Kissing in America (12 page)

T
he next morning Janet looked like a giant eggplant. She wore purple high-waisted pants and a purple button-down shirt. I didn't know why her fashion sense was modeled on various vegetables. Maybe it was her way of expressing an inner hunger for all the fresh produce she didn't eat.

I'd heard her alarm go off at six, and then she'd been talking on the phone and emailing. Last night, when she'd said good night to us, she'd seemed wistful. She'd hugged me and said, “I'm so glad that you came. I wish you could visit more often.”

This morning she seemed much more cheerful. As our waffles rattled in the toaster and she melted the orange juice concentrate, she grinned and whistled to herself.

“I have good news,” she told us. “Your mom and I talked last night—she's been so worried about you girls—and I said, ‘Do you know, I'm looking at my schedule and it wouldn't be too hard to rearrange things so I could join them.' I've got clients all over the country, so this is a great opportunity for me to see them. I've been planning it last night and this
morning, and I can come with you all the way to LA. Well, I'll miss the Arizona stop since I have six contacts to see in Texas—the Texas market is a huge one for what I do—but I can take a quick flight from Dallas to LA and meet you at the bus station there as soon as you arrive.”

I froze. “That's really not necessary.”

She'd already bought the ticket. She showed us the printout from Go Blue. “The whole trip will be a tax write-off, too. I've got a client in LA who lets me use their condo, so we don't have to stay in a hotel. I know your mom told me that resort is sponsoring the show and you can stay for free, but it's probably overrun with teenagers doing god knows what. The condo will be better. Your mom was so relieved to know I'd be with you most of the way. I even thought about driving you, but I can't take that much time off work. This way I can work while we travel. I even have an ergonomic lap desk.” She pointed to a big black square thing on the table. “I'm sorry I won't get to see Lulu in Tucson. I always like seeing her. But you'll be in great hands there, and I'll get to hear all about it in LA.”

“Fantastic,” I said. I felt a little sick. I hoped to see Will every one of the three nights we'd be in LA, and as much time during the day as possible—how could that happen if Aunt Janet was with us?

Annie and I went back to our room to finish packing.

“Aunt Gonorrhea. On. Our. Trip.” I sighed. “I'm sorry.”

“Does she know there's no freezer on the bus?”

“She's going to show Will those eyeball pictures. He'll never go near me again.”

“She'll probably make him swim in Purell.”

“I'm going to shoot myself.”

“Janet won't stand for that. Way too messy.”

But we didn't seem to have a choice.

Janet hummed cheerily on the way to the bus station—she wanted to leave her car in her garage during the trip, so we took a taxi. We left over an hour early, since she insisted on being early for everything. After a while, as the taxi sped along, I saw something out the window.

CITY CHILI

“Stop the car!”

I said it without even thinking and pointed frantically at the restaurant. The driver followed my hand motions and turned into the parking lot.

“What are we doing?” Janet looked confused, and when she realized we were stopping for chili and not emergency resuscitation, she asked, “Seriously? The meter's running!”

“It's a flat fare,” I said.

Janet muttered something under her breath that sounded like “chili-crazy teenagers,” and then stewed in silence as Annie and I headed into the restaurant.

You could order a “Way”—a Three-Way, Four-Way, or Five-Way—steaming spaghetti covered with chili, onions, red beans, and a layer of neon cheese. I ordered a Five-Way for Annie and me to share—I figured we should go all out, when in Ohio.

Janet looked completely disgusted. She was speechless. I got the order to go so we could eat it for lunch on the bus.

Annie and I settled into the first-row seat, and Janet chose the empty row across from us.

“Isn't this lovely,” Janet said as she settled herself in her seat. She sanitized her hands and our hands, and she sprayed disinfectant on the upholstery. She clutched her purse to her chest and glared ferociously at the other passengers as they boarded, as if daring them:
Just try and steal it
. Nobody sat beside her.

I checked my texts. Three new ones from my mom.

Are you ok? I worry when I don't hear from you.

Janet told me you're fine, but it would be nice to hear from you too.

How's it going w/Janet there? So nice of her to change her schedule and join you!

I wrote back:

Super nice.

At the moment, Janet was studiously spraying a dark brown stain and blotting it with a wipe.

It was my idea! I'm so happy she could do it.

Yay! Thanks!

I wanted to text my mom:
I would shoot myself, but instead I'll go poison myself because Janet would find that a nice sanitary way to die.

I turned toward Janet, who had put her cleaning supplies away and was now typing on her laptop.

“You'll probably be really busy in LA?” I asked her across the row.

“Oh, very. My business is thriving. I tell everyone, the internet and its lack of rules and safeguards is the best thing to ever happen to my business. I'm hiring a staff soon, you know. The more engagements I book, the more I realize I can't do it all myself.” I tried to picture who Janet would hire. A whole staff dressed like eggplants.

“It's good you'll be busy. Because we'll be busy with the show,” I said. “Really busy.”

“I understand,” she said. She kept writing notes and typing on her laptop.

Annie was having her own texting drama with her sisters. I looked over her shoulder.

Mom just told me she worked back-to-back shifts because you forgot yours??! You promised you'd take over while I'm away. DO YOUR SHIFTS! YOU PROMISED!

Jenny and Lala both wrote back, “Sorry!” with about twelve goofy emojis.

Annie sighed and returned to her books.

I took out my lit notes—I was making a set of flash cards for Annie about literary figures—and I looked out the window. The city coasted by, and the land became dotted with barns and silos again, and I thought about how I'd describe our trip to Will, how I'd tell him about my worried mother, Annie's sisters, Aunt Janet's disease talk, stopping for chili, and the cows and cornfields—and I realized I wasn't only living the trip, but also taking notes for the tales I'd tell him afterward.

There was one sentence I couldn't get out of my head, though.

They only want one thing.

I looked over at Janet. Her voice had invaded my brain.

Will didn't only want one thing. He wasn't a beast. (Although, if I was completely honest, maybe there was
something a
little
beasty about him—his arms, strong and wide and bracing, the weight of him as he kissed me.)

Maybe a little beastiness wasn't a bad thing.

We'd made out for hours, all night, but we didn't do it. Why didn't we?

A part of me wished we had done it, despite Janet's pictures. Maybe it would've cemented things between us, bound him to me.
The communion of souls. The dance as old as time. The delicious paradise of two becoming one.
Maybe if we'd done it, he would've found a way to stay in New York all summer.

But how did it feel to have a
raging wild dagger
inside you, making you bleed?
A throbbing moisture missle? A flaming javelin? A heat sword?

We didn't do it because I was scared to. I didn't need Janet's gonorrhea eyeballs to frighten me—I was already totally freaking terrified.

I was scared not only of it hurting physically, but of it hurting my feelings, or changing them, or crushing them. It seemed like such a momentous thing, too enormous to even figure out. During the night, I told him, “I'm a—I haven't—I never—” I was too scared and embarrassed to even say the word
virgin.
(Would it make me sound like a loser? Did he somehow know that the only guy in high school who'd liked me so far was David Dweener, who probably kept his
Cats
T-shirt on in bed? That I'd barely even kissed anyone ever?
Would he think I was pathetic and weird?) But he said gently, patiently, “We won't do anything you don't want to. We'll take it slow,” and our clothes stayed on, I spent the whole night in his arms, and though he seemed a tiny bit disappointed, I kept thinking, We'll have time for more later. We'll have plenty of time for more.

In romance novels, sex seemed kind of ridiculous, with its orbs of flesh and manhoods, but then why, in real life, did it seem so serious? On the roof with Will, each touch and kiss made me feel more in love. Did he feel that also? Is that what his kisses meant? Would sex feel like that—an even bigger expression of love?

Would I ever have the guts to do it with Will?

I wanted to talk to Annie about it again. We'd rehashed the night on the roof dozens of times, but I never stopped wanting to talk about it. I waited till Janet had fallen asleep, the bottle of sanitizer still in her lap, and I turned to Annie and whispered, “Do you think there's really a chance of getting all those diseases? Do you think it hurts to . . . do it?”

She put down her book and checked to see if Janet was asleep, too. “Have you ever seen a video of elephant sex?” she asked quietly.

“No.”

“Let's just say it doesn't look like the most comfortable thing on the planet. Their penises are four feet long.”

“I'm not planning on having sex with an elephant.”

“I know,” she said. “My point is it doesn't look so comfy when humans do it either. I don't think it's about being comfortable or easy—it's a totally different thing. Don't worry. We've got plenty of time to have tons of sex and figure it all out. In college.”

In college. Her mantra again. Sometimes I thought Annie was afraid I'd become like her sisters, wasting my life away, obsessed with boys—I loved romance novels, after all, and I'd fallen for Will, but my grades were good. I told her you could fall in love
and
get into a good college and be a success, but she never seemed to believe me.

“You should take a break from thinking about him,” she told me, “and focus on the show.” She tapped her study schedule spreadsheet.

I picked up the flash cards again.

She paused and gazed out the window, then turned back to me. “I'm worried about whether we even have a chance of winning at all.”

“Of course we do,” I said.

Her eyes shifted briefly to the floor. I thought of Annie's parents working nights and weekends at the laundromat, and her mom's shrine to Annie's success. I had to stop thinking of Will and focus on winning Annie the scholarship.

I checked the map. We'd be in Tennessee soon. One hour left to study.

Annie's phone buzzed. Her cousin had texted:

See you soon! Have SOMETHING BIG to tell you!

“What's she talking about?” I asked.

Annie shrugged. “She probably won some school prize or something. Her dad loves to call my mom and compare our grades and stuff.” She rolled her eyes. “I haven't seen her in two years, but she's really nice. You'll love her. I can't wait to see her.” We'd be in Tennessee for two nights before the longest leg of our whole trip—the fifteen-hour bus ride from Tennessee to Texas.

She went back to American historical trivia, and I made a stack of flash cards about feminist philosophers. She had her own method for memorization—she'd translate whatever she read in textbooks into her own shorthand. Right now she was memorizing suffragette history. I peeked over at her notes:

1848 LMott & ECS = 1st pblic mtg. 1866 LS & SB = AERA. 1869 WY Trtry = 1st rt vote.

“It's like a mad gibberish,” I said.

“It works,” she said.

In northern Tennessee, we stopped at a rest area with a gas station and a shop called Lammy's SpeedyMart. They sold live crickets and pie milkshakes (“Drink Your Pie!”)—and romance novels. After looking through the racks I picked up one called
American Amour
. It was about a Revolutionary
soldier named John Peter LeVere who falls in love with Dorothea, the daughter of a British officer. I stuck it in my backpack and then joined Janet and Annie at a picnic table. We'd already eaten our chili on the bus (Janet had pinched her nose at the smell), but we were hungry again. We ate the freeze-dried strawberries that Janet had brought from home.

When we got back on the bus, Janet checked her watch. “We're making good time,” she said. “For a nine-hour bus ride it's not as bad as I thought.” She took a moment to glare at the other passengers.

Just pretend she's not there
, Annie had said. I took out
American Amour
and turned to page one.

“You're not still reading those,” Janet said. “I thought you would've outgrown them by now.” When Janet had visited us over Passover last spring, she and my mom had mocked my romances together. Of a cover featuring Gurlag, she'd said, “He looks like he needs his shots. You'd have to take him to a veterinary clinic, not a doctor's office.” My mom had laughed. “In my day, in high school, I read mostly Shakespeare,” Janet had said.

Now Janet told me, “I don't know if it's wise to read those in
public
. You don't want people to think you're not smart.”

I squinted at her. “I want people to think I like boys with rabies who won't get their shots.”