“Uh, yeah?” he said, far more of a question than a statement.
I thumped my finger into his chest. “Is that an actual answer? Come on. Yes or no?”
He exhaled then licked his lip. “Yes.”
“You don’t drive, right?”
“Right.” He sucked on his lower lips then said, “But I’ll still pick you up. Get my mom or sister to drive us.”
“When?”
“Seven?”
I nodded. “At seven.”
He looked totally taken aback. “Aren’t I too young for you? I mean, girls dig older guys, right?”
“Some do. Some like all kinds.” I laughed. “My mom is three years older than my dad.” His eyes went wider and I said, “It’s just a date.”
“Yeah!” he said suddenly. “A date!”
Oh. I guess it all depends on where your set point is.
I sighed. “I’m going to regret this.”
* * *
I begged off our usual Krakatoa homework session after school.
“I know,” said Tara. “You’ve got a hot date.”
“Hot? Who said it was hot? Forget that—who said I had a date?”
“Who didn’t? Why, is it a secret? Cause Grant sure isn’t acting like it’s a secret. More like the best thing that ever happened to him.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I thought back to a couple of strange looks I’d gotten earlier in the day and was enlightened. I’d been right—the date was three hours away and I already regretted it.
“Ah,” said Jade. “Young love. Really young love. I mean.…”
“I agreed to go out if he’d answer my questions,” I said. “About Caffeine.”
“Is there kissing involved?” Tara asked mildly. “You could always use him for practice.” She pursed her lips and blew a kiss out into the general world.
I felt my face get hot. “That would just be mean.”
“Oh, thought about it, eh?” said Jade. “What else were you thinking of practicing?”
“There’s never a snowball around when you need one. Why are you giving me such a hard time?” I said. “You two don’t even like guys.”
Jade looked a little surprised, exchanging a glance with Tara. Tara shrugged. Jade said, “What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Is it really such a big deal?”
Tara took Jade’s hand. “Around here, yeah it’s a big deal. Mom knows. Jade’s parents know but they’re, like, in denial.”
“Homophobic?”
Jade shook her head. “They’re worried for me. They want it to be ‘just a phase’ because they know how hard it can be for lesbians.”
“A phase?” I said.
Jade amended it. “Well, that I might be bi. Get a nice boyfriend later.”
Tara snorted.
“We’re discreet,” said Jade.
“Sure,” I said.
“Who told you, then?”
“Your eyes, your voices, your faces. You can touch someone with more than just your hands.”
Jade frowned and Tara laughed. They looked at each other.
I said, “See?”
* * *
“I’ve got a date tonight,” I said to Mom. “I won’t be eating at home.”
Dad, reading at the other end of the couch, looked up from his book. “A date? A date date?”
I nodded.
“Who with?”
Mom looked at him and laughed.
Dad looked offended. “You don’t think I should ask that?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s the edge of panic in your voice and the extra white showing around your irises.”
He frowned. “I didn’t start dating until I was eighteen.”
“Technically you were still seventeen,” Mom said, “It was forty-five minutes before you turned eighteen. I was there, remember?” She turned back to me. “My first date was when I was fifteen.”
Dad winced.
“It’s Grant Meriwether. He’s taking me to The Brass.”
Dad raised his eyebrows and Mom said, “The music club down on Main.”
Dad said, “Isn’t he a little young for you?”
I doubled over laughing and Mom joined in.
Dad turned bright red.
Grant showed up at the door five minutes early. He was wearing a suit.
Little jerk.
I was wearing jeans and a nice shirt.
“Oops. Sorry, time got away from me—haven’t changed yet. Have a seat and I’ll be right back.”
Mom followed me around the corner and, when I jumped to my room back in the Yukon, she followed. “He really dressed up,” she said.
I bit my lip. “Yeah.”
“You could’ve just gone as you are, so I guess you want to dress up a bit, too?”
“I don’t want to embarrass him. Even if this is sort of a practice date.”
She gave me a look. “You aren’t leading him on, are you?”
“He knows the score. I was very clear.”
“That may be, but young men are still capable of not getting the message. In fact, they specialize in that.” She lowered her head looking at me to make sure I understood that.
I nodded, my face serious.
“Okay. You could wear your suit, the one you wore to school … or you could make him the envy of all he surveys. Which is it?”
There’d be lots of Beckwourth students at The Brass. Maybe even that jerk Brett.
“Let’s knock their socks off.”
Mom took me to her closet.
When we returned to the living room in New Prospect, jumping first to my room, then coming up the stairs, Naomi had come in from the car, apparently to see what was taking so long. Dad had served them ginger ale and was drawing Naomi out about her college plans.
Grant looked nervous, like he was going to throw up.
I smiled and said, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
I was wearing my full-length wool coat, buttoned, with a scarf tucked in at the neck. Normally he was taller than I, but I’d changed to heels so my eyes were slightly above his.
“No problem!” I’m sure he meant to sound cool, but he blurted it out.
I nodded and said hello to Naomi.
She looked at my heels and then up at the small diamonds Mom had hung in my ears. “So this is a real date?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Didn’t Grant tell you?”
She swallowed the rest of her ginger ale and said, “Oh, yeah. But … it’s Grant.”
Grant looked offended but, as Naomi was the transportation, he wisely didn’t say anything.
* * *
Naomi dropped us at the curb and said, “Nine-thirty sharp, right?”
Grant mumbled, “Yeah.”
Then, as Grant was sliding out of the car, Naomi locked eyes with me and said, “Unless you want to leave earlier, then just call my cell.”
Grant, holding the door, hadn’t noticed the look, but he said, “Right.”
I smiled at Naomi. “Don’t worry.” I followed Grant out of the car and strode across the sidewalk to The Brass’s entrance. Grant slammed the car door and scrambled to get there ahead of me, lest I open it myself.
There was a beverage/snack bar at the far end of the room, across the dance floor. The stage was a two-foot riser on the left, and on the right, a slightly raised mezzanine filled with mostly occupied tables. The band wouldn’t start for another hour, though their gear was set up. Before the drum set, a woman with a ukulele doing the Amanda Palmer thing: solo covers of rocks songs in a torchy way.
Grant paid the cover charge and told the greeter, “table for two.” She nodded and said they were cleaning a table now and it would just be a few minutes.
Most of the people, especially the younger ones, were wearing jeans and I really felt overdressed. I considered excusing myself, heading for the bathroom and, from a stall, jumping back home and changing back into something more casual. I’d gotten as far as visually
locating the restrooms (back by the beverage bar) when the greeter said something I didn’t catch and I looked back at her and Grant.
“Coat check?” Grant said, indicating a closet near the door.
I took a deep breath. Right. It was like wearing a costume, I thought. It wasn’t about blending in. It was about not blending in. “Sure.” He helped me off with the coat and I heard his sharp intake of breath.
It was a black, strapless Herve Leger dress that Mom bought to celebrate losing some weight a couple of years before. It wasn’t very low cut—it fell just under the shoulder blades in back and ended a handspan above the knees—but it was snug, with just enough spandex to follow every curve.
I turned and he stood there, frozen, holding the coat up in front of him like a towel, as if he’d been caught naked in the bathroom. I took off my scarf and shoved it into the coat sleeve. “Give it to the nice lady, Grant.”
He managed to trade the coat for a numbered plastic tab, and by the time we returned to the greeter’s station, our table was ready.
Grant stumbled on the three steps up into the dining area but I caught his arm and steadied him. I kept my arm tucked in his until we were at the table. There was an inadvertent competition as the waiter pulled out a chair at the same time Grant did. I sat in the one Grant offered, but thanked the waiter.
As we were studying the menus, I said, “Don’t stare, Grant, it’s rude. Besides, you need to chill, right? Like you do this every day. Think of our audience.”
Grant glanced around. We were being watched—five sophomore girls at a table near the dance floor kept turning their heads our way and whispering.
Grant blushed. Then I blushed, too, and there was more skin exposed to show my blush. I didn’t do this every day, either. Fortunately the lighting back in the dining area was dim enough that it wasn’t obvious. I hoped it wasn’t as obvious as it felt, anyway.
“Why do you care about the audience?” Grant asked.
I leaned over the table and straightened his tie. “They don’t know that I’m only going out with you so you’ll answer my questions. If you play this right, they’ll wonder about the freshman who takes out older women.” I ran my fingers down the tie and leaned back. “But you’ve got to play it right. Running around the school bragging about getting a date makes you look needy.”
He blushed again. “You heard about that?”
“Of course I did.” I shifted my eyes toward the other table. “You think any of them are going to want to go out with you if their names are dragged all over school? You’ve got to treat it more matter-of-fact. Your cred would’ve risen a lot more at school tomorrow if they were the ones who first spread word about your date.”
The waiter came back with our drinks and took our meal order.
Grant looked back at me. The blush had faded while he ordered, but he still looked confused. “I just wanted to go out with you.”
“Sweet. And you are. But only because I want information about Caffeine. Is that really the way to get a woman to go out with you?”
“Woman? Uh, you’re just sixteen, right?”
I smiled broadly and kicked him sharply on the shin with the edge of my pumps.
He jerked and hissed, “Jesus! Why’d you do that?”
“Think about it, boy.” I reached over and patted the back of his hand. “Do you want to be treated like an adult or a child? More importantly, do you want them to treat you like a child?”
He shut his mouth and looked thoughtful.
The woman on stage started singing a slow version of Green Day’s “Good Riddance.” I said, “I love this song. Let’s dance.”
He rubbed his shin. “No one else is dancing. I thought we’d dance when the band started.”
I tilted my head and didn’t say anything.
“Uh, I mean, I’d love to dance.”
I laughed and smiled at him as if he’d said something brilliant. People turned their heads.
“That’s better.” I took his arm as we threaded through the tables.
There were people on the edge of dance floor but they weren’t dancing. I steered him out into the middle.
Grant could dance.
I’d learned how to dance from Mom and Dad—more Mom, actually—so I wasn’t hopeless, though the heels were a challenge. Grant, though, actually knew how to swing dance, and when the singer picked up the tempo, he was there, moving into faster steps, dips, and crossovers.
The singer slowed the beat back down and drew out the last phrase, hope you had the time of your life, and we ended up close and swaying as she ended with a flourish. I leaned a little close and he backed up suddenly, twisting awkwardly to the side. If our roles had been reversed, I’d say he’d fallen off his high heels, but he was wearing sensible shoes.
He pointed back at the dining area. “The salads are here.”
I hung on his arm on the way back.
“Where’d you learn to dance?” I asked, over the salad.
His smile was smug. “Naomi was taking a class, but she needed a partner and she’d just broken up with her boyfriend. It was Mom’s idea and both of us fought it, but the lessons had been paid for and Mom insisted.”
“You ever dance in public before?”
He shrugged. “Once at a school dance. It’s the living room, mostly.”
I nodded to myself. Boy who could dance. Dressed up okay. Maybe I should just keep him? I looked at him over my salad fork. He didn’t always close his mouth when he chewed and the acne was a definite issue and, mostly, my heart didn’t go pitter-pat.
Ah, well.
I tilted my head slightly to the side, toward the table of giggling girls. “They saw you dance. Hope I didn’t mess you up too much—you’re a better dancer than I am.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like any of them,” Grant said.
I shook my head. “That’s not the point. They’ll talk around school.” I ate another bite of salad. “And how do you know you don’t like them?”
He winced. “Experience. Five heads with a single thought. They’re like bees or ants or termites.”
“Hive intelligence?” I said.
“No, that would indicate cooperation. Queen bee makes the decisions, especially about who goes out with who. The eligible pool consists of seniors and juniors and maybe a few sophomores, but freshmen without cars are right out.”
I pushed my salad plate aside. “What if they changed their mind?”
He looked uncertain but said, “I don’t want to go out with someone who has to get their dates okayed by their friends.”
“Good on you, Joanie,” I said.
He looked pleased.
A shrill beeping sound, uncomfortably loud, came from the back of the club, but it shut off almost immediately with the slamming of a door.
The waiter, arriving with the entrées, looked annoyed. I asked him about the noise.
“Kids trying to let in their friends, to avoid the cover charge. The door has a giant sign, ‘Alarm Will Sound,’ but someone tries it most band nights.”
I’d ordered the fish. Grant had the chicken. I waited until he had eaten most of it before I said, “What’s on the video, Grant?”
He choked on a mouthful of potato. “You might let a guy finish eating!” He no longer looked pleased. He looked nauseated.
I held up my hand. “All right. As long as you don’t renege on the deal.”
He tried some to eat some more, but he finally pushed his plate to the side. I felt guilty, but didn’t relent.
The ukulele torch singer sang the last song of her set, but the applause was substantial and she came back for an encore.
Grant leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and whispered. “Sex”
I nodded, “I wondered.” I couldn’t really think what else it had been. “All three of you?”
He nodded, miserable.
“At the same time?”
“What? No! Three different videos.”
“So also, not wit
h each other.” I didn’t think any of them were gay. I was pretty sure Grant’s discomfort at the end of our dance had been an erection.
“No!”
I nodded again.
“And you didn’t know about the camera, right?”
“Of course not.”
“So what was so bad about it?”
He looked away.
I tried a different tack. “Okay. Unless you were just masturbating, someone else is in the video.”
He looked down and said something, but I couldn’t hear it over a burst of applause as the singer left the stage.
I briefly joined the applause, then said, “Didn’t hear that.”
“Caffeine.”
I suspected, but I was disappointed, too.
He saw my face and winced. I took a deep breath and tried to go back to a less negative expression. I thought about Mom’s therapist face and tried for that. Nonjudging, neutral, receptive.
“That’s embarrassing, but you know they’d be the ones in trouble if they showed it. Child porn and all that.”
He looked away and shook his head. “I’m not a child.”
Another thought passed through my mind, an ugly one. “Uh, you guys didn’t force her, did you? I mean it was consensual, right?” I couldn’t possibly imagine a circumstance where any of them, or even all three of them together, could force Caffeine to do something against her will.
“What? We didn’t force her to do anything!” He shut his mouth abruptly and looked away, blushing furiously. I waited, but when he finally looked back he said, “There. I did my part. That’s as much as I’m going to say.”
The band started up then and more people arrived. Neither of us felt like dessert so Grant paid the bill and we moved down to the floor. As promised, I danced one more time with him but halfway through, he grabbed my arm and pulled me off the floor, going toward the bathrooms.
“What is it?” I had to shout near his ear to be heard.
“Hector and Calvin came in!”
I swiveled around, but I couldn’t see them through the dancers. “Calvin? Was he with Hector and Caffeine, when they grabbed Dakota and Tony in front of the coffee shop?”
Grant jerked his head in a nod and pulled me around the edge of the raised dining area to the narrow path back to the emergency exit, which did indeed have a sign in foot-high letters, Alarm Will Sound If Opened.