Confessions of a Serial Kisser (21 page)

71

Swinging

I
ESCAPED MY OLD NEIGHBORHOOD
...the Willows, my parents, the hibiscus plants in glorious bloom.... I hunkered down, kept my eye son the ground, and just walked away.

I didn't go through the graveyard to be with other ghosts. I went a few blocks beyond it, to my old elementary school. I don't really know why. It's just where my feet took me.

The place was deserted, as schools should be on Sundays. It was also totally accessible, as schools should
not
be.

I wandered past the kindergarten classrooms, their windows plastered with artwork. I thought about Mrs. Potts, who had been my kindergarten teacher, and wondered if she was still alive. She'd seemed so old, with her graying hair, long skirts, and tatty moccasins. Every day she'd wear those same moccasins. The little beads had fascinated me. How did they hold on day after day? When would the frayed strings finally give up? How would we ever find all the beads as they bounced and scattered across the black-and-white squares of the linoleum floor?

My life now felt like Mrs. Potts's moccasins. The strings had broken. The beads had scattered.

How would I ever put it back together?

I sighed and moved on, passing by my first-grade classroom, home of Mrs. T (short for Tottenicker). She had been one of those teachers who rarely smiled, and only with great effort.

I had not been a fan of Mrs. T.

I walked around the corner to Room B-8, which had been my second-third combination with Miss Escar. She'd been so hyper, and loved to hug all her students good morning. I'd adored her, living for my morning hug and trying to steal extras throughout the day.

I peeked in the B-8 window. The same familiar
You're a STAR
pencil mug was on the desk. How many years had it been?

Nine?

I suddenly ached for a hug from Miss Escar.

Then there was my old fourth-grade classroom with its presentation platform, where Mr. Dixon had gotten us comfortable with speaking in front of the class. Every week we had to "present," and after a while it was no big deal.

It was also the platform my dad had used when he'd come as a special guest. He'd played guitar and talked about music, and everyone thought he was the coolest dad ever.

For me, that had been a
huge
deal.

I continued meandering through campus, peeking inside the windows of all my old classrooms, feeling a little like Alice at ten feet tall. Eventually I wound up at the playground and sat on the low curb that held in the sand surrounding all the play equipment.

I ran my fingers across the sand, through the miraculous grains of disintegrated rock. I thought back to how I'd accidentally skip-loaded heaps of it home in my shoes; how my shoes and the dunes they contained had been banned to the porch, leaving scattered piles of the fine tan grains outside.

Sand was a big part of life then.

And now?

When was the last time I'd thought about sand?

I got up and trudged over to the swings, where Adrienne and I used to try to loop over the top. Way, way high we'd swing, catching air, thumping hard as gravity reclaimed us, trying again, thumping again, twisting and crashing and squealing.

I sat on one of the hard rubber seats and pushed off. The seat felt snug against my hips, the chain warm in my hands. I leaned back and held my legs out. I pumped and pulled and drove myself higher. Higher. Higher. I pumped until I thought the swing might break, until the chain might pull apart from the frame. Then I scooped through the air a few more times, coasting back and forth, panting, my stomach becoming queasy, the earth starting to spin.

I ground to a halt and staggered away, my insides completely topsy-turvy.

72

Ditch Day

"W
HERE HAVE YOU BEEN
?" my mother demanded when I finally dragged myself home around eight o'clock.

"Swinging," I answered glumly.

"Swinging?"

She was looking at me skeptically, so I unlaced a shoe and shook sand into the trash.

"But why?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Felt like it, I guess."

She studied me a minute, then stroked my shoulder and said, "Honey? Is there something you want to talk about?"

I shrugged again. "I'm fine. I'm just tired. I think I'll take a shower and go to bed."

She didn't pry, which I really appreciated. But in the morning I still felt...quiet. I looked through the clothes I'd slowly been collecting from my mother's boxes and realized that I didn't want to wear any of them.

I wanted my own jeans. My own tops. My own
face.

When I left the house, I had every intention of going to school. But then I took a detour to Starbucks for a wake-up frappuccino, which led to me taking a seat in a comfy corner chair, which led to me ditching school.

I just didn't have the energy to face anything about school.

Not the incomplete homework.

Not Robbie or Justin or Andrew or Eddie or Stu or Paxton or Trevor.

And especially not Adrienne.

I just didn't know what to say to Adrienne.

Besides, if Brody was suspended for saving me from urinal ill repute, shouldn't I be suspended, too? It didn't seem fair that he was kicked out for something I'd put into motion.

I thought about going over to the Willows' to talk to Brody, but bottom line, I chickened out. Instead, I whiled away the morning sipping a grande mocha frappuccino and rereading
A Crimson Kiss.

The disturbing thing was, I couldn't get into it. I tried to escape into its pages, tried to get swept away by the story, but it just felt so...flat. And the harder I tried, the more empty I felt. Betrayed, almost. Like when I needed it most, it just didn't deliver. The words were just words. They no longer
spoke
to me.

I knew I couldn't blame the book.

It was me.

What was
wrong
with me?

73

Escape

I
FINALLY LEFT
S
TARBUCKS
and started walking to the only place I could think to go.

"Bubbles?" Izzy said as I pushed through the Groove Records door. He was obviously not completely awake, as it was only eleven (still early by musician standards) and the store had just opened.

"I'm ditching," I grumbled. "And you'd better not rat me out."

He chuckled, "Me? You gotta be kidding." He leaned his forearms on the counter and said, "But what's got you so bent?"

I put up a hand. "Izzy, please. I'm in crisis mode. I'm here to escape. Can you just put on some music?"

"Crisis mode? Hey..." He came from around the counter. "What's going on, Evangeline?"

I raised my eyebrows. Evangeline? He'd never called me
Evangeline.

He'd also never looked this serious.

No,
concerned.

I looked at him and suddenly realized that Izzy wasn't just my dad's old mentor. He wasn't just the guy who ran Groove Records. He was somebody who'd been in my life...forever.

He was actually my friend.

It flashed through my mind that it would be easy to do the ol' my-parents-are-making-me-miserable routine, but I didn't want to. Except for Adrienne, I hadn't really talked to anyone about school, and now I was even having problems with her. And although there was no way I was going to tell Izzy about my kamikaze kissing, I suddenly did want to tell him
something.
So I shrugged and said, "Things have been kinda rough at school lately."

He looked at me thoughtfully. "How so?"

"I don't know." I started shuffling through a bargain bin of pre-owned CDs, just to avoid looking at him. "I just feel kind of
lost.
Like my friends don't really know who I am anymore." I laughed, but there wasn't much humor in it. "Actually, it's more like
I
don't know who I am anymore." I looked at him. "I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, or even what I want."

He nodded, and for some reason he seemed so wise. So centered and sure and steady. "Well, what do you
care
about? That's where you've got to start. What do you really
care
about?"

What did I care about? I paused and gave it some thought. A crimson kiss? That used to be what I wanted, but now I wasn't so sure. Especially after this morning, when the book had just left me flat. Maybe it was more the passion of it. Maybe that's what I wanted more than the kiss.

The passion.

To really, really care.

He saw my hesitation. "May I make a suggestion?"

I shrugged.

"Sometime the things we really want are right there in front of us. We just don't see them." It was his turn to shuffle through the CDs. "I've actually been thinking about you and your dad since the last time you were here."

"Aw, Izzy,
please.
"

I turned to go, but he stopped me. "No, no! I'm not talkin' about your family problems. I'm talkin' about the music your old man's turned you on to. Stevie Ray, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix--"

"Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, yeah, yeah, he's definitely covered rock and the blues," I said, feeling completely exasperated. Izzy obviously had no idea what I was going through--why had I even opened my mouth?

But then he said something that completely threw me. "What about the chicks?" he asked. "The, uh,
women
of rock?"

I blinked at him.

"You didn't know about Grace Slick. That really shocked me. What about Janis Joplin? Aretha Franklin? How about Bonnie Raitt?"

This seemed so out of left field. I didn't know
why
we were having this conversation. "I've heard of them, of course."

"But didn't your old man ever
play
them for you?"

I shrugged. "I've heard cuts on the radio...."

"But you haven't
studied
them like you have the guys." He was suddenly very...agitated. He was starting to twitch all over. His shoulder, his neck, his
other
shoulder..."So to you the blues, hell,
rock,
it's a man's world."

Before I could fully process this statement, he leaned in and said, "Evangeline, you've been coming here since you were knee high to a grasshopper. You know more about music than most musicians. You
care
about it more than most musicians. I keep expecting you to take up guitar, but you haven't. You never even stick your nose inside the guitar room. Why not?"

I just stared.

I didn't know why not.

He pulled me along through the store, saying, "You want to escape? You want to know who you are?
This
is how you do it."

74

Rock School

I
ZZY PULLED
a worn blond wood guitar off the wall. "Fender Strat--classic Clapton guitar." He plugged it into a large, tattered black amplifier. "Marshall amp--classic Hendrix, Clapton, hell, anybody amp."

He strapped the guitar over my head and helped me get comfortable. It was heavier than I'd expected.

He flicked down some switches on the amp, and a short while later it was letting off a buzz, which for some reason made my heart start pounding.

Just touching the strings made a sound.

A cool, powerful sound.

"Forget scales, forget theory, forget songs," Izzywas saying as he positioned my fingers on two strings. "Say hello to the power chord."

"Hello, power chord?" I joked, afraid to move.

He laughed and handed over a guitar pick. "Play!"

"Play?"

"Play!"

So I took the pick and I hit the strings.

It sounded thuddy.

He repositioned my fingers a little and said, "Try again."

I hit again, and this time the strings rang.

He twisted the knobs on the amplifier. "Again!"

So I hit again, and suddenly the room, my arms, my whole
body
was filled with an awesome sense of power.

"Again!" he said when he saw my wide eyes.

So I struck again.

And again!

"Wow!"

"That's my girl!
That,
" he said, moving in, "is an E power chord." He repositioned my fingers. "
This
is an A..."

Switching between E and A was a thrill. A rush. A...

"Isn't that a
gas
?" Izzy asked.

"Yes!" I laughed.

He introduced me to a few more chords, showed me a basic riff, then left me alone to practice. And did I practice! When I finally left Izzy's, my fingers were aching and blistered, and I was in the best mood of my life.

I knew how to do the riff to AC/DC's "Highway to Hell"!

(It was pretty crude, but still!)

Brody and kissing and school (which had already been out for over an hour) were the farthest things from my mind. I cruised home, singing, "I'm on the highway to hell! On the highway to hell!"

Which, unfortunately, is exactly where I wound up.