If We Kiss (14 page)

thirty

I WATCHED FROM behind my book as Kevin and his father played pool. Mom shuffled her cards and asked if anybody wanted to play gin. Samantha tried seven-card (which Mom hates and never lets me play even when I was Samantha’s age—
you’re not a baby; hold ten cards, come on!
) but even with only seven, Samantha kept dropping them. They laughed a lot, the two of them, and eventually gave up. I was tempted to give in and play with Mom too, but then I looked over at Samantha’s little Ugg slippers. I settled back into my book. Mom wasn’t getting off that easy, even if I was having a decent time after all on this dumb trip she planned.

Okay, better than decent.

It was hard for me to pull down my smile.

“Are you guys enjoying ski school?” Mr. Lazarus asked.

“It’s okay,” Samantha said.

“Yeah,” said Kevin, and smirked at me. “It’s okay. Right?”

Maybe it wasn’t a slow sexy smile like he was happy to see me and I looked good, but it was a smile, more than a smile, a smirk, and anyway it was just for me. Like he knew me, like he could see what I was thinking, like—like he liked me. Me.

I kept looking at his lips. I couldn’t help myself.

Will I kiss him?
I couldn’t stop thinking that. I want to kiss him.
Will we kiss?
I kissed him once before; maybe it’s like a prior thing, a continuation, so it wouldn’t count as anything. Maybe it would be a big nothing. So why couldn’t I stop thinking,
what will happen if we kiss?

“Eight ball in the corner pocket,” Kevin said, and sank it clean.

“Phew,” said Mr. Lazarus. “You whooped me.” He plopped down beside my mother.

Kevin leaned on the pool table. “Who’s next?”

I stood up. “Me.”

“Great,” he said.

I can’t believe I could even hit the cue ball, never mind clonk the other balls with it. But I saw that Kevin’s hands were shaking a little when he broke, and for some reason that calmed me down. I felt really good, even when I noticed he was watching me. Especially, in fact, noticing that. I mean, there I was, with my hat head, in big floppy sweatpants and my dad’s old black turtleneck and thick cozy socks—so far from pretty, and yet, I did not feel embarrassed. I did not feel ugly or even unattractive.

I felt sexy.

And I liked feeling that way.

Not just sexy—I felt, and there it was again, the same feeling as when I first flirted with him: powerful.

And I guess I was, because I won.

I was more surprised than anybody. I mean, Kevin has a pool table in his house at home, and I am a total klutz. But I think he was distracted, and I think it was me who was distracting him. Could anything be more exciting than that?

All those romantic ideas I had about falling in love were very sweet and pastel compared to how this felt.

I did a little bit of taunting him—you know, of the “you’re going down, loser” variety, especially after I knocked in the eight ball on my first try. “Yes!” I shouted, arms up. I wasn’t even trying to hold down my smile anymore.

“Now what?” he asked.

I shrugged. Yes, good question: Now what?

We stood there for a while. I had so much adrenaline rushing through me I could have done a triathlon, won one. That word twisted my stomach momentarily, and I headed toward the other half of the living room to sit, to calm myself down, to get a hold of myself. Personal space.

Samantha was lying on the floor on her back with a book held up in the air above her. My mother and Mr. Lazarus were on the big couch, her feet in his lap, him massaging them. The only places left to sit were the wood chair or the smaller couch.

I picked the couch.

So did Kevin.

So much for personal space or calming myself down. I sat upright and tapped my feet against the floor. I was having trouble staying rooted to the couch. It was entirely possible I could spin up to the ceiling if I didn’t grip the couch cushion. Kevin was drumming on his knees, rocking a bit. I reached for the bowl of pistachio nuts. I guess he thought that seemed like a good idea because he copied.

We sat there like that for what felt like a pretty long time, the only sounds the crackling of the fire, and the cracking of pistachio nutshells. My breath, his breath, shells into the small glass bowl on the table. When one log fell off another in the fireplace, Kevin and I both jumped.

Mr. Lazarus stood up to rearrange the logs. It was sort of a pathetic fire. He took the last log from what had been a big pile when we arrived and flung it on top, then poked it a few times. I am not an expert at making fires but this did not seem to be the most effective technique. Nobody said anything for a minute.

“Maybe we need more kindling,” Mr. Lazarus said.

“And some more wood, more logs,” Mom suggested.

“Yeah.” Mr. Lazarus put his hands on his hips and watched the wisps of flame. “Guess I’ll go out and get some more—I think the firewood is stacked somewhere in the back. I wish it weren’t so cold.”

“I’ll get it,” Kevin volunteered, popping up.

“I’ll help,” I added, standing, too.

“Really?” Mom tilted her head at me.

“No problem,” I said. “I like the cold.”

“You do?”

I was already heading downstairs so I didn’t answer. Luckily she was preoccupied with Mr. Lazarus and not wanting to budge from the couch, or she surely would have followed me down to follow up, since I have always actually been a complete baby about the cold. But it turns out I’m more complex than any of us knew.

Without a word, Kevin and I stomped into our boots and pulled on jackets, hats, mittens. He yanked open the heavy front door and I followed him out into the cold. It was wicked cold, too. We breathed smoke, like dragons.

We walked around the house past the car. There was a wooden fence blocking the way and no wood pile anywhere. “Hmm,” he said, and I cracked up. Somehow that just seemed cataclysmically funny, that “Hmm” with his fists on his hips and his legs all scrawny-looking in just their long underwear hanging down below his bulky jacket. I don’t know. Maybe I was tense. I could barely stand, I was so hysterical.

He laughed, too, a little at first, then more. When it was slightly dying down, he took a breath, and I thought he was going to do just what Tess would have done, which is to say “Hmm” again and get me all doubled over fresh. But instead what he did was, he put his hand on my back and said, “Let’s try the other way.”

As we passed the car again, and the front door, his hand stayed on my back, which meant his arm was kind of guiding me. I let myself press back slightly against it and noticed my laughing was gone. My whole body was hot and cold at the same time. We came to a huge pile of logs and stopped in front of it, but he didn’t start collecting any.

His hand stayed where it was and he turned to look at me. His face was pretty close to mine and he whispered, “So. Chuck . . .”

“So,” I answered.

“What if . . .”

My heart pounded even harder. “What if what?”

He swallowed, looked at a spot on my jacket, then lifted his other arm and put his mitten on the sleeve of my jacket. “What would you do if I kissed you?”

I waited. For once I couldn’t talk.

He lifted his eyes to mine but otherwise didn’t move. “You and me,” he whispered. “What if we just . . .”

“We can’t.”

“Do you want to?”

Did I want to. “Do you?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He moved, tilted, slightly closer to me. “I do. Do you?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. I could feel myself shaking. “But . . .”

“Yeah,” he breathed.

I should stop this,
I thought.
I should smile or joke or say we shouldn’t.
His eyes were so blue. I looked down at his mouth and whispered, “But we shouldn’t.”

“Okay,” he said, backing the tiniest bit away. Just enough so I couldn’t feel the warmth of his breath anymore.

“But . . .” I said.

“But you want to,” he said.

I nodded, and my eyes went back up to his.

“And I want to.”

“But if we do . . .” I whispered. “If we kiss . . .”

“Yeah.”

His face neared mine again. His blue, blue eyes closed.
Oh no
, I thought as lightly, softly, his lips touched mine.

thirty-one

WOW.

So.

We kissed. We kissed for a minute; then we stopped, looked at each other, and kissed a few little kisses, then another big deep kiss again, his arms holding me tight and mine on his back, too. It was not at all disgusting this time. My fingers were sweating in my mittens but my legs were icy and I was shaking, shivering, freezing, melting, cold, hot.

“You’re shivering,” he whispered.

I sniffled. “Yeah.”

His kissed me lightly again, on the lips. “You want to go in?”

“No,” I said.

He laughed a one-exhale laugh and kissed me again. Our lips were soft together. It occurred to me that maybe I’d like French toast now, too.

My teeth were chattering, hard and loud. “I guess we should go in.”

“They’ll be wondering,” he said, as we headed back, then stopped short. “Wood. We ought to bring some wood.”

“Good plan,” I said. “Less obvious.”

We bent and got armloads. I was shivering so much I dropped a few. As we got to the door and Kevin leaned against it, trying to get to the doorknob, I was thinking, this is too weird. How can we go back in there now? How do I act toward him in front of everybody?

“What am I going to do with you?” I whispered.

The door swung open. He raised his eyebrows and whispered back, “Anything you want.”

Well, try being normal after a comment like that. I was shaking so much by the time we got upstairs I just dumped my whole pile of wood on the floor and ignored all the chatter about what took you so long and we were about to send out the sled dogs to find you, and, dreading that Mom might mention the figurative cow from the last time I kissed Kevin, I announced that I was chilled and going to take a shower.

I took a long hot one. The shivering eased but didn’t stop, especially when I started thinking, what do I do if he’s there when I open the bathroom door? I dried off, got into my flannel pajamas, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair. In the mirror I looked flushed and good, better than usual. Maybe better even than Tess.

Tess.

I opened the door slowly and looked around. Nobody there. I tiptoed across the hall and slipped into my bed. I lay there thinking about what Tess had said about if my mother married Kevin’s father and she slept over and Kevin snuck into my room, and thought, what if he sneaks in tonight? It would be to be with me.
I am the worst friend,
I thought. What am I going to do? He kissed me, oh boy, did he kiss me, and I want to kiss him again, more. When can I kiss him again? Tomorrow on the ski lift? I will never be able to sleep for all these thoughts and desires and the excitement and feeling of the kissing—and the next thing I knew I was waking up and it was morning.

My mother was on the edge of my bed with her hand on my forehead. “You’re sick,” she said, and for a minute I thought she had found out.

“Why?”

“Why? I don’t know. You have a fever. It’s eleven o’clock. When I tried to wake you to ski, at eight, you were sort of delirious.”

“I was?” Just what I needed. “Why? What did I say?”

“Nonsense. Tess, mostly. I think you thought I was Tess. You were really upset and incoherent, and then apologizing a lot. It was very sweet. She called this morning, by the way, about an hour ago, to say Happy New Year’s Eve.”

“Tess did?”

“Yeah,” said Mom.

I closed my eyes. They burned. “Did Kevin talk to her?”

“He was long gone. Joe took him and Samantha to ski. Just us, today. I brought you some Motrin.”

She helped me upstairs and tucked a blanket around me. I felt like crap, especially anytime I moved. Mom put on some soft classical music and I guess I dozed, on and off. It was kind of nice. She puttered around, taking care of me. She put a cotton T-shirt of hers under my face, in case the throw pillow was a little scratchy, and made me some weak tea. A little later she brought me some saltines on a plate and some ginger ale, and all that attention made me feel so much better that I said, “Want to play gin?”

She won, of course, but without knocking.

“He’s nice,” I said, sinking down into the couch again. I was feeling dizzy but generous.

“Joe?” Mom asked.

“Yeah. A little intense, but I guess nice.”

“He really is.” Mom shuffled the cards.

“And you seem, kind of, happy. Around him.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I feel happy. Giddy, sometimes, but mostly just happy.”

“Is that—did you ever feel like that around Daddy?”

Mom smiled. “No. I felt . . . How did I feel? You really want to know?”

“Yes,” I said, realizing I really did.

“Passionate,” she said. “I felt, oh, I felt off-balance, vulnerable, nervous . . . I think I had anxiety confused with love.”

“Really?”
You mean they’re separate?

“I know that sounds ridiculous,” she said. “But I was young. Phew. I hope you’re never that kind of young.”

Yeah, I wished I weren’t too. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what she meant. Or maybe I didn’t. With me and Kevin, it’s deeper than just anxiety. It’s powerful. It’s so intense.
It has to be love,
I thought. It’s different. It’s the kind of love that burns down the world. Maybe.

“With your dad, and I don’t want to, maybe I shouldn’t tell you this. He’s your father . . .”

“That’s okay,” I said, sitting up a little. “I want you to.”

“I just, I don’t want you to think I am comparing him and Joe.”

“I don’t even really remember you guys together, so . . .”

“My heart used to race every time I saw him. Your father. And we were together for five years, but it never died down.” She thumped her closed fist against her chest,
thump, thump, thump
. “My heart would be clanging against my ribs, just at the sight of his face, his profile. Even when we were fighting, hating, even all through the divorce—it was always really intense between us. I can’t explain it.”

“It’s indescribable,” I said.

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “And I thought that meant it was true love. But it wasn’t, not really. It was—I don’t know how else to say this—lust. A chemical reaction. Lust and anxiety. But it wasn’t, oh Charlie, we love each other now, your dad and I, in a way, in a deeper way. I love him for giving me you. And there’s a part of me, of my heart, that I suppose will always belong to him. But we were never right for each other. He never got my jokes, you know? He never understood my passions or why the things that mattered to me really did matter to me. And, to be fair, I never really fathomed him, either.”

“You, whatever, fathom
him
, though? Joe?”

She nodded. “I do. I feel like myself with him, like all the different parts of myself, my best, my strongest self. In the beginning I worried it wasn’t love, it couldn’t be, because my heart wasn’t pounding all the time, I wasn’t scared he might grab it out of my chest and stomp on it. Isn’t that stupid?”

I shrugged. The possibility of having my heart stomped on when we got back home to reality was, in my medical opinion, largely responsible for my current fever. “Pretty stupid,” I said.

“I got over that when I realized how good I felt every time I was with Joe. He really listens to me, thinks about what I’ve said, makes me think . . .”

I nodded. That was nice but maybe I didn’t want to know any more about how in love my mother felt. I closed my eyes and she stopped talking. I thought about Helena Handbasket and whether Kevin fathoms me. Uh, well, no, probably not. I just, I really like the way my insides feel when he stands near me. Does that mean it might only be chemical?

I guess I dozed off again because the next thing I knew the Lazarus family was back, building another fire and clattering around, talking about how icy the conditions were and how I hadn’t missed a thing. Three new kids were added to our class, Kevin mentioned, without looking at me directly. He said they were okay, good skiers, it was fun. He said they went down some new black diamonds, really fast, and one kid named Annie was awesome on the bumps. Annie? I hated her. Stupid show-off jerk.

Mr. Lazarus asked if I was feeling better. I was, a tiny bit, but I was in a pout by then so I shrugged. He said, “I better cancel our reservation for tonight.”

“Why don’t you guys go out?” Mom suggested. “Charlie and I will ring in the New Year on the couch.”

“No,” he said. “That’s silly. We’ll all stay in. That’s fine. I saw a fondue set in the closet. Maybe I’ll do a run up to the store and . . .”

“No,” I said from the couch. “I’m not ruining everybody’s night. I don’t need you all crowding me anyway. Go.”

“Yeah,” said Kevin.

Yeah?
I thought.
Yeah?
He’s that desperate to get away from me? How nice, when I’m suffering with a fever and who knows what’s wrong with me? YEAH? Why is it every time I kiss him he turns on me? That’s it, I am done kissing. This fever is a sign.

But then Kevin said, “Why don’t you guys go out? We’ll stay here. We’ll have a better time if we don’t have to sit at a long drawn-out dinner at some boring restaurant.”

He wanted to stay home alone with me? What did that mean? I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Four minutes alone by the wood pile and I was spiking fevers to 103. A whole night? Alone together? I’d end up in the hospital for sure.

He wanted to be with me. He was sending everybody else away.

“What about me?” Samantha asked.

“You’ll help me take care of Charlie,” Kevin told her.

Oh.

“Okay,” said Samantha.

I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or disappointed, but everybody else looked happy with the plan. So that’s what happened, except that I don’t know how much care they took of me.

I was drifting in and out of sleep. I woke up a few times and they were watching TV, or shooting pool, or eating something that smelled nauseatingly of onions. My fever was back, clearly, but I didn’t want to ask for Motrin when they should’ve been taking care of me, or my mother should’ve. I was feeling totally sorry for myself but then that sort of flipped and I decided I deserved to feel this bad, worse, for what I’d done. I kissed my best friend’s boyfriend, more than kissed him—really, deeply, passionately kissed him.

And liked it.

And wanted to do it again.

There was no denying what we had done this time; no going back. There was something between us now and we were going to have to deal with it.

What did I want? To sneak out in the cold and kiss whenever possible? There’s something incredibly electrifying about that, I had to admit. I wanted Samantha to fall asleep and him to lie down next to me on the couch, and kiss me as we listened for the crunch of car tires on the snow outside. But what about when we got home? Back to Tess? How would it feel to see him walk down the hall in school with her, holding hands, as they had started to do just before vacation? What then? Would he walk me home and kiss me in the woods afterward? How sustainable is that?

Not.

I didn’t want to cat around behind her back, behind everybody’s back, kiss him and then talk on the phone with her about him and how things are going between them.

I wanted him to dump her, my beautiful, confident best friend who was in love with him, and choose me, ask me out, fall in love with me. Me. I wanted him to think I was the pretty one, smarter, funnier, more fun, sexier, deeper, better. Tell me he loves me, tell the world he loves me. Make the grand gesture.

Maybe.

Or maybe I wanted to go back to just enjoying wondering what it would feel like if we kissed again. Anticipating, fantasizing—that was fun, and innocent.

Or maybe I wanted to go back even further, to no interest in kissing, to the day he asked if I had studied for the bio quiz and I could say, “Yup, a little” and just walk into class. Back before lust.

But on it goes. Tick, tock, almost next year, and I couldn’t even make a resolution to be more innocent. Too late. I had changed. I was different now.

I was not a good girl anymore, if I ever had been.

I could feel myself heating up and getting muddled. I drifted back to sleep for a while, I think, because I had weird dreams of kissing and fighting and wind, and I think I was in a train station at one point. I jolted awake and didn’t know where anybody was. I was all alone. I suddenly really needed to be in a bed so I dragged myself downstairs trailing the blanket behind me like a little kid, a sad little lonely pathetic kid.