Love (And Other Uses for Duct Tape)

  Wow. I’m thinking in song lyrics when I really shouldn’t be thinking at all.

  Tom’s mouth finds my mouth. Tom’s mouth finds my ear. Tom’s mouth finds my neck. Tom’s mouth would be very good at hide-and-seek.

  “My mom’s going away tomorrow,” I say even though he already knows this.

  He pulls his mouth away, just a whisper-inch. “Yeah?”

  He says that like he doesn’t know.

  His breath hits my neck. I tremble. I tuck my head down against his chest so I don’t have to see his reaction.

  “Maybe you could stay over tomorrow? We don’t have to do anything. We could just platonically sleep together, hang out, you know … You wouldn’t have to leave?”

  My words trail into the air, move past the circle of light, float into the darkness of the street. I cannot believe I said that. For a second I almost wish I could text Mimi Cote and ask her what to say.

  Tom cups my chin in his hand, raises my head so that our eyes meet. He studies me. “Yeah?”

  I shrug like it’s no big deal. “Yeah.”

  He takes a step away but keeps his hands on my hips. He shakes his head. His voice deep like the sky at night. “Belle, if I stay here all night with you … I don’t know if I could not do anything.”

  He moves one of his hands, lifts up his knee and rips a small piece of duct tape off his shoe. He folds it onto itself with one hand. I grab his hand in my own. “Tom?”

  He looks at me again. The sky has no stars.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I mean, I don’t think I’d want to not do anything. I mean … ”

  Words suck don’t they? Because words just can’t explain anything. I keep trying. “Because I mean, I think I want to, you know … ”

  His cheek twitches but his fingers are still beneath mine. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  And I do. I do. I do. I do, but also what I really want, what I really, really want is to not connect this want with Em and Shawn and what’s happening with them. And what I really, really, really want is to know that Tom loves me. I mean, I think he does, but how do you ever know? I thought Dylan did and I was wrong, wrong, wrong. How do you know when you’re right?

  How can I even want this when Emmie is pregnant? I don’t know. I don’t know, but I do.

  One of the worst things about a bed is when it’s empty and you want someone in it. It’s like all the space around your body, all that space that was so normal before, it becomes a vast plain, a prairie land. It becomes longing and the emptiness of the cold sheets presses against you.

  I flop down on it, pull my covers to my chin, and stare into the darkness of my ceiling.

  “Honey? You have a good time?” my mom’s sleep voice calls from her bedroom.

  “Yep. How about you?”

  “It was nice.”

  “He didn’t try anything did he?”

  She giggles. My mother actually giggles. I sit up in my bed. What has happened to my world?

  “No. He was a perfect gentleman.”

  “Oh,” I say staring into the blackness. “That’s too bad.”

  My mom starts laughing really hard and yells good night. I flop back down. Muffin jumps onto my bed and lands on my stomach with an oof. She rotates so that her tail brushes against my nose.

  “I’m glad you’re home safe,” my mom calls, breaking the nothingness again.

  I groan and throw the pillow over my head, breathing in the fabric softener smell. I am safe, safe, too safe and I want to be wild, to tell Tom I love him, to sleep with him in my bed and be free, free, free like words that float into the night.

  She starts singing a lullaby in her sleep voice, screwing up the words: “Rock don’t lie lady, on the tip top. When the wine flows, the candles will rock.”

  God. I want to be like Muffin and arch my back and purr and do whatever is necessary to get my tuna and to have people scratch me under my chin.

  But instead I’m “safe.”

  What Is Safe?

  Safe is not having sex.

  Safe is not doing everything to get what I want.

  Safe is a label.

  Safe is very cool for fundamentalists. I am not a fundamentalist.

  Safe is something I never used to be, not before, not with Dylan.

  Safe is something Em and Shawn obviously weren’t.

  Safe is a word, just a word.

  Safe is not having sex. I said that already.

  Wait. It’s more than that. It’s more than just the sex thing. I just want to wake up in the morning with Tom beside me. I want to see pillow creases in the side of his face. I want to watch him stretch and open his eyes. I want the comfort that married people have, that sort of security. Yeah, it’s false security. Married people cheat. Married people die. But I want it anyway. I want that dream.

  She’s pregnant.

  How can she be pregnant?

  Tuesday

  At the front door, my mother kisses me on the top of the head for the 178th time. “You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

  Her shaking hand picks up her suitcase. I take it from her and load it into the back of her car. “I’ll be fine, Mom.”

  “You’ll call me if you need anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know my cell phone number?”

  “Mom, I’ve known your cell phone number since I was like seven.”

  A yellow school bus bumps down the road in front of our house. Some little girls wave at us. Bethany, Toni, Samantha. I teach them gymnastics. I wave back as the bus swings away. Then I slam the trunk and pull my mom into a hug. She leans in and hugs back, tension easing out of her muscles for just a moment.

  “You don’t feel like I’m abandoning you,” she says into my hair.

  “No. I don’t feel like my mommy’s abandoning me. I’m a berry brave widdle girl,” I say, because the only way my mom’s going to make it through this is if I make her laugh. “I am a berry, berry responsible widdle girl.”

  It works.

  She tweaks my nose. “You’re fresh.”

  “Better than stale.”

  My mother doesn’t care about whether I sometimes lapse into geek talk or not, she just hugs me again, makes me recite her phone number and then waves as Eddie Caron’s dad backs Eddie’s truck out of the driveway. He looks so sober and calm, even kind, but he hit Eddie the other night, just hit him.

  “Where’s your car?” my mom yells to Mr. Caron.

  “Getting new tires!” he yells back. His hand smooths his bald head. “You have a good trip. We’ll keep an eye out for your Belle for you.”

  My mom smiles, all lit up. “Thanks.”

  He drives off. My mom shakes her head. “He’s such a nice man, it must kill him to have Eddie turn out the way he did.”

  Such a nice man?

  “Eddie’s not that bad,” I say, opening her car door for her. “You’re going to be late.”

  “He hurt you, Belle,” she says, forcing me to look in her eyes. “You didn’t deserve that.”

  “It’s over now.”

  She shakes her head. “Thank goodness.”

  When she’s finally in the car and driving off to the airport I realize it. This, this little conversation that just happened between the two of us, this is what Em will be doing some day. She’ll be hugging the secret in her belly goodbye. She’ll be worrying that her little girl or her little boy will get into trouble when he or she is out of sight. She’ll be acting like a mom, not like a goofy girl dancing in the hallway, teasing the teachers. That Emily, my Emily, will be gone, forever gone.

  I gulp and swallow. I go back inside my mom-gone house and get ready for school.

  Since Tom drives me to school today, I don’t see
Em until I get to her locker. She’s standing there, just staring into the mess of it. Her Hello Kitty mirror is crooked. Books pile on top of crumpled papers.

  “Em?”

  I’m almost afraid to speak her name.

  “Em?”

  Dylan saunters closer. He cocks his head at me and stops.

  “What’s up?” he asks. His green eyes narrow a little bit, like he’s trying to figure things out. “You and Em fighting?”

  I shake my head, try again, this time reaching out to touch her shoulder, “Em? You okay?”

  She jumps, whirls around. Sorrow coats her features. “What?”

  I drop my law notebook. Dylan scoops it up and in that second Em recovers. She manipulates her mouth into a smile. “I must’ve been zoning out.”

  Dylan hands me my notebook. I hug it to my chest. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He eyes Em, shifts his backpack’s weight on his big shoulder. “You need more sleep, Emily. You’re looking pale.”

  “Thanks. Nice thing to say,” she says. She starts walking away from her locker, doesn’t even shut it.

  “Em,” I grab her arm. “Your notebook.”

  “Oh, right.” She pivots, grabs it, shuts the locker and starts walking away again.

  Dylan doesn’t even bother to pretend not to notice. “Is she okay?”

  “No,” I say.

  “What’s up?”

  “I can’t talk about it.” I cringe. I can actually feel myself cringe. “I’m sorry. It’s not because I don’t trust you or anything. It’s just … Everything will be fine.”

  And I give this pathetic finger wave and race to catch up with Emmie.

  “You have to tell him,” I say. “This is killing you.”

  She glares at me and we scramble into Law just as the late bell rings. We slam our butts into our desk chairs before our teacher can give us detention.

  Stupid idiot Mimi Cote says, “I think Em and Belle are late, Mr. Richter. Shouldn’t you give them detention?”

  He tugs at his chinos, making them a little higher. Mr. Richter has pants-falling-off-the-buttocks disease, which most often manifests itself in plumbers and grandpas who wear tightie-whities.

  Unfortunately, the disease has spread to teachers. Mr. Richter also wears “briefs.” Em and I believe there is a definite link.

  “They’re fine, Mimi,” he says. “But thank you for your vigilance.”

  Mr. Richter’s eyes try to keep away from Mimi’s cleavage, which is quite ripe today, almost as if she’s planning on breast-feeding, right here, right now. She probably is, only not a baby. She doesn’t have a baby. Just guys she wants to make babies with. Tom, of course, is at the top of that list.

  She pouts and slams back in her chair. Her cleavage responds appropriately. Mr. Richter’s eyes bug out and then he looks away, tugging up his pants again. “Today, class, we’ll discuss the writ of habeas corpus.”

  Shawn winks at Em across the room and mouths the words, “I love you.”

  She mouths back, “I love you, too.”

  Like the evil, psychic bitch she is, Mimi leans forward and whispers loud to Brittney, “Tom still hasn’t said the l-word to Belle.”

  “Really?” Brittney’s voice goes snarky. “He’s smart as well as cute.”

  She puts all the stress on smart, like she’s brilliant for knowing a word that’s over four letters and doesn’t end in “ly.”

  “He’s got standards,” Mimi laughs.

  They both turn and stare at me. They wave. I swallow and smile like I don’t care, but this big cough starts rumbling up from the center of my chest and it threatens to swallow me whole.

  How Not to Kill Someone in Law Class

  Smile at them, because that’s almost as good as murdering them with a pencil sharpener blow to the temple, because they can’t figure out why you’d be smiling.

  Do not think about what they said. Instead, focus really, really hard on the phrase, writ of habeus corpus.

  Try not to think about how corpus sounds like corpse-us.

  Realize that making someone a corpse means you will probably go to jail.

  Realize that women prisoners always seem to have split ends and really dried-out broom witch hair.

  You do not want that kind of hair.

  Tom will never love you if you have that kind of hair.

  That’s not true. He’s not shallow.

  It’s not like he loves you anyway, is it?

  Wonder why you start referring to yourself as you in these lists instead of I. Is it for some emotional distance? Some way to make it easier to deal?

  Give up thinking altogether. Doodle pictures of Mimi in her hideously bad clothes. Do not feel guilty. It’s not as bad as murder is it? There’s no jail time for doodling.

  Wonder if you would have seizures in jail because life in jail has got to be stressful. You’d hit your head on the concrete, because jail cells are concrete, aren’t they? That would most likely result in brain damage or something. Wonder why you had a seizure the other day at all.

  Despite the tiny segment on habeas corpus, we spend the class jawing about abortion again. Em takes off before I can talk to her. Shawn rushes after her. I bump my hip into my desk. Andrew comes over.

  “You okay?” he says. He’s wearing his baseball shirt. They’ve got a game this afternoon. I wonder if Em will use that as her new excuse not to tell, not that she needs an excuse but ...

  “Belle?” Andrew touches my shoulder. “I was talking to you.”

  My stomach cramps up. “I’m sorry. I’m so zoned out.”

  “Your hip okay?” he asks. “You smashed it.”

  Bob comes into the room. It’s already filling up with people.

  I nod. “I’m good. Just an idiot.”

  “You and me both,” he says as we take off into the hall, which is swarming with people. Soon they’ll all be talking about Em and Shawn. Soon nobody will be asking me if I’m okay because they’ll know that I’m worried about Em.

  “We’re going to be late for English,” I say.

  Andrew shrugs.

  I shrug too, because really I just don’t care.

  Tom finds me right before lunch. He flashes this killer smile that almost makes me forget how worried I am about things. I touch the sleeve of his baseball uniform. It’s such a funny material, stiff and starchy.

  “You want to take off?” he asks.

  I lean against the locker next to mine. “We’re not supposed to leave the building.”

  Tom whips up two pieces of paper from behind his back. “I’ve got passes.”

  Snatching them out of his hand I say, “How’d you do that?”

  “I’ve got my ways.”

  “You were flirting with Mrs. Romer again?”

  Mrs. Romer is the high school secretary. She responds very well to flirting baseball boys, especially ones named Tom who have a proclivity towards duct tape.

  “I can’t reveal my sources. It ruins the mystery.” He slings a backpack that was on the floor up onto his shoulder and reaches out his hand to me.

  “What about Em and Shawn?”

  “They’re having their own romantic dinner in the cafeteria.”

  “So they know we’re ditching them?”

  “Yep. C’mon,” he says and wiggles his fingers, which are amazingly free of duct tape and just show dark, naked skin.

  I take those fingers in my pale ones, my pale guitar-callused ones, and follow him out of the school. In that second I would follow him anywhere.

  He takes me towards the baseball field.

  “Oh, this is romantic,” I say, joking. “Baseball.”

  He squeezes my hand tighter. “Give it a second, Commie.”


  We walk around behind the dugout. There’s a blanket spread out already and a little duct tape vase with real roses inside of it.

  “I’m sorry there’s only three,” he says, gesturing at the roses. They are pink and lovely, delicate and colorful against the gray of the duct tape and the washed-out boards of the dugout. My breath sucks into my lungs in a good, good way.

  I shake my head. “They’re beautiful. How do you keep the vase from falling over?”

  I turn my face to smile up at him. He smiles down at me and leans in. His lips, soft and warm, brush against mine. My body gestures against his. He lets it, leans in and then steps away, sighing.

  My body feels suddenly empty. Someone honks a horn up at the school parking lot. Then a car alarm goes off. Tom gives his half smile and says, “This was supposed to be romantic.”

  “It is,” I say and pull him down to the blanket. A little ant parade marches through a far corner. I do not point it out, but it makes me think of Em having lunch inside with Shawn. I wonder if she’ll tell him. I wonder what he’ll say.

  “Em and Shawn must be wondering where we are,” I say, trailing a finger down the muscle line in one of Tom’s calves. I will not feel guilty about this. I refuse.

  “Commie, I told you I told them.” He pulls out a bottle of ginger ale (aspartame free) and a couple of plastic wine glasses. He holds them up. “It’s not the real thing, but … we don’t want to get expelled.”

  “Mrs. Romer would never forgive me,” I giggle. Yes, I have lost it. I have actually giggled. What would my woman friends in Students for Social Justice think?

  Tom pulls out sandwiches. God, he is so sweet and nice and good. And sexy. Very, very sexy.

  “Cucumber,” he announces.

  “Those are my favorite.”

  “I know,” his eyes twinkle.

  I forget about the ants. He pours the ginger ale.

  “Can I help at all?”

  “No.” He gives me a glass. He raises his. I raise mine. My hands shake. The glasses catch the sunlight. Little bubbles float up to the surface, excited to be out into the big world of carbonation. They pop.