“Charlotte found out I had an interview,” Ginny said abruptly.
I frowned and poured. “You didn’t tell her?”
Ginny shrugged. “It seemed . . . vaguely imprudent. I don’t know. I didn’t want to jinx anything.” She cut more ribbon. “It was after the informational meeting for the TGS Women’s Alumni Association, which they all want us to join when we’re educated and employed so that we’ll give money back to the school. Which is such a racket, by the way, because we already pay to go here. They’re probably just grooming us so we’ll send our children to TGS down the road.”
“Procreation,” I said. “The ultimate pyramid scheme.”
Ginny cackled, which was the first time I’d seen her laugh in a long time. “Oh, yes, I wouldn’t dream of sending Branderly and Saturnalia anywhere else! Can you imagine what inferior education would do to their college chances?”
I giggled and allowed myself one piece of candy to eat. Ginny composed herself.
“So Charlotte’s all Benji’s mom is an interviewer for Penn? And I’m like, how am I supposed to know that? And she says that Benji told her that his mom told him that I had an interview.”
“Is that bad?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Ginny said. “But it isn’t making Charlotte happy.”
The radio thrummed up another tune.
“Hi dee hi dee hi dee hi,” Ginny said listlessly.
“Hi dee hi dee hi dee hi, sir,” I repeated, in a stiff, Jeeves-ish accent. Ginny actually smiled.
“That sir at the end of the line throws it off,” Ginny said, in her poshest Wooster voice. “Though it’s the proper feudal spirit and all.”
I handed her a filled bag. She tied. I handed her another; she tied.
“Sometimes I think these fund-raisers do nothing but raise money for the next fund-raiser,” Ginny said.
“Agreed,” I said. “The party-favor budget alone must be enormous.”
Ginny laughed again. “Wait, what is that from?”
“It’s not from anything,” I said. “I just made it up. You never think I can actually think of funny things to say on my own.”
“I do, too,” Ginny said. “I just really thought it was from something.” She spun the scissors around her finger, watching the blades arc through the air.
“I think Charlotte hates me,” she said, after a while.
“Really?”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Well, don’t sound so surprised. Cripes.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I just . . .” I crinkled the bag in my fingertips. “She didn’t ask how you were, when you were sick.”
Ginny twirled the scissors again. “Yeah.”
“Why are you even friends with her?”
Ginny set the scissors down. “We do have fun together. I know it doesn’t look like it, but we do.” She chewed on her lip. “I guess it’s like . . . we have so much in common on paper. We have the same goals. We’re the same kind of person. So it’s easy to talk to her.”
“It is?”
Ginny sat still. Then she made a sound like a deep, purring wail.
“I hate this!”
She slammed her palms on the table. I didn’t move.
“I hate this,” she said again. “I just want to be done.”
“Done with what?” I said softly.
“Done with everything,” she said. “I don’t know.”
She raked her fingers through her loose hair, and gnawed on a fingernail. The brief coziness of before had ebbed away, leaving the kitchen feeling cold and unsteady.
At my elbow, my phone buzzed—an unusual occurrence, for someone with no extrafamilial friends. I picked it up, and Ginny rose from the table as if it had been some kind of secret sign.
“I’m not feeling well again,” she announced. “I’m going to lie down.”
“Okay,” I said. I scooped all the completed bags and the remaining candy and put it into a giant Tupperware container, for which there was no space on top of the fridge thanks to the stacks of yet-to-be-filled auction baskets. I stashed it in the oven instead, which was a decidedly dog-proof storage place, and since we barely used the oven as an oven, it was essentially a heavy-duty bonus cabinet, and therefore the perfect place to store something like the party favors.
Having thus packed everything away, I looked at my phone.
hey
i got a B
It was from Tate.
Congratulations, I typed back. I’m happy for you.
The dots popped up under my text.
thanks, came the reply. Then more dots.
your boys are on
first quarter. against the warriors
I held my phone in both hands, close to my chest. This was a statement, but one I was meant to respond to; why send it, otherwise? I tiptoed upstairs and peered into the den. The sound was on, but soft, and Ginny was not visible above the waterline of the couch.
My sister is using our TV, I wrote. Another statement, nothing further.
The dots reappeared, moving left to right like a thought working its way through the mind of the little gray bubble.
you know were to find me
I plunged my phone into my pocket.
“I’m going out, Ginny,” I called into the den. Silence.
“I’m going out,” I called again.
“Okay,” Ginny said back. “Congratulations.”
That was dispensation enough. I changed into a black sweater and took Mom’s red scarf and locked the door on my way out.
This time I didn’t even have to knock. Tate was waiting in the kitchen.
“My mom’s upstairs,” he said in a low voice. “But she’s asleep, or about to be. So just come in.”
I hesitated only a moment. If I was sneaking in, I was sneaking in. There would be no plausible reason for an English tutor to be in the living room at 9:07 p.m. on a Saturday night.
“You that desperate to see the game, huh?” Tate half whispered as we crossed the kitchen. The white cabinets and tiles and everything looked blue, except where the microwave buttons shone green. It was all very still.
“I had nothing better to do,” I said, only realizing after I said it that that made me sound a little pathetic.
“That’s ’cause there’s nothing better to do.” Tate pushed open the living room door and swept out an arm. “Come on in.”
I did. I knew Tate’s TV room well by now, almost to the point of being comfortable in it. I sat on the couch, my back leaned all the way into the back, my foot tucked under my leg.
“We benched our good starter,” Tate explained, pointing at the screen as he sat. “The idea is that if he doesn’t play, then we’ll lose and get a better pick in the draft. And we left some space in the salary cap to take over bad contracts and stuff, so we could end up with, like, the next LeBron. If we’re lucky.”
On TV, the announcers picked up their pace. The shoe-squeaks intensified.
“We were 116–92 against the Warriors last time, which was pretty good,” Tate was saying, “but we’re trying to—”
“Is Benji worried about college?” I blurted out. Tate looked away from the TV.
“Huh?”
“College,” I said. “Is he worried about it?”
Tate had probably just wanted to watch basketball. I was disrupting everything.
“I don’t think so,” Tate said. “I mean, maybe. He’s probably just going to end up where his dad went. Why?”
“My sister,” I said. “She’s . . . very upset about it.”
“Ah,” Tate said. “Yeah. I don’t think guys care as much. Or maybe just Benji doesn’t.”
“You mean you don’t worry about it,” I said.
“I don’t even think about it,” Tate said. “And if I do, I just start watching sports until it goes away.”
Maybe that was all Ginny was doing, except with Home and Garden Television instead of sports. It would go away soon, then. It usually did, with Ginny. It usually did.
&n
bsp; “I think that’s why they invented sports,” Tate went on. “The opposite of school.”
“The opposite of books,” I said.
“There are books about sports,” Tate said. “You can like both.”
“You don’t,” I pointed out.
“Books are growing on me.” Tate fiddled with the remote. “Now that I know how to read them. And I bet you like sports a little more now that you know how they work.”
“My dad loved sports,” I said. “I just found that out recently.”
Tate’s expression didn’t change. “All guys love sports.”
“Not all,” I said. I couldn’t, for example, picture Almost-Doctor Andrews watching a game of anything.
“Nah, we all do,” Tate said. “It’s just genetic.”
“That’s reductionist.”
Tate angled a glance at me.
“You can’t let me get away with anything, can you?”
“No,” I said, almost proudly. Tate nodded and looked back at the screen.
“What was his favorite team? Your dad?”
“The Boston one,” I said. “I think. That’s where he and my mom lived for a long time.”
“Celtics. Huh.” Tate tipped his head. “Or—God, not the Patriots. I hope he didn’t teach you to like them?”
“No,” I said. “I was only six when he died.”
“Oh,” Tate said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It was almost ten years ago.”
“Do you miss him?” Tate asked.
“Of course I miss him,” I cried. “What kind of a question is that?”
“The kind you ask? I dunno.”
“Nobody asks that,” I told him.
“They don’t?”
“Nobody asks me that.”
“Oh.”
Maybe that was the kind of question you asked. And maybe I was supposed to have more of an answer. But when your father dies when you are that little, you don’t miss a whole person so much as you miss parts: an arm scooping you out of the ocean, hands hoisting you up to shoulders, a leg in blue jeans that you can grab for attention.
Of all the people who missed my father, I realized, I was the one who’d known him the least.
Tate flopped forward. “You know you make it really hard to talk to you, right?”
The words hit me hard, and I felt myself sag back into the couch. “What?”
“You’re just, like . . . matter-of-fact, I guess. You always have something to say. It’s hard to keep up.”
I folded my arms. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s just how you are.”
I did not like the sound of that. The actual sound was ordinary, conversational—Tate’s voice was hardly harsh. I just didn’t like knowing that. Or realizing it, I suppose. I knew my own character and shouldn’t have been surprised.
But with Tate, I didn’t want it to be true.
“Then I’m sorry you have to suffer through it,” I said.
Tate smiled. “Do I look like I’m suffering?”
He didn’t. “No.”
“You know, Peach, I could be watching this game with Tommy or Stevie.” He laced his fingers together between his knees. “Or by myself.”
The thought of kissing him came back. It came back and I couldn’t even make an effort to banish it. I wanted it like I wanted to run my fingers over it like a smooth stone, turning it and turning it and savoring it forever.
“So why don’t you?” I asked.
“Maybe I want someone who’s hard to talk to.”
On top of the couch cushion, Tate touched my hand.
I didn’t move, too stunned. Or perhaps I moved a little, subtly stiffened, because Tate pulled back, easily as if it’d been an accident.
“So I’m thinking we’re going to tie up by the end of the second quarter, and then they’ll bench our second-best guy, too, that one, the one with the ball right now?”
I nodded. That was it, that one bright little moment, and I would have to seal it in my mind forever. That was all I was ever going to get.
“Yeah, so he’s good. Not the best, right? But good. But they’ll wanna sit him out. And then they’ll full-court it until—”
“You’re talking fast,” I said.
“Am I?” Tate said. “Yeah. I guess.”
I looked at his lips, his eyelashes, the edge of his nose. I could look at him, and he wouldn’t know why. Sometimes people just look.
“Nervous habit,” he said.
“Are you nervous?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said. “Are you?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. Good.”
Tate pressed the mute button on the remote. Then he came closer, easing his arm over the top of the couch. And then I just knew.
I don’t know who moved first. Tate’s face was pressed against mine and his lips were pushing gently at my mouth, and my entire body was fizzy and tremulous.
I kissed back.
I didn’t know how—I didn’t know physically how to do it; I didn’t know how it was happening; I didn’t know anything. He put his hand back over my hand and eased closer to me, and I could feel the collar of his shirt brushing my neck as he leaned in and over me. His lips were a little dry; I didn’t care. I was alone in the dark and I was kissing Tate Kurokawa. I was kissing Tate, and no one knew where I was.
I wanted to do it forever.
“Oh,” I said.
Tate smiled. “Oh what?”
“Just . . .” No words were coming. “Just oh.”
I could not say any of what I was thinking, that for all the things I had done and made and read and fixed and lived through, that kissing someone—kissing Tate—made everything unfold in color and sound, like a bursting-out music box.
Long have I known a glory in it all . . . Here such a passion is as stretcheth me apart.
It was like finally coming to life, when you realized how much of the world there really was.
“Was that . . .” Tate blinked. He breathed out. “Oh.”
“Oh what?” I said—almost daring to flirt.
“You’ve never kissed a guy before,” Tate said.
My heart squeezed. There were girls who did this, I realized. There were girls who just went to boys’ houses and shimmied their way onto couches and laid themselves out. And there were boys like Tate who would do that, do anything they could get away with. It was shallow; I knew that. It was hurtful. It was the hallway at TGS and everyone staring. And yet I envied those girls’ their bravery. They did not know how to be embarrassed. Or maybe they just knew it wasn’t actually embarrassing at all.
“Hey,” Tate said, unbearably soft. “Peach. I didn’t mean to—”
“No!” I said. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Just forget it.”
Tate pressed his lips together. He sat back and looked at me. There was a strand loosening from my braid, I could feel it.
“Do you want to do it again?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Well . . . yeah,” Tate said. “It can’t hurt to be sure, right?”
Behind us, in another universe, a key tumbled in the kitchen lock. Tate rose off the couch, all his ease forgotten, and stuck his head into the hall doorway.
On the porch, someone hooted. The door squeaked.
“Benj,” Tate said, looking back at me. “I guess he was out. Hang on.”
Tate went out, and there were voices—Benji, Tate, some other Sporty Senior Boys I couldn’t and didn’t care enough to distinguish, shoes thudding off on the floor, fridge opening, closing, footsteps up the stairs, then silence.
When Tate came back in I had already stood up.
“No,” I said, before he could say anything. “I shouldn’t be out this late anyway.”
“Okay.” Tate nodded. “Do you need me to walk you home?”
It was something he’d never asked before. I shook my head.
“No, thanks. I want
to be alone.”
Evergreen Street was a bluish dark, with only pieces of moonlight scattered on the slate sidewalks. How many times had I walked these three blocks? In the past months? In my life? Yet now I wanted to see everything: the ivy on the walls, the stop sign slightly askew, the gleaming SUVs parked three deep on the endless curve of someone’s driveway, the few, far stars. I wanted every part of it registered and saved, this moment locked up as tightly and vividly as I could make it. I wanted to fling my arms like Edna St. Vincent Millay must have done in her field and hold every little piece of God’s world.
When I got home, the kitchen was alive.
“Plum!” Mom cried, as soon as the door swung shut behind me. “Where were you?”
All the lights were on, and the stereo was pumping out Beethoven’s Ninth at full volume. Mom had a jelly jar in her hand, the dogs were barking and turning in excited circles, and Almost-Doctor Andrews was even there, pouring a fizzing bottle of wine into a teacup.
My heart literally throbbed, thinking back to where I’d been not ten minutes ago. But before I could answer, Ginny burst forth from the kitchen table.
“PLUM!” she bellowed. “Look!”
She flashed something in my face so fast that I couldn’t tell what it was.
“I can’t,” I said, “unless you slow down.”
“It’s her financial aid,” Almost-Doctor Andrews explained. “Champagne? Er”—he darted a look at Mom—“can she have some?”
Mom shrugged. “Sure. That’s what they do in Europe.”
“No, thank you,” I said to Almost-Doctor Andrews. Everything was all too much. I couldn’t overload it with imitation champagne from California.
The strings crescendoed, and Ginny started singing along in made-up German. Mom laughed. Doug yipped with glee and Gizmo nosed around the floor for errant food. And I smiled—I grinned, because my sister was happy and our house was lit up and I had tucked up in my mind the most glorious secret I’d ever had.
“I got it,” Ginny said. “I got it. I got it. I got it.”
She waved the letter in the air like a little flag. Almost-Doctor Andrews and Mom clinked glasses. The music ended, and Almost-Doctor Andrews turned down the volume before the next movement launched. Ginny sank onto the kitchen couch, dazed-looking and flushed.
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