Freshman Year (26 page)

There's a knock at Keeta's front door, but I don't think anything of it because I'm tangled up in her arms and a million galaxies away from Tucson.

Then my cell phone rings, but I ignore that, too, because the only person I want to talk to is in my arms, kissing me.

The knock at the front door comes again, louder this time, and a voice weasels into my conscience. “Abbey, it's Mom,” the voice says.

“Chale,”
we both say at the same time.

Keeta and I stand up quickly, and I'm temporarily woozy with a major head rush. When my vision clears, I squint at the glowing clock on Keeta's dresser. “Nine fifteen? Where are my shoes?” I feel around the floor for my sandals while Keeta trips over herself with laughter.

“This is so not funny, Keeta.”

“Wait, I'll turn on the light,” she says between gasps of laughter.

We're blinded once more, but I recover quickly, slip on my shoes, and glance in her mirror to try to fix my tangled hair. It looks like the time I rode in the backseat of a convertible with the top down all the way to Phoenix, only a little worse.

Then my mom knocks again, this time saying, “Abbey? Are you guys in there?” Then my cell phone rings again. I pick it up off the floor. It's my mom.

“You going to answer that or should I?” Keeta jokes.

“Keeta,” I whine, silencing my cell phone, which I now regret asking for. “Go tell my mom I'll be right there. Tell her I'm in the bathroom or something. She can't get suspicious.”

Keeta frowns. “No way.”

“Please. For me?” I bat my eyelashes and stick out my lower lip. “It's the least you can do since I let you kiss me for an hour.”

“Okay, I guess you're right,” she says and quickly puts her hair back in a ponytail, straightens out her tank top, and leaves. I look in her closet mirror to tidy up and that's when I see it: my first hickey. “Holy, Keeta,” I whisper and look at it more closely in the mirror. It's small and low on my neck, and I'm oddly proud of it. But I have to stay focused because my mom is less than twenty feet away, and I have a giant 'fro of blond hair on my head and a hickey on my neck. Not to worry. I'm an honor student. I'll think of something.

I quickly scan Keeta's closet and consider taking her Hot Dog on a Stick hat as a souvenir, but instead grab the U of A hooded sweatshirt (neatly folded on the shelf, of course) to cover my hickey and a Diamondbacks cap to cover my hair.

By the time I walk into the living room, my mom and Keeta are comfortably talking about the weather like they've known each other for more than three minutes.

My mom gets up from the couch when I walk into the room. “All ready, Abbey?”

“Yes. Very ready.” I drag my mom to the door. “Thanks for letting me borrow your sweatshirt and hat for Sports Day next week,” I say to Keeta with a slight wink, which she hopefully translates as,
You are the most beautiful girl I've ever known, and I wish I could figure out a way to tell you I am madly in love with you,
but I doubt she picks up on it.

“
No hay
problema
, Abbey. See you in guitar on Monday.”

My mom tries to say something else to Keeta, but I push her out the door before she has a chance.

In the car, I turn my head to the window to try and hide the hickey.

“So, how did it go?” Mom asks as we pull away.

“Well”—I send a smile into the dark desert—“I can honestly say things have never been better.”

Since I had to spend Thanksgiving break in Flagstaff with my mom, aunt, uncle, and my cousins, I didn't get to spend any of my five-day break with Keeta. That's why, when winter break finally arrives, I'm the happiest person on the planet.

Winter break means no homework, no Mrs. Schwartz, no getting up at an unreasonable hour, and no bells to keep me from hanging out/making out with Keeta. Yep, for the next two weeks, I am going to make sure I get as much Keeta time as I can. I'm either going to be at the mall staring at Keeta in her cute Hot Dog on a Stick uniform or hanging out in the backroom at All Strings Attached. My mom, however, will think I'm at basketball practice or playing hoops with my friends in the park because that's the lie I will tell her.

Everything goes as planned. I use my bus pass like it's the most fashionable card to have this holiday season. But then it's even better than I expected because I forgot there could be postwork kissing at Keeta's house. That's what I like the most. She even gave me my own special knock to use on her door when I come over. With all the time we've been spending together, there's little chance that there's any time for Keeta to spend with any other girl. I guess everyone was wrong about her.

But even though I'm spending more time in her bedroom, and the lacy black bra/panty set Keeta gave me for Christmas has been quickly modeled and admired, my panties have still never left my butt. So, why am I being so prudish? I'm not sure, but I think Keeta wishes I'd figure it out and get over it. I hope she doesn't regret being with someone younger than her, but she assures me my age doesn't matter. I know I love Keeta, like, more than life these days, but going all the way still freaks me out. Despite Garrett's informative geography lesson about girl-on-girl lovemaking, I'm pretty sure I'll do something totally wrong and therefore ruin everything Keeta and I have. Besides, Keeta said she'd wait for me until I was ready. That's how much she must love me, even if she's never actually said the L word to me.

*

But today is the day I've dreaded; it is our last Saturday before break is over.

At around four this afternoon, I change into sweats and inform my mom of my plans. “I'm heading off to Columbus Park, Mom,” I say, leaving out the part that I'm going to be celebrating my one-and-a-half-month anniversary with Keeta.

“Okay, but don't stay in the park after dark, okay?” she nags.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, as I close the front door.

Keeta buys me a mocha shake from the Ugly Mug, and then we walk to the park to play some basketball. We start with a game of one on one, but after she scores her twentieth shot, I get sick of losing, so I shove the basketball up my shirt and run to the playground.

“Come and get it,” I yell and scramble up the tunnel slide.

“Like that's hard,” Keeta says as she chases after me. “Come on. At least give me a challenge.”

I scream like a total girlie-girl and curl up like a pill bug, but she easily plucks the ball out from under my shirt. “It's a girl,” she says proudly. “Let's name her Abbey Junior.”

I'm too out of breath to protest, so I laugh and lie back on the playground tower platform. As the sun sets, the temperature quickly drops, but I'm hot from playing basketball and running away from Keeta. I strip off Keeta's sweatshirt that I stole from her closet weeks ago and put it under my head.

“The moon looks like your smile,” I say and grin up at her.

“You're such a poet.” She lies down next to me and tosses the ball into the air like Coach makes us do to practice our shooting form. She's the last person who needs practice at anything having to do with basketball, though. She's Gila's best guard and has had three colleges come by during our winter tournament to watch her play. My stomach sinks every time I count down the months we have left together before she graduates from Gila and leaves Tucson, and possibly me, forever. Tonight this thought makes me angry, so I smack the ball as she's about to catch it. It bounces down the slide and rolls to a stop under the nearby mesquite tree.

She turns her head to look at me. “Yes? Did you need my attention?”

“You're already perfect. You don't need practice.”

“Nobody's perfect, Amara.” She runs her finger over my lips. “Except maybe you.”

“Please. I'm so far from it.” I roll to my side and look out as the shadows darken in the park. “Keeta, you're beautiful, talented, smart, and, let's face it, everyone wants to be with you. And I'm just a…totally dumb freshman who…you're probably going to forget all about by the end of June.”

“Oh, come on, Amara.” She turns me toward her, but I don't look in her eyes.

I don't know why I'm trying to ruin the night.

She lifts my chin and looks into me. “You know I care about you.”

Sure she cares about me when we are together and alone. But, when anyone else is around, it's like we're just friends or teammates. I don't know if that's a gay thing or a Keeta thing. I don't know anything about dating a girl and there are zero
Cosmo
articles to help me out. Plus, I can tell Garrett's getting fed up with all my questions, so I have decided to stop bugging her.

I do know, though, that these weeks with Keeta have been the best in my life. I'm completely hooked on Keeta and I'm pretty sure I love her but don't dare tell her that. Not until she tells me first. I don't want to seem like the stupid head-over-heels girl that I am.

“Yeah, I know. I care about you, too,” I say and lean in closer to kiss her. The warmth of her mouth makes me shiver (in a good way).

Then Keeta's basketball hits the bars of the platform next to our heads.

I grab her arm. “Oh my God. Who did that?”

“I don't know.” She sits up and squints into the dark park. She must see the culprits because then Keeta stands and yells, “Why the hell are you touching my basketball, asshole?”

“Keeta, don't.” The story of her uncle pops into my head and I pull at her shirt. “Let's just leave. Come on.”

“Pendejos!”
Keeta shouts, then drops down to cover my body with her own. A second later sharp rocks ping off the playground's metal bars. One hits me in the leg and some hit her in the back of her head.

“Damn queers!” The voice yells back, which feels worse than the handful of rocks; it feels more like a round of bullets.

“Get a room in hell!” a different voice shouts and another shower of rocks and hate falls on us.

“Abbey, stay here.”

I try to grab hold of her leg but only end up with her left Nike. She jumps off the platform and runs full speed toward the parking lot. “Keeta, wait!” I yell and climb down to chase after her.

*

“It's pointless to call the cops,” Keeta says after I try again to convince her that we should. “Besides, I couldn't read the license plate before the guys pulled away.” Then she explains there's no way of finding out who they are from the description of the car because what jackass homophobe moron in Tucson
doesn't
drive a beat up Chevy truck?

We're walking home, and I'm still recovering from what happened. I've read about things like this online but never thought it could happen to us. Why would anyone even care that we're together? It has nothing to do with them. Then I remember a new law that just passed. “Isn't that anti-hate law supposed to protect us?”

“Yeah, right. Maybe when we're at school,” Keeta says and pushes out a laugh. “But have you forgotten that we're both still minors? And according to Tucson, we aren't allowed to be in the park after sundown. If anything, we might get in trouble.”

“But you're bleeding, Keeta.” I wipe a blob of blood off her arm with the corner of my shirtsleeve. “They can't just get away with this. It's not fair.”

“Abbey, stop it. I'm fine.” Her raised voice makes my lip quiver, but I don't let myself cry. “Besides, how exactly do you plan on explaining this to your mom? The police will tell her everything. Is that what you want?”

That seals the deal. I do as I'm told and try to forget the whole thing. But I'm still shaking after Keeta walks me to the end of my driveway, after I take a hot bath, and even after my mom kisses me good night. I only let myself cry when I know for sure my mom has taken her sleeping pill and is fast asleep.

As I try to sleep, I finally realize that the lack of public displays of affection from Keeta probably is a gay thing. Even if girls on the team know about us, it doesn't mean they like it, or that they don't tell their boyfriends, or that Coach won't find out and find a way to bench us or make our lives miserable in other ways. And after tonight, I finally realize that some secrets need to be kept. Being out is way too scary and has too many risks. Maybe this was my induction into the Land of Gay. No streamers, no balloons, no songs, just a handful of rocks thrown at me and a damning to hell.

*

Today is a double-sucky day. It's not only the first day back from winter break, but it's also the day that the second quarter's report cards are sent home. I confess to Jenn on the way to school this morning that this report card is sure to be my worst ever.

As usual, she offers helpful advice on my troubles. “Well, you're screwed.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I say and take another bite of my Eggy.

“Well, the only way to keep your mom from finding out is to get the report card from the mailbox first and hope she didn't get the automated call last week that told parents what day to expect it.”

For the first time ever, I'm pissed that my mom works at home. There's a slight chance that she won't get the mail, but it's so miniscule that you'd need the Hubble Space Telescope to see it.

But I've been getting away with so much lately that I hold out some hope, as I open the mailbox after getting home from basketball practice. I say a little prayer to the Patron Saint of Students (there has to be one out there), but the mailbox is empty. I'm a goner.

I tiptoe down the front hall to try and sneak past my mom, but just my luck, she's sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for little ol' me, with my report card in her hand.

“Don't even think about going to your room, young lady. Get in here right now and sit.”

I silently back up slowly, sit down in the hot seat across from my mom, and twirl a clump of my sweaty ponytail.