Temptation: A Novel (10 page)

26. Banana Split

I feel her arms and legs wrapped around me, holding on tight.

I can understand why guys like riding around on motorcycles with girls. Maybe that should’ve been obvious to me a long time ago, but a lot hasn’t been obvious to me. Ever.

Lily seems to fit very nicely around me. Her long legs seem even longer. I’m picturing a thousand different things besides the beam of the light of my motorcycle. Those legs of hers and that look and smile are among them.

She doesn’t say anything or get my attention in any way. I head toward Asheville, the biggest city close to us, the only place I can really think to go.

What is it about the girls who keep showing up in my life?

A pretty face that suddenly makes me get all teenage-boy all over the place. I mean, yeah, I know, I
am
a teenager, but why do I have to act like one?

I wonder if she’s going to be gone soon, another character lost in a sad little tale. Gone with no answers. Gone with this empty hole left in my heart.

I get this weird déjà-vu feeling.

Trying to retrace your steps, Chris?

Heading to Asheville. Why does this seem familiar?

Trying to relive your time with someone else? Another unattainable girl who ultimately gave you her heart?

I think of Jocelyn and of visiting the Grove Park Inn on the hill late at night.

Is that where you’re headed?

I couldn’t find that place even if I tried. But I’m not going to try.

We get off the highway and head toward the downtown area of Asheville. At a light, I ask Lily where she’d like to go.

“Anywhere. Seriously. You choose.”

My mind races and wonders, but I keep driving.

I can think of a lot of places.

Then again, I’m not a Ray or a Roger or a Harris.

So instead of some place to park and make out, or some seedy motel room (not that Lily would agree to that, but as I said, I can think of a lot of places), or some club that you have to be over twenty-one to get into, we end up somewhere in the past.

Maybe somehow the motorcycle—this special, magical motorcycle that belonged to my missing uncle—transported us back in time.

To a soda fountain, the kind you might see in a movie set in the fifties.

We’re sitting at a round table on hard chairs in a brightly lit place called Woolworth Walk—a strange combination of an art gallery with a genuine soda fountain from yesteryear.

This seems to brighten Lily’s mood, and we order a banana split with everything on it. Actually Lily orders it, and she pays for it even though I try several times. When we sit down, she dives into the dessert like she hasn’t eaten all day.

“You better take some bites, or this will be gone,” she says with a laugh.

“Is this your dinner?”

“You kidding? I had a burger and fries from Hardee’s earlier. This is just dessert. I do this all the time.”

I must look very surprised, because she taps my arm and laughs. “You’re funny, Chris.”

“What?”

“The way you look.”

“Oh, okay. Well, that’s very nice.”

“You really think I eat Hardee’s and banana splits on a regular basis?”

I shrug.

“Uh-uh,” Lily answers. “Not to keep looking like this.”

This might be one of the most arrogant things I’ve ever heard someone say, but strangely, it doesn’t seem arrogant coming from her. It’s just the truth. I mean—the way she looks is the way she looks. I can already see half a dozen guys looking at her. I’m looking at her in a way that seems like I’m scoping her out. And I’m at the same table she’s sitting at.

“That party was a bore anyway,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“You know Roger pretty well?”

“No,” I say. “Not at all.”

“Did you hear about last night?”

I nod. “Harris told me some.”

She shakes her head, then moves her wild and curly hair to one side of her head over her shoulder. “I’ve never gotten the appeal of pot. It just makes people stupid. Stupid and hungry for some Krystal burgers.”

“Krystal burgers?” I ask.

“That’s right. You’re from up north. They’re like White Castle.”

“Technically the Midwest.”

“Technically the Midwest,” she mimics.

“Having fun?”

“I’m not
not
having fun.”

I try to think what that even means as she takes a bite and glances around the room like she’s very pleased.

“Tell me, Chris. Have you ever had your heart broken?”

Where did that come from? One minute we’re talking about the South’s version of sliders, and the next she asks me about love.

“Sure.”

She laughs. “Sure.” She’s mocking me again, repeating the way I said it so casually.

“What?”

“You say it like I asked if you’ve ever stopped in at a Waffle House. ‘Sure.’ Ah, yes, just another day, another broken heart.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“Oh, come on. Seriously. I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” I tell her.

It’s just you make me a bit nervous, don’t you get that?

She takes another bite of the banana split. “What do you know about love?”

“You talk to me like I’m some little boy,” I tell her.

Lily raises her eyebrows in an
Oh yeah?
sort of way. She looks born to be feisty, born to fight, born to flaunt those lips and long eyelashes.

“All men are little boys at heart. Post puberty, of course. But that’s where they stay.”

“And you know?”

Of course, even as my mouth utters this, I don’t need an answer.

Her eyebrows rise as if to say,
Are you daring me?

I know she knows.

Something just screams that she knows all too well.

“The last time I shared a banana split was—well, it was in a different life,” Lily says. “That’s why I brought it up. I just thought of it.”

“A good memory?”

She shakes her head. “No, actually, it wasn’t a good memory. Not at all. Once all the smoke and fire die down from the passion, once you can finally see straight in a relationship like that, you realize that there weren’t too many good memories. Simple memories. Happy ones.”

Lily waits for a while to see if I’m going to say anything. Then I see her staring at the dessert. One last bite.

“Go ahead.”

She smiles and takes it. “Do you not like desserts?”

“Sure I like them.”

“Banana splits?”

“No,” I say. “I actually like them a lot.”

She smiles even bigger.

“What?”

“See—that’s what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

“Little gestures like that. Letting me take the last bite.”

“That’s just common courtesy.”

“Exactly. But sometimes little common courtesies get overlooked. Sometimes love overshadows them. Until you’re no longer in love and you’re just left with a lot of bad memories. Memories of not being able to take the last bite. Time and time and time again.”

I think that I kinda understand what she’s talking about.

No you don’t you don’t have a clue.

“Are you still hungry?”

Lily looks at me as if I’ve totally
not
understood what she was talking about. It amuses her.

“They were right about you,” she says.

“Who?”’

“Just—people at your school.”

“And what did ‘they’ say?”

“They said you were a nice guy.”

“I’m not always nice.”

“A bit naive, but nice.”

“Naive?” I ask. “About what?”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

“Go home?”

She stands and shakes her head. I sit there for a while and look at her.

Then I repeat the motion she did in her lawn chair, holding out a hand for her to take and pull me up.

For some reason, Lily really seems to like this. She takes my hand with both of hers.

“Come on, Mr. Buckley,” she says. “Show me the town. We only live once, right?”

27. Rolling in the Deep

We walk down the main streets in Asheville and blend in with the other couples who are coming from dinner or going out. I like imagining for the moment that I’m on a date with Lily. That I’m not sixteen (almost seventeen) and that I’m not stuck in some YA novel.

Eventually we see a bench opening up, so Lily takes it. I move slowly toward her. I guess too slowly, since she moves over and pats the seat.

“It’s okay,” she says. “You can sit next to me.”

As I do, we see an older couple, probably in their twenties, walking hand in hand and talking and laughing.

“So why doesn’t a guy like you have a girlfriend?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

And I’d rather not tell you my little horror story.

“I mean—it’s not like you’re a dud or something.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Such a compliment.”

“See?” she laughs. “You’re kinda funny in your own nervous way.”

“Am I supposed to feel good about these comments?”

“You’re cute, too. The messy hair and that little wise-guy grin.”

I’m trying
not
to grin, but I can’t.

“At a place like Harrington, you can’t find a girl?”

I think for a minute. “Let’s say this—it’s hard to keep a girl.”

“And why’s that?”

I don’t want to tell her about this high school or the town or anything like that. I don’t want all that invading this date-that’s-not-really-a-date but that I really want to try and believe is one.

“It’s just a strange place,” I say, leaving it at that.

“Trying to forget about someone?”

This time I don’t say anything. I just nod.

She takes my hand, and once again I’m feeling like a little boy out with his babysitter.

His extremely hot babysitter.

“Then let’s forget together.”

“Okay,” I say, not exactly sure what that means but certainly wanting to forget.

“One more week of summer school.”

“Not for me. I’ve got a whole other session.”

“Brutal. You being punished for something?”

“Yeah. Don’t laugh—it’s true. I think the principal hates me.”

“But why?” Lily asks, looking over at me and still holding onto my hand. “Why would anybody have anything against you?”

“They don’t like newcomers.”

“Great. They’ll just
love
me.”

“The guys will.”

Some girls might say
Really?
but not Lily. She knows they will. She knows they’ll take one look and fall instantly in love without needing or even wanting to get to know her.

I don’t know her, not really. But I want to.

“You have some deep, dark secret you’re not telling everybody?” Lily asks.

“No. Not that I know of anyway.”

“Everybody has secrets. I think the important thing is to allow people to have them. To just let them be. It’s easier that way.”

So what are your secrets?

That’s what I want to ask. But she stands back up and in some kind of restless way tells me to come on.

We walk down another street. As we pass a store, we hear a song blasting.

“Ooh—Chris—I love this song!”

And she starts dancing. On the sidewalk, in a world of her own, her legs in those long boots moving to the pounding beat. She claps her hands and sings along, then looks over at me.

“Come on,” she says, taking my hand again.

We’re not alone, but you certainly wouldn’t know it. Or maybe she likes people watching. They’re certainly watching us. Or watching
her.

“I love Adele,” she says of the soulful singer that I’ve never heard before.

She sings the words to me. Something about scars of love and having it all and being breathless.

We haven’t even started to have it all.

She mouths the words and spins around me, and I really, really try not to dance like a donkey. But I’m not doing a great job.

It only amuses her.

She lifts a hand, and her lips curl up as she closes her eyes. She needs a mike and a stage, not a stagehand stumbling around her like I am.

The music stops except for singing and clapping, and she urges me on—clapping. “Come on, white boy, show a little soul.”

Then she keeps dancing, a girl in her own world, not caring a bit about the onlookers, the guys checking her out and the girls wondering who in the world she thinks she is and the older people amused at her passion.

The song ends, and she just laughs, locking an arm in mine. “So you wish you were still at that party, shooting off fireworks?”

“I went there hoping you’d be there,” I blurt out in an honest way, just like her dancing seconds ago.

“Guess it was all in the cards. Pun intended.”

We are back in the dark, sleeping town of Solitary in front of the place Lily guided me to. It’s a large Victorian house not far from the main strip of downtown.

“This is your house?” I ask, glancing at the two-story home partially hidden in the woods.

“Ha. Hardly. This is a bed-and-breakfast. My mom and I are staying here while we go through my grandmother’s place. It’s pretty messy. Not really in any condition to stay there.”

“This looks nice.”

“It’s very—well, quaint. Kinda like you.”

“Quaint?”

“Totally quaint,” she says with a smile.

We’re standing at the sidewalk leading up to the inn.

“I don’t think many guys would like being called quaint.”

She walks up to me, and since she’s tall enough in her heels to look directly at me, that’s what she does. She moves her head inches away from mine.

“I wouldn’t call many guys quaint. But you are, Chris. You’re sweet.”

“Oh, come on, if I—”

She interrupts me with a kiss. A soft and mesmerizing and confident kiss. And Lily knows just how long to kiss me, because she gently moves away and smiles at my surely dumbfounded face.

“This was really nice, Chris.”

The kiss? The evening?

“All of it,” Lily continues, as if reading my mind. “Hanging out. Getting away and just forgetting.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Thanks.”

“No, thank you,” I say. “I want to forget. I need to forget.”

She studies me and waits for more.

Maybe more will come eventually. But not tonight. The only more I want tonight is to continue where that kiss left off.

“Have a good night. And a good weekend.”

“I don’t—” I start to say, thinking about the long weekend and about whether or not I’ll hear or see or—

“You’ll hear from me. ’Kay? Soon.”

I think I’ve started to breathe again. “Okay.”

She smiles and then walks off into the shadows and up the steps of the inn. Then she’s gone.

And yes, just like that—just that easily—so am I.

Lost again in the lair of some beautiful girl I want to know and love.