Conrad stepped up close to the tattoo guy, who shoved him away easily, and Conrad laughed. I could feel an actual fight brewing, like a thunderstorm. Just like the way the water got really still before the sky broke open.
“Are you gonna do something?” I hissed.
“He’s a big boy,” Jeremiah said, his eyes close on Conrad. “He’ll be fine.”
But he didn’t believe it, and neither did I. Conrad didn’t seem fine at all. He didn’t seem like the Conrad Fisher I knew, all wild and out of control. What if he got himself hurt? What then? I had to help, I just had to.
I started walking over to them, and I waved off Jeremiah when he tried to stop me. When I got there, I realized I had no idea what to say. I had never tried to break up a fight before.
“Um, hi,” I said, standing between the two of them. “We have to leave.”
Conrad pushed me out of the way. “Get the hell out of here, Belly.”
“Who is this? Your baby sister?” The guy looked me up and down.
“No. I’m Belly,” I told him. Only, I was nervous, and I stuttered when I said my name.
“Belly?” The guy busted out laughing, and I grabbed Conrad’s arm.
“We’re gonna leave now,” I said.
I realized how drunk he was when he swayed a little as he tried to swat me off. “Don’t leave. Things are just getting fun. See, I’m about to kick this guy’s ass.” I’d never seen him like this before. His intensity scared me. I wondered where Red Sox girl had gone. I kind of wished she was here to handle Conrad and not me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
The guy laughed, but I could tell he wanted a fight just about as much as I did. He looked tired, like all he wanted was to head home and watch TV in his boxers. Whereas Conrad was running on all cylinders. Conrad was like a soda bottle that had been shaken up; he was about to explode on somebody. It didn’t matter who it was. It didn’t matter that this guy was bigger than him. It wouldn’t have mattered if he was twenty feet tall and built like a brick. Conrad was looking for a fight. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he got one. And this guy, he could kill Conrad.
The guy kept looking at Conrad and then back at me. Shaking his head, he said, “Belly, you better get this little boy home.”
“Don’t talk to her,” Conrad warned.
I put my hand on Conrad’s chest. I had never done that before. It felt solid and warm; I could feel his heart beating fast and out of control. “Can we please just go home,” I pleaded. But it was like Conrad didn’t even see me standing there, or feel my hand on his chest.
“Listen to your girlfriend, kid,” the guy said.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” I said, glancing over at Cam, who had no expression on his face.
Then I looked back at Jeremiah helplessly, and he ambled over. He whispered something in Conrad’s ear, and Conrad shook him off. But Jeremiah kept talking to him in his low voice, and when they looked at me, I realized it was about me. Conrad hesitated, and then he finally nodded. Then he half jokingly made like he was going to hit the guy, and the guy rolled his eyes. “Good night, douche,” he said to the guy.
The guy waved him off with one hand. I let out a big breath.
As we walked back to the car, Cam grabbed my arm. “Are you okay to go home with these guys?” he asked me.
Conrad whirled around and said, “Who is this guy?”
I shook my head at Cam and said, “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll call you.”
He looked worried. “Who’s driving?”
“I am,” Jeremiah said, and Conrad didn’t argue. “Don’t worry, Straight Edge, I don’t drink and drive.”
I was embarrassed, and I could tell Cam was bothered, but he just nodded. Quickly I hugged him, and he felt stiff. I wanted to make things okay. “Thanks for tonight,” I said.
I watched him walk away, and I felt a stab of resentment—Conrad and his stupid temper had ruined my first real date. It wasn’t fair.
Jeremiah said, “You guys get in the car; I left my hat inside. I’ll be right back.”
“Just hurry,” I told him.
Conrad and I got in the car silently. It felt eerily quiet, and even though it was only just past one, it felt like it was four in the morning and the whole world had gone to sleep. He lay down in the backseat, all of his energy from before gone. I sat in the front seat with my bare feet on the dashboard, leaning back far in the seat. Neither of us spoke. It had been frightening back there. I didn’t recognize him, the way he’d acted. I suddenly felt very tired.
My hair was hanging low, and from the backseat, all of a sudden, I felt Conrad touching it, running his fingers through the bottom. I think I stopped breathing. We were sitting in perfect silence, and Conrad Fisher was playing with my hair.
“Your hair is like a little kid’s, the way it’s always so messy,” he said softly. His voice made me shiver, it was like the sound of water when it pulls off the sand.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even look at him. I didn’t want to scare him off. It was like the time I had a really high fever, and everything felt gauzy and dizzy and unreal, it felt just like that. All I knew was, I didn’t want him to stop.
But he finally did. I watched him in the visor mirror. He closed his eyes and sighed. I did too.
“Belly,” he began.
Just as suddenly, everything in me was alert. The sleepy feeling was gone; every part of my body was awake now. I was holding my breath, waiting for what he would say. I didn’t answer him. I didn’t want to break the spell.
That’s when Jeremiah came back, opened the door, slammed it shut. This moment between us, fragile and tenuous, snapped in half. It was over. It would do no good to wonder what he was going to say. Moments, when lost, can’t be found again. They’re just gone.
Jeremiah looked at me funny. I could tell he knew that he’d walked in on something. I shrugged at him, and he turned away and started the car.
I reached over to the radio and turned it on, loud.
The whole way home, there was this strange tension, everyone keeping quiet—Conrad passed out in the backseat, Jeremiah and me not looking at each other in the front seat. Until we pulled up the driveway, when Jeremiah said to Conrad, in what was a harsh tone for him, “Don’t let Mom see you like this.”
Which was when I realized, remembered, that Conrad really had been drunk, that he couldn’t really have been responsible for anything he’d said or done that night. He probably wouldn’t remember it tomorrow. It would be like it had never happened.
As soon as we got inside, I ran up to my room. I wanted to forget what had happened in the car and only remember the way Cam had looked at me, on the stairs with his arm touching my shoulder.
chapter twenty-four
The next day, nothing. It wasn’t that he ignored me, because that would have been something. Some kind of proof that it had happened, that something had changed. But no, he treated me the same. Like I was still little Belly, the girl with the messy flyaway ponytail and the bony knees, running after them on the beach. I should have known better.
The thing was, whether he was pushing me away or pulling me toward him, I was still going in the same direction. Toward Conrad.
Cam didn’t call me for a few days. Not that I blamed him. I didn’t call him either—although I thought about it. I just didn’t know what to say.
When he finally called, he didn’t bring up the party. He asked me to go to the drive-in. I said yes. Right away I worried, though—did going to the drive-in mean we were going to have to make out? Like, crazy make out, steamed windows and seats all the way back?
Because that was what people did at the drive-in. There were the
families, and then there were the hot and heavy couples toward the back of the lot. I’d never been part of a couple before. I’d gone as a family, with Susannah and my mother and everyone, and I’d gone with the boys, but never as a couple, like on a date.
Once, Jeremiah and Steven and I went and spied on Conrad on one of his dates. Susannah let Jeremiah drive us, even though he only had a permit. The drive-in was three miles away, and at Cousins, everyone drove, even kids on their parents’ laps. Conrad had been furious when he’d caught us spying on him. He’d been on his way to the concession stand when he saw us. It had been pretty funny—his hair was all messed up as he yelled at us, and his lips were rosy and they had a glossy sheen. Jeremiah cracked up the whole time.
I wished Steven and Jeremiah were out there in the dark somewhere, spying on us and cracking up. It would make me feel comforted somehow. Safer.
I was wearing Cam’s hoodie, and I kept it zipped all the way to my neck. I sat with my arms crossed, like I was shivering. Even though I liked Cam, even though I wanted to be there, I had the sudden urge to jump out of the car and walk home. I’d only ever kissed one boy, and that hadn’t been for real. Taylor called me the nun. Maybe I was one, at heart. Maybe I should have joined a convent. I didn’t even know if this was an actual date. Maybe he’d been so turned off by me the other night that all he wanted was to be my friend.
Cam tuned the radio until he found the right station. Drumming his hands on the steering wheel, he said, “Do you want any popcorn or anything?”
I kind of did, but I didn’t want it to get stuck in my teeth, so I said no, thanks.
He was pretty into the movie, the way he leaned up close to the windshield to get a closer look sometimes. It was an old horror movie, one that Cam told me was really famous, but I’d never heard of it. I was barely paying attention anyway—I felt like I was watching him way more than I was watching the movie. He licked his lips a lot. He didn’t look over and laugh with me during the funny parts the way Jeremiah did. He just sat on his side of the car, leaned up against the door, as far away from me as possible.
When the movie was over, he started the car up. “Ready?” he said.
I felt a wave of disappointment. He was taking me home already. He wasn’t going to take me to Scoops for an ice cream cone, or a hot fudge sundae to share. The date, if you could even call it that, had been a failure. He didn’t try to make out with me once. Not that I knew if I’d even have let him, but still. He could’ve at least tried.
“Um-hmm,” I said. I felt like I might cry, and I wasn’t quite sure why, when I hadn’t even been sure if I wanted to kiss him in the first place.
We drove home in silence. He parked the car in front of the house—I held my breath a little, my hand on the door handle, waiting to see if he’d turn off the ignition or if I should hop out. But he turned it off and leaned his head back against the headrest a second.
“Do you know why I remembered you?” he asked me suddenly.
It was a question so out of nowhere that it took me a little while to figure out what he was talking about.
“You mean from Latin Convention?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it my Coliseum model?” I was only half-joking. Steven had helped me build it; it had been pretty impressive.
“No.” Cam ran his hand through his hair. He wouldn’t look at me. “It’s because I thought you were really pretty. Like, maybe the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.”
I laughed. In the car, it sounded really loud. “Yeah, right. Nice try, Sextus.”
“I mean it,” he insisted, his voice rising.
“You’re making that up.” I didn’t believe it could be true. I didn’t want to let myself believe it. With the boys any compliment like this would always be the first part of a joke.
He shook his head, lips tight. He was offended that I didn’t believe him. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. I just didn’t see how it could be true. It was almost mean of him to lie about it. I knew what I looked like back then, and I wasn’t the prettiest girl anybody had ever seen, not with my thick glasses and chubby cheeks and little-girl body.
Cam looked me in the eyes then. “The first day, you wore a blue dress. It was, like, corduroy or something. It made your eyes look really blue.”
“My eyes are gray,” I said.
“Yes, but that dress made them look blue.”
Which was why I wore it. It was my favorite. I wondered where it was now. Probably packed up in the attic back home, with all my winter clothes. It was too small now anyway.
He looked so sweet, the way he watched me, waiting for my reaction. His cheeks were flushed peach. I swallowed hard and said, “Why didn’t you come up to me?”
He shrugged. “You were always with your friends. I watched you that whole week, trying to get up the nerve. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you at the bonfire that night. Pretty bizarre, huh?” Cam laughed, but he sounded embarrassed.
“Pretty bizarre,” I echoed. I couldn’t believe he’d noticed me. With Taylor by my side, who would have even bothered to look at me?
“I almost messed up my Catullus speech on purpose, so you’d win,” he said, remembering. He inched a little closer to me.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. I reached out and touched his arm. My hand shook. “I wish you had come up to me.”
That’s when he dipped his head low and kissed me. I didn’t let go of the door handle. All I could think was, I wish this had been my first kiss.
chapter twenty-five
When I went into the house, I was walking on cotton candy and clouds, replaying everything that had just happened—until I heard my mother and Susannah arguing in the living room. Fear seized up inside of me; it felt like a fist clenched tight around my heart. They never fought, not really. I’d only ever seen them fight one time. It was last summer. The three of us had gone shopping to this fancy mall an hour away from Cousins. It was an outdoor mall, the kind where people bring their pocket-size dogs on fancy leashes. I saw this dress—it was a purpley plum chiffon, with little off the shoulder straps, way too old for me. I loved it. Susannah said I should try it on, just for fun, so I did. She took one look at me and said I had to have it. My mother shook her head right away. She said, “She’s fourteen. Where will she wear a dress like that?” Susannah said it didn’t matter, that it was made for me. I knew we couldn’t afford it, my mother was newly divorced, after all, but I still pleaded with her. I begged. They got into an argument right there in the boutique, in front of people. Susannah wanted to buy it for me, and my mother wouldn’t let her. I told them never mind, I didn’t want it, even though I did. I knew my mother was right, I’d never wear it.
When we got back from Cousins at the end of summer, I found the dress in my suitcase, wrapped in paper and packed neatly on top like it had always been there. Susannah had gone back and bought it for me. It was so like her to do that. Later, my mother must have seen it hanging up in my closet, but she never said anything.
Standing there in the foyer, listening, I felt like the spy Steven was always accusing me of being. But I couldn’t help it.
I heard Susannah say, “Laurel, I’m a big girl now. I need you to stop trying to manage my life. I’m the one who gets to decide how I want to live it.”
I didn’t wait for my mother’s response. I walked right in and said, “What’s going on?” I looked at my mother when I said it, and I knew I sounded like I was blaming her, but I didn’t care.
“Nothing. Everything’s fine,” my mother said, but her eyes looked red and tired.
“Then why were you fighting?”
“We weren’t fighting, hon,” Susannah assured me.
She reached out and smoothed my shoulder, like she was ironing out wrinkled silk. “Everything really is fine.”
“It didn’t sound like it.”
“Well, it is,” Susannah told me.
“Promise?” I asked. I wanted to believe her.
“Promise,” she said without hesitation.
My mother walked away from us, and I could see from the stiffness of her shoulders that everything was not fine, that she was still upset. But because I wanted to stay with Susannah, where everything really was fine, I didn’t follow her. My mother was the kind of person who would rather be alone anyway. Just ask my father.
“What’s the matter with her?” I whispered to Susannah.
“It’s nothing. Tell me about your date with Cam,” she said, leading me to the wicker couch in the sunroom.
I should have kept pressing her, should have tried to figure out what had really happened between the two of them, but my worry was already fading away. I wanted to tell her everything about Cam, everything. Susannah had that way about her, where you wanted to tell her all your secrets and everything in between.
She sat on the couch and patted her lap. I sat down next to her and put my head in her lap and she smoothed my hair away from my forehead. Everything felt safe and cozy, like that fight hadn’t happened. And maybe it hadn’t even been a fight, maybe I’d misread the whole thing. “Well, he’s different from anyone I’ve ever met,” I began.
“How so?”
“He’s just so smart, and he doesn’t care what people think. And he’s so good-looking. I can’t even believe he pays me any attention.”
Susannah shook her head. “Oh, please. Of course he should pay you attention. You’re so lovely, darling. You’ve really blossomed this summer. People can’t help but pay you attention.”