Kissing in America (13 page)

“Hysterical,” she said.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year's bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go,—so with his memory they brim.

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, “There is no memory of him here!”

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay

L
adybug!” Annie's cousin Grace cried as we stepped off the bus in Nashville; she raced toward Annie and enveloped her in a giant hug. I'd expected Grace to look like us—another person of the dorky persuasion—but she was gorgeous: tall and thin with long tanned legs. She'd tied her satiny ponytail with a green ribbon that glimmered like Christmas wrap.

She explained that Ladybug was Annie's nickname from third grade. A ladybug had landed on top of her head one day and stayed there for their entire lunch period. I'd never heard this story before. I hadn't met Annie until fourth grade, when her family moved to our neighborhood of Sunnyside, Queens, from Jackson Heights.

Grace saw my whistle; she frowned, looking like the hosts of makeover shows do when they're about to dump someone's entire wardrobe in the garbage.

“I have to wear it—my mom is kind of crazy and—” I started to explain with a nod toward Janet, but Grace had already skipped off, arm in arm with Annie, ponytail
swinging. I shoved the whistle into my backpack. As soon as I could, I was going to throw that thing in the trash.

We climbed into Grace's parents' SUV; Grace and Annie sat in the middle row. I sat behind them, next to Janet and the family dog.

Annie and Grace had seen each other only a few times since the Youngs had moved to Tennessee four years ago. “Do you remember Mrs. Lee from church camp?” Grace asked. “And her kid with the ratty knee socks?” They giggled. Grace said something in Korean and they laughed even harder. “So what's the big news?” Annie asked her.

Grace looked coy. “I'll tell you when we get to the restaurant.”

Janet seemed relieved to be off the bus and in the Youngs' giant clean car. “Thank you so much for hosting us,” Janet told them. “This is such a wonderful opportunity to expand my business to the South.” I pitied the poor teens of Tennessee. They had no idea what was in store for them.

We drove to Shawnee, the town where Mr. Young worked for a data storage company; Grace's family had moved here for his job. Giant oaks shaded the streets, and kudzu covered the hillsides, lush and thick. We stopped to pick up Grace's boyfriend, Nick, on the way; he'd be joining us for dinner. He lived in a giant white house with columns in front. He had a shiny, porcine-pink face and blond hair cut so short you could barely see it. He squeezed
in beside Grace and pinched her butt.

Her parents didn't see; they were absorbed in a conversation, and Janet was busy checking email on her phone. Apparently Nick found their obliviousness encouraging, because he leaned over and kissed Grace.
Slurped her
would be a more accurate description—he attacked her face like a squeegee tool. I tried to exchange looks with Annie, but she was staring out the window, studiously ignoring the display.

I missed Will. He didn't kiss like a squeegee tool. He was the opposite of a squeegee tool.

When Nick's hands finally released Grace, her eyes drilled into me, scrutinizing, as if asking,
Don't you wish you had this?

Was she trying to make me uncomfortable? Because it was working. I looked out the window.

When we reached Grace's house, we gave them their gifts—Grace applied the lipstick in the hall mirror with a satisfied smile, and her parents oohed and aahed over the cookbook recipes for black-and-white cookies and Junior's cheesecake.

Grace's mom showed us to our rooms—Janet had a guest bedroom on the top floor, Annie would sleep in Grace's queen bed, and I'd sleep in Grace's brother's room—he was away visiting relatives in Korea. As Janet unpacked, Grace, Nick, and Annie and I sat on the porch and watched the sunset. Vines dripped from the trees, and everything glowed as if it had been dipped in honey.

“So,” Grace said, holding Nick's hand, her gaze moving from my face to my hair (had it turned frizzy in the humidity? Was it a Jewfro all over again?). “
You
got the idea for this whole trip because of a guy, right?” Her tone was skeptical, almost accusing.

I nodded.

Annie gave me a
Sorry—maybe I shouldn't have told her
look.

Grace tilted her head. “The guy's your boyfriend, right?” she asked me.

Boyfriend
was too much of a leap. “Kind of,” I said. My voice sounded weak. I tried to sound more certain. “Sort of.” Why did she make me so nervous?

“How long have you guys been together?”

“Um—” I shrugged. “A little while.”

I couldn't say the truth.
Actually, I'm not exactly sure if I'd use the word “together.” We kissed on a street corner and made out in a roof garden and now we write letters.
It would be too humiliating to say it out loud to her. All of a sudden, I felt like a fraud. What was I thinking, going on this trip?

Annie rescued me. “He's an amazing guy. He sends her famous poems. She got one yesterday. In the mail.”

Grace considered this. “Sending a poem is so—” I thought she was going to say
romantic
, but she said, “
Weird
. Why doesn't he text or email it?”

“He's . . .” How to explain it without making him sound even weirder? “He likes . . . regular mail,” I said.

She looked at me as if I'd said he liked to parade around in eighteenth-century knickers and a waistcoat while shouting Heigh-ho! and Odsbodikins!

Grace leaned on Nick's shoulder. “I don't think I could put up with a
kind of
anything myself. I mean, you love each other. Or you don't. If Nick and I never texted or emailed and lived thousands of miles apart, I'd just worry whether it was
real
.”

Well, your
real
has a face like a raw ham, I wanted to say. But I didn't say anything. Annie changed the subject.

A few minutes later, we got back in the car and drove to Pop's Happyland, the Youngs' favorite restaurant. Inside were rustic wooden tables and sawdust on the floor. I sat as far away from Grace as I could. Janet passed her sanitizer around, and Mr. Young ordered plenty for everyone to share: wings 'n' waffles, chicken-fried steak, biscuits and gravy, cheese grits, mac and cheese, red beans and rice, and fried okra. I told myself to forget Grace. At least the food was delicious.

I ordered iced tea and the waitress asked, “Sweet or unsweet?”

“Um . . . unsweet?” I'd never heard the word
unsweet
before. I'd never heard of chicken-fried steak either—I pictured a chicken wearing a chef's hat, throwing a steak into the deep fryer.

We'd been eating for five minutes when Grace whispered something to her father. He grinned, and they sat back in their seats.

“Grace has something important to share,” Mr. Young said.

Had Nick given her syphilis on her eyeball?

Grace took a breath. “My dad wanted me to wait till dessert to tell you, but I can't keep it to myself anymore.” She spoke slowly. “You're looking at one of the Smartest Girls in America.”

I almost choked on my biscuit.

“You didn't tell me you auditioned!” Annie raised her eyebrows.

Grace smoothed her hair and beamed. “When you told me about the show, I thought, Why not? My dad said I should give it a try. I never thought I'd get picked. I've been waiting all this time to tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Mr. Young tore into a chicken wing. “It's a great opportunity. Only in America can you get a college scholarship from being on TV.”

Annie looked taken aback, and a small storm began to brew inside of me.

“You'll have some tough competition,” Janet said, smiling. She patted Annie on the shoulder.

“I know
you're
going to win,” Grace told Annie. “I just thought it would be fun to get the free trip. We fly out in three days—my dad's my official companion. My lifeline. We're getting there early so we can meet with a media consultant and a buzzer-skills coach. I guess these kinds of shows
are all about the buzzer skills. You guys are staying at the Mirabelle too, right?”

“I have a client in LA with a lovely condo,” Janet said, “so we won't be needing the hotel room. We'll have a kitchen there, and we can do laundry, and there's even a swimming pool.”

My neck was too frozen to move.

“I can't believe you're going too,” Annie said. “When Eva first found out about the show,
I
didn't even want to do it. Now I think I'm more excited about it than she is. Did you hear about the internship stuff?”

They chattered about MIT and Princeton, and Annie folded her arms in a way I'd seen lots of times before—her competitive
You think you might beat me but you are so, so wrong to even try
look—and I tried to stifle the inappropriate things in my head. I wanted to say, What are you doing on
our
show? Annie is
my
best friend.
Mine
.

Like a three-year-old.

They kept talking, and eventually I calmed the voices in my mind.

I couldn't stop thinking about what she'd said about Will and me, though.
Real
. I thought about it through dinner, the drive home, and while eating the entire box of Goo Goo Clusters that Mrs. Young had given me. I thought about it as I spent the night staring at wet bikinis and boobs, women with their mouths half open, grains of sand clinging to their
lips—Grace's brother had plastered the walls of his room with an entire
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue. It was a cave of soft porn.

Annie and Grace were in Grace's queen bed. Their giggles floated down the hall.

My friendship with Annie had always felt solid and permanent, but now I could see all its holes—in just two years Annie would go to MIT. Grace would probably go there, too. Annie would have her new school and her summer internships and I'd be at Queens College, living at home. In two years it would never be the same with us again.

What did I have that was solid? That was real?

I listened to Will's mix for a while, and then I took out his letters and poems and touched the paper and ink. I couldn't shake this tiny seed of doubt in me—what if it wasn't real with Will? What if when I got there, he didn't feel the same as I did? What if
it
didn't feel the same?

Women always had these worries in romance novels, I told myself. They never felt secure until the last chapter.

I checked the clock. Grace and Annie laughed again. We had another whole day in Tennessee—when we'd planned the trip, we'd thought an extra day here would be fun.

I missed Annie. I wanted to talk to her and tell her everything.

I picked up my phone. No emails, no messages, except from my mom. I checked the message board. No news. Just
the usual stream of old grief. I stared at my phone's screen as it blackened and went to sleep. I saw my face reflected in the blackness and felt so lonely all of a sudden.

I turned it back on and listened to my mom's voice mails.
Just checking in. Glad Janet's there but I'd still love to talk to you. Call me. Please call. Call soon.

I dialed home; she answered on the first ring. It was the first time we'd spoken since I'd left, though I'd texted her dozens of times and sent her photos of the views out the bus window. (
Looks kind of nice!
she'd said.) This was only our second night away, but it already felt like I'd been gone for ages.

We talked about the weather, and a new Indian restaurant that opened down the block, and if Janet had reminded me to put on sunscreen, because windows didn't block the full spectrum of UV radiation, and whether I was wearing my whistle. I said I was, I was, I was.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You don't sound right.”

“I'm fine.”

She was quiet for a moment. “It's not too late to come back, if you want. You're not that far away.”

“I'm fine,” I repeated.

“I'm serious. Call anytime day or night and I'll get you.” Her voice cracked a little.

“Mom. What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She sounded strange. Was she just worried? “I'm totally
being safe and careful,” I assured her. “And Janet's here. You don't have to worry.”

She was quiet. “I just miss you,” she murmured. Her voice was hoarse, unnatural.

We said good-bye, and then
I
began to worry.

What was she eating while I was gone? Was she back to takeout containers and breakfasts of yogurt eaten standing in front of the fridge? Larry never cooked—he'd eat hot dogs three times a day if he could. I'd given her my Fresh Direct password. Had she already forgotten it? Who was making her omelets on the weekends? What if she forgot to double-lock the apartment door? One time she left her keys in the lock all night; I found them in the morning when I left for school.

I fingered my horseshoe necklace, feeling the angled edges of its tiny stone.

Sometimes when she was out late and I was alone in the apartment, listening to the rain drum on the window ledge, I'd wonder what it would be like to have it happen all over again.

It could happen so simply, just another phone call, my phone vibrating on my lap,
Hi, hello, I'm so sorry but I have some terrible news.

A car accident. A mugging. Just last week a man had been killed two blocks from our apartment, struck by a car when it careened onto the sidewalk.

When you picture tragedies happening, it's always like a
Technicolor movie, everything too bright, glaring, loud, with screams and a thumping soundtrack. In real life it's nothing like that. When the bad news comes, it's so flat and regular and dull, the world so noiseless, so everyday, piercing you with its normalcy. My mom heard about my dad from my aunt first, who'd seen the crash reported on TV and knew my dad was flying that night. My mom had wordlessly stood up and picked up her date book with my dad's flight information inside it. She walked into her bedroom and calmly called the airline. They wouldn't give her a concrete answer until they could confirm the passenger list. She came back to me on the couch, and she didn't tell me what was happening, she didn't want me to know, she watched TV with me and she held me tight and I didn't know why until the morning. How quiet everything was, my bedspread the same muted shade of pink, a sunny morning in New York, just like any other morning. What the movies don't tell you is that the glaring colors and thundering music are only inside you.