Grace, my father’s wife (though, young enough to be my older sister) is hunched over her usual dry toast with black coffee, and doing today’s crossword puzzle. “Where’s Dad?” I ask.
No answer.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hi,” she says, finally noticing me. “There’s coffee and muffins on the counter.”
“Not hungry.”
She eyes me up and down, from my chlorine-yellow hair—a victim of my father’s pool—to my French-manicured toes, and then nods. Whatever that means. Tina and Chelsea, my four-year-old half sisters, chase each other into the kitchen and hop into the booth seat, opposite Grace.
“Are you coming to the zoo with us, Kelly?” Chelsea asks.
I look at Grace. Her face is blank, like I could scribble all over it (and wouldn’t I like to). The lump in my chest breaks, and shards splinter into my gut. I don’t know why it bothers me, why I let it, or why I even care.
“Oh, yeah,” Grace says, in her deadpan tone. “Your father and I are taking the twins to the zoo today. Of course you’re welcome to join us.”
“Kelly’s coming! Kelly’s coming!” Tina shouts.
Grace looks at Tina, wishing, I suspect, that she had a muzzle handy.
“I have plans,” I say, turning on my heel, making my way across the marble-tiled floor, hearing Grace ask the twins for a three-letter word for angry.
I find my father in his office, doing the kind of take-home work my mother used to complain about. “I’m going out,” I announce to him.
“That’s fine,” he says. “Give us a call if you need a ride home.”
“I’ll probably just have Robby drop me off.”
“Okay, Kell, have a good time.”
I feel like blurting out that it’s Robby Mardonia. Robby I-killed-my-girlfriend-because-she-tried-to-break-up-with-me Mardonia. But I don’t even think it would matter. So why does it matter to me?
I go back upstairs to spritz on a healthy amount of A Minuit. I wonder if Robby can still smell it on my letters. I picture him curled up beside them on some roll-away cot, thinking about the two of us.
I probably should have told him more about Sean, told him that we did end up dating after all. Part of me dated Sean out of spite. After I told Nicole he wanted to go out with me, she said we’d have nothing in common. When I asked her what she meant, she shrugged and said that one of us would probably get bored. I didn’t need to guess who she meant.
But it wasn’t just spite. Part of me wanted to go out with Sean because he was sweet and nice and simple. And did his homework. And volunteered on the yearbook staff. And because Nicole, one of the people I trust most in this world, trusted him.
Then there was the simple truth—Sean was nothing like Derik LaPointe. All fingers and hands. So when Nicole confirmed the fact that she was over Sean, that she wanted to forget about him, it pretty much sealed the deal for me. And Sean and I ended up a couple. And, I’ll have to admit, it’s been sort of nice.
I suddenly feel guilty. I look down at my watch. It’s a little after one o’clock on the East Coast, which means Sean’s probably just finishing up his landscaping job. I still have a few extra minutes. Maybe I should call him. Maybe the sound of his voice will thwack me to my senses, make me realize that this is completely insane.
Or maybe I’ll just want to see Robby all the more.
I pick up the phone and dial. It goes straight to voice mail.
I take it as a sign, hang up, squeeze into the blister-making sandals, and head out to meet Robby.
We’re meeting at the diner in Robby’s hometown. I know exactly where it is. I made it one of my first must-sees when I got here. It was weird being inside the place after Robby had talked so much about it, after picturing him in there, amid the red-and-white-checked tablecloths, the shiny black vinyl booths and the bright aqua jukebox in the corner, loaded with tunes by Elvis and the Beatles.
When I get off the bus, I can see the diner in the near distance, two blocks away. I look down at my watch. It’s after ten thirty. Robby’s probably already inside. I hurry down the street, feeling the sandal straps bite into the backs of my heels.
The bells on the diner door jangle as I push it open. I look around. There are several couples seated in booths. One woman and her daughter at the jukebox. An older man talking to the waitress. And two stray males at each end of the counter. Both look up when I enter. One is dressed in army fatigues. He has military-short, jet-black hair, with a five-o’-clock-shadowy chin, and just enough pump in his arms—not too bulky. I’m thinking it’s him, thinking he must be about twenty-one. He sort of smiles at me as he takes a sip of coffee. I smile back.
But it’s the other guy that stands up, allows his napkin to roll right off his lap. “Kelly,” he says.
“Yeah?” I feel myself cringe inside. I feel like, for one horrible-bitchy-mean little moment, I should deny who I am and go flying out the door.
His hair is parted to the extreme left side, dad-style, and he’s wearing plumber-loose jeans that hang around his hips. Where Army-guy’s arms are perfectly bulgy, Robby’s are overly rounded from too much prison food. What happened to all the working out he was supposedly doing? I feel hopelessly shallow sizing him up this way. The guy has been in prison, for God’s sake.
“Hi,” I say finally, noticing that the jeans are brand new, still dark, dark blue, not yet baptized from the wash. His dress shirt, as well, is still in creases from the package.
He smiles at me, then laughs. And we both kind of stand there, me at the door and him in the corner, not really knowing what to do.
The longer I stare, the more I can tell that it’s him. Same green-blue eyes. Same slender nose. That heart-shaped chin. Just older. And maybe more average.
Still, it’s him, and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is real.
He starts to walk toward me, and he can’t stop smiling, like there’s a giant boomerang wedged in his mouth.
“Robby?” I say.
“Finally,” he says. “It’s so good to see you, to hear your voice.”
Before I can reply, he slips me into his arms and wraps me up like a pretty package. I touch the tip of my nose to the lobe of his ear and breathe for him—into his ear, the way he likes, and he smells like Ivory soap tangled in spearmint gum. Not quite the salty scent of virility I’d imagined. He holds me there, like this is normal, in a diner, in front of everyone. Like nothing else matters, and maybe nothing else does. “You look perfect,” he whispers.
When we finally break, he motions for us to take a seat in one of the booths. “Thanks for coming all this way,” he says, sliding in across from me.
“Sure,” I say, trying to free my heels of their straps. “It was no big deal.” But he’s barely even listening. He’s just … staring. “Are you hungry?” I grab the menu.
“Are you nervous?” he asks.
My first reaction is to lie, but he knows me too well. Knows just about everything, things I barely even tell myself. “Yes.”
“Well, don’t be. It’s just me, remember?” He takes my hand and draws a figure eight in the palm, over and over and over again. “I’m nervous, too,” he admits. “What are you nervous about?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m scared of what you might think of me.” That was the way I’d been feeling, for the past five and a half years, but now, at this instant, I’m not sure if I even care. I readjust myself in the seat, trying to free my crack from the silk wedge.
“You don’t know?” He stops drawing in my palm, mid figure eight.
I peek up at him. At those eyes, so Melanie-serious, like he has no doubts.
“I’m not one to judge you, Kelly. I love you.”
He loves me. It sounds so strange hearing him say it. So weird that I have to bite back the jolt I feel stretch across my face. But then I have to remind myself that I told him the same. In so many letters, I told him I loved him. But this person sitting in front of me isn’t the person I wanted
. The person I want is the one I can run back home to, the one I can write a letter to, describing this horrible confusion in my head.
He’s staring at me so hard; I don’t even think he cares if I say it back. I decide to be honest. I say, “This is just so weird. I mean, we’ve been writing back and forth for so long. I guess I’m not quite sure what we’re supposed to do.”
I think about my pink bra and panties and feel stupid even talking. I take the cell phone out of my bag and rest it on the seat beside me, just in case Sean calls.
“We’re supposed to be together.” He beams. “Finally. Are you as happy as I am?”
I nod and look down at the menu to take a break from what I’m feeling. “Are you hungry?”
“Sure, we should eat something,” he says.
As I study the menu, he points out items I might be interested in—things he knows I like to eat. Cheese omelet, peanut-butter pancakes, strawberry blintzes. And, it’s like, for some reason, I don’t want him to know these things about me. I don’t want him to know me at all.
We order, and the waitress, this freckly red-haired girl, brings us some coffee.
“How are things at your dad’s?” he asks. “How’s Grace?”
“Fine,” I say, trying to take my eyes off the pen in his front shirt pocket. What was he thinking by putting a pen in there? Why does he even need one? “I might be going to the zoo with them later.”
“Oh?” He swishes the spoon back and forth in his coffee mug, stirring over the disappointment that hangs on his face. “I thought we had plans.”
I want to grab the menu back, to escape this conversation. But after several seconds of awkward silence, he changes the subject and starts talking about the motel he’s staying in and how he wants to get a job painting houses so he can go to school. And all the while he’s talking, I can’t help but think—is this the same guy who spoke that way on the stand about Melanie? The one who told me the most beautifully intimate secrets in his letters? Who made me a poet?
He stops talking and looks at me for a response. I have no idea what the question is. “Yeah,” I say, hoping yeah is the appropriate answer.
“Have you listened to a word I’ve said?”
“Yes.” A tweak of snappiness in my voice. “Your motel is cramped and you want to study law enforcement.”
“Criminal law,” he corrects. “What’s wrong? Do you still feel guilty about telling your mother you wanted to spend the summer with your dad?”
And I hate it. That he knows these pieces of me.
That he knows I lied to my mother about coming here. That a couple of weeks before I came, I cut Maria on the arm with a safety pin because she begged me to do it. But more because she wouldn’t tell me what Derik LaPointe was saying about me behind my back until I made at least one slit. I told Robby how guilty I felt about it afterward, especially when I saw Maria tear up. How nothing Derik LaPointe could possibly say about me could compare to the look on her face.
“Yeah, I guess that’s it.”
“You need to forgive yourself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that forgiveness starts with the self.”
I almost want to cover my ears. I don’t want to hear his Oprah-friendly advice. And I especially don’t want my mistakes—stuff no one’s supposed to know about me—thrown up in my face. But he knows all my faults. Every one.
I think about how I told him all about my date with Derik LaPointe. How we had taken a walk through the park after this party and what we did there. How I let him. Because I knew how much my mother wanted me to go out with a “nice boy” like him. Because she never thinks I do anything right.
“Is there something wrong?” he asks.
I ignore the question and lean back, allowing the waitress to smack a ceramic plate full of peanut-butter pancakes in front of me.
I think about when I told him how ugly I feel all the time. How I’d give anything to have a dryer-sheet life like Nicole’s—clean, stark, habitual.
I even told him about the times I’ve wanted to make it all stop.
“I’m not hungry,” I say finally.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I push my plate away. “This is just a little too real for me.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve waited almost six years for this. I love you. I thought you said you loved me, too.”
“I did.”
“Did? Or do?”
“I’m sorry, Robby.” I feel myself get up, and I almost can’t believe I’m actually leaving. Like this. It’s horrible, and I feel every bit of it, like my heart is slowly hollowing itself out.
But I need to get away. This isn’t the way I wanted it.
The door bells jangle behind me as I leave. I manage a few steps before freeing the straps from the backs of my heels, the skin all mangled and watery, blood outlining the place where the blisters have popped. I almost expect him to come running after me, to ask me to take a walk down some long dirt path. But I guess he doesn’t love me as much as he thinks, as much as he loved Melanie.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2:45 P.M.
So I’m just starting my shift at Red’s, and in she walks. Just like that. Just after seeing her at the video store, like, twenty minutes ago. She even takes a seat at my station. Like after all this time of bumping into each other but not really saying anything, we’re finally going to meet. And I think, this time I’m definitely going to talk to her.
The first time I saw her was at the beginning of last year. It was at this party I went to with a girl my parents asked me to take out—this girl Kelly from school, the daughter of some friends of theirs. I didn’t talk to her then, because I was with Kelly, and because she wasn’t the kind of girl I normally went for. Not that she’s butt or anything. She’s cute. Really cute. Long black hair tucked behind her ears. Hula-girl hips, and a pretty fine rack. Darkish skin and huge, light brown eyes. She looks like she’s Asian or Hawaiian or something, like a foreign-exchange chick from some tropical island.
She saw me, too. I know she did. We sort of played eye-tag all night, but she saw I was with that Kelly chick. And she was with some guy, too, some short guy with dreads, some guy who obviously didn’t know that dreads went out with raver jeans.
I saw her a few more times after that. Once at the newsstand when I was with Debbie, this skank I was seeing. She walked right by us, smiled at me, picked up a package of bubble gum cigarettes, smiled again, bought it, and left.
About a month later, it was at Starbucks. She was sitting in the corner, reading some book. I was about to go up and talk to her, but then it was my turn in line, and the guy behind the counter had been trying to get my attention, and there were all these people behind me getting pissed off because I had my head up my ass, gawking at some girl. Then she looked up and saw that I was just staring at her, like a pervert or something, getting all these people pissed, and so I tried to act cool, like they were the ones with the problem, and ordered a large Coolatta. A fucking large Coolatta at a Starbucks. The guy at the counter told me I was in the wrong place, and so I agreed, like I was lost or something, and left. I just left—my fucking tail caught between my fucking legs.
Today I’m not leaving. And neither is she. Not until we actually speak to each other.
She’s sitting at the counter, her hair up in one of those bunlike things, with these long wooden sticks puncturing the center from both sides. And she’s got this huge pocket-book. It’s made up of all these different colored strings and fabrics, like she put it together herself with stuff she had lying around the house. I wonder what she has in there, why she needs a bag that big. She unzips it, takes out a pair of glasses—black rectangular ones. She puts them on and picks up the menu.
“You’ve got someone at Eight,” my mother yells out to me.
No shit I’ve got someone at Eight. I realize I’m just standing here, resting my ass against the cash register drawer, chain-eating the fries off somebody’s di
rty plate, almost forgetting the fact that, since she’s at my station, I actually have to go up and talk to her.
Seeing her today at Movie Mayhem would have been the perfect time to say something to her. I almost did; I had the line I was going to use down and everything. I was gonna say, “What’s the one film you can name that has altered your way of thinking most profoundly?” Total snatch material. But then this old guy intercepted me to try and get in her pants.
I couldn’t believe his routine. He kept asking her all these questions about movies he’d pick up off the rack, if she thought his niece would like them. Like she’d freakin’ know. She tried to ignore him for the most part, but that didn’t seem to shake him, and then I hear her ask, “Well, what kind of movies does your niece like?” And he says, “She really likes Stephen Kings.” So she says, “Why not check out the Horror section?” And then he just sits there and stares at her for, like, half a minute and says, “Because you’re checking out the New Releases.” Total freakin’ perv. So then I hear him ask her if she’d like to come join them at his place for the King marathon.
She says no—big surprise. But then she whispers in his ear, and his mouth sort of drops open in this you’re-such-a-bitch face. She smiles at him, then at me, grabs some slasher flick off the shelf, pays Pimple Boy behind the cash register, and then leaves. Before I have the chance to talk to her.
I grab a handful of utensils and a paper napkin and go to set them up in front of her, but the fork drops out of my hand, slides across the counter, and almost lands in her lap. Luckily she’s able to catch it just in time. I’m such a total fuck-up.
“Sorry,” I say “I can get you another one.”
“No, thank you,” she says. “I prefer this one.” She kisses the prongs and sets the fork down on the napkin.
I look at her place setting and notice I’ve given her three extra spoons. I’m tempted to take them back, but maybe she won’t notice. Maybe she’ll even need three extra. I review all the spoonable items on the menu—soup, pudding, coffee, tea, grapefruit …