Yes. ten mins.
All I’m doing is sitting there, engine running, my heart beating fast in my throat for no reason, when Sam’s Cutlass pulls in next to my driver’s side. He gets out of his car and climbs into mine, shuts the door and turns to me.
“What happened?” he asks, worried.
I shake my head. Nothing happened. Nothing new. It’s just everything else, weighing on me.
“So no one’s hurt?” Even behind his glasses, I see the relief in his eyes, the way it relaxes his shoulders. He breathes out and rubs his face with both hands. “Jesus. I thought…” He trails off instead of finishing the sentence.
My whiteboard is at home. I wasn’t expecting to need it. I dig through the glove compartment and find an old gas station receipt and a Jelly pen, use the light from the outside lamp to scratch out some words.
I keep thinking about Noah.
He swallows hard. “Yeah?”
I don’t know what to do.
This applies to, like, my entire life, really, not just the Noah situation.
“I know.” Sam’s voice sounds strange. A little choked. “Andy was right, you know. What he said. I’ve been…avoiding Noah, because I’m—I don’t know. It’s too hard.”
He swallows, looking away from me. I’m suddenly, brutally struck with how much what I’ve done has hurt him, too, even though I know he doesn’t see it that way. Still, it makes the way he treats me even more baffling.
“I know I didn’t have anything to do with what happened, but I still feel all this guilt,” he says. “Like I should’ve stopped it somehow. I have no idea what to say to him.”
Maybe you don’t have to say anything, I write. Maybe just being there is enough.
“Maybe,” he says quietly. “I keep telling myself I’ll go. I just…I can’t make myself do it. I know I should be doing something to help, but I don’t know what. I’m supposed to be his best friend, and I can’t even bring myself to be in the same room as him. What does that say about me?”
That doesn’t make you a bad person, I write.
He laughs, low in his throat. “I’m pretty sure it does, actually.”
You are the best kind of person.
He stares at the words like he doesn’t understand them. “You really think that?” he says.
I reach out and cover his hand with mine so he knows exactly what I think.
“Chelsea,” he says, barely above a whisper. I love the way he says my name, like it’s something he wants to keep safe. I sway a little toward him.
And then we’re kissing.
It’s weird how comfortable it feels. With Joey, it was always awkward, his hands rough on the back of my neck, his tongue wet and weird in my mouth. But Sam is so gentle with me, lips barely brushing mine, one hand lightly cupping my cheek. He pulls back before we’ve hardly started and looks at me for a long time.
Well. That was unexpected.
I mean, there’s kind of been a vibe. But I’ve never been good at reading these things. It’s too easy to confuse friendship with something more. Especially when you’re looking for it.
His eyes search mine, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s wondering the same thing, about me.
“I should go back to Rosie’s,” he says softly.
I nod, a little shaky. What we did—it was barely even a kiss, but I feel like I’ve just finished running a marathon. Completely out of breath, every limb as boneless as rubber.
He gets out of the car, walks around toward his. I roll down my window and am met with a blast of cold air. Sam sees me motion to him and, after a heartbeat of hesitation (please don’t leave, please don’t just walk away, please please please, my brain screams), he comes over, ducks his head to my eye level.
I don’t say anything. Of course. I reach a hand out, brushing it slowly through his brown hair. It looks almost reddish under this sticky light. I draw him down to me. We kiss through the open window for a little while, my face cold from the whistling wind, my back warm from the car’s heat, Sam’s mouth soft against mine.
When we stop—I can’t tell which one of us breaks away first—he keeps his forehead pressed to mine.
“So,” he says, a smile playing on his lips, “does this mean you’ll be my date for Winter Formal?”
days
twenty-eight &
twenty-nine
Discombobulated. It’s a word my mother often uses, and one that happens to describe me perfectly at the moment. I feel turned around and pulled inside out, all out of whack. But in a good way. I think.
I also like the way it sounds, even in my own head. Dis-com-bob-u-lated. Every syllable pops.
I’m worried that kissing Sam is going to make everything weird between us, but when I go back to school on Thursday, everything feels the same. I go to art class and we work on the project—we’ve moved on to the painting phase—and nothing is different; I spend the whole weekend at Rosie’s, and nothing is different. It’s sort of disappointing. I keep waiting to see if he’s going to kiss me again, but we’re never alone together, so I’m left to overanalyze every fleeting touch.
The one thing that has changed is that suddenly everyone is on board with the idea of going to Winter Formal. Even Andy.
Asha is, predictably, thrilled by this development.
“Six days!” she sings every time she dumps more dishes for me to wash. I glare at her receding back as she prances back through the swinging doors and to the dining area.
Six days. Six days, and I’m going to be facing every person at this school who hates me. I don’t even have a dress yet.
Sam hasn’t mentioned it since that night at the hospital—am I really going to be his date? For real? Or was he just joking? It doesn’t matter. Either way I’m going. I’ve committed.
Later Asha says, “I know a place to look for dresses,” while we’re sitting in one of the booths. She’s finally showing me how to knit. I suck at it, surprise, surprise. But Asha says if she can teach me geometry, she can teach me anything. Today I actually got an A- on a pop quiz, much to the surprise of myself and Mr. Callihan, so I figure she must be right about that.
I cock a skeptical eyebrow at her as I loop the black wool through the needle. Wherever this place is, it better not be in the mall. No way am I stepping foot in that place again.
“There’s this little vintage shop on the west end,” she explains.
I don’t know the west side of town as well as I know the east end. Every place worth visiting is near the lake, and all of the firmly middle-to-upper-middle-class housing is on the east, including my house and Asha’s. But the west side is safe. Mostly it’s all apartment buildings and liquor stores and low-end groceries. There’s no way Kristen or anyone from her posse would be caught dead over there. The next day after school, Asha and I drive over to the vintage shop, this little place called Recollections. I’ve never been. The inside smells musty, like mothballs, and so do most of the clothes on the racks.
Asha pulls some ridiculous top hat on her head. “What do you think? Maybe I could show up in a tuxedo,” she says, and then sneezes. She sets the hat back down. “Or maybe not.”
Most of the clothes here aren’t true vintage. There’s a lot of crap from the eighties—old KISS band T-shirts, NASCAR sweatshirts, denim jackets, neon-colored track suits. But there is one section, toward the back of the store, a rack of old dresses. I sift through them while Asha looks throug
h some nearby shoes.
Too poofy. Too slutty. Too churchy. Too pink. Crap. All crap.
And then.
It’s like the heavens parting, the light shining down, angel choirs launching into jubilant song. It’s how I felt when Dex offered me the dish-girl job, how I felt when Mr. Callihan handed me back the quiz I aced, how I felt when Sam leaned in to kiss me in the car. The feeling that this is right. This is exactly how it should be.
I’ve found the perfect dress.
* * *
I’m pretty sure my day can’t get any better, but then I get home. I kick the door shut with one foot, careful not to let the plastic bag carrying my new dress drag on the floor.
“Chelsea? Is that you?” It’s Dad, calling from the living room.
Before I can make my way over, he finds me. Mom’s right behind him, a bottle of wine in one hand. Dad skids into the hall, practically running, and this giant grin on his face. I don’t know what’s more shocking—the fact that he’s smiling, or the fact that Mom is home. On a Tuesday. Before nine o’clock.
“Honey,” he says, out of breath, “I got a job.”
He grabs me in a hug before there’s time for this news to sink in. I drop the bag on the ground and hug him back. A job? A job. I’m so, so happy for him. When he lets go, he’s still smiling, and Mom is…laughing. Laughing!
It’s nice, for once, to be proven wrong.
“It’s at the Harrison dealership across town,” he says, all in a rush. “Selling cars. Your friend’s dad owns the place. He called Saturday, I interviewed this afternoon, and he offered me the job on the spot. I start next week.”
Mom smiles at me. “I took the night off to celebrate. Come on, we’re watching movies.”
We spend the night on the couch, together as a family, popping in a DVD of Dad’s favorite film, Caddyshack, one of his arms wrapped around my shoulders and the other around Mom’s. Every so often I catch them making eyes at each other.
Sam. This is because of Sam. He put this look on my parents’ faces.
If he was here right now, I’d totally make out with him.
day thirty-one
I settle for giving him a huge hug the second I see him the next day in art class.
Of course, the sentimentality of the moment is all but ruined when I nearly knock over the open paint bottles in my exuberance. Sam laughs, catching me around the waist, and I don’t care if everyone in the room is looking, I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care, I could kiss him right in front of everyone. But I don’t.
“My stepdad told me last night,” he says. He keeps his hands on my hips, even after I’ve released him from my death-grip-monster-bear hug. I like that. “I’m really glad it worked out.”
We sit down on the floor, and I pull out a notebook and pen from my bag.
What’s your stepdad like?
Sam looks at the page. “What, afraid he’s gonna be a bad boss?”
Is curiosity a crime now?
“Sometimes,” he says, grinning. “Peeping Toms, for example.”
I punch him in the shoulder.
“Ow!” he laughs, rubbing his shoulder. “Violence is so unnecessary.”
I write, I’m SERIOUS!! I know nothing about your family.
And, by extension, nothing about Sam’s personal life. Which, let’s be real, is really what I’m getting at.
“Mick’s okay.” Sam shrugs. “I mean, you always hear these horror stories about evil stepparents, but he’s not bad. He has two daughters—both older, one’s married and the other’s at Mount Holyoke—so he’s done this before. Doesn’t get on my ass too much.” He stops and unscrews a bottle of black paint. “And he makes my mom happy. That’s what matters, you know?”
I do know, actually. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel this way—so happy, glowing, lighter than air. Maybe everything is finally turning around. Maybe things are only going to get better from here on out. I mean, I have people now—Sam and Asha and Lou and Dex, and Andy, too, maybe. I have the diner. I have a life. A different one than before, but maybe this one is better, because it’s totally and completely mine.
And the art project, due tomorrow, has turned out kickass, too. I’m pretty proud of the result. Charles Schulz would be giving us some major props, for sure.
“Hey, didn’t they teach you in kindergarten how to stay inside the lines?” Sam teases when I accidentally get a little red outside of Snoopy’s doghouse.
I respond by sweeping my paintbrush over the bridge of his nose so it leaves a smear of red.
“Oh, no you didn’t,” he says with a mock gasp, and retaliates by painting my cheek yellow. I scream and roll away, shrieking with laughter, and when I see Sam laughing, too, all I can think is that it would be so, so easy to tell him everything on my mind.
I can’t believe someone as good as you exists. I can’t believe you even want to be around me. I can’t believe how lucky I am when just weeks ago I thought my life was over.
The words are bubbling up in my chest, I swear I can feel them, ready to spill over, but then…they don’t. And the moment is over.
Sam doesn’t notice, of course. He wipes his palms on his jeans and offers a hand to help me sit up.
“You look ridiculous,” he says, his thumb brushing the splotch of yellow he streaked under one of my eyes.
I could tell him everything, but I don’t. And I don’t know why. What is my vow accomplishing anymore? Why can’t I just speak, say what I’m dying to say?
I don’t know what I’m waiting for.
* * *
“I’m telling you. Purple. It’s the way to go.”
“If you paint this place purple, I’m quitting. Swear to freakin’ God.”
Dex and Lou are arguing about redecorating again. It’s not serious, of course, no matter how many times Lou threatens to walk out. For the record, I’m on her side. Yes, the current beige walls are too boring for this place, but purple would look atrocious with the red vinyl booths. Unless Dex wanted to replace those, too. Really he should pick something striking. Gold, or maybe bronze.
“You should go with blue.”
Lou and Dex stop their bickering and look over. I swivel on the stool, too, to see a cute boy with spiky hair and the cockiest smirk I’ve ever seen leaning over the counter. The dark-haired girl next to him rolls her eyes, but from the way they’re standing, it’s obvious they’re together. Like, together together, not together just as friends, or in the weird friends-with-benefits ambiguity sense Sam and I currently are.
“I’m sure they really want your input, Jake,” she says dryly.
“What? I’m just saying.” He grins at her, and she bats him on the shoulder.
“Actually…” Dex twirls the whisk in his hand around a few times, which is how I know he’s considering the suggestion. He always plays with utensils or counts down the till when he’s deep in thought. Once I saw him do all these tricks with a spinning egg on a silicone turner while he was talking to Andy about replacing the milkshake machine. “That…that could work.”
“Blue…” Lou folds her arms over her chest, looking thoughtful. She nods slowly at Dex. “I like it. Blue would look good.”
“See?” the guy—Jake—says to the girl. “Some people appreciate my genius.”
“Oh, yeah,” she says around a grin, “today it’s interior design, tomorrow you’ll be tackling world peace.”
Dex gives them their takeo
ut bag and tells them it’s on the house.
Lou comes over and refills my Coke, careful not to splatter any on my open history book. We’re studying the Elizabethan era. As far as historical figures go, Queen Elizabeth I is pretty badass—telling the royal court to go screw itself and refusing to marry and shaving her head and declaring herself a Virgin Queen. Even though Mrs. Griffin, my social studies teacher, says the queen still had all of these affairs anyway.
Good for her. Who wants to be a virgin forever? I mean, it’s something I’ve thought about, obviously. People always assume only teenage boys have an obsession with sex, but girls do, too. The difference is that most of us want it to mean something. We’re complicated. We need more than magazines and badly acted pornos to get off.
Since Sam and I kissed, sometimes I find myself imagining. Just a little. And for the first time, when I’m thinking about it, I’m not worrying about how much it would hurt, or if I’d be doing it right, or how awkward it might be; I’m wondering if it would feel as comfortable, as natural and right as it did when he kissed me.
Not that it matters—we haven’t done anything since. Or even talked about what happened. Maybe it was nothing more than a fluke. Maybe he’s not even interested.
Lou says, “So I heard you’re all going to some winter dance this Saturday?”
I nod and flip to the next page of my textbook. Andy and Sam said they’ve already picked out suits to wear. Asha never bought anything from Recollections, but she says she has something else in mind, and she’s been all mysterious about it ever since. This morning I pulled my dress out, laid it on the table and started making measurements, figuring out where to take it in and how far to adjust the neckline. I can already see the finished product in my mind. It’s going to be so absolutely perfect.
The urge to whip out my notebook and sketch more ideas for the dress is tempting, but I force myself to focus on history. There’s a test tomorrow, and I’ve been on a roll with this academic kick; I’m self-aware enough to know that if I slip now, I will inevitably succumb to a slacker spiral and never get on top of things again.