In Deep (15 page)

“What's this?” she says when I slide it to her in Enviro.

“Oh, just a little good-luck charm. And, thanks, too. Hey—you look really good today.”

She has on makeup. Not a lot, just some mascara and maybe a little blush. Lip stain. Just enough to notice. Her hair is different too—straighter somehow, shiny. And she's wearing a scarf.

She tries not to look pleased with herself; fails. “Well, I don't want Connor thinking I can only get gussied up for dates, right?”

She wants to seem cool. She almost pulls it off.

“That's right.” I nod. “But regular old slumpy Kate should still make an appearance from time to time.”

She makes a noise of protest. As though she's not ever slumpy.

I toss my head. I really am back to myself. “You don't want him getting all cocky, thinking he's the cause for your glowing metamorphosis. You're just doing all this because you feel like it. Certainly not for some boy.”

“But what if—?”

“I'm just saying, keep him guessing.” I wink. “They like it better when they don't know exactly what to expect. Besides . . .” I think about her protesting my advice last week, and now here she is, obviously all suckered-out on him but working it. All of it having worked. It boosts me even more. “You want him to like the real you, right?”

“Lip gloss and a little hair pomade isn't enough to hide the real me. Let's both be serious.”

There's the bell. The start of class.

“Yeah,” I whisper, smiling, knowing what I'm about to say will make her blush. “But you'd be amazed how finally getting a little action can transform a girl. You need to brace yourself.”

•  •  •

Woodham's apparently pretty serious about making us focus on these papers, because he gives us the whole class period to read through our other two sources—the ones with summaries due on Monday. While we do that, he collects the ones due today and grades them to hand back so that we can see where there's “room for improvement.” I try to focus, but he can't seriously believe that we'll read all this in one hour. Besides, it's more fun trying to distract Kate by drawing dirty little pictures on the edge of my paper and putting them where she can see. By the end of class, she's red faced and choking back giggles, and I feel like ten thousand bucks, at least.

Woodham hands back our summaries, but I don't even look at mine. I feel great. As Kate and I walk out of class, we're both still giggling.

“You're too much,” she says. “And yet”—she taps her chin thoughtfully—“I kind of want Connor to meet you. If you promise not to embarrass the shit out of me. My parents are already bad enough.”

She's shy about this, so I make sure not to laugh. Still, thinking of Charlie and his friends, that party at Grier's—the one with the swim team that feels forever ago now—it occurs to me that sometimes, people can be fun.

So I'm surprised, in a good way, when I find myself echoing Grier to Kate, “Yeah, maybe we could double-date.”

•  •  •

At practice I'm back to smoking everyone. Grier teases me about my date with Charlie tonight, about how sweet it is, and even though it's right there in front of Gavin—which, thanks a lot, dick, for insulting me in front of him—I don't bother responding to her. She can make fun of me and screw Gavin upside down ten ways to Sunday for all I care. He's still watching me when we leave the pool, and I know it. And, well, he should be watching me. Because shit, look at me. I am on fucking fire.

IT'S FUNNY THAT CHARLIE WANTS
to drive the three and a half blocks between our houses to pick me up on the way to Maria's, but whatever. Mom and Louis are delighted. I'm still high from how great this day has been anyway.

“Why, Charlie, we never get to see you!” Mom coos, giving him a big hug. Louis shakes his hand and claps him on the back, asks how his times are looking. Both of them are treating him as if we're actually girlfriend and boyfriend, like this is just the beginning of some future they can smile into for the rest of their lives.

It makes me suddenly feel the way I do with Charlie's mom, whenever I'm over there and she starts getting all chatty. Or how I've felt before, going on dates with him: trapped and
alone—pretending this isn't going to end. I plaster a fake-interested smile on my face while Charlie politely answers Louis's suck-up questions, but I can't stop staring at the picture of me, Mom, and Dad on the mantel, all of us smiling. Smiling because we don't know.

When I apologize to Charlie for Mom and Louis's annoying gushiness once we're in the car, he just shrugs it off.

“Eh. They haven't seen me in a while. And I'm a lot to fuss over.”

Something about the way he says it—his jokey, unruffled smile, maybe, and my gratitude that he's so sweet and reliable—makes me lunge at him. Probably it's just because we haven't been together for several days. But, in spite of my doomed feeling just now in the living room, I take his face in my hands and kiss him with the power of my whole body. And as I do, to my surprise, the fizzy feeling I had with Kate this afternoon bubbles up again. Soon my tongue becomes his tongue and the swirling between us melts the rest. I think,
Maybe it could still be good, even if it ends. It could still be, for right now, something nice.

“Okay, they really are watching us,” he says, laughing low.

When I look, Mom and Louis, indeed, are peering out the living room window. Giddy, dizzy, powerful, I smile big, wave. Charlie waves too. He starts the car and we back out, laughing together as we go.

•  •  •

“I'm so glad you could come!” Maria squeals, opening the door for us. She's in a swirly boho outfit that is totally surprising, considering the jeans and scoop-neck T-shirts she favors at school. Giant hoop earrings bob beside her merry cheeks, and several silver bangles chime on her thin wrist as she leans in to give me a hug. She's like a gypsy princess or something, glimmering with color and light.

“Thanks for having me.” I pat her back, a little stunned. “This is some kind of tradition, I guess?”

“Every Friday.” She beams. “Unless, you know, there's a school game or something. So, it's not, like, every Friday, because sometimes not all of us can do it, or there's something going on, but, gack”—she fans her hand in front of her face in a flutter—“you get the point. Oh, this is my mom.”

Coming toward us is a small, flowy woman with the exact same heart-shaped face, the same brown eyes as Maria's, only she is plumper and much more wrinkly.

“So nice to meet you. Welcome.” She grips my hand in both of hers as we shake. She's wearing three different scarves, and there's a waft of patchouli when she moves.

“Everyone's in the sun-room,” Maria says to me. Then, to Charlie, with eyebrows going up and down: “And Chris brought Juniper.”

Charlie makes a noncommittal sound and puts his arm around my shoulders as we follow Maria down the hall, past
the kitchen, and into a window-lined room full of tropical plants and wicker furniture. Ethan and Nora are there, leaning together over what looks like an intense game of War. Watching them is another guy I vaguely remember from freshman swim team—must be Chris—and the aforementioned Juniper, sitting ramrod-straight and holding a glass of lemonade like it might be poisoned.

“Ah, the lady of mystery finally joins us,” Ethan says, getting up to hug me and then Charlie. Nora drops her cards and rushes over to hug us both too.

“This is going to be so fun!” she squeals, trembling like a Chihuahua. Her excitement is both off-putting and kind of cute.

“Well, you know me and Chinese food,” I say. To say something. But really I'm feeling chalky white inside, looking at the card table. I haven't played many card games since Dad died. There hasn't been any reason to.

“Go Fish up next,” Ethan says, abandoning War and scooping up the cards.

“Awesome,” I say, shaking off my shock. “I totally rule at Go Fish.”

“And then we get serious. Spades, which we're all still trying to beat Nora at,” Maria says. I smile just to be polite. I used to rule at that, too. Unless my dad and his friends were always doing that annoying let-the-kid-win trick.

When Nora explains to me in her elementary school voice
that that there's actually intense scorekeeping involved and prizes at the end of the night, something in me clicks over from hesitancy to determination. Everyone else talks and laughs, barely paying attention, while I focus like my dad taught me on what cards they're asking for, what I might try to keep from them in my own hand. I beat them for several games, and when we switch to Spades, everyone can just forget about it. Doesn't even matter what the prize is—I'll be taking it.

It's Juniper's turn to deal when we hear the
beep-beep-beep
of an alarm-armed door opening somewhere.

“Dad!” Maria shouts, her face delighted. “How do the pork buns look?”

There's the sound of rustling plastic bags and a cheery hello, and then a tall, strapping, very fireman-looking guy stands in the doorway, holding his arms open, greeting us all with a giant smile. He has glasses and a gray beard, but still.

My throat goes dry. My eyes are furry and weird, and I can't breathe as I watch Maria and her mother hug him. Charlie squeezes my thigh under the table, but I jerk away involuntarily. The cards were one thing. Those I could master. This dad who looks a lot like mine, hugging his teenaged girl like that, is all way too much.

“You doing okay?” Charlie asks soft in my ear.

My eyes dart to everyone. The simple delight on their faces, the happiness around this room, the childish games. This
universe I've carefully avoided so well for so long: where there's a real dad and a real mom. A real whole family.

Suddenly I have forgotten about winning.

“I'm fine,” I finally whisper back to Charlie. “But isn't there anything to drink?”

His brows come together, disapproving. Before I can pretend I'm joking, Maria's mom waves us into the kitchen, where Maria's dad hands us plates and ushers us to the long, expensive granite counter laden with Chinese takeout containers. I have to rest mine on the edge of the counter just so I don't drop it. Then we're routed into the dining room, where there's a table longer than my bed. There are candles. Maria's mom sits at one end, and her husband sits at the other. Us kids are in between, like Snow White's dwarves. The dizzy feeling accelerates. I keep my eyes on my food because I can't stand seeing Maria's dad down there, though I'm not sure I can eat, either.

Maria's parents talk together about things they've read and heard this week—really sharing with interest—but they also want to hear about what we're reading, films we've seen. Everyone but me answers as though they've been waiting to be asked all night, but I can barely lift my water glass. From time to time, Maria's mom laughs in a way that wings out over all of us like a bird. At one point I realize it's over something I've said, though I'm not sure what. I swallow and try to smile back. I feel like the forks are made of paper and there's way too
much light in here. Like I might not be able to stand back up.

Finally there's the clearing of plates, Maria squealing something about cheesecake. There's a chance for the rest of us to escape to the bathroom or pretend we're interested in the books lining the shelves in the den. I grab Charlie's hand and pull him into the hallway at the darkest end, by a china cabinet and the door to what is maybe the guest room.

“You having an okay time?” He rubs my arms up and down.

All I want is to kiss him. I want his hand between my legs like Gavin's. I want all this—all of it—to drop away, disappear. When I go for his mouth, though, he dodges.

“Maria's parents are a trip, right?” Hands still up and down but holding me a little bit away.

“Sure.” The last thing I want to think about is Maria's parents. I push against Charlie, pressing my lips against the place where his come together: the place where he smiles. I peck at first, warming him up, but then my tongue moves in, hungry. He humors me a little but stops as the shadows change in the hall, everyone milling so happily in the kitchen. I ignore it, them, him, and grab his shoulders, pulling him closer.

“Hey,” he says, decidedly stopping me now. “Are you okay? This is a little—”

“What?” I'm angry, frustrated. He needs to just kiss me now. Now, now, now, so that I don't—

“There're just”—his hand gestures down the hall—“people.”

“So?” I'm still not letting go. “Don't my mad Go Fish skills drive you up the wall?” I hope he can't hear how my voice is shaking.

“They are pretty astonishing.” He smiles but sidles around me, out of the corner. “But can we cool it, just for now? I mean, I like it. Just—not here.”

On reflex, all the muscles in my legs stiffen, because the edges of my eyes are tingling again like I'm going to cry. To keep that from happening, I consciously squeeze everything in me harder for three seconds, four. Ten. Maybe if I do it hard enough, I'll get a cramp and can get out of here. I try to concentrate on only that, instead of being mad. Embarrassed. Irritated. Hurt. I don't want to be here with any of them.

Charlie strokes my arm again, but it's too late. I want to slap him away.

“Later, though, okay?” he says, trying to soothe me. “Most definitely.”

All I can do is blink at him. Before either of us can say anything else, Maria's voice calls down the hall: “What is it, you two? Raspberry or chocolate?”

“Why not both?” Charlie says, sliding his arm around me like nothing's wrong, moving us down the hall toward Maria and her stupid fattening dessert.

“Oh, I don't know,” I manage, hoarsely. “I might've already had too much.”