Pieces of Us (15 page)

Julie

K
yle meets us outside his and Alex’s townhouse. He’s hopping from one foot to the other, blowing on his hands and then rubbing them together. I smile at this and at him, and put my hand up in a half-wave. Like one of those hello gestures Pilgrims and Indians supposedly gave one another. It feels dumb right after I do it, and I put my hand down quickly, but Kyle smiles. Then I forget all about how I planned to keep it cool and run across the street, my bulging duffel bag dragging on the road.

I throw my arms around his neck, and it takes him two seconds to hug me back. Two seconds too long, but I guess he’s not used to girls running into his arms. Or seeing me as the running-into-guys’-arms type. I’m not used to that either. So I pull back first, since I’ve already shown too much. And, it’s here that I get Katie a bit. Her games from the summers. Her Jersey Katie vs. Catskills Katya. Maybe you can’t always let it all hang out.

“Let’s bring this in,” says Kyle, taking my duffel and resting his hand on my shoulder.

“Sounds good,” I say and glance back to see Katie and Alex wrapped around each other, hip to hip, mouth to mouth, like they can’t get close enough.

“Drink?” asks Kyle when we’re inside.

“Hit me,” I say, automatically feeling stupid, but Kyle laughs and gently punches me in the arm.

I relax. So Kyle and I are not the air-hogging type. We’re the Spit-playing, soft-punching, joking type, and that’s cool.

“Diet cola all right? Mom’s on a health binge this week. Too bad you didn’t come last weekend. We had mad chocolate here. She read it made you smarter. Or sexier. Or some crap.”

I sip the cola and make a face. I can drink diet at home. “Maybe there’s a secret stash.”

He shakes his head sadly. “She’s pretty committed to each hare-brained scheme she gets.”

“She around?”

“Nope. Working late.” He puts air quotes around the working, whatever that means.

I take another sip and hear Katie and Alex come in through the garage. Alex’s bedroom is down there. I wonder if Kyle will take me on a tour. Show me his bedroom in that grand, sweeping way like it’s the roped-off part of a museum. Show me the bed. We’d bounce, laugh, I’d throw a pillow and soon my arms would be pinned behind my head. I’ve been imagining this scenario since the summer. Chloe and I went over the details. “You have lots of lost time to make up for,” she said when she found out we’d only kissed this summer. I told Chloe it was fine. I didn’t need more. But I did. I do. I want the breathless kiss.

Kyle cocks his head and smiles like he’s trying to figure me out. Then he takes my hand and says, “Tour?”

My heart thumps, but I play it cool. “Sure. Show me your abode.” And then I want to kick myself because who talks like that, and why am I the only person on the planet who uses words on the vocab list in real life?

Of course, Kyle laughs. We’re a match made in geekdom. Or my half is, anyway.

He shows me the bathroom—fluffy purple carpets, purple walls, makeup mirror with Hollywood lights around it that glow a light lavender when turned on, fuzzy purple toilet seat cover. “She always wanted daughters, and we never cared enough to redecorate. Once, though, Alex drank himself sick and purposely puked all over the seat cover. He bought her a white cover as an apology. She cleaned the purple one and put it back.” He shrugs.

“Interesting.”

“I know. Moving on.”

There’s an office, which I guess his mom worked in once a upon a time, and a guest room decorated in tans and browns, something out of a catalogue for sure. Then we get to Kyle’s bedroom. I don’t know what I expected. Some posters? Trophies that reveal a Kyle I don’t know? But it’s … plain. The walls are white, the bedspread navy with no patterns at all. There’s a desk in the corner with open math and history textbooks, a notebook, a calculator, protractor, and a planner. The Berber carpet is my favorite part. Makes me think he and I have something else in common even though I’m sure he didn’t choose it. There’s a TV in the center of the room, with video games underneath it. Old video games—the joystick kind, some with the fancier controllers with the up/down keys like I’ve seen in gaming stores. No Wii or anything close to that. That has to mean something.

“Old school,” I say, nodding at the Nintendo Mario Bros. cartridges. Right next to it is an Atari base that—no joke—has to be an antique.

He blushes. “They were my dad’s. If I want to play anything current, I just go to Alex’s room.”

I move to his bed and plop down. Surprisingly, it bounces. I would have pegged the mattress to be really firm or saggy, not bouncy. “Nice.”

He’s still by the video games. I bounce on the bed again to give myself something to do, to maybe make it look fun so he’ll come over. He doesn’t.

“Wanna play?” I ask, getting off the bed and sitting beside the games.

This makes him happy. I finally hear movement downstairs in the kitchen. No question what Alex and Katie were doing this whole time. Kyle puts pillows behind us so we can lean back. Our shoulders touch. Our knees touch. And we play.

Katie

S
outh Street in Philly is crazy. Alive. Lit up in the dark. So many sounds, and it’s like the electricity from the street lights and store signs has entered everyone who walks on the ground. Cherry Hill has nothing like this. The noisiest, most happening place we have is the Cherry Hill Mall, and the sounds there are just incoherent noise, not living energy.
This
is what would make my mother breathe. I wonder if she was ever here. If she was, I don’t know how she was able to leave. I don’t know how we’ve lived in Cherry Hill all these years, and the only time I visited Philly was on an elementary school trip to see the Liberty Bell. It was cracked.

That time, it was just museum and back on the bus.
Your father doesn’t like the city.
I remember Mother saying that now. I can see that—for him, anyway. My dad is all about the peace and quiet. Maybe that’s why he chose Cherry Hill—a place where trees actually blossoming with real cherries would have been too much action. Or maybe he’d only visited the Liberty Bell too, and never set foot on South Street. Maybe he just doesn’t miss what he doesn’t know.

“This is
amazing
,” I say to Alex. “How are you not here all the time?”

Alex shrugs. “I guess it’s a little too indie for me.”

“Not for me!” I yell, taking his hand. I pull it so we can run through the crowds. He laughs as we bump into people. They’re all too absorbed in their own chats and cell phone worlds to give us dirty looks. They don’t even notice us. It’s a rush not to be noticed. To be crazy, wild, goofy and not worry someone will text about it or graffiti the bathroom walls. To not walk around and wonder if anyone here knows anything about the old Katie.

He pulls me to him and kisses me deep in the middle of the street. People walk around us like we’re a permanent fixture. The kiss is a surge of power in the already blazing street. When we pull apart, I’m on fire in spite of the cold.

“I should have invited you here sooner,” Alex says.

“Well, now that I’ve been here, I’m never leaving.” I almost bite the words back, but he grins.

“Sounds good to me.”

There are so many stores, and it’s past nine but they’re all open. Which makes sense, because if you lived here, why would you want to sleep? My stomach growls and I want to ignore it because it would mean sitting down, and all I want to do is bounce, but Alex is already pulling me toward a pizza place called Lorenzo’s.

We don’t go in right away, and he steps back as I take it in. Rows of muraled storefronts. The pizzeria is sandwiched between a building with a blue and red painted facade. I imagine that the people living in that apartment are super artsy types, the types who have Picasso-inspired paintings on their walls. The drawing above the pizza place, though, is even more jaw-dropping. It’s a life-size painting of a chef flipping dough, rolling pin on the table.

“You have stuff like this in Cherry Hill?” asks Alex.

I laugh. “Not even close. We have a wicked mall, though.”

“The pizza here is big as hell. Bet it’s the best you ever had, too.”

I feign shock. “Not where you work? Isn’t coming here like treason or something?”

He rubs his chin in thought. “You may be right. Better not tell them.” He winks, leading me inside.

There are more murals in the restaurant. Layers of an American flag over a skyline, painted lights, hearts, bubbly shapes of seats. There are no actual seats, and we stand by the counter. It has one of those mirrors that seems to go on for infinity when you look in it. Row after row of my face and Alex’s. My legs are a little tired, but the pizza is good. Crisp, thin. Not the overly doughy kind the pizza places at home have.

We’re only alone for a few minutes before it’s packed with other guys and girls hanging all over each other. Laughing and smiling and talking too loudly. At Cherry Hill, this scene would make me tense. I’d look around for faces I knew, stiffen at anyone who rubbed too close against me, but I’m relaxed here. I slide to the floor and sit cross-legged, finishing my slice. Alex wasn’t kidding about how big it was. I try to eat it neatly but give up.

“Good eats, right?” says Alex. He’s already finished his two slices.

“Uh huh.” It’s been a good night, and now that we’ve had time to rest, I realize how tired I am. I could sit here for a while longer.

“Fuck,” Alex suddenly mumbles under his breath.

I glance at him to see what upset him, but I can’t tell. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Let’s just go.” He pulls me up quickly and pushes me toward the door. But he’s not looking forward, just back. I look back too to make out who spooked him. There are so many kids it’s hard to tell.

Outside, the cold whips at my face, and it’s harder to get sucked into the noise and lights. Alex keeps looking back as he walks. “What happened in there?” I touch his arm but he’s walking so fast, my arm falls away.

“Just saw some people I could do without. No big, okay?”

I nod. “Okay.” I know what it’s like to be surrounded by people you don’t want to see.

He finally stops after we’ve walked some blocks. He takes my hands and turns me to him, then touches my cheek with his hand. “I’m sorry about that. You don’t need to be dragged into my mess.”

I want to laugh.
Me
dragged into
his
mess? He has no idea. “All I care about is being here with you.” I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him on the lips. I try to transfer warmth and safety because that’s what I know I would need.

“You’re amazing,” he says when we’ve pulled away. My teeth chatter and I put my mittened hands in my pockets.

“You looked so comfortable eating pizza. How about we get you a seat?”

The world is spinning colors and voices fly in all directions, but all I want is to rest beside him. “Lead the way.”

Alex

I
t was going great. Just me and Katie and her getting all gaga over South Street. Don’t know the last time I really walked around and looked at everything. And I’m sure when I did, I didn’t look at shit the way she does.

So we’re just chillaxing at Lorenzo’s when Jasmine walks in with her posse. I fucking swear that bitch is stalking me. Since her almost raping me at Tony’s two weeks ago, she’s fucking everywhere. She needs to get it through her head that I don’t go after used-up trash.

I know she saw me, too. Those black eyes zeroed in on Katie like she was a bull’s-eye. Fuck if I’m dealing with that shit tonight. So now we’re at Cosi, doing the clich
é
d date s’mores thing. But for me, it’s not typical. I’ve done lots of the fucking thing, but not so much the holding hands lovey dovey thing. Katie takes her hair out of her ponytail and puts the elastic on her wrist. Even that drives me crazy. Then she dips her finger into the chocolate and brings it to my lips. I lick it down. Shit. How does she make me want her this bad?

“Good choice,” she says, taking my hand and sucking on my finger. Her mouth does all the stuff I’d seen it do before and it’s just as hot on my finger. “You like that?” Her voice is throaty. “There’s more where that came from.” She spears a marshmallow, dips it in the chocolate and takes little bites around, teasing me. Like she doesn’t know she’s driving me crazy.

She feeds me a chocolate-dipped marshmallow and sips her hot chocolate. I wonder if Mom will show tonight. Not that it changes anything. She’s never cared about the chicks I brought home before. She basically ignored all of them or just yelled about them eating our food. With Jasmine, it was the perfume. Mom claimed she knew when she was in the house because it smelled like roses—the “cheap-ass” kind. I don’t know cheap from expensive, but the smell gave me headaches. Still does.

Katie has stopped trying to be sexy and is inhaling the marshmallows. I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. It’s good to feel chill.

But then there’s a voice at my ear. “He-ey,” she says. “Haven’t seen you around, yo.” My eyes snap open and the rose stink hits my nose.