The Things You Kiss Goodbye (14 page)

There was only a second—just time for his eyes to soften the littlest bit—when a reprimanding sort of yell came from doors of the main gym. The basketballers were being called to the court. Brady was gone in an instant.

I tested my knee. It didn’t feel great but it held and slowly, I started to the aux gym. It dawned on me how much I hated basketballs—had
always
hated basketballs. In gym classes, they were my nightmare; something my hands were too small to hold and my arms could never push up or away. It sucked
getting hit in the tips of the fingers with them, and was there anything heavier, uglier, or clumsier than a basketball? I hate, hate,
hated them
! My eyes welled up.

I pushed on the door to the aux gym, heard the squad actually calling out a cheer. I stopped in the alcove and took a drink at the fountain. My knee throbbed.

Buck up and get in there, Bettina
.

I did. I let myself down onto the lowest seat of the bleachers just as they finished their cheer. Of course I caught every eye in the gym. “Sorry I’m late,” I said. I set my strangling sneakers down on the bench beside me. “And I just screwed up my knee, so I can only walk through our routines today. I’m sorry,” I said, and as those words went off my tongue, in jogged Brady Cullen. He had an instant-ice pack, and he gave it a pump between the heels of his hands to activate it.

“For your knee,” he said. Then, being quick and adorable, he swung a leg over to straddle the bench and scooted up close to me. He wrapped both arms around me and hugged me tight.

The cheerleaders all said, “Aww . . .”

Brady planted a bunch of mini kisses at my temple, in my ear, and again, the cheerleaders cooed, and even I could not squelch a ticklish grin all because of his breath in my ear. That made me madder. Then Brady jumped up again. He patted the ice pack onto my knee. “I gotta run,” he said, and he did. Back to his own Goddamn gym.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
DID NOT TELL
M
OMMA AND
B
AMPAS ABOUT MY KNEE
. I’
D
had dancing injuries before, and I figured I knew what to do. Besides, I didn’t want them to make me stay home. I retreated to my bedroom after supper as usual, where I iced and elevated. I dug a compression wrap out of my old ballet bag and wound that on there. For the next several days, I wore it under my jeans. Whatever had happened to the knee it was not so bad as to make me limp. I could put weight on it and I could bend it and the knee would only ache. But if I did both, it hurt like a bear.

In spite of the fact that I could not jump or lunge, it was my full intention to get through the day and go “be a cheerleader”
as scheduled, and to walk through every moment of practice and try to be loud. But in the late afternoon there was something waiting for me at my locker: Brady.

“Hey,” he said, and he leaned down to kiss me.

“Hey,” I said.

“What do you say we cut last period? We can go to my house.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think so,” I said. I focused on the contents of my locker. “I need my study hall, and I’m conserving my mileage. My knee hurts, and I still have to get through practice.”

“It hurts? Even after I brought you that ice?”

“Even after that,” I said. “But I would like to see you. Alone.”

“Yeah?” He brightened.

“To talk.”

“Okay . . .” he said slowly, “that sounds some like heavy shit.”

I shrugged.

“So, we’ll talk on our way down to the tiger together after eighth and—”

“Not what I had in mind,” I said. I kept calm as I shelved my books.

“Come on, P’teen-uh. What are we talking about here?”

I stepped back from my locker, not willing to be in the
way of that door should it suddenly swing. I was keeping one eye on Brady Cullen, and right now, he didn’t look so good. His cheeks were slack and taking on color. His eyes darted and he adjusted his books under his arm.

“I was thinking we could sit outside the east entrance,” I said. It was the place where no one ever gathered.

I watched Brady swallow. He stuck his chin in the air and said, “Yeah. Okay.”

I think he must have stewed through the next forty-five minutes. He showed up at the end of the school day, looking hunched and miserable. We went out to the quiet side of the building where we tucked ourselves around the side of a planting of broadleafs.

I remember I began with these words: “If you’re ever mad at me, you need to tell me and we’ll talk.”

Brady got defensive; he accused me of accusing him of winging that ball into me on purpose. He wanted to know how I could suggest that. I took that to heart because—and this seemed to always be the case—I wasn’t absolutely sure what had happened. I tried to take the basketball incident out of the equation.

“I think you were mad at me before that. Remember the cheese pastries? You said I was making you my errand boy or something? You bashed my locker.”

“Okay, but I was just bummed because I wanted to be
with you.” His mouth hung open, his palms faced up. “You’re going to fault me for that? You’re the one that didn’t care. You wanted to go do art stuff. We had plans! We don’t get that much time together, P’teen-uh! God!” He slammed his own fist into his palm.

We had to sit in silence while several people walked by. Then we stayed silent a bit longer all on our own.

“I miss the way we were before,” I told him, and to my surprise, he dropped his head into one hand and let out a single, enormous sob. It was very real and it stunned me. He pressed his thumb and finger into his eyes. I noticed then how callused his knuckles looked. I’d seen him biting the backs of hands in a nervous way in recent weeks. Brady flicked moisture off his hand. He mumbled something about pressure and the team and not being able to hold it all together. I had no idea he felt so much weight. I turned to mush. My eyes teared up and my nose ran, though I refused to think of that as crying. I put my arms around Brady.

“Coach is reviewing grades already,” he added. “I have a D in Spanish.”

I told him I was a Spanish wiz—true—and that I’d help him.

“But what about us?” he asked, and he wrapped me tighter.

I went back to one thing I hoped he’d take away from an exhausting conversation. “All I’m saying is, if you get mad, let’s talk. All right?”

“But are we okay?” He wanted to know.

“Yes,” I said.

We walked back into the school hand in hand. He headed for the boys’ locker room and I ducked into the girls’ room to check my face and fix my mascara rivers.

I hustled on my bad knee to my practice. I thought I was only a few minutes late but as soon I walked into the alcove, I knew the Not-So-Cheerleaders were already deep into things. I heard Emmy’s voice first.

“Really, you guys, we should ask Bettina. She knows dance and I bet you anything she knows choreography—”

“Are you kidding me?” There launched a diatribe. I stood hidden in the alcove of the aux gym, listening.

“Even when she’s here, she’s not
here
. And now she says she’s hurt her knee, and obviously Brady buys it but I don’t. She’s going to show up to practice in her jeans instead of shorts.” (She had that right.) “And by the way, are we going have to chip in to buy her a pair of sneakers?”

“She had her sneakers—” Emmy for the defense.

“Yeah! She finally remembered them on the day she couldn’t work out. Hmm . . . what does that say?”

A new voice opened its cords on me. “What I want to know
is who’s going to tell her to kill it with the freaking ho-stamps?”

“Seriously. That is
not
a part of our look.”

“W-well, we don’t all have to look the same. . . .” Emmy said.

“The judges for states want to see precision. Our look is part of our precision.”

“Are we all going to get the same haircut?” Emmy asked. She laughed now, trying hard to be disarming.

“Hair. Now there’s something Bettina has going for her. I have to say, that braid is beautiful.”

“Yeah, her braid and her boyfriend. Both gorgeous. She’d be nothing without either one of them.” I thought I heard snickering. Then someone being more serious.

“No. She’s beautiful too . . .” the thoughtful voice conceded.

“Yeah, but what the hell? She always looks like she’s on her way to a horror flick.”

“She’s just artsy,” Emmy said.

“She’s just so out of place on this squad. . . .”

I turned around and slid out the door.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“W
ELL
, B
ETA
!” C
OWBOY WAS SMILING
. H
OW BEAUTIFUL
he was—the pair of deep dimples framing his mouth, the one in the center of his chin. How many people in this world got three of those? I felt my bad afternoon melt into the distance.

“Hey,” I said and, as we crossed the auto shop floor toward each other, I almost reached out to hug him. But his arms were low and I ended up bumping him in the shoulder with my forearm. Ungraceful, but he laughed warmly.

“I haven’t seen you in days.” He squinted like he was trying to remember how long it had been.

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Just otherwise occupied. Oh, and
grounded,” I offered with mock-pride. “I was grounded for a while too.”

“Well, aren’t you a badass.” Then he said, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. An unexpected swell of warmth rolled through my core. “And you?” I asked.

“Just fine,” he said.

“I—I’m glad to see you. . . .” The words caught in my throat. Before I could turn things awkward again, I took a breath. “So, hey, I’m not here to bother you. But is it okay if I just . . .” I jabbed a thumb toward the workbench.

“Sure.” He nodded. “I’m finishing something up.” He nodded toward a car and left me.

I opened my backpack, dug in for my sketchbook. With it, out slid my folder from the Steam & Bean project. Something successful. That was nice. I set the folder up at the back of the bench in front of me, perhaps like a talisman. But I had no great art ambitions for this day. I’d be happy to stand at Cowboy’s workbench and make lines or doodles. The smell of the shop, the feel of paper under pencil, and the clink of Cowboy’s wrenches just a few feet away all combined to take the sting out of the things I had heard earlier that afternoon. I replayed what the cheerleaders had said. I was hurt but I couldn’t be mad. Most of what they’d said was true.

I lay my head down on my arm on the workbench. I
looked across the sheet of paper as I drew and watched my pencil move from that perspective.
One-legged dancer on point
, I thought. I watched the page fill with lines of graphite.

“Beta.”

I lifted my head and looked at Cowboy. He set a metal stool down beside me.

“Here.” He scooted it closer. “You’re standing on one leg,” he said. His jaw was askew. “Something happen?”

I shook my head no.

“You look uncomfortable.” He hesitated. “And you usually go bare-legged.”

“Well, I guess you just proved you have two good eyes in your head,” I said. I was shocked at how snotty I sounded. “Sorry,” I added.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And you’re right. I did hurt my knee.”

“How?”

I looked away. “I was running. Late for cheerleading—”

“Ch—
what
?
Cheerleading?
You, Beta?”

“Yeah, I don’t even want to talk about that,” I said.

“Me neither,” he said. He leaned on the workbench, smiling with interest at the doodles I’d been making.

“Oh, don’t look. I’m just being mindless,” I told him.

“What’s this?” He tapped the Steam & Bean folder with
a finger and it fell open, pages fanned forward one by one.

I picked up the pages and held them between us so he could see. “It was for an art class,” I told him. “All the graphics for a . . . well . . . for a hypothetical coffee shop. I designed the menu and this one is the signage for out front.” I flipped through the papers. “I didn’t have to do the interior art, but once I got into it—”

“Wait, wait! Slow down!” he said. I let out an embarrassed sigh and handed him the whole folder. He turned the papers over in his fingers carefully like he didn’t want to get grease on them.

“You can touch them,” I said. “It’s all in the computer. I can print more.” I tried to shut up then, but I squirmed where I stood. There was something excruciating about watching him look at my work.

“Wow,” he said. He looked at me. He looked at my art. “These are great, Beta. And they are so . . .
you
. I mean, it feels like you and looks like you, and only you could’ve—well, hell, what do I know?” he scoffed. He got to the page where I’d enhanced the exterior of the building. “I know this place,” he said with a slight smile. “My brothers and I used to call it the ‘potbelly building.’ There was a business in there called the Sandwich Hole.”

“Ew. That sounds fatal,” I said, and he laughed.

“I think it was. They’re gone.” He turned to the back
of one of the sheets where Mr. Terrazzi had written me the killer-nice note.

“Oooh . . . and she gets the
big
grade—”

“Oh, don’t look at that,” I said. I was busy blushing, but then I saw that Cowboy was staring more intently at the page.

“What?” I said, leaning closer to him. “What are you looking at?”

Silently, he pointed to my name. Mr T’s handwriting was full of loops and a little hard to read. “Does this say Vasilis? Is your last name Vasilis?”

I hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Not like Dinos Vasilis?”

“Just like that. Why?”

“Holy shit! Seriously?”

“W-why? Do you know my father?”

“Not exactly. I had coffee with him—once. I write my rent check to him every month.” Cowboy let a breath out that lifted his wavy bangs.