Jessie
There have been a few regrets I’ve had in my life, and all of those I can count on one hand and still have three fingers left over, but for some reason, tonight feels as if it’s about to become just that—one big giant regret. The Glen Heights Galleria is buzzing with life this Saturday night. Danny and I stand to the side while the girls try to decide what movie we should see.
“So, are you into Jen?” I meant to ask it in a friendly manner, but somehow anything amicable about it seems to have been lost in translation. It sounded more like a threat, like an I’ll-kick-your-ass-if-you-admit-it type of intimidation.
“Yeah, I guess so.” He shrugs it off like it’s not a big deal. “As long as she puts out, right?” He slaps me in the stomach and honks out a laugh.
“Dude.” I smack him right back, and he laughs like a fucking hyena. “Have some respect. She’s a cool chick. Keep your dick to yourself, would you?”
Survivor booms “Eye of the Tiger” over the speakers, and suddenly, I feel amped and pumped to beat the crap out of Danny Potter.
“Relax. It’s not gonna happen on the first date. She’s a virgin.” He smirks as if this bit of vaginal news actually offended him. “I’ll pop her cherry on the second date.”
“Dude.” I close my eyes a brief moment. “Don’t make me kill you.”
Tess and Rachel saunter over in their sky-high matching red heels. Their skirts are so short they qualify as bathing suits. Tess has some kind of a net over her that she’s wearing as a top, and the whole world can see her lace bra peeking through. Rachel has a blouse on that accentuates her shoulders so much, I swear, she could start as a lineman if she wanted. But Jennifer, I swallow hard just taking her in, with her skintight jeans, tiny pink heels, and tight white sweater. She has more clothes on than Tess and Rachel have worn in a year, and yet, something about the way she looks makes my boxers spring to life. Her hair fans around her face with stiff dark curls, and every time she steps in close to me, the scent of her spiced perfume makes me want to lean in and nuzzle into her neck. Necks are sort of my thing, and something about hers makes me want to drool.
“So, what’s it going to be?” Danny wraps an arm around Jen like he freaking owns her. “Clan of the Cave Bear or Iron Eagle?”
“Like gag me with a freaking spoon.” Tess retches as she clings to my right.
“Like, fer sure.” Rachel joins in with her best rendition of a Val, albeit a little tougher and rougher around the edges. “I’m so not subjecting myself to all that grunting and fucking.” She leans in and takes a bite out of my ear. “Unless it’s with you later,” she whispers.
Shit. I shoot a nervous look to Jennifer and force a smile to come and go.
Jen rolls her eyes. “Tell ’em what you picked, girls,” she says as if commanding a troop of Girl Scouts.
A dry laugh stagnates in my chest. Jen is clearly the adult in the equation, but these two cobras are anything but Girl Scouts.
“Heathcliff: The Movie!” they chime in unison.
“Nice.” I close my eyes a moment while Tess and Rachel squeal over at a group of girls from school. Danny conveniently does a disappearing act as soon as it’s our turn at the ticket counter. Figures.
“I guess we’re buying.” Jennifer pulls her wallet from her purse.
“I’ll get this.”
“I’m not your date.” Her tone has a sharp edge to it, and yet, something about it strangely warms me.
“I know you’re not my date.” I lean toward the glass partition and ask for five tickets to Heathcliff: The Movie, making the cash exchange for tickets before Jen can protest, and we step off to the side. “It’s my treat. I owe Danny one anyway.” It’s true. He’s spotted me a few times on the road. The entire basketball team is pretty tight. No one really gives a shit who pays and who doesn’t.
“Well, you don’t owe me. I’m paying you back.” She tries to stuff a five-dollar bill in my hand, but I raise my arms out of reach.
“Sorry, I don’t take cash.”
Her mouth opens as she juts her hip out in frustration. One thing is for sure—Jennifer Barkly sure is fine when she’s frustrated. A part of me wants to emit that very response in her a few more times before the night is through just to see her lip tug on the side like that. Her lips. My eyes zero in on that perfect, perky mouth, and something powerful in me builds. Something demands for me to cover it with my own. I’ve never met a girl I wanted to kiss and didn’t—correction, couldn’t. I’ve done my fair share of kissing. Every single one of the girls I’ve kissed, the girls I’ve been with have practically thrown themselves at me. For the life of me, I can’t recall a single girl I’ve wanted to kiss that I’ve been denied. I shake my head at Jennifer Barkly’s lips in a fit of frustration. Being denied is not something I generally care for.
“No?” Jennifer waves her hand over my face, pulling me out of my oral fixation. “You don’t want me to buy you a movie ticket? I mean, I guess you can go with someone else. I thought maybe we could just go as friends, of course.” Her eyes shine bright as traffic lights.
“Movie ticket? Oh, right. You owe me.” A dull laugh rumbles from my throat. “Yes, you can buy me a ticket. We’ll come back.” That stale grin I’ve been wearing melts right off. “As friends, of course.”
The girls stagger back smelling like liquor. Tess is a lush that keeps a miniature bottle of vodka in her purse at all times. She’s the only chick I know who can drink it straight without a chaser. Rachel simply shoves a full-sized wine cooler into her bag.
The theater is dim, and we find seats near the back. Rachel and Tess lead the way, and I don’t stop them. I head inside and take a seat next to Rachel on my right, and Danny comes in after and sits on my left.
“Dude.” I smack his leg. “Get the hell up. I’m not sitting next to you.”
“Suit yourself, bro.” He knocks his knee hard into mine. “Now, how are we going to play footsies?”
“Very funny.”
Jennifer falls in the seat next to me, and her delicate scent wafts over, so freaking sweet I actually lean in and take in a lungful without trying to look too pathetic in the process. Is that her perfume? Her hair? Her clothes? Damn, I’ve never met anyone who smelled so good. Not that Tess and Rachel stink. It’s just a bit more abrasive, in your face, walking through the perfume store at the mall sort of stench they emit.
Jen leans in, and so do I.
“Why are you sniffing me?” She keeps her gaze set on the questions popping up on the screen while Tess and Rachel shout out a bunch of belligerent wrong answers.
“I thought I smelled something.” Crap. Not the right answer. You never, never let a girl think she smells.
“Oh?” She inches closer to Danny, and I catch her dipping her nose to her shoulder.
“You smell nice.” There, I said it. Jennifer’s entire face smooths out, and she takes a deep breath.
“Thank you,” she mouths.
Danny wraps his arm around her just as the lights go down to nothing.
Heathcliff: The Movie begins, but I can’t seem to pay attention. Every five seconds I’m doing a visual sweep of Danny Potter’s hand to make sure he’s not copping a feel. Damn pervert. I knew—I knew I shouldn’t have set them up. Something in my gut told me this was a very fucking bad idea.
Danny belts out a laugh, causing his entire body to flail, and I’m right there with the stealth attentiveness of a ninja, ready and willing to chop off his hand.
Jennifer glances over and bites down on a smile, but she’s not laughing at the screen. It’s me she’s amused by. She bumps her leg into mine, so I do it right back.
Her brows dip a moment as she bumps my knee again, this time lingering a little longer, heating the skin just beneath my jeans to a nuclear precision. I bump her right back, lingering even longer.
Her mouth falls open, and she does it again.
I do it again, and soon enough, our shoes are involved. After about ten minutes, her leg stops
short against mine as she settles her gaze back to the screen.
The movie fights for my attention, but all I can seem to focus on is her warm leg touching mine—how crazy it’s making me, how much my body aches just to reach out and touch her, pick up her hand, crash my mouth over hers.
Where the hell did Jennifer Barkly come from?
And what is she doing to me?
* * *
Tuesday at school, the principal runs a special announcement letting us know that at the end of first period each class will watch a live launching of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
“Like that’s so boring.” Tess snaps her gum in my face on the way to English Lit. Tess and I have three classes together—Rachel and I also have three classes together, not necessarily all at the same time. Jennifer and I only have one class together, and that’s not until fifth. I’m not sure how it happened, but I seem to have memorized her schedule and the trajectory of her classes in comparison to mine. We bypass Mrs. Jerry’s class, and I can’t help but peer in. Jennifer’s first period class just so happens to be directly across the hall from mine. I’ve seen Jennifer in the morning here with Heather. Hell, I’ve looked for Jennifer in the morning here with Heather.
It’s been nice having her around the house. Jilly really seems to like her, and Jilly doesn’t like anyone, so that’s saying a lot. Jen even came by on Sunday just to bring us an apple pie she baked. It was hot-buttered heaven, sweet and delicious, with just the right touch of cinnamon, exactly what I imagine her kisses would taste like. Once she left, Jilly hugged me hard and begged me not to scare her away. I still don’t get what she meant by that. How the heck would I scare Jennifer away? Jilly mentioned she finally got that big sister she’s always wanted, and something about the way she said it made me both incredibly sad and strangely elated. I get it. Jennifer fills a hole for Jilly that Estella and Ramona simply can’t—for sure, one that her mother can’t.
I hold the door open for Tess as she leans into me with those large, drawn-out eyes of hers, touching her neck where I’ve spent far too much time, and I frown.
“I like really miss you.” She bites down on her glossed lip, and her front teeth cake with pink wax. “My body misses your body, big boy.” Her knee rides up my thigh, touching my balls before I can stop her.
“Whoa.” A dull laugh penetrates my chest as we make our way in and take our seats.
The class starts, and Tess wastes no time in passing back notes by the dozens—dirty drawings, raunchy poetry—bad raunchy poetry with hearts and flowers dotting her letters as she pens exactly what she’d like to do to me in graphic Valley Girl detail.
Mrs. Costa stops short her lecture on Madame Bovary and wheels the television set up from the back. We spend the next few minutes listening to someone at NASA while the Space Shuttle Challenger is readying to launch down at Cape Canaveral.
The countdown begins, and Mrs. Costa turns off the lights. Tess manages to curl her leg around mine. Her hand snakes between my thighs, and I carefully replace it. If I let her, she would jump me in the hall. Tess isn’t exactly shy about where we do it or in front of who—not that we’ve done it in a good long while. Last October was the last time I was with either Tess or Rachel. I don’t know why, but things started to feel wrong, and something in me said cool it for a while. Maybe that’s why I’m so relaxed when I’m around Jennifer. She’s not that kind of girl. We have something real that supersedes a box of condoms and a line of hickeys trailing around her neck. A swell of relief fills me as if I’ve been waiting for a reasonable explanation as to why I feel so much like myself when we’re together. A part of me wishes I could tell her. A part of me wishes I were with her right now. All I think about lately is that girl, that long, dark hair, the sweet smell of her perfume, those brilliant jade eyes that demand I stay a while and look deep inside them.
The shuttle launches, breaking away from the planet in a fit of explosive glory. Its smoke rises to the heavens right along with it, and the class breaks out into a round of celebratory applause.
“There she goes!” Mrs. Costa belts it out as every single one of us stares in awe at the engineering wonder that leaps into the sky, defying gravity, defying logic, carrying man to new heights, new atmospheres as a part of the regal United States space program. A burst of national pride fills me as the shuttle rises ever higher with billows of fire pluming in its wake.
A cloud of smoke erupts around it, followed by a huge flash, as it explodes before our eyes.
“Shit.” My heart stops cold.
“Oh, dear God.” Mrs. Costa does her best to wrestle the TV around as the class gives a collective gasp. A few of the girls break out into spontaneous tears as we sit bewildered by what just transpired.
“They’re gone,” a stunned girl from the front row shrieks, and somehow her words, saying them out loud, makes it final. The class falls apart quickly, and people stumble out the door.
“Like that’s totally sad.” Tess flexes her cheek with a flicker of annoyance. “Did Jennifer tell you I have a date with her this week? That dweeb actually thinks I want to see her closet.”
“No, she didn’t.” The words string from me numbly as I grab my backpack and jet into the hall. Bodies mill around aimlessly, nothing but somber faces, zombie-like creatures in comparison to the lively crowd that usually haunts these halls. But not one of these faces is the one I’m desperately searching out. I have to find her. “Jennifer?”
I weave my way over to Mrs. Jerry’s class, only to find it completely drained.
“Jennifer?” My voice bellows over the crowd just as the bell rings. Then I see her, swimming through limbs in an effort to make her way over. “Jennifer.” She comes in quick and collapses her arms around me, and I do the same, holding her warm and tight, touching my face to her hair a moment as she loses it over my chest, an entire river of hot genuine tears. I want to hold her like this forever, keep her safe from madmen who see fit to shoot presidents, the Big One, nuclear bombs, and the AIDS epidemic all in one.
The bell rings again, and I’m still holding her like that.
A part of me doesn’t ever want to let go.
* * *
Tuesday’s game was canceled out of respect for the tragedy. But, come Friday, we bomb again right there at home on our own turf, forty-eight to seventy-seven. I’m not sure what that says about the team, about each of us as individuals, but that loss doesn’t stop any one of us from heading over to Jeff Oberman’s house afterward. His parents are out of town, and he’s opened the place up inside and out to the entire student body. The backyard is swarming with boisterous teens, most of them drunk or quickly getting there.
I spot Russell and Joel hanging out by the keg and head over.
“Dudes.” I slap them both five.
“Pussy.” Joel pulls me in and socks me. “Are you the bad luck charm? Mel says you didn’t score a single shot. What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s a team effort, man.” I scan the crowd and spot Melissa and Heather, and a spear of panic knifes through me. No Jen. She said she’d come over after she dropped Jilly off at a friend’s for a sleepover, but I don’t see any sign of her. What if she got in a wreck? What if she has a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and some maniac with a meat-hook for a hand is chasing her?
Jennifer pops up from out of the shadow and stands shoulder to shoulder with her friends while they sway to Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield.”
“What’s the dopey grin for?” Russell follows my gaze. “You better not be checking out my girl.”
“Or mine.” Joel looks over and grumbles.
“Whoa.” Russell smacks me on the arm. “What’s going on with you and Barkly? Heather says you have her rushing two chicks for you. Dude, what’s the matter? Your dick radar broken?”
Dick radar? A dull groan comes from me as I continue to watch Jennifer move those hips from side to side, laughing, shaking her hair like she just don’t care. Then, as if to smack me right back to r
eality, Danny Potter shows his ghostly mug and starts up a conversation with her.
“What the hell is he doing?” I mumble mostly to myself. Jennifer said he didn’t call her after the movie. I know this because I asked. Danny is a douche, and he shouldn’t be anywhere near someone as sweet and innocent as Jen. I don’t care if she does want to walk on the wild side. I know for a fact what that pervert wants to do on their “second date,” and there’s no way in hell I’m letting it happen.
“Earth to Fox.” Joel blocks my view with his body. “Have you heard a word we’ve said?”
“No.” I move an inch to the left, and he follows. “Can’t you see I’m trying to watch?” I physically move him to the side. “You’re in my way.”
Joel gets in my face again. “Your girls are in the house, tanked off their asses. Why don’t you head on over and clean that mess up?”
“Not my mess.” I can’t seem to take my eyes off Jennifer and that idiot with his hand over her arm. Who the hell does he think he is touching her that way? I don’t get to touch her. He sure as hell doesn’t get to touch her.
“When are you going to admit it?” Russell whispers it low enough for me to hear, and a part of me wants to read that it pertains to Jennifer.
“Yes, we screwed up the game,” I growl. “I screwed up the game. Happy?” I’m still glaring at Danny and his octopus tentacles when Russell creates a visual barrier with his ugly mug.
“You’re into her.”
“Into who?” I try to crane my neck, but Russ isn’t moving.
“Jennifer Barkly. You can’t go five seconds without checking the girl out.”
“I’m not checking her out. She’s with Danny Freaking Potter. I’m making sure she’s safe.”
“Safe?” Russell gives me a slight push and snaps me out of my stupor. “You realize Potter is a virgin, right? Dude, she couldn’t be safer if she was in a convent.” He crosses his arms, looking back at the two of them—laughing it up like they were the best of friends. “They look good together, don’t you think?”