“All you do is complain about it now, but you’re going to love that kid when it’s out of you and you’re all blissed out on hormones,” Leon tells her.
“Absolutely, and I’ll still have hated being pregnant.”
She asks Leon how it’s going at the diner and my attention drifts; I’m distracted by everything, overwhelmed by this: people look at me and then—they don’t. Their eyes skim over me and move on to something else. There’s an unquestioned acceptance of my being here, being part of this. It’s a warm feeling and I’m so hungry for it, but I close myself off to it before I get my fill. I’m not going home to that. Best stay starved.
“So are you two together?” Caro asks and I don’t know who looks more embarrassed for it—Leon or me—but that’s only because I can’t see my face. I finish my beer in three swallows. She says, “But you’re here together.”
“Thought I’d show Romy a typical Friday night for me.”
“Then why aren’t you at your apartment ordering takeout and playing video games?”
He slings his arm around my shoulder. I feel the question after he does it. Is this okay? I don’t think it is. I don’t know how to fold myself into him in any way that feels right.
“That’s for second dates, Caro. Everyone knows that.”
“Feeling confident?” she asks which seems like something I should be teasing him about but I’m still struggling to fit. And then I realize they’re waiting for me to say something anyway. The silence is so awkward. You’d think I’d never spent time with people before or that I didn’t know how to talk. A million and one thoughts are firing across my brain because I want what I say to be perfect. I want it to be as effortless as them.
“He must be,” I finally offer.
Leon smiles. He pulls me closer and it makes me shiver, and I feel him feel it, but I can’t tell if it pleases him.
“Hey, Leon! Leon!” And like that, Leon’s arm is off me just when I’m starting to understand its weight. He straightens, eyes searching out whoever’s yelling for him. It turns out to be a man as tall as Leon, but not quite as lean, with dark brown skin and curly brown hair. His tie is the exact same color as Caro’s lipstick. “That junk heap you drove here in—”
“Insult my car, Adam, and it’ll be the last thing you do.” Leon turns to me. “My brother-in-law. He’s a real…”
“Be nice,” Caro warns.
“He knows how I feel about my car.”
“The headlights look great,” Adam says and even though he can’t possibly hear what Caro and Leon are saying from where he’s standing, the glee on his face says he knows. “That why you left them on?”
Leon closes his eyes briefly.
“It’s a shitty car, Leon,” Caro tells him.
“Et tu, Brute?” He gives me a sheepish smile and hands me his beer. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be right here,” I say and then he’s gone, leaving me with his sister. A few people wander through, grabbing drinks and wishing Caro well on their way.
“They get along, Adam and Leon, in case you were wondering,” Caro says after a minute. “Sometimes better than me and Leon do.”
“How did you meet him?”
“Over a cavity,” she says and I smile with my mouth closed, suddenly self-conscious about my teeth which are more crooked than they should be. “His. My teeth are fantastic. Anyway, we were friends and then we were best friends and then he fell in love with me. After a while, I caught up.”
“That’s sweet.”
“I think so too.” She takes the empty bottle from my hand, so all I’m holding is Leon’s. “So you’re at Swan’s. Do you like it?”
“It’s okay.”
“Do you work there to save up for college or…”
“No. That’s not…” It’s probably a little too much to lay on someone you’ve just met that college is not a destination or a dream. “I don’t think college is really my thing.”
“Leon felt that way too. It used to drive me crazy but he’s kind of opened my mind about it,” she says. “And he’s happy.”
“That’s all that matters, right?”
She raises her chin and studies me. Her eyes are still warm, but she’s looking for something that’s not there, I think. More. I take another long drink of the beer and then I remember it’s not mine. Leon should be back by now. I pick at the label and try to think of something to say. “So you never said if you’re having a boy or girl.”
“We won’t know until it’s born.”
I hope it’s not a girl.
The thought shocks me, comes so quick it has to be honest.
So I think it again, careful and slow to be sure.
I hope it’s not a girl.
I feel it even more the second time.
A woman walks up then, says Caro, you’re glowing! and I move aside, disconnecting while I wait for Leon. He’s taking an awful long time to turn off his headlights and the longer he takes, the stranger I feel. Light-headed. Familiar … I stare at the near empty bottle in my hands and—oh.
Oh … no.
That’s not what I meant to do.
There’s a warmth all through me. I don’t drink—haven’t in … a while. Not that I had the most amazing tolerance then, but now it must be nothing.
Because I feel it.
I swallow and scan the yard for Leon because now he’s the last person I want to see. I can’t be around him like this. My stomach twists, disagrees with itself. I turn to the rail of the gazebo, white-knuckling it. I can’t be sick here, in front of everyone. I press my hand against my mouth.
“Hey, are you okay?” Caro’s hand is on my back and then it’s off again, like she’s not sure she’s allowed. I shake my head. “What’s wrong?”
“I drank too fast.”
She has to lean close to hear me, makes me repeat myself.
“Are you going to be sick?” She’s surprised.
I nod and she says it’s okay, follow me, like this is nothing, like she’s been doing this her whole life: leading girls away from the party to the quiet place. I walk slowly after her, scared that any second now, I’ll puke all over the neat lines of her house, where everything looks so perfect and matches. We go up some stairs, down a hallway of doors. She opens one at the very end and ushers me in, turns on the light. It’s too bright. I wince and she pushes a switch until it dims.
“Guest bedroom.” She points across it. “Bathroom.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, because I want to leave some semblance of a good impression almost as badly as my stomach wants this beer out of me. “I was so nervous…”
“First time I met Adam’s family, it was New Year’s. I got pretty over-served,” she says. “I get it. Take your time. I’m going to find Leon for you, okay?”
Caro’s barely closed the door behind her before I’m in the bathroom on my knees, in front of the toilet. As soon as I hear her leave, my stomach gives one final warning lurch and most of what I drank comes back up. Stringy strands of spit dangle into the bowl from my lips and my eyes burn at the sour sting of it all. When I’m sure there’s nothing left, I flush the toilet, wipe my mouth, and crawl across the floor. I rest against the cupboards under the sink.
Idiot.
“Shut up,” I say.
The ragged sound of my voice steadies me, makes me feel like I’m in the room. I swallow, my mouth dry and sore, vomit-spent, and then I get to my feet. I splash cold water on my face and search the mirrored cabinet in front of me. I find a travel-sized bottle of mouthwash, toothpaste, and a glass full of individually packaged toothbrushes, which is just so …
I brush my teeth and rinse my mouth and then I leave the bathroom for the empty bedroom. I half expect Leon to be waiting when I come out, but he’s not there. I walk over to the window and peer out at the party. I like it better from this distance, away from everyone. Safe.
After a while, the door opens behind me.
A silhouette of a boy in the hall di
vides me between the girl who knows it has to be Leon and the one who whispers it might not be Leon, but I don’t know if it matters. I don’t know what would make one boy more or less dangerous than the other.
“What took so long?” I ask.
“One of Caro’s friends has a hard time getting around. Asked to swap parking places with me because I was closer to the house and then my car stalled halfway out. Adam had a field day with that.” He steps into the room, closing the door behind him. I turn back to the window. “How are you feeling? Caro said you got a little ahead of yourself.”
“I really like her,” I say. He steps closer and just the sound of him moving is as easy and assured as the way he works in the kitchen at Swan’s, like there’s not one part of him that doesn’t know what it’s doing, what he’s capable of. He moves behind me.
“I’m really glad you came,” he murmurs and there’s only one reason someone gets this close, I think, and talks so low, and says a sweet thing.
“Why do you like me, Leon?”
What do you want from me, Leon.
He laughs a little. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Just … soon as I saw you, I liked you.”
“I didn’t ask you when. I asked you why.”
He’s quiet for so long, I wonder how bad his answer is going to be even though this doesn’t feel like any time to be honest—or maybe his silence says everything I need to know, that there is no real why. I could be any body.
“The red,” he says. “I don’t know. Just something about it made you…” He trails off when I want him to finish. Made me what? “I just thought, God, introduce me to that girl.”
He brings his hands lightly to my hips, asking me to face him and if I do, I know he’ll kiss me. I swallow, my mouth desert dry. This is it, isn’t it? This moment won’t pass. It has to happen. I turn and when I see him, he’s beautiful and I want that and it scares me and I kiss him and he kisses me back and I get so lost in it, I have to open my eyes to remind myself whose mouth is against mine.
The pressure of his lips is intense, gentle. I press against him and we take awkward, shuffling steps back. I put my hands against his cheeks. His skin is warm against my palms. He takes a breath and pulls me closer even though there’s no space between us as it is, and his touch is hungry, searching, like however much of me he has isn’t enough. We reach the bed. He sits and I put myself between his legs and he puts his arms around me and we fall onto the mattress. I’m dizzy with how he guides my body to it, like he doesn’t have to think about it at all, he just understands. And then I’m underneath him. Leon.
He brings his mouth close to my neck, and then runs his tongue against it and my skin tingles, everywhere. He’s hard. Against me.
Leon.
This is Leon.
I meet his lips with my own. And then his fingers tease the edge of my shirt, tugging at it, his hands trying to find a way under it and that’s when I still. His hand, my shirt. Close my eyes.
“Stop,” I whisper.
He—stops.
I open my eyes. He moves off me slowly, carefully, and blinks, dazed, like he was gone from his body or too far in it. He runs his hand over his face.
“Why’d you stop?” I ask.
He stares at me funny. “You want to…” His voice cracks. He exhales and tries again. “How about we get you something to eat.”
He stands and holds his hand out. I stare at it.
He doesn’t think I’m sober.
He doesn’t think I’m sober and he’s taking me out of the room with the bed in it.
We go back outside to the table full of food. He secures a paper plate in my hand and asks me what I like, tells me what he thinks I should try. Caro is there and she looks at Leon and then she looks at me and she smiles like she knows exactly what we were up to.
Later, after he drops me off at home, it feels like the world has shifted a little. It’s just different enough that when I look at the girl reflected in the mirror in my room, it’s like meeting someone new.
todd stands at the screen door and frowns at the layer of dust that’s been coating the New Yorker since we went to the Barn and has only gotten worse after he took the back roads out to Andrew Ryan’s house to see about the engine. Ryan is a prematurely retired mechanic who got pushed out of his seventy-year-old family business by Grebe Auto Supplies. Only trustworthy mechanic in town, Todd says, but he could be a crook, really—only thing that matters is he’s not a Turner. The engine’s good now, but the car’s black finish is mottled with dirt. It fits more with its surroundings than it doesn’t, but it’s driving Todd crazy.
“No rain,” he murmurs. “Wind’s not blowing it off.”
“You’re going to have to do something about it then,” Mom says.
“I know. I’m trying to decide if a wash and polish is worth the hurt.”
Todd ends the night and starts his morning with pills so his pain never really catches up to him, but he’s still got to pick and choose what he does carefully. He’s only good for about an hour in the car, behind the wheel. When it’s someone else driving, maybe an hour more, and that’s pushing it. Any heavy lifting is always someone else’s job. Todd knows what people say about him, that he’s lazy, good for nothing. But he does what he can when he can, whether or not they see, and fuck them for not seeing it. I offer to help him wash it.
The smile Mom gives me when I do goes all the way to her eyes because our being together in this house, air not thick with drama or tension—she’s wanted something this easy for so long and this is what having it looks like on her face. I think I’d kill the person who tried to take it away from her.
“That’d be great,” Todd says.
He heads upstairs and Mom goes to the sink and fills an old bucket with soapy water. When he comes back down, he’s shirtless and he’s got a ratty old undershirt in his hands. He pulls it over his head and Mom watches. I notice the way her eyes linger on his chest, his arms. She blushes. I swear I can see the skip of her heart.
I can’t remember her looking at my dad like that but she must have.
“This’ll go twice as fast with you,” Todd says. He goes into the hall for his shoes, reappears with them on a minute later. He never wears shoes with laces. Too hard to bend down and tie. “I appreciate it. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do on a Sunday afternoon.”
“Not really.”
Mom hands him some rags and a bucket. “A late lunch awaits you both.”
I follow Todd to the New Yorker, a mess. He makes me go around the house for the hose, and we start there, giving it a rinse. We could probably stop there if we wanted—looks good enough to anyone passing by—but Todd wants to prove he can make it gleam, so we keep going, working up a sweat.
“Wake Lake this Friday, huh?” he asks after a while and now I know Wake Lake is this Friday. “Andrew was talking about it. Figured it’d be soon.”
“You ever go?” I ask. “When it was your turn?”
“I did.” He squeezes some soapy water over the windshield. “You going?”
“Not really my scene.”
“Mine, either. I was fucked up on painkillers before I got there. The only thing I remember is watching your mom and dad make out through the bonfire.”
“That’s sad, Todd.”
“Yep. But I was no good to anyone back then.” He wipes his forehead with the back of his arm. “Paul—it was better it was him, then.”
“Better it’s you now,” I say.
Todd smiles crookedly. “Thanks, kid.”
He rubs his cloth along the driver’s side window and I dip mine into the bucket of lukewarm water. I’m running it over the hood when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I slop the rag down and wipe my hand on my shorts before checking who it is.
Text from Leon.
HI.
And then he adds, JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT TO YOU.
I chew on my lip, my phone cradled in my damp palm like a secre
t. I can’t stop thinking about last Friday night. I laid in bed after and ran that word over and over in my head.
Stop.
How he did.
It’s hard to explain how that lack of feeling him on me … felt.
I glance at Todd, who watches me tap out a text.
HI.
“That—” he pauses. “That the boy who picked you up for work the other night?”
My face gets hot in a way that’s got nothing to do with the weather. I don’t know how Todd knows. I don’t know if I want to know how Todd knows.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Saw you leave with him when I was just rounding the corner on my way home.” His voice is innocent as anything. He keeps his attention on the car.
“What makes you think it’s him?”
“Your face.” He shrugs. “Or maybe I’m mistaken.”
“Maybe you are,” I say. But I wonder if I gave something away like my mother does, something I had no control over—if I blushed. If anyone looking could see my heart skip.
i wake up with blood on my sheets.
I was eleven when I got my first period. A dull ache in my abdomen had me in the bathroom five minutes before I was supposed to leave for school. Five minutes after that, I was staring at my underwear, that weak streak of red. I wasn’t ready, but I didn’t have a choice. I remember searching the bathroom for pads, anything, and coming up empty. Dad was at work and Mom was at a dentist appointment for two impacted wisdom teeth. I stayed in the bathroom until a neighbor brought her home and she was too swollen and dopey to talk me through it, to say anything that meant something.
I was on my period the time I was thirteen and gross Clark Jenkins gave me a shy first kiss at Grebe Auto’s annual employees-only holiday party. I got it the day my aunt Jean died and there was no one left on my mother’s side. I got it the Saturday my father came home from the bar drunker than he could’ve paid for and cried at the kitchen table about how none of it was good anymore, just none of it.