Late to the Party

by Kelly Quindlen

  “I love that.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Green,” she said right away.

  I nodded, unsurprised. “Like your eyes.”

  She laughed. “Not for that reason.”

  “Why?”

  “The first house my family lived in was green. Like a pastel shade, you know? And anytime a friend’s mom would drop me off, we’d turn on my street and I’d say, ‘My house is the green one.’ I didn’t know how to count the mailbox numbers but I knew my house was green, and I loved it.”

  My heart expanded inside me. In that moment I felt like it was okay to be exactly who I was, because she was being exactly who she was, and that must have meant something. I absorbed it all: her eyes, her secrets, her space in the world.

  The only thing I managed to say was, “I like knowing that.”

  “I like knowing that you know it.”

  We looked at each other, and I knew what was coming before she could get the words out.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice shaking the slightest bit, “do you wanna get dinner on Saturday night?”

  My insides exploded. I hesitated for a flash of a second, taking it all in, and then I smiled.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice ringing through the tree house. “I would really, really love that.”

  Later, when I was driving home, it felt like Lydia’s impression was still stamped into me. It was like coming home from a trip to the beach, when you pull the wrinkled clothes from your suitcase and you can smell sunscreen and sand and ocean not only on your bathing suits, but on your T-shirts and pajama pants, too.

  I lowered my car windows and blasted my music, even at the red lights. I let my arm hang out and spread my fingers on the air, feeling the humidity, feeling the air rushing over my skin. I’d never gotten the big deal about teenagers and cars before, the whole freedom and invincibility thing, but now I understood it. When you had a crush and you knew you were going to see her again, especially for something that sounded exactly like a date, suddenly the whole world could never be big enough for you.

  14

  Lydia was picking me up at seven, and I had no idea what to wear.

  It had been raining all day, softening into a gentle sprinkling that I could only hear because I’d opened my bathroom window. I stood in front of the mirror in mismatched socks and an old T-shirt—the interim outfit I’d thrown on after my shower—and lifted the strands of my damp hair, wondering what the hell I was going to do with it.

  I was pretty certain this was a date—my first-ever date—but I had a weight in my stomach telling me not to assume, not to get my hopes up, because there was still the possibility that Lydia was just really, really nice. I knew Maritza was hanging out with Rona tonight, and her texts to JaKory and me made it clear that she was expecting something to happen. I felt the parallel with my situation and knew I had to protect myself from heartbreak the way I knew Maritza wouldn’t.

  But maybe Lydia was getting ready like this, too. Maybe she was listening to the record player while she brushed makeup over her cheeks and tried on six different shirt combinations. Maybe she was praying this was a date just like I was.

  I dressed in dark shorts with a flowy tank and a long necklace. I never felt very confident about the way I dressed, but this was one of the few outfits I felt good in. I curled my hair, even though it never stayed, and made my eyeliner thicker than usual. For ten minutes I switched back and forth between a pair of wedges that dressed up the outfit and a pair of oxfords that dressed it down. If I’d known for sure whether this was a date, I would have gone with the wedges in a heartbeat.

  I wore the oxfords just to be safe.

  Right after I’d applied deodorant for the second time, my phone chimed with a text.

  Lydia Kaufman aka Jason Waterfalls: Two min away!

  I hurried down the stairs, my heart sprinting and palms sweating. “I’m going out with my friends!” I called to whoever was listening, and then I skipped out to the garage and pulled the door tight behind me. I hovered on the edge of the driveway, craning my neck to watch for Lydia’s car, the rain still drizzling down in a lazy, steady way.

  A minute later, Lydia’s navy sedan swung into view. She pulled as close to the garage as possible, and I ducked through the rain and into her car, where it was cool and dry and smelled like pine.

  “Hey,” Lydia said with her usual big smile.

  “Hi,” I said with my heart in my throat.

  I tried not to look at her too long. Her hair was tied over her shoulder in a loose, pretty braid and her skin was showing above the neckline of her shirt. She was achingly beautiful.

  We went to a trendy tapas place near our high school. The lights were low and the artwork was funky. The hostess seated us at a two-top near the rain-drizzled window and handed us glasses of sparkling water.

  “This place is fancy,” I said as the hostess left us alone.

  “Have you never been here?” Lydia asked.

  “No, but I’ve heard of it. This girl in my English class said she went on a date here once.”

  Lydia gave a short laugh and looked hastily down at her menu. I flushed and stared at the cheese list without processing any of the words.

  We went through the motions of ordering. Soft drinks, brussels sprouts, vegetable paella to share. It was exactly like going out to eat with Maritza and JaKory, except I never felt breathless when I went out to eat with them.

  The tablecloth was a sheet of brown parchment paper, and there was a box of crayons tucked into the salt-and-pepper holder. In between bites of tapas, I grabbed a crayon from the box and sketched out a drawing. I could feel Lydia’s eyes on me, and after a minute I heard her laughing.

  “The green house,” she said, placing her hand over it like she wished it were real. “And is that supposed to be the mailbox?”

  “Or a bird feeder. Whatever you prefer.”

  “Bird feeder, easy.”

  She had an awed smile on her face, and for one shining, beautiful moment I felt confident that this was definitely a date.

  I felt even more confident after she insisted on paying.

  After dinner we walked around the shopping plaza, talking and laughing. The rain had let up and the air was cooler than usual. It was Fourth of July weekend and there was a buzz of energy in the air, with people walking about and enjoying the long weekend. I felt like the whole world was as happy as I was.

  Lydia mentioned the popcorn I’d brought her on Monday, and I told her how I’d buckled it into the car seat like a child.

  “You didn’t,” she laughed, her eyes bright, her hand brushing my arm.

  “I totally did. I would’ve looked like a freak if I’d gotten pulled over.”

  “It was worth it, though,” she said decisively. “I ate it the whole time I was studying, plus I had some for breakfast the next morning.” She bit her lip and looked shyly at me. “Definitely the best study buddy I’ve ever had.”

  The drive back to my house seemed much faster than the drive to dinner. I didn’t want the night to end, but I wasn’t sure how to keep it going. Lucky for me, Lydia didn’t seem to want it to end either.

  “Does your neighborhood have a clubhouse?” she asked as she turned into the entrance.

  “Yeah, if you go to the left.”

  “Is there a playground?”

  “Yeah…” I laughed, wondering where this was going.

  “Do you like swings?”

  My heart drummed. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Good answer,” she said, grinning.

  We parked near the swimming pool and wound our way to the playground. The sky was darkening and the air was humming with crickets. We passed a row of bushes with fully bloomed roses, and their scent filled the air, sweet and fresh and aching. I felt like I was in a dream, wandering through a garden with a beautiful girl.

  The swings were covered in rainwater, so we tipped them forward until most of the water had run off. Lydia reached over and wiped th
e last of the water off mine, shaking her hand in the air afterward, and my heart melted at the gesture.

  I plopped down on my swing, trying to keep my cool. “I haven’t been on a swing in forever.”

  Lydia sat on the adjacent swing and turned her body toward me. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard today.”

  “Why, when was the last time you were on a swing?”

  She scrunched up her face, thinking. “Last summer, in Natalie’s neighborhood.”

  “Just for fun?”

  “It was when Natalie and Cliff first started talking, and she wanted me there for backup. We went swimming all day and hung out on the swings afterward.”

  “Natalie made you play third wheel?” I teased.

  “Right?” She paused. “I mean, kind of. Cliff brought his cousin along and I kinda had to hang out with him. I think they were hoping it’d be a double date.”

  I got a breathless, pinching feeling in my chest. “Oh,” I said, forcing a laugh. This was the first time I’d heard her mention a guy, and my stomach soured, worrying I’d gotten her wrong. As nonchalantly as I could, I asked, “Was it?”

  Lydia tipped her head to the side, the way people do when they’re trying to land on an answer. “A little,” she said finally.

  My heart plummeted. “Oh.”

  “It didn’t turn into anything, though,” she added hastily. “I didn’t like him enough.”

  I nodded. Lydia was looking at me hesitantly, like she was searching for something. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I kicked off the ground and started swinging. Lydia followed my lead, and we swung in silence for a minute, facing the sidewalk that wound toward the tennis courts.

  “Have you ever dated anyone?” Lydia asked suddenly.

  I felt my face get hot. “Um—no,” I said quickly. “Not yet.”

  “You haven’t wanted to?”

  “I just … um … haven’t found the right person.”

  She didn’t reply. I wanted to look at her, wanted to see what she felt about that, but I was afraid. Our conversation was starting to feel a lot bigger and more meaningful than I could handle.

  We pumped our legs faster and faster, kicking high into the air. The streetlamps came on, and over on the tennis courts, some people struck up a night game beneath the overhead lights.

  I stopped pumping my legs and let the swing slow to a natural stop. Lydia followed suit, half a minute behind me.

  “That was fun,” she said breathlessly, as if all thought of our conversation was forgotten. She twisted to look at me and broke into a big, bursting laugh. “Oh my god, your hair…”

  Before I could process, she reached over and trailed her fingers through the strands. My scalp tingled at the touch.

  “The curls are out of control,” she laughed.

  I could barely breathe. My voice felt lodged in my stomach. “Does it look bad?”

  “No, still really pretty.”

  Her eyes twinkled in the moonlight. I felt myself smiling so hard that my cheeks ached, and her smile grew larger in response. The cicadas’ song seemed to swell around us, and my stomach skipped like a dance, and I remembered Maritza and JaKory swooning about roller coasters and poetry.

  “You look really pretty, too,” I said, my voice shaking.

  Lydia looked hard at me. Her expression grew serious, and her hand dropped to my knee. I felt it like a blast of heat.

  Neither one of us moved; we just sat there looking at each other. I couldn’t stop looking at her mouth, and I knew she was looking at mine, too.

  “Codi…” she said breathlessly.

  It was happening. She liked me and she was going to kiss me. This girl whom I liked so, so much was going to kiss me …

  And I had no idea what to do.

  The realization crashed around me. I wasn’t like Natalie or Terrica, confident about making out in a moonlit river; I wasn’t even like Ricky, brazen enough to steal a kiss beneath the trees. In this moment, when everything was real, when everything hinged on the brave, reckless confidence of my new self, I realized I’d never become that person at all.

  Lydia leaned toward me, her eyes flitting between my eyes and my mouth, but I sat frozen, too paralyzed to close the gap between us.

  “Um,” I said, shifting my knee out from under her hand.

  Lydia jerked back, and just like that, the moment was broken.

  Silence.

  Terrible, suffocating silence.

  I sat there trying to grasp the moment I’d just squandered. My heart was drilling and my palms were soaking with sweat. The tennis court lights were too white and too bright and everything inside me felt like it was struggling to breathe. I’d just thrown away the one thing I’d been waiting for forever.

  Finally, Lydia cleared her throat. “It’s late, huh?” she said, her voice overly hearty. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

  * * *

  Sometime later, I lay on the floor of my bedroom, staring at the ceiling and fighting the tears in my eyes.

  My first instinct was to call Ricky and ask if we could go for a drive, but I imagined how he’d look at me when I confessed what had happened, and a dark mass of shame rolled over my chest.

  My second instinct was to call Lydia and ask her to come back, but I didn’t know what I’d say to her. How do you explain that you like someone so much that it paralyzes you?

  Then I got to my third instinct, which was strongest of them all. I wanted Maritza and JaKory. I wanted to lie down between them and sob my heart out and listen to them tell me that it would be okay. For the first time all summer, I desperately missed my best friends. I had been so hurt and angry and resentful, but clearly they had been right about me all along.

  Maritza would be practical and scientific about what had happened; she’d use facts to make me feel normal. You said your heart was beating super fast, right? So your body was in fight-or-flight mode. You thought the situation was dangerous because it was new and unfamiliar, so your instinct was to get out of it, that’s all.

  JaKory would be empathetic and rallying. I’d probably do the same thing, if not worse. It’s petrifying to have your feelings out there like that. You were feeling intensely vulnerable, but you’ll learn how to move past that. You’ll get another chance.

  I threw my phone on the bed so I wouldn’t call them. It wasn’t an option—not when I’d been lying to them for weeks. How was I supposed to tell them about Lydia when she was just the tip of the iceberg of everything I’d been keeping from them?

  I lay on the floor for ages. My heart was now quiet and dull, almost numb. I closed my eyes and took myself back to the swings, rewriting that moment over and over again to a version where I didn’t choke.

  Finally, I got up and shuffled out of my room. The house was sleepy and quiet, but there was light beneath my brother’s door. I knocked and stepped a foot back, listening to his desk chair swivel on its plastic mat.

  He looked guarded when he opened the door. “What?”

  “Do you wanna watch something?” I croaked.

  He could have said no, the way I’d done to him a million times in the last few years; or he could have asked why, because I knew he could tell I was sad about something; but all he said was, “Yeah, okay,” and followed me down to the family room, where we collapsed on the couch and watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine until we fell asleep.

  15

  The moment I woke up on Sunday morning and remembered what had happened, my stomach roiled. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more than brush my teeth before going to work. My shift passed in a slow haze and I was so irritable that I snapped at some preteen boy who kept badgering me about crocodile bandanas. Tammy suggested I reorganize the stockroom after that.

  I managed to send Lydia a single text, and that was after two hours of deliberating in the stockroom.

  Thanks for dinner last night. I had a lot of fun.

  Her response came an hour later, and it lacked her usual smileys and emojis.

&n
bsp; Lydia Kaufman aka Jason Waterfalls: No problem codi.

  I wanted to take her for coffee and ask if we could try again. I wanted to swing by her restaurant with flowers. I wanted to drive her to the river and kiss her in the back seat of my car, but I did none of those things, because I felt stuck and stupid and ashamed.

  By the time I got home from work, it felt like my whole torso was locked up with emotion. I wanted to talk to someone who could soothe me, someone who could tell me everything was okay and that I would get another chance even if I didn’t feel I deserved it. I texted Ricky and asked if he wanted to go for a drive.

  He pulled into my driveway fifteen minutes later, still in his church clothes and looking preoccupied about something. He barely smiled when I climbed into his truck, and I noticed he wasn’t playing any music.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  We drove to the river and parked beneath a cluster of trees whose branches reached over the car, draping us in shade. Ricky shut the engine off and tossed his keys into the cup holder, then drew a hand down his eyes like he was utterly exhausted.

  “So,” he said half-heartedly, “what’s up with you?”

  I looked at him. The weight on my chest was heavier than ever, but from watching him I could tell that he didn’t have the space for my problems right then.

  “Maybe we should talk about you,” I said gently.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t seem fine.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is it Tucker stuff?”

  He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “It’s nothing you need to hear about.” He paused. “Tell me about you and Lydia.”

  I felt irrationally annoyed all of a sudden. I slumped back in my seat, staring ahead at the river.

  “So?” Ricky prompted. “Tell me what happened.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  He knit his eyebrows together, exasperated. “I thought you said you wanted to talk.”

  “I did.”