First Kiss

by Richards

  “Perfect,” she agreed.

  We sat on the curb in front of the store and went to work dismantling our heaping cones of frozen goodness.

  “How is working at your grandmother’s store going?” she asked.

  Up until the last few days, it had seemed pretty much fine. The sulking had kinda gotten in the way recently. Speaking of sulking, this seemed like a perfect time to follow Elsa’s advice and get things out on the table. “It’s okay.” Maybe I could have been a little more forthright in bringing up my concerns. “I pretty much know all there is to know about pantsuits.”

  She smiled. “That sounds important.”

  “Yeah, Elsa is thinking of promoting me to pantsuit accessories manager next.”

  “What sort of accessories do pantsuits need?”

  “A heavy gold chain and diamond-rimmed reading glasses always look good.”

  “Or maybe a plaid handbag?”

  “Absolutely! Hey, maybe you can get a job at the store as the plaid handbag sales consultant?”

  “That sounds perfect!”

  By this point I had forgotten all about the other night and that half man Jackson. Which was okay by me. In a choice between awkward discussions and playful banter, the choice seemed easy. “The sundries department is also looking for help.”

  “I wouldn’t want to keep you from helping little old ladies with their sundries needs.”

  “True. No one knows sundries like I do.”

  Spending the afternoon with Becca had a remarkable way of lifting me out of my sulky doom and gloom. The chocolate chocolate-chip didn’t hurt, either. Elsa noticed my change of mood the next morning and took full advantage of it.

  “Stu! All the details for the show are coming together. We just need to pick out the fashions.”

  She pulled out a catalog about the size of my house and began thumbing through it.

  “What do you think of this?” she asked, pointing to an all-too-skinny model wearing something that looked like the rug in our living room.

  “Uh, I guess so.”

  “Or how about this?” she said, pointing to a woman with a poodle hairdo wearing a shawl that could’ve passed for our bath mat.

  Had someone been designing women’s clothing based on the thrift store furnishings in the Truly household? The idea seemed impossible but so did the idea of a woman in a catalog wearing a fuzzy pink bath mat. “I guess.”

  Elsa flipped page by page through the catalog marking roughly half the items as possibilities.

  “Thanks. You were such a help!” she said after we had finished. “We can narrow it down further tomorrow.”

  An internal groan escaped my lips.

  “What was that?”

  “I said I can hardly wait.”

  Elsa gave me a conspiratorial grin.

  “With you, me, and Harley working together, this show is going to be great!”

  Yeah, probably bath-mat great. Maybe even living-room-rug great. Probably so great my grandmother will ban me from ever setting foot in her store again.

  The next day, the process of narrowing down our fashion show choices continued. In fact, the next week mostly consisted of watching Elsa fawn over all the choices in the catalog. Fortunately, we had help. Diane and company stopped by daily to get a sneak peek and weigh in on their choices for the show.

  “Do you think we should leave out the poodle skirt with the poodle tail in back?” Elsa asked the group.

  “Absolutely not,” Diane countered. “What could be cuter paired with the purple polka-dot cashmere sweater?”

  “Oh yes,” Mildred agreed. “Especially if it’s followed by the high-waisted sailor slacks with side buckles.”

  “Don’t forget the crimson evening gown,” Aiko added.

  Elsa rubbed her temples. “There are just so many perfect choices. I wish we could order them all.”

  Given that we’d been having the same discussion for five days straight, I just wished someone would make a decision and put an end to the misery.

  After the ladies left to get lunch, Elsa slumped down against the counter.

  “How am I ever going to finalize the show if I can’t decide on what to order?”

  That seemed like an excellent question. Personally, I grabbed whatever looked clean in my laundry basket and ran with it.

  “You’re right,” she replied, as if reading my mind. “I need to trust my instincts.”

  Say what?

  “And get this order finalized so the items arrive in time. And stop fixating on little details and have faith that everything is going to work out fine. And stop worrying about whether Rosemarie would approve.”

  Whoa, apparently a lot of important thoughts had been running through my mind. Glad at least one of us noticed.

  “Thanks, Stu, for getting me back on track.”

  Elsa got on the computer and went to work placing the order. Meanwhile, I took a seat at the counter and rested my aching head. Telepathic communication wears a guy out.

  On my way home, I ran into Harley. I didn’t recognize him at first due to the way he was holding a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates out in front of him as if they were explosives poised to go off. At the sight of me, he stopped short.

  “Hey, Stu,” he said, staring down awkwardly at the gifts in each hand.

  “Hey, Harley. Where you going?”

  Watching a grown man’s ears heat up to burning hot is humbling. For them.

  “Being as how I just happened to be in town and all—I thought I’d stop in for a moment”—beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, which seemed strange since it was only a seventy-degree day—“and say hi to Elsa.”

  Something about his statement didn’t quite add up, maybe it was the flowers and chocolates sparkling in the sunlight. He lowered his voice.

  “Do you think flowers and chocolates are too much?”

  Not if he was planning to propose to her. HE WASN’T PLANNING TO PROPOSE TO HER, WAS HE?

  “Uh … no … I’m sure she’ll like them.”

  Unless they’re hiding a ring with a lifetime commitment attached. I was pretty sure she wasn’t ready for that.

  “We’ve been spending time together for three weeks now,” he explained.

  So, the chocolates and flowers were to celebrate their three-week-spending-time-together anniversary? Harley was more smitten than I thought. “Come to think of it, I think she’s sworn off sweets for the summer. Maybe just the flowers would be best for now.”

  Alarm flashed across Harley’s face.

  “Oh, thanks, man. I didn’t know. I’m not so good at this sort of thing.”

  That’s for darn sure.

  He jammed the chocolates into his jacket pocket.

  “You saved me.”

  Poor guy. When you’re blushing in front of thirteen-year-olds, you’re beyond saving.

  Seeing Harley looking all love-addled got me thinking. Maybe that’s what women look for in a guy. If so, Becca must find me the most attractive guy on earth. The idea made total sense so long as I didn’t think about it too much.

  After I got home, I pulled out my pen and notebook. If Harley wasn’t afraid to embarrass himself publicly, then the least I could do was finish the poem I never really started for Becca’s birthday. I curled up on my bed and got to work. Strange, the blank page seemed to have grown since my last attempt. And my pen had shrunk to the size of a sewing needle. How was I supposed to fill such a huge space with a writing utensil so small?

  Pushing my doubts aside, I wrote the first thing that came to mind.

  Your face is better than birthday cake,

  round and sweet and nice.

  Like unchewed bubble gum

  or grape-flavored shaved ice.

  A gag crept up my throat. Her face is better than birthday cake? What did that mean? Like unchewed bubble gum? The gag made room for a second, larger gag. Or grape-flavored shaved ice? A full-on heave clenched my gut. The page went into the garbage can at t
he foot of my bed. I wanted to impress her, not make her physically ill.

  The next hour continued the process of poetic musings followed by gut-wrenching heaves that left me with a sore stomach and a garbage can full of crumpled pages. Reluctantly, I returned to the roses-are-red approach.

  Roses are red

  and violets are blue.

  Something something something

  I love you.

  I simply needed to replace the something something something with something that actually made sense. And the I love you with something other than I love you because those words weren’t happening in my first-ever birthday poem for a girl I wasn’t sure I was actually going out with.

  By dinnertime, I had stared at the words something something something until I started to accept their reality. She really was something something something, wasn’t she? My hand gave the customary slap to the forehead. Of course, she was something, but what? I didn’t have a clue.

  That night at dinner, my mother seemed full of questions I had no interest in answering.

  “So, Stu, how is your work at the store coming along?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you learning a lot?”

  “I guess.”

  “Elsa a good boss?”

  “Sure.”

  She frowned. “You’re not exactly being forthcoming. Has it really been that bad?”

  Well, let’s see. So far, I had touched an old woman’s back while zipping up her dress, worn a pink polo shirt in public, sprinkled sparkly sprinkles about the store, and discussed the merits of purple polka-dot sweaters with a group of women roughly five times my age. All in all, it had been a real hoot. “I’m working at an old ladies’ clothing store. What do you think?”

  My mother carved another slab from the pot roast and plunked it on my plate.

  “How about the fashion show? Is it happening this year?”

  “Harley told me he’s been helping her design the layout for the show,” my father added between mouthfuls of potatoes.

  He gave my mom a wink.

  “He seems more than willing to give Elsa any help she needs.”

  My mother hid her smile behind her hand.

  “Now you leave those two alone. The last thing they need is people jumping to conclusions and spreading gossip around town.”

  “Do you mean like how Harley brought her flowers this afternoon?”

  My mother choked on her roll. “He brought her flowers?”

  “He said it had been three weeks since they started spending time together.”

  My father set down his fork, a grim look replacing the mischievous gleam in his eye. “I told him not to rush things and take it slow. He always gets so wound up it scares the poor woman half to death. He didn’t propose, did he?”

  Exactly what I had been wondering. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I was leaving the store when I ran into him.”

  “I’m sure everything is all right,” my mother interjected. “I’m sure he learned from last time.”

  My father lifted his fork, then set it back down.

  “I better talk to him tomorrow. I’m sure you’re right. But just in case …”

  From the look I had seen on Harley’s face earlier, my father had better talk to him soon.

  The next day after work, I headed over to the school soccer field. I found the guys waiting for me to get in a little unofficial practice before our team’s official practices started up in August. Mostly it gave us an excuse to hang out and shoot the breeze without anyone’s parents complaining that we were spending our summer inside in front of a video game console rather than out getting some fresh air.

  “Hey, you made it!” Ben shouted.

  He blistered a shot that missed my backside by inches. My fault for veering in front of the goal.

  “I see you still can’t hit the goalie—let alone the goal,” I shouted back.

  A second shot whizzed past my ear into the upper corner of the net. Tyler gave me a thumbs-up.

  “At least I still got it.”

  I checked my face for windburn. Geez, that dude had a rocket leg.

  “Yep, that’s why I don’t play goalie.”

  Ryan gave Tyler a shove.

  “How’d you get it to curve right for his head?”

  “Easy, I pictured him square-dancing with Gretchen and the ball curved on its own.”

  I dribbled the ball out of the net and zipped it across the turf.

  “Are you telling me you had an assassin ball in your possession this spring, but kept it secret? The least you could have done was kill us all during square dancing and put us out of our misery.”

  Tyler redirected the pass to Ben.

  “And keep you from being properly socialized? Are you kidding? I’d never be so cruel.”

  Ben smashed the ball to Ryan, who redirected it my direction.

  “No more talk about Gretchen.”

  “Ryan’s still mad,” Tyler explained. “She’s already going out with someone else from her church.”

  “How do you know that?” Ben asked.

  Tyler popped the ball up in the air, then juggled it with his knees.

  “We go to the same church. It happened at camp last week.”

  Ryan stole the ball from Tyler and sent it skimming over to Ben.

  “That’s not all that happened at camp,” Ryan goaded.

  Ben stopped the ball with one foot and held it there.

  “Wait, what else happened?”

  “He kissed a girl he met.”

  “What?” Ben and I shouted together.

  Tyler shrugged his shoulders like it was nothing, but the grin on his face had grown to the size of Ben’s head.

  “We kinda snuck off and went for a walk. And then she just sort of kissed me.”

  Just sort of kissed him? How does something like that just happen?

  “What do you mean she kissed you?” Ben prompted.

  Tyler’s sheepish shrug gave way to a haughty look of manly superiority, the sort of look I could only imagine giving should I ever cross into the land of the casually kissed. Though by then my friends would be living in an old folks’ home, too nearsighted to notice.

  “Well, she took my face in her hands and then kissed me.”

  That brought all the giggling to a halt. The image of a girl putting her hands on Tyler’s face was more than I could handle. I had thrown water balloons at that face. Ben had written dork on that face while Tyler had been sleeping. Just this spring, future cover-model Annie had kissed that face—wha? The thought made me stagger. He had kissed two girls? What was the world coming to?

  A moment of silence ensued. Not to memorialize Tyler’s accomplishment. No one could think of anything to say after his bomb-dropping revelation. Further questioning seemed pointless. He had risen to another plane. One that involved girlish hands, boyish cheeks, and two sets of lips locked in an epic struggle for singularity. How were we to comprehend that?

  Soccer suddenly seemed like a vital connection to the past. Something to renew our bonds as friends in a time of barbaric unrest. An act of solidarity to hold at bay the enemy hoards at the gates, who even now were trying to tear apart our friendship one lip-gloss moment at a time.

  Two hours later, my pits were sweaty, my legs tired, and my brain exhausted from trying to understand how two of my oldest friends had gone from comic books and lightsaber duels to lip-locking with girls in the blink of a single summer.

  “Hey, you guys want to hike down to the Spit tomorrow?” Tyler asked.

  The Dungeness Spit is a strip of land that runs for miles out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca just outside town. It’s pretty much the coolest place on earth to build driftwood forts.

  Ben and I shared a helpless look.

  “I gotta work at my dad’s store tomorrow,” Ben growled. “He’s making a man of me. And slowly destroying my will to live.”

  “Me too,” I added.

  “Can’t you skip one day?” Tyler p
ressed.

  “Not unless I want to be locked in the storeroom for the rest of my life,” Ben explained.

  “Or I want to be guilted by my parents about my grandmother’s broken hip,” I added.

  Tyler chipped the ball over to me. “Wow, that blows.”

  My last shot on goal skimmed under Ben’s foot into the back of the net. “Yeah, I gotta go home and get back to sulking. Otherwise, my parents might start to think I’m enjoying working there.”

  “Yeah, my mom is picking Tyler and me up in the parking lot,” Ryan agreed. “I got a piano lesson tonight.”

  “His piano creeps me out,” Ben said as we walked across the field together toward home. “I think it’s possessed.”

  Ryan’s mom bought a baby grand just so he could take piano lessons. It growls every time someone walks past. Ryan says it’s the vibrations from our feet making the bass strings vibrate. But I’m pretty sure the piano is crazy jealous of anything that disrupts Ryan’s practice time.

  “Me too. Probably came from a funeral home.”

  “Yeah, they probably sold it because undead customers kept eating the pianist.”

  “That’d be the coolest funeral ever if you had to hide to keep from being eaten by the person you came to mourn.”

  “Especially if you had to hide inside the funeral home, like in caskets and stuff.”

  “Why doesn’t Death Intruders have a level like that?”

  “Seriously, they’re missing out.” Ben swept his hands as if showing off a marketing poster. “Death Intruders 5: Funeral Fun for the Whole Family.”

  “Who wouldn’t want to play a game where you’re chased by your own dead relatives?”

  Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me.”

  We left the soccer field and followed a sidewalk that led past the elementary school playground. The warm afternoon had brought loads of parents to watch their kids climb on the jungle gym, swing on the swings, and dig in the giant sand box. A few of the adults I recognized from school events. Some had older kids close to my age. On the far side of the playground stood a young couple with two little girls running around them playing tag. The young couple looked oddly familiar.

  “Hey, isn’t that Becca?” Ben asked. “With Jackson?”