Confessions of a Serial Kisser (12 page)

40

Interception

O
N MY ESCAPE TO THE LOCKER ROOM
, I got waylaid by Jasmine Hernandez. Jasmine Hernandez, who hadn't said boo to me since seventh grade. (And whom I haven't wanted to say boo to since she fell in with the fast crowd last year.)

"Are you here with Robbie?" she asked.

"No!" I said, giving her a curl of the lip.

"So you guys aren't going out?"

"No!"

"But I heard he dumped Sunshine because of you! And I saw Sunshine here with Stu!"

I shook my head. "He didn't dump her for me. I want nothing to do with him."

Her jaw dropped. "How can you want nothing to do with him? He is smokin'
hot.
"

I shrugged. "Go for it, Jasmine."

I resumed my trek to the locker room, and as I approached, a beacon of locker-room light shone on a girl gliding toward me. What a relief! "Adrienne!"

"I can't believe you're here!" she cried.

"I can't believe it either!"

"Wow, look at you!" she said. "Obviously you're not on a journalism assignment."

I shrugged. "It's a dance."

"So...have you danced?" She leaned in. "Have you kissed?"

I pulled her farther away from the locker-room light and told her all about Blake Jennings.

"Eeew," she said. "Ew-ew-ew!"

I shook out my ear. "I need a sponge mop!"

Adrienne laughed. "Spit spill in canal two!"

I laughed, too, then said, "You know, I don't think I'm going to find a crimson kisser here. How long do you have to stay? Can you come over, maybe spend the night? We could still catch a movie...or rent one?"

She pressed the light button on her wristwatch. "Brody's picking me up at eleven. I've got choir practice at nine tomorrow morning...."

"I'll get you there on time."

She looked at me skeptically, as we've been known to talk all night.

"C'mon!"

"Okay. But I've got to interview the DJ first. It shouldn't take long. You want to meet me back here in fifteen minutes?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

But after five minutes of watching glow sticks bob and waiting for Adrienne to return, I began feeling very self-conscious. My hands were suddenly odd and awkward attachments that didn't seem to belong anywhere. Then I realized that light from the locker room was shining on me. It began to feel like a spotlight. A spotlight on a dweeby wallflower with odd and awkward hands hanging out by the girls' locker room.

I finally moved toward the dark safety of the bleachers. I sat on the edge of the first row, alone, keeping an eye on the place Adrienne said she'd meet me.

Blake Jennings walked by with his arm around a girl.

She looked like a freshman.

I couldn't tell if her ears were wet or dry.

A few minutes later Sunshine Holden staggered by, possibly drunk, definitely crying.

Stu Dillard was nowhere in sight.

The bleacher seats behind me started thumping and shaking, and when I turned around, I saw Eddie Pasco coming toward me.

Eddie Pasco is Larkmont's soccer star. He foots a ball everywhere. Between classes, at lunch, after school, around the track, on the cross-country course...he and his soccer ball are inseparable. One of his girlfriends Magic Markered big eyes and oversized lips on his soccer ball and wrote "Eddie's True Love" when she dumped him. Everyone agrees it's one of Larkmont High's best breakups.

Eddie Pasco is also in my psychology class. He sits in the back fantasizing about soccer, much to Mr. Stills's obvious annoyance.

"I've never seen you at a dance before," Eddie said, sitting beside me.

"I'm not big on school dances," I confirmed.

"But here you are," he said, a twinkle in his eye.

I snorted. "I must be insane."

"Rumor has it," he said with a nod.

"Hey!" I backhanded him. "Not nice!"

He laughed. "So who you with?"

"Nobody." I eyed him. "You with the soccer ball?"

He gave me a very appealing, very seductive grin. "Not nice."

I shrugged, but I could feel myself blushing.

He maintained the sexy grin. "Feel like dancing?"

The memory of a soggy ear clouded my mind. "It depends," I said, scrutinizing him, "on what kind of kisser you are."

His grin grew broader. "Isn't that a little backward?"

"I'm not going out there so you can maul my ear," I said firmly. "I've had enough ear mauling for one night."

"Your ears are not what interest me," he said. Then he cupped his hand behind my head and pulled our faces together.

41

Wasted Breath

E
DDIE
P
ASCO TASTED LIKE BEER
. And spicy wings. With traces of burned or charred...something. The taste, the
odor,
was very distracting. Familiar, but not.

What
was
it?

Where had I smelled it before?

In...the bathrooms?

As my senses finally connected the dots, I pulled away from him, mentally slapping myself upside the head. Eddie Pasco was stoned!

"Hey! Where you going?" he asked, pulling me back.

"Uh...you're wasted?" I said, trying to free myself.

A disarming grin crossed his face. "Aw c'mon. I had, like, one beer and a coupla hits. That's it."

I broke away and said, "Sorry, I'm just not into that," but I felt oddly conflicted. I didn't want to be with a guy who drank beer and smoked pot, yet I'd basically asked a stoner to kiss me.

And the real killer was...it hadn't been a muddled gray kiss, or a barely pink one.

It had shot past crimson to fiery red.

42

Flashbacks

B
RODY WAS ALREADY WAITING
in the parking lot when we finally got out of the gym, so Adrienne begged off spending the night and I didn't put up much of a fight. I was still muddled over Eddie.

Adrienne hadn't seen the kiss, and I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her about it. I certainly wasn't going to spill it in front of Brody! (There are some things you just don't discuss in front of brothers, be they blood or adopted.)

So while Adrienne chatted about her interview with the DJ, I searched the radio for some decent rock 'n' roll to block out the residual tingles from Eddie Pasco's red-hot kiss. Nothing seemed to work, though. His kiss was like a forbidden flashback that I couldn't seem to block from my mind.

I was dropped off at the condo at 10:58, only to discover that my mom was not home.

"Dessert and coffee," I mocked. "Dessert and coffee, that's all."

I devoured rocky road right out of the carton, trying to cool the sizzle of Eddie's kiss.

Bite after bite just melted.

At 11:37 I finally put away the carton, washed off my makeup, and went to bed. I wasn't even close to sleeping when the digits on my clock said 12:02 and the muted jangle of bracelets and keys announced Mom's return.

"Have a good time?" I called. "You think maybe he's the one?"

She came into my room. "Please don't be like that. Your father and I had a lot to discuss."

Even in the dim light from the hallway, I could see she was dressed in a way I hadn't seen in a long time: fitted leather jacket, tight jeans, stylish boots...just my dad's style.

I pulled the covers over my shoulder and turned my back.

She continued: "I would have called, but I was afraid of waking you up...."

I flipped around and sat up. "How can you talk to him? How can you trust him? You know what he's capable of!"

"I'm not naive, Evangeline. But we were married for eighteen years. We have a lot of history, a lot of memories. It's very hard to let it all go."

I flopped back down. Let them have their history. Let them have their memories. I didn't want to think about him or her or what used to be.

I had a memory of my own that was refusing to go away.

43

Disconnection

M
Y DAD CALLED TOO EARLY
the next morning. (Okay, it was ten o'clock, but any time before noon on a Saturday is too early.) I knew it was him because I could hear my mother's side of the conversation:

"No, it's fine, I was up."

(The liar.)

"That's interesting...."

(Yeah, I'll bet.)

"No, I don't think that's a good idea."

(Finally! She's come to her senses.)

"I'll tell her."

(Wait.
Her?
Who?
Me?
)

"What was his name again?"

(His name? Whose name?)

"He must've just gotten it out of the phone book."

(Someone--some
guy
--was trying to reach me? Who?)

I suffered through a very long pause; then my mother's voice started up again. "
You
may think it's a good opportunity, Jon, but I know she'll just hang up on you. I'll give her the information."

She sounded so firm. So in control. So uncharacteristically
calm.

But after another pause, something began churning under the calm. "Jon, she's
not
dating," she whispered. "I would know, wouldn't I? And so what if she was? Are you forgetting that she's almost seventeen?"

(Yeah!)

"And why would he call
your
house? She would have given him
our
number!"

(Score one for logic!)

Then in a loud, testy tone she said, "Jon, stop! You are in no position to screen her boyfriends!"

(Boyfriends?)

"No,
you
listen to
me.
Stop being so controlling!"

When she hung up, I emerged from my bedroom and said, "That was tellin' him, Mom." I meant it, too.

She closed her eyes, and I could see that she was trying to collect herself, but her face stayed flushed, her nostrils flared. And after presumably reaching the calming number of ten, she shoved the phone notepad toward me. "As I'm sure you overheard, you had a call." She studied me. "Is this someone we should know about?"

"We?" I asked with an eyebrow suitably cocked.

"I. Is this someone
I
should know about?"

I read what was scrawled on the notepad and tried to act nonchalant as I said, "Just someone in my math class. Probably needs help with homework."

There was no
way
I was going to tell her about Robbie Marshall.