The Things You Kiss Goodbye (5 page)

Bonnie was nice and that meant that other people dumped on her. They left her to get vats of clay soaking—a huge job—and she loaded the kiln for every firing.

“Oh, hey, Bettina,” she said.

“Hey,” I said back. I cupped water and rubbed it over my soapy arm to hurry the rinsing along and hide the evidence. Too late.

“What happened?” Bonnie leaned toward me. Her hands were in her own sink. I wished she’d stay over there. “Cripes. That’s nasty. Is there a cat loose in the building?”

“No, no.” I grabbed for a paper towel and slapped it over my arm.
Think fast, think fast
, I thought.
You’re not going to tell her, well, Brady friggin’
stabbed
me. . . 
. “I caught myself on a pin back. The dangers of jewelry making,” I said with a little art-girl to art-girl trill. Sickening, but I guess I pulled it off because Bonnie laughed.

“Oh, bummer,” she said. “You know, Mr. Terrazzi keeps a tube of antibiotic goo in the cabinet over the art room sink. Save you a trip to the nurse.” She shrugged.

“Oh, thanks.” I patted my arm a final time with the paper towel. “See you in class,” I said, and I was out of there.

I felt low walking down to lunch with Brady. I was used to
sucking it up when it came to little wounds—Bampas had me trained for that. But Brady had done this on purpose. Did he just not know any better? Something else was bothering me more; I realized that in lying to Bonnie about it, I had lied for Brady. There’s a first time for everything.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

I
WOULD HAVE NEVER MET
C
OWBOY IF
I
HADN
’
T RUN
from Brady Cullen. We, the junior class, had picked up our class rings in the morning—a milestone marked with a chunk of “Siladium.” It was not the kind of thing I really cared about but Momma really wanted me to have the ring. Bampas had written the check with the comment that he approved of our school taking delivery of the rings so early in the year; the longer I could wear it, the more he got his money’s worth.

I’d chosen the smooth, white stone—no starburst, like most of the girls. A bunch of us were gathered on the bleachers in the gym after lunch, everyone comparing rings. When Brady saw mine he started to joke. “Oh, baby!” he said. “So
ugly
! I’m so sorry for you.” He put on a show grabbing my arm and shaking it to make my hand flap up and down. “So ugly!” he repeated. His friends laughed at that, and so did I. I liked my simple ring—the way it mixed up with a dangly bracelet I had made from little rusted keys, old watch parts, and a few faux pearls.

As the end of fifth period drew closer, Brady got it into his head to cut school and he wanted me to go with him. His house was only three blocks from the high school and his parents weren’t home during the day. So, well, another “opportunity,” and I had come to like opportunities. But I had an art class I didn’t want to miss, and I didn’t want to put Mr. Terrazzi in the position of having to write me up for the cut either.

Brady whispered close in my ear. “Come on . . .” he urged, secretly brushing the outside of my thigh with his knuckles. I shifted away from him mostly because his breath was tickling me.

“I’m not going,” I said. “Not today. I have art—”

“Art,
schmart
! So what?” He grabbed my hand, full wrap, and pulled on me—just fooling around at first. But he had my fingers all bunched together and he was squeezing too hard.

“Ow! Brady!” I pushed against him with my other hand. He tugged me.

“Come on, come on!” He laughed, and squeezed harder.
I felt metal digging into flesh, my finger bones rolling over one another. It hurt so much I couldn’t make a sound. I actually panicked about how to make him stop. Finally, I let out a cry. I pounded his shoulder with my fist. He let go. I bent forward, gasping. I pressed my throbbing hand between my knees and shook the other uselessly in the air.

“What?” he said.
“What?”

I shook my head. Couldn’t answer. I wanted him to shut up. I squeezed my eyes closed and huge, hot teardrops spilled. It got quiet all around us. People were watching.

“Are you
crying
? What! You’re faking it.” He gave me a push.

I had to stop it. Had to stop him. I got up, climbed down the bleachers, and started to walk away. Fast. Faster. Then I ran—right out the back door of the gym. Brady called after me in that husky voice, “Hey! P’teen-uh! What’s the matter? What the hell? Get back here! You’re making a big deal out of nothing!” I heard him swearing, and then the sounds of the outdoors filled my ears.

I ran through the back parking lot of the high school. Air rushed into my lungs. I crossed the pavement, then the long, green ball fields. I ducked under the bleachers and slipped through a break in the chain-link fence that backed up to Hammer Hill Industrial Park. I coughed hard. More tears came. And snot. That seemed to be everywhere. My fingers
stung and throbbed in a way that made it hard to tell exactly which ones hurt the most. I tried to breathe.

I met with a Dumpster—something to lean on. I pushed the heels of my boots into the gravel and sank down against the cold metal. When I could look at my hand, I did. I had to blink to see it, but the little White Tiger mascot from the side of the ring was imprinted—
with amazing detail
—into my skin in shades of red and purple.

It hurt. It
really
hurt. I closed my eyes and swore over and over again. I was just beginning to breathe through it, when I felt someone standing there. I saw the blur—western boots and blue jeans. A man. He reached for my bad hand. I drew away. I tried to get to my feet but didn’t quite make it. I started to fall back and thought I’d land on my ass. The guy caught me by my wrist saying, “Hey—hey! I’m not gonna hurt you.”

I blinked and tried not to be obvious about needing a tissue. I suddenly worried that he could see up my skirt. I snapped my knees together and let him help me up. I wiped at my eyes and stole a quick look at him. He had sandy hair and a square jaw. He was long and skinny. A thick belt rode low on narrow hips—chunky buckle. His smokes were rolled up in the sleeve of his T-shirt. He looked a little retro, and like some kind of cowboy or a motor-head. Or maybe a carny. I wasn’t sure. I knew he was just like
something
, but I also
knew he wasn’t like me. And he wasn’t like Brady Cullen, either.

“How’d you hurt your hand?” he said.

“I—I’m fine,” I shrugged. But my jaw shivered.

He took my hand in his, tilted it a bit, and checked the damage. “Looks crushed,” he said.

Well, yes. Exactly right. Crushed by Brady Cullen.

“Come here,” he said, and I have no idea why but I followed him right in through the open overhead door of Unit 37. Inside, I saw at least two clean-and-shiny car carcasses—and many, many parts of others. (Apparently, I had been right about the motor-head thing.) The smells of gasoline and motor oil were thick on the air but the place was spotless. He turned to a shelf on the wall behind him and brought down a tube of something that smelled like Vaseline but it was greenish black. He squeezed a dab of the greasy stuff in underneath my ring. I muffled a gasp.

“I know, I know,” he said. “Sorry. Try not to fight it.” I sucked a breath. He turned the ring around and wiggled it gently over my knuckle. I watched him palm it.

“H-hey, what are you doing with that?” I asked. He tossed me a clean rag.

“Wipe that grease off,” he said. “And be careful.” In my own mind, I added three words:
It’s gonna hurt
. And it did.

While I shivered and dabbed, the guy kept his back to me
doing something at his workbench. “I—I just got that ring.” I took a step toward him and craned to see what he was up to. When he turned around, he had my ring strung on an old shoelace.

“And you thought I’d steal it?” he asked. “Because it’s such good luck and all?”

I snorted a laugh and a new river of snot humbled me. I tried to recover my tough act. Meanwhile, he let one corner of his mouth curl up, and I had the crazy thought that, oh my God, he was cute.

“No worries,” he said. “Class rings are nothing but
bullshit
to me. But I was never into anything about school.” He dangled the ring in front of me and I brought my good hand up under it and closed my fist around it. “Those fingers are going to swell up on you,” he told me, sticking his chin toward my hand.

What was he? Some kind of authority on crushed hands? I looked at my fingers. The tiger impression, though tiny, was still amazingly clear, and stamped well into the tender skin inside my middle finger. My pinky looked like someone had taken a potato peeler to it. Just like he’d said, both were swelling.

“You should ice those. I don’t have any here. Maybe go back to the school.”

I bunched the shoelace and the ring together and stuffed
them into the tiny pocket at the top of my skirt. I turned to go, but the guy caught me by the arm. I flinched. He met my eyes with a funny squint. “Wait a minute,” he mumbled. “Better come here.”

He led me to a rough but clean bathroom, sort of pushed me inside the door and half closed it.

Oh no, he’s a weirdo. What have I done . . . ?

He opened the door back up and handed me a roll of toilet paper that I’d seen stuck on a nail just outside the door. “You’re a mess,” he said, tapping two fingers beneath his own eyes.

The door closed again, and I dropped the hook-and-eye latch into place. I looked into the cloudy mirror. “Jesus,” I muttered. Inky streaks of mascara were drying on my cheeks. I dabbed at my face with a piece of the tissue. I blew my nose and instinctively reached for my backpack—which wasn’t there. Damn, where had I left that?

I peed, not because I really had to, but more because he’d handed me that roll of toilet paper. It seemed like as long as I did something bathroom-y, I could leave afterward—no more questions about how all of this had happened. I sat there for a few seconds. I held the roll of bulk-buy toilet paper in my good hand and thunked it against my forehead a few times. I whispered to myself,
“Bettina? What the hell are you doing?”

I had to get back to school and into the art room, and I
didn’t want to see Brady on the way. And how was I going to get past this guy—this
cowboy
? I washed my hands in the cold water, letting it pour over my bruised fingers—still killing me. Then I swung through the bathroom door, stuck the toilet paper back on its nail, and headed out.

“You’re welcome,” I heard him call after me.

I kept on walking.

I didn’t see the nurse, didn’t get any ice. I found my backpack on the bleachers and went right into the art room without drawing attention. (Mr. Terrazzi overlooked tardiness whenever he could.) As I slid into my chair I felt the bundle of the ring on the shoelace press my hipbone from inside my skirt pocket. I pulled it out and put it around my neck. I didn’t do much work. My fingers hurt just from the blood moving through them. But the rest of the day I kept holding my ring and looping that shoelace over one thumb and holding it under my nose. I smelled the garage on it, whiff after whiff. I liked that smell the same way I liked pigments and turpentine. I thought about the motor-head guy. He was sort of scary on the one hand. But he’d been nice too. Nicer than . . . a lot of people.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

W
HEN
B
RADY SAW MY FAT FINGERS AND THE TIGER
embossing he seemed surprised. “Ooh, I didn’t know I had ahold of you that hard,” he said, and he stuck his bottom lip forward. “I never thought about the ring. I was wondering why the hell you ran away like that.” What he said seemed perfectly true. His pout had faded to a natural grin. So I wondered,
Can I blame the guiltless?

Oddly, I thought about Bampas, and his lifelong instructions for me:
Fili antio
. Kiss it goodbye. When I was little, if I cried or fussed because he’d denied me something, or gone back on a promise—or even if I’d gotten hurt somehow—he’d give me about a minute. Then, firmly and evenly he’d say,
“Fili antio.”
He’d present me his cheek. I was supposed to kiss him. Then I was to bury my pain or disappointment on the spot. Stop crying. Let it go.

All of that flashed as I stood looking at Brady. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. Hell, he didn’t even know that he
had
hurt me. Should this really be a big deal?

“I missed you after you took off,” he said, and he wrapped me in his arms, rocked me back and forth. Then he laughed in my ear. “And you saved my ass because I would have missed a pop quiz in math if we’d cut.” He hugged me tighter, kept his lips pressed to my head. Then he held me back and looked at me. He said, “Hey, there’s that party in the glider field tomorrow night.” His eyes were bright and flirty. Those parties were legendary but, of course, I’d never been to one. “I want you there with me,” he said.

A party, and the words
I want you there with me
. Boy, did that sound good.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll make a plan.”

Mangled fingers would heal. I made a choice.
Fili antio
. I kissed the incident goodbye.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

B
UMPER TO BUMPER
,
CARS LINED THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
. I stepped out of the passenger’s side of Brady’s car. The gravel on the shoulder crunched under my feet in a satisfying sort of way.

“Over to the left,” Brady said. “I think I see everybody.”

Of course, “everybody” was his group of friends. We stepped onto a sea of long, yellow grass. The strands seem to lie down at our feet for as far as a person could run. I stole glimpses at the full moon over our heads. It was alternately bright, then lost, behind fast-moving clouds. So this was the famous glider field. I had never wanted to be anywhere more. Or maybe it was truer to say that I craved being out in the
wild, and I felt crazy-glad to be at the first big party of the school year.