Love in the Time of Cynicism (22 page)

Tannis, seeing the pivotal nature of my movements, cheers me on by clapping and chanting my name.

“Hear that?” I whisper in Rhett’s ear as I slide carefully forward, “That’s the sound of victory.”

Suddenly he erupts, “Not if I have anything to do with it!”

As he begins to fall, Rhett reaches up and grabs my waist, flipping me onto my side so we hit the ground at the same time. Paint shoots and splashes upward with the force of my body hitting the grass under the mat and I think I might’ve bruised my hip on impact.

As reddish goo drips down my bra, I shriek while unable to hold back laughter, “You intolerable jerk!”

I go to stand but Rhett holds me down lightly and says sincerely, “I’m really sorry.”

“You are not,” I argue while squirming against his playful grip.

“Not about making you lose-”

“I
did not
lose; that was foul play!”

“I’m sorry about this!”

The only thing I can do is shut my eyes and mouth as he sops a soggy colorful hand down my face and neck. His hand rests on my shoulder as I sputter and swipe at my eyes.

We stand and I shove his chest and say, “You are a horrible person, you know that?”

He shrugs modestly. “One of my many charms, I’m afraid.”

As Tannis stands to meet me and Rhett pulls out a hose from the deck to rinse off the mat, she whispers, “He must be really in to you.”

“What makes you say that?” I ask lightly, distracted by Rhett laughing with Sawyer and spraying him with the hose as they clean off.

Tannis pulls my shirts to get my attention and replies emphatically, “Rhett’s never played until now; in fact, he always said it was stupid and childish. He would be the caller while Sawyer and I played.” I bite my lower lip as she changes the subject. “You should take a shower; we’re supposed to go shopping for trick-or-treat candy for me to hand out.”

I ask sadly, “You don’t go out on Halloween anymore?”

“No.” She rolls her eyes like my question was utterly preposterous. “Trick-or-treating is for
children
. I am a teenager.”

“My mom never let me go out for Halloween,” I muse absently as she leads me inside the house, paint still drizzling off my limbs and clothes.

Tannis stops in her tracks and I worry about getting acrylic on the tile floor. Mom would murder me if I even thought about coming inside like this. “You weren’t allowed to go trick-or-treating?!”

“I grew up in a city,” I explain, “so she figured I’d get, like, murdered or mugged or something. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in suburbs these days, but when we finally lived in a safe neighborhood, I was too old. It seems like such a shame to waste a perfectly good Halloween because you think kids your age won’t go.”

“It isn’t just the age thing.” Her voice drops to a whisper as she goes on, “I invited Jeremy over.”

I can only assume Jeremy is the boy I helped set her up with, the one who asked her for too many pencils. “Alone? Your mom’s okay with that?”

“Dad should be home by then.” She shrugs, her caked with paint blond curls bobbing. “But I don’t want Rhett to be there; he’s, like, so protective all the time? Likes to take care of the people he loves, I guess.” She gives me a pointed glance over her glasses. “That’s how you know he’s got it bad. First, he’ll try to impress you with flowers or an amazing dinner, then he’ll give you his jacket when you’re cold or something like that. Wait for it.”

“I’ll remember that,” I tell her with a smile. “Where’s your shower?”

Tannis points me in the direction of the upstairs bathroom instead of the downstairs one and I shower quickly, then change into my date outfit, which consist of high-waisted black skinny jeans Sky’s letting me borrow in exchange for abducting my hair this morning and a sleeveless red blouse under a white ‘infinity scarf’ which I thought was unspeakably stupid but Amanda told me would look ‘fantastically feminine’ and serve for keeping me warm. After changing, I look in the mirror (which is, unlike the pristinely kept ones at my house, speckled with residue from water) for the first time and am mildly disappointed to see my orangey hair flecked with bluish paint. In fact, the paint seems to have permeated everything on my body. My fingernails are lined in a ruddy purple/red and the creases of my elbows are stained everything from teal to lavender. I soon discover a large smudge of blue under my collarbone, barely visible under the top hem of my shirt. Whatever Rhett’s planning for our date, I hope he doesn’t expect me to look like a normal human being and not a Smurf.

I leave the steamy bathroom and enter the living room, where a clean Rhett waits for me expectantly.

“Finally,” Tannis exclaims, popping off the floor to shower in the bathroom I’ve abandoned.

Rhett stands, carefully extricating himself from under the heads of two sleeping four year olds on his chest, and walks over to me. His hands on my waist, he says, “Thanks for coming over; you’re a life saver. And sorry you have to watch my siblings again.”

“It’s no trouble.” I reply, “I’ve learned some interesting things about you from them.”

“Like what?” Rhett leans in closer, presses his forehead against mine, and stares into my eyes. This makes me wonder if he thinks about my eyes as much as I think about his. If he stays up too late wishing I was there next to him. If he loves my laugh and my pale skin and how often my hair changes color.

“Tannis explained that you take at least an hour to do your hair in the morning,” I say with a laugh, even though she told me that the last time I babysat and not today.

“That’s a gross over exaggeration,” he argues and runs a hand through his freshly-cleaned hair. I take this opportunity to discreetly take in the clean scent of it. “Twenty minutes at most.”

“Still more time than I spend,” I laugh. “And it was explained to me that you could never love me because your one true love is musical theater.”

“I did love
Rent
,” he admits. Rhett kisses me lightly on the lips and I can’t wait to be alone with him tonight. For the past week, every time we’ve been together, someone else has been there. Trent or Sky or one of his friends whose names I can’t remember or our parents or siblings, so the kissing has been to a minimum and we haven’t had the opportunity to talk about anything personal. The tension is nearly palpable every time we clap eyes on one another. “But I wouldn’t say
never
love you. I’d consider with a little convincing on your part.”

“Don’t push your luck,” I warn jokingly as Sawyer enters the room with a shockingly excited smile on his face. I’ve never seen the boy anything but serious and his smile is a ray of sun in the dead of winter.

“Can we go shopping for candy now?”

The closest supermarket is about as far away as the school is from the house in the opposite direction and, since we weren’t left a car, we decide to walk. Two chronically exhausted but surprisingly calm four year olds, a strangely-tempered seven year old, a pre-teen attached to her brother’s phone talking to her ‘boyfriend,’ and two weird looking seventeen year olds make up a motley crew around here. Suspicious, to say the least.

After we walk out the door but before we reach the driveway, Evan pulls on the hem of my shirt and I look down at his huge blue eyes. He reaches up two chubby arms and asks, “Upsies?”

I’m not a specialist in the field of child interpretation, but I give it a solid guess and get down onto my knees. Squealing with joy, Evan clasps his arms around my neck and I give him a piggyback rid while we walk. Of course, because his brother’s gotten one, Ethan requests the same from Rhett. Evan rests his head on my shoulder and bobs on my back as we stroll toward the Schroder’s at the end of Eleora.

When we head through the automatic door and into the antiseptically bright fluorescents, it occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve been out in public with the Tresslers, and it’s immediately apparent. The stares we get are insane and from every direction. And they’re not the normal looks I get for having colored hair or anything like that. It’s pure judgment in our direction, veiled behind a hand or conversation whenever I meet someone’s eyes. People whose kids I see at school, who work at schools and hospitals and churches, now stare like I’m from a place completely unreal to their small minds.

But Tannis and Sawyer are completely unfazed like this is normal, acceptable behavior. And maybe, for them, it is, though, for me, it’s unnerving and unsettling. I guess when I was younger I didn’t notice how people in Lightfoot look down on differences because I was with my mom or Michael. Now I’m here on the side of the outsiders. And, while it’s uncomfortable, I’d rather be here with the Tresslers than looking down my nose at them.

Sawyer drags Rhett quickly by the hand through aisles and aisles of food until happening upon what his sugar-craving seven year old mind must see as heaven. Ah, Halloween, when every store stocks up on candy in bulk at criminally high prices. Rhett instructs for Sawyer to pick out four bags (there’s two for one sale, thrillingly enough) and the boy takes to the task like the President deciding whether or not to launch nuclear warheads.

As Sawyer’s completing his life-or-death important task, Rhett tilts his head toward me while avoiding jostling his brother and says, “I’m sorry you have to deal with all this. The people, I mean.”

“No,” I sigh, “I’m sorry
you
have to deal with it. Every day. Frankly, it’s ridiculous. This isn’t the nineteen forties, you know? People down South are just so…
ugh
.”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “It feels like the sort of thing I ought to apologize for, I guess.”

“Well, don’t. You’re better than anyone I’ve ever met here and I-”
love you
. My lips clamp shut before the words slip out. This isn’t the first time recently I’ve wanted to say those three words by a long shot, but if there’s one thing I know in this life, it’s that you always wait for him to say it first. At least that’s what my relationship gurus, Amanda, Sky, and Tannis, think. I’m totally for the rise of feminism, but the prospect of saying
I love you
without assurance it’s a reciprocated feeling is one of the most frightening ideas I’ve thought up. There’s so much more I want to say to him, but no words come out.

Sawyer happily romps past us and to the check out. The cashier looks at him disdainfully as he stands on his tip toes to drop the candy on the counter. Nonetheless, she rings up the purchase and both Rhett and I reach for our wallets.

“We’ll go halves,” I say before it can turn into an argument. This has been a major point of contention in every relationship ever portraying on television and movies, and it seems too trivial to worry about with Rhett. We both pay a few dollars and head back to the house, Sawyer shrieking happily the entire time. I never thought I’d have the experience of watching the boy whose first words around me included ‘I wish to devour the unborn’ jumping up and down at the thought of candy.

Rhett explains this phenomenon as he takes my hand in his, the touch distracting me from what he’s saying, “Sawyer’s only allowed to have candy on major candy-eating holidays. Halloween, Easter, his birthday. So this is a pretty big deal for the poor kid.”

“He does know that the candy he gets to eat will come from someone else’s house and not his own?”

“Don’t crush his dreams.”

Back at the house, time passes quickly once we have the Halloween decorations and such. Rhett puts in some Disney movie and the younger kids watch it happily while we sit on the couch, my ear to his chest and his chin resting on my head.

I can’t pay attention through the animated adventure because Rhett’s fingers are tracing absently over my hip and thigh. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about returning his touch for my own. In my head I keep replaying that first morning when I saw him without his shirt on over and over, no longer marveling at how attractive he is but wondering what it would be like to run my hands over his back and chest and anywhere. The problem is my lack of skill in the sexual department; Eric and I, obviously, never did anything more than kiss. What I know, I’ve read in books or seen on TV but none of that is applicable with Rhett. It’s new and fresh and there’s no, like, being shoved up against walls in the throes of passion. With Rhett, everything’s butterflies and giggling and the occasional burst of hunger where I pull at his hair and kiss him harder than ever. I guess I’m waiting for the right moment to make a move. Sky’s been teasing me about this for a few days now, egging me on with a suggestive eyebrow raise or tossing condoms at me when I take a call from him in front of her. It’s embarrassing being a virgin with a best friend who’s had, let’s be frank, a lot of sex.

In that respect, I wish I was more like Sky. She always sees exactly what she wants and how to get it, especially if that
it
is sexual. She’s confident with her body and understands how to move to get a boy begging at her feet. I, on the entirely other hand, have never been what anyone would describe as sexy and couldn’t even begin to guess what to do beyond the basic mechanics.

There was one particularly mortifying conversation this week when I awkwardly tried to ask for some instructions. She’d opened up a bottle of her mom’s hard lemonade (very hard, light on lemonade) and was a bit tipsy as she teased, “Are you and lover boy
planning
something for your Halloween date?”