sauces. I make sure not to get any onions or broccoli, anything that will get stuck in my teeth or make my breath stink. Once we’re seated, we eat mostly in silence. The restaurant is busy on a Friday night, and I remember the possibility of seeing the girls here. We frequent this place, and it’s totally possible one or more of them might be here. I go to the bathroom in hopes of seeing one of them, anyone except Jensen, but it’s empty, and I check my eyeliner in the mirror. There’s only a minor smudge underneath one eye, so I fix it and return to the table. Kasey sucks on a toothpick. He says, “Let’s get out of here,” and I nearly die.
He drives us to the theater in his green truck. He drives past the regular lot and to the parking structure, where we go up to the roof. We park, and as I’m getting out, he takes my hand and helps me down from the seat. It’s high. I think I’m in love. He buys tickets for 50 First Dates. He says, “I know chicks love rom-coms,” and I smile. I wonder when he’s going to kiss me.
We sit in the very back of the theater, all the way up the stairs, where no one usually sits. The theater is half empty and is mostly full of couples and groups of teenage girls. I think about how this is a movie I’d probably see with the girls if I wasn’t here with Kasey. I know Jensen wouldn’t want to see it, even though people sometimes tell her she looks like Drew Barrymore. The previews start, and Kasey grabs my hand in the dark.
“Shit,” he whispers.
“What?” I ask.
“I forgot to ask if you wanted anything.”
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
“I’m gonna go grab a slushie. Be right back.”
He lets go of my hand, and I’m alone in the dark. The previews roll and I wait for Kasey. I pick at my cuticles and bite a spot on my thumb where one is lifting off the nail bed. It’s a bad habit,
one my mom has tried to stop forever. She’s gone as far as to get me nail polish that makes you sick if you ingest it, but I got used to the taste and would lick it off anyway. Or one time she got me gloves for at night so I wouldn’t pick, but I flung them off in my sleep. Nothing works to get me to quit doing it, but sometimes I can control it better than others. Not now, though; I’m too nervous, wondering what’s going to happen once Kasey comes back.
Kasey comes back, and the movie starts, and he grabs my hand, and I lean my head on his shoulder, and he offers me a sip of his slushie, but I say no, and he drinks it until it’s gone, and then the movie is over.
We walk back to the parking garage and up the stairs, and when we get to the car he pulls me toward him and kisses me. His tongue tastes like the color blue, blue raspberry, juicy and sweet, tangy.
“I didn’t think you would kiss me,” I say.
“I can’t do it in the theater. That’s tacky.”
“Oh.”
“You think I’m just some tacky guy who’s gonna kiss you during a lovey-dovey movie?” He laughs.
“No. You’re classy.”
“You’re pretty.”
We kiss again, and the night air feels good. It’s dark outside. The temperature dropped while we were in the warmth of the theater. I’m glad I’m wearing jeans, or else my legs would be cold. I shiver, but only because I’m so entranced with Kasey. He helps me into the truck and begins to drive.
“I think it’s about time I take you home, so your parents don’t worry,” he says.
“When will I see you again?” I ask.
Kasey pulls over at the edge of the parking lot.
“I know we go to different schools, but I like you, so I guess I can see you on weekends and stuff. Or, if your parents are cool with it, I could come over sometime, take you to the beach—I don’t know. We can make it work.”
I think about Brittany Gottlieb and her boyfriend, Aaron Roth, and how they go to different schools but they make it work. I think maybe Kasey could sneak over and take my virginity and we could get close and fall in love.
The Brittanys Page 14