Jumping Off Swings (7 page)

She reaches for her coat and elbows Caleb to do the same. Ellie and I are already in ours.

“Not now. Please.” Caleb turns red. I’ve never seen anyone blush as much as he does. Even his earlobes turn a deep pink.

“Oh, come on. It’s tradition! We can’t ignore the first snow — it’s bad luck!”

“Later,”
he whispers. But we’re all standing way too close for secrets.

“Out!” she yells, herding us through the door.

Outside, there’s a fresh white blanket of snow. We climb down the porch steps carefully. Liz scans the yard and points to a corner. “You there,” she says to Caleb. “Ellie, you go over by the sycamore. Corinne, you go over by the rosebush.”

It’s a good thing she points to it, because all I can make out is this stubby-looking thing covered with snow sticking out of the ground.

She’s directed us into a big triangle. She walks into the center of it, slowly sinks down onto her butt, leans back, and makes an angel, flapping her long arms and legs in the snow. Ellie and I stare in amazement while Caleb looks at us kind of apologetically.

“Down! All of you!” she orders. We obey. The snow sneaks into the neck of my jacket, but instead of being annoyed by it — which, believe me, under normal circumstances I would be — I’m thrilled. It’s like an ice cube down your back on a hot day.

Then I hear laughing. Ellie is actually laughing!

I flap my arms harder, as if I’m about to take off into the night. Huge, delicate snowflakes fall onto my cheeks. I stick out my tongue and let them melt into me.

When we sit up, we’re covered with white and we laugh some more.

“Happy now?” Caleb asks.

“Yes,” Liz says. “Now we’ll all make it through the winter.”

We stand up and inspect our angels. The heads point in different directions, forming a sort of giant snowflake.

“Drive carefully, girls.” Liz turns and walks back into the house.

Caleb says good night, too. He looks so cute with his hands stuffed in his pockets, his curly hair filled with snowflakes. If Ellie wasn’t here, I might do something about it. I’m not sure what.

But he looks at Ellie instead of me when he says good night. Figures. They always want Ellie.

But then he walks over to me after all. My stomach flutters.

I try to look pretty while wondering what this romp in the snow has done to my frizzy hair.

“Thanks for bringing her,” he says.

Oh. So much for the flutters.

“I mean, I’m glad you came.” He steps a little closer. Ellie is already heading for the car. “I mean, it was nice of you to bring her, that’s all. You’re a good friend. To her.” He steps even closer. One more step and we’ll definitely be touching.

“This isn’t coming out right. Sorry.” His cheeks are all blushy again.

“What are you trying to say?”

Ugh. Did that sound pushy?

“Um. Come back again. And you don’t have to bring Ellie.”

“OK!” I say, trying not to sound too excited and most likely failing. I would like to grab him and kiss him at least on the cheek, but I haven’t practiced for a while and I want any kisses I give to be just right. Especially the first one.

I smile my most practiced please-think-I’m-cute smile, pray I don’t have any raisin bits between my teeth, and turn away from him, stepping in the footprints Ellie left in the snow. When I get to the car, I look back and see Caleb doing the same thing in the prints his mom left. I stick out my tongue again and let a few of these magic snowflakes land on it.

Ellie and I don’t talk on the way home. I’m not sure what happened tonight, but I don’t want this feeling to go away. I wonder if Ellie is having the same thought — that speaking will break this spell. We watch the snow come down on the windshield and stay in our own dreams.

Just before we get to Ellie’s house, I glance over at her. She’s staring out the window, one hand resting on her flat stomach.

Caleb’s mom seems like a smart woman. I hope she’s right. I hope we do all make it through the winter.

M
Y MOTHER AND FATHER
are downstairs watching TV. Luke is down the hall in his room, listening to the Dead with his girlfriend, Maya. I wonder if they have sex. Probably. I bet it’s the good kind — the loving, gentle kind. I can tell by the way they are together. When I watch Maya, I know she’s happy to be with him. When they’re together, they touch without even knowing it. Like their bodies are each other’s and their own at the same time. I wish I knew what that felt like.

I pull up my shirt and touch my stomach where the baby is. I push down with my finger. I don’t think it can feel me, but I push again anyway.

Hello? Is anybody there?

Caleb’s mom touches him all the time. So much he doesn’t seem to notice. Her fingers thrum across his arm as she passes by, her hand rubs his back when she stands next to him, telling him she’s there without using words. It must feel good, being touched like that. I can’t remember the last time my mom or dad touched me.

Liz seems like the kind of person who listens, too. Like she wants to hear what you have to say, instead of wanting you to say only what she wants to hear. I hardly know Liz, but there was this way she looked at me that made me feel as though she could see right inside me. I wish I could call her and talk to her about everything that’s happened. How the boys I was with made me feel so special at first. Like I was wanted. Me.

You’re beautiful. I have to have you. You feel too good. I can’t stop.

I wish I could tell her I know now how stupid I was. How I saw them all talking about me at the last party. How they tried to smell me on his hands and how I threw up behind the van, only nothing came out and it didn’t get rid of that nasty feeling.

I wish I could call her and tell her how when I got home, I used a whole roll of that sticky lint-remover to get the dog hair off my clothes. How I haven’t worn them since that night and won’t ever again, even though they were new and it took me five stores to find them — they fit me just right and were the perfect amount of faded in all the right places and even skinny Corinne was jealous.

I wish I could tell her how every time I see any of those boys in the hall now, I have to run to the bathroom to get sick. Only until now, until I ate her wonderful bread, I hadn’t eaten enough to throw up, so only slimy mucus came out and I had to spit hard to get it out of my mouth.

I wish I could tell her how I have to wait for everyone in the bathroom to leave before I can come out so no one will know it was me getting sick in there. How I just want to cry but I can’t, because if I start, I know that I will never stop.

I wish I could call and tell her what’s really wrong. That I need help.

But Luke knocks on my door and asks if he can have the phone. Maya’s cell died, and she needs to call her friend Sky about homework. He grins at me because we both know that Sky is who they get their stash from, and soon he’ll be high and everything will be better for him. He doesn’t notice that I’m not smiling back. He doesn’t know that inside me there’s this baby and that pretty soon I’m going to get rid of it. And no one besides Corinne will ever know the baby existed. He just happily takes the phone from me.

So I can’t call Liz. I can’t call and tell her what’s happening to me.

I can’t call and ask her what I should do.

I can’t.

“B
ANG ANYONE LATELY?
” Kyle looks at me with a shit-eating grin. The locker room is hot and wet and smells like Dave’s feet, as usual.

“What’s it to you?” I say. I’m so tired of this routine.

Kyle shrugs. He’s still sweating, even though he already showered. He sprays some deodorant under his arms. I step back. I don’t know what brand it is, but it smells like one of those lame air fresheners my dad puts in the cars he works on to thank customers for giving him business.

“Well, if you’re interested, there’s a party at Ben’s this weekend.” He turns away from me and opens his locker. It’s totally organized. His regular clothes hang perfectly from the hooks, not all bunched in a heap like mine.

“Cool,” I say. But I know I won’t go.

Lately it’s like I’m living in some kind of dream. I’m walking down this hallway, and there are things happening behind the doors I pass. The people inside see me, but I only stop for a second to look in, then keep moving.

There’s my dad, talking on the phone with Mike, having the same conversation they’ve had every Saturday since I can remember. Even though he’s laughing, he looks sad. Like he’s given up on himself.

Then there’s Dave and the other guys in the locker room, pushing each other around, kidding about who they’ve felt up and fingered and who they still haven’t but wish they could.

And Caleb, giving me that
I know the real you
look.

There’s my mom in the kitchen, rushing to work every morning. She looks like she wants to say something to me, but instead she just turns away and hurries out the door.

And finally there’s the room I don’t look in at all. The one with Ellie in it. I rush right by that one.

“Don’t forget the party,” Kyle says as he slams his locker shut.

“Yeah,” I say. I pick up my stuff and wonder again if I should just quit soccer to avoid all this bullshit. I could take a study hall instead. I could use it to pick up my grades, because I am definitely getting out of this hellhole as soon as I graduate.

The instructor in my Intro to Architecture course told me I was good. Teachers never tell me that shit. So, who knows? Maybe I could actually go to college and escape.

When I get home, the house is empty. There’s a message on the machine from my mom. She’s working late again and says there’s money on the table for takeout, only when I look, there’s nothing there, which means my dad took the money to buy beer for himself and a crappy pizza from the cheap place down the street instead of something I would want, like Chinese.

Before I decide if I should wait for him to get back or just take off, the phone rings.

“Josh?”

My mom’s voice sounds a little nervous. She’s probably wondering if I’m mad at her for blowing us off again.

“I’m sorry I can’t be home tonight, honey. Did you get the money I left?”

I don’t want to be mad at her. I can’t really blame her for not wanting to spend time in this cave of a house.

“Yeah,” I lie. “Thanks.”

“Honey, maybe we could go out for lunch on Sunday. Your dad and Mike will be watching the game together. Or . . .” Her voice trails off, but I know what she was going to say. He’d be too tired. “It could be just you and me. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Yeah. That
would
be nice. But it won’t happen. Sundays are her volunteer days. Which means she’ll want me to go to the soup kitchen with her first.

“You’re busy Sundays, Mom. Remember?”

“Well, yes. I thought we could go to the soup kitchen together and then go out after. Just like old times.”

I knew it. I knew she wouldn’t give up her routine for me. She has to save everyone.

“I kind of have plans with Caleb,” I lie.

“Oh. Well, just thought I’d try.” She attempts to sound cheerful but doesn’t pull it off. I squeeze the phone tighter.

“Sorry,” I say. “Maybe we could go next week.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Why not?” But we both know not to get our hopes up.

“OK, honey. Get something good to eat tonight, all right?”

“Sure, Mom.”

After we hang up, I sit at the dining-room table, looking out the window across the yard to the house on the other side of the street. There’s this little old couple that lives there. Whenever they leave their house, Mr. Kestler holds his wife’s elbow and leads her to the car. He opens the door for her and helps her in before hobbling over to his side and slowly backing the car out of the driveway.

I try to imagine my own parents when they’re that age, my dad helping my mom into the car. But I just can’t see it. I just can’t see them together like that. I can’t even remember the last time I saw them touch each other. It’s hard to believe they ever did.