Where the Kissing Never Stops (11 page)

Then I went into my bedroom to get some money and do some serious eating.

Monday morning was gloomy, with big, swirly, gray clouds off in the west looking like half-hearted erasures on a chalkboard. Even the kids seemed cloudy, drifting through the halls, not saying much.

I took roundabout ways to classes, half afraid I’d run into Rachel. Instead I bumped into Sully.

“I saw her” was the first thing he said.

“Yeah. So?”

“She looked sad.”

“Probably lost her new panties in the back of a Trans-Am.”

“I don’t think Rachel’s like that.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t either. Look, I’m sorry about the other day.”

“Forget it. I told Peggy about what happened and she said I was way out of line. I guess this calls for an apology.” He looked up quickly and snapped his finger. “Waiter, bring my friend an apology and be quick about it.”

I don’t think we knew exactly what to do next. Girls can cry and hug and kiss when they make up. If we’d tried that, they’d have our parents on the phone and us down at the school nurse for sedation.

“How’s Peggy?”

“Peggy’s okay. I’m taking your advice.
Que sera sera,
right?”

“So Rachel looks sad, huh?”

“Uh-huh. I thought about you last night. Was it Pig City?”

“That was the plan. Instead I lay down on my bed for a minute just to get up enough strength to call Pizza Man, He Delivers, and the next thing I knew it was one-thirty and everything was closed.”

“Will you be around later?”

“Yeah, or out at the Land Time Forgot.”

“Maybe I’ll see you, except…”

“You might go over to Peggy’s?”

“Yeah. Peggy says you ought to talk to Rachel.” He held up an index finger like a teacher shushing a class. “Even if it was Rachel’s fault. She says the guy —”

“So Peggy says, huh? What does Peggy say about what your father says?” I wasn’t being mean; Sully and I were just tossing the ball back and forth.

“Well, Peggy says that what my father says is mostly bullshit.”

“And I say she’s right. Look, I gotta go.” My English teacher was holding the door open for me; he was sort of bowing from the waist and inviting me in with his free hand. Very droll.

“Look,” Sully said, backing away and talking fast like someone reasoning with a mad bomber, “you’ll bump into her and it’ll be fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. I not only didn’t bump into her; I didn’t even see her, not for four days. I admit that on Tuesday I took some roundabout paths to a class or two myself, mostly because I still wasn’t sure what I’d say to Rachel if I did see her, and I was kind of afraid of what she’d say to me; but on Wednesday and Thursday I started loitering seriously, propped up supercasually all over the place. But still no Rachel.

To my great relief I saw Tommy Thompson, and to my even greater relief he was with Sheila Webster, who was hanging all over him. But no Rachel.

I dragged myself to work every afternoon, and it was on Friday that I looked up from fiddling with the carburetor on the tractor to see Sully’s dad’s Cadillac glide down the frontage road and slip in beside my mom’s old Saturn. Peggy got out and waved, then Sully, and then right out of the back seat came Rachel, wearing a blue sundress with a huge white daisy on the skirt and two more on top. I walked toward them slowly, watching my step on the uneven ground; I sure didn’t want to blow this reconciliation by tripping and falling on my face.

“Hi, you guys,” I said. I’d taken off the leather gloves Mr. Kramer had lent me and I waved one. Then I said self-consciously, “I’ll get my shirt, it’s over —”

“That’s okay,” said Rachel.

Could I have forgotten how soft her voice was?

“Rachel,” Sully said formally, “this is Walker Davis. He doesn’t own a shirt, but otherwise he’s a nice guy. And Walker, I’d like you to meet Rachel Gardner. Rachel just transferred from New York and has never seen dirt before, so I thought we’d bring her by your place here because you’ve got tons of it.”

“Yeah, well. This is it, all right.” I made a sweeping ringmaster’s gesture.

“It’s looking better,” said Rachel. “Sitting up and taking nourishment.”

“Sully,” Peggy said. “I think these two might want to talk privately.”

They ambled away, both pointing elaborately. I put my hands in my pockets. Rachel linked hers in front like a little kid in church. Then we looked at each other again.

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“God, me too. Really.”

“It was all my fault,” I said.

“No, it was all my fault.”

“Honestly, Rachel, it was me.”

“Okay, you win. It was all your fault.”

“Huh?”

She had this enormous smile and her teeth were whiter than the daisies on her dress. “Just a little humor,” she said, “to lighten the situation.” She reached for my right arm, taking hold of it with both hands like she was going to shake a kite out of a tree, then sliding down until both her hands held one of mine. “We were both wrong,” she said. “You shouldn’t have been late; I should have called from the restaurant….”

We tugged at each other, both stepping forward at the same time. We stood, swaying, just inches apart. I couldn’t believe how good she smelled. We both licked our lips slowly, two cats who got the cream.

“I hate people who can’t settle their differences,” said Sully, coming up behind us.

“Shut up,” Peggy said mildly. “You spoiled it.”

“Are you guys okay?” I said, turning away reluctantly.

“Fine,” they said in unison.

“Nice place you’ve got here.” Peggy was wearing green pedal pushers, a man’s green shirt tied at the waist, and a green hat with a veil. She looked like every string bean’s idea of beauty. “It makes a girl want to get down there in the dirt and grow things.”

“If you’re serious,” I said, “Mr. Kramer and I are planting tomorrow. You could help.”

“Me too?” said Sully.

“Everybody, sure. Just be here at six,” I said.

“Not in the morning.”

I nodded.

We began to drift toward the cars. Rachel put her arm around me and I was acutely conscious of her fingers tucked inside my waistband.

We waited awkwardly beside Sully’s father’s belligerently shiny Cadillac.

“Uh, why don’t you guys stick around?” Rachel said lamely.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Stick around.”

“We should stay,” Peggy said. “Just to drive them crazy.”

We wanted to be alone, but once we were, neither of us knew exactly what to do. I looked toward the car, then decided against it — too crude. But she was looking, too.

“Do you need to get home?” I asked.

“No. I was just… thinking.”

“About my mom’s Saturn?”

“Sort of.”

“You look good, Rachel.”

“You too.”

“I’m just dirty in a couple of the right places; you’re pretty.”

“Peggy came over the other day and we went through my stuff. She showed me what to wear with what, and she was right. She breaks all those stupid fashion rules and she’s still right.”

“Did she pick this out?” I felt the hem of her dress. Even it was warm.

Rachel shook her head. “I did. But I was thinking of you all the time.”

I took her hand. The sun was setting and the back window of the car glowed like neon:
VACANCY.

“What’d your dad think of Peggy?”

“He’d like it if I had a hundred girlfriends and no boyfriends at all.”

“He doesn’t like me?”

“It’s not you exactly. He’s just used to getting my undivided attention.”

Rachel stopped and leaned against one dented fender. I kicked the tires lightly like a timid shopper.

“You didn’t have boyfriends before?”

“I was a lot younger,” she said sensibly. “And he didn’t want me to really like some guy and then have to move away.”

“Your dad said that?”

“We talk really easily. And he was probably right. But things are different now. I’m not fourteen and we’re not going to move. And even if we were, I’d like you anyway.”

Her eyes — blue this time to match the dress she had picked out all by herself — met mine and held.

“So do you want to sit in the car a little while before we go?” I asked.

“God, yes.”

I don’t think the doors had even slammed before Rachel and I started kissing like there was no tomorrow. I kissed her shoulders and arms. I kissed her neck and ears and I even did this weird thing by mistake where I had my tongue in her nose for a second.

I even kissed the straps on her sundress, nibbling up and down them like a man eating corn. Rachel unbuttoned the shirt I had just buttoned and put her hand inside, which about drove me crazy; and then she started to make these random passes at my crotch. Or at least I think that was what was happening. So I peeked, and there was her right arm roaming around in the air like somebody trying to find a shoe under the bed. One minute it would be really close and the next way out over the floorboards. I felt like playing that kids’ game where you shout, “Cold, cold, warmer, warmer, hot, hot, hot!”

Rachel and I were holding on to one another, still kissing, naturally, but also taking a little break, when she said, “Don’t forget your mother.”

I couldn’t believe it. I’d just been thinking about my mom and what she’d said about birth control, because for the first time in my life it was clear to me that I might actually need it.

I sat up and buttoned my shirt while Rachel shook out her skirt with both hands like someone making a bed.

“Walker, have you ever done this before? What we just did, I mean the kissing and the other?”

“The other?”

She looked down at her hands. “You know, how we touched?”

I wondered what she wanted to hear. Would a yes hurt her feelings, making her seem than less special? Would a no make me a wimp?

“Not really,” I lied, “but…”

“I guess I’m interested in how I did.” She sounded like a scholarship student. “Peggy,” she continued, “gave me a few hints.” Her eyes widened. “Some I’ll have to save until I’m thirty-five.”

“It all felt great. Honest.”

“I got dizzy,” she said happily.

“Me too.”

“I wish we didn’t have to go.”

“I wish we could just stay here until they built the mall over us.”

“That stupid mall,” she said mildly. “I like this place just the way it is.”

As we drove, Rachel put her arm around my shoulders and played with my hair. I was really flattered. No one had ever done anything like that, but I’d seen it a thousand times with guys older than me or better-looking or with hotter cars. I could have driven around like that forever, Bradleyville’s version of the Flying Dutchman.

I made a left at Octavia, going a block or two out of my way in hopes a few more people would see me being so eagerly caressed.

“Your grades are pretty good, aren’t they?” she asked.

Perfect: a carful of guys passed, going the other way. “Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess.”

She trailed her fingers across the back of my neck. “Do you ever feel insecure?”

“Only in the daytime and at night. Otherwise I’m fine.”

Rachel smiled and kissed my shoulder, light as a wand.

“Mr. Jenkins, my physics teacher, told me I didn’t belong in his accelerated class,” she said. “He told me he thought my counselor had made a mistake.”

“Jenkins is that way. It’s his idea of motivation. He tried it on Sully.”

“Did he on you?”

“I don’t take those high-powered classes. Since I don’t know where I’m going, I guess I’m in no real hurry to get there.”

“God, I used to be smart.” She stroked my neck, giving me long, smooth pets like I was a llama. “Mr. Jenkins really made me wonder.”

I guess we’re all pretty much the same down deep. I mean, Rachel seemed to have it made — she was cute and had great clothes; she was rich; she’d been to interesting places and met important people. Yet she lay awake and wondered, too. All over town kids lay awake and wondered: Am I smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, tall enough? If our fears were smoke, the town would be covered night and day by an inky pall.

“Walker, do you think I’m smart?”

I hesitated again, wondering what she wanted to hear and pretty much knowing what that was. Instead, though, I said, “I don’t know, Rachel.” I turned to her, letting the car drive itself for a few seconds. “I’m sure you are, but I’ve only really known you for a little while, so…”

I thought for a second she might cry, and I was afraid I’d done the wrong thing by trying to do the right one. Instead, she kissed me.

“What a great answer,” she exclaimed. “God, any other guy would’ve said, ‘Yeah, sure, of course,’ just to be nice or to make me feel better or whatever. Instead, you just told the truth.” She put both arms around me and squeezed. “Oh, Walker, let’s always tell each other the truth, okay? Always.”

That was my chance to turn to her and say, “Look, about my mom…” But the words wouldn’t come out. I opened my mouth and nothing happened.

It was still dark when I left the house the next morning, but when I got to Rachel’s, her father was already on the telephone, probably buying all the land south of the equator. He waved me into a seat, his manicured hand lolling in the sleeve of a velour robe. Nothing had been unpacked yet. Crates were still stacked around the spacious rooms; a suitcase lined in pink stood open, looking like an alligator that ate linen.