The Last Best Kiss

  nine

  At lunch every day, we plan our weekend at the music festival. The twins’ father is arranging a van for our group, which so far seems to be Phoebe, Hil and Lily (obvs), Lucy, me, Oscar, Eric, Jackson, and Finn.

  “Don’t you dare break up with Eric before then,” Hilary says to Phoebe as Lucy and I follow them out of school at the end of the day. “That would complicate everything. Wait until after the trip to break his heart.”

  “What makes you think I want to break his heart?” asks Phoebe.

  “History,” says Hilary, who has a point—none of Phoebe’s boyfriends have lasted longer than a month or two.

  But so far she and Eric seem to be doing just fine as a couple. Eric is so happy she’s his girlfriend that his round face radiates joy whenever he sees her. He jumps up to hold her chair for her, goes to her volleyball games and cheers wildly when she scores a point, opens doors for her, carries her books, pays for her meals, and rubs her shoulders.

  And Phoebe . . . uh . . . lets him do all those things for her.

  It works for them, I guess.

  We reach our hangout near the tree and sit down on the grass to talk some more about plans for the festival—most importantly what clothing we’re all bringing—and then my phone dings and I glance down at it.

  “Crap,” I say, jumping back up to my feet. “I totally forgot I was supposed to meet Mr. Oresco in the art room. We’re supposed to go over my portfolio, see what I still need to add to it.”

  “I should head off too,” Lucy says, scrambling up after me. “I’ve got to start that English paper.”

  “It’s not due for another week,” Hilary points out.

  “I know, but I have so much else coming up. . . .”

  As I walk back into school, I wonder if Lucy will be different in college. So much of her anxiety is about getting in—I hope she’ll be able to relax once she’s there. Maybe she’ll stop caring about her grades or whether teachers like her and start partying like a beast.

  Or maybe she’ll just pick a new goal—graduate school or a fellowship or a cum laude degree—and obsess over that.

  Yeah, it’ll be that second one. Anxiety is her caffeine—it keeps her going. Keeps her focused. Keeps her busy. I can’t imagine a Lucy without stress—it wouldn’t be Lucy.

  I reach the art room, where Mr. Oresco and I spend the next half hour sorting through the pile of art I’ve produced since ninth grade, weeding out the bad pieces (“Don’t call them bad,” he chides me. “Art is a process, and sometimes that process takes you down paths that you decide not to pursue—but it’s all valuable.” Yeah, whatever—I’m still planning to burn the work that embarrasses me) and seeing what’s left once we’re down to the pieces that don’t make me cringe.

  “I love the direction you’ve been going in,” Mr. O says, after we’ve finished making our piles. “I think the tension in your pieces is phenomenal. And there’s something to be said for having a distinct and memorable point of view, so if you want to submit a portfolio that’s all in this one very strong voice, I’m fine with that. But—”

  I brace myself.

  His voice is gentle as he goes on. “You might want to try your hand at something like a portrait or still life—something with a lot of detail, just to show some range. You don’t have to include it unless you’re happy with it, so there’s no risk in trying, right?”

  He’s being reasonable, supportive, and intelligent—everything Ginny Clay wasn’t when she told me I was a coward—so I tell him I agree.

  I thank Mr. O, put my work on the shelf where I keep most of it, and head out to the mostly deserted hallway, where I spot Finn and Lily standing near the back door. Their heads are close together as he shows her something on his phone.

  I stop where I am. It hurts to see them like that and I don’t want to have to start smiling and pretending it doesn’t, so I think about slipping away quickly, but just then Lily lifts her head, sees me, and calls out a greeting. She’s wearing a pair of bright red jeans tucked into purple boots and a dark blue tank top. Crazy colors, but they work together. She says with a laugh, “Save me, Anna! Finn’s showing me the most disgusting photos of dust mites and bacteria and stuff like that.”

  “Cool,” I say, and force myself to move toward them.

  “Cool?” she repeats. “I would have gone with ‘revolting.’”

  “And they’re all around us.” Finn pockets his phone. “Not to mention on top of us.”

  “Thanks for the nightmares.” Lily swats his arm. “Is Hilary already out back, Anna?”

  “Yeah. I was just going there.”

  We all head toward the courtyard. My steps are dragging. I let myself fall a little bit behind them.

  I knew this was coming. We all did. But it was so slow. . . . I think maybe I had convinced myself that Lily liked Finn much more than he liked her. That conversation she and I had under the tree had at least told me that Finn hadn’t singled her out yet. But now . . .

  Let me show you something. Another guy might mean something crude by that. But Finn . . . Finn just likes to share things that interest him with people he cares about. I remember what that felt like, the enthusiasm that burned in him lighting a spark in me until we were both blazing with curiosity and interest.

  And now he’s sharing all that with someone else.

  Hilary jumps to her feet the second she sees us. “Where were you?” she says to Lily. “I said I wanted to go home right after school. What didn’t you understand about that?”

  “Cool your buns,” says Lily. “I was talking to Finn.”

  Hilary glances at me. I quickly make sure I have an amused eyebrow-raised kind of expression on my face. The kind of expression that says, Yeah, I found them alone together, and we all know what that means. The kind that adds, Not that I care one way or the other.

  It’s a lot to communicate with a twist of the lips and a lift of the forehead, but I think I may have succeeded. Hilary swallows visibly and then says in a low, harsh voice, “Let’s just go. The essay tutor’s going to be at our house in like three minutes.”

  “Oops—totally forgot.” Lily turns to Finn. “So . . . text me?”

  He nods and tilts his body toward her so their shoulders brush against each other. As PDAs go, it’s pretty tame, but Hilary and I exchange another look. She heads off with a brusque “Bye, guys,” as she grabs Lily by the elbow. Their heads are close together as they walk toward the parking lot—they’re talking. And I can guess what about.

  Poor Hilary. She’s got to be disappointed. But she’s also got to have seen this coming. Finn’s always made it clear he likes the way Lily does whatever she wants. It’s like he decided at some point that the one thing that mattered to him most in a girl was that she not care what other people think.

  Yeah, I wonder what made him feel that way.

  Finn and I are still standing there. It’s kind of pathetic—even when it’s awkward and we have nothing to say to each other, I like being with him, so before he can just say good-bye, I quickly say, “Mites and bacteria, huh?”

  He shrugs sheepishly. “I should probably stop trying to get other people to find that kind of thing cool.” His voice picks up speed. “I mean these things are all around us—even inside us—and we’ve got the technology now to really see them. But no one likes to think about it. It grosses people out to think about sharing our buildings and bodies with all these other creatures. But that’s the way it’s always been. It’s how we evolved. It’s healthy, in its own way. We’re our own ecosystems.”

  “It’s the creepy-crawly thing,” I say. “No one likes bugs. And everything that’s infinitesimal looks like a bug when it’s magnified.”

  “Not everything,” he says with a laugh.

  “Everything,” I insist.

  “Most things do. I’ll give you that.” He shifts his book bag on his shoulder. “What’s so bad about creepy-crawly things, anyway?”

  “Spiders,” I say. “And earwigs.
And scorpions. And centipedes.”

  “They’re all beautiful if you get down on their level and really look at them.”

  “I will never find an earwig beautiful.”

  “I bet I could find a photo to change your mind,” he says. And his hand slips into his pocket like he’s going to grab his phone. But then he pulls it out empty and takes a step backward. Away from me. “I better go. It’s getting late.”

  I want to beg him to show me a photo of a beautiful earwig, but I don’t. I just nod and say an indifferent “See you.”

  As he walks away, he does pull out his phone, but from the way he’s thumbing it, I can tell he’s sending a text.

  Well, Lily told him to text her. I guess he didn’t want to waste any more time before he did.

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  ten

  The next morning I run into Dad in the kitchen and remember to tell him I’m going away right after school on Friday and won’t be back until Sunday night.

  He absorbs that as he inserts a coffee pod into the Keurig. “Away? Could you be more specific?”

  “I’m going to a music festival. My friends’ father will be there.”

  A slight furrow on his brow. “Do I need to call him?”

  “No. It’s all fine. Everything’s arranged.”

  “Okay, great,” he says, relieved. “Have fun. The Keurig needs more water.” He walks out of the room, mug in his hand, his parenting done.

  I refill the water tank, both grateful and sad I’m free to come and go as I please.

  That afternoon I sit on the floor in the family room with the shades pulled all the way up to let in lots of light and contemplate the pad of art paper on my knees. I’ve laid out a circle of photos around me: family, friends, and even some magazine ads I’ve clipped out over the years.

  I pick up a photo of Lucy from about two years ago. We were really into America’s Next Top Model back then, so we’d take turns photographing each other. Most of the shots just stayed on the computer once we downloaded them, but I liked this one enough to print it out: Lucy had been leaning toward the camera with what was supposed to be a seductive pout, except she started giggling.

  It’s a side of Lucy I get to see, but most people don’t—she’ll be goofy when we’re alone, even though she’s terrified of making a fool of herself out in the world. I want to capture that. So I set to work drawing. I draw and I draw and I draw. I erase a lot and toss the paper aside to start again four or five times. I keep working at it, though—I’m not going to give up; I’m going to keep fighting until I stop feeling frustrated at the gap between what I want my drawing to look like and what’s on paper. I try different styles: loose and abstract, detailed and sharp, cartoonish, rough, polished . . .

  I hate them all. By the time the light coming through the window has faded enough that I either have to turn on some more lights or give up, it’s an obvious choice: I crumple up every piece of paper I’ve used and toss them all in the wastebasket.

  I feel so frustrated, I could scream. Why couldn’t I capture what I love about the photo—what I love about Lucy—on paper?

  Maybe the mistake was picking Lucy as a subject. She has a funny little nose that’s cute in real life but looks weird when I try to draw it.

  I try to convince myself Lucy’s nose was the problem and that I should try again with a different subject. But deep down I’m afraid that I really just can’t do a decent portrait.

  I hear Dad moving around out in the hallway and call out to him—it’s getting late and I’m hungry and sometimes if I catch him at the right time, we can order in some dinner together.

  Footsteps come closer in response to my shout, but the figure in the doorway isn’t Dad.

  “Molly?” I say, and jump up. “Molly!”

  We hug each other tightly.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, stepping back, and then, before she can even answer that, “Wait—what’s wrong?”

  Now that I get a good look at her face, I can tell she’s feeling miserable. And it occurs to me at that moment that she shouldn’t be home now. She should be at school.

  “Nothing,” she says. Then she bursts into tears. “Everything.” She shakes her head, struggles to regain her calm. “Nothing.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake,” I say, and for the first time in our entire sibling relationship, I feel like the older sister. I take her by the arm and lead her over to the sofa. “Just tell me what happened. Start with why you’re home.”

  “It’s no big deal, really,” she says, her voice still unsteady as we settle side by side. “I was halfway home, so I figured I’d come the rest of the way and see you.”

  “Why were you halfway home?”

  That’s when the story comes out. Her girlfriend, Wally, lives in San Luis Obispo, and she and Molly decided to drive down together from Stanford for the weekend, so Molly could meet Wally’s family and they could have some home-cooked meals and escape from the pressure of school for a couple of days.

  “So I said to her before we left, your family’s cool with me coming, right? And Wally said they’d be fine with it. It wasn’t until we were almost there that she admitted to me they have kind of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy—she’s never come out formally to her parents, but she said they know—they just like to be able to ignore it. So fine, right? I mean, I was sort of like that with you guys—”

  “Except none of us knew or even guessed,” I point out.

  “It’s not my fault you’re oblivious. But at least when you guys found out, you were fine with it. And I wasn’t scared about telling you. I just had to get over my feeling that it was kind of private.” Molly pauses, plucking at the fabric on the sofa arm. She’s cut her hair since I last saw her. It’s chin-length now, with choppy, uneven ends. It suits her long, narrow face. She’s wearing a Stanford tee and volleyball shorts and flip-flops. She manages a humorless smile. “The fact that Dad and Mom don’t care about our personal lives—it’s not all bad, you know?” I nod, because I do know what she means. They may not be involved parents, but they’re not interfering parents either. “And at least they’re always polite in front of other people.”

  “I’m guessing Wally’s family wasn’t so mellow?”

  “It was awful, Anna.” She lets her head fall back on the sofa cushions and stares at the ceiling. “Not at first. At first they were really nice. They have this little house in an area that’s zoned for horses. Her mother and sister are these crazy horse people. It’s really beautiful there, and we walked around a lot yesterday, and the meals were great, and her little sister—she’s around twelve—is cute and sweet and wanted to hang with us. So it was all good. And then last night, after everyone had gone to bed, Wally said we should use the hot tub, so we went in, and one thing led to another—” She stops and looks at me uncertainly.

  “You made out in the hot tub,” I say. “I get it.”

  “We weren’t out of control or anything—just enjoying each other’s company. Totally PG.” A reluctant smile breaks through her misery. “Well, maybe PG-13. Anyway, then we go to bed—her mother had put an extra mattress in Wally’s room, but we were really sharing her bed. Which I kind of thought they knew. Anyway . . .” She hugs a pillow to her chest. “Turns out her sister had been spying on us in the hot tub. She told their parents everything she saw, and by the time we got up this morning, everything had changed. They couldn’t look at us, wouldn’t talk to me . . . Wally started freaking out—I mean, seriously freaking out. I’d never seen her like that. I was like, ‘I thought you said they were okay with it,’ but she was like, ‘You don’t understand.’ And she was mad at me—I mean, she didn’t say it out loud, but I could tell. Like it was all my fault—if I hadn’t come to her house, if I hadn’t gotten in the hot tub with her, then everything would still be okay, and she could still pretend to
be whatever her parents wanted to pretend she was.” Molly tugs hard on the pillow fringe. “So then her parents finally call her into their room to talk to her. When she comes out, she’s sobbing, and she tells me I have to go. No one says a word to me, and when Wally’s little sister comes into the hallway when I’m there, her mother grabs her and pulls her away like I’m going to contaminate her or something—like I’m going to leak lesbian all over her. So I just pack up my stuff and get in my car. But instead of driving back to school, I drove here.” She touches my arm. “I wanted to see you, Anna. I needed to see someone who’d be on my side.”

  I throw my arms around her. “I hate them,” I say. “They’re idiots. They’re jerks. They’re assholes.”

  “They’re not that different from tons of people. I might as well get used to it. I’ve been living in this bubble at school—pretty much everyone at Stanford’s open-minded. But that’s just not true everywhere.”

  “What about Wally? Have you guys talked since you left?”

  Molly shook her head. “She texted me. Said she’s sorry, but there was nothing she could do and she’ll see me back at school. I didn’t answer. I’m pissed at her. Really pissed. Like done-with-her pissed. If she couldn’t stick up for me when it mattered, then she’s not someone I want to be with.”

  “I hate her family.”

  “They were so nice to me at first. That’s the most upsetting part. When they thought I was just her friend, they liked everything about me . . . and then wham! I kiss her on the lips in front of the kid, and suddenly I’m the devil.”

  “Idiots.”

  “Yeah.” She tosses the pillow across the room. “Screw them. Screw her.”

  Footsteps approach, and my father leans into the room. “I heard voices. Molly? Is that you! What a nice surprise!”

  She gets up so they can hug.

  “What brings you home?” he asks.

  She hesitates, then says casually, “I was visiting a friend who lives just a couple of hours away and thought I’d come home for the night.”