Confessions of a Serial Kisser (13 page)

44

Waving a Plastic Spade

O
VER THE WEEKEND
I made a valiant attempt to focus on my schoolwork. I also did heaps of laundry, organized my dresser, listened to Jet's
Get Born
at supersonic volume, and spent Sunday afternoon at the Willows'.

I most definitely did
not
call Robbie Marshall.

Being at the Willows' was just like old times. Adrienne's parents were out back on their patio, enjoying the beautiful weather as they read through the Sunday paper and thumbed through stacks of catalogs.

Brody, Adrienne, and I wound up in the garage, blasting music and playing cutthroat Ping-Pong. We compete for the "golden paddle," which is just a paddle that was sprayed gold years ago (and has very little gold left on it). I'm a pretty slammin' player when there's a rockin' song on, which is why Adrienne's always messing with the station between points when I'm beating her. She knows that rap, synth, or pop will throw me off, and is not afraid to use this. Brody seems to thrive on rock, too, so he just fights back harder, which I like.

It occurred to me that Adrienne didn't know about Eddie's kiss, or Andrew's kiss, or about Robbie calling, or even that he'd asked me out. But the afternoon went by and I didn't catch her up. I just wanted to enjoy some uncomplicated time at the Willows', with things like they used to be before I moved.

On my walk home, I must have been in a good-old-days state of mind, because I accidentally went past my old house. Ever since we'd moved out, I'd taken a roundabout route to Adrienne's just to avoid seeing the house. For some reason, I just couldn't take seeing it.

I think Mom felt the same way, which is why
we
moved out when, really, my dad should have.

I did go back once early on, to retrieve my iPod and a big box of CDs, which had somehow not made it in the move. I was also planning to snatch the computer. Why should my dad get it? He mostly just surfed the Web and used it for e-mailing gig announcements, whereas I desperately needed it for school.

But when I arrived, there was a
FOR SALE
sign dangling from a four-by-four post.

My home. My childhood. Up for sale.

I'd stood by the hedge of hibiscus shrubs that lined our property and stared at the sign. And after a while I'd become aware of how tall the hibiscus plants were. When had that happened? They were taller than I was. And the blooms were amazing. Together the shrubs made a beautiful living fence of alternating reds, yellows, and pinks.

Pictures of me as a toddler waving a plastic spade as Mom planted hibiscus shrubs had flashed through my mind. They were small plants then; baby bushes with just a smattering of leaves, shivering in the wind, yards apart. I could have crushed them with one mighty stomp of my toddler foot.

As the
FOR SALE
sign clinked in the afternoon breeze that day, it had struck me how ironic it was that the bushes were now large and bursting with blooms, while I felt small and vulnerable.

I hadn't retrieved my iPod or CDs, or the computer; I'd gone back to the condo and cried. And after that I'd never returned. Why torture yourself when you don't have to?

But I must've had a brain fade when I left Adrienne's, because I suddenly found myself approaching the hibiscus hedge.

I could still have turned around without actually seeing the house, but I told myself that would be ridiculous. I had moved on! I was no longer living in the past! I had places to go! People to kiss! Fantasies to live!

So I went forward, and the first thing I noticed was that the
FOR SALE
sign was missing.

I was gripped with a sudden and crippling fear.

Had the house been sold?

Why hadn't they told me?

But fear turned to shock when I spotted my mother's car parked beside my dad's in the driveway.

It was so strange to see them there. The same cars that had been parked alongside each other every evening for years. Her Toyota. His '65 Mustang.

I tried to convince myself that their cars being parked together didn't mean my
parents
were parked together. Maybe she was strong enough now,
brave
enough now to face the memories. Maybe she had to talk to him there to finish closing the hole he'd blasted in her heart.

I considered going up to the door.

But...what would I do? Knock? Walk right in?

And what would I say?

"I'm home!"?

It was all so ridiculous.

There was no going back.

45

Ghosts

D
ELILAH THREW HERSELF UPON HER SISTER'S GRAVESITE
and wept. Her exit from the house had been witnessed by no one, so at last she was free to let the long-held torrent of tears escape. Why Elise? her heart wailed. Why Elise? She had been so young, so innocent, so good. The question echoed madly in Delilah's mind as her body convulsed with the pain of her loss. Try as she would, she could find no justifiable answer.

Between the house and the condo there's a small graveyard. It's off the main road, through a little wooded area, and it's very old timey. The statues are crooked and mossy, the surrounding trees have large, knotty branches dragged low by ivy, and the grounds are completely overgrown. I'm sure no one new has been buried there for at least a hundred years.

It's the classic scream-inducing graveyard, and Adrienne and I used to go by it on our way home from school for a rush. At first it was just "Climb the fence--I dare you!" Then it was "Touch the headstone--I dare you!" Gradually we got deeper and deeper into the graveyard, and finally (on the first of October in our fifth-grade year), we made it all the way to the four-casket crypt in the middle of spooksville.

We were gutsy girls!

I hadn't been there in years, but somehow I wound up there now.

I didn't throw myself on any graves and cry. I didn't cry at all. Why would I? No one I knew was dead. No, I just walked, which was actually very pleasant, very serene. I could hear cars in the distance, but barely. Birds twittered, butterflies fluttered, and there was a soothing rustle of leaves in the early-evening breeze. I was actually enjoying myself until I realized that I was doing something I'd never done before:

I was reading the names on the tombstones.

It was eerie and unnerving, not because these people were once alive and were now
dead,
but because I was searching for a particular name.

Elise.

"Why are you doing this?" I muttered to myself, but I couldn't seem to stop. "You're insane!" I said between clenched teeth. "She's not real. She's
not real.
"

The growing darkness was what finally sent me home. The darkness and the chill and the uneasy feeling that none of it was real. Maybe the story
and
the passion were all just fantasy.

Maybe there was no such thing as a crimson kiss.

I looked behind me several times as I hurried out of the graveyard, and after I was through the gate, I ran. Arms pumping, lungs burning, feet flying, I
ran.

When I reached the condo, I tried to compose myself, but my heart was still pounding madly as I stepped through the door.

"There you are!" my mom cried. "I was worried. Adrienne said you left her house hours ago!"

Had it been hours?

I stopped trying to restrain my panting. "I needed some exercise."

"Some exercise? For hours? In blue jeans and a knit top?"

I gave what I hoped was a disarming laugh. "It was so nice out. I walked for miles!"

How could I tell her I'd spent the evening walking through a cemetery alone, searching for something that didn't exist?

I couldn't even explain it to myself.

46

Heavy-Metal Kissing

A
PPARENTLY
R
OBBIE
M
ARSHALL GETS ANNOYED
when he's ignored. He was already lurking in the vicinity of math class when I arrived on campus Monday morning, and before I could slip by him, he grabbed me by the arm and said, "Why didn't you call me back?"

I pulled a face. "Is there a law that says I have to?"

"When someone calls you four times, yeah. There's a law."

I yanked my arm free. "There should be a law against calling someone four times!"

Hurt crinkled his eyes. "Am I really that bad a kisser?"

In an instant, my brain mapped out the delivery route of this news: I'd made a snotty remark to Sunshine at the dance, Stu had heard; one of the two of them had delivered it back to Robbie.

Probably Sunshine.

Was there no honor among jilted lovers?

Aw, who was I fooling? I was an idiot to have ever made the remark. It was catty, and I should have known it would get back to Robbie.

I let out a sigh. "Look, I'm sorry. Obviously lots of girls think you're a great kisser."

"But you don't," he said, still crinkly-eyed.

"Forget me. What do I know? Think of Sunshine or Jasmine or Nicole." I swept my hands upward. "Anyone, really." I laughed. "I'm sure you have no problem finding compatible kissers."

"But I thought
we
were compatible." His head bobbed. "I thought we were
really
compatible!"

"Hmm." I screwed my mouth to the side, wondering how best to explain this. "I think I'm a classical or blues kisser, whereas you are definitely heavy metal."

He stared at me, his eyebrows knitting. "So you're what? A Mozart kisser? And I'm, like, Metallica?"

I laughed, "You're more like Slipknot." I started toward the classroom, saying, "There are plenty of heavy-metal chicks out there, Robbie. I'm just not one of them."

"Wait!" he said, catching up to me. "So what's a Mozart kiss like?"

I hesitated, because for some reason this impressed me. Why'd he even care? If there was one thing I was certain of, it was that Robbie Marshall had no interest in classical music. And to be fair, my education in classical music is pretty limited, too. So I said, "Actually, I'm more Stevie Ray Vaughn than Mozart."

"Who?"

"Blues guitarist? Wrote 'Crossfire,' 'Texas Flood,' 'Life Without You'? Died tragically in a plane crash in the prime of his life?"

"Oh, oh, yeah, right," he said, obviously clueless about Stevie Rayor his music. But why would he know about some blues guitarist who died before we were even born?

Why did I?

Again my brain mapped out the routing, and it sent a painful jolt through me when I found myself face to face with my dad. Him and the worn acoustic guitar he kept in the living room. Him strumming, picking, playing Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughn, singing softly, hoarsely, behind the quivering strings.

"What's that?" I'd asked him the first time he'd played "Life Without You," when I was about nine.

"A little number by Stevie Ray," he'd told me. Then he'd sung it for me from the beginning.

When he was done, I clapped like I always did. He gave a grand bow with his guitar like he always did, and then I said what I'd been thinking: "It sounds like that 'Little Wing' song you play. By that Jimi guy?"

He stared at me a moment, then swept the guitar off over his head and scooped me up in his arms. "You're a genius, angel! An absolute genius!"

"I am?" I giggled.

"Stevie Ray Vaughn was really influenced by Jimi Hendrix. The song I just played is a great example of that!" He turned and called, "Lorena! Honey! Our angel is a musical genius!"

At that moment the world was a happy, perfect place.

"So what's a Stevie Ray...Von kiss like?" Robbie was asking.

I shook my head and walked past him. "Forget Stevie Ray," I choked out. "Stevie Ray is dead."