My Almost Epic Summer Page 9

  “I know,” says Drew. “I remember back when you were in fifth grade, you got your mom to put red stripes in your hair for Halloween. In the library, girls kept coming up to you, asking about it.”

  I’d forgotten that. “I was Raggedy Ann.”

  “Uh-huh. It looked wild,” says Drew. “Good wild, I mean.” There is something about the way he is staring at me that makes me feel as if he’d stared at me back then, too. I imagine myself, lovely and oblivious, sitting at one of the round, blonde-wood library tables, dragging a hand through my red streaky hair as Drew watched me from afar in a quiet agony of longing.

  He shifts from foot to foot. “So . . . ,” he says.

  “So.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good book.”

  “Oh, right. Thanks . . .”

  My voice stops as Drew’s fingers reach up suddenly and brush against the outer corner of my eye. I am so startled, I go still. All I feel are his fingertips, friendly, warm, slightly callused. In the back of my head, I hear Starla. When you let someone do things to you, and he has all this information . . . But in the thrill of the moment, I push the voice away as Drew drops his fingers to hold my shoulder, his other hand cupping my chin as he lifts it, and in a movement as clear and graceful as anything I’ve read in any Epic romance, but ten times better because it’s happening for real, in my real, true life, Drew leans down and kisses me. His lips meet mine and push, his mouth is open, dry, and when my own mouth opens in half-surprise, half-response, his front teeth click against mine. The reverberation spirals up inside my head and changes everything.

  Then we’re just staring at each other, and through my surprise I wonder if that was such a good idea. Isn’t there supposed to be more that happens before the kiss—like going to a party or the movies, or at least one deep and meaningful conversation about Life, just so that you know you’ve got a couple of important things in common?

  Unless Drew kissed me to get back at Starla. Oh, no. Maybe I’m just a rebound kiss.

  “Why’d you do that?” The question is a toad jumping out of my mouth. Starla would never have made such a mood-kill comment.

  “Sorry,” Drew answers. “I dunno. I better get going,” He looks shy.

  “I didn’t mind,” I say quickly.

  “Okay.” Now he looks mortified. “See you tomorrow?”

  “I guess.”

  Drew pushes open the door, then turns back. “Another impulse thing, I guess. Okay?”

  “Sure.” He must read something that’s better than okay on my face. When he smiles, his eyes twinkle like green glass, as he lets himself out and shuts the door behind. I listen to his feet drumming down the steps, then crunching the gravel. Then I listen to his car drive off. After a few minutes, I open the door and breathe in the warm summer air, which for once doesn’t feel too close and steamy, but fragrant and delicious.

  Then I run back to the bathroom to examine myself in the mirror, to see if the imprint of Drew’s kiss has made me look any different.

  The Irene who looks back at me is definitely someone new, the object of somebody else’s fascination. I picture myself in my Halloween streaks, and I shake my head from side to side, letting the ends of my hair brush back and forth against my collarbone. I add some more Vaseline to my lips, smooth my eyebrows, and I tip my face up to an invisible Drew, reliving his kiss in slow motion. The longer I look, the more the image of my reflected self seems secretly tantalizing. Even if Drew had called it an impulse thing, he must have planned it just a little bit. Maybe he’d even been wanting to kiss me since I was in fifth grade, before a kiss from Drew Fuller was even a thought in my head.

  Well. I am thinking about it now.

  Preoccupations, New and Old

  THE DEAFENING ORCHESTRAL Soundtrack of My Life makes sleep impossible. After more than an hour of flipping around and kicking at my sheet, I get out of bed and log on to Starla’s journal.

  STARLAMALLOY ’S JOURNAL

  Today I Learned that my Witness is a Traiter. My Witness has been Holding Secret Meetings with D, where they Talk Secretly and Make Plans.

  Witness, if you are Reading this, I Spit on You.

  Once Betrayed

  This Heart You Frayed

  Betrayed Twice

  This Heart You Slice

  If a bad poem makes you feel rotten, does that mean that on some level, it’s good?

  For the hundredth time, I reach for Drew’s copy of On the Road, which I’d placed on my bedside table. I flip through its soft pages, then bring it to my nose and sniff. I spread my fingers over the pulpy paper, imagining Drew’s sun-browned hands on my shoulder again. The book makes me jittery, as if Drew himself is standing in my bedroom.

  Sister’s e-mail is dull. Little scrips and scraps of her day. She goes on too much about the weather and politics. I can read between the lines that she is sad about Sister Maria Martinez. She doesn’t even ask how I am enjoying Tender Is the Night. Not that I have been able to concentrate on a single word of the story since Drew left.

  I move on to Whitney.

  From: wlamott@starpointtenniscamp.org

  Attention Delinquent!

  This means you Irene Morse! Guess what ? Five sentences do not make a letter. Can I remind you that you pulled this same silent treatment trick on me last summer when my parents took me to England for three weeks? Let me refresh your memory. First you made a big dumb point of reading like nine thousand books by British authors so that you knew thirty thousand things about the U.K.—just to show that the less-deserving person was the one who got the plane ticket. Then from the day I left it was nothing but radio silence from the USA. In the beginning I figured Dad’s international cell was just one of his dud “I-got-a-deal-on-a” deals. Next I decided my e-mails must be collapsing on a giant technical glitch midway across the ocean. Finally I decided (hoped!) you were going back to ye olde days of paper and doodles like those notes we passed in Phonics and I got all repsyched thinking about the four or five via airmailed letters I’d be getting all at once.

  Instead I got—nada. And to refresh your memory when I came home your lame excuse was that you had a cold. So if you don’t write me with one real thing really happening in your life we’re going to have some serious friendship issues when I get back and yes you can take that as a threat.

  While I’m on the subject of England I better tell you about this Guy here (a guy named Guy I’m so un-kidding it’s a completely real name in England where he’s from) who’s been giving us all the best slang. Like winge means to whine and a posh toff is a rich snob and someone who is scaly is a creep and hectic means out-of-control. Guy whispers me naughty bits of U.K. vocab in private and in that saucy 007 accent I am putty in his hands.

  Just goes to show—you don’t have to go to England to find yourself a scrumptious crumpet, luv!

  So stop giving me the silent winge just cuz you think I’m having a toff summer. I mean it Irene. No fair to act so scaly to the same person who made you homemade protein sorbet when you had laryngitis or who stood in line for three hours to snag you those words beyond boring Poetry Speaks tickets so you could have a posh birthday. I want life details.

  xo anyway,

  Whittle

  This time, I don’t even have to think before I start typing.

  Dear Whit—

  You are right. I don’t have a cold. I don’t have any excuse. Except—have you ever liked a guy so much that just thinking about him is like somebody pouring ice water down your spine? Have you ever stood next to a guy whose simple fact of existence was enough to make your insides do backflips?

  The guy is Drew. He is almost six feet tall and has silvery green eyes and he has a lowish softish voice that reminds me of smoke, and his smile makes me die. I don’t know where things are right now with us, it’s so new even writing about it makes me feel like I might break the spell.

  I’m sorry I haven’t given you more life details but as you can see, I’ve been kind of preoccupied.

&nb
sp; Also, I want you to know that the Poetry Speaks tickets were the best birthday present I ever got in my life.

  Is this letter real enough?

  xo back from

  Me

  I Am Given a Reprieve

  MAYBE IT’S THE book’s cover—the bend of road and inky blue sky leading the eye up and away—but the next morning when I see Drew’s On the Road, I decide to tuck my own, worn, identical copy inside an envelope and send it to Sister Soledad, with a note about seizing the day.

  Drew’s copy I’ll keep forever.

  I place the package in the mailbox and pull up the flag. I’m sure that Sister’s already read it, but maybe the surprise mail will cheer her up.

  Mom is still sleeping off her girls’ poker night, which turned out to be another late one, so I eat a banana on the stoop as I wait for Judith. It’s going to be another beautiful summer day, which depresses me because I don’t particularly want to go to Larkin’s and see Starla, even if it also means seeing Drew. I’d rather see Drew on non-Starla territory, and her sad-angry poem of betrayal jounces in my head. What if she can tell just by the look on my face what happened to me last night?

  Lucky for me, the Prior kids have a fresh distraction.

  “We got a fridger-fraidy box!” screeches Lainie the second I’m out of the car. She points to the enormous cardboard box on the front lawn, just in case I might have missed it. “Dad brought it home from work last night. His office got a new fridger-fraidy and he says we can do anything we want with it. Will you help us do something, Irene? Please please please?”

  “Sure, as long as I never have to hear you say the word fridger-fraidy again.”

  Judith’s mouth opens, but then she just snaps it shut, smiles at us all and waves good-bye.

  “It’s as big as a closet,” says Evan, walking around it. “It could be a lot of things. Mom said we should spend an hour brainstorming ideas.”

  The brainstorm lasts five minutes. Evan’s first brilliant scheme is to cut the refrigerator box open, fill it with cushions, then jump into it from a branch of the backyard elm tree on the slim hope of landing safely inside.

  “I don’t like those odds,” I tell him.

  Lainie wants to turn the box into a castle and dig a moat around it.

  “Your parents weren’t happy about how the lawn looked after Mud Monster,” I remind her, “so I’m not sure how well a moat would go down.”

  “How about a pirate ship?” says Evan.

  Lainie pouts. “That’s too much of a boy idea.”

  “Not if you include mermaids and treasure chests,” I coax.

  Miraculously, Lainie comes around. We draw up a plan to seal the box with duct tape, and then cut a square trapdoor as the only entrance into the body of the pirate ship. Evan wants it to have a mast and sail.

  “All I need is two wrapping-paper tubes.” Evan dashes to the house and reappears a minute later. “See, then I can attach these vertically and cut a hole right here to stabilize the tube, and I’ll knot a bed sheet to the top,” he says. “Think Mom’ll let me use one of the spare sheets?”

  “Go for it,” I tell him, and he races to the house again.

  Lainie looks to me for our grand counter-plan.

  “I’m warming up by drawing portholes,” I say.

  “That’s boring.”

  “Skulls and crossbones?”

  She smiles and skips off in search of her glow-in-the-dark crayons.

  By noon, it’s broiling, but the kids are too deep into the project to quit. I use a paper plate to trace some portholes, and then draw a treasure chest for Lainie to color. Later, I go inside and slap together cheese sandwiches, which I bring outside along with a jug of orange juice.

  “Hey, let’s eat lunch in the ship’s galley!” Evan yells.

  “Too hot.” I sit on the lawn. The pirate project has become tedious. I would much rather be at Larkin’s. It’s unsettling to think of Drew and Starla there together, but it’s worse being sidelined out here, drawing skulls and missing out.

  Lainie’s head pops out of the trapdoor to badger me again. “Come in here with us!”

  “Not now.” I lie down on my back, peel the crust off my sandwich and speculate on what Drew is doing right now. I feel his kiss, his kiss, his kiss again. My brain rewinds and plays it out over and over. I think about how people change, how Gifted Program Drew Fuller, who evolved into Starla’s D, might now turn out to be my Drew, maybe.

  Thoughts of Starla distract me, too. Has Drew talked with her today? Does he think she looks better in her red bathing suit or her yellow one? Does he think she’s the most gorgeous girl he ever met, and if not, why not? Will Drew ask Starla if she knows where I am today? What if they’re talking about me right now? Or what if, after kissing me, Drew has decided I fail miserably as a kisser, and he wants Starla back? My body flinches to imagine it.

  A shadow falls over the grass. I look up. Knuckles to hips, Lainie stares down. “You aren’t being excited enough about our pirate ship.”

  I pop the rest of my sandwich in my mouth and brush my hands together. “Okay. I’ve only worked on this thing all day. What do you command me to do now?”

  “Come on, Irene, don’t joke,” she whines. “Be how you normally are. Make us paper pirate hats, or tell us some scary pirate stories.”

  Evan, who is eavesdropping, ducks his head shyly back inside the box, so I presume he agrees.

  “I’m taking a break right now.”

  “Your break’s been long enough. Besides, you promised to draw me a mermaid. How about we make the kind that sticks out from the front of a ship?”

  “Nooo . . . ,” Evan moans from in the box.

  “Maybe later,” I say.

  “Maybe never!” booms Evan.

  “Shut your big fat trap, Evan!” screeches Lainie, whirling all of her anger onto him. “A pirate ship is more about boys, anyhow! I should get at least one mermaid for my good collopilation!”

  “Be quiet, baby! We hate it when you talk in baby talk, don’t we, Irene?”

  Lainie runs over to the box and kicks it. The box jerks as Evan punches back.

  “Ha ha, you didn’t hurt me!” Lainie kicks the box again.

  “Cut it out, you two.” And then I realize I’m truly fed up. After all, it’s not my duty to sit out here all afternoon in this bone-melting heat, breaking up fights until these kids get bored with their refrigerator box pirate ship. I have plenty of other things on my mind these days, way more stimulating things than drawing portholes and mermaids. Besides, what part of my meager babysitting contract requires that I have to provide nonstop entertainment for Evan and Lainie Prior? Not to mention that they’ve seriously damaged my future desire for children of my own. How will I ever think of the word baby without the word sitter caught in its sticky grip?

  “I’m going in,” I say. “I want to watch my soap opera.”

  “What soap opera?” Lainie blinks back the tears in her eyes.

  “Let her go,” mumbles Evan. “She’s a grouch today. Probably got her period.”

  “Ew,” says Lainie, and she looks at me in faint horror.

  “Whatever chance you had of my staying out here,” I say to Evan, “you just lost with that adorable little comment.”

  “Except I didn’t say anything bad!” Lainie wails. “Come back, Irene! Please! Come back to me!”

  But I’ve had it, and I walk inside and slam the front door behind me.

  When I look out the window, the kids are out of view, having dragged the refrigerator box off to somewhere in the backyard. Eventually, I hear them squealing together in obnoxious sibling unity.

  I click to Whitney’s favorite soap opera. Even though I only watch it when I’m over at Whitney’s house, I’m fully up to speed on the plot by the next commercial break. That’s the nice thing about soap operas. A hundred things happen and nothing changes. A man and woman share a deep onscreen kiss, and I watch their technique with more interest than usual. I stretch th
e recliner to its laziest adjustment. A pleasant heaviness itches inside my eyelids.

  A nap would be so good right now . . .

  The sound of the car pulling into the drive makes me bolt awake, blinking. How long have I been dozing? A new soap opera has replaced Whitney’s. Outside, I hear the brake pull and the engine cut.

  Great. Of all days for Judith or Dan to come home early, of course it would have to be the one time when I’m shirking.

  But when I look out the window, it’s not a purple jelly bean or a dusty pickup I see. It’s Drew’s car. And Starla and Drew are climbing out of it.

  Visitors

  “WHAT’S UP?” Starla smiles as I open the front door. She is wearing an ice-blue tube top with a miniskirt so small, I could fold it up into my shorts pocket. But it’s Drew, trailing behind, who has the self-conscious look on his face. “I asked him if he could give me a ride to where you worked,” Starla explains, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder. “ ’Cause I’d been thinking to myself, ‘Hey, I haven’t seen my nerd buddy in almost a week.’ So he said he’d drop me off.”

  Drew looks like he can’t quite figure out how he’s managed to create such an awkward situation. His eyes hold mine. Has he been thinking about The Kiss as much as I have? I can’t tell by his face how strong our connection of last night holds up to the light of today.

  Meanwhile, mischief has lit up Starla’s face like a candle as she trots inside.

  Lainie, Evan, and Poundcake have trooped in to stand behind me.

  “Hi!” says Starla in her most sugary voice.

  “Hi.” Lainie looks at me. “We better double check with Mom about having guests,” she stage-whispers. “Do you want me to call her?”

  “No. They only stopped by for a couple of minutes,” I say. My voice sounds unnaturally stern. “Go back outside and play.”

  “I don’t have to go back anywhere,” says Lainie. “This is my house.”