Skin (12 page)

Charlie and Devin texted each other already this morning. But Charlie and Devin aren’t Joshua and me. Every couple is different.

Joshua and me—oh my God—we aren’t even a couple. I don’t know what we are. I don’t know what last night was. Kisses are no big deal to some people.

We’re deep into the bucket of peaches when my cell finally beeps. Devin shrieks. “It’s him. He texted you.”

I take out my cell. She’s right. I read: “hey, lips.”

Lips. This is awful. I type: “dont call me that.”

“what should i call u?”

I type: “Sep.”

“r u mad at me?”

I type: “no.”

“really?”

I type: “really.”

“see u tonite?”

I type: “yes.”

“i miss u.”

I hesitate.

“Go on,” says Devin. She’s leaning over my shoulder. “Say you miss him, too.”

“You shouldn’t even be reading this.”

“Come on, I’d let you.”

“I didn’t read what you and Charlie wrote.”

“You could have if you wanted to. I didn’t stop you.”

“Please, Devin?”

She looks at me with her mouth all pressed shut tight. “I need to get home anyway. I better do my Spanish now if I’m going to be a good friend and go with you to the football game.”

“You’re trying to guilt me out.”

“Oh, you mean just because you’re going to jilt me there?” She smiles, washes her hands, and leaves.

Another message from Joshua: “u ok?”

I type: “i miss u too.”

“thats what i wanted to hear. what color r ur lips today?”

I’m so glad I put lipstick back on. I type: “brown.”

“chocolate?”

I type: “hazelnut.”

There’s a long pause.

Then: “didnt u say nuts make u schizo?”

I type: “i dont eat my lipstick.”

“i might.”

My stomach flips. I type: “its just a color—not a flavor.”

“ur own flavor is best anyway.”

My upper arms are all pin prickles. I have to press my knees together to keep them from shaking. This is absurd. I type: “stop there.”

“k. later.”

I go back to processing peaches.

What am I doing, getting romantic with a guy who’s going to be repulsed by me in a couple of months? Or sooner. I should tell him. Now. Or, if I don’t have the courage to tell him, I should walk away from him. Now. Only I don’t want to. I really, really don’t want to. I want this to last.

And I know it can’t.

After peaches, I translate Ovid. The passage is about the nymph Daphne. The god Apollo decides he wants to have her and he chases her, the big, galumphing rapist. As she flees, she calls to her father for help. So the father turns her into a laurel tree. And Ovid has the nerve to praise the transformation because it preserves her loveliness.

Poor Daphne, forever a tree.

What kind of father can’t think of anything better to do than that? If he’s so good with trees, he could have made a forest sprout up, hiding her.

Or he could have had trees sprout up and surround Apollo so he was locked away.

Or he could have made Daphne ugly so Apollo would forget about her. He could have stricken her with vitiligo.

Maybe I should drop Latin III, too. Only it’s too late now. Friday was the last day to change classes.

I finish reading
Their Eyes Were Watching God
and I feel better. Zora Neale Hurston is better than Ovid.

I get up and pace. I straighten my desk, put away pencils and pens, line up books. I pick a shirt off the back of my chair and carry it to the laundry hamper. I fiddle with the broken pull on my blinds. I need to stay busy, to not think about Joshua. Be a swift. Be a tuna.

Only nothing can keep me from thinking about how I’m lying to Joshua.

No, I’m not. There’s a difference between lying and not telling everything.

I touch my lips and they come alive. We kissed. We kissed and kissed and kissed.

My eyes burn.

There’s no good way out.

I LEAN TOWARD DEVIN’S ear. “They’re fighting down there. Look! Ouch!”

Devin glances around nervously. We are squashed in the bleachers near the hot dog stand, surrounded by football fans. “Whisper!”

“I am whispering.”

“Whisper quieter. You sound like a moron.”

The crowd cheers. The guys on the field are in a big pile again.

Devin pushes back the cuticles on her left hand and keeps looking around. I don’t get why she’s so on edge. No one can hear us with all this yelling.

“I don’t like football.” And I feel disloyal, because this is what matters to Joshua.

“Come on, Sep,” she hisses in my ear. “We’ve gone to games before and you’ve always liked them.”

“Maybe I never watched closely before. Look at them. They’re smashing into each other. They could get hurt for real.”

“It’s part of the sport.”

“Where’s the sportsmanship in that?”

The crowd boos and groans. I look out at the field. I can’t see the numbers on their uniforms; I can’t see 22. Well, that’s okay. If I could, I’d wince every time Joshua got jumped on. This way, I don’t even know. And now I realize why I’m being so critical—I don’t want Joshua hurt. I don’t want those big guys jumping on him. Joshua’s tall, but not as hefty as some of them.

“Dumb official!” screams the guy next to me. He looks older than my father. “Bad call, bad call!” I bet it was his son the call was made on.

“Look at that guy. He’s all mad. Maybe everyone is. Maybe no one’s having fun.”

Devin wrinkles her nose. “Everyone’s having fun but you. Look around. See who’s with who. Let’s talk about that.” She cranes her neck. “See Raquel? I bet that T-shirt is
a child’s size six, it’s so tight. Oh!” Devin looks toward the hot dog stand.

“Are you hungry?”

Then I see him: Charlie. Tall and willowy—as unlike a football player as anyone could be. No one’s going to tackle him—he’s safe.

I glance out at the field. Guys are getting into some lineup. Maybe they’re going to bash each other again. I wish Joshua would sit it out a while. And good grief, he would be horrified if he heard my thoughts; he loves this game.

I look back at Charlie. He’s scanning the bleachers. When he spies Devin, he smiles and waves.

She waves back and practically bounces on her seat.

“Did you tell him you were coming?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Did you plan to meet up with him?”

“Sort of.”

“So is this a reverse—are you the one jilting me?”

“Yeah. Unless you mind.” And I know she means it—she’d never ditch me if I asked her not to. She’s standing now. Waving again.

A chill comes. But this is her chance. “Go for it.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“I’m already gone. Good luck.” She puts her mouth to my ear. “Don’t get pregnant.”

“Funny. Very, very funny.”

Devin picks her way through feet and knees to the end of the row, and she and Charlie go up to a high row where there’s still space for couples.

I’m exposed. Alone. Just me and my thoughts.

Well, there are ways to kill thoughts.

I step over the hurdles to the end of the row, just like Devin did. People grumble, asking why I didn’t go past them when my friend went so I wouldn’t disturb them twice. I mumble apologies.

I buy a hot dog and smear on the smallest bit of yellow mustard. Food trumps thought any day.

Someone bumps into me and my barely eaten hot dog goes flying to the ground.

“Oops.” Crystal Lewis points at my hot dog and giggles.

Sharon Parker stumbles beside her. She doesn’t even look at the hot dog, but she giggles anyway and says, “Oopsh.”

I smell alcohol on them. I think it’s wine, but really the only drink I can recognize for sure is beer. This isn’t beer.

They walk a bit wobbly toward the Porta-Potties. You’d have to be major drunk to walk like that. Or maybe they’re putting on a show.

It was Crystal who bumped into me. So why do I feel like it happened on purpose? Could Sharon know Joshua was with me last night?

Sharon’s long brown hair, much lighter than mine, is wavy rather than curly. Her face is classically pretty—small nose, fine lips, thin cheeks. I touch my own face with my fingertips. We’re nothing alike.

I buy another hot dog, and this time I put on sauerkraut and beans and top it all with heaps of mustard. It’s good.

The far end of the bleachers is fairly empty, so that’s where I head. I sit high up and eat slowly. When I finish, I watch the game. Thankfully there are lot of time-outs, when nothing happens.

The laces on my right sneaker hang loose. I carefully take one end and pull it out of all the holes except the very last one. Then I tie a figure-eight knot in it. Then an overhand knot. And a double overhand. A slipknot. Then a running knot. Now a taut line hitch. When I was in Girl Scouts we didn’t do knots. But Dante’s Boy Scout troop did, and he taught me.

I undo all the knots and re-lace my shoe and tie it and try to watch the game.

It’s dark now. The spot on the back of my hand doesn’t show.

The game finally ends. We won. There’s a lot of jumping
and cheering and hugging and people clapping each other on the back. And that’s just in the stands. Out on the field the players are being mauled by fans.

The crowd leaves, but there are lingerers.

Gradually even they leave. The lights at the entrance to the stands go out.

And Joshua Winer walks this way. There’s no one else around, so he’s definitely coming toward me. His helmet’s in one hand. The pads on his shoulders and legs make him look like he shouldn’t be able to move so gracefully, but here he comes, kind of loping, like an animal that feels at home in the night. I brush the hair back from my face. My breath is already a quiet pant. He comes around the side of the bleachers and reaches up and puts his free hand on my shoe. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself, Joshua Winer.”

“Last names, huh? We getting formal?” His hand cups the top of my shoe and squeezes a little.

“Good game?” I ask.

“Didn’t you watch it?”

“Sort of. I mean, I was here.”

He laughs. “Yeah. It was okay. In fact, it was really good. So what did you do, if you didn’t watch the game?”

“I tied knots. In my shoelace. A half hour, maybe more, counted out in loops and twists.”

He puts his helmet on the ground, then holds out his palm to me. “Got a pen?”

“Sure.” I dig in my purse and hand him my favorite rollerball pen.

Joshua unties the bow on my right shoe. Then he unlaces it. It’s just a shoe, that’s all, it doesn’t even cover anything personal. But as he pulls the lace free of each hole, a shock wave goes up my body. I feel like he’s undressing me. I cross my arms over my chest and bury my hands in my armpits. And I’m aware suddenly that he’s covered in sweat. He gives off the smell of hard work. It’s a good thing my hands are pinned down, ’cause I have the urge to put them in his hair.

He leaves the lace still in the last hole, just like I did, and he attaches my pen with a neat chain hitch. He tilts his head at me. “Knots are meant to do work.”

“Smarty-pants.” I open my purse and take out my lip color. I attach it with a timber hitch.

“Nice. Got a key?”

I hand him my front door key, which dangles from a Rutgers University key chain—my dad’s alma mater.

He attaches the key with a clove hitch.

I feel inside my purse and come up with a pencil. I attach it with two half hitches. “That’s it. We’re out of lace.”

“That doesn’t mean you won.”

“I like ties,” I say.

“Spoken like someone who doesn’t do sports.”

“Knots aren’t sports.”

“Right.” He undoes all the knots, hands me my belongings, and re-laces my shoe. I feel like a little kid—and I remember how he practically lifted me last night, how he moved me so I was lying on top of him. I was wrong; I don’t feel like a little kid at all. My insides tighten.

He finishes lacing and ties a bow. Then he folds both hands behind my right ankle and rests his chin on top of my shoe and looks up at me. “Knots are good, Sep. But sports can be, too.” He gives a coaxing smile. “If you watch them.”

I laugh now, but his hands are on my ankle and they’re warm and it’s hard to think beyond that. “I’ll try harder next time.”

“I have to shower and change. Wait for me?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” He shakes his head and gives a confused smile. “You’re here on the bleachers alone. You’re here for me, right?”

“I guess. But why do you want me to stay?”

“Why not?”

“I hate that answer. People should have positive answers for things.”

“I do.” His voice is very quiet. “I do. You’re great.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“We’ve been going to school together since we were five years old.”

“And the last time you talked to me before this week was six years ago.”

“All right.” He nods. “You’re right. We went different ways…”

“Nuh-uh. You went a different way. I stayed where I was.”

“Wow. You’re angry.”

“I’m not angry. Or if I am, it’s not at you. Things are going on. Whatever. We’re in different places now. You’re the captain of the football team.”

“The way you say it…” He drops his head. When he looks up again his eyes fix on mine. “I’m captain, Sep, not quarterback. Quarterback’s the star player. I just try to hold things together. Team spirit, you know? You and me, we’re not that far apart. Or we don’t have to be. I don’t want us to be.”